At a joint meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU, Georgy Malenkov was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In the list of his first deputies, "the very first" was named Beria.
Four people became first deputy chairmen of the Council of Ministers. In the resolution they were named not in alphabetical order, but in the following order: Lavrenty Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich. About Nikita Khrushchev in the resolution it was said evasively that he, they say, concentrated on work in the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
So, in the list of "first deputies" Beria was named first. This, according to the Soviet tradition, meant that he was the second person in the state. Moreover, it was decided to unite the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the USSR Ministry of State Security into a single USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. Lavrenty Beria was appointed minister. Having united in his hands two law enforcement agencies, he concentrated power in his hands, almost exceeding the power of Malenkov himself (by the way, unlike all his four first deputies, who has no experience of independent state work).
The author is not going to enter into the debate about the personality of Lavrenty Beria, which has been going on for more than a dozen years, to assess his moral foundations (if there were any, of course), to delve into the motives of his actions and decisions. This occupation, from my point of view, is absolutely meaningless, since the mass consciousness about this is based on long-term myths. And it is impossible to dispute the myths.
According to an established myth, Lavrenty Beria is the most terrifying villain who has ever lived on one-sixth of the land that was once called the USSR. But is it? And is it really that the nondescript Shvernik and Andreev, Malenkov, or the imposing alcoholic Bulganin compared to him are popular saints? You can repeat as often as you like that the unusual, extraordinary measures taken by Beria after Stalin's death were, as they would say today, of a populist nature. But why did he do them, and not the same Malenkov, who, as the head of the government, had much more opportunities for this? Whether anyone likes it or not, we have to admit that Beria in the spring of 1953 was ahead of his time by several decades.
Already on April 4, a TASS report was published in the newspapers, from which the shocked country learned that the "killer doctors" were arrested without any grounds, that the investigation in their case was conducted in gross violation of Soviet laws, using "forbidden methods" , but simply - torture and beatings. All those arrested in the case of "killers in white coats" were immediately released with an apology and reinstated at work and in the party, if they were members of the CPSU (b). This public recognition was made for the first time in the entire history of Soviet power and was, in essence, the very first case of political rehabilitation of innocent repressed people. On the same day, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published on the abolition of the previous Decree on awarding Lydia Timashuk with the Order of Lenin. The ill-fated Soviet Jeanne d'Arc did not have time to really understand at first why she was awarded the highest award of the Motherland, and then - for which she was taken away.
At the June 1953 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU it became clear that everyone in the top leadership, including Nikita Khrushchev, knew that "the doctor's business" was a linden. Nevertheless, Lavrentiy Beria was accused of making this shame public. Say, the doctors just had to be released on the sly.
On April 28, 1953, at the suggestion of Beria, the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev was removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU for the "case of doctors". Later, at the suggestion of Khrushchev, he was reinstated in the rights of a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, later he successfully worked as the first secretary of the Tatar and Bashkir regional committees of the CPSU.
Then Beria figured out the circumstances of the death, or rather, the destruction of Mikhoels. He personally interrogated the former Minister of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Abakumov, his first deputy Ogoltsov, as well as the former Minister of State Security of Belarus Tsanava, at whose dacha on the then outskirts of Minsk Mikhoels and his companion were killed. Abakumov firmly stated that he received the order to liquidate Mikhoels orally from Stalin personally, and that no one in the MGB except him and the direct executors of the operation knew about it.
Beria sent a letter to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Malenkov with a demand to deprive the participants of the double murder of government awards and bring them to justice. This act can in no way be called populist, since the letter was secret and was published only many decades later. In the same way, Beria's order, which categorically prohibits the use of physical measures against those arrested, cannot be considered populist. The order, like the letter to Malenkov, was also secret.
One of the points of this order is noteworthy: "Eliminate premises in Lefortovo and internal prisons organized by the leadership of the former USSR Ministry of State Security for applying physical measures to the arrested, and destroy all the instruments by which torture was carried out."
This is the only official recognition of the existence of torture chambers and instruments of torture in prisons. The order on the equipment of special rooms for torture has not yet been found.
As for the killers of Mikhoels, the orders were taken away from them, but no one went to court. The arrest of Beria saved the "magnificent six".
Later, Tsanava was nevertheless arrested, but ... as an accomplice of Beria! In 1955, he died in prison, before his trial. Ogoltsov was arrested in April 1953 in connection with his participation in the murder of Mikhoels, but released in August. In 19564 he was fired from the state security organs, expelled from the party, and in 1959 he was stripped of his military rank.
On Beria's recommendation, Aleksandr Novikov, Aleksey Shakhurin and other repressed in the "case of aviators" were released from prison, rehabilitated and reinstated in the ranks. By that time, the investigation on him had already been underway for 15 months, but none of those arrested pleaded guilty. By a secret order of Beria dated April 17, 1953, the investigation against them was terminated, the accused were released from custody and restored in all rights.
Yes, Beria was a cruel pragmatist and cynic, equally capable of achieving his goals and the noblest and the most inhuman act. Such were the customs in his environment. In this respect, he was no better, but also no worse than other leaders in the Stalinist environment. But he was smarter, more far-sighted than their heads. This ultimately destroyed him. There is a saying: "They beat on the head of the nail that sticks out." So they hit him. Not at all because Beria was preparing some kind of conspiracy to seize power - this is a myth. Beria understood perfectly well that the second Georgian would not be the main leader in the USSR, and he had enough real power, like the first of the “first deputies,” moreover, a minister. No, all of them, Malenkov, Molotov, Voroshilov, and even Khrushchev, the future whistleblower of Stalin, feared for their own skin. Having dumped Beria, it was possible to write off his own sins, and considerable ones. Yes, of course, none of them headed the political police during Stalin's life, no matter what it was called, but on the hands of each leader there is no less blood than Beria. And even about specific merits to the state - there could be no question of comparison. After all, it was Beria who headed the Soviet "atomic project", ensured in the shortest possible time the creation of the "atomic shield", which, by the way, was never denied by the outstanding scientists who worked on this problem in those years.
Yes, both intelligence and counterintelligence, when they were led by Beria, were not only engaged in identifying the distributors of anti-Soviet jokes.
It seems to the author that the very next day after Stalin's death, his heirs realized that a change in the political course, the elimination in some, preferably the mildest form of the cult of his personality, was inevitable, and therefore sooner or later the problem of pre-war and post-war repressions would emerge. And someone will have to answer for them. And the one who is the first to pronounce this inevitable "a" will become the first person. Not the same, of course, as the deceased leader was, but still the first.
And then the deliberately frightened heirs formed the conviction that Beria would certainly desire to become this first of the first. Because he had much more chances of doing this (which was true) than those of Malenkov, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich ... After all, Beria had a reputation as a man who suppressed "Yezhovism", who liberated a good third of a million innocently before the war. repressed. While, for example, Molotov and Kalinin did not dare to stand up for their own wives, Kaganovich - for his brother ...
There is no need to talk seriously about the military coup allegedly planned by Beria. Directly in Moscow, only the Dzerzhinsky division of the internal troops and the Kremlin regiment were subordinate to him. Meanwhile, the famous Taman and Kantemirovsk divisions were stationed within the city, there were two dozen military academies and schools in the capital, which, by order of the Minister of Defense, did not cost anything to block the same Dzerzhinsky division.
