Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich
Marshal of the Soviet Union
Hero of Socialist Labor (1943)
Andrey Parshev
It is BITTER to begin the anniversary article not with a description of merits, but with a refutation of slander, but this cannot be dispensed with.
BERIA, Lavrenty Pavlovich, did not and could not have anything to do with the organization of the so-called. "repressions" in 1937, neither due to official position, nor due to physical absence in the center of events. The decision to carry out repressions was made by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1937, and L.P. Beria was at that time at party work in Transcaucasia. He was transferred to Moscow in the summer of 1938, and was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs in December 1938, when the repressions had already ended.
L.P. Beria was People's Commissar of Internal Affairs from December 1939 until 1945, and then for only three months in 1953. For 8 years after the war, contrary to popular belief, he did not supervise law enforcement agencies, as he was completely occupied with more important matters.
The young man who wanted to learn
BERIA, Lavrenty Pavlovich, was born on March 17 (30), 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi region, into a poor peasant family. In 1915, after graduating from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, L.P. Beria left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction Technical School.
Now, in the capital's universities, an ironic attitude has developed towards students from the Caucasus - "children of the mountains" who are not interested in anything but painted blondes and foreign cars. 16-year-old Lavrenty had neither money nor patronage. There were no scholarships then, and even more so, and he could study only by earning his own living. In Sukhumi, he gave lessons, and in Baku he had to work in various places - a clerk, a customs officer. From the age of 17, he also supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him.
In March 1917, L.P. Beria organized a cell of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks) at the school in Baku. In June 1917, L.P. Beria left for the Romanian front as part of an army technical unit (in his autobiography he indicated that he was a volunteer, in his official biography it was written that he was enrolled. In Soviet times, patriotism shown in the First World War was not welcome). After the collapse of the army, he returned to Baku and continued his studies at a technical school, participating in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization under the leadership of A.I. Mikoyan.
In 1919, L.P. Beria entered the world of "twilight warfare". At that time, Azerbaijan was ruled by the "Musavatists" party - that was the name of the puppet organization created by the British to control the oil fields of the Caspian Sea. In 1919-1920, he worked in the counterintelligence of the Musavatists, passing the obtained information to the headquarters of the Tenth Army of the Bolsheviks in Tsaritsyn. Beria wrote about this in his autobiography, and no one denies it, nevertheless, it was the introduction into the Musavat secret service that was the main accusation against him in 1953.
From the beginning of 1919 (March) until the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920), L.P. Beria also led an illegal communist organization of technicians. In 1919, L.P. Beria successfully graduated from a technical school, received a diploma as an architect-builder and tried to study further - by that time the school had been transformed into a Polytechnic Institute. But ... L.P. Beria was sent to illegal work in Georgia to prepare an armed uprising against the Menshevik government, was arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. In August 1920, after a hunger strike organized by him for political prisoners, L.P. Beria was deported in stages from Georgia. Returning to Baku, L.P. Beria again went to study at the Baku Polytechnic University.
In April 1921, the party sent L.P. Beria to work as a Chekist. From 1921 to 1931 he was in leading positions in the organs of Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence. It is obvious that by that time in his circles the young Chekist was well known for his merits. It is unlikely that he was introduced into the leadership of the Cheka just because he was a foreign agent - this organization was somewhat different from the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU of the 80s.
L.P. Beria was deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Extraordinary Commission, chairman of the Georgian GPU, chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the ZSFSR, was a member of the collegium of the OGPU of the USSR.
Several times he tried to continue his studies at the Baku Polytechnic University. Now in the world ranking of universities, this educational institution is in second place from the bottom of the list, but at the beginning of the century there was a very high level of teaching. Baku was then one of the centers of scientific and technological progress, this is evidenced by Landau, who studied there at the same time.
During his work in the bodies of the Cheka-GPU in Georgia and Transcaucasia, L.P. Beria did a lot of work to defeat the Mensheviks, Dashnaks, Musavatists, Trotskyists, and foreign intelligence agents. Georgia was seized by rampant banditry, as in the 90s - the GPU brought relative order. Armenian peasants worked in the field with a rifle over their shoulders - Kurdish robbers visited from abroad as if in their pantry. By the 1930s, the border was firmly sealed.
