Of the members of the Stalinist team, this man is the least known. They don't talk about him, they don't write, and when they try to talk, it turns out that there is nothing to say. He did not leave memoirs, none of his contemporaries talked about him, and now there is no one to ask. It is generally accepted to consider him a weak figure, a nonentity in a high position. What did Malenkov do after the war? Well, of course - agriculture! I didn't do it, by the way …
Could a member of the State Defense Committee have been a nonentity during the war years? The question is not even rhetorical, just ridiculous. There were five of them, and one of these five is nothing? Oh well…
Legends are evil …
If the name of Beria is shrouded in an evil lie, then the name of Malenkov is a derogatory lie.
By the way Yakov Chadayev, the former head of the Council of People's Commissars, spoke about the man, one can understand whether he was related to Khrushchev's team or not. Mikoyan, Bulganin, Voznesensky, Khrushchev - the most flattering reviews. Molotov and Kaganovich ("betrayed" in 1957) - mediocre. He tramples enemies in the mud, and these two enemies. For Beria, "the whole being is poisoned with bile and filled with anger." About Malenkov, Chadayev writes the following: a secretive man, engaged in intrigue, politicking, while trying to show himself loyal and frank.
“It was not at all some extensive knowledge, organizational talent or extraordinary intelligence that brought him to the heights of power, but extraordinary dexterity, resourcefulness, rhetoric and demagogy, a subtle instinct, with whom and when to block … and, finally, the constant demonstration of personal devotion in words and deeds Stalin … Malenkov lacked a special intellect, but there was only a greedy desire for power and a painful search for one thing: how to get even closer to the confidence of the leader,”- if you believe Chadayev, this was enough to become a member of the State Defense Committee. Well, quite in the spirit of the "general line" of Khrushchev's PR: a power-hungry mustachioed tyrant who elevates court sycophants. But now we know for sure that Khrushchev lied as he breathed, and his team did not lag behind the leader.
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Cadres are everything
Who is he really, this fat, chubby man with very tired eyes?
Born in 1901 in Orenburg, father is a nobleman, mother is a philistine. In 1919, after graduating from high school, he was drafted into the Red Army, fought on the Eastern, and then on the Turkestan front, in 1920 he joined the RCP (b), was a political worker. Then he got married - once for all his life. In 1921 he entered the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at MVTU - this is the question of "intelligence". Chadayev never dreamed of such a university.
In MVTU Malenkov soon became the secretary of the party organization, where Saburov, Pervukhin, Malyshev worked with him. These people would later become captains of Soviet industry, but Malenkov's fate would soon change course.
But first there was a party discussion in 1927 - the last open battle of the opposition against the Stalinist line. Here is what one of the participants in the discussion recalls: “Malenkov… organized numerous gangs of party and Komsomol hooliganism. Specially trained by Malenkov and supplied with sticks, stones, old galoshes, rotten eggs, etc., these gangs, calling themselves "workers' squads," disrupted discussion meetings, threw stones at the opposition speakers, galoshes, etc., dispersed their meetings, wielding sticks. " These units received the nickname "SBB" among the opposition - "Stalin's battalions of bashi-bazouks" (however, opposition supporters behaved in about the same way - there was a merry party discussion, you can't say anything).
Having completed his student career with this brilliant stroke, Malenkov went to work in the Central Committee, where he grew in service with great speed. In 1934, he became deputy head of the department of leading party bodies, and in 1936 - its head. He is conducting a campaign to exchange party documents, during which 2.5 million files were drawn up - on all party members and candidates who made up the personnel reserve of the Soviet Union. His work was highly appreciated, it cannot be higher - in March 1939, it was Malenkov who became the head of the Personnel Department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Secretary of the Central Committee, taking one of the key positions in the country.
We talk a lot about Stalin's cadres, but they, these cadres, had to be found, put in the right place, to determine the abilities and capabilities of each. (By the way, the first "chief personnel officer" of the country was Sverdlov, the second was Stalin himself.) The real takeoff of personnel work, the triumph of Stalin's personnel policy began in the second half of the 1930s, this takeoff has a name, patronymic and surname, and we now have them we know.
If there was a “gray eminence” and “secret adviser to the leader” in the USSR, it could only be a personnel officer. Everything depended on personnel in the Soviet Union. Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov wrote in his book “Technology of Power”: “The present CPSU is the brainchild of two people: Stalin and Malenkov. If Stalin was its chief designer, Malenkov is its talented architect."
