Beria, Lavrentiy

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[[Image:Lavrenti_Beria.jpg|thumb|200px|Lavrentiy Beria]]
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'''Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria''' ([[Georgian language|Georgian]]: ლავრენტი ბერია; [[Russian language|Russian]]: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; 29 March, 1899 – 23 December, 1953) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus.
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'''Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria''' ([[Georgian language|Georgian]]: ლავრენტი ბერია; [[Russian language|Russian]]: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; March 29, 1899 – December 23, 1953) was a [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus.
  
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Beria is now remembered chiefly as the executor of [[Joseph Stalin|Joseph Stalin's]] [[Great Purge]] of the 1930s, even though he actually presided only over the closing stages of the purge. He was most influential during and after [[World War II]] and immediately after Stalin's death, when he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization as First Prime Minister. This ended with his execution on the orders of Khrushchev.
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Beria is now remembered chiefly as the executor of the final stages of [[Joseph Stalin|Joseph Stalin's]] [[Great Purge]] of the 1930s. He was in charge of Soviet [[NKVD]] at its peak, concluding the era of the Purge by liquidating the very officials who had carried it out, and administering the vast network of labor camps known to history as the [[Gulag Archipelago]].
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He rose to prominence in the [[Cheka]] (secret police) in [[Georgia]] and the [[Transcaucasus]], becoming [[Communist Party]] secretary in these areas, and in 1938 became head of the natonal secret police. As ''commissar'' (later minister) of internal affairs, Beria wielded great power, and he was the first in this post to become (1946) a member of the [[Politburo]].
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He was also influential during and after [[World War II]] and immediately after [[Stalin]]'s death in March 1953, when he apparently attempted to use his position as chief of the secret police to succeed Stalin as dictator. Ironically, during this time Beria recast himself as a liberalizing reformer and was even suspected of making a deal with the West. His bid for power thus ended with his execution on the orders of [[Nikita S. Khrushchev]].
  
 
==Rise to power==
 
==Rise to power==
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Beria was born the son of Pavel Khukhaevich Beria, a peasant, in Merkheuli, near [[Sukhumi]] in the [[Abkhazia|Abkhazian]] region of [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], then part of [[Imperial Russia]]. He was a member of the [[Mingrelians|Mingrelian]] subgroup. He was educated at a technical school in Sukhumi, and is recorded as having joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] in March 1917 while an engineering student in [[Baku]].  
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Beria was born the son of Pavel Khukhaevich Beria, a peasant, in Merkheuli, near [[Sukhumi]] in the [[Abkhazia|Abkhazian]] region of [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], then part of [[Imperial Russia]]. He was a member of the [[Mingrelians|Mingrelian]] subgroup. He was educated at a technical school in Sukhumi, and is recorded as having joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Bolshevik Party]] in March 1917 while an engineering student in [[Baku]].  
  
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In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the [[Cheka]] (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), the original Bolshevik [[political police]]. At that time, a [[Bolshevik]] revolt, supported by the [[Red Army]], occurred in the [[Menshevik]] [[Democratic Republic of Georgia]], and the Vecheka was heavily involved in [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|this conflict]]. By 1922 Beria was deputy head of the Vecheka's successor, the [[OGPU]] (Combined State Political Directorate), in Georgia. Some sources allege that Beria was at this time an agent of the [[United Kingdom|British]] and/or [[Turkey|Turkish]] intelligence services, but this has never been proved.
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In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the [[Cheka]] (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), the original Bolshevik [[political police]]. At that time, a [[Bolshevik]] revolt, supported by the [[Red Army]], occurred in the [[Menshevik]] [[Democratic Republic of Georgia]], and the Cheka was heavily involved in [[Red Army invasion of Georgia|this conflict]]. By 1922 Beria was deputy head of the Cheka's successor, the [[OGPU]] (Combined State Political Directorate), in Georgia. In 1924 he led the repression of nationalist disturbances in Georgia, after which it is said that up to ten thousand people were executed. For this display of "Bolshevik ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the [[Transcaucasia|Transcaucasian]] OGPU and was awarded the [[Order of the Red Banner]].
  
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Beria was an ally of fellow Georgian Joseph Stalin in his rise to power within the Communist Party and the Soviet regime although he was not introduced to Stalin until 1926. Some historians, however, claim that he worked to further his own cause by wooing Stalin to get into the inner circles of the Soviet regime; and that he was hardly an "ally", more of a henchman{{Fact|date=February 2007}}. In 1924 he led the repression of [[August Uprising in Georgia|nationalist disturbances in Georgia]], after which it is said that up to 10,000 people were executed. For this display of "Bolshevik ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the [[Transcaucasia|Transcaucasian]] OGPU and was awarded the [[Order of the Red Banner]]. In 1926 he became head of the Georgian OGPU.
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[[Image:Lavrenti_Beria_Stalins_family.jpg|thumb|300px|Beria and Stalin's daughter [[Svetlana Alliluyeva|Svetlana]], with Stalin in background, in the 1930s]]
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He was appointed Party Secretary in Georgia in 1931, and for the whole [[Transcaucasia|Transcaucasian]] region in 1932. He became a member of the [[Central Committee]] of the Communist Party in 1934. During this time Beria also started to attack fellow members of Georgian Bolshevik party, particularly [[Gaioz Devdariani]], who was the Minister of Education of the Georgian SSR at the time. Both brothers of Devdariani, George and Shalva (they held important positions in Cheka and the Communist party of Georgia), were killed on the orders of Beria. Eventually, Gaioz was charged with violating [[Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code)|Article 58]] for alleged counter-revolutionary activities and was executed in 1938 by the orders of the [[NKVD troika]]. Even after moving on from Georgia, he continued to effectively control the republic's Communist Party until it was purged in July 1953.
 