The circle of interests of the intelligence agencies of Transcaucasia also included the near abroad - Turkey, Iran, the English Middle East, ... but the details will forever remain a secret.
For the successful struggle against the counter-revolution in Transcaucasia, L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR, the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR. He was also awarded with personalized weapons.
At the same time, in the characteristics they wrote about him - "intellectual". Then this word did not have a negative connotation, it meant an educated, cultured person who was able to apply theoretical knowledge to practical activities. He wanted to study, most of all - to study, but time did not allow. Three courses at the Polytechnic University and a diploma in architecture - all that he managed to achieve by the age of 22 in the intervals between fronts, prisons, underground and operational work.
Style
"In 1931, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks exposed the gross political mistakes and distortions committed by the leadership of the party organizations of Transcaucasia, obliged the party organizations to put an end to the unprincipled struggle for the influence of individuals (elements of the "atamanism") observed among the leading cadres of both Transcaucasia and the republics." So it was written in the biography of L.P. Beria in 1952.
Transcaucasia is an ancient land, people have lived there since time immemorial. The tribal system has taken deep roots there, behind the facade of the state there is always a complex social structure of clans, clans, families. National, public interests are too often an empty phrase there, they serve as a cover for inter-tribal struggle.
In November 1931, L.P. Beria was transferred to party work - he was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP (b) of Georgia and Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and in 1932 - First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and Secretary of the Central Committee CP(b) of Georgia.
"Under the leadership of L.P. Beria, the Transcaucasian Party Organization in a short time corrected the mistakes noted in the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on October 31, 1931, eliminated the perversions of the party's policy and excesses in the countryside, achieved the victory of the collective farm system in Transcaucasia ..... ."
L.P. Beria tamed the appetites of khans and princes with party cards, having won a good memory among ordinary people and the inescapable hatred of the tribal elite.
It was Beria who owned a special lifestyle that distinguished him from the leadership. In the 70s, the first secretary of the regional committee would have looked strange, chasing a soccer ball with the boys, and not for show, but for himself. While working in Tbilisi, in the mornings he was spinning the "sun" in the yard on a makeshift horizontal bar, along with the same boys.
After moving to Moscow, he began to live differently, which, in general, is natural, but he did not change his habits. A minimum of protection, and more often only a driver and a messenger. The Georgian's guarantor is an Armenian. Can you imagine?
Beria was unmercenary, although he was known as a hospitable host. In fact, after his death there was nothing to confiscate, and so he always lived. Did the people know about it? In Georgia, they knew, and it is easy to understand how they treated this.
Therefore, at the beginning of his career, Shevardnadze "mowed" under Beria. As Minister of the Interior, he lived in a communal apartment, and as First Secretary, he fought corruption. It then cost him nothing to throw a million dollars to charity. Saved from my salary...
When the First House has nothing, then it is somehow inconvenient for the rest to have a house - a full bowl. That is why, with the popularity of this lifestyle among the people, not all leaders were happy with it.
Technocrat
The land of Transcaucasia is one of the most fertile in the world. With very little effort, a person can more than provide for himself and his family, there would be land. But poor people can live even on the most fertile land, if this land is not enough. And in Transcaucasia there is always little land. In all Caucasian languages there is a proverb approximately similar to the Ossetian: "skulls are always lying on the boundary." Why?
A Caucasian family has many children, but a high birth rate is not at all a consequence of low culture, as is sometimes thought completely unreasonably. The tribal system suggests that the status of a person directly depends on the number of relatives in peace, and even more so in war. Few children - few warriors, and in the struggle for land, you can lose. The cost of losing is death. But the father must leave four plots to four sons, and he has one! Where to get if the earth was divided even before our era?
