General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union more than determine party membership composition. Stalin, its first incumbent, used the principles of democratic centralism to transform his office into that of party leader, and later leader of the Soviet Union. In 1934, the 17th Party Congress refrained from formally re-electing Stalin as General Secretary. However, Stalin was re-elected into all other positions and remained leader of the party without diminishment. In the 1950s, Stalin increasingly withdrew from Secretariat business, leaving the supervision of the body to Georgy Malenkov, possibly to test him as a potential successor. In October 1952, at the 19th Party Congress, Stalin restructured the party's
Stalin and the Scientists amount of study" and "deserves attention", but "a very critical form of attention". Stalin and the Scientists Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905–1953 is a 2016 popular science non-fiction book on the history of science in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin by English novelist and science writer, Simon Ings. It is Ings' second non-fiction book, the first being "The Eye: A Natural History" (2007). He had previously published eight novels. "Stalin and the Scientists" was longlisted for the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. Ings' inspiration for "Stalin and the Scientists" came from Soviet