Malenkov and the Possible Third Path

Georgy Malenkov. You don’t know him, yet he was.

Stalin is dead. Georgy assumes the highest state post—Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The country is under collective leadership. Power is divided among three men: Malenkov controls the state apparatus, Beria controls the security services, and Khrushchev controls the Party.

Against them, Georgy appears to be a mild-mannered bureaucrat, but this is deceptive. He went through the harsh Stalinist school.

Everyone fears Beria. His ambitions threaten the others. Georgy is no lone hero. He enters into a conspiracy with Khrushchev and Marshal Zhukov.

Right there in the Kremlin, the military arrests Beria. Georgy, as the head of the meeting, sanctions the execution, and Beria is shot. The path is clear, but the allies will soon become enemies.

Georgy bets on the people and their needs. He declares: “Enough building only weapons; we need food and clothing.” He cuts taxes and allows small-scale entrepreneurship. Shop shelves noticeably begin to fill up. A saying even emerged among the people: “Malenkov has arrived, and we ate Blinks” (the rhyme is in Russian).

However, the real power belonged to Nikita Khrushchev, who controlled the Party’s personnel. Khrushchev outmaneuvered Malenkov in the cabinet intrigues, accusing him of inexperience and past mistakes. In 1955, Georgy was removed from the post of Prime Minister. He attempted to regain power but ultimately lost.

He was sent to Kazakhstan to work as the director of a power station. Later, he retired and died in Moscow in 1988, remaining in the shadow of Stalin and Khrushchev.