Who is Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich by nationality. Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich

I think you will be interested in reading this opinion about this historical figure. Someone is aware of this information, someone will not accept it in any case, and someone will learn something new for themselves.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria is one of the most famous and at the same time the most unknown statesmen of Russia. Myths, lies and slander against him almost exceed the amount of slop poured into the name of Stalin. It is all the more important for us to understand who Beria really was.

On June 26, 1953, three tank regiments stationed near Moscow received an order from the Minister of Defense to load up with ammunition and enter the capital. The motorized rifle division also received the same order. Two air divisions and a formation of jet bombers were ordered to wait in full combat readiness for orders for a possible bombing of the Kremlin. Subsequently, a version of all these preparations was announced: the Minister of Internal Affairs Beria was preparing a coup d'etat, which had to be prevented, Beria himself was arrested, tried and shot. For 50 years this version was not questioned by anyone. An ordinary, and not so ordinary, person knows only two things about Lavrentiy Beria: he was an executioner and a sexual maniac. Everything else has been removed from history. So it’s even strange: why did Stalin tolerate this useless and gloomy figure near him? Afraid, or what? Mystery. I wasn’t afraid at all! And there is no mystery. Moreover, without understanding the true role of this man it is impossible to understand the Stalinist era. Because in fact, everything was completely different from what the people who seized power in the USSR and privatized all the victories and achievements of their predecessors later came up with.

St. Petersburg journalist Elena Prudnikova, author of sensational historical investigations, participant in the historical and journalistic project “Riddles of History,” talks about a completely different Lavrentiy Beria on the pages of our newspaper. “Economic miracle” in Transcaucasia Many people have heard about the “Japanese economic miracle”. But who knows about Georgian? In the fall of 1931, the young security officer Lavrentiy Beria, a very remarkable personality, became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. In 20, he led an illegal network in Menshevik Georgia. In 23, when the republic came under the control of the Bolsheviks, he fought against banditry and achieved impressive results - by the beginning of this year there were 31 gangs in Georgia, by the end of the year there were only 10 of them left. In 25, Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle. By 1929, he became both the chairman of the GPU of Transcaucasia and the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the region. But, oddly enough, Beria stubbornly tried to part with the KGB service, dreaming of finally completing his education and becoming a builder. In 1930, he even wrote a desperate letter to Ordzhonikidze. “Dear Sergo! I know you will say that now is not the time to bring up the issue of studying. But what to do? I feel like I can’t do it anymore.” In Moscow, the request was fulfilled exactly the opposite. So, in the fall of 1931, Beria became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. A year later he became the first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee, in fact the owner of the region. And we really, really don’t like to talk about how he worked in this position. Beria still got the same district.

Industry as such did not exist. A poor, hungry outskirts. As you know, collectivization began in the USSR in 1927. By 1931, 36% of Georgian farms had been transferred to collective farms, but this did not make the population any less hungry. And then Beria made a move with his knight. He stopped collectivization. Left the private owners alone. But on collective farms they began to grow not bread or corn, which were of no use, but valuable crops: tea, citrus fruits, tobacco, grapes. And this is where large agricultural enterprises justified themselves one hundred percent! Collective farms began to grow rich at such a speed that the peasants themselves flocked to them. By 1939, without any coercion, 86% of farms were socialized. One example: in 1930, the area of ​​tangerine plantations was one and a half thousand hectares, in 1940 - 20 thousand. The yield per tree has increased, in some farms by as much as 20 times. When you go to the market to buy Abkhaz tangerines, remember Lavrenty Pavlovich! In industry he worked just as effectively. During the first five-year plan, the volume of gross industrial output of Georgia alone increased almost 6 times. During the second five-year period - another 5 times. It was the same in the other Transcaucasian republics. It was under Beria, for example, that they began to drill on the shelves of the Caspian Sea, for which he was accused of wastefulness: why bother with all this nonsense! But now there is a real war between the superpowers over Caspian oil and over its transportation routes. At the same time, Transcaucasia became the “resort capital” of the USSR - who then thought about the “resort business”? In terms of education level, already in 1938 Georgia took one of the first places in the Union, and in terms of the number of students per thousand souls it surpassed England and Germany. In short, during the seven years that Beria held the post of “main man” in Transcaucasia, he so shaken up the economy of the backward republics that until the 90s they were among the richest in the Union. If you look at it, the doctors of economic sciences who carried out perestroika in the USSR have a lot to learn from this security officer. But that was a time when it was not political talkers, but business executives, who were worth their weight in gold.

Stalin could not miss such a person. And Beria’s appointment to Moscow was not the result of apparatus intrigues, as they are now trying to imagine, but a completely natural thing: a person who works in this way in the region can be entrusted with big things in the country.

Lavrenty Beria in 1934

Mad Sword of Revolution

In our country, the name of Beria is primarily associated with repression. On this occasion, allow me the simplest question: when did the “Beria repressions” take place? Date please! She's gone. The then chief of the NKVD, Comrade Yezhov, is responsible for the notorious “37th year.” There was even such an expression - “tight-knuckle gloves.” Post-war repressions were also carried out when Beria was not working in the authorities, and when he arrived there in 1953, the first thing he did was stop them. When there were “Beria’s rehabilitations” - this is clearly recorded in history. And “Beria’s repressions” are in their purest form a product of “black PR”. What really happened? The country had no luck with the leaders of the Cheka-OGPU from the very beginning. Dzerzhinsky was a strong, strong-willed and honest person, but, extremely busy with work in the government, he abandoned the department to his deputies. His successor Menzhinsky was seriously ill and did the same. The main cadres of the “organs” were promoters from the Civil War, poorly educated, unprincipled and cruel; one can imagine what kind of situation reigned there. Moreover, since the end of the 20s, the leaders of this department were increasingly nervous about any kind of control over their activities: Yezhov was a new person in the “authorities”, he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy Frinovsky. He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better; You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun. Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.”

