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The death of the Soviet Union's longtime General Secretary and dictator, Joseph Stalin, represented a major power vacuum in Soviet politics that would cause more than a few changes in the state's political scene, including, ultimately, a relative relaxation in political repression. With no clear heir or mechanism for selecting a successor, several parties vied for control, lead among them including Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Nikita Khrushchev.
