First Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union First Deputy Premier from 1935 to 1941 because no one was elected to the post. Molotov, one of two First Deputy Premiers under Stalin's tenure, nearly lost his position when Stalin, the Premier, took a vacation; Molotov, in his capacity as First Deputy Premier, committed what Stalin saw as grave policy violations. Stalin's successor, Malenkov, promoted Bulganin, Beria and Lazar Kaganovich to the post of First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. In a Council of Minister resolution it was stated that the Premier, the First Deputy Premiers and the Deputy Premiers made up the Presidium of the Council
Rise of Joseph Stalin Stalin could now rather easily send Zinoviev and Kamenev to Gulag (thus far just briefly), and by 1929 also Bukharin, Tomsky and Rykov found themselves played by Stalin. All struggles for power was over. Stalin was now the autocratic ruler of the entire Soviet Union. Millions of Russians and people of other ethnic origin inside the Soviet Union had been killed during the Russian Civil War, through starvation and in other conflicts, but the bloodbath had thus far not reached within the Bolshevik Party. Not even by 1929 did Stalin think of having Trotsky or any other possible political opponent