Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkow
Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkov ( Russian Георгий Максимилианович Маленков , scientific transliteration Georgij Maksimilianovič Malenkov ; * December 26, 1901 July / January 8, 1902 greg. In Orenburg ; † January 14, 1988 in Moscow , and from 1955 to 1955 ) was a Soviet politician as chairman of the Council of Ministers Prime Minister of the USSR.
As a follower of Stalin in 1937 he participated in the "purges" of Belarus and Armenia and in 1942 was responsible for the air defense of Stalingrad . After Stalin's death in 1953 he became prime minister, reformed agriculture and pursued a relatively mild course towards the West, but was defeated in the 1955 power struggle with Bulganin and Khrushchev .
In 1961 he was expelled from the CPSU , but retained his post as power plant director in Kazakhstan .
Life
Youth and army time
After graduating from high school in Orenburg a few months before the October Revolution , he volunteered in the Red Army in 1918 and fought on the side of the communists against the whites in the civil war . In 1920 he became a member of the CPSU . During his military service he was a political commissar , but hardly took part in combat operations because he was a very bad rider and marksman .
Member of the Central Committee
After serving in the army, he began studying at the Moscow Higher Technical University in 1921, which he graduated in 1925. In the same year, at the insistence of his wife, who was employed in the technical apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU , he took up his work in the organizational office of the Central Committee and in 1927 became technical secretary of the Politburo. Since he was one of the youngest employees at the age of 25, he hardly took any independent activities, but was under the direction of Alexander Poskrjobyshev , Stalin's personal secretary . After Lazar Kaganowitsch became First Party Secretary of Moscow, he took Malenkov in and in 1930 appointed him head of the organizational department of the Moscow City Committee of the CPSU. Malenkov was a good middle-class organizer and was distinguished by enormous diligence and obedience. During this time he was discovered by Stalin, who after the XVII. CPSU party congress looked for suitable people for future tasks. In 1934 he appointed him head of the department for leading party organs of the Central Committee. Thus, he made him an influential person who, however, always remained in the shadows of others. At the same time, Nikolai Yezhov became secretary of the Central Committee. A close friendship developed between him and Malenkov, so that he supported Yezhov in all questions against the old Bolsheviks like Kaganowitsch. Although Malenkov was not even formally a member of the Central Committee, as head of the department for leading party organs he played a major role in the Stalinist purges . In 1937 he traveled to Belarus and Armenia , among other places , where thousands of party members were arrested under his direct guidance. He was also reported to have interrogated and tortured those arrested, although personally he never used illegal interrogation techniques. After Yezhov end of 1938 had been arrested by his post removed and little later, Malenkov became friends with NKVD boss Lavrenty Beria and supported him.
Contrary to widespread rumors, Malenkov was never Stalin's personal secretary, but instead became a member of the Central Committee's secretariat on March 22, 1939 (until 1946 and then again from 1948 to 1953) with a focus on transport and economic development. A few days earlier he was on the XVIII. Party congress elected a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU . He was also appointed head of the cadre department of the CPSU Central Committee (until 1946).
Second World War
With the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Malenkow became a member of the State Defense Committee and took part in the work of many ad hoc commissions. Among other things, he traveled to Stalingrad in August 1942 to inspect the city's defense. His most important area of responsibility, however, became the supervision of Soviet fighter aircraft construction. For his achievements in this area, he was awarded the Order of Hero of Socialist Labor in 1943 . After the war, Malenkow headed the committee for the dismantling of the German economy in the former Soviet Zone , but his work was criticized by rivals within the party as unsatisfactory and the committee was soon dissolved.
Ascent
On February 21, 1941, Malenkov was a candidate and on March 18, 1946, together with Lavrenti Beria, a full member of the Politburo of the Central Committee . In the same year he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR . He maintained friendly relations with Beria and tried to intrigue against the "old guard". However, his position was severely weakened by the rise of Leningrad Communists under the leadership of Andrei Zhdanov , so that he allied himself with Beria and others against the "upstarts". Malenkov and Beria succeeded in persuading Stalin, who was already seriously ill at the time, to disempower the Leningrad communists as an alleged threat to his authority in ideological questions. As a result of this tussle, the so-called “ Leningrad Affair ” came about , which resulted in reprisals against the members of the Politburo Nikolai Voznesensky and Alexei Kuznetsov and hundreds of other communists. Andrei Zhdanov died under not entirely clear circumstances, officially a heart attack was named as the cause of death. Malenkov took over its tasks within the Politburo in the ideological sector and was in turn appointed a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee. In this role he played a major role in the anti-Semitic campaign against an alleged medical conspiracy that was sparked by Stalin in the early 1950s and in the course of which many Jewish intellectuals were arrested and murdered.
