Orenburg is a provincial Siberian city. It's 1902. On a January day, a boy was born in this city. At baptism he was named George. Having lost his father early, he was raised by his mother. After many years he will become Malenkov Georgy Maximilianovich prominent political figure. A completely new era. The era of socialism.
Biography of Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov.
Like all the offspring of nobles, George studies at the gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal. A promising path to the future opens up for him. The medalist could become a doctor, engineer, lawyer, but he chooses a different path. In 1919, he went to serve in the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army. He served on the Turkestan front. In the same year, he married V. A. Golubtsova, who headed the Moscow Energy Institute from 1942-1951.
A year later he becomes a member of the Bolshevik Party. His patriotism and education prompted right choice at that harsh time. After the Civil War, he continued his education at the Moscow Higher Technical School, which he graduated in 1925. Political career starts here - secretary of the school party organization. In 1930, under the patronage of Kaganovich L.M. holds one of the positions of the Moscow Party Committee.
By 1938, having escaped party purge, he became an ally of Stalin. During the Great Patriotic War, he repeatedly visited active army in the most dangerous areas. With his presence, raising the morale of the regiments. In 1943 he was awarded the highest award of his homeland - Hero Soviet Union. In 1944 he led the restoration work Agriculture in the liberated territories. In the tragic year for the Soviet people, 1953, Malenkov, after the death of Stalin, took the helm of the Soviet Union. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR is the pinnacle of his political career. Under the leadership of Georgy Maksimovich, taxes are being reduced, the production of consumer goods is increasing, and the purchasing power of people is growing. Thanks to his activities, a truce was reached between Northern and South Korea. His popularity among the people caused discontent among party members. After severe criticism of his policies and resignation, Nikita Khrushchev takes the leadership role. After leaving the Politburo, he occupies the position of director of the power plant. In 1961, a prominent statesman with forty years of party experience are expelled from the ranks of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. On January 14, 1988, my heart stopped beating Malenkov Georgy Maximilianovich.
The exact date of birth of Georgy Malenkov is not known for certain. By official sources, he was born on December 26, 1901 (old style) in Orenburg. However, on October 19, 2016, during the transfer of documents and photographs related to the personality of Georgy Malenkov, the Eurasia Charitable Foundation to the State Archive of the Orenburg Region, an extract from the registry of his birth and a certificate of maturity were made public. In both documents, the date of birth is November 23, 1901. The same date is on the service record of Georgy’s father, Maximilian Fedorovich Malenkov.
- When Igor Valentinovich [Igor Khramov, head of the Eurasia charitable foundation] came to the archive with documents ready for transfer and showed us an extract from the registry register, we wanted to see the data in it ourselves. We raised our fund, and, unfortunately, there was no entry in the book. But upon closer examination, we saw that the dates of birth in November are too suspicious: they start from the beginning of the month and for some reason they end on November 4, and the next entry is only from November 24. At the same time, the page numbering was corrected back in those days. That is, we can assume that this sheet could have been removed at one time. We began to think about what to do next. It can be assumed that a second copy of the registry book has been preserved, which is usually destroyed, but it happens that it is preserved in the local registry office or regional registry office. However, our employees, having seen this extract from the register of births, noticed that the father was the collegiate registrar Maximilian Fedorovich Malenkov. Among our funds we managed to find the personal file of Father Malenkov. In this personal file there is a service record, in which on page 22 it is indicated who his wife is, and his children are also indicated, including his son George. And it also says that Georgy Malenkov was born on November 23, 1901. Thus, the regional archive confirms that Malenkov’s date of birth is November 23, 1901, said Konstantin Erofeev, first deputy director of the State Archives of the region.
Georgy Malenkov's father is a collegiate registrar Maximilian Fedorovich Malenkov, his mother Anna Shemyakina was the daughter of a blacksmith. There are several versions about the origin of the father. The most common one says that Maximilian Malenkov was a descendant of nobles from Macedonia, he himself worked as a petty employee at railway. According to another version, the Malenkov family lived in the village of Isaevo-Dedovo (modern Oktyabrskoye). There Maximilian allegedly bought and salted meat and fish, and then traded them and other products. They say that his father, who was tough in character, insisted that George receive a good education.
Georgy began studying at the First Orenburg Men's Gymnasium. This establishment was not for ordinary guys. The sons of officials, officers, and rich people were received here. How Malenkov managed to obtain permission to take the entrance examination is unknown. However, he passed them brilliantly, and was even immediately enrolled in second grade.
Teachers who taught in Orenburg schools after the war remembered Georgy as a diligent student, an excellent student. Celebrated it good memory, ability to work with words - his essays were always the best in the class. But the boy himself loved mathematics most of all, solving problems that were far from equal in complexity to those given in the gymnasium.
