Lavrentiy Beria (March 17 (29), 1899 – December 23, 1953) was born in Merkheuli, near Sukhumi (Georgia) and belonged to the Mingrelians. His mother, Marta Jakeli, was related to the local princely family Dadiani, and his father, Pavel Beria, was a landowner from Abkhazia.
In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich served in the counterintelligence of the Azerbaijani government Musavatists, hostile to the Soviet republic. He himself later claimed that he infiltrated there on instructions from the party. Bolsheviks, but it is unknown how true this version is. Having ended up in prison for a while, Beria struck up a relationship there with the niece of his cellmate, the aristocrat Nina Gegechkori, whose relatives occupied high positions in Menshevik government of Georgia, and among the Bolsheviks. Apparently, thanks to these patronages, Beria after the capture Red Army Azerbaijan managed to advance in Cheka. In August 1920, he became the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and in October - secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improvement of the living conditions of workers, where he was soon accused of falsifying criminal cases, but got out of it due to intercession A. Mikoyan.
Beria in his youth. Photo from the 1920s
When the Bolsheviks put an end to the existence of independent Georgia, Beria moved from Baku to Tiflis, becoming deputy head of the Georgian GPU(successor to the Cheka). In 1924 he played a prominent role in the brutal suppression uprising raised by Georgians.
In December 1926, Beria became chairman of the GPU of Georgia, and in April 1927, the Georgian People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Together with S. Ordzhonikidze, he supported a common fellow countryman - Stalin - in his rivalry with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. With the help of cynical intrigues, Beria ousted his main competitor, Stalin’s brother-in-law, from the Caucasus to Belarus S. Redensa, after which in November 1931 he was appointed head of the Communist Party of Georgia, in October 1932 - of the entire Transcaucasus, and in XVII Party Congress(February 1934) - elected member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
At the same congress, the influential party guard made attempts to remove Stalin and replace him S. Kirov. Behind the scenes efforts in favor of this were carried out throughout 1934. Ordzhonikidze was also inclined to side with Kirov, who, however, was unable to attend the very important November plenum of the Central Committee due to a sudden illness that befell him immediately after dinner in Baku with Beria.
Lavrenty Pavlovich 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,” written on his behalf. 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.
Started after Kirov's assassination Great Terror Stalin was also active in Transcaucasia - under the leadership of Beria. Here, 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 before his death openly called Lavrentiy his murderer. By order of Beria, Lakoba’s body was then dug out of the grave and destroyed. S. Ordzhonikidze’s brother Papulia was arrested, and the other (Valiko) was dismissed from his post.
Having decided to reduce the scale of terror, which was already threatening the collapse of the economy and the state, Stalin decided to displace and destroy its main conductor - the head NKVD Yezhova. Beria, transferred from the Caucasus to Moscow in August 1938, became Yezhov’s deputy, and in November replaced him as All-Union People’s Commissar. At first, Beria released 100 thousand people from the camps, recognizing them as victims of false accusations, but this liberalization was only short-term and relative. Lavrentiy Pavlovich soon led the bloody “purges” in the Baltic republics that had just been annexed to the USSR, and organized Trotsky's assassination in Mexico, in a note to Stalin No. 794/B, he recommended the destruction of Polish prisoners captured after the practical implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact (this was accomplished by Katyn massacre).
Beria with Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva on his lap. In the background - Stalin
In 1941, Beria received the rank of General Commissar of State Security, equivalent to Marshal of the Soviet Union. After the start Great Patriotic War Lavrenty Pavlovich joined the State Defense Committee ( GKO). During the war years he transferred millions of prisoners Gulag to the army and military production. Their slave labor was widely used in the production of weapons.
In 1944 Beria led evictions of nationalities of the USSR who collaborated with the Nazis or were suspected of it (Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Pontic Greeks and Volga Germans). Since the end of the same year, he led the work on creating Soviet atomic bomb. Research “sharashkas” were formed from groups of arrested scientists. Tens of thousands of Gulag prisoners were sent to work in uranium mines and to build nuclear testing sites. The creation of the atomic bomb was completed in five years and thanks to Soviet espionage in the West conducted by Beria's NKVD.
In the post-war years, the struggle for the inheritance of the aging Stalin quickly intensified among the Soviet elite. Even during the war, an alliance between Beria and Malenkov. He was opposed by a bloc headed by A. Zhdanov and relying on the party leadership of Leningrad. With the support of Stalin himself, opponents ousted Beria from the post of head of the NKVD (December 30, 1945). In the summer of 1946, Beria's protege V. Merkulov was replaced at the head of another important punitive agency - the MGB - by a much more independent V. Abakumov. Having received the title of member of the Politburo as some “compensation”, Beria retained only the leadership of foreign intelligence (where he greatly contributed to helping the communists Mao Zedong in their fight with Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek). Was destroyed (October 1946) Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created during the war by the hands of Beria, who, according to some information, supported the old Bolshevik idea transfers to the Jews of Crimea as an “autonomous republic”.
However, in August 1948, A. Zhdanov died under rather mysterious circumstances, and from the beginning of the next year a terrible persecution began against his supporters - “ Leningrad case" This ferocious campaign was led by Beria's ally, Malenkov. However, Abakumov, hostile to Beria, simultaneously launched a series of purges accompanied by executions against the leaders of Eastern European countries dependent on the USSR. Beria sought an alliance with Israel to impose Soviet influence in the Middle East, but other Kremlin leaders decided instead to establish an anti-Israeli partnership with the Arabs. Among the Eastern European leaders, it was primarily the Jews who were “cleaned out,” whose percentage in the local leadership was many times greater than their share in the population. Partly continuing Zhdanov’s previous line of struggle against “rootless cosmopolitanism,” Abakumov’s successor, S. Ignatiev, in January 1953 opened the largest anti-Jewish action in the Soviet Union - “ The Doctors' Case».
In the midst of all these events, on March 5, 1953, unexpectedly Stalin died. The version about his poisoning by Beria with the help of warfarin received in last years there is a lot of indirect evidence. Summoned to the Kuntsevskaya dacha to see the stricken leader, Beria and Malenkov, on the morning of March 2, convinced the guards that “Comrade Stalin was simply sleeping” after a feast (in a puddle of urine), and ordered “not to disturb him” and “to stop panicking.” The call to the doctors was delayed for 12 hours, although the paralyzed Stalin was unconscious. All these orders, however, were tacitly supported by the other members Politburo. According to the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, S. Alliluyeva, after the death of her father, Beria was the only one of those gathered at the body who did not even try to hide his joy.
Lavrenty Beria in the last years of his life
Beria was now 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. Khrushchev headed the party, and Voroshilov took the post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (head of state). A power struggle immediately began between all these “comrades-in-arms.” At first, Beria’s position in it seemed perhaps the strongest, but the arrogance and power of Lavrenty Pavlovich pushed everyone else to unite against him. Even Malenkov recoiled from Beria. Rivals did not like Laurentius's risky foreign policy initiatives. Believing that the USSR was too weakened by the war, Beria hinted: in exchange for financial assistance It would be reasonable for the United States to renounce hegemony over East Germany, return Moldova to Romania, the Kuril Islands to Japan, and even restore the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
The conspiracy against Beria was led by Khrushchev. Having convened the Presidium of the Central Committee on June 26, 1953 (as the Politburo was now called), he suddenly declared the stunned enemy there a “paid agent of Western intelligence services.” In order to prevent state security forces loyal to Beria from coming to the aid of their boss, Marshal Zhukov and the Minister of Defense participated in the conspiracy Bulganin They called the Kantemirovskaya tank division and the Tamanskaya motorized rifle division to Moscow. Beria was arrested right during the meeting of the Presidium. At the same time, other prominent punitive authorities were also captured.
By the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR on December 23, 1953 (presided by Marshal Koneva) Beria and his supporters were sentenced to death. When the verdict was read, Lavrenty Pavlovich begged for mercy on his knees, and then fell to the floor and sobbed desperately. During the execution, this recent all-powerful and ruthless arbiter of human destinies screamed so loudly that they had to stuff a towel into his mouth. Beria's executioner was General Batitsky, who hated him.
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 is leading a very stormy political life, holds senior 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. 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 charges 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
Member of the Politburo (Presidium) of the CPSU Central Committee - March 18, 1946 - July 7, 1953
Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR - May 16, 1944 - September 4, 1945
Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR - March 5 - June 26, 1953
Predecessor: Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov
Successor: Sergey Nikiforovich Kruglov
First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the CPSU (b) October 17, 1932 - April 23, 1937
Predecessor: Ivan Dmitrievich Orakhelashvili
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia November 14, 1931 - August 31, 1938
Predecessor: Lavrenty Iosifovich Kartvelishvili
Successor: Kandid Nesterovich Charkviani
First Secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) May 1937 - August 31, 1938
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Georgian SSR- April 4, 1927 - December 1930
Predecessor: Alexey Alexandrovich Gegechkori
Successor: Sergey Arsenievich Goglidze
Birth: March 17 (29), 1899
Merkheuli, Gumistinsky district, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province, Russian empire
Death: December 23, 1953 (age 54) Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Place of burial: Donskoye Cemetery
Father: Pavel Khukhaevich Beria
Mother: Marta Vissarionovna Jakeli
Spouse: Nino Teymurazovna Gegechkori
Children: son: Sergo
Party: RSDLP(b) since 1917, RCP(b) since 1918, CPSU(b) since 1925, CPSU since 1952
Education: Baku Polytechnic Institute
Military service
Years of service: 1938—1953
Military branch: NKVD
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 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 Suvorov, 1st class
Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"
Medal "For the Defense of Moscow"
Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"
MN Order Sukhebator rib1961.svg
Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia)
Medal "25 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution"
Order of the Republic (Tuva)
Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Azerbaijan SSR Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Armenian SSR
Honorary State Security Officer
Personalized weapon - Browning system pistol
Stalin Prize
Stalin Prize
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenty Pavles dze Beria; March 17, 1899, village Mer Kheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province, Russian Empire - December 23, 1953, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and political figure, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), deprived of these titles in 1953 due to accusations of organizing “Stalinist” repressions.
