Lavrenty Palych Beria 45. What was Lavrentiy Beria really like?

Soviet statesman and politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945, stripped of this title in 1953). He was part of Stalin's inner circle. As the head of the NKVD (1938-1945), he participated in Stalin’s repressions, and at the same time carried out the rehabilitation of those illegally repressed. He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons.

Life story

Born in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi region, into a poor peasant family. Father - Pavel Khulaevich Beria (1872 - 1922). In 1915, after graduating from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, L.P. Beria left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction Technical School. From the age of 17, he supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him.

In March 1917, L.P. Beria organized a RSDLP (Bolshevik) cell at the school in Baku. From March 1919 until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920), L.P. Beria also led an illegal communist organization of technicians. In 1919, L.P. Beria successfully graduated from a technical school and received a diploma as an architect-builder technician.

While preparing an armed uprising against the Menshevik government in Georgia, he was arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. In August 1920, after he organized a hunger strike of political prisoners, L.P. Beria was expelled from Georgia.

Returning to Baku, L.P. Beria entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study.

In April 1921, the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) sent L.P. Beria to KGB work. From 1921 to 1931, he held senior positions in Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence agencies, was deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Extraordinary Commission, chairman of the Georgian GPU, chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Trans-SFSR, and was a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.

During his activities in the bodies of the Cheka-GPU in Georgia and Transcaucasia, L.P. Beria took an active part in the fight against the Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Musavatists, Trotskyists, foreign intelligence agents and other persons who opposed the Bolsheviks who came to power, or were accused of such confrontation. L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR with the wording “For the successful fight against counter-revolution in Transcaucasia.”

In November 1931, L.P. Beria was transferred to party work - he was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) and secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee of the CPSU (b), and in 1932 - first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee of the CPSU (b) and secretary of the Central Committee Communist Party (b) of Georgia.

In 1938, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks transferred L.P. Beria to work in Moscow: on August 22, 1938, he became the first deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Ezhov, on September 29 he headed the key Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD, and on 25 November is already replacing Yezhov as People's Commissar. Since March 22, 1939 - candidate member of the Politburo.

In February 1941, the head of the NKVD was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and he was awarded the title "State Commissar of State Security." During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, he was a member of the State Defense Committee, and from May 16, 1944 - deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and carried out important assignments of the country's leadership and the ruling party, both related to the management of the national economy and at the front. In particular, Beria became the initiator and curator of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

March 18, 1946 L.P. Beria becomes a member of the Politburo, that is, he is among the top leaders of the country. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 30, 1943, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor “for special merits in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions.” On July 9, 1945, when special state security ranks were replaced with military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Laureate of the Stalin Prize (1949) “for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the testing of atomic weapons.” Recipient of the “Certificate of Honorary Citizen of the Soviet Union” (1949).

Economic activity in Transcaucasia

From 1931 to 1938, while holding the posts of secretary and first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Transcaucasia, Beria consistently pursued a policy of developing agriculture and industry in Transcaucasia. Mass plantings of citrus fruits, tea, grapes, and rare industrial crops began. In exchange for these products, grain, meat, and vegetables came to Transcaucasia. Irrigation work was carried out, as a result of which the area under cultivation increased. The drainage of the Colchis Lowland and a number of other swamps in Georgia and Abkhazia, in addition to the introduction of new lands into agricultural use, also led to an improvement in the general epidemiological situation. Malaria has ceased to be the scourge of Transcaucasia.

A number of enterprises in the food, light, and construction industries, as well as machine-building plants were built, and the Baku oil fields were reconstructed and expanded. Large-scale construction of residential buildings and public buildings in Tbilisi, reconstruction and construction of a number of resorts on the Black Sea coast were also launched.

Repression

There are still different points of view on Beria’s participation in the repressions of the late 30s and 40s. No one doubts that the head of the NKVD and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in those years obviously had the most direct relation to what was happening, but the nature of Beria’s personal contribution is assessed differently by different researchers.

Alexey Barinov, a journalist for AiF, wrote in 2004 that already in the mid-thirties, heading the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Beria personally and through the apparatus carried out mass repressions among the intelligentsia of Transcaucasia. Without citing, however, references to documents, Barinov claims that there is a lot of testimony that Beria himself participated in interrogations and torture.

Beria had nothing to do with the decision to start the repressions, since they began with the decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of July 2, 1937, “On anti-Soviet elements.” At this time, Lavrenty Pavlovich was still in Transcaucasia.

It is known that in 1939, after Beria assumed the post of People's Commissar of the NKVD to replace Yezhov, the pace of repressions began to decline sharply. Moreover, in 1939, a number of (at least one hundred thousand) cases of previously “unreasonably convicted” persons were reviewed. In November 1939, an order was issued “On shortcomings in the investigative work of the NKVD bodies,” which demanded strict adherence to criminal procedural norms. However, for example, Professor Rudolf Pihoya, the former head of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, argues that this was Stalin’s game against Yezhov and to increase his own popularity, and Beria did not play a decisive role here. At the same time, A.P. Parshev, a publicist and writer, states that it was Beria who initiated the decrees to curtail repression.

The Krugosvet encyclopedia and the Memorial Society report that in 1939-1941, as a result of Beria’s activities, mass deportations of residents of the Baltic republics annexed to the USSR, Western Ukraine, Western Belarus and Moldova were carried out. Despite the slowdown in the rate of repression, the powers of the Special Meeting under the NKVD expanded (especially after the start of the Great Patriotic War, when the Special Meeting received the right to apply “capital punishment”). Opponents of his rehabilitation also associate the name of Beria with confirmation of the right to torture “obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people.” Beria is also accused of organizing the execution in 1940 of a significant part of captured Polish officers near Katyn near Smolensk and in several other camps according to a secret resolution of the Politburo. After June 22, 1941, total preventive deportations of Soviet Germans, Finns, Greeks and some other peoples took place. Beginning in 1943 and later, total deportations were applied to Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais and Balkars, Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, as well as some other peoples of the North Caucasus and Crimea, accused of collaborating with the occupiers. Beria, as the head of the NKVD, is associated with the organization of these deportations.

In the collections “The Polish Underground on the Territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus 1939-1941.” (vol. 1,2. Warsaw-Moscow, 2001) and “Deportations of Polish citizens from Western Ukraine and Western Belarus in 1940” (Warsaw-Moscow, 2003) it is argued that deportations in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were directed mainly against hostile to Soviet power and a nationalist-minded part of the Polish population.

At the end and after the war, he devoted himself entirely to working on the nuclear potential of the USSR and could not be directly involved in subsequent repressions. At the same time, they also refer to the fact that preventive deportations were used in countries allied with the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, and the so-called “deportations of retribution” were more humane than imprisoning the majority of the male population of the deported peoples in camps and colonies.

Beria's son, Sergo Lavrentievich, published a book of memoirs about his father in 1994, which many regarded as an attempt to whitewash his father. In particular, L.P. Beria is described there as a supporter of democratic reforms, an end to the violent construction of socialism in the GDR, the return of the Southern Kuril Islands to Japan, and so on. At the same time, the author claims that his father, like any other supreme leader of our country at that time, bears personal responsibility for the repression and cannot be rehabilitated.

Nuclear project

On February 11, 1943, Stalin signed the decision of the State Defense Committee on the work program for the creation of an atomic bomb under the leadership of V. M. Molotov. But already in the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR on the laboratory of I.V. Kurchatov, adopted on December 3, 1944, it was L.P. Beria who was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium,” that is, approximately a year and ten months after their supposed start, which was difficult during the war.

After the first American atomic device was tested in the desert near Alamogordo, work in the USSR to create its own nuclear weapons was significantly accelerated.

The Special Committee was created on the basis of a resolution of the State Defense Committee of August 20, 1945. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (soon to be suspended), V. A. Makhnev, M. G. Pervukhin. The Committee was entrusted with “the management of all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium.” Later it was transformed into a Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he provided general management of the entire project. In March 1953, the Special Committee was entrusted with the management of other special works of defense significance. Based on the decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee of June 26, 1953 (the day of Beria’s arrest and removal), the Special Committee was liquidated, and its apparatus was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR.

On August 29, 1949, the domestic atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site and Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the USSR. And the test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb took place on August 12, 1953, soon after Beria was removed from all posts.

1953: the rise and fall of Beria

By the time of the death of I.V. Stalin, Beria as a political figure was largely relegated to the background: since December 1945, he no longer headed the internal affairs and state security agencies; in 1951-1952, the new leaders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security fabricated the so-called “Mingrelian case" against the leaders of the organizations of the Georgian Communist Party in the western regions of the republic - it is usually believed that this action was indirectly directed against Beria, who was Mingrelian by origin (however, in his passport in the nationality column it was written "Georgian"). Beria also did not control other political repressions of the last years of Stalin’s rule, in particular, the case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and the “doctors’ case.” Nevertheless, after the 19th Congress of the CPSU, Beria was included not only in the expanded Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which replaced the previous Politburo, but also in the “leading five” of the Presidium, created at the suggestion of Stalin.