He was far from sports, he was disgusted with ordinary youthful amusements, and he was not a regular at dances. At first, he was not interested in politics at all.
At the same time, Malenkov was not known as a sociable guy, although he never refused help. But he was far from sports, he was disgusted with ordinary youthful amusements, and he was not a regular at dances. At first, he was not interested in politics at all. Malenkov wanted to be an engineer and dreamed of entering the Tomsk Technological Institute.
During the revolutionary years, Bolshevik sentiments also began to spread among Orenburg youth. A Bolshevik cell even appeared in the gymnasium, but Georgy Malenkov was almost not interested in its activities. However, after Ataman Dutov carried out a coup in the city, rejecting Soviet power, Malenkov even signed up for the so-called workers’ squad, but did not show much activity there either.
In 1918-1919, Orenburg passed from the hands of the Red Guards to the White Cossacks, who eventually occupied the city in 1919. At the same time, the men's gymnasium decided to carry out accelerated graduation and issue diplomas to all students. As an excellent student, Malenkov became a gold medalist, but he never received the medal itself, but a record of this remained in the archives.
In the same 1919, Malenkov joined the ranks of the Red Army, and already in 1920 - the Communist Party. As part of a cavalry squadron, he served on the Turkestan Front, and already there he began to make his political career as a political worker (first of a squadron, then of a regiment, brigade, front). Here he met his future wife Valery Golubtsova, who was the niece of the famous “Nevzorov sisters,” comrades-in-arms of Lenin himself. Perhaps thanks to this relationship, the young family moved to Moscow, where Georgy first graduated from the workers' faculty and then entered the electrical engineering department of the Moscow Higher Technical University.
Soon Malenkov became secretary of the party organization of the Higher Technical School. Even then he began to take part in the purges of Trotskyist teachers and students. After graduating from Moscow Higher Technical University he free time engaged in scientific research under the guidance of academician K.A. Krug, but decides not to enroll in graduate school. A political career began to attract him.
In 1937, Georgy Malenkov, together with a “brigade of cleaners” from the Central Committee and the NKVD, travels around the republics and destroys local party organizations. After the war, he carried out the so-called Leningrad Affair, during which the defenders of besieged Leningrad died.
In addition, Malenkov also owned such an “invention” as a party prison for high-ranking communists. Often he personally conducted interrogations. But one day he almost found himself in the place of his victims. In 1946, a case of aviation pests was investigated. Then the entire leadership of the Air Force was shot. Malenkov came under Stalin's suspicion because he oversaw a number of aviation and missile developments. But everything worked out.
In 1953, Malenkov went over to Khrushchev's side and took part in the overthrow of Beria. As a result of this, he received the post of Chairman of the USSR Government. For two years he headed the Council of Ministers, but after that his colleagues first demoted him, then sent him to work as a director of a power plant, and then retired.
Georgy Malenkov oversaw the missile project and set up production military equipment in the rear. He was the chairman of the Radar Council, where he met another Orenburg resident, Axel Berg, the developer of the radar system, and led this project for four years.
As chairman of the government, Malenkov reduced agricultural taxes, wrote off debts and arrears from farms, making life easier in the countryside.
At a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on January 25, 1954, headed by Georgy Malenkov, a draft decree was approved on the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR, “in honor of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia.” The first secretary of the Crimean regional party committee, Pavel Titov, opposed the transfer of Crimea. After this, he was removed from this position and sent to Moscow to the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the RSFSR.
The magazine "Der Spiegel" wrote about recent years Malenkov’s life in his obituary: “He lived with his wife Valeria on Frunzenskaya, shopped at a special store for functionaries and traveled by train to his dacha in Kratovo. There he was seen in the village church. He turned to the Orthodox measure - he was overcome by repentance.”
Materials
(1902-1988) Russian politician
For more than thirty years, enormous power was concentrated in the hands of Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov. But he never learned to use it on his own. After Stalin's death, Malenkov managed to stay in leadership for a little while. more than a year. Obviously, power turned out to be too heavy a burden for him.
Georgy Malenkov was born in Orenburg into the family of an employee. According to short biography, spent the civil war on the fronts. But in reality he served only as a clerk and never appeared on the front line.
When the war ended, Malenkov, who by that time had already become a member of the Bolshevik Party, went to Moscow and entered the Higher Technical School. There he soon married his fellow student V. Golubtsova, who combined her studies with work in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). This marriage became the first step in the further career of Georgy Malenkov.
On the advice of his wife, in the fourth year he left his studies and entered the secretariat of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). There he proved himself to be an excellent clerical worker and two years later became technical secretary of the Politburo.
