Page "Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" Paragraph 29

When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Georgy Malenkov, a Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers succeeded him as Chairman and as the de facto leading figure of the Presidium ( the renamed Politburo ).

A power struggle between Malenkov and Khrushchev began, and on 14 March Malenkov was forced to resign from the Secretariat.

The official explanation for his resignation was " to grant the request of Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers G. M. Malenkov to be released from the duties of the Party Central Committee ".

Malenkov's resignation made Khrushchev the senior member within the Secretariat, and made him powerful enough to set the agenda of the Presidium meetings alongside Malenkov.

Khrushchev was able to consolidate his powers within the party machine after Malenkov's resignation, but Malenkov remained the de facto leading figure of the Party.

Together with Malenkov's and Khrushchev's ascension of power, another figure, Lavrentiy Beria was also contending for power.

The three formed a short-lived Troika, which lasted until Khrushchev and Malenkov betrayed Beria.

Beria, an ethnic Georgian, was the Presidium member for internal security affairs, and he was a strong supporter for minority rights and even supported reuniting East and West Germany to establish a strong, and neutral Germany between the capitalist and socialist nations.

It was Beria, through an official pronouncement by the Ministry of Internal Affairs ( MVD ) and not by the Central Committee or the Council of Ministers, who renounced the Doctor's Plot as a fraud.