But the Minister of Internal Affairs had much more terrible weapons at his disposal: secret and top-secret archives, lists of those sentenced to repression of the "first category" with resolutions not only of Stalin, but also of Molotov, Voroshilov, Khrushchev and others. This was enough for Stalin's heirs to take up arms against one of their own and simply betray him in order to save their posts and reputation. Beria was doomed not from the moment when, as Khrushchev claimed, the leadership became aware of the "conspiratorial plans of the enemy of the people and the British spy Beria," but from that March day, when they also appointed him one of the first deputy chairmen of the Council of Ministers and the Minister of the Interior USSR. The conspiracy did take place. But it was headed by Khrushchev and Malenkov, not Beria.
The energetic measures taken by Beria to restore order in the country only accelerated the maturation of the Khrushchev-Malenkovsky conspiracy.
Beria initiated the famous amnesty, when out of 2 256 402 prisoners held in camps and prisons, 1 203 421 people were to be released. Subsequently, to dampen the impression of this unprecedented move, the authorities spread rumors that Beria had maliciously released thousands of murderers, robbers and rapists. It was a lie. You can be convinced of this by visiting any library in order to read the same Decree on Amnesty with your own eyes.
In fact, under the amnesty, persons who received a term of up to five years, convicted of economic and official crimes, pregnant women and women with children under ten, and the sick were subject to release. Of course, there was a temporary surge in criminal offenses, but it was quickly extinguished by law enforcement agencies. At the same time, Beria proposed to transfer the camps from the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Justice. This measure was implemented in Russia only forty-five years later! Beria also proposed to transfer all construction sites, enterprises, "sharashki" of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the jurisdiction of the relevant industrial departments.
Subsequently, Beria was accused of summoning several dozen (sometimes they say - hundreds) residents of Soviet intelligence and advisers to state security agencies in the countries, as they were then called, “people's democracy,” to Moscow, thereby disorganizing the activities of the Kremlin's intelligence service. In fact, Beria took measures to eliminate the shortcomings of foreign intelligence and strengthen its personnel, primarily the leadership. Most of the advisory apparatus in the camps of "people's democracy", Beria considered completely unsuitable for the proper performance of the functions assigned to him. If only for the simple reason that almost not a single adviser knew neither the language, nor the history, nor the culture, nor the traditions, nor the mentality of the people of the country in which he worked. Many of them, moreover, behaved completely unceremoniously towards local workers, not so much “advising” as frankly, disregarding the pride of even the ministers and secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Parties, giving orders.
At the June 1953 Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, held immediately after the arrest of Beria and - in violation of the Party Charter - in his absence, the former Minister of Internal Affairs was accused of betraying the cause of socialism because he reduced the number of the Chekist apparatus in the GDR seven times. which, they say, contributed to the outbreak of mass riots on July 17, 1953.
In fact, the mass demonstrations of the working people of the GDR, suppressed only by the intervention of the Soviet occupation forces, occurred due to the clumsy policy of the republic's leadership, which set as its goal the accelerated construction of socialism in East Germany. This policy enjoyed the full support of the USSR under both Stalin and Malenkov. It is for this reason, and not because of the reduction of the Chekist apparatus, that hundreds of thousands of inhabitants of the GDR and East Berlin abandoned their homes and property every year and fled to the West.
Knowing how to be sane and better than his colleagues in the Politburo (Presidium) of the Central Committee of the CPSU, informed about the real life in the Soviet Union and abroad, Beria considered the artificial implantation of socialism in East Germany and, in general, the theory of two German states to be a senseless undertaking. He believed that the best guarantee of maintaining a reliable peace in Europe was not the confrontation between the GDR and the FRG, but the presence of a single democratic, demilitarized, albeit capitalist, German state.
As we know, the unification of Germany did not take place at that time, and through the fault of both the USSR and the Western powers. The fuse to the powder keg in the form of two German states and two Berlin smoldered in the center of Europe for almost forty years.
At the same time, Beria expressed another heretical thought, which Khrushchev, who had toppled him, put it into practice three years later, allegedly as his own initiative: he considered it necessary to restore normal relations with Yugoslavia.
But Beria's envoy to Tito did not have time to reach any Belgrade. June 26, 1953 Lavrenty Beria was arrested. This was followed by the arrests or dismissals from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of many generals and senior officers, both in the central office and in the field.
On December 16-23, 1953, in Moscow, under the chairmanship of Marshal Ivan Konev, a Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR was formed to consider the case of Lavrenty Beria, Bogdan Kobulov, Vsevolod Merkulov, Vladimir Dekanozov, Pavel Meshik, Lev Vlodzimirsky and Sergei Goglidze.
Among the crimes imputed to the defendants were treason and espionage for the intelligence services of the imperialist powers. These accusations could have caused only bewilderment among the veterans of intelligence and counterintelligence, who have a good idea of \u200b\u200bwhat espionage is ...
However, the defendants were found guilty of numerous crimes and sentenced to capital punishment.
"Act
1953, December 23.
This date, at 19 hours 50 minutes, on the basis of the order of the chairman of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR of December 23, 1953 No. 003 by me, the commandant of the special judicial presence, Colonel-General P.F. Batitsky, in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, the actual state counselor of justice Rudenko RA and General of the Army Moskalenko KS The verdict of a special court presence in relation to the person sentenced to capital punishment - the execution of Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was carried out.
The act is sealed by the signatures of the three named persons.
One more act:
“On December 23, 1953, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Comrade Lunev, deputy. General Military Prosecutor Comrade Kitaev in the presence of Colonel-General Comrade Hetman, Lieutenant General Bakeev and Major General Sopilnik were carried out by the verdict of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR of December 23, 1953 over the convicts:
Kobulov Bogdan Zakharievich, b. 1904
Merkulov Vsevolod Nikolaevich, born in 1895
Dekanozov Vladimir Georgievich, b. 1898
Meshik Pavel Yakovlevich, b. 1910
Wlodzimir Lev Emelyanovich, b. 1902
Goglizde Sergei Arsentyevich, b. 1901 -
To the capital punishment - execution.
On December 23, 1953, the aforementioned convicts were shot. " Death was ascertained by a doctor (signature).
The FSB archives contain tens of thousands of certificates from special departments on the execution of death sentences. None of them mentions the surname of the performer. They were classified persons, in the states of the NKVD they could be listed as anyone: drivers, prison guards, guards.
These two acts - the only exceptions... The perpetrators of death sentences are named both by their surname and by their position.
On September 1, 1953, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Special Meeting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR was abolished. Finally, this body of extrajudicial punishment, shameful for a country that considers itself a civilized state, was liquidated.
Soon the country's top leadership came to the conclusion that it was impossible to entrust the leadership of both the state security agencies and the internal affairs to the same hands. According to the author, this decision was dictated not so much by the interests of the case as by fear. The ordinary fear that, God forbid, such a two-headed monster is at the disposal of some new Yezhov with the ambitions of the head of the country, many in power do not get their heads off.
Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich - Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR, member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, General Commissar of State Security.
Born on March 16 (29), 1899 in the village of Merheuli, Sukhum district, Tiflis province, now the Republic of Abkhazia (Georgia), into a peasant family. Georgian. In 1915 he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi higher primary school. From 1915 he studied at the Baku Secondary Mechanical Construction Technical School. In October 1915, with a group of comrades, he organized an illegal Marxist circle at the school. Member of the RSDLP (b) / RCP (b) / VKP (b) / KPSS since March 1917. He organized a cell of the RSDLP (b) at the school. During the First World War of 1914-18, in June 1917, as a trainee technician at the army hydraulic engineering school, he was sent to the Romanian front, where he led active Bolshevik political work in the troops. At the end of 1917 he returned to Baku and, continuing his studies at a technical school, actively participated in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization.
