at the peak of the Battle of Moscow, unnamed authorities instructed him to resume work on the palace. However, there is plenty of evidence that he did not have resources to do it. Work on the palace proceeded slowly in Iofan's free time. The next iteration of the design, the so-called Sverdlovsk variant, emerged only at the end of 1943. It was superficially similar to the 1937 design, but looked flatter, heavier and lacked the dynamics of the original. Iofan removed the ribbed pylons from the upper layers and added lots of oversized, opulent sculpture. The Sverdlovsk Variant was presented at the Kremlin in 1944 and in 1945, and became the new canon replacing the pre-war designs in mass media. However, by this time, Stalin had lost interest in the palace. Instead, in January 1947, the state concentrated resources on eight lesser skyscrapers in Moscow. Early official announcements presented the new project as a constellation of towers centered around the dominant Palace of the Soviets. Very soon the new towers were given priority over any pre-war plans, and effectively replaced the Palace as the new propaganda icons. Unfinished projects launched before the war were quietly scrapped or repurposed to the needs of new tenants. By 1953, seven of eight planned towers were actually built, while the palace became a phantom, a fruitless exercise in "paper architecture". Of the three titular architects of the palace, Vladimir Shchuko died in 1939, and Vladimir Helfreich moved on to other projects, which included one of the "sisters". Boris Iofan tried to secure the contract for the main building of Moscow State University, but fell out of favor. The university contract, along with all preliminary work by Iofan's team, was awarded to Lev Rudnev. Iofan remained in charge of the unbuilt palace and was instructed to decrease the size and cost. From 1947 to 1956, he presented six new proposals. The 1947–1948 variant decreased to in height and 5.3 million cubic meters in volume. The 1949 variant retained same height, with a further decrease in volume. In 1952–1953, the completion of the "seven sisters" freed up resources and the palace expanded to ; in 1953 it decreased again to . On 30 November 1954, Nikita Khrushchev launched a public campaign for the mass construction of affordable housing, and against the "excesses" of Stalinist architecture. Khruschev had no preference for a particular style, but his speechwriters