General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to Georgy Malenkov, possibly to test him as a potential successor. In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's leadership. His request, voiced through Malenkov, to be relieved of his duties in the party secretariat due to his age, was rejected by the party congress, as delegates were unsure about Stalin's intentions. In the end, the congress formally abolished Stalin's office of General Secretary, though Stalin remained one of the party secretaries and maintained ultimate control of the Party. When Stalin died on 5 March 1953, Malenkov was the most important member of the Secretariat, which also included Nikita Khrushchev, among others. Under a short-lived troika of Malenkov, Beria, and Molotov, Malenkov became Chairman of the Council of Ministers but was forced to resign from the Secretariat nine days later on 14 March, leaving Khrushchev in effective control of the body. Khrushchev was elected to the new office of First Secretary at the Central Committee plenum on 14 September of the same year. Originally conceived as a collective leadership, Khrushchev removed his rivals from power in both 1955 and (especially) 1957 and reinforced the supremacy of the First Secretary.
Orgburo
In the same manner as the Politburo and the Secretariat, the Orgburo was elected at plenary sessions of the Central Committee. One of the Central Committee secretaries supervised the work of the Orgburo. The first Orgburo of three members (Vladimirsky, Krestinsky and Sverdlov) was elected on January 16, 1919, at the Central Committee meeting.
The 8th party congress (March 8, 1919 – March 23, 1919) amended the party charter and set up provisions for election of the Politburo, the Orgburo and the Secretariat. The Central Committee plenum elected the new Orgburo of five members and of one candidate member on March 25, 1919. Some key Communist politicians (such as Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich and others) served as members both of the Orgburo and of the Politburo, but most of the Orgburo members were less important figures than those elected to the Politburo and the Secretariat.