Georgy Maksimilianovich Malenkov (1902-1988) emerged briefly after the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953 as the head of the Soviet government and leader of its Communist Party. A quintessential apparatchik whose claim to power rested largely on his devoted service to Stalin, Malenkov was soon outmaneuvered by Nikita Khrushchev and forced to resign his positions. Some historians have credited him with proposing initiatives which were later adopted by Soviet leaders, including the last head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev.

Malenkov was born on January 8, 1902, in the town of Orenburg in the Southern Urals. Although much of his biography is obscure, it is believed he grew up in a reasonably well-off white collar family which found itself dislocated during the revolution and civil war at a time when Georgy Maksimilianovich was an impressionable teenager. In 1918, at the age of 16, he joined the Red Army. He apparently served as...