From time immemorial, "human surpluses" were destroyed in wars, in ancient times with sabers and daggers, now - with volleys of "Alazani" and shells with potassium cyanide. Wild mountain tribes brought slaves to Turkey, external aggressors tried to seize priceless land, exterminating its inhabitants.
Russia covered Transcaucasia from external enemies, Soviet power tamed the mountain bandits, but where to get bread, where to get land?
In Russia, the problem was solved by the nationalization of estates and collectivization. Collective farm fields cultivated by tractors made it possible to forget about hunger. But collectivization in the Transcaucasus, due to special local conditions, did not immediately allow for an equally radical increase in productivity. And there were too many free hands. Where is the exit?
The solution was found to be the only correct one. The newly created industry absorbed the peasant youth, Georgian metallurgists, Azerbaijani oil workers appeared in Transcaucasia.
But where to get bread? Is the earth no more?
Again, the only correct answer. What could not be done on the fields of a private trader, collectivization allowed. Transcaucasia became a zone of subtropical cultures unique to the USSR. Do you think the tangerines, which now cover the ground in a thick layer in the gardens of Abkhazia, have always grown there? No, citrus orchards appeared in the 30s. Where previously only grain and vegetables were grown, now they gathered so much tea, grapes, citrus fruits, rare industrial crops, which even had defense value, that Transcaucasia became the land of rich people. And Russia was not offended - since the mid-30s, collective farm grain was already enough for bread and for exchanging it for Caucasian tangerines.
A new land also appeared, for the first time since ancient times. Unusual agricultural practices, planting eucalyptus trees allowed to drain the Colchis lowland, previously a deadly malarial area. But was left - in memory of posterity - and the site of primeval swamps, after the war received the status of a reserve.
"A lot of work has been done on the reconstruction and development of the oil industry in Baku. As a result, oil production has increased dramatically, and in 1938, almost half of the entire production of the Baku oil industry was provided by new fields. Significant success was achieved in the development of the coal, manganese and metallurgical industries, the use of gigantic opportunities agriculture in Transcaucasia (development of cotton growing, tea culture, citrus crops, viticulture, highly valuable special and industrial crops, etc.) For the outstanding successes achieved over a number of years in the development of agriculture, as well as industry, the Georgian SSR and Azerbaijan The Soviet Socialist Republics, which were part of the Transcaucasian Federation, were awarded the Order of Lenin in 1935.
Maybe you think that the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee had nothing to do with it at all?
Professional
In 1938, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks transferred L.P. Beria to work in Moscow.
By that time, the defeat of the Trotskyist and other opposition cadres, begun by the decision of the Politburo in 1937, for which the NKVD was headed by high-ranking party workers from the personnel department of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, was completed. It is difficult to say how sincere the position of the Politburo was, but excesses were seen in the activities of the NKVD. To carry out the rehabilitation of the illegally repressed L.P. Beria was appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs.
The NKVD had to be returned to the work for which it was intended. Therefore, in December 1938, the party personnel officer Yezhov was replaced by a professional Chekist Beria.
From 1938 to 1945, L.P. Beria was People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR. He was a good people's commissar, the best assessment in such cases is the assessment of the enemy.
Collection "World War 1939-1945", section "War on land", General von Butlar:
"The special conditions that existed in Russia greatly hindered the acquisition of intelligence data regarding the military potential of the Soviet Union, and therefore these data were far from complete. espionage networks made it difficult to verify the little information that the intelligence officers managed to collect ... ".
Specifically and personally in the USSR, L.P. Beria was responsible for "the impossibility of organizing a wide network of espionage".
But even under the leadership of the NKVD, a special style of work of L.P. Beria, inherent only to him, manifested itself. Much better than many leaders, both military and civilian, he understood the role of new technologies, which means not only new technology, but also its correct use.
The name of L.P. Beria is associated with the development of communications of the border troops, which made it possible not only to provide telephone communications to each border detachment in many sections of the Far Eastern border. A striking contrast was the readiness of the Border Troops and the NKVD troops to start the war, in comparison with the situation in the army. Unlike the army, the communications of the Border Troops were staffed by line overseers, which made it possible to fully maintain control, although all control went by wire, as in the army. All outposts, except for those who died in the all-round defense, retreated from the border by order, and subsequently formed units whose work is accurately described in V. Bogomolov's book "In August 44th".
