Notes
HOW ARE THE WEAKLY FALLEN I
When Malenkov and Beria came into office in March, 1953, the two chief power machines—the Party and the Security Police—were in their hands. But within a month Malenkov had been compelled to give up the secretaryship of the party to Khrushchev—from 'lack of experience in local work'?— and although a number of his own men were at the top, his position was obviously weakened. In June, he felt obliged to join with one rival. Khrushchev, to crush the other, Beria. The new 'monolithic collective leadership' soon showed signs of strain. Early in 1954 Khrushchev was making the running, but Malenkov cleverly tripped him up with the trial and execution of Ryumin, Stalin's security chief, main organiser of the 'doctor's plot' frame-up, a Khrushchev man. Last December, however, Khrushchev got his own back with the trial of Abakumov, the liquidator of the Zhdanovists in 1949. Abakumov was made to confess that this action, one of the decisive steps in Malenkov's rise to power, had also been a frame-up. When Khrushchev attacked Malenkov's policies at a recent Central Committee meeting, he compared them to Rykov's—a sinister move, in view of Rykov's subsequent fate. It was some years after Rykov's fall that he reached the execution cellar; but he arrived there just the same. Mr. Malenkov has been made Minister of Electrical Power. Public utilities are dangerous in Russia. Yagoda was permitted a spell at Posts and Telegraphs before being shot, and Yezhov, who also ended in the cellar, was in charge of Inland Waterways.
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