11-year keeper of the party's central document flow
October 1964, after Khrushchev's fall, as Brezhnev's aides routed documents around the General Department, Malin wrote: "A dual chain of command is emerging — you won't know where this or that document has gone."
As head of the CPSU Central Committee General Department (1954–1965), Malin controlled all document flow to and from the Politburo, making him one of the most powerful administrative officials in the party. During the war he served as deputy chief of the Central Staff of the Partisan Movement (1942–1944), organizing partisan operations in occupied territory, and later as Third Secretary of the CP of Belarus. He took the working notes of the Presidium during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the post-Khrushchev transition, leaving a unique archival record. In 1965 Brezhnev replaced him with loyalist Konstantin Chernenko, transferring Malin to head the Academy of Social Sciences: a textbook Brezhnev patronage move.
Career Timeline
- 1926Joined the VKP(b)
- 1933Graduated from Leningrad Communist University
- 1938–1939First Secretary, Mogilev Regional Committee, CP(b) of Belarus
- 1939–1941Secretary for Propaganda, CC CP(b) of Belarus
- 1942–1944Political chief and deputy head, Central Staff of Partisan Movement
- 1943–1947Third Secretary, CC CP(b) of Belarus
- 1949–1952Secretary, Leningrad City Committee
- 1952–1954Inspector, CC CPSU
- 1954–1965Head, General Department, CC CPSU
- 1965–1970Rector, Academy of Social Sciences, CC CPSU