by "hostile elements" to "persecute and ruin honest people".

At the conclusion of the Congress in March 1939, Zhdanov was promoted to full membership of the Politburo. He was still one of four secretaries of the Central Committee--the others being Stalin, Andrey Andreyevich Andreyev, and Georgy Malenkov--but Malenkov was not a member of the Politburo, which meant that Zhdanov had replaced Lazar Kaganovich