Tandem of heroes
As for human qualities, very few memories of Malenkov have survived - he did not boggle the imagination, and who would write about officials who do not amaze the imagination? Even if the fate of the country depends on them …
But still something was found. Dmitry Zhimerin, who was the People's Commissar of Power Plants during the war, left a brief description: “Malenkov is undoubtedly a gifted person. Despite his obesity, he was energetic and explosive. I understood everything perfectly and worked literally for two. Many times … I have watched his reaction, quick and mostly correct. I think that Stalin kept him in such a high post not accidentally and not in vain. He knew that if he instructed Malenkov to do something, he would definitely do it."
And Zhimerin also characterizes Malenkov as an exceptionally polite and tactful person. He is echoed by Ivan Kovalev, the head of the Military Communications Directorate, who was in May. 1941 of the year was pulled out of the office of the head of the North-Western Railway and sent to serve in the People's Commissariat of State Control, to which Kovalev categorically objected. “Malenkov would not have been Malenkov if he had not tried to mitigate my grief. He said:
- Ivan Vladimirovich! The world war is already around us. We should tune in to her. Change psychology. And we have with you peaceful reasoning - to whom and in what department to serve. And the task goes far beyond the departmental framework … . And he went on to persuade in the same spirit. Beria would have simply barked.
By the way, about Beria. Approximately from the beginning of the war, these two, as in a nursery rhyme, “walk in pairs” around the Soviet defense complex. The chief manager of the defense industry is also the chief personnel officer. Dmitry Yuriev in his article "Georgy Malenkov - the secret organizer of the Soviet rocketry" writes: "It seems that these were two favorite Stalinist workhorses who unleashed the Soviet military-industrial machine during the war, working quite amicably and kind of symmetrically. That is, if Beria was in charge of the production of tanks, then Malenkov was in charge of aircraft, if Beria was in charge of the development of an atomic warhead, then Malenkov was in charge of its delivery - Tu-4 and missiles. By the way, the titles of social heroes. they received labor in one day. State projects without any problems passed from one to another … ".
This was partly true - but still, each of them had the main job and additional loads. And if Beria's main load was the "defense industry", the NKVD was an additional one (and then a heap of orders in decreasing order), Malenkov was still first of all a personnel officer, then a "defense worker" (well, a bunch of orders - where can we go without it?) However, he was not a genius of production - not his path. In the "defense industry" Malenkov's sphere of responsibility was aviation, and this ended in 1946 with a huge scandal with the delivery of defective aircraft to the front (the so-called aviation industry case). After the scandal, Malenkov was removed from aviation affairs - however, almost immediately he was appointed chairman of two special commissions, on radar and missile affairs, and also deputy chairman of the operational bureau of the Council of Ministers (Beria was the chairman). By 1948, they had divided up areas of responsibility. Defense work was concentrated in the hands of Beria, and Malenkov returned to the party Olympus, where he could no longer do without. Stalin's closest associate in the party, Zhdanov, was seriously ill and no longer an employee (as it turned out, he had only a few months to live). Malenkov's successor as head of the Personnel Directorate Kuznetsov-"Leningradsky" twisted some dark affairs and with might and main talked about the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was not possible to get rid of the consequences of Kuznetsov's personnel policy. It is quite possible that it was precisely Malenkov's two-year absence from the personnel management that became Stalin's mistake, which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.and Malenkov returned to the party Olympus, where it was no longer possible to do without him. Stalin's closest associate in the party, Zhdanov, was seriously ill and no longer an employee (as it turned out, he had only a few months to live). Malenkov's successor as head of the Personnel Directorate Kuznetsov-"Leningradsky" twisted some dark affairs and with might and main talked about the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was not possible to get rid of the consequences of Kuznetsov's personnel policy. It is quite possible that it was precisely Malenkov's two-year absence from the personnel management that became Stalin's mistake, which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.and Malenkov returned to the party Olympus, where it was no longer possible to do without him. Stalin's closest associate in the party, Zhdanov, was seriously ill and no longer an employee (as it turned out, he had only a few months to live). Malenkov's successor as head of the Personnel Directorate Kuznetsov-"Leningradsky" twisted some dark affairs and with might and main talked about the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was not possible to get rid of the consequences of Kuznetsov's personnel policy. It is quite possible that it was precisely Malenkov's two-year absence from the personnel management that became Stalin's mistake, which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR. Malenkov's successor as head of the Personnel Directorate Kuznetsov-"Leningradsky" twisted some dark affairs and with might and main talked about the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was not possible to get rid of the consequences of Kuznetsov's personnel policy. It is quite possible that it was precisely Malenkov's two-year absence from the personnel management that became Stalin's mistake, which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR. Malenkov's successor as head of the Personnel Directorate Kuznetsov-"Leningradsky" twisted some dark affairs and with might and main talked about the creation of the Communist Party of the RSFSR. It was not possible to get rid of the consequences of Kuznetsov's personnel policy. It is quite possible that it was precisely Malenkov's two-year absence from the personnel management that became Stalin's mistake, which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.which led first to the coup d'etat of 1953, and then, ultimately, to the collapse of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.