From the beginning of 1919 to April 1920, that is, before the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he led the illegal communist organization of technicians and, on behalf of the Baku Party Committee, provided assistance to a number of Bolshevik cells. In 1919, Lavrenty Beria successfully graduated from a technical school, receiving a diploma of a technician-architect-builder.
In 1918-20, he worked in the Secretariat of the Baku Council. In April-May 1920, he was authorized by the registration department of the Caucasian Front at the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army, then he was sent to work underground in Georgia. In June 1920, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Kutaisi prison. But at the request of the Soviet plenipotentiary S.M. Kirov, Lavrenty Beria was released and deported to Azerbaijan. Returning to Baku, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute (which he did not graduate from).
In August-October 1920 Beria L.P. - Administrator of the affairs of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan. From October 1920 to February 1921 he was the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission (CC) for Baku.
In intelligence and counterintelligence agencies since 1921. In April-May 1921 he worked as deputy chief of the secret-operational unit of the Azerbaijan Cheka; from May 1921 to November 1922 - head of the secret-operational unit, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. From November 1922 to March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Cheka, head of the secret operational unit; from March 1926 to December 2, 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the Main Political Directorate (GPU) of the Georgian SSR, head of the secret operational unit; from December 2, 1926 to April 17, 1931 - Deputy Plenipotentiary Representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (TSFSR), Deputy Chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU; from December 1926 to April 17, 1931 - Head of the Secret Operations Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU in the TSFSR and the Transcaucasian GPU.
In December 1926 L.P. Beria was appointed chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR and deputy chairman of the GPU of the ZSFSR. From April 17 to December 3, 1931 - the head of the special department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army, the chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU and the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU of the USSR in the ZSFSR, being from August 18 to December 3, 1931 a member of the board of the OGPU USSR.
In 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) exposed gross political mistakes and distortions committed by the leadership of the party organizations of Transcaucasia. In its decision of October 31, 1931, on the reports of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the CPSU (b), the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia, the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Azerbaijan and the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Armenia, the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) set the task for the party organizations of Transcaucasia immediate correction of political distortions in work in the countryside, widespread deployment of economic initiative and initiative of the national republics that were part of the TSFSR. At the same time, the party organizations of Transcaucasia were obliged to put an end to the unprincipled struggle for the influence of individuals observed among the leading cadres, both of the entire Transcaucasian Federation and the republics in it, and to achieve the necessary solidity and Bolshevik cohesion of the party ranks. In connection with this decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) L.P. Beria was transferred to leading party work. From October 1931 to August 1938, he was the 1st secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, and at the same time from November 1931, the 2nd, and in October 1932 - April 1937, the 1st secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the CPSU (b) ...
The name of Lavrenty Beria became widely known after the publication of his book On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia. In the summer of 1933, when I.V. An attempt was made on Stalin's life, Beria covered him with his body (the assassin was killed on the spot, and this story has not been fully disclosed) ...
Since February 1934 L.P. Beria is a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In June 1937, at the 10th Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, he declared from the rostrum: "Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise his hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin-Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed."
On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and from September 29, 1938, he simultaneously headed the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR. September 11, 1938 L.P. Beria was awarded the title of "State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank."
On November 25, 1938, Beria was replaced by N.I. Yezhov at the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, retaining the direct leadership of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR. But on December 17, 1938, he appointed his deputy V.N. Merkulova.
State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank L.P. Beria almost completely renewed the highest apparatus of the NKVD of the USSR. He carried out the release from the camps of some of the unreasonably convicted: in 1939, 223.6 thousand people were released from the camps, and 103.8 thousand people from the colonies. At the insistence of L.P. Beria, the rights of a Special Conference under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR to issue extrajudicial sentences were expanded.
In March 1939, Beria became a candidate member and only in March 1946 - a member of the Politburo (since 1952 - the Presidium) of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) / CPSU. Therefore, only since 1946 can we talk about the participation of L.P. Beria in political decision making.
January 30, 1941 State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank L.P. Beria awarded the title of "Commissioner General of State Security".
On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - the Council of Ministers) of the USSR, but at the same time state security organs were removed from his subordination, which made up an independent People's Commissariat.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD of the USSR and the NKGB of the USSR were again united under the leadership of the General Commissar of State Security L.P. Beria.
On June 30, 1941, Lavrenty Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), and from May 16 to September 1944 he was also Deputy Chairman of the GKO. Under the GKO line, Beria was entrusted with the most responsible assignments of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) both for the leadership of the socialist economy in the rear and at the front, namely, control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) for the release of aircraft and aircraft engines.
Haveby the kaz of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30, 1943, for special services in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions, the General Commissioner of State Security Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal ( No. 80).
March 10, 1944 L.P. Beria introduced I.V. A memorandum to Stalin with a proposal to evict the Tatars from the territory of Crimea, later carried out the general leadership of the eviction of Chechens, Ingush, Tatars, Germans, etc.
On December 3, 1944, he was entrusted with "overseeing the development of work on uranium"; from August 20, 1945 to March 1953 - Chairman of the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (later under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers of the USSR).
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 9, 1945, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was awarded the highest military rank “Marshal of the Soviet Union” with the presentation of a special Diploma of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the insignia “Marshal's Star”.
After the end of the war on December 29, 1945, Beria left the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From March 19, 1946 to March 15, 1953 L.P. Beria - Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
As a department head military science Central Committee of the CPSU (b) / KPSS, L.P. Beria oversaw the most important areas of the military-industrial complex of the USSR, including the atomic project and rocketry, the creation of the TU-4 strategic bomber, and the LB-1 tank gun. Under his leadership and with direct participation, the first atomic bomb in the USSR was created, tested on August 29, 1949, after which some began to call him "the father of the Soviet atomic bomb."
After the XIX Congress of the CPSU, at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, as part of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a "leading five" was created, which included L.P. Beria. After the death of March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin's Lavrenty Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, concentrating in his hands the posts of the 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he headed the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, created on the day of Stalin's death by combining the former ministry and the Ministry of State Security.
On the initiative of Marshal of the Soviet Union L.P. Beria On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared in the USSR, which released one million two hundred thousand people, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors' case”), and investigative cases for four hundred thousand people were closed.
Beria spoke in favor of cutting military spending, freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal, the Volga-Baltic Canal). He achieved the beginning of negotiations on an armistice in Korea, tried to restore friendly relations with Yugoslavia, opposed the creation of the German Democratic Republic, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a "peace-loving bourgeois state." He sharply reduced the state security apparatus abroad.
Pursuing a policy of promoting national cadres, L.P. Beria sent documents to the republican Central Committees of the party, which spoke about the wrong policy of Russification and illegal repression.
On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Marshal of the Soviet Union L.P. Beria was arrested ...
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was removed from the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, deprived of all the titles and awards conferred to him.
In the verdict of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. It was written that "having betrayed the Motherland and acting in the interests of foreign capital, the accused Beria formed a traitorous conspiratorial group hostile to the Soviet state with the aim of seizing power, eliminating the Soviet workers 'and peasants' system, restoring capitalism and restoring the rule of the bourgeoisie." The special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced L.P. Beria to death.
The death sentence was carried out by Colonel-General PF Batitsky, who shot the convict with a captured Parabellum pistol with a shot in the forehead in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, which is confirmed by the corresponding act signed on December 23, 1953:
“This date at 19 hours 50 minutes on the basis of the Order of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953 No. 003 by me, the commandant of the Special Judicial Presence, Colonel-General PF Batitsky, in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General, acting state counselor of justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General Moskalenko K.S. the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence was carried out in relation to the person sentenced to capital punishment - execution - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich ".
Attempts by relatives of L.P. Beria to achieve a review of the 1953 case were unsuccessful. The military collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on May 29, 2000 refused to rehabilitate the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR ...