Since 1941, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Sovnarkom until 1946) USSR Joseph Stalin, with his death on March 5, 1953 - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov and at the same time Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. 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 of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1946-1952), member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (1952-1953). He was part of J.V. Stalin's inner circle. Oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation nuclear weapons and rocket technology. He led the implementation of the USSR nuclear program. [source not specified 74 days]
On June 26, 1953, L.P. Beria was arrested (fearing arrest, Khrushchev and the conspirators initiated a criminal case) on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power.
On December 23, 1953, at 19:50, he was executed by sentence of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR. The body was cremated in the oven of the 1st Moscow crematorium (at the Donskoye cemetery).
Biography
Childhood and youth
In the settlement of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh region of Abkhazia) in a poor peasant family.
His mother Marta Jakeli (1868-1955) was a Mingrelian, according to Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, and was distantly related to the Mingrelian princely family of Dadiani. After the death of her first husband, Martha was left with a son and two daughters in her arms. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha’s first marriage were taken in by her brother, Dmitry.
Lavrenty's father, Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merheuli from Megrelia. Martha and Pavel had three children in their family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2, and the daughter remained deaf and dumb after an illness. Noticing Lavrenty's good abilities, his parents tried to give him a good education - at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. To pay for studies and living expenses, parents had to sell half of their house.
In 1915, Beria, with honors (according to other sources, studied mediocrely, and was left in the fourth grade for the second year), having graduated from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, went to Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School. From the age of 17, he supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him. Working since 1916 as an intern at the main office of the Nobel oil company, he simultaneously continued his studies at the school. He graduated from it in 1919, receiving a diploma as a construction technician-architect.
Since 1915, he was a member of the illegal Marxist circle of the Mechanical Engineering School and was its treasurer. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP(b). In June - December 1917, as a technician of a hydraulic engineering detachment, he went to the Romanian front, served in Odessa, then in Pascani (Romania), was discharged due to illness and returned to Baku, where from February 1918 he worked in the city organization of the Bolsheviks and the secretariat of the Baku Council workers' deputies. After the defeat of the Baku Commune and the capture of Baku by Turkish-Azerbaijani troops (September 1918), he remained in the city and participated in the work of the underground Bolshevik organization until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920). From October 1918 to January 1919 - clerk at the Caspian Partnership White City plant, Baku.
In the fall of 1919, on the instructions of the leader of the Baku Bolshevik underground A. Mikoyan, he became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution (counterintelligence) under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
During this period, he established close relations with Zinaida Krems (Kreps), who had connections with the German military intelligence. In his autobiography, dated October 22, 1923, Beria wrote:
“During the first time of the Turkish occupation, I worked in the White City at the Caspian Partnership plant as a clerk. In the autumn of the same 1919, from the Gummet party, I entered the counterintelligence service, where I worked together with comrade Moussevi. Around March 1920, after the murder of Comrade Moussevi, I left my job in counterintelligence and worked for a short time at the Baku customs "
Beria did not hide his work in counterintelligence of the ADR - for example, in a letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze in 1933, he wrote that “he was sent to Musavat intelligence by the party and that this issue was examined by the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b) in 1920,” that the Central Committee of the AKP(b) “completely rehabilitated” him, since “the fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by the statements of comrade. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others.”
In April 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was sent to work illegally in the Georgian Democratic Republic as an authorized representative of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. Almost immediately he was arrested in Tiflis and released with an order to leave Georgia within three days. In his autobiography, Beria wrote:
“From the very first days after the April coup in Azerbaijan, the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the register of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army was sent to Georgia for underground work abroad as an authorized representative. In Tiflis I contact the regional committee represented by Comrade. Hmayak Nazaretyan, I spread a network of residents in Georgia and Armenia, establish contact with the headquarters of the Georgian army and guard, and regularly send couriers to the register of the city of Baku. In Tiflis I was arrested together with the Central Committee of Georgia, but according to negotiations between G. Sturua and Noah Zhordania, everyone was released with an offer to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, I manage to stay, entering under the pseudonym Lakerbaya to serve in the representative office of the RSFSR with Comrade Kirov, who by that time had arrived in the city of Tiflis.”
Later, participating in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, he was exposed by local counterintelligence, arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison, then deported to Azerbaijan. He writes about this:
“In May 1920, I went to the register office in Baku to receive directives in connection with the conclusion of a peace treaty with Georgia, but on the way back to Tiflis I was arrested by a telegram from Noah Ramishvili and taken to Tiflis, from where, despite the efforts of Comrade Kirov, I was sent to Kutaisi prison. June and July 1920, I was in custody, only after four and a half days of hunger strike declared by political prisoners, I was gradually deported to Azerbaijan. »
Shatunovskaya O.G. describes the episode of Beria’s arrest in Baku, mentioning Bagirov, who was subsequently shot (in 1956): “Beria... was not in Azerbaijan for a long time. In Azerbaijan he was put in prison... He was imprisoned as a provocateur, and Bagirov freed him. Kirov he was then a permanent representative in Tbilisi. He gave a telegram to the headquarters of the 11th Army, to the Revolutionary Military Council, to Ordzhonikidze: “The provocateur Beria has escaped, arrest him.”
In the state security agencies of Azerbaijan and Georgia
Returning to Baku, Beria tried several times to continue his studies at the Baku Polytechnic Institute, into which the school was transformed, and completed three courses. 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 improvement of the living conditions of workers, working in this position until February 1921. In April 1921, he was appointed deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the Azerbaijan SSR, and in May he took the positions of head of the secret operations department and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. The Chairman of the Cheka of the Azerbaijan SSR at that time was Mir Jafar Bagirov.
In 1921, Beria was sharply criticized by the party and security service leadership of Azerbaijan for exceeding his powers and falsifying criminal cases, but escaped serious punishment. (Anastas Mikoyan interceded for him.)
In 1922, he participated in the defeat of the Muslim organization “Ittihad” and the liquidation of the Transcaucasian organization of right-wing Social Revolutionaries.
In November 1922, Beria was transferred to Tiflis, where he was appointed head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, later transformed into the Georgian GPU (State Political Administration), combining the post of head of the Special Department of the Transcaucasian Army.
In July 1923, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Republic by the Central Executive Committee of Georgia.
In 1924 he participated in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.
From March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR, Head of the Secret Operations Unit.
On December 2, 1926, Lavrentiy Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR (until December 3, 1931), deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the TSFSR and deputy chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the TSFSR (until April 17, 1931). At the same time, from December 1926 to April 17, 1931, he was the head of the Secret Operational Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the Trans-SFSR and the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Trans-SFSR.
At the same time, from April 1927 to December 1930 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. His first meeting with Stalin apparently dates back to this period.
On June 6, 1930, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the Georgian SSR, Lavrentiy Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia. On April 17, 1931, he took the positions of Chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR, the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR, and the head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army (until December 3, 1931). At the same time, from August 18 to December 3, 1931, he was a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.
At party work in Transcaucasia
On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recommended L.P. Beria for the post of second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (in office until October 17, 1932); on November 14, 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (until August 31). 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee while maintaining the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On December 5, 1936, the TSFSR was divided into three independent republics; the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on April 23, 1937.
On March 10, 1933, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks included Beria in the distribution list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - minutes of meetings of the Politburo, Organizing Bureau, and Secretariat of the Central Committee. In 1934, at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was elected a member of the Central Committee for the first time.
On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was included in the commission chaired by L. M. Kaganovich, created to develop a draft Regulation on the NKVD of the USSR and the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
In December 1934, Beria attended a reception with Stalin in honor of his 55th birthday.
At the beginning of March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and its presidium. On March 17, 1935, he was awarded his first Order of Lenin. In May 1937, he concurrently headed the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) (until August 31, 1938).
In 1935, he published the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia” (according to researchers, its real authors were Malakia Toroshelidze and Eric Bedia). In the draft publication of Stalin's Works at the end of 1935, Beria was listed as a member of the editorial board, as well as a candidate editor of individual volumes.
During the leadership of L.P. Beria, the national economy of the region developed rapidly. Beria made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry in Transcaucasia; under him, many large industrial facilities were commissioned (Zemo-Avchala hydroelectric station, etc.). Georgia was transformed into an all-Union resort area. By 1940 the volume industrial production in Georgia increased by 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural by 2.5 times with a fundamental change in the structure Agriculture towards highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone. High purchasing prices were set for agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.): the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.
It is alleged that before his death (apparently as a result of poisoning), Nestor Lakoba named Beria as his killer.
In September 1937, together with G.M. Malenkov and A.I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a “cleansing” of the party organization of Armenia. The “Great Purge” also took place in Georgia, where many party and government workers were repressed. Here the so-called conspiracy was “discovered” among the party leadership of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, the participants of which allegedly planned the secession of Transcaucasia from the USSR and transition to the protectorate of Great Britain.
In Georgia, in particular, persecution began against the People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR, Gaioz Devdariani. His brother Shalva, who held important positions in the state security agencies and the Communist Party, was executed. In the end, Gayoz Devdariani was accused of violating Article 58 and, on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities, was executed in 1938 by the verdict of the NKVD troika. In addition to party functionaries, local intellectuals also suffered from the purge, even those who tried to stay away from politics, including Mikheil Javakhishvili, Titian Tabidze, Sandro Akhmeteli, Yevgeny Mikeladze, Dmitry Shevardnadze, Giorgi Eliava, Grigory Tsereteli and others.
Since January 17, 1938, from the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR.
In the NKVD of the USSR
On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov. Simultaneously with Beria, another 1st Deputy People's Commissar (from 04/15/37) was M.P. Frinovsky, who headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. On September 8, 1938, Frinovsky was appointed People's Commissar of the USSR Navy and left the posts of 1st Deputy People's Commissar and Head of the NKVD Directorate of the USSR; on the same day, September 8, he was replaced in the last post by L.P. Beria - from September 29, 1938 to the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, restored within the structure of the NKVD (December 17, 1938, Beria will be replaced in this post by V.N. Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from 12/16/38). On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank.