Life in exchange for silence
By the early 1950s, Malenkov had become one of Stalin's closest deputies and, along with Beria and Bulganin, received the right to sign the Council of People's Commissars documents for the leader. In fact, somewhere since 1950, all the operational work of governing the state (except for the army and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) lay on the shoulders of Malenkov and Beria. The tandem clearly and openly came out on top in the state. Beria is the chief in economics, Malenkov is the chief in the party (at the XIX Congress of the CPSU (b) it was he who read the report). So the fact that these two after Stalin's death took the first two places at the top of the state is not surprising. Why did Malenkov become the chairman of the Council of Ministers? It is also understandable: he was a representative of the titular nation, otherwise he could have thrown a coin.
At the very first closed meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Malenkov announced that it was necessary to end the policy of the cult of the individual and go over to the collective leadership of the country. There was no revolution in this, and it had nothing to do with the "criticism of the personality cult" of the 1956 model. What was said only meant that there was no second Stalin in the new leadership. To paraphrase a well-known saying, there is no personality, there is no place for a cult.
And this is actually the case. After March 1953, the country did not have one leader. Malenkov was the chairman of the Council of Ministers, but he gave the party power to Khrushchev. Beria was considered Malenkov's deputy, but in the affairs of the Council of Ministers he was clearly stronger.
And then there was a coup on June 26 and the restoration of the "personality cult" - though this time in the form of a farce.
Why Khrushchev spoke out against Beria is understandable: the Ministry of Internal Affairs got close to his participation in the Kuznetsov conspiracy. And why did Malenkov need it? Something that threatened him or what was missing? However, who said that he spoke? Khrushchev? But Khrushchev, as already mentioned, lies, how he breathes. But in fact, Malenkov's participation in a conspiracy against his friend and partner is not at all a fact.
Among the heterogeneous information about June 26, one curious detail flashed. When Sergo Beria was informed that shooting was going on at their home, his boss, Beria's deputy on the special committee, Vannikov, began to call Malenkov - but he did not answer his phone. But Vannikov did not call his neighbor in his dacha, but the first person of the state, whose phone must be answered at any time of the day or night. And if he didn't answer, it means he was turned off. And if the head of state's phone is turned off - what does it mean? That's right: this is one of the signs of a coup d'etat.
Subsequently, Malenkov was either persuaded or forced to join the game played by the winners with the alleged arrest of Beria (in any case, this was a forced step, the fate of the country was at stake). For some time he still remained the chairman of the Council of Ministers, although the real power belonged to completely different people. In February 1955, he gave up this post to Khrushchev's loyal ally Bulganin, becoming his deputy and minister of power plants. After trying to remove Khrushchev in 1957, the winner dealt with Malenkov as brutally as with anyone. He was sent first to Ust-Kamenogorsk as the director of the hydroelectric power station, and then even further, to the tiny steppe town of Ekibastuz, to the position of director of the thermal power plant. In fact, it was a link, albeit without a court verdict.
In 1961, Malenkov was expelled from the party and sent to retire, leaving him in Ekibastuz. Only in 1968 was he allowed to move to Moscow. He lived quietly in the capital, did not demand anything, did not write memoirs, even hardly saw his comrades-in-arms, and died in 1988, taking all his secrets with him.
Best helper
One of the testimonies of what was the role of Georgy Malenkov during the Great Patriotic War was left by Chief Marshal of Aviation Alexander Golovanov (until 1944 - commander of long-range aviation): “Malenkov, as they say,“supervised”us, and in fairness it should be said that we received a lot of help and support from him. I personally believe that it was Stalin's best assistant in military affairs and the military industry. His extraordinary organizational skills, the ability to communicate with people and mobilize all their forces to complete assigned tasks favorably distinguished him from people like Beria.
Between them, it seemed, there was nothing in common, not even the slightest bit similar either in the approach to resolving issues, or in personal behavior. Beria was a rude, inveterate swearing man. During the entire war I did not hear a rude word from Malenkov. Their characters were clearly different, and I was always surprised - what was the friendship between these people?"
Riddles of history №13 / С, Elena Prudnikova