  
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By 1935 Beria was one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Stalin's entourage with a lengthy oration "On the History of the Bolshevik Organisations in Transcaucasia" (later published as a book), which allegedly{{Fact|date=February 2007}} rewrote the history of Transcaucasian Bolshevism emphasizing Stalin's role in it. When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and government began in 1934 after the assassination of [[Sergei Kirov]], Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent Transcaucasian republics. In June 1937 he said in a speech: "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of [[Lenin]] and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed".
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In 1926 Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and was an ally of fellow Georgian [[Joseph Stalin]] in his rise to power within the [[Communist Party]]. He was appointed Party Secretary in Georgia in 1931, and for the whole [[Transcaucasia|Transcaucasian]] region in 1932. He became a member of the [[Central Committee]] of the Communist Party in 1934.
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During this time Beria also started to attack fellow members of the Georgian Bolshevik party, particularly [[Gaioz Devdariani]], who was then Minister of Education of the Georgian SSR. Both brothers of Devdariani, George and Shalva—holding important positions in Cheka and the Communist party of Georgia—were killed on the orders of Beria. Eventually, Gaioz himself was charged with counter-revolutionary activities and was executed in 1938 on the orders of the [[NKVD troika]]. Even after moving on from Georgia, Beria continued to effectively control the republic's Communist Party through the early 1950s.
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By 1935 Beria was one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Stalin's entourage with a lengthy oration "On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia," later published as a book, which portrayed the history of Transcaucasian Bolshevism emphasizing Stalin's role in it. When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and government began in 1934 after the assassination of [[Sergei Kirov]], Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent republics.
  
 
==Beria at the NKVD==
 
==Beria at the NKVD==
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[[Image:KGB House Main.jpg|thumb|275px|The [[Lubyanka (KGB)|NKVD Headquarters]] on [[Lubyanka Square]] which later became the headquarters of the KGB]]
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In August 1938 Stalin brought Beria to [[Moscow]] as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs ([[NKVD]]), the ministry which oversaw the [[state security]] and police forces. Under its chief, [[Nikolai Yezhov]], the NKVD carried out prosecution of the perceived enemies of the state known as the [[Great Purge]], that affected millions of people. By 1938, however, the purge had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure of the Soviet state, its economy and armed forces, and Stalin had decided to wind the purge down.
  
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[[Image:ac.beria3.jpg|thumb|250px|An official poster eulogising Beria]]
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In September Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD. He concluded the era of the Great Purge by liquidating NKVD officials, including his erstwhile superior, Yezhov who was executed in 1940. After assuming control of the NKVD, Beria replaced half its personnel with people he believed to be loyal, many of them from the [[Caucasus (geographic region)|Caucasus]].
  
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In August 1938 Stalin brought Beria to [[Moscow]] as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs ([[NKVD]]), the ministry which oversaw the [[state security]] and police forces. Under [[Nikolai Yezhov]], the NKVD carried out prosecution of the perceived enemies of the state known as the [[Great Purge]], that affected millions of people. By 1938, however, the purge had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure of the Soviet state, its economy and armed forces, and Stalin had decided to wind the purge down. In September Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded Yezhov as head of NKVD (Yezhov was executed in 1940). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the [[Caucasus (geographic region)|Caucasus]].
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Though he ended the purge, Beria initiated other widespread repressive activities, administering the vast network of labor camps set up throughout the country and supervising deportations of populations from [[Poland]] and the [[Baltic states]] following their occupation by Soviet forces.
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Beria's name has become closely identified with the Great Purge as well, but in fact he presided over the NKVD during an easing of the repression. Over 100,000 people were released from the labour camps, and it was officially admitted that there had been some injustices and "excesses" during the purges, which were blamed on Yezhov. Nevertheless this liberalisation was only relative: arrests and executions continued, and in 1940, as war approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated. During this period Beria supervised the deportations of population from [[Poland]] and the [[Baltic states]] following their occupation by Soviet forces. {{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
  
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==Consolidating power==
 
In March 1939 Beria became a candidate member of the Communist Party's [[Politburo]]. Although he did not become a full member until 1946, he was already one of the senior leaders of the Soviet state. In 1941 Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, a highest military-like rank within the Soviet police ranking system of that time.
 
In March 1939 Beria became a candidate member of the Communist Party's [[Politburo]]. Although he did not become a full member until 1946, he was already one of the senior leaders of the Soviet state. In 1941 Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, a highest military-like rank within the Soviet police ranking system of that time.
  
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In February 1941 he became a Deputy Chairman of the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom), and in June, when [[Nazi Germany]] invaded the Soviet Union, he became a member of the [[State Defence Committee]] (GKO). During [[World War II]] he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labour camps for wartime production. He took control of production of armaments and (with [[Georgy Malenkov]]) aircraft and aircraft engines. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malenkov, which later became of central importance.
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[[Image:Beria-poster.jpg|thumb|200px|Soviet poster promoting Beria]]
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In February 1941 he became a Deputy Chairman of the [[Council of People's Commissars]] (Sovnarkom), and in June, when [[Nazi Germany]] invaded the Soviet Union, he became a member of the [[State Defense Committee]] (GKO). During [[World War II]] he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labor camps for wartime production. He took control of production of armaments, aircraft, and aircraft engines. This also marked the beginning of Beria's alliance with [[Georgy Malenkov]] which later became of central importance.
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In 1944, as the Germans were driven from Soviet soil, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the [[Chechnia|Chechens]], the [[Ingushetia|Ingush]], the [[Crimean Tatars]] and the [[Volga Germans]]. All these were deported to Soviet [[Central Asia]]. See "[[Population transfer in the Soviet Union]]".
 
