ラーザリ・カガノーヴィチ
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 Andreyev and Georgy Malenkov - but Malenkov was not a Politburo member of the Politburo, which meant that Zhdanov had replaced Lazar Kaganovich as Stalin's deputy in the party apparatus and appeared to be his most likely successor.