He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands. Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting from the secretary of the regional committee, should walk under you: “If the secretary of the regional committee had to walk under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, should have walked under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country. It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? The solution is to imprison your own man, with such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he can, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large choice of such people. Well, at least one was found. Curbing the NKVD In 1938, Beria, with the rank of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, became the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, seizing control of the most dangerous structure. Almost immediately, right before the November holidays, the entire top of the People's Commissariat was removed and mostly arrested. Then, having placed reliable people in key positions, Beria began to deal with what his predecessor had done. Chekists who went too far were fired, arrested, and some were shot. (By the way, later, having again become the Minister of Internal Affairs in 1953, do you know what order Beria issued the very first? On the prohibition of torture! He knew where he was going. The organs were cleaned out abruptly: 7372 people (22.9%) were dismissed from the rank and file from management - 3830 people (62%).

At the same time, they began to verify complaints and review cases. Recently published data have made it possible to assess the scale of this work. For example, in 1937-38, about 30 thousand people were dismissed from the army for political reasons. 12.5 thousand were returned to service after the change of leadership of the NKVD. It turns out about 40%. According to the most approximate estimates, since complete information has not yet been made public, up to 1941 inclusive, 150-180 thousand people out of 630 thousand convicted during the Yezhovshchina were released from camps and prisons. That is about 30 percent. It took a long time to “normalize” the NKVD and it was not completely possible, although the work was carried out right up to 1945. Sometimes you have to deal with completely incredible facts. For example, in 1941, especially in those places where the Germans were advancing, they did not stand on ceremony with prisoners - the war, they say, would write everything off. However, it was not possible to blame it on the war. From June 22 to December 31, 1941 (the most difficult months of the war!) 227 NKVD employees were brought to criminal liability for abuse of power. Of these, 19 people received capital punishment for extrajudicial executions. Beria also owned another invention of the era - the “sharashka”. Among those arrested there were many people who were very needed by the country. Of course, these were not poets and writers, about whom they shout the most and loudest, but scientists, engineers, designers, who primarily worked for defense. Repression in this environment is a special topic. Who and under what circumstances imprisoned the developers of military equipment in the conditions of an impending war? The question is not at all rhetorical.

Firstly, there were real German agents in the NKVD who, on real assignments from real German intelligence, tried to neutralize people useful to the Soviet defense complex. Secondly, there were no fewer “dissidents” in those days than in the late 80s. In addition, this is an incredibly quarrelsome environment, and denunciation has always been a favorite means of settling scores and career advancement. Be that as it may, having taken over the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Beria was faced with the fact: in his department there were hundreds of arrested scientists and designers, whose work the country simply desperately needed. As it is now fashionable to say - feel like a people's commissar! There is a case before you. This person may or may not be guilty, but he is necessary. What to do? Write: “Liberate”, showing your subordinates an example of the opposite kind of lawlessness? Check things? Yes, of course, but you have a closet with 600 thousand things in it. In fact, each of them needs to be re-investigated, but there are no personnel. If we are talking about someone who has already been convicted, it is also necessary to get the sentence overturned. Where to start? From scientists? From the military? And time passes, people sit, war is getting closer... Beria quickly got his bearings. Already on January 10, 1939, he signed an order to organize a Special Technical Bureau. The research topic is purely military: aircraft construction, shipbuilding, shells, armor steels. Entire groups were formed from specialists from these industries who were in prison. When the opportunity presented itself, Beria tried to free these people. For example, on May 25, 1940, aircraft designer Tupolev was sentenced to 15 years in the camps, and in the summer he was released under an amnesty.

Designer Petlyakov was granted amnesty on July 25 and already in January 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. A large group of military equipment developers was released in the summer of 1941, another in 1943, the rest received freedom from 1944 to 1948. When you read what is written about Beria, you get the impression that he spent the entire war catching “enemies of the people.” Yes, sure! He had nothing to do! On March 21, 1941, Beria became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. To begin with, he oversees the People's Commissariats of the forestry, coal and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy, soon adding ferrous metallurgy here. And from the very beginning of the war, more and more defense industries fell on his shoulders, since, first of all, he was not a security officer or a party leader, but an excellent organizer of production. That is why he was entrusted with the atomic project in 1945, on which the very existence of the Soviet Union depended. He wanted to punish Stalin's murderers. And for this he himself was killed.

Two leaders

Already a week after the start of the war, on June 30, an emergency authority was established - the State Defense Committee, in whose hands all power in the country was concentrated. Naturally, Stalin became the chairman of the State Defense Committee. But who entered the office besides him? This issue is carefully avoided in most publications. For one very simple reason: among the five members of the State Defense Committee there is one unmentioned person. In the brief history of the Second World War (1985), in the index of names given at the end of the book, where such vital figures for victory as Ovid and Sandor Petofi are present, Beria is not present. Wasn’t there, didn’t fight, didn’t participate...

So: there were five of them. Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov. And three commissioners: Voznesensky, Mikoyan, Kaganovich. But soon the war began to make its own adjustments. Since February 1942, Beria, instead of Voznesensky, began to oversee the production of weapons and ammunition. Officially. (But in reality, he was already doing this in the summer of 1941.) That same winter, the production of tanks also fell into his hands. Again, not because of any intrigue, but because he did better. The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22 the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942 these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944 we had 89 thousand of them against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2 thousand tanks per month, far ahead of Germany. On May 11, 1944, Beria became chairman of the GKO Operations Bureau and deputy chairman of the Committee, in fact, the second person in the country after Stalin. On August 20, 1945, he took on the most difficult task of that time, which was a matter of survival for the USSR - he became chairman of the Special Committee for the creation of an atomic bomb (there he performed another miracle - the first Soviet atomic bomb, contrary to all forecasts, was tested just four years later , August 20, 1949). Not a single person from the Politburo, and indeed not a single person in the USSR, even came close to Beria in terms of the importance of the tasks being solved, in terms of the scope of powers, and, obviously, simply in terms of the scale of his personality. In fact, the post-war USSR was at that time a double star system: the seventy-year-old Stalin and the young - in 1949 he turned only fifty - Beria.

Head of state and his natural successor.

