Andrei Zhdanov Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov ( ; – 31 August 1948 ) was a Soviet politician . Career . Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party ( Bolshevik ) in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks , becoming the All - Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934 . He was an endorser of Socialist Realism in art . Zhdanov was Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet from 20 July 1938 – 20 June 1947 . Though somewhat less active than Vyacheslav Molotov , Joseph Stalin , Lazar Kaganovich and Kliment Voroshilov , Zhdanov was a major perpetrator of the Great Terror and personally approved 176 documented execution lists . In June 1940 , he was sent to Estonia to supervise the establishment of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic and its annexation by the USSR . After the cease - fire agreement between Finland and the USSR was signed in Moscow on 4 September 1944 , Zhdanov directed the Allied Control Commission in Finland until the Paris peace treaty of 1947 . Zhdanov was appointed by Joseph Stalin to direct the Soviet Union ' s cultural policy in 1946 . His first action ( in December 1946 ) was to censor Russian writers such as Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko . He formulated what became known as the Zhdanov Doctrine ( " " The only conflict that is possible in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and best " " ) . During 1946 – 1947 , Zhdanov was Chairman of the Soviet of the Union . In 1947 , he organized the Cominform , designed to coordinate the communist parties of Europe . In February 1948 , he initiated purges among musicians , widely known as a struggle against formalism . Dmitri Shostakovich , Sergei Prokofiev , Aram Khachaturian and many other composers were reprimanded during this period . In June 1948 , Stalin sent Zhdanov to Cominform meeting in Bucharest . Purpose of the meeting was to condemn Yugoslavia , but Zhdanov took a more restrained line , in contrast to his co - delegate and rival Georgy Malenkov . This infuriated Stalin , who removed Zhdanov from all his posts and replaced him with Malenkov . Zhdanov was transferred to a sanatorium , where he died . It is possible that his death was the result of an intentional misdiagnosis . Zhdanov died on 31 August 1948 in Moscow of heart failure ; Nikita Khrushchev recalled in " Khrushchev Remembers " that Zhdanov was an alcoholic , and that during his " last days " , Stalin would shout at him to stop drinking and insist that he drink only fruit juice . Stalin had talked of Zhdanov being his successor but Zhdanov ' s ill health gave his rivals , Lavrentiy Beria and Georgy Malenkov , an opportunity to undermine him . He was one of the accused during the U . S . House of Representatives ' Kersten Committee investigation in 1953 . Ideology . Until the late 1950s , Zhdanov ' s ideological code , known as the Zhdanov doctrine , Zhdanovism or " zhdanovshchina " , defined cultural production in the Soviet Union . Zhdanov intended to create a new philosophy of artistic creation valid for the entire world . His method reduced all of culture to a sort of chart , wherein a given symbol corresponded to a simple moral value . Zhdanov and his associates further sought to eliminate foreign influence from Soviet art , proclaiming that " incorrect art " was an ideological diversion . Family ties . Zhdanov ' s son , Yuri ( 1919 – 2006 ) , married Stalin ' s daughter , Svetlana Alliluyeva , in 1949 . That marriage ended in divorce in 1950 . They had one daughter , Yekaterina . Honours and awards . Andrei Zhdanov ' s birthplace , Mariupol , was renamed Zhdanov in his honor at Joseph Stalin ' s instigation in 1948 , and a monument to Zhdanov was built in the central square of the city . The name reverted to Mariupol in 1989 , and the monument was dismantled in 1990 .