From 1950 to 1952 Malenkow was undoubtedly the second man in the party and in the state. As deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and secretary of the Central Committee, he controlled transport, agriculture and the entire party cadre and exerted great influence on cultural policy. It would be a mistake, however, to use this elevation to interpret Malenkov's intention of making him his successor and heir. The mistrustful nature of Stalin, the whole logic of his internal party shifts and his belief that he still has a long life ahead of him speak against it. Malenkov was exactly the gray and inconspicuous-looking henchman who was used by Stalin to monitor the other members of the Politburo. In addition, Stalin's relations with his former friends Molotov and Kaganovich had cooled, so that he was looking for new pillars for his regime. For this, Malenkov, as an abstainer from alcohol, had to take part in Stalin's night drinking parties together with Nikita Khrushchev , Nikolai Bulganin and Beria. These four people, together with Stalin, formed the closest leadership circle of the Soviet state, which in fact directed the state and the party. After the XIX. At the CPSU party congress (1952), Malenkov became a member of the current office of the Presidium of the party's Central Committee. Malenkov was the one who presented the Central Committee's report to the delegates, which was usually the privilege of the party's general secretary.
Decline
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After Stalin's death, in March 1953, Malenkov became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He was the first to give a short speech during the solemn funeral of Stalin, which underscored his leadership role.
Malenkow struck a new course in the economy and relied more heavily on agriculture and the consumer goods industry. He succeeded in lowering kolkhoz taxes and canceling the debts of the kolkhoz farmers . In terms of foreign policy, he sought a less aggressive course between East and West. He also took the first tentative steps to rehabilitate the victims of the Stalinist purges, but limited them to the relatives and close friends of the top party and state leadership.
After Beria was ousted and arrested on June 26, 1953, Malenkov gradually lost his influence. He often appeared elitist, unsociable and closed, set himself apart from his subordinates and was unable to reconcile himself with the old guard of politburo members. He also fell out with Suslov and increasingly lost support in the party secretariat. The fall of Beria meant the rise of Khrushchev, which Malenkov was unable to counter. In contrast to his rival, who was used to independent and energetic activity as a result of his ten years of work in the Ukraine, Malenkov completed his entire career in the secretariat and in the various Central Committee departments, where he always only acted as Stalin's sidekick and executor of foreign decisions what was not conducive to his resolve. Compared to Khrushchev, he gave the impression of procrastinating. The shift in power from the Council of Ministers to the party structures - for example, the KGB was placed under the control of the Central Committee - undermined Malenkov's position. On September 7, 1953 Khrushchev became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Malenkov remained Chairman of the Council of Ministers.
In 1955, Malenkov was removed from his position as chairman of the Council of Ministers, and he was accused of failing in agriculture. His successor Nikolai Bulganin then appointed him Minister for Power Plants and Electrical Industry, he was also appointed Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and remained a member of the Politburo.
Khrushchev's intensified rehabilitation policy and the investigation into the “Leningrad Affair” frightened Malenkov. He was against the famous secret speech Khrushchev on the XX. CPSU party congress , in which it denounced the personality cult of Stalin and the unjustified reprisals of the 1930s and shortly afterwards joined the old Stalinists in the Politburo who tried to overthrow Khrushchev. After a failed coup attempt , Malenkov was finally ousted and expelled from the Politburo on July 29, 1957, together with Molotov , Kaganowitsch and Shepilov . He was demoted to head of a hydropower plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk in Kazakhstan and then to director of the power plant in Ekibastus .
death
In 1961 Georgi Malenkow was finally expelled from the CPSU , but remained in his post as director of the power plant. He was only allowed to return to Moscow after his retirement in 1968. Little is known about the last years of his life. He died in Moscow on January 14, 1988.
Awards
Works
- GM Malenkow: About the tasks of the party organizations in industry and in transport. Report on the XVIII. Union Conference of the CPSU (B), February 15, 1941. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1955.
- GM Malenkow: Report of accounts of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B) to the XIX. Party congress. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1953.
- GM Malenkow: Speech at the fifth conference of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, August 8, 1953. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1953.
literature
- Roy Medvedev : All Stalin's Men. Six Who Carried Out the Bloody Politics. Anchor Press Edition, 1984. ISBN 0-385-18388-7 (portrait of Malenkov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Suslow, Kaganowitsch and Voroshilov)
- Dimitri Volkogonov : Stalin. Triumph and tragedy. Claassen, Düsseldorf, 1989. ISBN 3-546-49847-X
In Russian language
- Konstantin Aleksandrovich Zalesskij: Imperija Stalina. Biografitscheskij enziklopeditscheskij sloar. [ Stalin's empire. Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. ] Moscow, 2000.
- Rudolf K. Balandin: Malenkov. Tretij vožd 'Strany Sovetov. [ Malenkov. The third leader of the Soviet country. ] Moscow, 2007.
- N. Kowalewa, A. Korotkow, S. Meltschin, Ju. Sigachev, A. Stepanow: Molotow, Malenkow, Kaganowitsch, 1957. Stenogramma ijunskogo plenuma ZK KPSS i drugie dokumenty. Moscow, 1998. (Collection of documents on the disempowerment of Malenkov and other old Stalinists by Khrushchev in 1957)
Web links
- Literature by and about Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkow in the catalog of the German National Library
- Newspaper article about Georgi Maximilianowitsch Malenkow in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Joseph Stalin |
1st Secretary or General Secretary of the CPSU 1953 |
Nikita Khrushchev |
| Joseph Stalin |
Prime Minister of the Soviet Union 1953–1955 |
Nikolai Bulganin |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Malenkow, Georgi Maximilianowitsch |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Georgij Maximilianovič Malenkov, Георгий Максимилианович Маленков |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | soviet politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 8, 1902 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Orenburg |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 14, 1988 |
| Place of death | Moscow |