Georgi Maksimilianovich Malenkov

Georgi Maksimilianovich Malenkov was a political commissar in the Red Army who, in the Second World War, was part of the five-man defense council which managed the Soviet Union's war effort. Malenkov rose to power under Stalin along with another soldier, Beria. The two were both assigned to fill out Stalin’s deadly orders. He succeeded Stalin after his death in March of 1953, and served as secretary to the Communist party for a short while until he was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev. Malenkov was the first of the subsequent three leaders known as the troika to warn that a nuclear war could lead to global destruction. The threesome inspired Sergei Prokofiev’s fourth movement of Suite from Lieutenant Kijé entitled, “Troika.”