Gueorgui Maximilianovitch Malenkov (in Cyrillic ГеоргийМаксимилиановичМаленков) (January 13rd January], Calendar Julien ] , 1902 - January 14th, 1988) is a politician and directing Communist party of the Soviet Union (PCUS), close collaborator of Stalin, which was President of the Council of Ministers of March 1953 at February 1955.

Political youth

Malenkov was born with Orenburg in Russia, in a family of the aristocracy which served the Tsars since the XIXe century. It counts in its close relations ancestors of the generals, the admirals, the governors of the State d' Oldenburg (German possession of the imperial family). His/her mother is however a girl of blacksmith.

Electrical engineer, it joined the Communist party at the time of the Révolution of 1917, and becomes political police chief of the Red Army in 1919.

Purgings

He became very young one of the right-hand men of Stalin. With the supreme leaders of NKVD Nikolaï Iejov then Beria it was at the sides of Joseph Stalin during the great purgings of the years 1937-1939. When Stalin, preparing the fall of Iejov, wanted to impose an assistant to him, Iejov even declared that he would like to have Malenkov at his sides. But Stalin preferred Beria to him, whose Malenkov became then the rival.

Dispatched by Moscow, Malenkov purged the Arménie at the sides of Mikoyan, then he assisted Iejov in Bielorussia. According to a study quoted by the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Malenkov would have been in any person in charge of died of 150.000 people.

As of February 1937, in front of the width of the Purging, Malenkov pointed out that there were now in the USSR more Communists excluded than members from the Party.

Candidate at the Political office of the Central committee of PCUS, Malenkov is temporary member as of May 1941, and was allowed there like holder in 1946.

Its fast rise since its entry in the first circle of the close friends of Stalin in fact an eminent representative of the " generation of 1937" , which owes its promotion with the elimination of the old guard Bolshevik.

The patriotic Great War

As of the German invasion of June 22nd, 1941, Malenkov leaves to the face and assumes various missions of confidence there.

Malenkov loses a little the regard of Stalin for the benefit of his rival Jdanov, but it returned in grace after the death of Jdanov. Beria approached him, and both made in kind eliminate the partisans from Jdanov and make them send to the Gulag.

Succession lacked Stalin

The death of Stalin in 1953 briefly propelled Malenkov at the top of the Soviet apparatus. The western world accepted its prevalence a long time in the USSR, Nikita Khrouchtchev appearing at the time more in withdrawal.

First secretary of the PCUS from March in September 1953, it attended the critic of the Stalinisme by Beria but did not join it. Nikita Khrouchtchev replaced it soon, Malenkov having been the subject of reproaches for its insufficient experiment.

It kept nevertheless the position of president of the Council of Ministers during two years. It made hear for this period its opposition to the development program of nuclear weapons, informant whom an atomic conflict would lead to a universal disaster.

The Fall

Forced to resign in February 1955, Malenkov first of all remained member of the Presidium which replaced the Political office of the central committee of the PCUS. However it was obliged to dislocate itself again in 1957 following intrigues carried out with Boulganine, Molotov and Kaganovitch to eliminate Khrouchtchev. In 1961 it was excluded from the PCUS and was condemned to the interior exile. Although it was never reinstated in the Party, there remained however communist and became director of an hydroelectric station to the Kazakhstan. Before its death, it had converted with the orthodoxe religion. He would have even been verger in a church of Moscow.