Beria L.P. was awarded five Orders of Lenin (No. 1236 of 03/17/1935, No. 14839 of 09/30/1943, No. 27006 of 02/21/1945, No. 94311 of 03/29/49, No. 118679 of 10/29/1949. ), two Orders of the Red Banner (No. 7034 of 04/03/1924, No. 11517 of 11/03/1944), the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree; Orders of the Red Battle Banner of Georgia (03.07.1923), the Labor Red Banner of Georgia (10.04.1931), the Labor Red Banner of Azerbaijan (14.03.1932) and the Labor Red Banner of Armenia, seven medals; the badges “Honorary Worker of the VChK-GPU (V)” (No. 100), “Honorary Worker of the VChK-GPU (XV)” (No. 205 of 20.12.1932), a personalized weapon - a Browning pistol, a monogram watch; foreign awards - the Tuvan Order of the Republic (08/18/1943), the Mongolian Orders of the Battle Red Banner (No. 441 of 07/15/1942), Sukhe-Bator (No. 31 of 03/29/1949), the Mongolian medal "XXV years of the Mongolian People's Republic "(No. 3125 dated September 19, 1946).
Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939;
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) March 12, 1939. - Kiev: State Political Publishing House of the Ukrainian SSR, 1939;
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the CP (b) of Georgia June 16, 1938 - Sukhumi: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man of our time [I.V. Stalin]. - Kiev: State Political Publishing House of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903) / (The life of the remarkable Bolsheviks). Translated by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Children's Publishing House of the Georgian SSR, 1940;
On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in the Transcaucasus. 8th ed. M., 1949.
BERIA, LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH(1899-1953), Soviet politician. Born March 17 (29), 1899 into a peasant family in the Abkhaz village of Merheuli. From childhood, he was distinguished by his ability to study and was sent to study in Sukhum at an elementary school with money from fellow villagers, which he graduated from in 1915. The history teacher predicted for him the fate of the "second Fouche" - the famous Minister of Police under the Emperor Napoleon the First. Beria continued his education in Baku, where in 1919 he graduated with honors from a mechanical-construction technical school with a diploma of an architect-builder. In 1920-1922 he studied at the first and second years of the Baku Polytechnic Institute.
Beria himself claimed that he joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917; but, according to other sources, it happened in 1919. In the summer of 1917 he was sent as a technician to the Romanian front, but the young specialist was released from military service and at the end of the same year he returned to Baku. There he worked in the apparatus of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies, and after the fall of Soviet power in 1918 he got a job as a clerk. In April 1920, the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) sent him to clandestine activities in Georgia, which was then ruled by the Menshevik government. There Beria was arrested and declared exiled, but disappeared and under an assumed name became an employee of the Russian embassy in Tiflis, headed by Sergei Kirov. In May he was arrested again and deported to Azerbaijan, where by that time the Bolsheviks had defeated. In Azerbaijan, Beria worked in the party and state apparatus (in particular, he was the manager of the Azerbaijani Central Committee), took part in establishing the power of the Bolsheviks in Georgia, and then completely concentrated on serving in the Cheka. In 1921, Beria became the head of the secret-operational service and deputy chairman of the Cheka of Azerbaijan, and in 1922 he took up similar positions in the Cheka of Georgia. During this period, he became close to Stalin, to whom he sent reports during his intelligence activities in Baku. Unlike some of Georgia's old Bolshevik leaders, Beria fully supported him in the power struggle.
Further progress of Beria is associated with his successes in suppressing the anti-Bolshevik underground. Several attempts were made on his life, and more than once he managed to escape only by a miracle. In 1926, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the GPU of Transcaucasia and head of the GPU of Georgia, in 1927 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia, and in 1931 - head of the GPU of the entire Transcaucasus.
In October 1931, at a meeting of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Stalin proposed to appoint Beria as the second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Party Committee, although the first secretary of Kartvelishvili flatly refused to work with the new appointee. Already in 1932, Beria was appointed to the post of party leader of the Transcaucasus. He was a supporter of Stalin: in a special report on the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia at the plenum of the Georgian Central Committee, Beria called Stalin the founder of Bolshevism (along with Lenin). In 1933, he blocked the "leader" from shots while relaxing on Lake Ritsa (Abkhazia). In 1934, Beria was included in the Central Committee of the CPSU (b).
Nevertheless, he, like many other then leaders of the country, did not feel completely safe. The historian A. Avtorkhanov cites data that Beria was on the list of people against whom the People's Commissar Nikolai Yezhov collected incriminating evidence in 1938, and reported to Stalin. The result of the investigation was Yezhov's dismissal. In his place in 1938, Beria was appointed, who the following year also became a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee.
Having received the appointment, Beria, unlike Yezhov, was by no means a colorless and dependent figure. Beria expelled from the punitive organs many workers who participated in the repressions of 1937. Initially, his coming to the leadership of the NKVD caused a weakening of mass terror. “Anastas Mikoyan, a prominent political figure of the 1930-1960s, recalled his post,“ he took up diplomacy. First of all, he said: enough 'purges', it's time to get down to real work. Many people breathed a sigh of relief from such speeches ... ".
Some of the repressed were released. In November 1939, an order was issued On shortcomings in the investigative work of the NKVD bodies, who demanded strict adherence to criminal procedural norms. But the relief was temporary. The activities of Beria are associated with the abolition of the system of early serving sentences for "shock" work, the expansion of the powers of an extrajudicial body - the Special Meeting under the NKVD, mass deportations of the population from the regions annexed to the USSR in 1939-1940.
At the beginning of 1941, Stalin decided that it was inexpedient to concentrate the repressive, intelligence and punitive complex in the same hands. The state security department was removed from the subordination of Beria, and he remained the people's commissar of internal affairs. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he also oversaw the timber and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy and the river fleet.
But already in 1949, Beria's growing independence began to worry Stalin. Beria's supporter Abakumov was removed from the post of Minister of State Security and replaced by the party apparatchik S.D. Ignatiev. Then a blow was struck at Beria's supporters in the leadership of the Communist Party of Georgia. As a result of the "Georgian case" in November 1951, 427 secretaries of regional, city and district committees, 3 secretaries of the Georgian Central Committee, 7 out of 11 members of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Minister of Justice were dismissed and arrested on charges of "bourgeois nationalism" the prosecutor of the republic, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol and other leaders. In the countries of Eastern Europe, purges of the state security organs unfolded. Realizing that he was threatened by disfavor, Beria delivered a speech at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in October 1952 - a panegyric to Stalin. However, this did not soften the mistrust of the USSR leader.
The details of the sharp struggle for power in the Soviet leadership, which unfolded in late 1952 - early 1953, and the role that Beria played in this, still remain the subject of dispute between historians. Some of them argue that Stalin intended to use the "Doctors' Plot" and the anti-Semitic campaign in order to deal under their cover with the leaders who provoked his anger. According to some of their versions, Beria and Malenkov managed to draw up their own "counter-conspiracy" and remove closest people their apparatus and protection of Stalin. The historian A. Avtorkhanov even believes that they ultimately managed to eliminate Stalin. Be that as it may, the death of Stalin in March 1953 put an end to this confrontation.
After Stalin's death, Beria became one of the country's top leaders, officially the second after Malenkov. He took the post of deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, into which the Ministry of State Security was poured. Beria was a pragmatist who developed a plan for transformations and reforms.
First of all, he terminated the “doctors' case” and released dozens of arrested doctors from prison. In the state security bodies, new purges were carried out and the persons responsible for the aforementioned "case" were themselves imprisoned. On the initiative of Beria, a partial amnesty was approved for convicts for a term of up to five years: as a result, more than one million 200 thousand people were released.
