Georgy Malenkov

Malenkov joined the Communist Party in 1920 and climbed through the Organizational Bureau, keeping member records - work that put him at the center of Stalin's purges in the 1930s. During World War II he oversaw aircraft and missile production for the State Defense Committee, entering the Politburo in 1946. When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov took both the premiership and the top party secretariat slot, but his colleagues stripped the latter from him nine days later, clearing the path for Khrushchev. He held on as Premier until February 1955, then joined the "Anti-Party Group" trying to unseat Khrushchev in 1957. The coup collapsed. He was dismissed from the Presidium, expelled from the party by 1961, and spent the next three decades in obscurity until his death in 1988.