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.
Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
The Council of People's Commissars, the Soviet Government, was transformed into the Council of Ministers during March 1946. At the same time The People's Commissariats were transformed into Ministries. Joseph Stalin's death began a power struggle within the Soviet government between the Government apparatus managed by Georgy Malenkov as Premier, and the Party apparatus managed by Nikita Khrushchev as General Secretary (a job which was named First Secretary from 1853 until 1966)). Malenkov lost the power struggle, and during 1955 he was demoted from his office as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was succeeded in his job by Nikolai Bulganin, who was dismisssd and replaced by Khrushchev because of his assistance to the Anti-Party Group, which had tried to oust Khrushchev during 1957.