  
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In December 1944 Beria was also charged with supervision of the [[Soviet atomic bomb project]]. In this connection he ran the successful Soviet espionage campaign against [[United States]] [[Manhattan Project|atomic weapons programme]] which resulted in Soviets obtaining a nuclear bomb technology, building and testing a bomb in 1949. However his most important contribution (and arguably the main reason for putting him in charge) was providing a necessary workforce. The actual implementation of a nuclear project requires huge human resources for various support, often hazardous, works, not just a team of talented nuclear physicists. The Gulag system provided tens of thousands of workers for mining [[uranium]], construction and running of uranium processing plants, and construction of test facilities (at [[Semipalatinsk Test Site|Semipalatinsk]], [[Vaygach]], [[Novaya Zemlya]] and others). NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project.  
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In 1944, as the Germans were driven from Soviet soil, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the [[Chechnia|Chechens]], the [[Ingushetia|Ingush]], the [[Crimean Tatars]] and the [[Volga Germans]]. Large populations of these minorities were deported to Soviet [[Central Asia]].
  
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In July 1945, as Soviet police ranks were converted to a uniform military system, Beria's rank was converted to that of a [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]]. Although he had never held a military command, Beria, through his organisation of war production, made a significant contribution to the Soviet Union's victory in World War II.
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In December 1944 Beria was also charged with the the supervision of the [[Soviet atomic bomb project]]. In this connection he ran the successful Soviet espionage campaign against [[United States]] [[Manhattan Project|atomic weapons program]] which resulted in the Soviets obtaining a nuclear bomb technology, and building and testing a bomb in 1949. However his most important contribution was providing a necessary workforce. The Gulag system provided tens of thousands of workers for mining [[uranium]], construction and running of uranium processing plants, and construction of test facilities. Beria's NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project. In July 1945, as Soviet police ranks were converted to a uniform military system, Beria's rank was converted to that of a [[Marshal of the Soviet Union]].
  
 
==Postwar politics==
 
==Postwar politics==
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With Stalin nearing 70, the postwar years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among his lieutenants. At the end of the war the most likely successor seemed to be [[Andrei Zhdanov]], party leader in [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] during the war, then in charge of all cultural matters in 1946. Even during the war Beria and Zhdanov had been rivals, but after 1946 Beria formed an alliance with Malenkov to block Zhdanov's rise. In January 1946 Beria left the post of the head of the [[NKVD]], while retaining general control over national security matters from his position of Deputy Prime Minister, under Stalin.
  
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[[Image:Lavrenti_Beria_Stalins_family.jpg|thumb|300px|Beria with Stalin (in background) and Stalin's daughter [[Svetlana Alliluyeva|Svetlana]]]]
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Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, and Beria and Malenkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Zhdanov's associates known as the "[[Leningrad Affair]]." Among the more than 2,000 people reportedly executed were Zhdanov's deputy [[Aleksei Kuznetsov]], the economic chief [[Nikolai Voznesensky]], the Leningrad Party head [[Pyotr Popkov]] and the Prime Minister of the [[RSFSR|Russian Republic]], [[Mikhail Rodionov]]. It was only after Zhdanov's death that [[Nikita Khrushchev]] began to be considered as a possible alternative to the Beria-Malenkov axis.
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With Stalin nearing 70, the postwar years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among his lieutenants. At the end of the war the most likely successor seemed to be [[Andrei Zhdanov]], party leader in [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] during the war, then in charge of all cultural matters in 1946. Even during the war Beria and Zhdanov had been rivals, but after 1946 Beria formed an alliance with Malenkov to block Zhdanov's rise{{Fact|date=February 2007}}.
 
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In January 1946 Beria left the post of the head of the [[NKVD]], while retaining general control over national security matters from his post of Deputy Prime Minister, under Stalin. The new head, [[Sergei Kruglov]], was not Beria's protégé. In addition, by the Summer of 1946, Beria's loyalist [[Vsevolod Merkulov]] was replaced by [[Viktor Abakumov]] as head of the [[MGB]]. Kruglov and Abakumov then moved expeditiously to replace the security apparatus leadership with new people outside of Beria's inner circle, such that very soon Deputy Minister of [[MVD]] [[Stepan Mamulov]] represented the only remnant of it outside foreign intelligence, on which Beria kept a grip. In the following months, Abakumov started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Zhdanov, and sometimes on Stalin's direct orders. Some observers{{Fact|date=February 2007}} argue that these operations were aimed---initially tangentially, but with time more directly---at Beria.
 
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One of the first such moves was the [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]] affair that commenced in October of 1946 and eventually led to the murder of [[Solomon Mikhoels]] and the arrest of many other members. The reason this campaign had negatively reflected on Beria was that not only did he champion{{Fact|date=February 2007}} creation of the committee in 1942, but his own entourage included a substantial number of Jews.
 
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Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, and Beria and Malenkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Zhdanov's associates known as the "[[Leningrad Affair]]". Among the more than 2,000 people executed {{Fact|date=March 2007}} were Zhdanov's deputy [[Aleksei Kuznetsov]], the economic chief [[Nikolai Voznesensky]], the Leningrad Party head [[Pyotr Popkov]] and the Prime Minister of the [[RSFSR|Russian Republic]], [[Mikhail Rodionov]]. It was only after Zhdanov's death that [[Nikita Khrushchev]] began to be considered as a possible alternative to the Beria-Malenkov axis.
 