It was this fact that Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev historians hid so diligently in holes of silence and under piles of lies. Because if on June 23, 1953, the Minister of Internal Affairs was killed, this still leads to the fight against the putsch, and if the head of state was killed, then this is what the putsch is... Stalin's Scenario If you trace the information about Beria that wanders from publication to publication, to its original source, then almost all of it follows from Khrushchev’s memoirs. A person who, in general, cannot be trusted, since a comparison of his memories with other sources reveals an exorbitant amount of unreliable information in them. Who hasn’t done “political science” analyzes of the situation in the winter of 1952-1953. What combinations were not thought of, what options were not calculated. That Beria was blocked with Malenkov, with Khrushchev, that he was on his own... These analyzes have only one sin - as a rule, they completely exclude the figure of Stalin. It is silently believed that the leader had retired by that time and was almost insanity...

There is only one source - the memories of Nikita Sergeevich. But why, exactly, should we believe them? And Beria’s son Sergo, for example, who saw Stalin fifteen times during 1952 at meetings devoted to missile weapons, recalled that the leader did not at all seem weakened in mind... The post-war period of our history is no less dark than pre-Rurik Russia. Probably no one really knows what was happening in the country then. It is known that after 1949, Stalin withdrew somewhat from business, leaving all the “turnover” to chance and to Malenkov. But one thing is clear: something was cooking. Based on indirect evidence, it can be assumed that Stalin was planning some kind of very big reform, first of all economic, and only then, perhaps, political. Another thing is clear: the leader was old and sick, he knew this very well, he did not suffer from a lack of courage and could not help but think what would happen to the state after his death, and not look for a successor. If Beria had been of any other nationality, there would have been no problems. But one Georgian after another on the throne of the empire! Even Stalin would not have done this. It is known that in the post-war years, Stalin slowly but steadily squeezed the party apparatus out of the captain's cabin. Of course, the functionaries could not be happy with this. In October 1952, at the CPSU Congress, Stalin gave the party a decisive battle, asking to be relieved of his duties as General Secretary. It didn’t work out, they didn’t let me go. Then Stalin came up with a combination that is easy to read: an obviously weak figure becomes the head of state, and the real head, the “gray cardinal,” is formally in a supporting role. And so it happened: after Stalin’s death, the lack of initiative Malenkov became the first, but Beria was really in charge of politics. He not only carried out an amnesty. For example, he was responsible for a resolution condemning the forced Russification of Lithuania and Western Ukraine; he also proposed a beautiful solution to the “German” question: if Beria had remained in power, the Berlin Wall simply would not have existed. Well, and along the way, he again took up the “normalization” of the NKVD, launching the process of rehabilitation, so that Khrushchev and the company then only had to jump on an already moving locomotive, pretending that they had been there from the very beginning. It was later that they all said that they “disagreed” with Beria, that he “pressured” them. Then they said a lot of things. But in fact, they completely agreed with Beria’s initiatives. But then something happened. Calmly! This is a revolution! A meeting of either the Presidium of the Central Committee or the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was scheduled for June 26 in the Kremlin. According to the official version, the military, led by Marshal Zhukov, came to see him, members of the Presidium called them into the office, and they arrested Beria. Then he was taken to a special bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District troops, an investigation was carried out and he was shot.

This version does not stand up to criticism. Why - it will take a long time to talk about this, but there are many obvious stretches and inconsistencies in it... Let's just say one thing: none of the outside, uninterested people saw Beria alive after June 26, 1953. The last person to see him was his son Sergo - in the morning, at the dacha. According to his recollections, his father was going to stop by a city apartment, then go to the Kremlin for a meeting of the Presidium. Around noon, Sergo received a call from his friend, pilot Amet-Khan, who said that there had been a shootout at Beria’s house and that his father, apparently, was no longer alive. Sergo, together with member of the Special Committee Vannikov, rushed to the address and managed to see broken windows, knocked out doors, a wall dotted with traces of bullets from a heavy machine gun. Meanwhile, members of the Presidium gathered in the Kremlin. What happened there? Wading through the rubble of lies, bit by bit recreating what happened, we managed to roughly reconstruct the events. After Beria was dealt with, the perpetrators of this operation—presumably these were military men from Khrushchev’s old, Ukrainian team, whom he dragged to Moscow, led by Moskalenko—went to the Kremlin. At the same time, another group of military men arrived there.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria with I.V. Stalin's daughter Svetlana. 1930s. Photo from the personal archive of E. Kovalenko. RIA News

It was headed by Marshal Zhukov, and among its members was Colonel Brezhnev. Curious, isn't it? Then, presumably, everything unfolded like this. Among the putschists were at least two members of the Presidium - Khrushchev and Defense Minister Bulganin (Moskalenko and others always refer to them in their memoirs). They confronted the rest of the government with a fact: Beria had been killed, something had to be done about it. The whole team inevitably found themselves in the same boat and began to hide their ends. Another thing is much more interesting: why was Beria killed? The day before, he returned from a ten-day trip to Germany, met with Malenkov, and discussed with him the agenda for the meeting on June 26. Everything was amazing. If something happened, it happened in the last 24 hours. And, most likely, it was somehow connected with the upcoming meeting. True, there is an agenda, preserved in Malenkov’s archive. But most likely it's a linden tree. No information has been preserved about what the meeting was actually supposed to be devoted to. It would seem... But there was one person who could know about this. Sergo Beria said in an interview that his father told him in the morning at the dacha that at the upcoming meeting he was going to demand from the Presidium a sanction for the arrest of the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev.

But now everything is clear! So it couldn't be clearer. The fact is that Ignatiev was in charge of Stalin’s security in the last year of his life. It was he who knew what happened at Stalin’s dacha on the night of March 1, 1953, when the leader had a stroke. And something happened there, about which many years later the surviving guards continued to lie mediocrely and too obviously. And Beria, who kissed the hand of the dying Stalin, would have torn all his secrets from Ignatiev. And then he organized a political trial for the whole world against him and his accomplices, no matter what positions they held. This is just in his style... No, these same accomplices under no circumstances should have allowed Beria to arrest Ignatiev. But how do you keep it? All that remained was to kill - which was done... Well, and then they hid the ends. By order of Defense Minister Bulganin, a grandiose “Tank Show” was organized (equally ineptly repeated in 1991). Khrushchev's lawyers, under the leadership of the new Prosecutor General Rudenko, also a native of Ukraine, staged the trial (dramatization is still a favorite pastime of the prosecutor's office). Then the memory of all the good things that Beria did was carefully erased, and vulgar tales about a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were put into use.