There is a version about Beria’s involvement in Stalin’s death, or at least that, on his orders, timely assistance was not provided to the terminally ill Stalin. Documentary materials and eyewitness accounts do not support the version according to which Stalin’s death was violent. Beria took part in Stalin's funeral on March 9, 1953, and made a speech at the funeral meeting. By this time, he had already entered the new Soviet government, headed by G. M. Malenkov, as Minister of Internal Affairs. The newly formed Ministry of Internal Affairs merged the previously existing Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security. At the same time, Beria became the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and, in fact, the main contender for sole power in the country.

As Minister of Internal Affairs, Beria carried out a number of liberalization measures. On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared, freeing 1.2 million people. According to Beria’s secret order, torture during interrogations was abolished, and it was ordered to strictly follow “socialist legality.” A number of high-profile political criminal cases were dropped or reviewed. The “doctors’ case” was closed, those arrested in connection with it were released; For the first time, it was openly announced that “illegal investigative methods” were used against the accused. All those convicted in the “Leningrad case” and “Mingrelian case” were also rehabilitated. High-ranking military personnel imprisoned during the trials of the late 1940s and early 1950s were released and restored to rank (including Chief Marshal of Aviation A. A. Novikov, Marshal of Artillery N. D. Yakovlev, etc.) In total, investigative cases involving 400 thousand people were closed.

A number of measures taken during these months on Beria’s initiative concerned domestic and foreign policy. Beria advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects. He achieved the start of negotiations on a truce in Korea and tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia. After the start of the anti-communist uprising in the GDR, he proposed to set a course for the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving, bourgeois state.” Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, Beria sent documents to the republican Central Committee that spoke about the incorrect Russification policy and illegal repressions.

The strengthening of Beria, his claims to Stalin's inheritance and his lack of allies in the top party leadership led to his downfall. Members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were informed, on the initiative of N. S. Khrushchev, that Beria was planning to carry out a coup d’etat and arrest the Presidium at the premiere of the opera “The Decembrists.” On June 26, 1953, during a meeting of the Presidium, Beria, by prior agreement between Khrushchev and G.K. Zhukov, was arrested, tied up, taken out of the Kremlin by car and kept in custody in a bunker at the headquarters of the Moscow Air Defense District. The same day dates back to the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR depriving Beria of all titles and awards. In July 1953, at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, he was formally removed from the Presidium and the Central Committee and expelled from the party. Only then did information about Beria’s arrest and removal appear in Soviet newspapers and cause a great public outcry.

Regarding the further fate of Beria, there are several versions of varying degrees of reliability. Beria's son in his book defended the version according to which his father was not arrested at all at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (thus, the memoirs of Khrushchev, the stories of Zhukov and others are tendentious lies), but was killed as a result of a special operation in his mansion in the center of Moscow. There are notes signed with Beria's name and addressed to various members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, including Malenkov, Khrushchev and Voroshilov: in them, Beria defends his innocence, admits his foreign policy “mistakes” and complains about the lack of normal lighting and pince-nez. They are dated the first days of July 1953; if we accept their authenticity, then Beria was at least alive at that time.

According to the official version, supported by documents, Beria lived until December 1953 and appeared, along with some of his former employees from the state security agencies (V.N. Merkulov, B.Z. Kobulov, etc.), arrested during the same year, before the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I. S. Konev. Accused of a large number of acts that had nothing to do with Beria’s real activities: espionage for Great Britain, the desire for “the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.” Contrary to rumors, Beria was not accused of raping dozens or even hundreds of women; in his file there is only one such statement from a person who was Beria’s long-term mistress, bore him a daughter and lived at his expense in an apartment in the center of Moscow; She filed a rape complaint only, apparently, to avoid persecution after his arrest.

On December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I. S. Konev. All defendants were sentenced to death and executed on the same day. Beria was shot a few hours before the execution of the other convicts. On his own initiative, the first shot was fired from a personal weapon by Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky. A brief report about the trial of Beria and his collaborators appeared in the Soviet press.

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (March 17 (29), 1899 - December 23, 1953) - Soviet politician of Georgian nationality, Marshal of the Soviet Union, head of state security agencies during the Second World War.

Beria was the most influential of the heads of Stalin's secret police and led it for the longest time. He controlled many other areas of the life of the Soviet state, was the de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union, standing at the head of the NKVD detachments that were created for partisan operations of the Great Patriotic War and as “barrier detachments” against thousands of “defectors, deserters, cowards and malingerers.” . Beria carried out a huge expansion of the Gulag camp system and was chiefly responsible for the secret defense institutions - "sharashkas", which played a major military role. He created an effective intelligence and sabotage network. Together with Stalin, Beria took part in Yalta Conference. Stalin introduced him to the president Roosevelt as "our Himmler" After the war, Beria organized the communist takeover of state institutions in Central and Eastern Europe and successfully completed the project of creating Soviet atomic bomb, to which Stalin gave absolute priority. This creation was completed in five years thanks to Soviet espionage in the West carried out by Beria's NKVD.

After Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria became deputy head of government (Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers) and prepared a liberalization campaign. For a short time, he, along with Malenkov and Molotov, became one of the members of the ruling “troika”. Beria's self-confidence inclined him to underestimate other members of the Politburo. During the coup d'etat, which was led by N. Khrushchev, who enjoyed the assistance of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, Beria was arrested on charges of treason during a Politburo meeting. The neutralization of the NKVD was ensured by Zhukov's troops. After interrogation, Beria was taken to the basements of the Lubyanka and shot by General Batitsky.

Beria's early life and rise to power

Beria was born in Merheuli, near Sukhumi, Kutaisi province (now in Georgia). He belonged to the Mingrelians and grew up in a Georgian Orthodox family. Beria's mother, Martha Jakeli (1868-1955), distantly related to the Mingrelian princely family of Dadiani, was a deeply religious woman. She spent a lot of time in church and died in one of the temples. Martha managed to be widowed once before she married Lavrenty's father, Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), a landowner from Abkhazia. Lavrenty had a brother (name unknown) and sister Anna, who was born deaf and dumb. In his autobiography, Beria mentions only his sister and niece. His brother, apparently, was either dead or did not maintain relations with Beria after he left Merheuli.

Beria graduated from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. TO Bolsheviks he joined in March 1917, as a student at the Baku Secondary Mechanical-Technical Construction School (later the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy), whose program was related to the oil industries.

In 1919, 20-year-old Beria began his career in the state security agencies, but not the Bolsheviks, but in the counterintelligence of Baku hostile to the Soviet Republic Musavatists. He himself later claimed that he served as a communist agent in the Musavatist camp, but this version of his own cannot be considered proven. After the capture of the city by the Red Army (April 28, 1920), Beria, according to some sources, escaped execution only by accident. Once in prison for a while, he struck up a relationship there with Nina Gegechkori, the niece of his cellmate. They managed to escape by train. 17-year-old Nina was an educated girl from an aristocratic family. One of her uncles was a minister in Menshevik government of Georgia, the other - a minister of the Bolsheviks. Subsequently she became Beria's wife.

In 1920 or 1921, Beria joined Cheka- Bolshevik secret police. In August 1920, he became the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and in October of the same year, he became the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improving the living conditions of workers. However, he only worked in this position for about six months. In 1921, Beria was accused of abuse of power and falsification of criminal cases, but thanks to the intercession Anastas Mikoyan escaped serious punishment.

The Bolsheviks rebelled in what was then under Menshevik rule. Democratic Republic of Georgia. Following this, the Red Army invaded there. The Cheka actively participated in this conflict, which ended with the defeat of the Mensheviks and the creation of the Georgian SSR. Beria also took part in preparing the uprising against the Mensheviks. In November 1922, he was transferred from Azerbaijan to Tiflis and soon became the head of the secret operational unit of the Georgian branch there. GPU(successor to the Cheka) and its deputy head.

In 1924, Beria played a prominent role in the suppression Georgian national uprising which ended with the execution of 10 thousand people.

Beria in his youth. Photo from the 1920s

In December 1926, Beria became chairman of the GPU of Georgia, and in April 1927, the Georgian People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the head of the Bolsheviks in Transcaucasia, introduced him to his influential Georgian fellow countryman, Stalin. Lavrenty Pavlovich contributed to the best of his ability to Stalin’s rise to power. During the years of leading the Georgian GPU, Beria actually destroyed the intelligence networks of Turkey and Iran in the Soviet Transcaucasus and himself successfully recruited agents in the governments of these countries. During Stalin's vacations in the south, he was also responsible for security.

The chairman of the GPU of the entire Transcaucasus was then a prominent security officer Stanislav Redens, husband Anna Allilueva, sisters of Stalin's wife, Hopes. Beria and Redens did not get along with each other. Redens and the Georgian leadership tried to get rid of the careerist Beria and transfer him to the Lower Volga. However, Beria acted more deftly and inventively in his intrigues against them. One day, Lavrenty Pavlovich gave Redens plenty of drink, undressed him, and sent him home completely naked. In the spring of 1931, Redens was transferred from Transcaucasia to Belarus. This made Beria's future career easier.

