In 1949, the life expectancy of the average Communist bigwig went down sharply. Not since the Great Purge of 1936-38 had the leadership of world Communism been so rent by fear and division. No leaders of Western Communism had yet been ousted (see below), but behind the Iron Curtain heads fell fast & furiously. Prime focus of the Comrades' trouble in the Russian satellite countries was Yugoslavia Heretic Marshal Tito, who continued to defy Moscow. But it was also a great year for purges inside Russia, where Georgy Malenkov, the Kremlin's rising star,...
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