In terms of “black PR,” Khrushchev was talented. It seems that this was his only talent... And he was not a sex maniac either! The idea of ​​​​presenting Beria as a sexual maniac was first voiced at the Plenum of the Central Committee in July 1953. Secretary of the Central Committee Shatalin, who, as he claimed, searched Beria’s office, found in the safe “a large number of objects of a libertine man.” Then Beria's security guard, Sarkisov, spoke and spoke about his numerous relationships with women. Naturally, no one checked all this, but the gossip was started and went for a walk around the country. “Being a morally corrupt person, Beria cohabited with numerous women...” the investigators wrote in the “sentence.” There is also a list of these women on file. There’s just one problem: it almost completely coincides with the list of women with whom General Vlasik, Stalin’s security chief, who was arrested a year earlier, was accused of cohabiting with them. Wow, how unlucky Lavrenty Pavlovich was. There were such opportunities, but the women came exclusively from under Vlasik! And without laughing, it’s as simple as shelling pears: they took a list from Vlasik’s case and added it to the “Beria case.” Who will check? Nina Beria many years later, in one of her interviews, said a very simple phrase: “It’s an amazing thing: Lavrenty was busy day and night with work when he had to deal with a legion of these women!” Drive along the streets, take them to country villas, and even to your home, where there was a Georgian wife and a son and his family lived. However, when it comes to denigrating a dangerous enemy, who cares what really happened?”

Elena Prudnikova

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich - Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR, member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, General Commissioner of State Security.

Born on March 16 (29), 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Tiflis province, now the Republic of Abkhazia (Georgia), in a peasant family. Georgian. In 1915 he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. Since 1915 he studied at the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction Technical School. In October 1915, with a group of comrades, he organized an illegal Marxist circle at the school. Member of the RSDLP(b)/RCP(b)/VKP(b)/CPSU since March 1917. Organized a cell of the RSDLP(b) at the school. During the First World War of 1914-18, in June 1917, as a technician trainee at the army hydraulic engineering school, he was sent to the Romanian front, where he conducted active Bolshevik political work among the troops. At the end of 1917, he returned to Baku and, while continuing his studies at a technical school, actively participated in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization.

From the beginning of 1919 until April 1920, that is, before the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he led an illegal communist organization of technicians and, on behalf of the Baku Party Committee, provided assistance to a number of Bolshevik cells. In 1919, Lavrentiy Beria successfully graduated from technical school, receiving a diploma as a technical architect-builder.

In 1918-20 he worked in the secretariat of the Baku Council. In April-May 1920 - commissioner of the registration department of the Caucasian Front at the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army, then sent to underground work in Georgia. In June 1920, he was arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. But at the request of the Soviet plenipotentiary representative S.M. Kirov Lavrentiy Beria was released and deported to Azerbaijan. Returning to Baku, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study (which he did not graduate from).

In August-October 1920, Beria L.P. - manager of the affairs of the Central Committee (Central Committee) of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan. From October 1920 to February 1921 - executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) for Baku.

In intelligence and counterintelligence agencies since 1921. In April-May 1921 he worked as deputy head of the secret operational unit of the Azerbaijan Cheka; from May 1921 to November 1922 - head of the secret operational unit, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. From November 1922 to March 1926 - deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka, head of the secret operational unit; from March 1926 to December 2, 1926 - deputy chairman of the Main Political Directorate (GPU) of the Georgian SSR, head of the secret operational unit; from December 2, 1926 to April 17, 1931 - deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (ZSFSR), deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU; from December 1926 to April 17, 1931 - head of the secret operational department of the plenipotentiary representative office of the OGPU in the Trans-SFSR and the Transcaucasian GPU.

In December 1926 L.P. Beria was appointed chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR and deputy chairman of the GPU of the ZSFSR. From April 17 to December 3, 1931 - head of the special department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army, chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU of the USSR in the Trans-SFSR, being from August 18 to December 3, 1931 a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.

In 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks revealed gross political mistakes and distortions committed by the leadership of party organizations in Transcaucasia. In its decision of October 31, 1931, based on the reports of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Georgia, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Azerbaijan and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Armenia, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks set the task for the party organizations of Transcaucasia immediate correction of political distortions in work in the countryside, widespread development of economic initiative and initiative of the national republics that were part of the TSFSR. At the same time, the party organizations of Transcaucasia were obliged to put an end to the unprincipled struggle for the influence of individuals observed among the leading cadres of both the entire Transcaucasian Federation and the republics within it and to achieve the necessary solidity and Bolshevik cohesion of the party ranks. In connection with this decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, L.P. Beria was transferred to leading party work. From October 1931 to August 1938 he was the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) and at the same time from November 1931 the 2nd, and in October 1932 - April 1937 - the 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the CPSU (Bolsheviks) .

The name of Lavrentiy Beria became widely known after the publication of his book “On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations of Transcaucasia.” In the summer of 1933, when I.V., who was vacationing in Abkhazia, An assassination attempt was made on Stalin, Beria covered him with his body (the assassin was killed on the spot, and this story has not been fully revealed)...

Since February 1934, L.P. Beria is a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In June 1937, at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, he declared from the podium: “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.”

On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and from September 29, 1938, he simultaneously headed the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR. September 11, 1938 L.P. Beria was awarded the title of “Commissioner of State Security of the 1st Rank”.

On November 25, 1938, Beria was replaced by N.I. Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, retaining the direct leadership of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR. But on December 17, 1938, he appointed his deputy V.N. to this post. Merkulova.

Commissioner of State Security 1st Rank Beria L.P. almost completely renewed the highest apparatus of the NKVD of the USSR. He carried out the release of some of those wrongfully convicted from the camps: in 1939, 223.6 thousand people were released from the camps, and 103.8 thousand people from the colonies. At the insistence of L.P. Beria expanded the rights of the Special Meeting under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR to issue extrajudicial verdicts.

In March 1939, Beria became a candidate member and only in March 1946 - a member of the Politburo (since 1952 - Presidium) of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) / CPSU. Therefore, only since 1946 can we talk about the participation of L.P. Beria in making political decisions.