In November 1931, Beria was appointed head of the Communist Party of Georgia, and in October 1932 - of the entire Transcaucasus. In February 1934, on XVII Party Congress, he was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Beria and Stalin's Great Terror

As you know, in 1934 the old party guard made attempts to remove Stalin. When electing members of the Central Committee at the XVII Party Congress, the head of the Leningrad communists Sergey Kirov collected more votes than Stalin, and this fact was hidden only by the efforts of the ballot counting commission, headed by Lazar Kaganovich. Influential communists offered Kirov to lead the party instead of Stalin. Meetings about this took place at the apartment of Sergo Ordzhonikidze. Until the very end of 1934, both Stalin and the opposition waged persistent behind-the-scenes intrigues. Stalin proposed recalling Kirov from Leningrad and appointing him one of the four secretaries of the Central Committee. Kirov refused to move to Moscow. Stalin insisted, but was forced to retreat when the request to leave Kirov in Leningrad for another two years was supported Kuibyshev and Ordzhonikidze. Relations between Kirov and Stalin worsened. Counting on Ordzhonikidze's support, Kirov hoped to consult with him in Moscow at the November plenum of the Central Committee. But Ordzhonikidze was not in Moscow. In early November, he and Beria were in Baku, where he suddenly became ill after dinner. Beria took the sick Sergo by train to Tbilisi. After the November 7 parade, Ordzhonikidze became ill again. He suffered internal bleeding and then suffered a severe heart attack. The Politburo sent three doctors to Tiflis, but they did not establish the cause of Ordzhonikidze’s mysterious illness. Despite his poor health, Sergo wanted to return to Moscow to participate in the plenum, but Stalin firmly ordered him to follow the doctors’ orders and not come to the capital until November 26. It is more than likely that Ordzhonikidze’s mysterious illness, which kept him away from communication with Kirov, was caused by the machinations of Beria, led by Stalin.

By 1935, Beria had become one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He strengthened his position in Stalin’s entourage with the publication (1935) of the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia” (its real authors, apparently, were M. Toroshelidze and E. Bedia). It inflated in every possible way the role of Stalin in the revolutionary movement. “To my dear and beloved Master, the great Stalin!” – Beria signed the gift copy.

After murder of Kirov(December 1, 1934) Stalin began his Great Purge, whose main target was the highest party guard. Beria opened the same purge in Transcaucasia, using it as an opportunity to settle many personal scores. Agasi Khanjyan, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia, committed suicide or was killed (they say, even personally by Beria). In December 1936, after dinner with Lavrenty Pavlovich, he suddenly died Nestor Lakoba, the head of Soviet Abkhazia, who shortly before had greatly contributed to the rise of Beria, and now, dying, called him his murderer. Before Nestor’s burial, Lavrenty Pavlovich ordered all internal organs to be removed from the corpse, and later dug up Lakoba’s body and destroyed it. Nestor's widow was thrown into prison. By order of Beria, a snake was thrown into her cell, which made her go crazy. Another prominent victim of Lavrenty Pavlovich was the People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR Gaioz Devdariani. Beria ordered the execution of the Devdariani brothers - Georgiy and Shalva, who held high positions in the NKVD and the Communist Party. Beria also arrested Sergo Ordzhonikidze’s brother, Papulia, and then fired another of his brothers, Valiko, from the Tiflis Council.

In June 1937, Beria said in one speech: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise his hand against the will of our people, against the will of the Lenin-Stalin party, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”

Beria with Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva on his lap. In the background - Stalin

Beria at the head of the NKVD

In August 1938, Stalin transferred Beria to Moscow to the post of first deputy head of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs ( NKVD), which united state security agencies and police forces. The then head of the NKVD, Nikolai Yezhov, whom Beria affectionately called "dear Hedgehog", ruthlessly carried out Stalin's Great Terror. Millions of people throughout the USSR were imprisoned or executed as "enemies of the people." By 1938, the suppression had assumed proportions that already threatened the collapse of the economy and the army. This forced Stalin to weaken the “purge.” He decided to remove Yezhov and at first thought to make his “faithful dog” Lazar Kaganovich the new head of the NKVD, but in the end he chose Beria, apparently because he had extensive experience working in punitive agencies. In September 1938, Beria was appointed head of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he replaced Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. No longer needed by Stalin and who knew too much, Yezhov was shot in 1940. The NKVD underwent another purge, during which half of the senior personnel were replaced by Beria's henchmen, many of whom were natives of the Caucasus.

Although the name of Beria as the head of the NKVD is strongly associated with repression and terror, his accession to the leadership of the People's Commissariat was initially marked by a weakening of the repressions of the Yezhov era. More than 100 thousand people were released from the camps. The authorities officially admitted that there were some “injustices” and “excesses” during the purges, placing all the blame for them solely on Yezhov. However, liberalization was only relative: arrests and executions continued into 1940, and with the approach of war the pace of purges accelerated again. During this period, Beria led the deportations of “politically unreliable” people from the Baltic and Polish regions recently annexed to the USSR. He also organized the murder of Leon Trotsky in Mexico.

In March 1939, Beria became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee. He did not receive full membership in the Politburo until 1946, but already in the pre-war era he was one of the highest leaders of the Soviet state. In 1941, Beria became General Commissioner of State Security. This highest quasi-military rank was equivalent to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

On March 5, 1940, after the Third Gestapo-NKVD Conference was held in Zakopane, Beria sent a note to Stalin (No. 794/B), in which he argued that Polish prisoners of war held in camps and prisons in Western Belarus and Ukraine were enemies of the Soviet Union. Beria recommended destroying them. Most of these prisoners were military men, but among them there were also many intellectuals, doctors, and priests. Their total number exceeded 22 thousand. With Stalin's approval, Beria's NKVD executed Polish prisoners in a " Katyn massacre».

From October 1940 to February 1942, Beria and the NKVD carried out a new purge of the Red Army and related institutions. In February 1941, Beria became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and in June, after Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, he became a member of the State Defense Committee ( GKO). During Great Patriotic War he transferred millions of camp prisoners Gulag to the army and military production. Beria took control of arms production, and (together with Malenkov) – aircraft and aircraft engines. This was the beginning of an alliance between Beria and Malenkov, which later gained greater importance.

Lavrentiy Beria with his family

In 1944, when the Germans were expelled from Soviet territory, Beria was tasked with punishing a number of ethnic minorities who collaborated with the occupiers during the war (Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Pontic Greeks and Volga Germans). All these nations were deported from their native places to Central Asia.

In December 1944, Beria was assigned by the NKVD to supervise the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb (“Task No. 1”). The bomb was created and tested on August 29, 1949. Beria led the successful Soviet intelligence campaign against the United States Atomic Weapons Program. During it, we managed to obtain most of the necessary technologies. Beria also provided the necessary labor force for this extremely labor-intensive project. They attracted at least 330 thousand people, including 10 thousand technicians. Tens of thousands of Gulag prisoners were sent to work in uranium mines, to build and operate uranium production plants. They also built nuclear test sites in Semipalatinsk and on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The NKVD ensured the necessary secrecy of the project. True, physicist Pyotr Kapitsa refused to work with Beria, even after he tried to “bribe” him with the gift of a hunting rifle. Stalin supported Kapitsa in this quarrel.

In July 1945, when the Soviet police system was finally restructured along military lines, Beria was officially promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. He never commanded a single real army unit, but made a significant contribution to the victory over Germany through his work on organizing military production, the actions of partisans and saboteurs. However, Stalin never publicly noted the size of this contribution. Unlike most other Soviet marshals, Beria did not receive the Order of Victory.

Beria in the post-war years

As Stalin approached his 70th birthday after the war, a hidden struggle intensified among his inner circle. At the end of the war, the most likely successor to the Leader seemed Andrei Zhdanov, who during the war years was the head of the Leningrad party organization, and in 1946 was appointed to control ideology and culture. After 1946, Beria cemented his alliance with Malenkov to counter the rise of Zhdanov.

On December 30, 1945, Beria resigned as head of the NKVD, while retaining overall control over national security issues. However, the new People's Commissar (since March 1946 - Minister) of Internal Affairs, Sergey Kruglov, was not Beria’s man. In addition, by the summer of 1946, Beria’s protege Vsevolod Merkulov was replaced as head of the Ministry of State Security (MGB) Viktor Abakumov. Abakumov was the head of SMERSH from 1943 to 1946. His relationship with Beria was marked by both close cooperation (Abakumov rose to prominence thanks to Beria's support) and rivalry. With the encouragement of Stalin, who was beginning to fear Lavrentiy Pavlovich, Abakumov began to create a circle of his own supporters within the MGB to counter Beria’s dominance over the power ministries. Kruglov and Abakumov promptly replaced Beria’s people in the leadership of the state security apparatus with their own proteges. Very soon the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Stepan Mamulov remained Beria's only ally outside the foreign intelligence system, which Lavrenty Pavlovich continued to control. Abakumov began to carry out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Zhdanov, and sometimes on direct orders from Stalin. Some historians believe that these operations - at first indirectly, but over time more and more directly - were directed against Beria.

