What Caused the Fall of Nikolai A. Voznesenskii? The Gosplan Affair, the Leningrad Affair and Political Infighting in Stalin's Inner Circle, 1949–1950

Abstract

The 1949–1952 Gosplan Affair is rarely mentioned in the literature on late Stalinism, insofar as this purge of Politburo member Nikolai A. Voznesenskii and his clients at the USSR Council of Ministers Economic Planning Committee (Gosplan) is usually conflated with the coterminous Leningrad Affair. According to most scholars, Voznesenskii played a role in Andrei A. Zhdanov's Leningrad patron-client network, which was purged after the death of its leader in 1948 on Stalin's orders. This article revisits the Gosplan Affair and the campaign against Voznesenskii on the basis of an array of newly declassified archival sources. It demonstrates much of Voznesenskii's spectacular fall to have been separate and distinct from the Leningrad Affair, and to have stemmed from rivalries within Stalin's inner circle rather than at the general secretary's behest. It also provides an unprecedentedly close perspective on postwar political infighting in the party leadership at the end of Stalin's reign and the beginning of the Cold War.