Malenkov's position was subordinate to Stalin's personal secretary A. Poskrebyshev. But his official zeal was noticed not by Stalin, but by Lazar Kaganovich. True, this did not happen soon - for the first ten years of his career, Georgy Malenkov was engaged in purely technical work.
Only in 1930 did he step onto the next step of the hierarchical ladder - he became the head of the organizational department in the Moscow Party Committee. In fact, Malenkov was right hand Kaganovich and controlled all appointments of party and government leaders.
In Moscow, he also carried out the first “cleansing” of the party organization from the so-called oppositionists. Noticing his accuracy and blind diligence, Stalin soon transferred Georgy Malenkov to work in the Central Committee. There he was also involved in checking the “purity” of party ranks, and starting in 1936 he became a key figure in organizing mass repressions.
Formally, he was not a member of any governing bodies, being only the head of a department of party bodies. In fact, it was Georgy Malenkov who drew up plans for repression in all regions of the RSFSR and selected new leadership candidates to replace those arrested and executed.
To disguise the scale of the terror, a plenum of the Central Committee was held in January 1938, at which Malenkov made the main report. Apparently, by this time Stalin was completely convinced of his devotion. Although Georgy Malenkov worked closely with Nikolai Yezhov, he not only did not share his fate, but, on the contrary, was introduced to the top party leadership. At the beginning of 1939, Malenkov became head of the personnel department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From now on, he occupies a strong and permanent place surrounded by Stalin. Undoubtedly, the disposition towards him of Beria, who was appointed to replace Yezhov, also played a role.
When the war began, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was included in the State Defense Committee. Several times he went to the front as part of party commissions that examined the causes of failures. But already at the end of 1941 he began to engage in defense production. He oversaw the aircraft industry and sought to increase aircraft production by any means necessary.
When the war began to roll back to the west, Malenkov became chairman of the committee for the restoration of the economy in the liberated areas.
However, in this position, his inability to manage specific affairs quickly became evident, and less than a year later, Stalin entrusted him with leadership on certain ideological issues. In fact, Georgy Malenkov began preparing a new stage of Stalin’s terror. In 1944, he prepared a resolution on the so-called “Jewish problem.” A secret meeting is held in the Kremlin, after which party committees at all levels received a secret letter signed by Malenkov.
It listed positions to which it was henceforth forbidden to appoint Jews. At the same time, restrictions were introduced on the admission of Jews to higher education. educational establishments. It is noteworthy that Stalin’s signature was missing from the document. Apparently, he feared that the publication of such a document could damage his reputation.
Work in the field of ideology led to the fact that Georgy Malenkov had a strong competitor in the person of A. Zhdanov. In addition, the war brought forward a new generation of leaders whose fame could not be ignored. All this weakened Malenkov’s position in the Central Committee apparatus and ultimately led to the so-called “Leningrad affair.”
Together with Lavrenty Beria, Malenkov managed to convince Stalin of the “separatism” of the Leningrad party organization. As a result, a wave of repression began in the city, in which not only leaders, but also thousands of ordinary party members died. Zhdanov was actually removed from leadership and died at his dacha under unclear circumstances. Later it was established that Georgy Malenkov not only personally supervised the investigation, but also took a direct part in interrogations during which any methods were used, including torture. Naturally, his influence in the party and state leadership increased.
In 1950-1952 he was practically the second person in the party. His close friendship with L. Beria also contributed to this. At the 19th Party Congress, Malenkov even made a report. It seemed that this was a sign of special trust, but in fact it was explained differently: Stalin had just suffered his first stroke, and doctors forbade him to speak. At the congress, Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov was introduced to the Presidium of the Central Committee, becoming one of the “five” chosen by Stalin for the direct leadership of the country and the party.
After Stalin's death, he became chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. At first, he made further efforts to advance to the pinnacle of power, even entering into a secret conspiracy with Khrushchev, as a result of which Beria was arrested and shot. However, the materials collected against Beria directly affected Malenkov. In addition, Khrushchev and his allies - Mikoyan, Voroshilov, Molotov and Kaganovich - did not need such a strong competitor. Therefore, already in January 1955, Georgy Malenkov was removed from the post of head of government and appointed Minister of Power Plants of the USSR.
The exposure of Stalin’s personality cult that followed at the 20th Congress inevitably raised the question of Malenkov’s responsibility. Together with Molotov and Kaganovich, he joined the “anti-party group” that opposed Khrushchev. The defeat of this group in 1957 was the end of the political and public career of Georgy Malenkov. He was removed from the Presidium of the Central Committee, removed from work and appointed director of the Ust-Kamenogorsk hydroelectric power station. And in 1961, after the XXII Congress of the CPSU, Malenkov was expelled from the party. Only in 1968, after retirement, was he able to return to Moscow.