January 30, 1941 to the Commissar of State Security 1st Rank Beria L.P. awarded the title of "General Commissioner of State Security".

On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (from 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.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD of the USSR and the NKGB of the USSR were again united under the leadership of the General Commissioner of State Security L.P. Beria.

On June 30, 1941, Lavrentiy Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), and from May 16 to September 1944, he was also Deputy Chairman of the GKO. Through the State Defense Committee, Beria was entrusted with the most important assignments of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, both for the management of the socialist economy in the rear and at the front, namely, control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) for production of aircraft and aircraft engines.

U by the Kazakh Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30, 1943, for special services in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions, General Commissioner of State Security Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal ( No. 80).

March 10, 1944 L.P. Beria introduced I.V. Stalin received a memo with a proposal to evict the Tatars from the territory of Crimea; later he provided general management of the eviction of Chechens, Ingush, Tatars, Germans, etc.

On December 3, 1944, he was assigned to “supervise the development of uranium work”; from August 20, 1945 to March 1953 - Chairman of the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (later under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers of the USSR).

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 9, 1945, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was awarded the highest military rank “Marshal of the Soviet Union” with the presentation of a special Certificate of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the insignia “Marshal Star”.

After the end of the war on December 29, 1945, Beria left the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From March 19, 1946 to March 15, 1953 L.P. Beria is Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

As head of the military science department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks)/CPSU, L.P. Beria oversaw the most important areas of the military-industrial complex of the USSR, including the nuclear project and rocket science, the creation of the TU-4 strategic bomber, and the LB-1 tank gun. Under his leadership and with direct participation, the first atomic bomb in the USSR was created, tested on August 29, 1949, after which some began to call him “the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.”

After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, as part of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a “leading five” was created, which included L.P. Beria. After the death on March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, concentrating in his hands the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he headed the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, created on the day of Stalin’s death by merging the former ministry and the Ministry of State Security.

On the initiative of Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared in the USSR, which freed one million two hundred thousand people, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases involving four hundred thousand people were closed.

Beria advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal and the Volga-Baltic Canal). He achieved the start of armistice negotiations in Korea, tried to restore friendly relations with Yugoslavia, opposed the creation of the German Democratic Republic, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving bourgeois state.” He sharply reduced the state security apparatus abroad.

Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, L.P. Beria sent documents to the Republican Central Committee of the party, which spoke about the wrong Russification policy and illegal repressions.

On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. was arrested...

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was removed from the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, deprived of all titles and awards assigned to him.

In the verdict of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev. it was recorded that “having betrayed the Motherland and acting in the interests of foreign capital, the defendant Beria put together a treasonous group of conspirators hostile to the Soviet state with the aim of seizing power, eliminating the Soviet worker-peasant system, restoring capitalism and restoring the rule of the bourgeoisie.” The special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced L.P. Beria to death penalty.

The death sentence was carried out by Colonel General Batitsky P.F., who shot the convict in the forehead with a captured Parabellum pistol in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, which is confirmed by the corresponding act signed on December 23, 1953:

“On this day at 19:50, on the basis of the Order of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953, No. 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, Actual State Counselor of Justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General K.S. Moskalenko the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence was carried out in relation to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment - execution".

Attempts by L.P.’s relatives Beria's efforts to reconsider the 1953 case were unsuccessful. On May 29, 2000, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR...

Beria L.P. was awarded five Orders of Lenin (No. 1236 from 03/17/1935, No. 14839 from 09/30/1943, No. 27006 from 02/21/1945, No. 94311 from 03/29/49, No. 118679 from 10/29/1949 ), two Orders of the Red Banner (No. 7034 from 04/03/1924, No. 11517 from 03/11/1944), the Order of Suvorov 1st degree; orders of the Red Banner of Georgia (07/03/1923), the Red Banner of Labor of Georgia (04/10/1931), the Red Banner of Labor of Azerbaijan (03/14/1932) and the Red Banner of Labor of Armenia, seven medals; badges “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (V)” (No. 100), “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (XV)” (No. 205 of December 20, 1932), personalized weapons - a Browning pistol, a watch with a monogram; foreign awards - the Tuvan Order of the Republic (08/18/1943), the Mongolian Order of the Red Banner of Battle (No. 441 from 07/15/1942), Sukhbaatar (No. 31 from 03/29/1949), the Mongolian medal “XXV years of the MPR "(No. 3125 dated September 19, 1946).

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: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 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: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man of our time [I.V. Stalin]. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Translation by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Detyunizdat of the Georgian SSR, 1940;
On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. 8th ed. M., 1949.

One of the bloodiest leaders of the country of the Soviets, the most important security officer of the USSR, the man who led repressive measures, the deportation of nationalities, who organized the work on creating atomic weapons of the USSR, the future Marshal Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born in the town of Merkheuli near Sukhumi in March 1899. This happened on the 29th. Despite the fact that his mother was a descendant of an ancient family of princes, the family lived poorly. The parents had three children, but the eldest boy died, the girl was disabled, and only little Lavrenty grew up as a healthy and inquisitive child. At the age of 16, he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi School. Soon the family moved to Baku, where Beria graduated from a mechanical engineering school at the age of 20. It is interesting that Beria wrote with errors throughout his life.

In the capital of the future Azerbaijan SSR, Beria became interested in the ideas of communism and joined the Bolshevik Party. It was here that he became an assistant in charge of the underground. Beria was arrested twice for his activities. He spent two months in the dungeons and after leaving there in 1922 he married Nino Gegechkori, who was the niece of his cellmate. After 2 years, their son Sergo was born.

At the dawn of the 20s, Beria met with, who highly appreciated him. Already in 1931, Beria was appointed first secretary of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR, and 4 years later, chairman of the city party committee of the city of Tbilisi. During his time in power, Georgia turned into one of the most prosperous republics of the USSR. Beria actively developed oil production, contributed to the development of industry, and increased the level of well-being of the residents of the republic.

In 1935, Beria published a book entitled “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia.” In this work, he exaggerated Stalin’s role in revolutionary events as best he could. He signed a copy of the book personally for Stalin “To my beloved master, great comrade Stalin!”