According to A. S. Barsenkov and A. I. Vdovin, with the arrival of L. P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions sharply decreased and the Great Terror ended. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand. In 1939-1940, the overwhelming majority of people who were not convicted in 1937-1938 were released; Also, some of those convicted and sent to camps were released. According to data provided by V.N. Zemskov, in 1938, 279,966 people were released. The Moscow State University expert commission found factual errors in the textbook of Barsenkov and Vdovin and estimates the number of people released in 1939-1940 at 150-200 thousand people. “In certain circles of society, he has since had a reputation as a person who restored ‘socialist legality’ at the very end of the 30s,” noted Yakov Etinger.
Oversaw the operation to eliminate Leon Trotsky.
From November 25, 1938 to February 3, 1941, Beria led Soviet foreign intelligence (then it was part of the functions of the NKVD of the USSR; from February 3, 1941, foreign intelligence was transferred to the newly formed People's Commissariat state security of the USSR, which was headed by the former first deputy of Beria in the NKVD V. N. Merkulov). According to Martirosyan, Beria in the shortest possible time stopped Yezhov's lawlessness and terror that reigned in the NKVD (including foreign intelligence) and in the army, including military intelligence. Under the leadership of Beria in 1939-1940, a powerful intelligence network of the Soviet foreign intelligence in Europe, as well as in Japan and the USA.
Since March 22, 1939 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. On January 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of General Commissioner of State Security. On February 3, 1941, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he oversaw the work of the NKVD, NKGB, people's commissariats of the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and river fleet.
The Great Patriotic War
During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO). By the GKO decree of February 4, 1942 on the distribution of responsibilities between members of the GKO, L. P. Beria was assigned responsibilities for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the work of the Red Air Force Armies (formation of air regiments, their timely transfer to the front, etc.).
By decree of the State Defense Committee of December 8, 1942, L. P. Beria was appointed a member of the Operational Bureau of the State Defense Committee. By the same decree, L.P. Beria was additionally assigned responsibilities for monitoring and monitoring the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and the People's Commissariat of Railways. In May 1944, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and chairman of the Operations Bureau. The tasks of the Operations Bureau included, in particular, control and monitoring of the work of all People's Commissariats of the defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper and pulp, electrical industry, power plants.
Beria also served as permanent adviser to the Headquarters of the Main Command of the USSR Armed Forces.
During the war years, he carried out important assignments from the leadership of the country and the party, both related to the management of the national economy and at the front. In fact, he led the defense of the Caucasus in 1942. Oversaw the production of aircraft and rocketry.
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.”
During the war, L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) (July 15, 1942), the Order of the Republic (Tuva) (August 18, 1943), the Hammer and Sickle medal (September 30, 1943), two Orders of Lenin (30 September 1943, February 21, 1945), Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).
Start of work on the nuclear project
On February 11, 1943, J.V. 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 USSR State Defense Committee on Laboratory No. 2 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.
Deportation of peoples in the USSR
During the Great Patriotic War, peoples were deported from their places of compact residence. Representatives of peoples whose countries were part of Hitler's coalition (Hungarians, Bulgarians, many Finns) were also deported. The official reason for the deportation was mass desertion, collaborationism and active anti-Soviet armed struggle a significant part of these peoples during the Great Patriotic War.
On January 29, 1944, Lavrentiy Beria approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” and on February 21, he issued an order to the NKVD on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush. On February 20, together with I. A. Serov, B. Z. Kobulov and S. S. Mamulov, Beria arrived in Grozny and personally led the operation, which involved up to 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH, and also about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops, drawn from all over the country to participate in “exercises in mountainous area" On February 22, he met with the leadership of the republic and senior spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and offered to carry out the necessary work among the population, and in the morning next day The eviction operation began. On February 24, Beria reported to Stalin: “The eviction is proceeding normally... Of the persons scheduled for removal in connection with the operation, 842 people have been arrested.”
On the same day, Beria suggested that Stalin evict the Balkars, and on February 26 he issued an order to the NKVD “On measures to evict the Balkar population from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” The day before, Beria, Serov and Kobulov held a meeting with the secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional party committee Zuber Kumekhov, during which it was planned to visit the Elbrus region in early March. On March 2, Beria, accompanied by Kobulov and Mamulov, traveled to the Elbrus region, informing Kumekhov of his intention to evict the Balkars and transfer their lands to Georgia so that it could have a defensive line on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. On March 5, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the eviction from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and on March 8-9, the operation began. On March 11, Beria reported to Stalin that “37,103 Balkars were evicted,” and on March 14 he reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
Another major action was the deportation of Meskhetian Turks, as well as Kurds and Hemshins living in the areas bordering Turkey. On July 24, Beria addressed I. Stalin with a letter (No. 7896). He wrote:
“Over the course of a number of years, a significant part of this population, connected with the residents of the border regions of Turkey through family ties and relationships, has shown emigration sentiments, engaged in smuggling and serves as a source for Turkish intelligence agencies to recruit spy elements and plant gangster groups.”
He noted that “the NKVD of the USSR considers it expedient to resettle 16,700 farms of Turks, Kurds, and Hemshins from the Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigen, Aspindza, Bogdanovsky districts, some village councils of the Adjarian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” On July 31, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution (No. 6279, “top secret”) on the eviction of 45,516 Meskhetian Turks from the Georgian SSR to the Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek SSRs, as noted in the documents of the Special Settlements Department of the NKVD of the USSR.
The liberation of the regions from the German occupiers also required new actions against the families of German collaborators. On August 24, an order from the NKVD followed, signed by Beria, “On the eviction from the cities of the Caucasian Mining Group resorts of the families of active German collaborators, traitors and traitors to the Motherland who voluntarily left with the Germans.” On December 2, Beria addressed Stalin with the following letter:
“In connection with the successful completion of the operation to evict from the border regions of the Georgian SSR to the regions of the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR 91,095 people - Turks, Kurds, Hemshins, the NKVD of the USSR requests that the NKVD workers who most distinguished themselves during the operation be awarded with orders and medals of the USSR. NKGB and military personnel of the NKVD troops."
Post-war years
Supervision of the USSR nuclear project[edit | edit wiki text]
See also: The creation of the Soviet atomic bomb and the Special Committee
After testing the first American atomic device in the desert near Alamogordo, work in the USSR to create its own nuclear weapons was significantly accelerated.
Based on the State Defense Order of August 20, 1945. A special committee was created under the State Defense Committee. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (then refused from participating in the project due to disagreements with L. P. Beria)), V. A. Makhnev, M. G. Pervukhin. The Committee was entrusted with “direction of all work on the use inside atomic energy uranium." Later it was renamed the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. L.P. Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, provided general management of the entire project. Personnel issues of the project were entrusted to M. G. Pervukhin, V. A. Malyshev, B. L. Vannikov and A. P. Zavenyagin, who staffed the organization’s areas of activity with scientific and engineering personnel and selected experts to resolve individual issues.
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 the removal and arrest of L.P. Beria), 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 atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. On October 29, 1949, L.P. Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree “for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the test atomic weapons" According to the testimony of P. A. Sudoplatov, published in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness” (1996), two project leaders - L. P. Beria and I. V. Kurchatov - were awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” with the wording “for outstanding services in strengthening the power of the USSR,” it is indicated that the recipient was awarded a “Certificate of Honorary Citizen of the Soviet Union.” Subsequently, the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” was not awarded.
The test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, the development of which was supervised by G. M. Malenkov, took place on August 12, 1953, after the arrest of L. P. Beria.
Career
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.
On September 6, 1945, the Operations Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was formed, and L.P. Beria was appointed its chairman. The tasks of the SNK Operations Bureau included work issues industrial enterprises and railway transport.
Since March 1946, Beria has been one of the “seven” members of the Politburo, which included I.V. Stalin and six people close to him. The most important issues were confined to this “inner circle” government controlled, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, weapons, functioning armed forces. On March 18, he became a member of the Politburo, and the next day he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he oversaw the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of State Control.
In March 1949 - July 1951, there was a sharp strengthening of L.P. Beria's position in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the work on which L.P. Beria supervised. However, then came the Mingrelian affair directed against him.
After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, which took place in October 1952, L. P. Beria was included in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which replaced the former Politburo, in the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and in the “leading five” of the Presidium created at the suggestion of J. V. Stalin.
Death of Stalin.
On the day of Stalin's death - March 5, 1953, a Joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was held, where appointments to the highest posts of the party and the Government of the USSR were approved, and, by prior agreement with the Khrushchev group -Malenkov-Molotov-Bulganin, Beria, without much debate, was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The newly formed Ministry of Internal Affairs merged the previously existing Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security.
On March 9, 1953, L.P. Beria participated in the funeral of I.V. Stalin, and made a speech at a funeral meeting from the platform of the Mausoleum.
Beria, along with Khrushchev and Malenkov, became one of the main contenders for leadership in the country. In the struggle for leadership, L.P. Beria relied on the security agencies. L.P. Beria’s proteges were promoted to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Already on March 19, the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were replaced in all union republics and in most regions of the RSFSR. In turn, the newly appointed heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs replaced personnel in the middle management.
From mid-March to June 1953, Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with his orders for the ministry and proposals (notes) to the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee (many of which were approved by relevant resolutions and decrees), initiated the termination of the doctors’ case, the Mingrelian case and a number of other legislative and political changes:
Order on the creation of commissions to review the “doctors’ case”, the conspiracy in the USSR MGB, the Headquarters of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the MGB of the Georgian SSR. All defendants in these cases were rehabilitated within two weeks.
Order on the creation of a commission to consider cases of deportation of citizens from Georgia.
Order to review the “aviation case”. Over the next two months, People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry Shakhurin and Commander of the USSR Air Force Novikov, as well as other defendants in the case, were completely rehabilitated and reinstated in their positions and ranks.
Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the amnesty. According to Beria’s proposal, on March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee approved the decree “On Amnesty,” according to which 1.203 million people were to be released from places of detention, and investigations against 401 thousand people were to be terminated. As of August 10, 1953, 1.032 million people were released from prison. the following categories of prisoners:
sentenced to a term of up to 5 years inclusive,
convicted for:
officials,
economic and
some military crimes,
and:
minors,
elderly,
sick,
women with young children and
pregnant women.
A note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the rehabilitation of persons involved in the “doctors’ case.”
The note admitted that innocent major figures in Soviet medicine were presented as spies and murderers, and, as a result, as objects of anti-Semitic persecution launched in the central press. The case from beginning to end is a provocative invention of the former deputy of the USSR MGB Ryumin, who, having embarked on the criminal path of deceiving the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in order to obtain the necessary testimony, secured the sanction of I.V. Stalin to use physical coercion measures against the arrested doctors - torture and severe beatings. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the so-called case of doctors-saboteurs” dated April 3, 1953, ordered support for Beria’s proposal for the complete rehabilitation of these doctors (37 people) and the removal of Ignatiev from the post of Minister of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, and Ryumin to that was already arrested.
A note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on bringing to criminal liability those involved in the death of S. M. Mikhoels and V. I. Golubov.
Order “On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical coercion against those arrested.”
The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On approval of measures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR to correct the consequences of violations of the law” dated April 10, 1953, read: “Approve the activities carried out by comrade. Beria L.P. measures to uncover criminal acts committed over a number of years in the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR, expressed in the fabrication of falsified cases on honest people, as well as measures to correct the consequences of violations of Soviet laws, bearing in mind that these measures are aimed at strengthening the Soviet state and socialist legality.”
A note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee about the improper handling of the Mingrelian affair. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the case of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group” dated April 10, 1953 recognizes that the circumstances of the case are fictitious, all defendants are to be released and completely rehabilitated.
Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of N. D. Yakovlev, I. I. Volkotrubenko, I. A. Mirzakhanov and others.”
Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of M. M. Kaganovich.”
Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the abolition of passport restrictions and restricted areas.”
Arrest and sentence
Circular from the head of the 2nd Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR K. Omelchenko on the seizure of portraits of L. P. Beria. July 27, 1953
Having secured the support of the majority of members of the Central Committee and high-ranking military personnel, Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 26, 1953, where he raised the issue of Beria’s suitability for his position and his removal from all posts. Among others, Khrushchev voiced accusations of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the aggravated situation in the GDR, and espionage for Great Britain in the 1920s. Beria tried to prove that if he was appointed by the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, then only the plenum could remove him, but according to special signal A group of generals led by Marshal Zhukov entered the room and arrested Beria.
Beria was accused of spying for Great Britain and other countries, of striving to eliminate the Soviet worker-peasant system, to restore capitalism and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as of moral corruption, abuse of power, and falsification of thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and in organizing illegal repressions (this Beria, according to the accusation, committed, also acting for selfish and enemy purposes).
At the July plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, almost all members of the Central Committee made statements about the sabotage activities of L. Beria. On July 7, by a resolution of the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Beria was relieved of his duties as a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and removed from the CPSU Central Committee. On July 27, 1953, a secret circular was issued by the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which ordered the widespread seizure of any artistic images of L.P. Beria.
His closest associates from the state security agencies were accused along with him, immediately after his arrest and later called “Beria’s gang” in the media:
Merkulov V. N. - Minister of State Control of the USSR
Kobulov B.Z. - First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR
Goglidze S. A. - Head of the 3rd Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
Meshik P. Ya. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR
Dekanozov V. G. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR
Vlodzimirsky L. E. - head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
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. From last word Beria at trial:
I have already shown the court what I plead guilty to. I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service for a long time. However, I declare that, even while serving there, I did nothing harmful. I fully admit my moral and everyday decay. The numerous relationships with women mentioned here disgrace me as a citizen and former party member.|…
Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and distortions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I did not have any selfish or hostile goals. The reason for my crimes is the situation of that time.|…
I do not consider myself guilty of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War.
When sentencing me, I ask you to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve.
The verdict read:
The Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR decided: to sentence Beria L.P., Merkulov V.N., Dekanozov V.G., Kobulov B.Z., Goglidze S.A., Meshik P.Ya., Vlodzimirsky L.E. to the highest degree of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of personal property, with deprivation military ranks and awards.
All the accused were shot on the same day, and L.P. Beria was shot a few hours before the execution of the other convicts in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky fired the first shot from his personal weapon. The body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery (according to other statements, Beria's ashes were scattered over the Moscow River).
Brief message the trial of L.P. Beria and his employees was published in the Soviet press. Nevertheless, some historians admit that the arrest, trial and execution of Beria, on formal grounds, occurred illegally: unlike other defendants in the case, there was never a warrant for his arrest; interrogation protocols and letters exist only in copies, the description of the arrest by its participants is radically different from each other, what happened to his body after the execution is not confirmed by any documents (there is no certificate of cremation). These and other facts subsequently provided food for all sorts of theories, in particular, famous writer and journalist E. A. Prudnikova, based on an analysis of written sources and the memoirs of contemporaries, proves that L. P. Beria was killed during his arrest, and the entire trial is a falsification designed to hide the true state of affairs.
The version that Beria was killed on the orders of Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin on June 26, 1953 by a capture group directly during the arrest in his mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya Street is presented in an investigative documentary film by journalist Sergei Medvedev, first shown on Channel One on June 4 2014.
After Beria’s arrest, one of his closest associates, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR, Mir Jafar Bagirov, was arrested and executed. In subsequent years, other, lower-ranking members of Beria's gang were convicted and shot or sentenced to long prison terms:
Abakumov V.S. - Chairman of the Collegium of the USSR MGB
Ryumin M.D. - Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR
on the Bagirov case
Bagirov M.D. - 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR
Markaryan R. A. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Borshchev T. M. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR
Grigoryan Kh. I. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR
Atakishiev S.I. - 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the Azerbaijan SSR
Emelyanov S. F. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR
on the “Rukhadze case”
Rukhadze N. M. - Minister of State Security of the Georgian SSR
Rapava. A. N. - Minister of State Control of the Georgian SSR
Tsereteli Sh. O. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR
Savitsky K.S. - Assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR
Krimyan N. A. - Minister of State Security of the Armenian SSR
Khazan A.S. - in 1937-1938. head of the 1st department of the SPO of the NKVD of Georgia, and then assistant to the head of the STO of the NKVD of Georgia
Paramonov G.I. - Deputy Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
Nadaraya S.N. - Head of the 1st Department of the 9th Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs
and others.
In addition, at least 100 colonels and generals were stripped of their ranks and/or awards and dismissed from the authorities with the wording “as having discredited himself during his work in the authorities... and therefore unworthy of a high rank...”.
“The state scientific publishing house “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” recommends removing pages 21, 22, 23 and 24 from volume 5 of the TSB, as well as the portrait pasted between pages 22 and 23, in return for which you will be sent pages with new text.” The new page 21 contained photographs of the Bering Sea.
In 1952, the fifth volume of the Bolshoi was published. Soviet encyclopedia, which contained a portrait of L.P. Beria and an article about him. In 1954, the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent out a letter to all its subscribers, in which it was strongly recommended that “with scissors or a razor” they cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria, and instead paste in others (sent in the same letter) containing other articles starting with the same letters. In the press and literature of the “Thaw” times, the image of Beria was demonized; he, as the main initiator, was blamed for all the mass repressions.
By the ruling of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated May 29, 2002, Beria, as the organizer of political repressions, was recognized as not subject to rehabilitation:
...Based on the foregoing, the Military Collegium comes to the conclusion that Beria, Merkulov, Kobulov and Goglidze were the leaders who organized at the state level and personally carried out mass repressions against their own people. And therefore, the Law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression” cannot apply to them as perpetrators of terror.
...Guided by Art. Art. 8, 9, 10 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression” of October 18, 1991 and Art. 377-381 Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Russian Federation determined: “Recognize Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, Bogdan Zakharyevich Kobulov, Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze as not subject to rehabilitation.”
— Extract from the ruling of the military collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation No. bn-00164/2000 dated May 29, 2002.
In the early 2000s, L.P. Beria was considered by some researchers only as an executor of Stalin’s policies.
Family and personal life
1930s
He was married to Nina (Nino) Teimurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991). They had a son, Sergo (1924-2000). In 1990, at the age of 86, the widow of Lavrentia Beria gave an interview in which she fully justified her husband’s activities.
In recent years, Lavrentiy Beria had a second (civilian) wife. He cohabited with Valentina (Lyalya) Drozdova, who was a schoolgirl at the time they met. Valentina Drozdova gave birth to a daughter from Beria, named Marta or Eteri (according to the singer T.K. Avetisyan, who was personally acquainted with the family of Beria and Lyalya Drozdova - Lyudmila (Lyusya)), who later married Alexander Grishin, the son of the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU Victor Grishin. The day after the report in the Pravda newspaper about Beria’s arrest, Lyalya Drozdova filed a statement with the prosecutor’s office that she had been raped by Beria and lived with him under the threat of physical harm. At the trial, she and her mother A.I. Akopyan acted as witnesses, giving incriminating testimony against Beria. Valentina Drozdova herself was subsequently the mistress of currency speculator Yan Rokotov, who was executed in 1961, and the wife of shadow knitwear trader Ilya Galperin, who was executed in 1967.
After Beria’s conviction, his close relatives and close relatives of those convicted along with him were sent to Krasnoyarsk region, Sverdlovsk region and Kazakhstan].
Data
In his youth, Beria was fond of football. He played for one of the Georgian teams as a left midfielder. Subsequently, he attended almost all the matches of Dynamo teams, especially Dynamo Tbilisi, whose defeats he took painfully.
According to G. Mirzoyan, in 1936, Beria, during interrogation in his office, shot and killed the secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia A.G. Khanjyan.