Moving from a world of power and privilege to ordinary life was very difficult for Malenkov. His only support was his wife, who still retained her social position as rector of Moscow Power Engineering Institute. He withdrew into himself and spent most of his time at his mother's house near Moscow. Unlike others former leaders, Malenkov Georgy Maximilianovich did not write memoirs and never spoke publicly. He communicated only with members of his family - his daughter and two sons. He died at the age of 86 and was quietly buried at the Kuntsevo cemetery.
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov
2nd Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR March 5, 1953 - February 8, 1955
Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR during the period May 15, 1944 - March 15, 1946
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR August 2, 1946 - March 5, 1953
Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR February 9, 1955 - June 29, 1957
3rd Minister of Power Plants of the USSR February 9, 1955 - June 29, 1957
Birth: December 26, 1901 (January 8, 1902) Orenburg, Russian Empire
Death: January 14, 1988 Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Buried: Novokuntsevo Cemetery (Moscow)
Party: CPSU (1920-1961, expelled)
Education: Moscow Higher Technical School named after. Bauman (1921-1925, did not graduate(?))
Military service
Affiliation: USSR
Rank: Lieutenant General
Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov(December 26, 1901 (January 8, 1902), Orenburg - January 14, 1988) - Soviet statesman and party leader, ally of I.V. Stalin, member of the anti-party group.
Member of the CPSU Central Committee (1939-1957), candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee (1941-1946), member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee (1946-1957), member of the Organizing Bureau of the CPSU (b) Central Committee (1939-1952), secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (1939- 1946, 1948-1953), deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-4th convocations. Oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including the creation hydrogen bomb and the first nuclear power plant in the world. The de facto leader of the Soviet state in March-September 1953.
The early years of the life of Georgy Malenkov
Born into the family of a minor railway employee, a descendant of the Macedonian nobleman Maximilian Malenkova and bourgeois women, daughters of the blacksmith Anastasia Shemyakina. On my father's side, my grandfather was a colonel, my grandfather's brother was a rear admiral.
In 1919 he graduated from a classical gymnasium and was drafted into the Red Army; after joining the RCP (b) in April 1920, he was a political worker in a squadron, regiment, brigade, and Political Directorate on the Eastern and Turkestan fronts.
While on the Turkestan front, Malenkov married Valeria Golubtsova, who worked as a librarian on a propaganda train. The older sisters of Golubtsova’s mother (Olga) were the famous “Nevzorov sisters” (Zinaida, Sophia and Augustina) - Lenin’s comrades in Marxist circles back in the 1890s. Zinaida Nevzorova in 1899 married G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, who headed the GOELRO Commission in the 1920s. This relationship, apparently, determined the desire of Malenkov and Valeria Golubtsova to obtain an education in the field of energy.
Having moved to Moscow in 1921, Malenkov enters the Moscow Higher Technical University at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Valeria Golubtsova gets a job in the Organizational Department of the Central Committee and gets a separate room in the former Patchwork Hotel on Tverskaya - the center of residence of Moscow communist bohemia.
Occupying the post of secretary of the university party organization of the Moscow Higher Technical School, he led the purges directed against the Trotskyist opposition. Among Malenkov’s comrades in student party activities were M. Z. Saburov, M. G. Pervukhin, V. A. Malyshev. Particularly close was Malyshev, who became the successor to the secretary post after Malenkov left to work in the secretariat of the Central Committee.
Whether Malenkov completed his education is not known for certain. The first author of the popular thesis about Malenkov's dementia, B. G. Bazhanov, claims that Malenkov did not have a secondary education, entered through the workers' faculty and spent only three years at the Moscow Higher Technical School, Malenkov's son - that his father graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal, and that after graduating from the Moscow Higher Technical School he was invited to graduate school, he could not quit party work, but spent two more years studying in his spare time Scientific research under the leadership of Academician K. A. Krug.
The rapid rise of the career of Georgiy Malenkov
In the 1920-1930s. - employee of the Organizational Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, since 1927 technical secretary of the Politburo of the Central Committee.
In 1930-1934, he was the head of the department (according to some sources - mass propaganda, according to others - organizational) of the Moscow regional committee of the CPSU (b), headed by L. M. Kaganovich.
After the 17th Congress, Kaganovich becomes chairman of the Party Control Commission. Malenkov in 1934-1936 - deputy head of the department of leading party bodies of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, since March 1935 headed by N. I. Yezhov. In February 1935, Yezhov replaced Kaganovich as chairman of the CPC. In February 1936, Malenkov replaced Yezhov as head of the department of leading party organs. Igor Abrosimov calls Malenkov Kaganovich’s nominee.