This sign did not go unnoticed. In addition, Lavrenty Pavlovich actively led the terror in Transcaucasia. In the summer of 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy people's commissar of state security. And in November, Beria became the head of the NKVD instead of the executed one. A bronze statue of him was installed in Beria’s homeland. First, Lavrenty Pavlovich released several hundred thousand people from the camps, recognizing them as falsely accused. But this was a temporary phenomenon and soon the repression continued. There is information that Beria loved to be personally present during torture, the sight of which he enjoyed. Beria led the deportation of peoples from the Caucasus, the “purge” in the Baltic republics, was involved in the murder of Trotsky and recommended the execution of captured Poles, which is what happened in the Katyn forest.

In 1941, Beria took the post of General Commissioner of State Security. With the outbreak of the war, he was included in the State Defense Committee. Whatever one may say, Beria had the talent of an organizer. During the war years, he oversaw the military-industrial complex, the production of military equipment, and the functioning of the railway. transport. The coordination of intelligence and counterintelligence through the NKVD and the State Security Commissariat was concentrated in the hands of Beria. In 1943 he received the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. 2 months after the Victory, Beria became Marshal of the USSR.

Since 1944, Beria oversaw the activities of Soviet scientists in developing atomic weapons. In 1945, he became the head of the special committee to create the atomic bomb. The fruit of his (however, not only his) work was the testing of the first atomic bomb of the USSR in 1949, and after 4 years - the hydrogen bomb.

By 1946, Beria had reached the peak of his power. He was considered perhaps the most influential leader in the country. By the end of the Stalin era, Beria was Chairman of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. This state of affairs did not suit all the contenders for power in the country, and soon after Stalin’s death, on June 26, 1953, right during a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the military under the leadership arrested Beria. He was accused of espionage and anti-Soviet activities, and was also expelled from the Communist Party. On December 23, 1953, Beria was sentenced to death - and on the same day the sentence was carried out.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria(Georgian ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია), (March 17 (29), 1899, Merkheuli village, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province, - December 23 (?) 1953, Moscow ) - one of the most prominent leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet state , faithful student and closest ally of I.V. Stalin, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd convocations.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Born in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi region (Georgian SSR) into a poor peasant family. 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. In October 1915, L.P. Beria, together with a group of comrades, organized an illegal Marxist circle at the school. In March 1917, L.P. Beria joined the Bolshevik Party and organized a cell of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) at the school. In June 1917, L.P. Beria was enlisted in the army hydraulic engineering unit and left Baku for the Romanian front. At the front, L.P. Beria conducted active Bolshevik political work among the troops. At the end of 1917, L.P. Beria returned to Baku and, while continuing his studies at a technical school, actively participated in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization. From the beginning of 1919 until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920), L.P. Beria led an illegal communist organization of technicians and, on behalf of the Baku Party Committee, provided assistance to a number of Bolshevik cells. In 1919, L.P. Beria successfully graduated from a technical school and received a diploma as an architect-builder technician. Soon after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, L.P. Beria was sent to illegal revolutionary work in Georgia, where, having contacted underground Bolshevik organizations, he actively participated in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Menshevik government. At this time, L.P. Beria was arrested in Tiflis and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. In August 1920, after he organized a hunger strike of political prisoners, L.P. Beria was expelled by the Menshevik Ministry of Internal Affairs in a staged manner from Georgia.

In the state security agencies of Azerbaijan and Georgia

Returning to Baku, L.P. Beria entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study. In April 1921, the party directed L.P. Beria to carry out Chekist work. From 1921 to 1931 L.P. Beria held senior positions in Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence agencies. L.P. Beria was the deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Extraordinary Commission, the chairman of the Georgian GPU, the chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU and the 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, following the instructions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, carried out a great deal of work to defeat the anti-Soviet parties of the Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Musavatists, as well as Trotskyists and other anti-party parties that had gone deep underground. groups that slipped into the anti-Soviet underground, joining forces with the remnants of defeated anti-Soviet parties and the intelligence services of capitalist countries. For the successful fight against counter-revolution in Transcaucasia, 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.

At party work in Transcaucasia

In 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks exposed gross political mistakes and distortions committed by the leadership of party organizations in Transcaucasia. In its decision dated October 31, 1931, on the reports of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Georgia, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Azerbaijan and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks of Armenia, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks set before the party organizations of Transcaucasia the task of immediate correction of political distortions in work in the countryside, wide development of economic initiative and initiative of the national republics that were part of the Transcaucasian Federation. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) obliged the party organizations to put an end to the unprincipled struggle for influence of individuals observed among the leading cadres of both Transcaucasia and the republics (elements of the “atamanshchina”) and to achieve the necessary solidity and Bolshevik cohesion of the party ranks. In connection with this decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, L.P. Beria was transferred to leading party work. In November 1931, L.P. Beria was elected first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Georgia and secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee of the CPSU(b), and in 1932, first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee of the CP(b) of Georgia and secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Georgia. Under the leadership of L.P. Beria, the party organizations of Transcaucasia and Georgia carried out a lot of work on the organizational strengthening of their ranks, on the ideological Bolshevik education of party members in the spirit of boundless devotion to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the great leader and teacher J.V. Stalin. L.P. Beria mobilized all the forces of the party organizations of Transcaucasia to carry out the tasks assigned to the Bolsheviks of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Soviet government and personally I.V. Stalin. Under the leadership of L.P. Beria, the Transcaucasian party organization quickly corrected the errors noted in the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on October 31, 1931, eliminated the distortions of party policy and excesses in the countryside, achieved the victory of the collective farm system in Transcaucasia and the organizational and economic strengthening of collective farms, ensured the Bolshevik implementation of the instructions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the economic and cultural upsurge of the Transcaucasian republics. Much work has been carried out on the technical reconstruction and development of the oil industry of Baku. As a result, oil production increased sharply, and in 1936 almost half of the total production of the Baku oil industry came from new fields. Significant successes were achieved in the development of coal, manganese and metallurgy, industry, as well as in implementing the instructions of I.V. Stalin on the use of the gigantic opportunities of agriculture in Transcaucasia (the development of cotton growing, tea culture, citrus crops, viticulture, high-value special and industrial crops, etc. . d.). For the outstanding successes achieved over a number of years in the development of agriculture, as well as industry, the Georgian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR, which were part of the Transcaucasian Federation, were awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935. Under the leadership of L.P. Beria, the party organizations of Transcaucasia honorably justified the trust of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the great leader J.V. Stalin, achieved decisive successes in the cause of socialist construction and ensured the successful implementation of the first Stalinist five-year plans in Transcaucasia. In 1935, L.P. Beria’s book “On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia” (report at a meeting of the Tbilisi party activists on July 21-22, 1935) was published, which is a valuable contribution to the scientific history of the Bolshevik party. The significance of this book lies, first of all, in the fact that it talks in detail about the school of political struggle from which came the closest associate, the most devoted and consistent ally of the great Lenin, the leader of the world proletariat J.V. Stalin. This book contains a large amount of material testifying to the enormous revolutionary work of J.V. Stalin during the period of creating the strengthening of the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of V.I. Lenin. in 1934, at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), L.P. Beria was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). In 1938, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks transferred L.P. Beria to work in Moscow.

