 While in Moscow, Zhou was notably received with considerable respect by Soviet officials, being permitted to stand with the USSR's new leaders—Vyacheslav Molotov, Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, and Lavrentiy Beria—instead of with the other "foreign" dignitaries who attended.With these four leaders, Zhou walked directly behind the gun carriage bearing Stalin's coffin.Zhou's diplomatic efforts on his travel to Moscow were rewarded shortly after when, in 1954, Khrushchev himself visited Beijing to take part in the fifth anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.