One of the first such steps was the matter Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee which began in October 1946 and ultimately led to the murder Solomon Mikhoels and the arrest of many other members of the JAC, which resurrected the old Bolshevik idea of ​​​​transferring Crimea to the Jews as an “autonomous republic.” This case caused severe damage to Beria's influence. He actively helped create the JAC in 1942; his circle included many Jews.

After the sudden and rather strange death of Zhdanov in August 1948, Beria and Malenkov strengthened their positions with a powerful blow to the supporters of the deceased - “ Leningrad case" Among those executed were Zhdanov's deputy Alexey Kuznetsov, prominent economist Nikolai Voznesensky, head of the Leningrad party organization Petr Popkov and head of the government of the RSFSR Mikhail Rodionov. Only after this Nikita Khrushchev began to be considered as a possible alternative to the tandem of Malenkov and Beria.

In the post-war years, Beria led the creation of communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe, which usually took place through coups d'etat. He personally selected new Eastern European leaders dependent on the USSR. But since 1948, Abakumov initiated a number of cases against these leaders. Their culmination was the arrest in November 1951 of Rudolf Slansky, Bedřich Geminder and other leaders of Czechoslovakia. The defendants were usually accused of Zionism, cosmopolitanism and arms supplies to Israel. Beria was quite alarmed by these accusations, since a large number of weapons from the Czech Republic were sold to Israel on his direct orders. Beria sought an alliance with Israel to advance Soviet influence in the Middle East, but other Kremlin leaders decided instead to enter into a strong alliance with Arab countries. 14 prominent figures of communist Czechoslovakia, of whom 11 were Jews, were found guilty in court and executed. Similar trials took place then in Poland and other vassal countries of the USSR.

Abakumov was soon replaced Semyon Ignatiev, which further intensified the anti-Semitic campaign. On January 13, 1953, the largest anti-Jewish case in the Soviet Union began with an article in Pravda - “ doctors' business" Several prominent Jewish doctors were accused of poisoning top Soviet leaders and arrested. At the same time, an anti-Semitic campaign began in the Soviet press, called the fight against “rootless cosmopolitanism.” Initially, 37 people were arrested, but this number quickly grew to several hundred. Dozens of Soviet Jews were dismissed from prominent positions, arrested, sent to the Gulag, or executed. Some historians say that the MGB, on Stalin's orders, was preparing the deportation of all Soviet Jews to the Far East, but this hypothesis is almost certainly based on exaggeration; it is most often put forward by Jewish authors. Many researchers insist that the eviction of Jews was not planned, and the persecution of them was not cruel. A few days after Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, Beria released all those arrested in this case, declared it fabricated and arrested MGB functionaries directly involved in it.

As for other international problems, Beria (together with Mikoyan) correctly predicted victory Mao Zedong V Chinese civil war and helped her greatly. He allowed the Chinese Communist Party to use Manchuria occupied by Soviet troops as a springboard and organized the widest supply of weapons to the People's Liberation Army - mainly from captured Japanese arsenals Kwantung Army.

Beria and the version of the murder of Stalin

Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria, immediately after Stalin’s stroke, “spewed hatred” against the Leader and mocked him. When it suddenly seemed that consciousness was returning to Stalin, Beria fell to his knees and kissed the Master’s hand. But he soon fainted again. Then Beria immediately stood up and spat.

Stalin's assistant Vasily Lozgachev, who found the Leader lying after the blow, said that Beria and Malenkov were the first members of the Politburo to come to the patient. They arrived at the Kuntsevskaya dacha at 3 a.m. on March 2, 1953, after telephone calls from Khrushchev and Bulganin, who themselves did not want to go to the scene of the events, fearing somehow incurring Stalin’s wrath. Lozgachev convinced Beria that Stalin, who was unconscious and in soiled clothes, was sick and needed medical attention. But Beria angrily reprimanded him for “alarmism” and quickly left, ordering “not to disturb us, not to stir up panic and not to disturb Comrade Stalin.” The calling of doctors was delayed for 12 hours, although the paralyzed Stalin could neither speak nor hold urine. Historian S. Sebag-Montefiore calls this behavior “extraordinary,” but notes that it was consistent with the standard Stalinist (and generally Communist) practice of postponing even absolutely necessary decisions without the official sanction of a higher authority. Beria's order to postpone the immediate call of doctors was tacitly supported by the rest of the Politburo. The situation was aggravated by the fact that then, at the height of the “Doctors’ Plot,” all doctors were under suspicion. Stalin’s personal doctor was already tortured in the basements of the Lubyanka because he suggested that the Leader stay in bed more.

The death of the Boss prevented a new, final reprisal against the last old Bolsheviks, Mikoyan and Molotov, for which Stalin began to prepare a year before. Shortly after Stalin's death, Beria, according to Molotov's memoirs, triumphantly announced to the Politburo that he had "removed [Stalin]" and "saved you all." Beria never explicitly said whether he engineered Stalin's stroke or simply left him to die without medical care. Additional arguments in favor of the version that Beria poisoned Stalin with warfarin are provided by a recent article by Miguel A. Faria in the magazine Surgical Neurology International. The anticoagulant (a drug that reduces blood clotting) warfarin could well have caused the symptoms that accompanied Stalin’s blow. It was not difficult for Beria to add this remedy to Joseph Vissarionovich’s food or drink. Historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore emphasizes that Beria during this period had every reason to fear Stalin could well use warfarin against him, but notes: he never admitted to poisoning and was never left alone with Stalin during the days of his illness. He came to the owner, struck by the blow, together with Malenkov - apparently to specifically remove suspicions.

After Stalin's death from pulmonary edema caused by a stroke, Beria showed the broadest claims. In the painful silence that followed Stalin's agony, Beria was the first to go up to kiss his lifeless body (a step that Sebag-Montefiore likens to "removing the ring from the finger of a dead king"). While Stalin's other comrades-in-arms (even Molotov, who had now been saved from almost certain death), wept bitterly over the body of the deceased, Beria looked radiant, animated and poorly concealed his joy. Leaving the room, Beria disrupted the mournful atmosphere by loudly calling for his driver. His voice, according to the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, echoed with undisguised triumph. Alliluyeva noted that the rest of the Politburo was clearly afraid of Beria and was concerned about such a daring display of ambition. “I’ve gone to take power,” Mikoyan muttered quietly to Khrushchev. Members of the Politburo immediately rushed to their limousines so as not to be late for Beria to the Kremlin.

Lavrenty Beria in the last years of his life

Fall of Beria

After Stalin's death, Beria was appointed first deputy head of government and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which he immediately merged with the MGB. His close ally Malenkov became head of government and – initially – the most powerful man in the USSR. Beria was second in power, but given Malenkov’s weak character, he could very well soon subjugate him to his influence. Khrushchev led the party, and Voroshilov became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (i.e., head of state).

Given Beria's reputation, it is not at all surprising that other party leaders viewed him with extreme suspicion. Khrushchev was opposed to the alliance between Beria and Malenkov, but at first did not have the strength to challenge it. However, he took advantage of the chance that appeared in June 1953 with the beginning of the spontaneous uprisings against communist rule in Berlin and East Germany.

Based on Beria's own words, other leaders suspected that he might use the uprising to agree to German reunification and an end to the Cold War in exchange for widespread aid from the United States, similar to what the USSR received during World War II. . The high cost of the war still weighed heavily on the Soviet economy. Beria coveted the enormous financial resources and other advantages that could be secured through concessions to the United States and the West. It was rumored that Beria secretly promised Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania serious prospects for national autonomy similar to that of the Eastern European satellites of the USSR.

The uprising in East Germany convinced the Kremlin leaders that Beria's policies could dangerously destabilize the Soviet state. A few days after the events in Germany, Khrushchev convinced other leaders to depose Beria. Lavrentiy Pavlovich was abandoned by his main ally, Malenkov, as well as Molotov, who initially leaned towards his side. As they say, only Voroshilov hesitated to speak out against Beria.

Arrest, trial and execution of Beria

On June 26, 1953, Beria was arrested and taken to an unspecified location near Moscow. Accounts of how this happened vary greatly. According to the most likely stories, Khrushchev convened the Presidium of the Central Committee on June 26 and there suddenly launched a fierce attack on Beria, accusing him of treason and paid espionage for British intelligence. Beria was taken by surprise. He asked: “What’s going on, Nikita? Why are you going through my underwear? Molotov and others also quickly moved against Beria, demanding his immediate resignation. When Beria finally realized what was happening and began to plaintively ask for support from Malenkov, this old and close friend of his silently lowered his head, averted his eyes, and then pressed a button on his desk. This was the agreed signal to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and a group of armed officers in the next room (one of them is said to have been Leonid Brezhnev). They immediately ran into the meeting and arrested Beria.