The NKVD of the USSR and the Great Patriotic War

In 1937, the Soviet Union encountered a problem - the Yezhovshchina. Having received the task of ridding the Soviet Union of the fifth column, the People's Commissar (Minister) of Internal Affairs of the USSR, the traitor N. Yezhov, selected scoundrels from the NKVD and unleashed terror, including on hundreds of thousands of innocent people. An unconditionally honest and intelligent person was needed, capable of simultaneously continuing the fight against traitors and correcting the crimes of the Yezhovshchina. In 1938, Beria, contrary to his wishes, was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In this post, Beria cleared the NKVD apparatus of criminals who had infiltrated positions under Yezhov, and began reviewing cases opened under Yezhov. It is characteristic that this enormous work was entrusted not to the prosecutor’s office or the court, but to the NKVD under the leadership of Beria. In 1939 alone, 330 thousand people were released, and the review of cases continued in subsequent years, while Beria continued to cleanse the country of the “fifth column.” During this period, L.P. Beria, by the leadership of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, carried out a great deal of work to improve the activities of the security forces. In February 1941, L.P. Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. 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 the most important assignments of the party both to the leadership of the socialist economy and at the front. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30, 1943, L.P. Beria was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labor for special services in the field of production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions. L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

Nuclear project

After the war, he was released from the leadership of the NKVD, but was additionally tasked with the creation of nuclear weapons, and a little later - air defense missile systems. In August 1949, an atomic bomb was created and tested; in August 1953, after the assassination of Beria, a “dry” hydrogen bomb, that is, a hydrogen bomb accessible for transportation by air, was tested for the first time in the world.

End of career

After the death of I. Stalin, a fierce struggle for power unfolded. G. Malenkov was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and the secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee was headed by N. Khrushchev. L. Beria was preparing to seize sole power. The leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Republics was also drawn into the internal party struggle. On June 26, 1953, at the July Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, L. Beria was removed from the Central Committee and expelled from the party as an enemy of the Communist Party and the Soviet people. On December 23, 1953, a court sentenced him to death as a spy for foreign intelligence services and “an enemy of the Communist Party and the Soviet people” and was executed on the same day.

In 1956, the 20th Congress of the CPSU took place, at which N. S. Khrushchev made a report on exposing the personality cult of J. V. Stalin. Khrushchev did not raise the issue of his personal involvement in the repressions with the congress delegates. He placed the blame for them on Stalin and the heads of the internal affairs bodies - N. I. Ezhov, L. P. Beria. And although the text of the report was not published, its general orientation became known to the public. The exposure of Stalin's personality cult and the condemnation of unjustified repressions were called the “course of the 20th Congress.”

BERIA, LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH(1899–1953), Soviet politician. Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in a peasant family in the Abkhaz village of Merkheuli. From childhood, he was distinguished by his ability to study and, with the money of his fellow villagers, was sent to study in Sukhum at an elementary school, from which he graduated in 1915. A history teacher predicted for him the fate of the “second Fouche” - the famous minister of police under Emperor Napoleon the First. Beria continued his education in Baku, where in 1919 he graduated with honors from the Mechanical and Construction Technical School with a diploma as an architect-builder. In 1920–1922 he studied in the first and second years of the Baku Polytechnic Institute.

Beria himself claimed that he joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917; but, according to other sources, this happened in 1919. In the summer of 1917 he was sent as a technician to the Romanian front, but the young specialist was exempt from military service and returned to Baku at the end of that year. There he worked in the apparatus of the Council of Workers' Deputies, and after the fall of Soviet power in 1918, he got a job as a clerk. In April 1920, the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) sent him to underground activities in Georgia, which was then controlled by the Menshevik government. There, Beria was arrested and declared exiled, but disappeared and, under a false name, became an employee of the Russian embassy in Tiflis, headed by Sergei Kirov. In May he was arrested again and deported to Azerbaijan, where by that time the Bolsheviks had won. In Azerbaijan, Beria worked in the party and state apparatus (in particular, he was the manager of the affairs of the Azerbaijani Central Committee), took part in the establishment of Bolshevik power in Georgia, and then completely focused on serving in the Cheka. In 1921, Beria became the head of the secret operational service and deputy chairman of the Cheka of Azerbaijan, and in 1922 he took similar positions in the Cheka of Georgia. During this period, he became close to Stalin, to whom he sent reports during the period of his intelligence activities in Baku. Unlike some of Georgia's old Bolshevik leaders, Beria fully supported him in the struggle for power.

Beria's further advancement is connected with his successes in suppressing the anti-Bolshevik underground. Several attempts were made on his life, and more than once he managed to escape only by miracle. In 1926, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the GPU of Transcaucasia and head of the GPU of Georgia, in 1927 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia, and in 1931 - head of the GPU of the entire Transcaucasia.