In the field of national policy, Beria advocated a significant softening of the forced Russification policy in the union republics. According to his report, the Presidium of the Central Committee in June 1953 issued a resolution: "to put an end to the distortion of Soviet nationality policy," to nominate representatives of the "titular" nationality to leading positions in the republics, and to translate office work into local languages. In Ukraine and Belarus, the first secretaries of the Communist Party, ethnic Russians, were replaced by Ukrainians and Belarusians.
There is information that Beria intended to quietly carry out a kind of "de-Stalinization", replacing the classical regime of the party-state dictatorship with an authoritarian, but "de-ideologized" dictatorship based on law enforcement agencies. The economic leadership was to be in the state, and not in the hands of the party. A number of researchers argue that he planned to allow some freedom of private economic initiative. But none of these plans came to fruition.
In foreign policy, Beria was going to normalize relations with Yugoslavia and the West. He was ready to agree to the restoration of a united Germany with a Western political model.
The country's leadership, headed by Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev, was not ready to make such radical changes. An acute struggle for power unfolded between Beria and other members of the party and state elite.
The all-powerful deputy prime minister tried to win over Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin to his side, but they preferred to come to an agreement with Malenkov. Together with the military, a plan for the elimination of Beria was developed. Under the pretext of conducting summer maneuvers, military units loyal to the first deputy defense minister, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, were pulled into Moscow. Senior officers - Marshal Zhukov, commander of the forces of the Moscow district, General K.S. Moskalenko and others - were invited to a meeting of the party-state leadership on June 26, 1953, allegedly to discuss maneuvers. According to one version, Khrushchev waited until Beria entered the conference room and offered to remove and try him, after which Malenkov summoned the military. According to another, when the military entered the hall, Malenkov accused Beria of preparing a conspiracy and ordered Zhukov to arrest him, which was immediately done. Not expecting such a turn of events, Beria offered no resistance. He only had time to write on the sheet of paper in front of him several times: "Anxiety."
The arrested man was taken to the next room, where he was kept all night. All the time he tried to weaken the vigilance of the officers guarding him and get to the phone. Only after the military replaced the Kremlin guard, subordinate to Beria, he was taken out of the Kremlin. In the future, he refused to repent and confess to any crimes, even went on an eleven-day hunger strike.
The campaign against Beria, launched after his removal and arrest, was supposed to convince the Soviet population that it was he, one of the entire leadership, who was responsible for all the difficulties and crimes of the communist regime. He was accused of high treason, espionage, reprisals against innocent people and violence. The trial of Beria and his closest associates - V. Merkulov, V. Dekanozov, B. Kobulov, S. Goglidze, P. Meshik and L. Volodzimersky - took place from 18 to 23 December 1953. Special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR chaired by Marshal I S. Koneva, sitting behind closed doors, sentenced them to death. December 23, 1953 Beria was shot.
Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born near Sukhumi, in the village. Merheul, March 29, 1899. At the age of 15, he graduated with honors from the Sukhum higher primary school, after which he entered the mechanical-construction technical school in Baku. He was sent in 1917 to the Romanian Front as a trainee technician. In March 1917, he joined the ranks of the RSDLP, became an active employee of the Baku commune and an assistant to the leader of the underground Mikoyan. Beria was arrested twice on suspicion of espionage.
Biography of Lavrenty Beria since 1921 is inextricably linked with service in the state security agencies. He owed a quick career to Stalin's favor. IN AND. Stalin and Beria met during the leader's trips to the Caucasus. In 1922 Lavrenty Pavlovich married Nina Gegechkori. Two years later, in Tbilisi, their son Sergo was born.
An important role in the rise of Beria was played by his personal loyalty to Stalin and toughness in the fight against the enemies of the party. It was in the course of Beria's work that state terror acquired a systematic character. He also perfected repressive methods and became one of the organizers of the GULAG. Beria was an ideal executor of Stalin's will, effectively eliminating all those who were objectionable to the leader, including party leaders. Thus, the assassination of Trotsky, which took place in Mexico, was carried out under his personal leadership.
Beria was the curator of Soviet foreign intelligence, the defense industry, including the development of nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that this man had outstanding organizational skills. During the reign of Stalin, he was awarded many high awards. So, in 1943, Beria received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, in 1945 - the title of Marshal. The capabilities of the state security agencies in the post-war years under the leadership of Beria increased significantly.
After Stalin's death, all power over the power departments was concentrated in the hands of Beria, who by that time had become Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs. However, the further strengthening of Beria, his high authority and political activity were considered dangerous for the leading Soviet elite.
On June 26, 1953, during a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Beria was arrested, which was carried out by the military led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov. Beria was expelled from the party, accused of anti-Soviet activities and espionage. The verdict was passed on December 23, 1953. Beria was shot on the same day.
L.P.'s wife Beria and their son Sergo were also arrested. After a year in solitary confinement, Sergo was sent to the Urals, where he became a senior engineer at the Scientific Research Institute of PO Box 320, and later was transferred to Kiev, where he worked as a leading designer at NPO Kvant. He died on October 11, 2000.
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
USSR Minister of Internal Affairs - 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
Preceded by: Ivan Dmitrievich Orakhelashvili
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia November 14, 1931 - August 31, 1938
Preceded by: Lavrenty Iosifovich Kartvelishvili
Successor: Candide Nesterovich Charkviani
First Secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia May 1937 - August 31, 1938
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR - April 4, 1927 - December 1930
Preceded by: Alexey Alexandrovich Gegechkori
Successor: Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze
Born: March 17 (29), 1899
Merheuli, Gumista site, Sukhum district, Kutaisi province, the Russian Empire
Death: December 23, 1953 (54 years old) Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Burial place: Donskoe cemetery
Father: Pavel Khukhaevich Beria
Mother: Marta Vissarionovna Dzhakeli
Wife: Nino Teimurazovna Gegechkori
Children: son: Sergo
Party: RSDLP (b) since 1917, RCP (b) since 1918, VKP (b) since 1925, KPSS since 1952
Education: Baku Polytechnic Institute
Military service
Years of service: 1938-1953
Type of troops: NKVD
Rank: Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commanded: Head of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR (1938)
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1938-1945)
Member of the State Defense Committee (1941-1944)
Battles: Great Patriotic War
Awards:
Hero of Socialist Labor
Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin Order of the Red Banner Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov I degree
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
Signature weapon - Browning pistol
Stalin Prize
Stalin Prize
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; March 17, 1899, village of Merheuli, Sukhum district, Kutaisi province, Russian Empire - December 23, 1953, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet leader General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), stripped of these titles in 1953 due to accusations of organizing "Stalinist" repressions.
Since 1941, Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Sovnarkom until 1946) of the 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 State Defense Committee of the USSR (1941-1944), Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR (1944-1945). Member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of the 7th convocation, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1-3rd convocations. Member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (1934-1953), candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939-1946), member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (1946-1952), member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU (1952-1953). He was a member of the inner circle of J. V. Stalin. He supervised a number of the most important branches of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. Supervised 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 hours, he was shot by the verdict 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 Donskoy cemetery).
Biography
Childhood and youth
The settlement of Merheuli of the Sukhum district of the Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh district of Abkhazia) in a poor peasant family.
His mother Marta Dzhakeli (1868-1955) - Mingrelian, according to the testimony of Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, was distantly related to the Mingrelian princely family of Dadiani. After the death of her first husband, Marta was left with her son and two daughters in her arms. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha's first marriage were taken up by her brother, Dmitry.