Beria was first placed in a guardhouse in Moscow, and then transported to a bunker at the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. Minister of Defense Nikolay Bulganin ordered the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division and the Tamanskaya Motorized Rifle Division to arrive in Moscow to prevent state security forces loyal to Beria from releasing their chief. Many of Beria's subordinates, protégés and supporters were also arrested - including Vsevolod Merkulov, Bogdan Kobulov, Sergei Goglidze, Vladimir Dekanozov, Pavel Meshik And Lev Wlodzimirsky. The newspaper Pravda remained silent about the arrests for a long time and only on July 10 notified Soviet citizens about “Beria’s criminal activities against the party and the state.”

Beria and his supporters were convicted by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR on December 23, 1953, without the presence of a lawyer and without the right of appeal. The chairman of the court was the marshal Ivan Konev.

Beria was found guilty:

1. In treason. It was alleged (without evidence) that “until the moment of his arrest, Beria maintained and developed his secret connections with foreign intelligence services.” In particular, attempts to begin peace negotiations with Hitler in 1941 through the Bulgarian ambassador were classified as high treason. However, no one mentioned that Beria acted on the orders of Stalin and Molotov. It was also alleged that Beria, who in 1942 helped organize the defense of the North Caucasus, tried to give it into the hands of the Germans. It was emphasized that “planning to seize power, Beria tried to gain the support of imperialist states at the cost of violating the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union and transferring part of the territory of the USSR to capitalist states.” These statements were based on what Beria told his assistants: to improve international relations, it would be reasonable to transfer the Kaliningrad region to Germany, part of Karelia to Finland, Moldavian USSR to Romania, and the Kuril Islands to Japan.

2. In terrorism. Beria's participation in the purge of the Red Army in 1941 was classified as an act of terrorism.

3. In counter-revolutionary activities during the Civil War. In 1919, Beria worked in the security service of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. Beria claimed that he was appointed to this job by the Gummet party, which subsequently merged with the Adalat, Ahrar and Baku Bolsheviks parties, thus forming the Communist Party of Azerbaijan.

On the same day, December 23, 1953, Beria and the rest of the accused were sentenced to death. When the death sentence was read, Lavrenty Pavlovich begged for mercy on his knees, and then fell to the floor and sobbed desperately. Six other defendants were shot on the day the trial ended. Beria was executed separately. As S. Sebag-Montefiore writes:

... Lavrentiy Beria was stripped down to his underwear. He was handcuffed and tied to a hook in the wall. He begged for his life and screamed so hard that they had to stuff a towel into his mouth. The face was wrapped in a bandage, leaving only the eyes widened with horror open. General Batitsky became his executioner. For this execution he was promoted to marshal. Batitsky put a bullet in Beria’s forehead...

Beria's behavior at trial and during his execution strongly resembles how his predecessor in the NKVD, Yezhov, behaved in 1940, who also begged for his life. Beria's body was cremated, and his remains were buried in a forest near Moscow.

Beria had many awards, including five Orders of Lenin, three Orders of the Red Banner, and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (awarded in 1943). He was twice awarded the Stalin Prize (1949 and 1951).

About the sexual exploits of Lavrenty Pavlovich - see the article

Name: Lavrentiy Beriya

Age: 54 years old

Place of Birth: With. Merkheuli, Sukhumi district

A place of death: Moscow

Activity: Head of the NKVD

Marital status: Was married to

Lavrentiy Beria - biography

Many people were afraid of this man. Lavrentiy Beria is an extraordinary person. He stood at the origins of the revolution and walked alongside Stalin throughout the war. The blind executor of his leader was also merciless towards the traitors of the country, and with pleasure in many ways exceeded the power given to him.

Childhood, family

Lavrentiy Beria was born in the Kutaisi province, now Abkhazia. The mother was from a princely family. Not a single biographer notes his father's noble origin. First, the boy’s parents, Martha and Pavel, had three children. One boy died when he was two years old. The daughter suffered from the disease and lost her hearing and speech. Lavrentiy was the only hope of his father and mother, especially since he was a very capable boy as a child.

The parents spared nothing for their son: they sent him to the Sukhumi paid primary school. Sold half of their house to pay for school. After graduating from college, Beria entered the construction school in Baku. When he turned seventeen, he took in his mother and sister; his father had already died at that time. Beria began to take care of and support the remnants of his family. To do this, he was forced to work and study at the same time.

Political biography of Beria

Lavrentiy finds time to become a member of the Marxist circle and becomes its treasurer. After completing his studies, he went to the front, but was soon discharged due to illness. He again lives in Baku and actively works in the local Bolshevik organization, goes underground. Only after the establishment of Soviet power did he begin to cooperate with the counterintelligence of Azerbaijan. He is sent to Georgia for underground work, he develops his activities too actively, he is arrested and expelled from Georgia. Beria leads a very stormy political life, holds leading positions in the Cheka of the Republic.

Already in the twenties, he exceeded his authority and falsified criminal cases, actively participating in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising. Until the early thirties, he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia. During this period of activity, his biography for the first time suits acquaintance with. Beria is constantly growing up the career ladder. In 1934, he served on the commission for the project to create the NKVD of the Soviet Union.

Whatever Beria was, it is impossible to throw out from history the positive things that he achieved for Transcaucasia. The oil industry is developing thanks to the commissioning of several large stations. Georgia has turned into a resort area. In agriculture, expensive crops began to be produced: grapes, tangerines, tea. Beria undertakes a “cleansing” in the ranks of the Georgian party, he boldly signs death sentences. In 1938, Beria became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

For his impeccable service to the state, he is given many awards. Nearby the name of Yezhov appears, against whose lawlessness Beria begins to pursue a policy of mitigation: repression is reduced by almost half, prison is replaced by camps. Before the war, Lavrenty Pavlovich deployed an intelligence network in European countries, Japan and America. Beria's department includes all intelligence services, the forestry and oil industries, the production of non-ferrous metals and the river fleet.

War

Now the production of aircraft, engines, and weapons falls under Beria’s control. He ensures that air regiments are formed and sent to the front in a timely manner. Later, the coal industry and all communication routes were placed under the jurisdiction of Lavrentiy Beria. In addition, he was a permanent adviser to I.V. Stalin’s headquarters. He had a large number of awards, orders and medals. The development of the Program to create an atomic bomb began.

But, although M. Molotov was appointed leader, the omnipresent Beria had to control the entire process. After successful tests, Lavrentiy received the Stalin Prize and the title of “Honorary Citizen”. After the death of the leader, Beria joined the struggle for high office. He proposed an amnesty for more than a million people and the termination of four hundred cases.

Removal from office and death of Beria

He fought for the post of leader, who chose a different path: he raised the question of removing Lavrentiy Beria from his post. Khrushchev selected several articles for his competitor, which the entire Politburo could not object to. Many accusations were brought against him, including espionage in the twenties and moral corruption. Lavrenty Pavlovich was sentenced to death, like all his comrades. After the execution, the body was burned and the ashes were scattered over the Moscow River. Such is the unpredictable ending to the biography of someone who inspired fear just by his name.

Lavrentiy Beria - biography of personal life

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria

3rd People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR
November 25, 1938 - December 29, 1945
Prime Minister: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
Predecessor: Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov

6th First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR
November 14, 1931 - August 31, 1938
Predecessor: Lavrenty Iosifovich Kartvelishvili

Party: RSDLP (b) (March? 1917), RCP (b) (March 1918), CPSU (b) (1925), CPSU (1952)
Education: Baku Polytechnic Institute
Birth: March 17 (29), 1899
Merkheuli, Gumistinsky district, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province,
Russian empire
Death: December 23, 1953 (age 54)
Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Father: Pavel Khukhaevich Beria
Mother: Marta Vissarionovna Jakeli
Spouse: Nino Teymurazovna Gegechkori
Children: son: Sergo

Military service
Years of service: 1938-1953
Rank: Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commanded by: Head of the GUGB NKVD USSR (1938)
People's Commissar of the USSR Internal Affairs (1938-1945)
Member of the State Defense Committee (1941-1944)
Battles: Great Patriotic War

Awards:
Hero of Socialist Labor
Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Banner
Order of Suvorov, 1st class
Order of Sukhbaatar
Stalin Prize Stalin Prize Deputy of the USSR Armed Forces

He was deprived of all titles and awards by a court verdict shortly after the execution.

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria March 17, 1899 Merheuli, Kutaisi province, Russian Empire - officially December 23, 1953, Moscow, USSR) - Soviet statesman and political figure, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (since 1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (since 1943).

Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946-1953), First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1953). Member of the USSR State Defense Committee (1941-1944), deputy chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee (1944-1945). Member of the USSR Central Executive Committee of the 7th convocation, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations. Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1934-1953), candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939-1946), member of the Politburo (1946-1953). He was part of J.V. Stalin's inner circle. He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology.

After Stalin's death, in June 1953, L.P. Beria was arrested on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power.
Executed by the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR in December 1953.