In 1935-36, after Stalin put forward the slogan “personnel decide everything,” Malenkov carried out a campaign of verification and exchange of party documents, during which registration cards-dossiers were compiled for all members and candidates of the CPSU (b) - about 2.5 million. On the basis of the collected card index, which also included data on non-party leaders and specialists, a grandiose centralized nomenklatura personnel system was built, which became Malenkov’s main party specialty.
In the summer of 1937, on behalf of Stalin, together with N. I. Ezhov, M. P. Frinovsky, A. I. Mikoyan and L. M. Kaganovich, he traveled to Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, Tajikistan, the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Novosibirsk region, Sverdlovsk region and to other areas to “check the activities of local party organizations, the NKVD, UNKVD and others government agencies", where mass terror was launched. At the January plenum he made a report “On the shortcomings of the work of party organizations during the expulsion of communists from the CPSU (b)”, and in August 1938 - with a report “On excesses”. Big role Georgy Malenkov played in the overthrow of N.I. Yezhov, accusing him and the department subordinate to him of exterminating communists loyal to the party. Together with Beria, Malenkov took part in the arrest of Yezhov, who was arrested in Malenkov’s office.
Since 1939, member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. From March 22, 1939 until the spring of 1946, head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Committee. From March 1939 to October 1952 - member of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee.
War and post-war times
Georgiy Malenkova
Before the war, he was involved in a wide range of military issues: he led the secret apparatus of the Comintern, military personnel, and supervised aviation and jet technology. Since July 1940 - member of the Main Military Council of the Red Army. Malenkov’s signature (together with the signatures of Zhukov and Timoshenko) appears under “directives” number 2 and 3, sent to the troops on June 22, 1941.
During the Great Patriotic War- Member of the State Defense Committee. In August 1941 he was on the Leningrad Front; in the fall and winter of 1941 he took an active part in organizing operations to defeat the Nazi troops near Moscow; in March 1942 he went to the Volkhov Front, in July, and then - in August-September 1942 - to the Stalingrad and Don Fronts, in March 1943 - to the Central Front. Headed the so-called Malenkovsky commissions of the State Defense Committee - expert groups of the top generals who traveled to critical sectors of the front. Only the materials from the last such commission have been declassified. Commissioner of the Aviation Industry. For special services in the field of strengthening the production of aircraft and engines, on September 30, 1943, Malenkov was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
In 1943, Malenkov was appointed head of the Committee for the Restoration of Liberated Areas. In 1944, he headed the Committee for the Dismantling of German Industry, which was engaged in obtaining reparations from Germany in favor of the USSR.
Since February 21, 1941 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Since March 18, 1946 - member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Due to accusations from the leadership of the aviation industry of systematic deliveries of defective aircraft to the front - the so-called. “Aviator Affairs” in April-May 1946, Malenkov loses the top political positions of Secretary of the Central Committee and Head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee. On May 4, 1946, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee on the report of J.V. Stalin, Malenkov was removed from the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Patolichev N.S. was introduced: “t. Malenkov, as the chief of the aviation industry and aircraft acceptance - over air force, is morally responsible for the outrages that were revealed in the work of these departments (the production of substandard aircraft), that, knowing about these outrages, he did not signal them to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).” Information about the ensuing disgrace and exile is contradictory. In the log of visits to Stalin's office, entries about Malenkov are not interrupted. At the beginning of June, Malenkov takes part in Kalinin's funeral. However, according to the minutes of the meetings of the Organizing Bureau and the Secretariat, it is clear that Malenkov did not participate in them from May 18 to July 17, 1946. According to the Soviet version, Malenkov’s participation in the leadership of special committees was quite officially classified, the biographical period from 1946 to 1948 was skipped, or a business trip to Central Asia was reported.
From July 1943 - Chairman of the Radar Council under the State Defense Committee (later known as “Special Committee No. 3”), from June 1947 he was replaced in this post by M. Z. Saburov. In March 1946 he was appointed chairman of the commission for the construction of the Tu-4 bomber, which made its first flight in May 1947.
Chairman of the “Special Committee No. 2” for the development of rocket technology from its formation (May 13, 1946) to May 1947.
Malenkov was also a member of the first special committee, controlled information on the work of the committee, but information about his specific role in the Soviet nuclear program is still extremely fragmentary and unreliable.
Since the fall of 1947, he has been participating in the work of the Cominform under the leadership of A. Zhdanov. After the split with Yugoslavia and the unsuccessful blockade of Berlin in July 1948, he removed Zhdanov from the post of Secretary of the Central Committee in charge of foreign policy. Continuing the blockade, according to some historians, only to divert attention, Malenkov shifts his main efforts to helping the Chinese communists in civil war which ended in triumphant victory in 1949.