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Zhdanov's death did not, however, stop the anti-Semitic campaign. During the postwar years Beria supervised the establishment of Soviet-style systems of secret police, and hand-picked the leaders, in the countries of the [[Eastern Europe]]. A substantial number of these leaders were Jews. Starting in 1948, Abakumov initiated several investigations against these leaders, which culminated with the arrest in November of 1951 of [[Rudolf Slánský]], Bedřich Geminder, and others in [[Prague]], who were generally accused of [[Zionism]] and [[rootless cosmopolitan|cosmopolitanism]], but, more specifically, of using [[Czechoslovakia]] to funnel weapons to Israel. From Beria's standpoint, this charge was extremely explosive, because massive help to Israel was provided on his direct orders. Altogether, 14 leaders of Czechoslovakia, 11 of them Jewish, were tried, convicted, and executed in Prague (see [[Prague Trials]]). (Similar investigations have concurrently proceeded in Poland and other Soviet satellite countries.{{Fact|date=February 2007}})
 
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Around that time, Abakumov was replaced by [[Semyon Ignatiev]], who further intensified the anti-Semitic campaign. On January 13, 1953, the widest anti-semitic affair in the Soviet Union—that later came to be known as [[Doctors' plot]]—was initiated with an article in ''[[Pravda]]''. A number of the country's prominent Jewish doctors were accused of poisoning top Soviet leaders and arrested. Concurrently, an hysterical anti-Semitic propaganda campaign sprang in the mass-media. Altogether, 37 doctors (17 of them were Jewish) were arrested, and MGB, on Stalin's orders, started to prepare{{Fact|date=February 2007}} for the deportation, or worse, of the entire Jewish population to Russia's far east.
 
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Days after Stalin's death, Beria freed all the arrested doctors, announced that the entire matter was fabricated, and indeed arrested the MGB functionaries directly involved. The anticipated deportation of Jews never took place.
 
  
 
==After Stalin==
 
==After Stalin==
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Stalin died on March 5 1953, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders. The political memoirs of Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], published in 1993, claim that Beria boasted to Molotov that he had poisoned Stalin. The story about the murder of Stalin by Beria associates was elaborated by Russian writer and historian [[Edvard Radzinsky]] in his book ''Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives,'' based on interviews of a former Stalin's bodyguard, published memories, and other data.
  
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Stalin died on March 5 1953, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders. The political memoirs of Foreign Minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], published in 1993, claim that Beria boasted to Molotov that he had poisoned Stalin. The story about murder of Stalin by Beria associates was elaborated by Russian writer and historian [[Edvard Radzinsky]] in his book ''Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives'', based on interviews of a former Stalin's body guard, published memories, and other data. There is also evidence{{Fact|date=February 2007}} that for many hours after Stalin was found unconscious, he was denied medical help. It is possible that all the Soviet leaders agreed to allow Stalin, whom they all feared, to die.
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[[Image:Georgy malenkov.jpg|thumb|110px|Georgy Malenkov, Beria's ally in the immediate post-Stalin period]]
  
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After Stalin's death Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister and reappointed head of the [[MVD]], which he merged with the [[MGB (USSR)|MGB]]. His close ally [[Georgy Malenkov|Malenkov]] was the new [[Premier of the Soviet Union|Prime Minister]] and initially the most powerful man in the post-Stalin leadership. Beria was the second most powerful leader and, given Malenkov's lack of real leadership qualities, was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself. Khrushchev became Party Secretary, which was seen as a less important post than the Prime Ministership.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
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After Stalin's death, Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister and reappointed head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs [[MVD]], which he merged with the Ministry of State Security [[MGB (USSR)|MGB]], laying the groundwork for the emergence of the [[KGB]] a year later. His close ally [[Georgy Malenkov|Malenkov]] was the new [[Premier of the Soviet Union|Prime Minister]] and initially the most powerful man in the post-Stalin leadership. Beria was the second most powerful leader and was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself. Khrushchev became Party Secretary, which was seen as a less important post than the Prime Ministership.
  
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Beria was at the forefront of liberalization after Stalin's death. Beria publicly denounced the [[Doctors' plot]] as a "fraud," investigated and solved the murder of [[Solomon Mikhoels]], and effectuated an amnesty that freed over a million non-political prisoners from forced labour camps. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signalled{{Fact|date=February 2007}} a more liberal policy towards the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. He persuaded the [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|Presidium]] (as the Politburo had been renamed) and the Council of Ministers to urge the Communist regime in [[East Germany]] to allow liberal economic and political reforms. Beria maneuvered{{Fact|date=February 2007}} to marginalize the role of the party apparatus in the decision-making process in policy and economic matters.
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Beria was at the forefront of a pragmatic program of liberalization after Stalin's death. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signaled a more liberal policy toward the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union, perhaps reflecting his own non-Russian roots. He persuaded the [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|Presidium]] (as the Politburo had been renamed) and the Council of Ministers to urge the Communist regime in [[East Germany]] to allow liberal economic and political reforms.
  
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Some writers have held{{Fact|date=February 2007}} that Beria's liberal policies after Stalin's death were a tactic to maneuver himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Soviet Union, a role which later fell to Khrushchev. The essential task of Soviet reformers was to bring the secret police under party control, and Beria could not do this since the police were the basis of his own power.
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Whether or not he was sincere in these policies, Beria's past made it difficult for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Soviet Union, a role which later fell to Khrushchev. The essential task of Soviet reformers was to bring the secret police, which Beria himself had used as his primary power base, under party control.
  
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Others have argued{{Fact|date=February 2007}} that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Soviet Union by almost forty years.
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Given his record, it is not surprising that the other party leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this. Khrushchev opposed the alliance between Beria and Malenkov, but he was initially unable to challenge the Beria-Malenkov axis. Khrushchev's opportunity came in June 1953 when demonstrations against the East German Communist regime broke out in [[East Berlin]]. Party insiders were suspicious that Beria had grown soft toward the West and, the East German demonstrations convinced Molotov, Malenkov and [[Nikolai Bulganin]] that Beria's liberalizing policies were dangerous and destabilizing to Soviet interests. Within days of the events in Germany, Khrushchev persuaded the other leaders to support a party ''coup'' against Beria; even Beria's principal ally Malenkov abandoned him.
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[[Image:Beria timemag 1101530720 400.jpg|thumb|"Beria: [[Enemy of the people]]". [[Time (magazine)|TIME magazine]] cover, July 20 1953]]
 
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Given his record, it is not surprising that the other party leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this. Khrushchev opposed the alliance between Beria and Malenkov, but he was initially unable to challenge the Beria-Malenkov axis. Khrushchev's opportunity came in June 1953 when demonstrations against the East German Communist regime broke out in [[East Berlin]] (see [[Workers Uprising of 1953 in East Germany]]). There was a suspicion that the practical Beria was willing to trade the reunification of Germany and the end of the cold war for massive aid from the United States such as had been received in World War II. The East German demonstrations convinced Molotov, Malenkov and [[Nikolai Bulganin]] that Beria's policies were dangerous and destabilising to Soviet power. Within days of the events in Germany, Khrushchev persuaded the other leaders to support a party ''coup'' against Beria; even Beria's principal ally Malenkov abandoned him.
 