In October 1931, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin proposed appointing Beria as second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the party, although first secretary Kartvelishvili categorically refused to work with the new appointee. Already in 1932, Beria was appointed to the post of party leader in Transcaucasia. He was a supporter of Stalin: in a special report on the history of the Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia at the plenum of the Georgian Central Committee, Beria called Stalin the founder of Bolshevism (along with Lenin). In 1933, he shielded the “leader” from shots while relaxing on Lake Ritsa (Abkhazia). In 1934, Beria was introduced to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

However, he, like many other leaders of the country at that time, did not feel completely safe. Historian A. Avtorkhanov provides evidence that Beria was on the list of people against whom People's Commissar Nikolai Yezhov collected incriminating evidence in 1938 and reported to Stalin. The result of the investigation was the removal of Yezhov. In his place in 1938, Beria was appointed, who the following year also became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee.

Having received the appointment, Beria, unlike Yezhov, was by no means a colorless and dependent figure. Beria expelled from the punitive authorities many workers who participated in the repressions of 1937. Initially, his arrival to the leadership of the NKVD caused a weakening of mass terror. “He took up his position,” recalled Anastas Mikoyan, a prominent politician of the 1930s–1960s, “he took up his position diplomatically. First of all, he said: enough of the “purges”, it’s time to get down to real work. Many people breathed a sigh of relief from such speeches...”

Some of the repressed were released. In November 1939 an order was issued On shortcomings in the investigative work of the NKVD authorities, demanding strict adherence to criminal procedural norms. But the relief was temporary. Beria’s activities are associated with the abolition of the system of early serving of sentences for “shock” labor, the expansion of the powers of an extrajudicial body - the Special Meeting under the NKVD, and mass deportations of the population from areas annexed to the USSR in 1939–1940.

At the beginning of 1941, Stalin decided that the concentration of the repressive, intelligence and punitive complex in one hand was inappropriate. The State Security Department was removed from Beria's subordination, and he remained People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he also oversaw the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy and river fleet.

But already in 1949, Beria’s growing independence began to worry Stalin. Beria's supporter Abakumov was removed from the post of Minister of State Security and replaced by party apparatchik S.D. Ignatiev. Then a blow was struck against Beria’s supporters in the leadership of the Communist Party of Georgia. As a result of the “Georgian affair” in November 1951, on charges of “bourgeois nationalism”, 427 secretaries of regional, city and district committees, 3 secretaries of the Georgian Central Committee, 7 of 11 members of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the Minister of Justice, prosecutor of the republic, first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee and other figures. Purges of state security agencies have begun in Eastern European countries. Realizing that he was in danger of disfavor, Beria gave a speech at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in October 1952 - a eulogy to Stalin. However, this did not soften the mistrust of the leader of the USSR.

The details of the intense struggle for power in the Soviet leadership, which unfolded at the end of 1952 - beginning of 1953, and the role that Beria played in it, still remain a subject of dispute between historians. Some of them claim that Stalin intended to use the “Doctors' Plot” and the anti-Semitic campaign in order, under their cover, to deal with the figures who had caused his anger. According to some of their versions, Beria and Malenkov managed to form their own “counter-conspiracy” and remove the closest people from their apparatus and Stalin’s guards. Historian A. Avtorkhanov even believes that they ultimately managed to eliminate Stalin. Be that as it may, the death of Stalin in March 1953 put an end to this confrontation.

After Stalin's death, Beria became one of the country's top leaders, officially second after Malenkov. He took the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, into which the Ministry of State Security was merged. Beria was a pragmatist who developed a plan for change and reform.

First of all, he stopped the “doctors’ case” and released dozens of arrested doctors from prison. New purges were carried out in the state security agencies and those responsible for the mentioned “case” themselves ended up in prison. At Beria’s initiative, a partial amnesty was approved for those convicted for up to five years: as a result, more than one million 200 thousand people were released.

In the field of nationality policy, Beria advocated a significant softening of the policy of forced Russification in the union republics. According to his report, the Presidium of the Central Committee in June 1953 issued a resolution: “to put an end to the distortion of Soviet nationality policy,” to promote representatives of the “titular” nationality to leadership positions in the republics and to transfer office work into local languages. In Ukraine and Belarus, the first secretaries of the Communist Party, Russians by nationality, were replaced by Ukrainians and Belarusians.

There is information that Beria intended to quietly carry out a kind of “de-Stalinization”, replacing the classic regime of party-state dictatorship with an authoritarian, but “de-ideologized” dictatorship relying on the security forces. Economic management was to be in state, not party hands. A number of researchers prove that he planned to allow some freedom of private economic initiative. But none of these plans were implemented.

In foreign policy, Beria intended to normalize relations with Yugoslavia and the West. He was ready to agree to the restoration of a united Germany with a Western political model.

The country's leadership, led by Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev, was not ready to make such radical changes. A sharp struggle for power developed between Beria and other members of the party and state elite.

The all-powerful Deputy Prime Minister tried to attract Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to his side, but they preferred to come to an agreement with Malenkov. Together with the military, a plan was developed to eliminate Beria. Under the pretext of conducting summer maneuvers, military units loyal to the First Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, were brought to Moscow. Senior officers - Marshal Zhukov, commander of the Moscow District forces, General K.S. Moskalenko and others - were invited to a meeting of the party and state leadership on June 26, 1953, supposedly to discuss the maneuvers. According to one version, Khrushchev waited until Beria entered the conference room and proposed to remove and try him, after which Malenkov called the military. According to another, when the military entered the hall, Malenkov accused Beria of preparing a conspiracy and ordered Zhukov to arrest him, which was immediately done. Not expecting such a turn of events, Beria did not offer any resistance. He only managed to write a few times on the sheet of paper lying in front of him: “Anxiety.”

The arrested man was taken to the next room, where he was kept all night. He kept trying to lower the guard of the officers guarding him and get to the phone. Only after the military replaced the Kremlin guards, who were subordinate to Beria, was he taken out of the Kremlin. Subsequently, he refused to repent and admit to any crimes, even going on an eleven-day hunger strike.

The campaign against Beria, launched after his removal and arrest, was supposed to convince the Soviet population that it was he alone among the entire leadership who was responsible for all the difficulties and crimes of the communist regime. He was accused of treason, espionage, reprisals against innocent people and violence. The trial of Beria and his closest collaborators - V. Merkulov, V. Dekanozov, B. Kobulov, S. Goglidze, P. Meshik and L. Volodzimersky - took place from December 18 to 23, 1953. A special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I S. Koneva, sitting behind closed doors, sentenced them to death. On December 23, 1953, Beria was shot.