Georgiy Malenkova
The Leningrad Case and the JAC Case
Malenkov played one of the main roles in the “Leningrad Affair” (he spoke out against the heroes of the siege, personally organized a pogrom at the Museum of the History of the Siege of Leningrad, etc.) and the defeat of the JAC in 1949-1952.
On February 21, 1949, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Malenkov, used threats to obtain from the secretaries of the regional committee and city committee a recognition that there was a hostile anti-party group in Leningrad. Orders were given for arrests, which began in July 1949. Information about dismissal from work, bringing to party and criminal liability, and trials was not published in the press. It is for the sake of the “Leningraders” that the death penalty is being reintroduced in the USSR. Before this, in 1947, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the death penalty was abolished. Already during the investigation into the Leningrad case, on January 12, 1950, a restoration took place death penalty in relation to traitors to the Motherland, spies and subversive saboteurs. Despite the fact that the rule “the law does not have retroactive effect” does not apply in in this case, the introduction of the death penalty occurs three days before the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On anti-party actions...”, and therefore the connection between the two facts is visible. On October 1, 1950 at 2.00, an hour after the verdict was announced, N. A. Voznesensky, A. A. Kuznetsov, M. I. Rodionov, P. S. Popkov, Ya. F. Kapustin, P. G. Lazutin were shot . Their ashes were secretly buried on the Levashovskaya wasteland near Leningrad. I. M. Turko, T. V. Zakrzhevskaya and F. E. Mikheev were sentenced to long prison sentences.
As a result of the “Leningrad Case,” the following were convicted: Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee N.A. Voznesensky, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR M.I. Rodionov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) A.A. Kuznetsov, First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional and City Committee P.S. Popkov, second secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Ya. F. Kapustin, chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee P. G. Lazutin. All accused were sentenced to death on September 30, 1950. The sentences were carried out on the same day.
According to the Commission of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee in 1988, during the investigation of the so-called case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, it was established that Malenkov, who was directly related to the investigation and trial, was directly responsible for the illegal repression of persons involved in this case.
Malenkov became one of I.V. Stalin’s most trusted representatives, and instead delivered a report at the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - CPSU (October 1952).
Post-Stalin years
By the death of Stalin, Malenkov had firmly taken the position of second man in the party and state.
After Stalin's death on March 5, 1953, he became chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Already in March 1953, at the first closed meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he declared the need to “stop the policy of the cult of personality and move to collective leadership of the country, reminding the members of the Central Committee how Stalin himself strongly criticized them for the cult implanted around him. However, there was no significant reaction to Malenkov’s proposal.
In May 1953, on the initiative of Malenkov, a government decree was adopted that halved remuneration for party officials and eliminated the so-called. “envelopes”, additional rewards that are not subject to accounting. This allowed N.S. Khrushchev to commit “ palace coup": abolish the collective leadership of the party Central Committee, restore previous privileges (return the “envelopes”) and compensate for lost salaries to the party leadership, establish and occupy the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee.
May 15, 1953 - Two months after Stalin's death, a major decision is made to assist in the industrialization of China, which was actually the beginning of the period of "great friendship" with China (usually dating from 1953-1957).
The reform policy begun by Malenkov continued, but began to lose its chances of success. In August 1953, at a session of the Supreme Council, Malenkov made a proposal to halve the agricultural tax, write off arrears of previous years, and also change the principle of taxation of village residents. Malenkov was the first to put forward the thesis of peaceful coexistence of the two systems, advocated the development of light and Food Industry, for the fight against the privileges and bureaucracy of the party and state apparatus, noting the “complete disregard for the needs of the people,” “bribery and the corruption of the moral character of the communist.”
In 1955, he was criticized and removed from the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers, appointed Minister of Power Plants, but retained his position as a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee.
In 1957, together with V. M. Molotov and L. M. Kaganovich (“Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and Shepilov who joined them”), he attempted to remove N. S. Khrushchev from the post of 1st Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.
At the Plenum of the Central Committee in June 1957, he was removed from the Central Committee, transferred to the position of director of the power plant (first the Ust-Kamenogorsk hydroelectric station, then the thermal power plant in Ekibastuz), and was soon expelled from the CPSU (unlike Molotov, he was not reinstated).
Malenkov's short reign was notable for the lifting of many bans: on the foreign press, border crossings, and customs transportation. However, the new policy was presented by Malenkov as a logical continuation of the previous course, so the non-rural population of the country paid little attention to the changes, poorly understood and remembered them.