The last secret of Lavrentiy Beria
He was shot 60 years ago. But no one still knows where the grave of the bloody People's Commissar is

print version

Nikolay Dobryukha
"Rossiyskaya Gazeta" - Week No. 3370
20.12.2003, 03:50

According to official data, L.P. Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and in the same year on December 23, by a court verdict, he was executed in an underground bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. However, as archives show, official data from those years too often diverges from reality. Therefore, other versions circulating in the form of rumors also attract attention. Two of them are especially sensational...

The first assumes that Beria somehow managed not to fall into the trap of a conspiracy prepared against him, or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America, where almost all Nazi criminals fled after 1945. And thus he was able to stay alive for the time being...

The second says that during the arrest of Beria, he and his guards resisted and were killed. They even name the author of the fatal shot, namely Khrushchev... There are those who say that the pre-trial execution took place in the already mentioned bunker almost immediately after the arrest in the Kremlin. And this rumor unexpectedly received confirmation.

In the archives of Old Square, I discovered documents personally endorsed by Khrushchev and Kaganovich.
According to them, Beria was liquidated even before the July 1953 Emergency Plenum of the Central Committee, convened on the occasion of exposing the criminal activities of the sinister man in the pince-nez...

Where is the main enemy of the people buried?

My colleagues - researchers N. Zenkovich and S. Gribanov, with whom we periodically call each other to exchange information - have collected a number of documented facts about the fate of Beria after the news of his arrest. But especially valuable evidence on this matter was discovered by the Hero of the Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of writers of the USSR Vladimir Karpov.
Studying the life of Marshal Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute: did Zhukov participate in the arrest of Beria? The secret, handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found say directly: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So the statement of Beria’s son Sergo that Zhukov has nothing to do with his father’s arrest is untrue!

The last find turns out to be important also because it refutes the rumor about Nikita Sergeevich’s heroic shot during the detention of the all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security.

What happened after the arrest, Zhukov personally did not see and therefore wrote what he learned from hearsay, namely: “In the future, I did not take part either in the security, or in the investigation, or in the trial. After the trial, Beria was shot by the same "Who was guarding him? During the execution, Beria behaved very poorly, like the very last coward, cried hysterically, knelt down and, finally, soiled himself all over. In a word, he lived disgustingly and died even more disgustingly." Note: this is what Zhukov was told, but Zhukov himself did not see it...

But here is what, as they say, S. Gribanov managed to find out first-hand from the real author of the bullet for the main enemy of the people, then Colonel General P.F. Batitsky: “We took Beria down the stairs into the dungeon. He obliterated... Stink. Then I shot him like a dog.”

Everything would have been fine if other witnesses to the execution, and General Batitsky himself, had said the same thing everywhere. However, inconsistencies could have occurred due to negligence and from the literary fantasies of researchers, one of whom, the son of revolutionary Antonov Ovseenko, wrote this: “They executed a man sentenced to death in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters. They took off his tunic, leaving a white undershirt, and tied his hands with a rope behind him and tied to a hook driven into a wooden shield. This shield protected those present from the ricochet of a bullet. Prosecutor Rudenko read out the verdict. Beria: “Allow me to say...” Rudenko: “You already said everything” (Military): “Gag his mouth with a towel ". Moskalenko (to Yuferev): "You are our youngest, you shoot well. Let's".
Batitsky: “Comrade commander, allow me (takes out his “parabellum”). With this thing, I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.” Rudenko: “I ask you to carry out the sentence.” Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, the second Beria squinted, Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of his forehead. The body hung on the ropes. The execution took place in the presence of Marshal Konev and those military men who arrested and guarded Beria. They called the doctor... All that remained was to confirm the fact of death. Beria's body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium." In conclusion, Antonov-Ovseyenko paints a picture similar to horror films: supposedly, when the performers pushed Beria's body into the flames of the crematorium and clung to the glass of the furnace, they were gripped by fear - the body of their bloody boss on the fiery the tray suddenly began to move and gradually began to sit down... Later it turned out that the service personnel “forgot” to cut the tendons, and they began to contract under the influence of high temperature. But at first everyone thought that the dead executioner came to life in the flames of hell...

An interesting story. However, while reporting eerie physiological details, the narrator does not provide a link to any document. Where, for example, are the acts confirming the execution and burning of Beria? This is not an empty quibble, for if anyone read the act of execution, they could not help but notice that the doctor required in such cases was not present at the execution of Beria, and did not at all testify to her... So the question arises: “A Was it Beria who was there? Or another one: “Or maybe the report was drawn up retroactively and without a doctor?” And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not coincide. To prove these words, I will cite the act of execution dated December 23, 1953.

“On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the order of the chairman of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953 N 003, by me, the commandant of the special judicial presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, the actual state counselor of justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General Moskalenko K.S., the sentence of the special judicial presence was carried out in relation to Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment - execution." Three signatures. And no more guarding generals (as Zhukov was told); no Konev, Yuferev, Zub, Baksov, Nedelin and Getman, and no doctor (as Antonov-Ovseenko was told).

These discrepancies could have been ignored if Beria’s son Sergo had not insisted that Shvernik, a member of that same court, told him personally: “I was part of the tribunal in the case of your father, but I never saw him.” Sergo was even more doubtful by the confession of court member Mikhailov: “Sergo, I don’t want to tell you about the details, but we didn’t see your father alive”... Mikhailov did not expand on how to evaluate this mysterious statement. Either an actor was put in the dock instead of Beria, or Beria himself changed beyond recognition during his arrest? It is possible that Beria could have doubles...

This concerns the act of execution. Another act - cremation, as far as I know, no one saw at all, as well as the body of the person who was shot. Of course, with the exception of those three who signed the act. They signed it, but then what? Where are the Burial or Cremation Certificates? Who cremated? Who buried? It turns out like in the song: and no one will know where your grave is...
Indeed, no one has yet provided any evidence about the burial place of Beria, although the “grave accounting department” of the state security agencies has kept records in this regard in such a way that, if necessary, you can quickly obtain all the information.

Why was Malenkov silent?

I’ll start with the letters that the arrested Beria wrote to his former “associates”. There were several of them. And all of them, as far as I know, were written before the July Plenum, i.e. from June 26 to July 2. I've read some. Of greatest interest is, apparently, the very last letter addressed “To the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Pervukhin, Bulganin and Saburov,” i.e. those who made the decision to arrest. But before citing its text in full, it is necessary to make an explanation.

The vote on Beria's arrest was very tense and took place twice. The first time, according to Malenkov’s assistant D. Sukhanov, only Malenkov, Pervukhin and Saburov were in favor, while Khrushchev and Bulganin and, of course, Mikoyan abstained.
Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Molotov were generally “against”. Moreover, Molotov allegedly stated that arresting one of the first leaders of the party, government and legislative branch without an arrest warrant is not only a violation of parliamentary immunity, but also of all major party and Soviet laws in general. However, when military men entered the meeting room with weapons and it was proposed to vote again, everyone immediately voted in favor, as if feeling that if they violated the “unanimity” required in such cases, then they too would be counted among Beria’s accomplices. Many are inclined to believe Sukhanov’s memories recorded years later, although we must not forget that he himself was outside the office in which the events took place. Therefore, I could only find out about what happened from hearsay. And most likely in the words of his master Malenkov, who did not really like his rivals in the struggle for first place in power - Molotov, Khrushchev and Bulganin.

However, if you believe not Sukhanov, but the mentioned letter from Beria, then on the day of the arrest, whoever, but Malenkov and Khrushchev were more unanimous than ever. To see this, let’s read Beria’s downright screaming letter.

“Dear comrades, they can deal with me without trial or investigation, after 5 days of imprisonment, without a single interrogation, I beg you all, so that this is not allowed, I ask for immediate intervention, otherwise it will be too late. We must warn you directly by phone...

Why do they do it the way they are doing now? They put us in the basement, and no one finds out or asks anything. Dear comrades, is the only and correct way to resolve without trial and clarify the case against a member of the Central Committee and his comrade after 5 days in the basement, to execute him. Once again I beg you all...

I affirm that all charges will be dropped if only you want to investigate this. What a rush, and a suspicious one at that.

I ask T. Malenkov and Comrade Khrushchev not to persist. Would it be bad if she was rehabilitated?

Again and again I beg you to intervene and not to destroy your innocent old friend. Your Lavrentiy Beria."

Here's a letter. However, no matter how Beria begged, exactly what he was madly afraid of happened...

At the closed Plenum, which took place from July 2 to July 7, 1953, in numerous accusatory speeches, words were spoken that then, in the general turmoil and victorious euphoria, no one (!) paid attention to. Khrushchev was the first to spill the beans.
Having entered into the excitement of the story of how they deftly dealt with Beria, he, among other enthusiastic phrases, suddenly blurted out:
"Beria... has given up his spirit."

Kaganovich spoke even more definitely: “...having eliminated this traitor Beria, we must completely restore Stalin’s legal rights...” And most definitely: “The Central Committee destroyed the adventurer Beria...” And that’s the point. You can't say more precisely.