Lawrence's father, Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merheuli from Mingrelia. Martha and Pavel had three children in the family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2, and the daughter, after an illness, remained deaf and dumb. Noticing Lavrenty's good abilities, his parents tried to give him a good education - at the Sukhum higher primary school. To pay for tuition and living, the parents had to sell half of the house.
In 1915, Beria, with honors (according to other sources, he studied mediocre, and was left in the fourth grade for the second year) graduated from the Sukhum higher primary school, 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 from 1916 as a trainee in the main office of the Nobels' oil company, at the same time he continued his studies at the school. In 1919 he graduated with a diploma of a technician-builder-architect.
Since 1915, he was a member of an illegal Marxist circle of a mechanical construction school, and was its treasurer. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP (b). In June - December 1917, as a technician of the 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 an underground Bolshevik organization until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920). From October 1918 to January 1919, he worked as a clerk at the “Caspian Partnership White City” plant, Baku.
In the fall of 1919, on the instructions of the head of the Baku Bolshevik underground A. Mikoyan, he became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counterrevolution (counterintelligence) under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
During this period, he established a close relationship with Zinaida Kremsa (Kreps), who had connections with German military intelligence. In his autobiography, dated October 22, 1923, Beria wrote:
“In the early days 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 Mussevi. Approximately in March 1920, after the assassination of Comrade Mussevi, I quit my job in counterintelligence and work for a short time in the Baku customs. "
Beria did not hide his work in ADR counterintelligence - for example, in a letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze in 1933, he wrote that “he was sent to the Musavat intelligence service by the party and that this issue was examined by the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan CP (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 Comrades. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others. "
In April 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was sent to illegal work 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 by the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the register of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army I am sent to Georgia for underground work abroad as a commissioner. In Tiflis, I contact the regional committee represented by Comrade Hmayak Nazaretyan, I am spreading a network of residents in Georgia and Armenia, I am establishing contact with the headquarters of the Georgian army and guard, I 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 the negotiations between G. Sturua and Noah Jordania, everyone was released with a proposal to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, I manage to stay, having entered the service of the RSFSR representative office under the pseudonym Lakerbay to comrade Kirov, who by that time had arrived in the city of Tiflis. "
Later, while participating in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, he was exposed by the local counterintelligence, arrested and imprisoned in the Kutaisi prison, then exiled to Azerbaijan. He writes about this:
“In May 1920, I went to Baku to the register 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 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 am in prison, only after four and a half days of hunger strike declared by political prisoners, I was sent to Azerbaijan in a phased manner. "
OG Shatunovskaya describes an 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 put in prison as a provocateur, and Bagirov was released. Kirov In Tbilisi, he was then Permanent Representative. He sent a telegram to the headquarters of the 11th Army, to the Revolutionary Military Council, Ordzhonikidze: "The provocateur Beria has escaped, arrest him."
In the state security bodies 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 CP (b) 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 the improvement of the workers' life, having worked 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 was appointed head of the secret operational unit and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. The chairman of the Cheka of the Azerbaijan SSR was then 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 he escaped serious punishment. (Anastas Mikoyan interceded for him.)
In 1922 he took part in the defeat of the Muslim organization "Ittihad" and the liquidation of the Transcaucasian organization of the Right SRs.
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 SNK of the Georgian SSR, later transformed into the Georgian GPU (State Political Administration), with a combination of 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, was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.
Since March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR, Head of the Secret Operations Unit.
On December 2, 1926, Lavrenty Beria became chairman of the GPU at the SNK of the Georgian SSR (until December 3, 1931), deputy plenipotentiary of the OGPU at the SNK of the USSR in the ZSFSR and deputy chairman of the GPU at the SNK of the ZSFSR (until April 17, 1931). At the same time, from December 1926 to April 17, 1931, he was the head of the Secret Operations Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR and the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR.
Simultaneously from April 1927 to December 1930 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. Apparently, his first meeting with Stalin dates back to this period.
On June 6, 1930, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the Georgian SSR, Lavrenty Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 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). Simultaneously from August 18 to December 3, 1931 - a member of the board of the OGPU USSR.
At party work in the Transcaucasus
On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) 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 (b) of Georgia (until August 31 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - the first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee while retaining the post of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On December 5, 1936, the ZSFSR was divided into three independent republics, the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by the decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on April 23, 1937.
On March 10, 1933, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) included Beria in the mailing list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - minutes of meetings of the Politburo, Orgburo, Secretariat of the Central Committee. In 1934, at the 17th Congress of the CPSU (b), he was first elected a member of the Central Committee.
On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was included in the commission chaired by L.M. Kaganovich, created to develop a draft Regulation on the NKVD of the USSR and a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
In December 1934, Beria attended a reception with Stalin in honor of his 55th birthday.
In early March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR 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 (Bolsheviks) of Georgia (until August 31, 1938).
In 1935 he published a book "On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in the Transcaucasus" (according to researchers, its real authors were Malakia Toroshelidze and Erik Bedia). In the draft publication of Stalin's Works at the end of 1935, Beria was indicated as a member of the editorial board, as well as a candidate for editors 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 of Transcaucasia, during his reign many large industrial facilities were put into operation (Zemo-Avchal hydroelectric power station, etc.). Georgia was transformed into an all-union resort area. By 1940, the volume of industrial production in Georgia compared with 1913 increased 10 times, agricultural - 2.5 times with a fundamental change in the structure of agriculture in the direction of highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone. High purchase prices were set for agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.): the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.
They say that before his death (apparently as a result of poisoning), Nestor Lakoba called Beria his killer.
In September 1937, together with G.M. Malenkov and A.I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a "purge" of the party organization in Armenia. The "big purge" took place in Georgia as well, where many party and state officials were repressed. Here the so-called conspiracy was "revealed" among the party leaders of Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, whose participants allegedly planned the withdrawal of Transcaucasia from the USSR and the transition to the protectorate of Great Britain.
In Georgia, in particular, the persecution of the People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR, Gayoz Devdariani, began. His brother Shalva, who held important posts in the state security organs 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 Mikhail Javakhishvili, Titian Tabidze, Sandro Akhmeteli, Yevgeny Mikeladze, Dmitry Shevardnadze, Giorgi Eliava, Grigory Tsereteli and others.
Since January 17, 1938, since the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Soviet of the 1st convocation, member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 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 15.04.37) was MP 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, in the last post he was replaced by L.P. Beria - from September 29, 1938 in the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, restored in the structure of the NKVD (on December 17, 1938, in this post, Beria will be replaced by V.N.Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from 16.12.38). On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank.
According to Barsenkov A.S. and Vdovin A.I., with the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repression sharply decreased, the Great Terror ended. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to death on charges of counterrevolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand. In 1939-1940, the vast majority of people who were not convicted in 1937-1938 were released; some of those convicted and sent to camps were also released. According to the data cited by V.N. Zemskov, in 1938, 279,966 people were released. The expert commission of Moscow State University found factual errors in the textbook of Barsenkov and Vdovin and estimates the number of those 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 1930s,” noted Yakov Etinger.
Supervised 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 of State Security of the USSR, which was headed by the former first deputy of Beria in NKVD V.N. Merkulov). According to Martirosyan, Beria put an end to Yezhov's lawlessness and terror that reigned in the NKVD (including foreign intelligence) and in the army, including military intelligence, as soon as possible. Under the leadership of Beria in 1939-1940, a powerful network of agents of Soviet foreign intelligence was created in Europe, as well as in Japan and the United States.