“The whole city came up for a demonstration to meet my father - with flags, with his portraits. And so that there would be no meeting with this demonstration, because of this they stopped us in the steppe, put us in a car and secretly brought us off-road...”
Volya Malenkova (daughter of G. M. Malenkov) about her arrival in Ust-Kamenogorsk
At the end of his life he was a sexton in the cathedral on Baumanskaya.
“He lived with his wife Valeria on Frunzenskaya, shopped at a special store for functionaries and traveled by train to his dacha in Kratovo. There he was seen in the village church. He turned to Orthodox faith- He was overcome by remorse.
Died January 14, 1988. He was buried at the Novokuntsevo cemetery in Moscow.
Georgiy Malenkova
Malenkov's wife (since 1920), Valeria Alekseevna Golubtsova, was the rector of the Moscow Energy Institute in 1942-1952.
Georgiy Malenkova
Volya Georgievna Malenkova (married Shamberg). Born September 9, 1924, architect.
Andrey Georgievich Malenkov. Born May 29, 1937. Scientist, specialist in the field of biophysics; Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor, Honorary Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Author of the book of memoirs “About my father Georgy Malenkov.”
Georgy Georgievich Malenkov. Born October 20, 1938. Professor, Doctor of Chemical Sciences.
Malenkov's daughter- Volya Georgievna, an architect, and his grandson, the artist Pyotr Aleksandrovich Stepanov, worked on the construction of the Church of St. George the Victorious in the village of Semenovskoye near Moscow.
Main political actions
Malenkov organized the “Leningrad Affair”, spoke out against the heroes of the siege, personally organized a pogrom at the Museum of the History of the Siege of Leningrad, etc.
He played one of the main roles in the defeat of the JAC in 1949-1952.
Partially fulfilled the initiative of the Minister of Internal Affairs L.P. Beria - the release and rehabilitation of victims of Stalinist repressions.
In the field of agriculture: an increase in purchase prices, a reduction in taxes, a plenum on agriculture (1953), the issuance of passports to collective farmers began.
Transfer on the initiative of N. S. Khrushchev of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR “in honor of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia.”
Malenkov in folklore
Georgiy Malenkova
Since Malenkov reduced the agricultural tax, a saying appeared in the USSR: “Malenkov came - we ate pancakes” (var.: “Comrade Malenkov gave us both bread and pancakes”).
Malenkov’s participation in Beria’s removal was marked by the appearance of a saying: “Lavrentiy Palych Beria did not justify his trust, and Comrade Malenkov kicked him.”
The faceted glass was popularly called “Malenkovsky”.
Georgiy Malenkova
Hero of Socialist Labor (September 30, 1943)
Three Orders of Lenin (September 30, 1943, November 1945, January 1952)
Georgiy Malenkova
Lieutenant General (1943)
Literature
Georgiy Malenkova
Medvedev R. A. “They surrounded Stalin” M.: Politizdat, 1990. - 352 p.
Balandin R.K. " Malenkov. The third leader of the Land of Soviets" (M.: Veche, 2007. - Dossier of the era) - 336 p.
Malenkov A. G. “About my father Georgiy Malenkov" M., 1992. - 116 p.
MALENKOV, GEORGE MAKSIMILIANOVICH(1901–1988), politician. Born on December 26, 1901 (January 8, 1902) in the family of a provincial official. In 1920 he joined the Bolshevik Party. His political career began in the 1920s, when he studied at the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU) from 1921. Here he attracted attention by actively speaking out against supporters of Leon Trotsky. In 1925, without finishing higher education, he was hired to work in the accounting and information department of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Malenkov was a classic example of a party apparatchik devoted to the leadership.
In subsequent years, he served in Stalin's secretariat, kept minutes of meetings of the Organizing Bureau and Politburo of the Central Committee; in 1927 - one of the organizers of the “workers’ squads”, who were tasked with breaking up an opposition rally at the Moscow Higher Technical School. In 1930–1934 he worked in the Organizational Department of the Moscow Committee (MK) of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, eventually becoming its head. At that time, the MK was headed by Lazar Kaganovich and Nikita Khrushchev. Under their patronage, Malenkov made a rapid party career. In 1934–1939, heading the department of the leading party bodies of the Central Committee, he was in charge of personnel in the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, closely interacting with the leaders of the NKVD Nikolai Yezhov, and then Lavrentiy Beria. In 1939, Malenkov was introduced to the Central Committee and appointed secretary of personnel, and in 1941 he became a candidate member of the Politburo and one of Stalin’s closest associates. During the war, his position was further strengthened: he became a member of the State Defense Committee, being Secretary of the Central Committee, he received the position of Deputy Chairman of the Council People's Commissars, supervised aircraft construction. Leading the party and military cadres, he became virtually the second person in the party after Stalin, without even formally being a member of the Politburo. In March 1946 he was appointed to this highest body of party leadership.