Beria studied to be an architect. There is evidence that two buildings of the same type on Gagarin Square in Moscow were built according to his design.
The “Beria Orchestra” was the name given to his personal guards, who, when traveling in open cars, hid machine guns in violin cases, and light machine gun- in a double bass case.
Awards[
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 31, 1953, he was deprived of the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and all state awards.
Hero of Socialist Labor No. 80 September 30, 1943
5 Orders of Lenin
No. 1236 March 17, 1935 - for outstanding achievements over a number of years in the field of agriculture, as well as in the field of industry
No. 14839 September 30, 1943 - for special services in the field of enhancing the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions
No. 27006 February 21, 1945
No. 94311 March 29, 1949 - in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of his birth and for his outstanding services to the Communist Party and the Soviet people
No. 118679 October 29, 1949 - for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of testing of atomic weapons
2 Orders of the Red Banner
No. 7034 April 3, 1924
No. 11517 November 3, 1944
Order of Suvorov, 1st degree No. 217 March 8, 1944 - Decree canceled April 4, 1962
7 medals
Anniversary medal "XX years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"
Medal "For the Defense of Moscow"
Medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad"
Medal "For the Defense of the Caucasus"
Medal "For victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945"
Medal "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow"
Anniversary medal "30 years Soviet army and Fleet"
Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR July 3, 1923
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR April 10, 1931
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Azerbaijan SSR March 14, 1932
Order of the Republic (Tuva) August 18, 1943
Order of Sukhbaatar No. 31 March 29, 1949
Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) No. 441 July 15, 1942
Medal "25 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution" No. 3125 September 19, 1946
Stalin Prize, 1st degree (October 29, 1949 and December 6, 1951)
Badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU (V)” No. 100
Badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (XV)” No. 205 December 20, 1932
Personalized weapon - Browning pistol
Monogram watch
Proceedings
L. Beria. 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 /b/, 1936.
L. Beria. Lado Ketskhoveli. M., Partizdat, 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: 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 modernity [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;
Objects bearing the name of L.P. Beria[edit | edit wiki text]
In honor of Beria they were named:
Berievsky district - from February to May 1944 (now Novolaksky district of Dagestan).
Berievsky district is a region of the Armenian SSR in 1939-1953 with an administrative center in the village named after Beria.
Beriaaul - Novolakskoe village, Dagestan
Beriyashen - Sharukkar, Azerbaijan SSR
Beriakend is the former name of the village of Khanlarkend, Saatli district, Azerbaijan SSR
Named after Beria - the former name of the village of Zhdanov in the Armenian SSR (now in the Armavir region).
In addition, villages in Kalmykia and the Magadan region were named after him.
The name of L.P. Beria was previously named after the current Cooperative Street in Kharkov, Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Victory Avenue in Ozyorsk, Apsheronskaya Square in Vladikavkaz (Dzaudzhikau), Tsimlyanskaya Street in Khabarovsk, Gagarin Street in Sarov, Pervomaiskaya Street in Seversk, Mira Street in Ufa.
Tbilisi Dynamo Stadium was named after Beria.
Lavrentiy Beria is one of the most odious famous politicians of the 20th century, whose activities are still widely discussed in modern society. He was an extremely controversial personality in the history of the USSR and went through a long political path, filled with gigantic repressions of people and immense crimes, which made him the most outstanding “death functionary” in Soviet times. The head of the NKVD was a cunning and treacherous politician, on whose decisions the fate of entire nations depended. Beria carried out his activities under the patronage of the then current head of the USSR, after whose death he intended to take his place at the “helm” of the country. But he lost in the struggle for power and, by court decision, was shot as a traitor to the Motherland.
Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born on March 29, 1899 in the Abkhaz village of Merkheuli in the family of poor Mingrelian peasants Pavel Beria and Martha Jakeli. He was the third and only healthy child in the family - the elder brother of the future politician died of illness at the age of two, and his sister suffered a serious illness and became deaf and dumb. From childhood, young Lavrenty showed a great interest in education and a zeal for knowledge, which was atypical for peasant children. At the same time, the parents decided to give their son a chance to become educated, for which they had to sell half of the house in order to pay for the boy’s studies at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School.
Beria fully justified the hopes of his parents and proved that the money was not spent in vain - in 1915 he graduated from college with honors and entered the Baku Secondary Construction School. Having become a student, he moved his deaf-mute sister and mother to Baku, and in order to support them, along with his studies, he worked at the Nobel oil company. In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich received a diploma as a construction technician-architect.
During his studies, Beria organized the Bolshevik faction, in whose ranks he took an active part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, while working as a clerk at the Baku plant “Caspian Partnership White City”. He also led the illegal Communist Party of Technicians, with whose members he organized an armed uprising against the Georgian government, for which he was imprisoned.
In mid-1920, Beria was expelled from Georgia to Azerbaijan. But literally after a short period of time he was able to return to Baku, where he was assigned to do security work, which made him a secret agent of the Baku police. Even then, colleagues of the future head of the NKVD of the USSR noticed in him harshness and mercilessness towards people who dissented from him, which allowed Lavrenty Pavlovich to rapidly develop his career, starting from the deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka and ending with the position of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR.
Policy
At the end of the 1920s, the biography of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was focused on party work. It was then that he managed to meet the head of the USSR Joseph Stalin, who saw his comrade-in-arms in the revolutionary and showed visible favor to him, which many attribute to the fact that they were of the same nationality. In 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party, and already in 1935 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee and the Presidium of the USSR. In 1937, the politician reached another high step on the path to power and became the head of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Having become the leader of the Bolsheviks in Georgia and Azerbaijan, Beria won the recognition of the people and his comrades, who at the end of each congress praised him, calling him “their favorite Stalinist leader.”
During that period, Lavrentiy Beria managed to develop the national economy of Georgia to a large scale; he made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry and commissioned many large industrial facilities, and transformed Georgia into an all-Union resort area. Under Beria, Georgian agriculture increased 2.5 times in volume, and high prices were set for products (tangerines, grapes, tea), which made the Georgian economy the most prosperous in the country.
Real fame came to Lavrentiy Beria in 1938, when Stalin appointed him head of the NKVD, which made the politician the second-largest person in the country after the head. Historians claim that the politician earned such a high position thanks to his active support of the Stalinist repressions of 1936-38, when the Great Terror took place in the country, which included “cleansing” the country of “enemies of the people.” In those years, almost 700 thousand people lost their lives because they were subjected to political persecution due to disagreement with the current government.
Head of the NKVD
Having become the head of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrentiy Beria distributed leadership positions in the department to his associates from Georgia, thereby strengthening his influence on the Kremlin and Stalin. In his new post, he immediately carried out a large-scale repression of former security officers and carried out a total purge of the country’s leadership apparatus, becoming Stalin’s “right hand” in all matters.
At the same time, it was Beria, according to most historical experts, who was able to put an end to large-scale Stalin's repressions, as well as the release from prison of many military and civil servants who were recognized as “unreasonably convicted.” Thanks to such actions, Beria gained a reputation as the person who restored “legality” in the USSR.
During the Great Patriotic War, Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee, in which at that time all power in the country was localized. Only he made the final decisions on the production of weapons, aircraft, mortars, engines, as well as on the formation and transfer of air regiments at the front. Responsible for the “military spirit” of the Red Army, Lavrenty Pavlovich used the so-called “weapons of fear”, resuming mass arrests and public executions for all soldiers and spies who did not want to fight and were captured. Historians attribute the victory in the Second World War largely to the harsh policies of the head of the NKVD, in whose hands the entire military-industrial potential of the country was located.
After the war, Beria began developing nuclear potential The USSR, but at the same time continued to carry out mass repressions in the countries allied with the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, where most of the male population was imprisoned in concentration camps and colonies (GULAG). It was these prisoners who were involved in military production, carried out under conditions of strict secrecy, which was ensured by the NKVD.
With the help of a team of nuclear physicists led by Beria and the coordinated work of intelligence officers, Moscow received clear instructions on the construction of an atomic bomb created in the United States. The first successful test of nuclear weapons in the USSR was carried out in 1949 in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, for which Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the Stalin Prize.
In 1946, Beria entered Stalin’s “inner circle” and became deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. A little later, the head of the USSR saw him as his main competitor, so Joseph Vissarionovich began to carry out a “purge” in Georgia and check Lavrenty Pavlovich’s documents, which complicated the relationship between them. In this regard, by the time of Stalin's death, Beria and several of his allies had created an unspoken alliance aimed at changing some of the foundations of Stalin's rule.
He tried to strengthen his position in power by signing a series of decrees aimed at introducing judicial reforms, a global amnesty and a ban on harsh interrogation methods with episodes of abuse of prisoners. Thus, he intended to create for himself a new cult of personality, opposite to the Stalinist dictatorship. But, since he had practically no allies in the government, after Stalin’s death a conspiracy was organized against Beria, initiated by Nikita Khrushchev.
In July 1953, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium. He was accused of connections with British intelligence and treason. This became one of the most high-profile cases in Russian history among members of the highest echelon of power of the Soviet state.
Death
The trial of Lavrenty Beria took place from December 18 to 23, 1953. He was convicted by a “special tribunal” without the right to defense or appeal. Specific charges in the case of the former head of the NKVD were a number of illegal murders, espionage for Great Britain, repressions of 1937, rapprochement with, treason.
On December 23, 1953, Beria was shot by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. After the execution, Lavrenty Pavlovich’s body was burned in the Donskoy crematorium, and the ashes of the revolutionary were buried in the New Donskoy cemetery.
According to historians, Beria’s death allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief to the Soviet people, which is up last day considered the politician a bloody dictator and tyrant. And in modern society he is accused of mass repressions of more than 200 thousand people, which included a number of Russian scientists and prominent intellectuals of that time. Lavrenty Pavlovich is also credited with a number of orders for the execution of Soviet soldiers, which during the war years only played into the hands of the enemies of the USSR.