  
 
==Beria's fall==
 
==Beria's fall==
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Accounts of Beria's demise are contradictory. He was reportedly taken first to the [[Lefortovo prison]] and then to the headquarters of General [[Kirill Moskalenko]], commander of Moscow District Air defense and a wartime friend of Khrushchev's. His arrest was kept secret until his principal lieutenants could be arrested. The NKVD troops in Moscow which had been under Beria's command were disarmed by regular Army units. ''[[Pravda]]'' announced Beria's arrest on July 10, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism." Beria was tried by a "special tribunal" with no defense counsel and no right of appeal. He and his subordinates were immediately executed on December 23, 1953. <ref>PBS. org[http://www.pbs.org/opb/citizenk/]"Citizen Kurchatov Stalin's Bomb Maker" Retrieved August 22, 2007.</ref> His burial location remains a mystery to this day.
  
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Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Praesidium on June 26, where he launched an attack on Beria, accusing him of being in the pay of British intelligence. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on, Nikita Sergeyevich?" Molotov and others then also spoke against Beria, and Khrushchev put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to Marshal [[Georgy Zhukov]] and a group of armed officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria. Some accounts say that Beria was killed there and then, but this is incorrect{{Fact|date=February 2007}}. Some people say Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Konev shot and killed Beria on the spot. In a published interview with an L.A. Times reporter after his retirement, Khrushchev claimed that when Beria, without his bodyguards, came into Khrushchev's office, Khrushchev took a pistol from his desk and shot and killed Beria on the spot.
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[[Image:Dwight Eisenhower Nikita Khrushchev and their wives at state dinner 1959.png|thumb|250px|The Khrushchevs and the Eisenhowers: Khrushchev's rise to the top of the Soviet Union came at Beria's expense.]]
  
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Beria was taken first to the [[Lefortovo prison]] and then to the headquarters of General [[Kirill Moskalenko]], commander of Moscow District Air Defence and a wartime friend of Khrushchev's. His arrest was kept secret until his principal lieutenants could be arrested. The NKVD troops in Moscow which had been under Beria's command were disarmed by regular Army units. ''[[Pravda]]'' announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism."
+
However, according to other accounts, the trial was conducted post-mortem, and Beria's house was assaulted by military units on June 26, 1953. According to this version of events, Beria was killed on the spot.  
  
−
Beria was tried by a "special tribunal" with no defense counsel and no right of appeal. When the death sentence was passed, according to Moskalenko's later account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed on 23 December 1953.  (See 'Citizen Kurchatov' documentary for more details on his death<ref name="PBS on Beria">{{cite web|url=http://www.pbs.org/opb/citizenk/coldwar/index.html|title=Citizen Kurchatov Stalin's Bomb Maker|work=PBS|accessdate=February 12|accessyear=2007}}</ref>). His burial location remains a mystery to this day.
+
In any case, Beria's wife and son were sent to a labor camp. His wife, Nino, died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine; his son Sergo died in October 2000 still defending his father's reputation.
  
−
However, according to other accounts including his son's{{Fact|date=February 2007}}, Beria's house was assaulted on 26 June 1953, by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the special tribunal, [[Nikolay Shvernik]], has subsequently told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive.
+
In May 2000 the Supreme Court of [[Russia]] refused an application by members of Beria's family to overturn his 1953 conviction. The application was based on a Russian law that provided for rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled, that "Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could not be considered a victim."
−
 
 
−
Beria's wife and son were sent to a labour camp, but survived and were later released: his wife Nina died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine; his son Sergo died in October 2000 still defending his father's reputation. After Beria's death the [[MGB]] was separated from the [[MVD]] and reduced from the status of a Ministry to a Committee (known as the [[KGB]]), and no Soviet police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded.
 
−
 
 
−
In May 2000 the Supreme Court of [[Russia]] refused an application by members of Beria's family to overturn his 1953 conviction. The application was based on a Russian law that provided for rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled, however, that "Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could not be considered a victim".
 
  
 
==Allegations against Beria==
 
==Allegations against Beria==
 +
There are numerous allegations that Beria raped women, and that he personally tortured and killed many of his political victims. Charges of sexual assault and sexual deviance against Beria were first made in the speech by a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, [[Nikolay Shatalin]], at the Plenary Meeting of the committee on July 10, 1953, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Shatalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted [[syphilis]] as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Shatalin referred to a list, supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard, of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. Khrushchev in his posthumously published memoirs wrote: "We were given a list of more than a 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Stalin. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills…"
  
−
There are numerous allegations that Beria raped women, and that he personally tortured and killed many of his political victims.
+
By the 1980s, the sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. Numerous stories have also circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. Since the 1970s, Muscovites have been retelling stories of bones found in either the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London ''[[The Daily Telegraph|Daily Telegraph]]'' reported: "The latest grisly find—a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones—was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled <ref>Telegraph.co.UK ''Dailytelegraph''[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/23/wruss23.xml]"Stalin's depraved executioner still has grip on Moscow"
 +
Dec. 23, 2003. Retrieved October 18, 2007.</ref>
 +
Such reports are denied by Beria's defenders.
  