Of course, these words of top officials can also be taken in a figurative sense. But why then did none of them even mention that at the upcoming investigation it was necessary to properly question Beria about all his dirty deeds? It is no coincidence, apparently, that none of them even hinted that Beria himself should have been brought to the Plenum, so that everyone could listen to his confessions and ask the accumulated questions, as, for example, Stalin did in relation to Bukharin. Most likely they didn’t hint because there was no one to deliver... It’s also possible, however, that they were afraid that Beria would expose them and, first of all, his “old friends” Khrushchev and Malenkov...

So, we have established that Beria wrote letters from June 26 to July 2, the Plenum took place from July 2 to July 7, and the “statements” of Khrushchev and Kaganovich about the liquidation of Beria were made in the general turmoil and victorious euphoria, then we can assume that Beria was executed within July 2-6, and the executor of the sentence was Colonel General P.F. Batitsky.

Let's try, at least approximately, to establish the truth from the code of the FULL NAME OF LAVRENTY BERIA. \If only it succeeds\.

Watch "Logicology about the fate of man" in advance.

Let's look at the FULL NAME code tables. \If there is a shift in numbers and letters on your screen, adjust the image scale\.

2 8 25 35 67 79 80 83 100 106 120 139 149 159 175 176 179 191 206 209 219 243
B E R I A L A V R E N T I Y P A V L O V I C H
243 241 235 218 208 176 164 163 160 143 137 123 104 94 84 68 67 64 52 37 34 24

12 13 16 33 39 53 72 82 92 108 109 112 124 139 142 152 176 178 184 201 211 243
L A V R E N T I Y P A V L O V I C H B E R I YA
243 231 230 227 210 204 190 171 161 151 135 134 131 119 104 101 91 67 65 59 42 32

Let's read individual words and sentences:

BERIA = 67 = EXECUTED.

LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH = 176 = 104-KILLED + 3-B + 69-HEAD = 103-SHOT + 73-DIED = 94-DEAD + 82-SHOT.

176 - 67 = 109 = REVENGE, INTERRUPTION = 17-AMBA + 34-FROM + 58-BULLETS.

BERIA LAVRENTY = 159 = 103-SHOT + 56-EXECUTED = 97-MURDER + 62-DONATE = 108-EXECUTED + 51-KILLED.

PAVLOVICH = 84 = HEAD, BRAIN, KILL.

159 - 84 = 75 = BREAKTHROUGH, CRISIS, REVENGE.

PAVLOVICH BERIA = 151 = 89-KILLED + 62-DOT = 79-BULLET + 3-B + 69-HEAD.

LAVRENTY = 92 = DEAD.

151 - 92 = 59 = KILLED, DEAD.

We insert the resulting three check digits 59, 75 and 109 into the code for the FULL NAME OF LAVRENTY BERIA:

243 = 59 + 184\75+109\. Where 184 = 120-DEATH + 64-EXECUTION = 102-SHOT + 82-SHOT\en\.

243 = 75 + 168\59+109\. Where 168 = EXECUTED-56 X 3 = 104-KILLED + 64-BULLETS.

243 = 109 + 134\59+75\. Where 134 = EXECUTION-67 X 2 = 83-DEPRIVATION + 51-LIFE.

DATE OF BIRTH: 17.\29\.03.1899. This = 17 + 03 + 18 + 99 = 137 = MURDERAL, DOOMED, ​​MURDERED = 64-EXECUTION + 73-DIES = 85-REVENGE + 52-KILLED = 78-BULLETS + 59-DEAD = 60-WOUNDS + 77-HEADS = 82-SHOT + 55-KILLED.

243 = 137 + 106-DAMAGE, \44-MAJOR + 62-DAMAGE\.

NUMBER OF FULL YEARS OF LIFE = 176-FIFTY + 100-FOUR = 276.

276 = KILLED-92 X 3 = BRAIN-92 X 3 = KILLED BY A BULLET-138 X 2 = 94-DEAD + 51-KILLED + 131-SHOT = 206-SHOT + 70-OUT.

276 = 243-\ FULL NAME code \ + 33-OGN \ estrelnoe \.

I would venture to guess that Beria was shot on July 2, on the first day of the Plenum. Let's check this assumption:

75-SECOND, REVENGE, BREAKTHROUGH, HEART, KNOCKED, DEATH.

160-SECOND OF JULY + 72-TO THE HEAD-\ 19 + 53 \-\ code YEAR OF DEATH \ = 232 = 63-DEATH + 67-EXECUTED + 102-SHOT DEATH.

Simplified version: 07/2/1953. This = 2 + 07 + 19 + 53 = 81 = KILLED BY WILD.

243 = 81 + 162-SHOOTED.

But, I repeat, this is only an assumption.

Addition:

243 = 31-ON + 117-CONVENTION + 95-TRIBUNAL \a\ = 120-DEATH + 64-EXECUTION + 59-DEAD = 17-AMBA + 170-CONVICTED + 11-K + 45-EXECUTION = 170-EXECUTATION + 73 -KILLED = 175-GUNSHOT + 68-WOUNDED = 62-STOCKED + 130-TERMINATION + 51-LIFE = 130-TERMINATION + 51-LIFE + 3-IN + 59-JULY.

BERIA LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH - Soviet party and statesman, head of state security agencies.

Beria was born into a poor peasant family, his parents - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922) and Marta Jakeli (1868-1955) - Mingrelians. In 1906, he entered the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, where he studied for nine years and graduated with honors in 1915. He received a Beria certificate, showing a clear inclination to continue his studies, moved from Sukhum to the provincial center of Baku and was enrolled in the local secondary mechanical engineering school. During his studies, he became actively interested in Marxism and soon became part of the illegal Marxist circle operating at the school and became its treasurer. Beria graduated from the College in 1919 with a degree in construction technician. Later, he tried several times to get a higher education, especially since his school turned into the Baku Polytechnic Institute, but in the early 1920s he was already completely absorbed in party and security service work and managed to complete only three courses, after which he abandoned his studies.

Revolution and civil war

Soon after the February Revolution in March 1917, Beria - according to official data - joined the RSDLP (b) and organized a local Bolshevik cell in Baku. Then in June 1917 he was drafted into the army and served for six months as a trainee technician in a hydraulic engineering detachment on the Romanian front. After the October Revolution, the proven Bolshevik was sent back to Baku and in January 1918 he received a position in the secretariat of the Baku Council.

After Baku was occupied by units of the Turkish-controlled Caucasian Islamic Army in October 1918, Beria remained in the city - according to the official biography, on the instructions of the party. He got a job at the plant of the oil-industrial and trading joint-stock company "Caspian Partnership" as a clerk, and already in February 1919 he headed the underground cell of the RCP (b) in Baku. During this period, in the fall of 1919, Beria became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, i.e. Musavatist counterintelligence. Later he will be accused of collaborating with the intelligence services, but he will be able to prove that he agreed to cooperate with counterintelligence on the direct instructions of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party "Hummet".

In March 1920, Beria left his job in counterintelligence and got a job at the Baku customs, and the next month the 11th Red Army of the Caucasian Front entered Baku, where the creation of the Azerbaijan SSR was proclaimed. Berlia, in the same month, was appointed commissioner of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army and was sent to underground work in Georgia. Beria did not prove himself very well as an underground fighter: he was soon arrested by the Georgian authorities and, although he was released, he was ordered to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, he remained and, under the name Lakerbaya, was hired at the embassy of the RSFSR in Tbilisi. In May he was arrested again and now ended up in Kutaisi prison. In the end, S.M. Kirov, who these days was the plenipotentiary representative in Georgia, categorically demanded on July 9 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia release several imprisoned communists, incl. and Beria, actually threatening open conflicts. The Georgian Mensheviks were not ready for the aggravation of relations with the RSFSR and soon Beria was sent to Azerbaijan .

In leadership work in Transcaucasia

Upon returning to Baku in August 1920, he was appointed to the rather influential post of manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and from October 1920 to February 1921 he was the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improving the living conditions of workers in Baku. In this post, he became acquainted with the work of the special services and in April 1921 he was transferred to the Cheka as deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Azerbaijan Cheka; here he encountered the head of the Central Committee M.D. Bagirov, who at this stage constantly supported Beria and did a lot for his successful career (later Beria would support and promote Bagirov). In May 1921, Beria was promoted to deputy chairman of the AzChK and head of the Secret Operations Unit.

In November 1922, Beria was sent to Georgia, which had recently been transformed into the Georgian SSR, as the head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka (in March 1926, transformed into the GPU of the Georgian SSR). From December 2, 1926 to December 3, 1931, Berlia served as chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR. At the same time, he held a number of influential positions, concentrating great power in his hands: deputy OGPU plenipotentiary representative in the Transcaucasian SFSR, deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU, head of the Secret Operations Directorate of the OGPU plenipotentiary mission in the OGPU in the TransSFSR (December 2, 1926 - April 17, 1931), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Georgian SSR (April 4, 1927 - December 1930), head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic - Chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU (April 17 - December 3, 1931), member of the Board of the OGPU of the USSR (August 18 - December 3, 1931 ).