In 1941 former head The NKVD carried out the “extermination” of all anti-Soviet figures, resulting in the death of thousands of people, including women and children. During the war years, he carried out the total deportation of the peoples of Crimea and North Caucasus, the scale of which reached a million people. That is why Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became the most controversial political figure in the USSR, in whose hands was the power over the destinies of the people.
Personal life
The personal life of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria is still a separate topic that requires serious study. He was officially married to Nina Gegechkori, who bore him a son in 1924. The wife of the ex-head of the NKVD throughout her life supported her husband in his difficult activities and was his most devoted friend, whom she tried to justify even after his death.
Throughout its political activity At the heights of power, Lavrenty Pavlovich was known as a “Kremlin rapist” with an unbridled passion for the fair sex. Beria and his women are still considered the most mysterious part of the life of a prominent political figure. There is information that in recent years he lived in two families - his common-law wife was Lyalya Drozdova, who gave birth to him illegitimate daughter Martha.
At the same time, historians do not rule out that Beria had a sick psyche and was a pervert. This is confirmed by the politician’s “lists of sexual victims,” the presence of which was recognized in the Russian Federation in 2003. It is reported that the number of victims of the maniac Beria is more than 750 girls whom he raped using sadistic methods.
Historians say that very often sexual harassment The head of the NKVD subjected schoolgirls 14-15 years old, whom he imprisoned in soundproof interrogation rooms at Lubyanka, where he subjected them to sexual perversion. During interrogation, Beria admitted that he had physical sexual relations with 62 women, and since 1943 he suffered from syphilis, which he contracted from a seventh-grader in one of the schools near Moscow. Also in his safe, during the search, items of women's underwear and children's dresses were found, which were stored next to items characteristic of perverts.
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria). Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in the village. Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (Russian Empire) - shot on December 23, 1953 in Moscow. Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and party leader.
General Commissar of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), stripped of these titles in 1953. Since 1941, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - Council of Ministers) of the USSR I.V. Stalin, after his death on March 5, 1953 - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkova and at the same time Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. 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 of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1946-1952), member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (1952-1953). He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, in particular those related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. Since August 20, 1945, he led the implementation of the USSR nuclear program.
Lavrentiy Beria was born on March 17 (29 according to the new style) March 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh region of Abkhazia) into a poor peasant family.
Mother - Martha Jakeli (1868-1955), Mingrelian. According to the testimony of Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, she was distantly related to the Mingrelian princely family of Dadiani. After the death of her first husband, Martha was left with a son and two daughters in her arms. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha’s first marriage were taken in by her brother Dmitry.
Father - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merheuli from Megrelia.
Martha and Pavel had three children in their family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2, and the daughter remained deaf and dumb after an illness.
Noticing Lavrenty's good abilities, his parents tried to give him a good education - at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. To pay for studies and living expenses, parents had to sell half of their house.
In 1915, Beria, having graduated with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School (although according to other sources, he studied mediocrely and was left in the second year in the fourth grade), left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School.
From the age of 17, he supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him.
Working since 1916 as an intern at the main office of the Nobel oil company, he simultaneously continued his studies at the school. He graduated from it in 1919, receiving a diploma as a construction technician-architect.
Since 1915, he was a member of the illegal Marxist circle of the Mechanical Engineering School and was its treasurer. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP(b).
In June - December 1917, as a technician of a hydraulic engineering detachment, he went to the Romanian front, served in Odessa, then in Pascani (Romania), was discharged due to illness and returned to Baku, where from February 1918 he worked in the city organization of the Bolsheviks and the secretariat of the Baku Council workers' deputies.
After the defeat of the Baku Commune and the capture of Baku by Turkish-Azerbaijani troops (September 1918), he remained in the city and participated in the work of the underground Bolshevik organization until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920).
From October 1918 to January 1919 - clerk at the Caspian Partnership White City plant, Baku.
In the fall of 1919, on the instructions of the leader of the Baku Bolshevik underground, A. Mikoyan, he became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution (counterintelligence) under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. During this period, he established close relations with Zinaida Krems (von Krems, Kreps), who had connections with German military intelligence. In his autobiography, dated October 22, 1923, Beria wrote: “During the first time of the Turkish occupation, I worked in the White City at the Caspian Partnership plant as a clerk. In the autumn of the same 1919, from the Gummet party, I entered the counterintelligence service, where I worked together with comrade Moussevi. Around March 1920, after the murder of Comrade Moussevi, I left my job in counterintelligence and worked for a short time at the Baku customs.”.
Beria did not hide his work in counterintelligence of the ADR - for example, in a letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze in 1933, he wrote that “he was sent to Musavat intelligence by the party and that this issue was examined by the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b) in 1920” that the Central Committee of the AKP(b) “completely rehabilitated” him because “The fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by statements from comrade. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others.”.
In April 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was sent to work illegally in the Georgian Democratic Republic as an authorized representative of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. Almost immediately he was arrested in Tiflis and released with an order to leave Georgia within three days.
In his autobiography, Beria wrote: “From the very first days after the April coup in Azerbaijan, the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the register of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army was sent to Georgia for underground work abroad as an authorized representative. In Tiflis I contact the regional committee represented by Comrade. Hmayak Nazaretyan, I spread a network of residents in Georgia and Armenia, establish contact with the headquarters of the Georgian army and guard, and regularly send couriers to the register of the city of Baku. In Tiflis I was arrested together with the Central Committee of Georgia, but according to negotiations between G. Sturua and Noah Zhordania, everyone was released with an offer to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, I manage to stay, having entered the service under the pseudonym Lakerbaya in the representative office of the RSFSR with Comrade Kirov, who by that time had arrived in the city of Tiflis.”.
Later, participating in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, he was exposed by local counterintelligence, arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison, then deported to Azerbaijan. He wrote about this: “In May 1920, I went to the register office in Baku to receive directives in connection with the conclusion of a peace treaty with Georgia, but on the way back to Tiflis I was arrested by a telegram from Noah Ramishvili and taken to Tiflis, from where, despite the efforts of Comrade Kirov, I was sent to Kutaisi prison. June and July 1920, I was in custody, only after four and a half days of hunger strike declared by political prisoners, I was gradually deported to Azerbaijan.”.
Returning to Baku, Beria tried several times to continue his studies at the Baku Polytechnic Institute, into which the school was transformed, and completed three courses.
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 improvement of the living conditions of workers, working in this position until February 1921.
In April 1921, he was appointed deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the Azerbaijan SSR, and in May he took the positions of head of the secret operations department and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. The Chairman of the Cheka of the Azerbaijan SSR at that time was Mir Jafar Bagirov.
In 1921, Beria was sharply criticized by the party and KGB leadership of Azerbaijan for exceeding his powers and falsifying criminal cases, but escaped serious punishment - Anastas Mikoyan interceded for him.
In 1922, he participated in the defeat of the Muslim organization “Ittihad” and the liquidation of the Transcaucasian organization of right-wing Social Revolutionaries.
In November 1922, Beria was transferred to Tiflis, where he was appointed head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, later transformed into the Georgian GPU (State Political Administration), combining the post of head of the Special Department of the Transcaucasian Army.
In July 1923, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Republic by the Central Executive Committee of Georgia.
In 1924, he participated in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.
From March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR, Head of the Secret Operations Unit.
On December 2, 1926, Lavrentiy Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR (he held this position until December 3, 1931), deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the TSFSR and deputy chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the TSFSR (until April 17, 1931). At the same time, from December 1926 to April 17, 1931, he was the head of the Secret Operational Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the Trans-SFSR and the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Trans-SFSR.
At the same time, from April 1927 to December 1930 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. His first meeting with her apparently dates back to this period.
On June 6, 1930, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the Georgian SSR, Lavrentiy Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia.
On April 17, 1931, he took the positions of Chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR, the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR, and the head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army (until December 3, 1931). At the same time, from August 18 to December 3, 1931, he was a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.
On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recommended L.P. Beria for the post of second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (in office until October 17, 1932); on November 14, 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (until August 31). 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee while maintaining the post of first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On December 5, 1936, the TSFSR was divided into three independent republics; the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on April 23, 1937.
On March 10, 1933, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks included Beria in the distribution list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - minutes of meetings of the Politburo, Organizing Bureau, and Secretariat of the Central Committee.
In 1934, at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was elected a member of the Central Committee for the first time.
On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was included in the commission chaired by L. M. Kaganovich, created to develop a draft Regulation on the NKVD of the USSR and the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
At the beginning of March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and its presidium. On March 17, 1935, he was awarded his first Order of Lenin. In May 1937, he concurrently headed the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) (until August 31, 1938).
In 1935 he published a book “On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia”- although according to researchers, its real authors were Malakia Toroshelidze and Eric Bedia. In the draft publication of Stalin's Works at the end of 1935, Beria was listed as a member of the editorial board, as well as a candidate editor of individual volumes.
During the leadership of L.P. Beria, the national economy of the region developed rapidly. Beria made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry in Transcaucasia; under him, many large industrial facilities were commissioned (Zemo-Avchala hydroelectric station, etc.).
Georgia was transformed into an all-Union resort area. By 1940, the volume of industrial production in Georgia increased 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural production - 2.5 times, with a fundamental change in the structure of agriculture towards highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone. High purchasing prices were set for agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.): the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.
In September 1937, together with G.M. Malenkov and A.I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a “cleansing” of the party organization of Armenia. In Georgia, in particular, persecution began against the People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR, Gaioz Devdariani. His brother Shalva, who held important positions in the state security agencies and the Communist Party, was executed. In the end, Gayoz Devdariani was accused of violating Article 58 and, on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities, was executed in 1938 by the verdict of the NKVD troika. In addition to party functionaries, local intellectuals also suffered from the purge, even those who tried to stay away from politics, including Mikheil Javakhishvili, Titian Tabidze, Sandro Akhmeteli, Yevgeny Mikeladze, Dmitry Shevardnadze, Giorgi Eliava, Grigory Tsereteli and others.
On January 17, 1938, from the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR.