Since March 22, 1939 - a candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). 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 people's commissars USSR. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he supervised the work of the NKVD, the NKGB, the people's commissariats of the timber and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and the 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 duties between the members of the GKO, L.P. Beria was entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring the implementation of the GKO decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as monitoring the implementation of the GKO decisions on the work of the Red Air Force. Army (formation of air regiments, their timely transfer to the front, etc.).
By the GKO decree of December 8, 1942, L.P. Beria was appointed a member of the GKO Operations Bureau. By the same decree, L.P. Beria was additionally entrusted with the duties of control and supervision over 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 supervision over 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-pulp, electrical industries, and power plants.
Beria also served as a 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. Supervised the production of aircraft and rocketry.
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 30, 1943, LP Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for special services in 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), the Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).
Start of work on a nuclear project
On February 11, 1943, JV Stalin signed a decision of the State Defense Committee on the work program for the creation of an atomic bomb under the leadership of VM Molotov. But already in the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR 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, about a year and ten months after their supposed start , which was difficult during the war.
Deportation of peoples' porting in the USSR
During the Great Patriotic War, deportations of peoples from their places of compact residence were carried out. Representatives of the peoples whose countries were part of the Hitlerite coalition (Hungarians, Bulgarians, many Finns) were also deported. The official reason for the deportation was mass desertion, collaboration and the active anti-Soviet armed struggle of a significant part of these peoples during the Great Patriotic War.
On January 29, 1944, Lavrenty Beria approved the "Instruction on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush," and on February 21, he issued an order for 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, in which up to 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH were involved, and also about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops, drawn from all over the country to participate in "exercises in the highlands." On February 22, he met with the leadership of the republic and the highest spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and offered to carry out the necessary work among the population, and in the morning of the next day the eviction operation began. On February 24, Beria reported to Stalin: "The eviction is proceeding normally ... Of the persons scheduled for seizure in connection with the operation, 842 people have been arrested."
On the same day, Beria proposed to Stalin to evict the Balkars, and on February 26 he issued an order for the NKVD "On measures to evict the Balkar population from the KB of the ASSR." The day before, Beria, Serov and Kobulov met with the secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional party committee Zuber Kumekhov, during which it was scheduled 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 she could have a defensive line on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. On March 5, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on eviction from the KB of the ASSR, and on March 8-9, the operation began. On March 11, Beria reported to Stalin that “37,103 people were evicted from the Balkars,” and on March 14 he reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
Another major action was the deportation of the Meskhetian Turks, as well as the Kurds and Hemshin living in the border regions with Turkey. On July 24, Beria addressed a letter (No. 7896) to I. Stalin. He wrote:
"For a number of years, a significant part of this population, related to the residents of the border regions of Turkey by family ties, relations, shows emigration sentiments, is engaged in smuggling and serves as a source for the Turkish intelligence agencies to recruit spy elements and plant bandit groups."
He noted that "the NKVD of the USSR considers it expedient to resettle from Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigensky, Aspindza, Bogdanovsky regions, some village councils of the Adjara ASSR - 16,700 farms of Turks, Kurds, Hemshin." 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 Department of Special Settlements of the NKVD of the USSR.
The liberation of the regions from the German occupiers also required new actions in relation to the families of German accomplices. On August 24, an order of the NKVD followed, signed by Beria "On the eviction from the cities of the Caucasian group of resorts of the families of active German accomplices, 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 implementation 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, Hemshin, the NKVD of the USSR asks to award the orders and medals of the USSR to the most distinguished in the operation of the NKVD workers - NKGB and NKVD servicemen ”.
Postwar years
Supervising the USSR nuclear project [edit | edit wiki text]
See also: Creation of the Soviet Atomic Bomb and 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 T-bills Order dated August 20, 1945. a Special Committee under the State Defense Committee was created. 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 participation in the project due to disagreements with L.P. Beria)), V.A.Makhnev, M.G. Pervukhin. The Committee was entrusted with "the management of all work on the use of the intra-atomic energy of uranium." Later it was renamed into the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and into the Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. LP Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all the necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he carried out general management of the entire project. The personnel issues of the project were entrusted to M.G. Pervukhin, V.A.Malyshev, B.L. Vannikov and A.P. Zavenyagin, who staffed the direction of the organization's activities with scientific and engineering personnel and selected experts to resolve individual issues.
In March 1953, the Special Committee was also entrusted with the leadership of other special defense work. On the basis of the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU of June 26, 1953 (on the day of the displacement and arrest of L.P. Beria), the Special Committee was liquidated, and its apparatus was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Medium Machine Building of the USSR.
On August 29, 1949, the atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. On October 29, 1949, LP Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree "for the organization of 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 Undesirable 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 might of the USSR", it is indicated that the recipient was awarded the "Diploma of an honorary citizen of the Soviet Union." In the future, 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, with the replacement of special state security ranks with military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the title 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, and L.P. Beria was appointed its chairman. The tasks of the Operational Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars included issues of the work of industrial enterprises and railway transport.
Since March 1946, Beria has been a member of the "seven" members of the Politburo, which included I. V. Stalin and six persons close to him. The most important questions were closed on this "inner circle" government controlled, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, weapons, 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 USSR Council of Ministers. 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 the positions of L.P. Beria in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful test of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the work on the creation of which L.P. Beria oversaw. However, then the Mingrelian case directed against him followed.
After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, held in October 1952, L.P. Beria was included in the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which replaced the former Politburo, in the Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and in the “leading five” of the Presidium created at the suggestion of JV 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 was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR without much debate. 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, from the rostrum of the Mausoleum made a speech at a memorial meeting.
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 law enforcement agencies. LP Beria's proteges were nominated 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 made replacement of personnel in the middle management level.
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 Mengrelian case and a number of other legislative and political transformations:
Order on the creation of commissions on the revision of the "case of doctors", a conspiracy in the USSR Ministry of State Security, the Main Department of the USSR Ministry of Defense, and the Georgian SSR Ministry of State Security. All persons involved 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 on the revision of 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 persons involved in the case, were fully rehabilitated and reinstated in positions and ranks.
Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the amnesty. According to Beria's proposal, on March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU approved a decree "On amnesty", according to which 1.203 million people were to be released from places of detention, as well as to terminate investigative cases against 401 thousand people. On August 10, 1953, 1.032 million people were released from places of detention. the following categories of prisoners:
convicted for a term of up to 5 years inclusive,
convicted for:
official,
household and
some military crimes,
and:
minors,
elderly,
sick,
women with young children and
pregnant women.
Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the rehabilitation of persons undergoing the "case of doctors".
The note admitted that the innocent leading figures of Soviet medicine were presented as spies and murderers, and, as a result, the objects of anti-Semitic harassment deployed in the central press. The case from beginning to end is a provocative invention of the former deputy of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR Ryumin, who, having embarked on the criminal path of deceiving the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks), in order to obtain the necessary evidence, secured I.V. Stalin's sanction to use physical measures against the arrested doctors - torture and severe beatings. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On falsification of the so-called case of pest doctors" of April 3, 1953, ordered to support 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 the moment was already arrested.
Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the prosecution of persons involved in the deaths of S.M. Mikhoels and V.I.Golubov.
Order "On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical pressure against those arrested."
The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On approval of the measures taken by the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs to correct the consequences of violations of the law" of April 10, 1953, read: "To approve the ongoing comrade. Beria L.P. measures to uncover criminal acts committed over a number of years in the former USSR Ministry of State Security, expressed in fabricating 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 of the Soviet state and socialist legality ”.
A note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the misconduct of the Mingrelian case. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On falsification of the case of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group" of April 10, 1953 recognizes that the circumstances of the case are fictitious, all the defendants should be released and fully rehabilitated.
Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee "On the rehabilitation of ND Yakovlev, II Volkotrubenko, IA Mirzakhanov and others."
Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the rehabilitation of MM Kaganovich."
Note to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On the abolition of passport restrictions and restricted areas."
Arrest and sentence
Circular of the head of the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs K. Omelchenko on the seizure of the portraits of L.P. Beria. July 27, 1953
Having enlisted 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 question of Beria's compliance with his post 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 in favor of Great Britain in the 1920s. Beria tried to prove that if he was appointed by the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, then only the plenum could remove him, but on a special signal a group of generals led by Marshal Zhukov entered the room and arrested Beria.
Beria was accused of espionage in favor of Great Britain and other countries, in an effort to liquidate the Soviet workers 'and peasants' system, to restore capitalism and restore the domination of the bourgeoisie, as well as moral corruption, abuse of power, and falsification of thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and in the organization of illegal repressions (this Beria, according to the charge, 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 L. Beria's sabotage activities. On July 7, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Beria was relieved of his duties as a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU and removed from the Central Committee of the CPSU. 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 confiscation of any artistic images of L.P. Beria.
Together with him, his closest associates from the state security organs were accused, immediately after the arrest and later named in the media as "Beria's gang":
V. N. Merkulov - Minister of State Control of the USSR
B. Z. Kobulov - 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 Investigation 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 the last words of Beria at the trial:
I have already shown to the court what I plead guilty to. For a long time I hid my service in the Musavat counter-revolutionary intelligence service. However, I declare that, even while serving there, I did nothing harmful. I fully admit my moral decay. The numerous connections with women mentioned here shame me as a citizen and a 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 and enemy goals. The reason for my crimes is the atmosphere 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 L.P. Beria, V.N.Merkulov, V.G. Dekanozov, B.Z.Kobulov, S.A.Goglidze, P.Ya. Meshik, L.E. Vlodzimirsky. to the capital punishment - execution, with confiscation of property belonging to them personally, with deprivation of military ranks and awards.
All the accused were shot on the same day, and L.P. Beria was shot several hours before the execution of 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) PF Batitsky fired the first shot from his personal weapon. The body was burnt in the furnace of the 1st Moscow (Donskoy) crematorium. He was buried at the New Donskoy cemetery (according to other statements, Beria's ashes were scattered over the Moskva River).
A brief report on the trial of L.P. Beria and his collaborators was published in the Soviet press. Nevertheless, some historians admit that the arrest, trial and execution over Beria on formal grounds were 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 fundamentally different from each other, what happened to his body after the execution, no documents are confirmed (there is no certificate of cremation). These and other facts subsequently gave food for all kinds of theories, in particular, the famous writer and journalist E.A.Prudnikova, based on an analysis of written sources and 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 a documentary investigative film by journalist Sergei Medvedev, first shown on Channel One on June 4 2014 year.
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 the "Beria gang" were convicted and shot or sentenced to long terms of imprisonment:
Abakumov V.S.- Chairman of the Board of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR
Ryumin M.D. - Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR
in the "Bagirov case"
Bagirov M.D. - 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR
R. Markaryan - 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"
N. Rukhadze - Minister of State Security of the Georgian SSR
Rapava. A. N. - Minister of State Control of the Georgian SSR
Sh.O. Tsereteli - 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 branch of the Georgian NKVD SPO, and then assistant to the head of the STO NKVD of Georgia
Paramonov G.I. - Deputy Head of the Investigation Unit for Especially 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
other.
In addition, at least 100 colonels and generals were stripped of their ranks and / or awards and dismissed from the bodies with the wording “as discredited during his work in the bodies ... and unworthy of a high rank in this regard ...”.
"The State Scientific Publishing House" Great Soviet Encyclopedia "recommends to remove from the 5th volumes of TSB 21, 22, 23 and 24 pages, as well as the portrait pasted between 22 and 23 pages, instead of which you will be sent pages with the new text." New page 21 contained photographs of the Bering Sea.
In 1952, the fifth volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published, which included a portrait of L.P. Beria and an article about him. In 1954, the editorial board of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent all its subscribers a letter in which it was strongly recommended to cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria with "scissors or a razor", and instead paste others (sent in the same letter) containing other articles starting with the same letters. In the press and literature of the "thaw" times, the demonization of the image of Beria took place; he, as the main initiator, was blamed for all the mass repressions.
By the decision of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 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 and personally carried out massive repressions against their own people at the state level. Therefore, the Law "On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression" cannot be applied to them as perpetrators of terror.
... Guided by 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 Criminal Procedure Code of the RSFSR, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation determined: "To recognize Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich, Merkulov Vsevolod Nikolaevich, Kobulov Bogdan Zakharievich, Goglidze Sergei Arsenievich 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 29.V.2002.
In the early 2000s, L.P. Beria was considered by some researchers only as an executor of Stalinist 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, Lavrenty Beria had a second (common-law) wife. He cohabited with Valentina (Lyalya) Drozdova, who at the time of their acquaintance was a schoolgirl. Valentina Drozdova gave birth to a daughter from Beria, named Martha 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 Communist Party of the Soviet Union 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 Beria had been raped and lived with him under threat of physical harm. At the trial, she and her mother A. I. Akopyan acted as witnesses, giving indictments against Beria. Valentina Drozdova herself was subsequently the mistress of the currency speculator Yan Rokotov, who was shot in 1961 and the wife of the shadow knitwear worker Ilya Galperin, who was shot in 1967.
After Beria was convicted, his close relatives and close relatives of the convicted were deported with him to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Sverdlovsk Region and Kazakhstan].
Facts
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 the Dynamo teams, especially the Tbilisi Dynamo, whose defeats he painfully perceived.
According to G. Mirzoyan, in 1936 Beria, during interrogation in his office, shot 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.
"Beria Orchestra" was called his personal security, which, when traveling to open cars hid submachine guns in violin cases, and a light machine gun in a double bass case.
Awards [
By the 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 strengthening 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 the test 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 - The decree was canceled April 4, 1962
7 medals
Jubilee 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 Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow"
Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR on 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)
Breastplate "Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU (V)" No. 100
Breastplate "Honorary Worker of the Cheka - GPU (XV)" No. 205 December 20, 1932
Signature weapon - Browning pistol
Monogram watch
Proceedings
L. Beria. On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in the Transcaucasus. Report at the meeting of the Tiflis party activists on July 21-22, 1935 - Party publication 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) March 12, 1939. - Kiev: State Political Publishing House of the Ukrainian SSR, 1939;
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the CP (b) of Georgia June 16, 1938 - Sukhumi: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man of our time [I. V. Stalin]. - Kiev: State Political Publishing House of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903) / (The life of the remarkable Bolsheviks). Translated by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Children's Publishing House of the Georgian SSR, 1940;
Objects bearing the name of L. P. Beria [edit | edit wiki text]
In honor of Beria were named:
Berievsky district - in the period from February to May 1944 (now Novolaksky district of Dagestan).
Berievsky district - a district of the Armenian SSR in 1939-1953 with the administrative center in the village named after Beria.
Beriaaul - Novolakskoye village, Dagestan
Beriyashen - Sharukkar, Azerbaijan SSR
Beriyakend - the former name of the village of Khanlarkand, Saatli region, 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 called the current Cooperative Street in Kharkov, Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Victory Avenue in Ozersk, Apsheronskaya Square in Vladikavkaz (Dzaudzhikau), Tsimlyanskaya Street in Khabarovsk, Gagarin Street in Sarov, Pervomayskaya Street in Seversk, Mira Street in Ufa.
Dynamo Tbilisi stadium was named after Beria.