−
Charges of sexual assault and sexual deviance against Beria were first made in the speech by a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, [[Nikolay Shatalin]], at the Plenary Meeting of the committee on July 10, 1953, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Shatalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted [[syphilis]] as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Shatalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. Khrushchev in his posthumously published memoirs wrote: "We were given a list of more than a 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Stalin. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills..."
+
==Legacy==
 +
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, more than any other figure besides Stalin himself, was responsible for the institutionalization of the Soviet police state, its chief instrument, the [[NKVD]], and its eventual successor, the [[KGB]]. The vast, pervasive security apparatus that institutionalized terror, epitomized by the late night knock on the door, became Beria’s lasting legacy, not only in the [[Soviet Union]], but in other communist states as well.  
  
−
By the 1980s, the sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. The author [[Anton Antonov-Ovseenko]], who wrote a biography of Beria, mentions in an interview a specific and clearly perverted sexual game Beria is said to have forced upon young girls before picking one of them to be raped. This alleged practice got the name "Beria's Flower Game."<ref name="dailytelegraph">{{cite web|url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/23/wruss23.xml|title=Stalin's depraved executioner still has grip on Moscow|work=London Daily Telegraph|accessdate=December 19|accessyear=2006}}</ref>
+
Beria also came to personify the [[Great Purge]] trials of the 1930s, although he was not the primary architect. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the vast network of labor camps, which would later be called, by Soviet dissident writer [[Alexander Solzhenitsyn]], the “[[Gulag Archipelago]].”
−
 
−
Numerous stories have circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. Since the 1970s, Muscovites have been retelling stories of bones found in either the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London ''[[The Daily Telegraph|Daily Telegraph]]'' reported in December 2003: "The latest grisly find &mdash; a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones &mdash; was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled. In the basement, Anil, an Indian who has worked at the embassy for 17 years, showed a plastic bag of human bones he had found in the cellars."<ref name=dailytelegraph/>
 
−
Such reports are denied by the people close to Beria, such as his son [[Sergo Beria]] and former Soviet foreign intelligence chief [[Pavel Sudoplatov]].
 
  
−
==See also==
+
==Notes==
 +
<references/>
  
−
*[[History of the Soviet Union]]
+
==Further reading==
−
*[[List of Georgians]]
 
−
 
 
−
{{start box}}
 
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{{succession box | before=[[Samson Mamulia]] | title=First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party | years=1931&ndash;1938 | after=[[Kandid Charkviani]]}}
 
−
{{end box}}
 
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{{TranscaucasiaPres}}
 
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{{GeorgiaPresidents}}
 
  
−
==Further reading==
+
* Beria, Sergo. ''Beria: My Father, Inside Stalin's Kremlin.'' London, 2001. Duckworth Publishers, 2003. ISBN 9780715632055
−
* Antonov-Ovseenko, Anton, ''Beria'', Moscow, 1999
+
* Beria, L. P. ''On the history of the Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia: Speech delivered at a meeting of party functionaries, July 21-22, 1935.'' Translated from the 4th Russian edition of 1939. ASIN B0006DFA56
−
* Avtorkhanov, Abdurahman, ''The Mystery of Stalin's Death'', ''Novyi Mir'', #5, 1991, pp. 194-233 (in Russian)
+
* Khruschev, Nikita. ''Khruschev Remembers: Last Testament.'' Random House, 1977. ISBN 0517175479
−
* Beria, Sergo, ''Beria: My Father'', London, 2001
+
* Knight, Amy. ''Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant.'' Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0691032572
−
* Knight, Amy, ''Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant'', Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-691-03257-2
+
* Rhodes, Richard. ''Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb.'' Simon and Schuster, 1996. ISBN 0684824140
−
* Khruschev, Nikita, ''Khruschev Remembers: Last Testament'', Random House, 1977, ISBN 0-517-17547-9
+
* Stove, R. J. ''The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims.'' Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003. ISBN 189355466X
−
* Rhodes, Richard, <I>Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb<I>, Simon and Schuster, 1996 ISBN 0-684-82414-0
+
* Sudoplatov, Pavel. ''Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster.'' Little Brown & Co, 1994. ISBN 0316773522
−
* Stove, R. J., ''The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims'', Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003). ISBN 1-893554-66-X
+
* Yakovlev, A. N., V. Naumov, and Y. Sigachev, eds. ''Lavrenty Beria, 1953. Stenographic Report of July's Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Other Documents.'' Moscow: International Democracy Foundation, Moscow, 1999 (in Russian). ISBN 5895110061
−
* Sudoplatov, Pavel, ''[[Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster]]'', Little Brown & Co, 1994, ISBN 0-316-77352-2
 
−
* Yakovlev, A.N., Naumov, V., and Sigachev, Y. (eds), ''Lavrenty Beria, 1953. Stenographic Report of July's Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Other Documents'', International Democracy Foundation, Moscow, 1999 (in Russian). ISBN 5-89511-006-1
 
  
−
==References==
 
−
<div class="references-small">
 
−
<references />
 
−
</div>
 
 
==External links==
 
==External links==
−
*[https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art6.html stalin's soviet killing fields]
+
All links retrieved October 25, 2022.
−
*[https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/pg62.gif Photocopy of beria's letter to stalin to execute Katyn officers prisoners]
+
* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2000/05/000529-beria1.htm An outline of the Russian Supreme Court decision of 29 May 2000]. ''www.globalsecurity.org''.  
−
*[http://admin.smolensk.ru/history/katyn/ Official site of the Memorial to Katyn]
 
−
*[http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/01/interviews/beria/ Interview with Sergo Beria]
 
−
*[http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2000/05/000529-beria1.htm An outline of the Russian Supreme Court decision of 29 May 2000]
 
−
*[http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=people/Beria,+Lavrenti Annotated bibliography for Lavrenty Beria from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues]
 
−
 
  
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[[category:history and biography]]
 
 
{{credit|112370168}}
 
{{credit|112370168}}
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[[Category:History]]

Latest revision as of 17:56, 25 October 2022

Lavrentiy Beria

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; March 29, 1899 – December 23, 1953) was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus.