On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov. Simultaneously with Beria, another first deputy people's commissar (from April 15, 1937) was M. P. Frinovsky, who headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. On September 8, 1938, Frinovsky was appointed People's Commissar of the USSR Navy and left the posts of 1st Deputy People's Commissar and Head of the NKVD Directorate of the USSR; on the same day, September 8, he was replaced in his last post by L.P. Beria - from September 29, 1938 to the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, restored within the structure of the NKVD (December 17, 1938, Beria will be replaced in this post by V.N. Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from December 16, 1938).
On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank.
With the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions decreased sharply. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand.
In 1939-1940, the vast majority of people who were not convicted in 1937-1938 were released. Also, some of those convicted and sent to camps were released. In 1938, 279,966 people were released. The Moscow State University expert commission estimates the number of people released in 1939-1940 at 150-200 thousand people.
From November 25, 1938 to February 3, 1941, Beria led Soviet foreign intelligence (then it was part of the functions of the NKVD of the USSR; from February 3, 1941, foreign intelligence was transferred to the newly formed People's Commissariat for State Security of the USSR, which was headed by Beria's former first deputy in NKVD V. N. Merkulov). Beria in the shortest possible time stopped Yezhov's lawlessness and terror that reigned in the NKVD (including foreign intelligence) and in the army, including military intelligence.
Under the leadership of Beria in 1939-1940, a powerful intelligence network of Soviet foreign intelligence was created in Europe, as well as in Japan and the USA.
Since March 22, 1939 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. On January 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of General Commissioner of State Security. On February 3, 1941, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. He oversaw the work of the NKVD, NKGB, people's commissariats of the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and river fleet.
Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria - what he really was like
During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO).
By the GKO decree of February 4, 1942 on the distribution of responsibilities between members of the GKO, L. P. Beria was assigned responsibilities for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the work of the Red Air Force Armies (formation of air regiments, their timely transfer to the front, etc.).
By decree of the State Defense Committee of December 8, 1942, L. P. Beria was appointed a member of the Operational Bureau of the State Defense Committee. By the same decree, L.P. Beria was additionally assigned responsibilities for monitoring and monitoring the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and the People's Commissariat of Railways.
In May 1944, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and chairman of the Operations Bureau. The tasks of the Operations Bureau included, in particular, control and monitoring of the work of all 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.
Beria also served as permanent adviser to the Headquarters of the Main Command of the USSR Armed Forces.
During the war years, he carried out important assignments from the leadership of the country and the party, both related to the management of the national economy and at the front. In fact, he led the defense of the Caucasus in 1942. Oversaw the production of aircraft and rocketry.
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.”
During the war, L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) (July 15, 1942), the Order of the Republic (Tuva) (August 18, 1943), the Order of Lenin (February 21, 1945), and the Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).
On February 11, 1943, J.V. Stalin signed the decision of the State Defense Committee on the work program for the creation of an atomic bomb under the leadership. But already in the decree of the USSR State Defense Committee on Laboratory No. 2 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.
On July 9, 1945, during the recertification of special state security ranks into military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
On September 6, 1945, the Operational Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was formed, of which Beria was appointed chairman. The tasks of the Operations Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars included issues of the operation of industrial enterprises and railway transport.
Since March 1946, Beria was one of the “seven” members of the Politburo, which included I.V. Stalin and six people close to him. This “inner circle” covered the most important issues of public administration, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, armaments, and the functioning of the armed forces. On March 18, he became a member of the Politburo, and the next day he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he oversaw the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of State Control.
After testing the first American atomic device in the desert near Alamogordo, work in the USSR to create its own nuclear weapons was significantly accelerated.
Based on the State Defense Order of August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the State Defense Committee. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (then refused from participating in the project due to disagreements with Beria), 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 renamed the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the 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 exercised general management of the entire project. Personnel issues of the project were entrusted to M. G. Pervukhin, V. A. Malyshev, B. L. Vannikov and A. P. Zavenyagin, who staffed the organization’s areas of activity with scientific and engineering personnel and selected experts to resolve individual issues.
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 the removal and arrest of L.P. Beria), 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 atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. On October 29, 1949, Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, “for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the testing of atomic weapons.” According to the testimony of P. A. Sudoplatov, published in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness,” two project leaders - L. P. Beria and I. V. Kurchatov - were awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” with the wording “for outstanding merits in strengthening the power of the USSR,” it is indicated that the recipient was awarded a “Certificate of Honorary Citizen of the Soviet Union.” Subsequently, the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” was not awarded.
The test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, the development of which was supervised by G. M. Malenkov, took place on August 12, 1953, after Beria’s arrest.
In March 1949 - July 1951, there was a sharp strengthening of Beria's position in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the creation of which Beria supervised. However, then came the “Mingrelian case” directed against him.
After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, which took place in October 1952, Beria was included in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which replaced the former Politburo, in the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and in the “leading five” of the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee created at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, and also received the right to replace Stalin at meetings of the Bureau of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
On the day of Stalin's death - March 5, 1953, a Joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was held, where appointments to the highest posts of the party and the Government of the USSR were approved, and, by prior agreement with the Khrushchev group -Malenkov-Molotov-Bulganin, Beria, without much debate, was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The United Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR included the previously independent Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1946-1953) and the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (1946-1953).
On March 9, 1953, L.P. Beria participated in the funeral of I.V. Stalin, and made a speech at a funeral meeting from the platform of the Mausoleum.
Beria, along with Malenkov, became one of the main contenders for leadership in the country. In the struggle for leadership, L.P. Beria relied on the security agencies. Beria's henchmen were promoted to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Already on March 19, the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were replaced in all union republics and in most regions of the RSFSR. In turn, the newly appointed heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs replaced personnel in the middle management.
From mid-March to June 1953, Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with his orders for the ministry and proposals (notes) to the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee (many of which were approved by relevant resolutions and decrees), initiated the termination of the doctors’ case, the Mingrelian case and a number of other legislative and political changes:
- Order on the creation of commissions to review the “doctors’ case”, the conspiracy in the USSR MGB, the Headquarters of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the MGB of the Georgian SSR. All defendants in these cases were rehabilitated within two weeks.
- Order on the creation of a commission to consider cases of deportation of citizens from Georgia.
- Order to review the “aviation case”. Over the next two months, People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry Shakhurin and Commander of the USSR Air Force Novikov, as well as other defendants in the case, were completely rehabilitated and reinstated in their positions and ranks.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on amnesty. According to Beria’s proposal, on March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee approved the decree “On Amnesty,” according to which 1.203 million people were to be released from places of detention, and investigations against 401 thousand people were to be terminated. As of August 10, 1953, 1.032 million people were released from prison. the following categories of prisoners: sentenced to a term of up to 5 years inclusive, convicted of: official, economic and some military crimes, as well as: minors, elderly, sick, women with young children and pregnant women.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the rehabilitation of persons involved in the “doctors’ case”. The note admitted that innocent major figures in Soviet medicine were presented as spies and murderers, and, as a result, as objects of anti-Semitic persecution launched in the central press. The case from beginning to end is a provocative fiction of the former deputy of the USSR MGB Ryumin, who, having embarked on the criminal path of deceiving the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in order to obtain the necessary testimony, secured the sanction of I.V. Stalin to use physical coercion measures against the arrested doctors - torture and severe beatings. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the so-called case of pest doctors” dated April 3, 1953 ordered support for Beria’s proposal for the complete rehabilitation of these doctors (37 people) and the removal of Ignatiev from the post of Minister of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, and Ryumin by that time was already arrested.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on bringing to criminal liability persons involved in the death of S. M. Mikhoels and V. I. Golubov.
- Order “On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical coercion against those arrested”. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On approval of measures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR to correct the consequences of violations of the law” dated April 10, 1953, read: “Approve the activities carried out by comrade. Beria L.P. measures to uncover criminal acts committed over a number of years in the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR, expressed in the fabrication of falsified cases against honest people, as well as measures to correct the consequences of violations of Soviet laws, bearing in mind that these measures are aimed at strengthening the Soviet state and socialist legality."
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the improper handling of the Mingrelian affair. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the case of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group” dated April 10, 1953 recognizes that the circumstances of the case are fictitious, all defendants are to be released and completely rehabilitated.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of N. D. Yakovlev, I. I. Volkotrubenko, I. A. Mirzakhanov and others”.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of M. M. Kaganovich”.
- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the abolition of passport restrictions and sensitive areas”.
Lavrenty Beria. Liquidation
Arrest and execution of Lavrentiy Beria
Having secured the support of the majority of members of the Central Committee and high-ranking military personnel, Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 26, 1953, where he raised the issue of Beria’s suitability for his position and his removal from all posts except member of the Presidium (Politburo) of the CPSU Central Committee. Among others, Khrushchev voiced accusations of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the worsening situation in the GDR, and espionage for Great Britain in the 1920s.
Beria tried to prove that if he was appointed by the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, then only the plenum could remove him, but following a special signal, a group of generals led by a marshal entered the room and arrested Beria.
Beria was accused of spying for Great Britain and other countries, of striving to eliminate the Soviet worker-peasant system, to restore capitalism and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as of moral decay, abuse of power, and falsification of thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and in organizing illegal repressions (this Beria, according to the accusation, committed, also acting for selfish and enemy purposes).
At the July plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, almost all members of the Central Committee made statements about the sabotage activities of L. Beria. On July 7, by a resolution of the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Beria was relieved of his duties as a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and removed from the CPSU Central Committee. On July 27, 1953, a secret circular was issued by the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which ordered the widespread seizure of any artistic images of L.P. Beria.
The investigative group was actually headed by R.A. Rudenko, who was appointed Prosecutor General of the USSR on June 30, 1953. The investigative team included investigators from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR, Tsaregradsky, Preobrazhensky, Kitaev and other lawyers.
Together with him, his closest associates from the state security agencies were accused, immediately after his arrest and later named in the funds mass media like "Beria's gang":
Merkulov V.N. - Minister of State Control of the USSR;
Kobulov B.Z. - First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Goglidze S. A. - Head of the 3rd Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Meshik P. Ya. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR;
Dekanozov V.G. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Vlodzimirsky L. E. - head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.
