First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in the context of "Nikita Khrushchev"

The history of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, referred to as the Brezhnev Era, covers the period of Leonid Brezhnev's rule of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This period began with high economic growth and soaring prosperity, but gradually significant problems in social, political, and economic areas accumulated, so that the period is often described as the Era of Stagnation. In the 1970s, the Soviet Union and the United States both took a stance of "detente". The goal of this strategy was to warm up relations, in the hope that the Soviet Union would pursue economic and democratic reforms. However, this did not come until Mikhail Gorbachev took office in 1985.

Nikita Khrushchev was ousted as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (as well as Chairman of the Council of Ministers) on 14 October 1964, due to his failed reforms and the disregard for Party and Government institutions. Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as First Secretary and Alexei Kosygin replaced him as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Anastas Mikoyan, and later Nikolai Podgorny, became Chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Together with Andrei Kirilenko as organizational secretary, and Mikhail Suslov as Chief Ideologue, they made up a reinvigorated collective leadership, which contrasted in form with the autocracy that characterized Khrushchev's rule.

Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (8 January 1902 [O.S. 26 December 1901] – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who succeeded Joseph Stalin as Premier and the overall leader of the Soviet Union in March 1953. Shortly thereafter, Malenkov entered into a power struggle with the party's First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, that culminated in his removal from the premiership in 1955 as well as the Central Committee Presidium in 1957.

Georgy Malenkov served in the Red Army during the Russian Civil War and joined the Communist Party in 1920. Beginning in 1925, he served in the staff of the party's Organizational Bureau (Orgburo), where he was entrusted with overseeing member records. In this role, Malenkov was heavily involved in facilitating Stalin's purges of the party's ranks during the 1930s. By 1939, he became a member of the Central Committee Secretariat. During World War II, Malenkov was appointed to the State Defense Committee where he was charged with overseeing aircraft and missile production. After the war's end, he became a full member of the Politburo in 1946. Later in 1948, Malenkov succeeded Andrei Zhdanov as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.