At the end of 1931, Beria’s career moved to a new level: on the recommendation of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, on October 31, he was elected 2nd Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, and on November 14, he also became 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks), and in May 1937 also 1st Secretary of the Tbilisi City Party Committee. Moreover, from October 17, 1932 to December 5, 1936. Beria was at the same time the 1st secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1933, when I.V., who was vacationing in Abkhazia, An assassination attempt was made on Stalin, Beria covered it with his body (the assassin was killed on the spot and this story has not been fully revealed, according to a number of researchers - the assassination attempt was organized by Beria himself. In February 1934, Beria was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Received became widely known after the publication in 1935 under his name of the book “On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations of Transcaucasia” (the authors were a group led by M.G. Toshelidze, which included E. Bedia, P.I. Shariya, etc.) , where the role of I.V. Stalin in the revolutionary movement was exaggerated many times.In early March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, and then a member of its Presidium (in January 1938 he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR).

As the head of the party organization of Georgia and Transcaucasia, Berlia became one of the leaders of the campaign of mass purges in Georgia (the NKVD Directorate for the Georgian SSR, and then the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR was his protege and confidant S.A. Goglidze). He also participated in the deployment of a campaign of repression in neighboring republics: in September 1937, he was sent to Armenia to “cleanse” the republican party organization. Speaking at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia (June 1937), Beria stated: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise their hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin - Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”

Head of the NKVD

On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Yezhova. Formally, this was a serious demotion, but it was immediately clear that it was his I.V. Stalin intended to replace the “iron commissar”, who had already done his job - carried out the most large-scale purge of the party-Soviet apparatus. At the same time, Beria headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR from September 8-29, and from September 29 - the most important Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) in the NKVD of the USSR.

On November 25, 1938, Beria replaced Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, for the first time retaining the direct leadership of the GUGB, which he handed over to his nominee V.N. only on December 17. Merkulov. He renewed the NKVD apparatus almost halfway, replacing Yezhov’s associates with people personally obligated to himself; people whom he brought with him from Transcaucasia were appointed to the highest positions in the NKVD: Merkulov, Goglidze, V.G. Dekanozov, B.Z. Kobulov and others. For propaganda purposes, he carried out the release of some of the “unreasonably convicted” from the camps: in 1939, 223.6 thousand people were released from the camps, 103.8 thousand from the colonies; At the same time, up to 200 thousand people were arrested, not counting those deported from the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine. At the insistence of Beria, the rights of the Special Meeting under the People's Commissar to issue extrajudicial verdicts were expanded. Under Beria, on January 10, 1939, the leaders of party organizations and local internal affairs bodies were informed by a coded telegram from I.V. Stalin on the legality of the use of torture (practised since 1937): “The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party believes that the method of physical coercion must necessarily be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method.”

On March 22, 1939, Beria became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. As the head of the NKVD and a member of the highest party body, he was responsible for organizing the mass extermination of captured Poles in Katyn (1940). On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving his post as People's Commissar, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (from March 15, 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR), but at the same time, state security bodies were removed from his subordination, forming an independent People's Commissariat.

War and post-war period

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD and NKGB were again united under the leadership of Beria, and on June 30, 1941 he himself became part of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR. Through the GKO, Beria was entrusted with control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) for the production of aircraft and aircraft engines. On October 16, 1941, on Beria’s personal order, 138 prisoners (who previously held high positions) were shot in the country’s prisons without even the appearance of a trial, and then several hundred more.

From December 1942, he was entrusted with supreme control over the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and Communications. On May 16, 1944, Beria also became deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR and chairman of the Operations Bureau (he was a member of this bureau on December 8, 1942). All the people's commissariats of the defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper and pulp, electrical industries, and power plants were placed under his control.

Beria was entrusted with the development, preparation and implementation of operations to evict the peoples of the North Caucasus, as well as Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Kurds, Hemshins, etc. He personally led the deportation operations of Chechens and Ingush (February 1944), and then Balkars (March 1944).

On December 3, 1944, Beria was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium” (“nuclear project”). After the end of the war, Beria, in whose hands the leadership of many departments was concentrated, left the post of minister on December 29, 1945, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From August 20, 1945 to June 26, 1953, he also headed the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (then under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers) and State Committee No. 1. Under the leadership and with the direct participation of Beria, the first atomic bomb in the USSR was created (tested on August 29, 1949 years), after which some began to call him “the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.” Being a successful organizer, he managed, using incl. and coercive methods, to form a system of research centers where serious discoveries were made that laid the foundation for the military power of the USSR. On March 18, 1946, Beria became a full member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

At the XIX Congress, when the CPSU (b) was renamed the CPSU, Beria on October 16, 1952 was elected a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and a member of its Bureau. After the party congress, at the suggestion of Stalin, a “leading five” was created as part of the Presidium, which included Beria. At the same time, Stalin took a number of measures directed against Beria: leadership and control over the state security organs was transferred to the proteges of G.M. Malenkov, the Mingrelian case was initiated against Beria. According to Khrushchev’s memoirs, “he was an intelligent man, very smart. He responded quickly to everything."

Death of Stalin

After the death of I.V. Stalin, Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, on March 5, 1953, he became 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he personally became the head of the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which was created on the same day by merging the old Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of State Security of the USSR. On his initiative, an amnesty was announced in the country on May 9, under which 1.2 million people were released, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases on 400 thousand people were closed. Bearia advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal, Volgo-Balt, etc.). He achieved the start of negotiations on a truce in Korea and tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia. He opposed the creation of the GDR, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving, bourgeois state.” The state security apparatus abroad was sharply reduced.

Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, Beria sent documents to the republican Central Committee that spoke about the incorrect Russification policy and illegal repressions. Beria's excessive activity and the strengthening of his positions caused discontent among his comrades in the leadership of the country. N.S. Khrushchev, G.M. Malenkov, L.M. Kaganovich, V.M. Molotov and others united against Beria. On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev unfoundedly accused Beria of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the situation in the GDR, espionage for Great Britain, and announced the removal of Beria from all posts. After this, Beria was arrested by the secretly smuggled G.K. Zhukov to the Kremlin by a group of military personnel of the Moscow Air Defense District (commander of the district troops, Colonel General K.S. Moskalenko, his 1st deputy, Lieutenant General P.F. Batitsky, chief of staff of the district, Major General A.I. Baksov, head of the political department of the district Colonel I.G. Zub and officer for special assignments Lieutenant Colonel V.I. Yuferev). Beria remained under guard until late at night, then he was transported to the Moscow garrison guardhouse, and a day later - to the bunker of the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District.

At the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee on July 2-7, 1953, Berlia was criticized, removed from the Presidium and the Central Committee, and expelled from the party as “an enemy of the Communist Party and the Soviet people.” His former associates also made accusations against him, incl. M.D. Bagirov. He was accused of a large number of crimes, the main ones of which were clearly absurd - espionage for Great Britain, the desire for “the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.”

To consider the case of Beria and “his gang,” a Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR was created: Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev (chairman), chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions N.M. Shvernik, 1st Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR E.D. Zeidin, Army General K.S. Moskalenko, Secretary of the Moscow Regional Party Committee N.A. Mikhailov, Chairman of the Moscow City Court L.A. Gromov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR K.F. Lunev, Chairman of the Georgian Republican Council of Trade Unions M.I. Kuchava. The former People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR, Army General V.N., was involved in the process. Merkulov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel General B.Z. Kobulov, former 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel General S.A. Goglidze, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant General P.Ya. Meshik, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR V.G. Dekanozov, Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General L.E. Wlodzimirski.

On December 23, 1953, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to capital punishment - execution, with confiscation of their personal property, and deprivation of military ranks and awards. Shot by General P.F. Batitsky. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated December 31, 1953, Beria was deprived of the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and all state awards.

In 2000, the question of Beria’s rehabilitation was raised, but it was again refused.

Family

Wife - Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905 - June 10, 1991), niece of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori, cousin of the Menshevik E. Gegechkori, head of the Menshevik government of Georgia (1920). Researcher at the Agricultural Academy named after. YES. Timiryazeva, was arrested in July 1953, and in November 1954 sent into administrative exile.

Son - Sergo (November 24, 1925 - October 11, 2000), Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, in 1948-1953 he worked in design bureau No. 1 at the 3rd Main Directorate. On June 26, 1953 he was arrested and deported in November 1954. He was married to the granddaughter of A.M. Gorky to Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova. In 1953, his last name was changed to Gegchkori, and in the 1990s, he changed his last name from Gegechkori to Beria and wrote a book in which he justified his father.

Ranks

State Security Commissioner 1st rank (09/11/1938)

General Commissioner of State Security (01/30/1941)

Marshal of the Soviet Union (07/09/1945)

Works

On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. Report at the meeting of the Tiflis party activist on July 21-22, 1935. Partizdat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1936.

Lado Ketskhoveli. M., 1937.

Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939.

Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. Kyiv, 1939.

Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938. Sukhumi, 1939.

The greatest man of our time [I.V. Stalin]. Kyiv, 1940.

Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Alma-Ata, 1938;

About youth. Tbilisi, 1940.

The “diaries” of L.P. published in 2011 Beria is a fake.