Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union the CPSU, who was also a Politburo member, was the leader of the Secretariat and of the Party. Dual membership in the Secretariat and the Politburo was in practice reserved for two or three very senior members of the Soviet leadership, and in the post-Stalin era (after March 1953) was a stepping-stone to ultimate power. The last five Soviet leaders (Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko and Mikhail Gorbachev) were all senior Secretaries before becoming First or General Secretaries. Additionally, Georgy Malenkov was briefly reckoned as the leader of the Party for a week after Stalin's death by
Foreign relations of the Soviet Union invading forces to withdraw from Egypt by early 1957, the United States continued to maintain good relations with Britain, France and Israel and sought to limit Soviet ally Nasser's influence, thus damaging its relations with the Middle East for the next 35 years. By continuing to side with Egypt, the Soviet Union gained more prestige in the Middle East and succeeded in intimidating its superpower opponent, the United States. Nasser's pan-Arab influence spread throughout the Middle East and he soon gained a popular image among those who resented Western colonialism. In spite of his alliance with the Soviet Union, Nasser