However, after a few months, Malenkov’s position weakened. He lost the power struggle to the influential Secretary of the Central Committee Andrei Zhdanov. Opponents blamed him for “leniency” shown during the “Sovietization” of territories annexed to the USSR, “loss of vigilance” and orientation towards the creation of National Fronts with the participation of “bourgeois” parties in the countries of Eastern Europe. In May 1946, Malenkov was removed from his post as Secretary of the Central Committee (formally for shortcomings in the field of aircraft construction) and sent to work in Central Asia. But this was not the final fall: he remained a member of the Politburo. Already in 1948, Malenkov, in alliance with Lavrenty Beria and Nikita Khrushchev, managed to take revenge; he was reinstated as Secretary of the Central Committee. In 1949, Malenkov participated in the defeat of the leadership of the Leningrad party organization (“Leningrad Affair”) and in the creation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. In 1950–1952 he became the second most important person in the party. He oversaw agriculture and also dealt with issues of industry and ideology. In 1952, he delivered a report to the Central Committee at the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), which until then had only been done by Stalin himself. When, after the congress, Stalin achieved the creation of a new Politburo supreme body- Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Malenkov became a member of it. Once again serving as Secretary of the Central Committee, he actually led this body during the period of Stalin’s deteriorating health. Remaining one of the people closest to the “leader,” he at the same time had to, like other “old” members of the former Politburo, fear possible reprisals from Stalin, who planned to put new people at the head of the party. Stalin's death in March 1953 not only put an end to this ambiguous situation, but also made Malenkov the successor of the deceased. He became Chairman of the Council of Ministers - the official head of the USSR government.
In the post-Stalin leadership, Malenkov advocated cautious reforms. In June 1953, the central press organ of the CPSU, the newspaper Pravda, published an article in which for the first time the “cult of personality” was criticized in a cautious manner. In July, he managed to get rid of another contender for supreme power - Lavrentiy Beria. Malenkov then put forward a plan aimed at intensive development of light industry and agriculture. He proposed writing off the debts of collective farms and reducing taxes on them, ensuring faster growth in the production of consumer goods compared to heavy industry. In September 1953, it was decided to increase procurement and purchasing prices for agricultural products and invest large amounts in agriculture cash. In foreign policy, Malenkov called for “peaceful coexistence” with Western states. His government in 1954 proposed creating a system of “collective security” in Europe, and in 1955 Malenkov put forward the initiative to unify Germany through general elections.
However, the majority of the party leadership felt that these changes were going too far. Malenkov was criticized by other leaders, including Khrushchev, who became the first secretary of the Central Committee in September 1953. Malenkov had to write a letter in which he admitted his political “mistakes” and took responsibility for the plight of agriculture. In February 1955, he was replaced as chairman of the government by Nikolai Bulganin. But he still remained Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Power Plants and a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
The balance of power in the party leadership was rapidly changing. Khrushchev, who had recently taken a very moderate position, came out as a supporter of “de-Stalinization” and in 1956 read a report at the 20th Congress of the CPSU on “overcoming the cult of personality” of Stalin. Malenkov, on the contrary, believed that this was too much. He joined Khrushchev's opponents, led by Molotov.
The differences between Khrushchev and his opponents covered a wide range of issues. First of all, Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich and others did not want further exposure of Stalin, fearing that this would undermine the prestige of the state-political system of the USSR. Further, the opposition did not agree with the measures of economic decentralization that the First Secretary of the Central Committee had advocated since 1955. Concerning foreign policy, then Molotov was the main critic of Khrushchev. By 1957, Khrushchev's opponents managed to win over to their side the head of government Nikolai Bulganin and most other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
In June 1957, the Presidium of the Central Committee spoke out against Khrushchev; he was threatened with removal from the post of first secretary of the Central Committee. However, the unexpected happened: the “middle link” of the party apparatus entered the political scene. It turned out that the majority of members of the CPSU Central Committee were on Khrushchev’s side. Influential army circles, led by First Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, also supported him.
The first secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU, Ekaterina Furtseva, organized the convening of the plenum of the Central Committee. During the meeting, the overwhelming majority spoke out against Khrushchev’s opponents, who were declared an “anti-party group.” A fierce struggle for power ended in their defeat. Already at the plenum, Malenkov and his comrades came out with repentance. He himself lost his post as a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee and was sent to manage power plants in the provinces. In 1961 he was sent into retirement and expelled from the CPSU. But he was still destined long life in the shadow. Died on January 14, 1988 in Moscow.