Beria is now remembered chiefly as the executor of the final stages of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s. He was in charge of Soviet NKVD at its peak, concluding the era of the Purge by liquidating the very officials who had carried it out, and administering the vast network of labor camps known to history as the Gulag Archipelago.

He rose to prominence in the Cheka (secret police) in Georgia and the Transcaucasus, becoming Communist Party secretary in these areas, and in 1938 became head of the natonal secret police. As commissar (later minister) of internal affairs, Beria wielded great power, and he was the first in this post to become (1946) a member of the Politburo.

He was also influential during and after World War II and immediately after Stalin's death in March 1953, when he apparently attempted to use his position as chief of the secret police to succeed Stalin as dictator. Ironically, during this time Beria recast himself as a liberalizing reformer and was even suspected of making a deal with the West. His bid for power thus ended with his execution on the orders of Nikita S. Khrushchev.

Rise to power

Beria was born the son of Pavel Khukhaevich Beria, a peasant, in Merkheuli, near Sukhumi in the Abkhazian region of Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. He was a member of the Mingrelian subgroup. He was educated at a technical school in Sukhumi, and is recorded as having joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917 while an engineering student in Baku.

In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), the original Bolshevik political police. At that time, a Bolshevik revolt, supported by the Red Army, occurred in the Menshevik Democratic Republic of Georgia, and the Cheka was heavily involved in this conflict. By 1922 Beria was deputy head of the Cheka's successor, the OGPU (Combined State Political Directorate), in Georgia. In 1924 he led the repression of nationalist disturbances in Georgia, after which it is said that up to ten thousand people were executed. For this display of "Bolshevik ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Transcaucasian OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Beria and Stalin's daughter Svetlana, with Stalin in background, in the 1930s

In 1926 Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU and was an ally of fellow Georgian Joseph Stalin in his rise to power within the Communist Party. He was appointed Party Secretary in Georgia in 1931, and for the whole Transcaucasian region in 1932. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1934.

During this time Beria also started to attack fellow members of the Georgian Bolshevik party, particularly Gaioz Devdariani, who was then Minister of Education of the Georgian SSR. Both brothers of Devdariani, George and Shalva—holding important positions in Cheka and the Communist party of Georgia—were killed on the orders of Beria. Eventually, Gaioz himself was charged with counter-revolutionary activities and was executed in 1938 on the orders of the NKVD troika. Even after moving on from Georgia, Beria continued to effectively control the republic's Communist Party through the early 1950s.

By 1935 Beria was one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Stalin's entourage with a lengthy oration "On the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia," later published as a book, which portrayed the history of Transcaucasian Bolshevism emphasizing Stalin's role in it. When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and government began in 1934 after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent republics.

Beria at the NKVD

The NKVD Headquarters on Lubyanka Square which later became the headquarters of the KGB

In August 1938 Stalin brought Beria to Moscow as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the ministry which oversaw the state security and police forces. Under its chief, Nikolai Yezhov, the NKVD carried out prosecution of the perceived enemies of the state known as the Great Purge, that affected millions of people. By 1938, however, the purge had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure of the Soviet state, its economy and armed forces, and Stalin had decided to wind the purge down.

In September Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD. He concluded the era of the Great Purge by liquidating NKVD officials, including his erstwhile superior, Yezhov who was executed in 1940. After assuming control of the NKVD, Beria replaced half its personnel with people he believed to be loyal, many of them from the Caucasus.

Though he ended the purge, Beria initiated other widespread repressive activities, administering the vast network of labor camps set up throughout the country and supervising deportations of populations from Poland and the Baltic states following their occupation by Soviet forces.

Consolidating power

In March 1939 Beria became a candidate member of the Communist Party's Politburo. Although he did not become a full member until 1946, he was already one of the senior leaders of the Soviet state. In 1941 Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, a highest military-like rank within the Soviet police ranking system of that time.

Soviet poster promoting Beria

In February 1941 he became a Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), and in June, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he became a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO). During World War II he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labor camps for wartime production. He took control of production of armaments, aircraft, and aircraft engines. This also marked the beginning of Beria's alliance with Georgy Malenkov which later became of central importance.

In 1944, as the Germans were driven from Soviet soil, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the Chechens, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Germans. Large populations of these minorities were deported to Soviet Central Asia.

In December 1944 Beria was also charged with the the supervision of the Soviet atomic bomb project. In this connection he ran the successful Soviet espionage campaign against United States atomic weapons program which resulted in the Soviets obtaining a nuclear bomb technology, and building and testing a bomb in 1949. However his most important contribution was providing a necessary workforce. The Gulag system provided tens of thousands of workers for mining uranium, construction and running of uranium processing plants, and construction of test facilities. Beria's NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project. In July 1945, as Soviet police ranks were converted to a uniform military system, Beria's rank was converted to that of a Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Postwar politics

With Stalin nearing 70, the postwar years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among his lieutenants. At the end of the war the most likely successor seemed to be Andrei Zhdanov, party leader in Leningrad during the war, then in charge of all cultural matters in 1946. Even during the war Beria and Zhdanov had been rivals, but after 1946 Beria formed an alliance with Malenkov to block Zhdanov's rise. In January 1946 Beria left the post of the head of the NKVD, while retaining general control over national security matters from his position of Deputy Prime Minister, under Stalin.

Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, and Beria and Malenkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Zhdanov's associates known as the "Leningrad Affair." Among the more than 2,000 people reportedly executed were Zhdanov's deputy Aleksei Kuznetsov, the economic chief Nikolai Voznesensky, the Leningrad Party head Pyotr Popkov and the Prime Minister of the Russian Republic, Mikhail Rodionov. It was only after Zhdanov's death that Nikita Khrushchev began to be considered as a possible alternative to the Beria-Malenkov axis.