On December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev.
From Beria's last words at the trial: “I have already shown the court what I plead guilty to. I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service for a long time. However, I declare that even while serving there, I did not do anything harmful. I fully admit my moral and everyday decay. Numerous connections with the women mentioned here disgrace me as a citizen and former member of the party...Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and perversions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I have selfish and enemy goals in doing so was not. The reason for my crimes was the situation at that time. ... I do not consider myself guilty of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. I ask you, when sentencing me, to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply them to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve".
The verdict read: "The Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR decided: to sentence Beria L.P., Merkulov V.N., Dekanozov V.G., Kobulov B.Z., Goglidze S.A., Meshik P.Ya., Vlodzimirsky L.E. ... to the highest degree of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of personal property belonging to them, with deprivation of military ranks and awards".
All the accused were shot on the same day, and L.P. Beria was shot a few hours before the execution of the other convicts in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, he fired the first shot from service weapon Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky. The body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery (according to other statements, Beria's ashes were scattered over the Moscow River).
A brief report about the trial of L.P. Beria and his employees was published in the Soviet press. However, some historians admit that Beria’s arrest, trial and execution were technically illegal: unlike other defendants in the case, there was never a warrant for his arrest; interrogation protocols and letters exist only in copies, the description of the arrest by its participants is radically different from each other, what happened to his body after the execution is not confirmed by any documents (there is no certificate of cremation).
These and other facts subsequently provided food for all sorts of theories, in particular that L.P. Beria was killed during his arrest, and the entire trial was a falsification designed to hide the true state of affairs.
The version that Beria was killed on the orders of Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin on June 26, 1953 by a capture group directly during the arrest in his mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya Street is presented in an investigative documentary film by journalist Sergei Medvedev, first shown on Channel One on June 4 2014.
After Beria’s arrest, one of his closest associates, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR, Mir Jafar Bagirov, was arrested and executed. In subsequent years, other, lower-ranking members of Beria's gang were convicted and shot or sentenced to long prison terms:
Abakumov V.S. - Chairman of the Collegium of the USSR MGB;
Ryumin M.D. - Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR;
Milshtein S. R - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR; on the “Baghirov case”;
Bagirov M.D. - 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Markaryan R. A. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic;
Borshchev T.M. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR;
Grigoryan Kh. I. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR;
Atakishiev S.I. - 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Emelyanov S.F. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR;
in the “Rukhadze case” Rukhadze N. M. - Minister of State Security of the Georgian SSR;
Rapava. A. N. - Minister of State Control of the Georgian SSR;
Tsereteli Sh. O. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Savitsky K.S. - Assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Krimyan N. A. - Minister of State Security of the Armenian SSR;
Khazan A.S. - in 1937-1938 head of the 1st department of the SPO of the NKVD of Georgia, and then assistant to the head of the STO of the NKVD of Georgia;
Paramonov G.I. - Deputy Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Nadaraya S.N. - Head of the 1st Department of the 9th Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
and others.
In addition, at least 100 generals and colonels were stripped of their ranks and/or awards and dismissed from the authorities with the wording “as having discredited himself during his work in the authorities... and therefore unworthy of a high rank.”
In 1952, the fifth volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published, which contained a portrait of L.P. Beria and an article about him. In 1954, the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent out a letter to all its subscribers, in which it was strongly recommended that “with scissors or a razor” they cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria, and instead paste in others (sent in the same letter) containing other articles starting with the same letters. In the press and literature of the “Thaw” times, the image of Beria was demonized; he, as the main initiator, was blamed for all the mass repressions.
By the ruling of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on May 29, 2002, Beria, as the organizer of political repressions, was declared not subject to rehabilitation. Guided by Art. Art. 8, 9, 10 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression” of October 18, 1991 and Art. 377-381 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation determined: “Recognize Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, Bogdan Zakharyevich Kobulov, Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze as not subject to rehabilitation”.
Personal life of Lavrentiy Beria:
In his youth, Beria was fond of football. He played for one of the Georgian teams as a left midfielder. Subsequently, he attended almost all the matches of Dynamo teams, especially Dynamo Tbilisi, whose defeats he took painfully.
Beria studied to be an architect and there is evidence that two buildings of the same type on Gagarin Square in Moscow were built according to his design.
“Beri's orchestra” was the name given to his personal guards, who, when traveling in open cars, hid machine guns in violin cases, and a light machine gun in a double bass case.
Wife - Nina (Nino) Teymurazovna Gegechkori(1905-1991). In 1990, at the age of 86, the widow of Lavrentiy Beria gave an interview in which she fully justified her husband’s activities.
The couple had a son who was born in the early 1920s and died in early childhood. This son is mentioned in the documentary film “Children of Beria. Sergo and Marta,” as well as in the interrogation protocol of Nino Taimurazovna Gegechkori.
Son - Sergo (1924-2000).
Nina Gegechkori - wife of Lavrentiy Beria
In recent years, Lavrentiy Beria had a second (unofficially registered) wife. He lived with Valentina (Lalya) Drozdova, who was a schoolgirl at the time they met. Valentina Drozdova gave birth to a daughter from Beria, named Marta or Eteri (according to the singer T.K. Avetisyan, who was personally acquainted with the family of Beria and Lyalya Drozdova - Lyudmila (Lyusya)), who later married Alexander Grishin - the son of the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU Victor Grishin.
The day after the report in the Pravda newspaper about Beria’s arrest, Lyalya Drozdova filed a statement with the prosecutor’s office that she had been raped by Beria and lived with him under the threat of physical harm. At the trial, she and her mother A.I. Akopyan acted as witnesses, giving incriminating testimony against Beria.
Valentina Drozdova was subsequently the mistress of currency speculator Yan Rokotov, who was executed in 1961, and the wife of shadow knitwear trader Ilya Galperin, who was executed in 1967.
After Beria’s conviction, his close relatives and close relatives of those convicted along with them were deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Sverdlovsk Region and Kazakhstan.
Bibliography of Lavrentiy Beria:
1936 - On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia;
1939 - Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches;
1940 - The greatest man of our time;
1940 - About youth
Lavrentiy Beria in cinema (performers):
Mikhail Kvarelashvili (“ Battle of Stalingrad", 1 episode, 1949);
Alexander Khanov (“The Fall of Berlin”, 1949);
Nikolai Mordvinov (“Lights of Baku”, 1950; “Donetsk Miners”, 1950);
David Suchet (“Red Monarch”, UK, 1983);
(“The Feasts of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin”, USSR, 1989, “Lost in Siberia”, Great Britain-USSR, 1991);
B. Goladze (“Stalingrad”, USSR, 1989);
Roland Nadareishvili (“Little Giant of Big Sex”, USSR, 1990);
V. Bartashov (“Nikolai Vavilov”, USSR, 1990);
Vladimir Sichkar (“War in the Western Direction”, USSR, 1990);
Yan Yanakiev (“Law”, 1989, “10 years without the right of correspondence”, 1990, “My best friend is General Vasily, son of Joseph”, 1991);
(“To hell with us!”, 1991);
Bob Hoskins (“The Inner Circle”, Italy-USA-USSR, 1992);
Roshan Seth (“Stalin”, USA-Hungary, 1992);
Fedya Stojanovic (“Gospodja Kolontaj”, Yugoslavia, 1996);
Paul Livingstone (Children of the Revolution, Australia, 1996);
Bari Alibasov (“Die of Happiness and Love”, Russia, 1996);
Farid Myazitov (“Ship of Doubles”, 1997);
Mumid Makoev (“Khrustalev, car!”, 1998);
Adam Ferenczi (“Journey to Moscow” (“Podróz do Moskwy”), Poland, 1999);
Nikolai Kirichenko (“In August ’44...”, Russia, Belarus, 2001);
Viktor Sukhorukov (“Desired”, Russia, 2003);
(“Children of Arbat”, Russia, 2004);
Seyran Dalanyan (“Convoy PQ-17”, Russia, 2004);
Irakli Macharashvili (“Moscow Saga”, Russia, 2004);
Vladimir Shcherbakov (“Two Loves”, 2004; “The Death of Tairov”, Russia, 2004; “Stalin’s Wife”, Russia, 2006; “Star of the Epoch”; “Apostle”, Russia, 2007; “Beria”, Russia, 2007; “ Hitler kaput!", Russia, 2008; "The Legend of Olga", Russia, 2008; "Wolf Messing: Who Seen Through Time", Russia, 2009, "Beria. Loss", Russia, 2010, "Vangelia", Russia, 2013, "On the Razor's Edge", 2013);
Yervand Arzumanyan (“Archangel”, UK-Russia, 2005);
Malkhaz Aslamazashvili (“Stalin. Live”, 2006);
Vadim Tsallati (“Utesov. A Lifelong Song”, 2006);
Vyacheslav Grishechkin (“The Hunt for Beria”, Russia, 2008; “Furtseva”, 2011, “Countergame”, 2011, “Comrade Stalin”, 2011);
(“Zastava Zilina”, Russia, 2008);
Sergei Bagirov (“Second”, 2009);
Adam Bulguchev (“Burnt by the Sun-2”, Russia, 2010; “Zhukov”, 2012, “Zoya”, 2010, “Cop”, 2012, “Kill Stalin”, 2013, “Bomb”, 2013, “Heteras of Major Sokolov” , 2013, “Orlova and Alexandrov”, 2014);
Vasily Ostafiychuk (“Ballad of a Bomber,” 2011);
Alexey Zverev (“I serve Soviet Union", 2012);
Sergei Gazarov (“Spy”, 2012, “Son of the Father of Nations”, 2013);
Alexey Eibozhenko Jr. (“Second Uprising of Spartak”, 2012);
Yulian Malakyants (“Life and Fate”, 2012);
Roman Grishin (“Stalin is with us”, 2013);
Tsvet Lazar (“The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,” Sweden, 2013)
