In the USSR, in October the 19th Party Congress met, the first
such meeting since 1939. The congress made certain changes in party organization
and dropped the word "Bolshevik" from the party's title. By then,
this ideology-heavy mass organization had a membership of about seven million
people. The 19th Party congress became a turning point in the life of the
giant nation.
The choice of Georgy Malenkov to make the principle report suggested
that he was in the direct line of succession to the aging and ailing Communist
leader Josef Stalin. A diehard Stalinist, Malenkov had been working in
the party apparatus since 1925 and his speech appropriately teemed with
laudations for the Great Helmsman. Characterizing "Stalinism"
as "Marxism-Leninism today", Malenkov moved on to the economy
and said that the country had solved the "grain" problem once
and for all. It was an obvious lie because the Soviet agriculture was actually
in tatters.
In his closing address, Stalin focused more on international
matters. Even though his speech was formally about the struggle for peace,
Stalin described the Soviet Union and the foreign Communist parties as
the vanguard of the international revolutionary movement and voiced strong
confidence that those fraternal parties would eventually prevail over capitalism.
In a sudden break with tradition, Stalin suggested after the
congress that a narrow circle of his faithful loyalists such as Georgy
Malenkov, Lavrenty Beria, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, be elected
to the country's ruling Politbureau. According to all appearances, the
dictator was preparing a new big purge. Soon after, they arrested the wife
of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Zhemchuzhina, who was also a member
of the Soviet government. Even Stalin's close confidant, Marshal Klim Voroshilov,
started getting worried. Many high-ranking state security officers were
detained and even their much-feared chief, Lavrenty Beria was now in danger.
Members of Stalin's retinue were nervous like hell, and the only man completely
oblivious of what was going on was Joseph Stalin himself. Hardly a day
went by without the dictator throwing a party or two at his country residence.
One of his regular table mates there was Nikita Khushchev, the man who,
only a few years later, emerged as a staunch critic of Stalin's rule and
a denouncer of his personality cult.
On February 6, the daughter of King George VI, Elizabeth Alexandra
Mary, ascended the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. At 25, she already had a son, Crown Prince Charles of Wales, and
a daughter, Princess Anne. The Queen later gave birth to Princes Andrew
and Edward. Elizabeth II received solid home education and studied constitutional
law. During World War Two, the would-be Queen, still in her teens, trained
as a driver in the Auxiliary Territorial service. As the head of state,
the Queen carries out a plethora of representative chores and is the patron
of a number of public and charitable organizations.
In 1952 Egypt's President-to-be Gamal Abd-Al Nasser entered big
politics. Born in 1918 into the family of a post-office civil servant,
he went on to pursue a military career. He was educated at a military college
to which, after a period of normal military duties, he was appointed a
lecturer in the rank of a Lieutenant-Colonel in 1942. Intensely patriotic
and politically active, Nasser formed a group of young officers dedicated
to the cause of Egyptian nationalism. Known as the Free Officers, they
formed a secret organization around Nasser and in the early hours of July
23, 1952, deposed King Faruk who abdicated in favor of his seven months
old son. The real power now rested in the hands of the Revolutionary Command
Council which he took over shortly after. One year later, Egypt was officially
proclaimed a republic .
THE 20th CENTURY:YEAR AFTER YEAR series
of historical programs is prepared by Vladimir Zhamkin.
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