After Stalin

Stalin died on March 5 1953, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders. The political memoirs of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claim that Beria boasted to Molotov that he had poisoned Stalin. The story about the murder of Stalin by Beria associates was elaborated by Russian writer and historian Edvard Radzinsky in his book Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives, based on interviews of a former Stalin's bodyguard, published memories, and other data.

Georgy Malenkov, Beria's ally in the immediate post-Stalin period

After Stalin's death, Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister and reappointed head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs MVD, which he merged with the Ministry of State Security MGB, laying the groundwork for the emergence of the KGB a year later. His close ally Malenkov was the new Prime Minister and initially the most powerful man in the post-Stalin leadership. Beria was the second most powerful leader and was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself. Khrushchev became Party Secretary, which was seen as a less important post than the Prime Ministership.

Beria was at the forefront of a pragmatic program of liberalization after Stalin's death. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signaled a more liberal policy toward the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union, perhaps reflecting his own non-Russian roots. He persuaded the Presidium (as the Politburo had been renamed) and the Council of Ministers to urge the Communist regime in East Germany to allow liberal economic and political reforms.

Whether or not he was sincere in these policies, Beria's past made it difficult for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Soviet Union, a role which later fell to Khrushchev. The essential task of Soviet reformers was to bring the secret police, which Beria himself had used as his primary power base, under party control.

Given his record, it is not surprising that the other party leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this. Khrushchev opposed the alliance between Beria and Malenkov, but he was initially unable to challenge the Beria-Malenkov axis. Khrushchev's opportunity came in June 1953 when demonstrations against the East German Communist regime broke out in East Berlin. Party insiders were suspicious that Beria had grown soft toward the West and, the East German demonstrations convinced Molotov, Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin that Beria's liberalizing policies were dangerous and destabilizing to Soviet interests. Within days of the events in Germany, Khrushchev persuaded the other leaders to support a party coup against Beria; even Beria's principal ally Malenkov abandoned him.

Beria's fall

Accounts of Beria's demise are contradictory. He was reportedly taken first to the Lefortovo prison and then to the headquarters of General Kirill Moskalenko, commander of Moscow District Air defense and a wartime friend of Khrushchev's. His arrest was kept secret until his principal lieutenants could be arrested. The NKVD troops in Moscow which had been under Beria's command were disarmed by regular Army units. Pravda announced Beria's arrest on July 10, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism." Beria was tried by a "special tribunal" with no defense counsel and no right of appeal. He and his subordinates were immediately executed on December 23, 1953. [1] His burial location remains a mystery to this day.

The Khrushchevs and the Eisenhowers: Khrushchev's rise to the top of the Soviet Union came at Beria's expense.

However, according to other accounts, the trial was conducted post-mortem, and Beria's house was assaulted by military units on June 26, 1953. According to this version of events, Beria was killed on the spot.

In any case, Beria's wife and son were sent to a labor camp. His wife, Nino, died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine; his son Sergo died in October 2000 still defending his father's reputation.

In May 2000 the Supreme Court of Russia refused an application by members of Beria's family to overturn his 1953 conviction. The application was based on a Russian law that provided for rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled, that "Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could not be considered a victim."

Allegations against Beria

There are numerous allegations that Beria raped women, and that he personally tortured and killed many of his political victims. Charges of sexual assault and sexual deviance against Beria were first made in the speech by a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikolay Shatalin, at the Plenary Meeting of the committee on July 10, 1953, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Shatalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Shatalin referred to a list, supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard, of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. Khrushchev in his posthumously published memoirs wrote: "We were given a list of more than a 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Stalin. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills…"

By the 1980s, the sexual assault stories about Beria included the rape of teenage girls. Numerous stories have also circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. Since the 1970s, Muscovites have been retelling stories of bones found in either the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London Daily Telegraph reported: "The latest grisly find—a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones—was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled [2] Such reports are denied by Beria's defenders.

Legacy

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, more than any other figure besides Stalin himself, was responsible for the institutionalization of the Soviet police state, its chief instrument, the NKVD, and its eventual successor, the KGB. The vast, pervasive security apparatus that institutionalized terror, epitomized by the late night knock on the door, became Beria’s lasting legacy, not only in the Soviet Union, but in other communist states as well.

Beria also came to personify the Great Purge trials of the 1930s, although he was not the primary architect. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the vast network of labor camps, which would later be called, by Soviet dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the “Gulag Archipelago.”

Notes

  1. ↑ PBS. org[1]"Citizen Kurchatov Stalin's Bomb Maker" Retrieved August 22, 2007.
  2. ↑ Telegraph.co.UK Dailytelegraph[2]"Stalin's depraved executioner still has grip on Moscow" Dec. 23, 2003. Retrieved October 18, 2007.

Further reading

  • Beria, Sergo. Beria: My Father, Inside Stalin's Kremlin. London, 2001. Duckworth Publishers, 2003. ISBN 9780715632055
  • Beria, L. P. On the history of the Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia: Speech delivered at a meeting of party functionaries, July 21-22, 1935. Translated from the 4th Russian edition of 1939. ASIN B0006DFA56
  • Khruschev, Nikita. Khruschev Remembers: Last Testament. Random House, 1977. ISBN 0517175479
  • Knight, Amy. Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant. Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0691032572
  • Rhodes, Richard. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb. Simon and Schuster, 1996. ISBN 0684824140
  • Stove, R. J. The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims. Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003. ISBN 189355466X
  • Sudoplatov, Pavel. Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster. Little Brown & Co, 1994. ISBN 0316773522
  • Yakovlev, A. N., V. Naumov, and Y. Sigachev, eds. Lavrenty Beria, 1953. Stenographic Report of July's Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Other Documents. Moscow: International Democracy Foundation, Moscow, 1999 (in Russian). ISBN 5895110061

External links

All links retrieved October 25, 2022.

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