At the heart of this is a deep understanding of the role of communication in the management process.
Unfortunately, the exploits of the NKVD troops are less known, this topic is closed for study, even battle paintings about their exploits near Rostov and Stalingrad lie in the storerooms of museums. The "blue caps" did not leave without an order and did not surrender, they were well armed, full of automatic weapons.
During the war, L.P. Beria, in addition to his many duties, paid great attention to special equipment. In the special laboratories of the NKVD, walkie-talkies, radio direction finders, perfect sabotage mines, silent weapons, and infrared sights were created. During the defense of the Caucasus, the use of special groups of border guard officers armed with silent rifles with night sights thwarted the offensive impulse of the Kleist group - the usual tactics of the Germans turned out to be impossible due to the extermination of about 400 radio operators and aviation and artillery guidance officers.
And how to evaluate the merits of our "authorities" that organized round-the-clock wiretapping of the allied delegations at the Tehran conference? The dream of any diplomat is to know the real positions of the opposing side. Of course, real diplomats are also needed for such information, because information must be used in such a way that partners are not on their guard.
Unfortunately, a significant amount of falsification about the activities of L.P. Beria belongs to this period. Thus, democratic "historians" thoughtfully discuss the well-known, composed by Y. Semyonov, text: "Ambassador Dekanozov is bombarding me with disinformation ...... erased into camp dust ......". They do not even bother to think why on earth the ambassador of the Soviet Union, bypassing his immediate superior, People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Molotov, would bombard some outside People's Commissar, not even a member of the Politburo, with information of Special Importance.
Until 1994, L.P. Beria's accusations of the deportation of Chechens and Ingush were very popular. Indeed, 100,000 soldiers and 20,000 operatives under his command evicted 600,000 Chechens in just a few days, with only a few casualties on both sides. But these peoples in 1941 refused to mobilize and created, in fact, in the rear of the Red Army their armed forces, with party secretaries as commanders.
So L.P. Beria deservedly received the Order of Suvorov, but now everyone understands this.
By the way, as a result of the "Beria genocide" the number of Chechens has doubled by now.
He protected his native land from death...
"In February 1941, L.P. Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and remained in this post until the end of his life. During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941 he was a member of the State Defense Committee, and from May 16, 1944 - deputy chairman State Defense Committee and carried out the most important tasks of the party both in the management of the socialist economy and at the front.
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30. 1943 L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for special merits in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions. July 9, 1945 L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Sadly, there is no available information about the essence of the tasks being solved then - that's where the unplowed field for the historian is. But one merit of L.P. Beria is still mentioned, even the enemies do not dare to keep silent about it. Judge for yourself how big it is.
In one of the books from the time of perestroika, the "Song of Beria" is cited with irony. The lyrics of the song are really clumsy, but there are these words:
Gardens and fields sing about Beria
He protected his native land from death ... "
From what death and how did he protect? Not the people, not the party, but the whole native land? After all, he is not Stalin, not Zhukov, although he is a Marshal of the Soviet Union. He is a Hero, but a Hero of Socialist Labor. What's the matter?
"Since 1944, Beria oversaw all the work and research related to the creation of atomic weapons, while demonstrating outstanding organizational skills."
This phrase from the biography of L.P. Beria, given in the computer encyclopedia "Cyril and Methodius", is perhaps the only information there, except for the name and date of birth, close to reality.
The creation of Soviet nuclear weapons is a landmark event that completely changed the face of the world for decades, if not hundreds of years. We now see how Western countries are behaving, with the relative weakness of other countries. But this is despite the fact that a dozen countries of the world still have atomic bombs. There is no doubt that if the bomb had not been made in our country during a few years of peaceful respite, then, starting from the Korean War, history would have turned differently. Where? Read the book "Orbital Patrol" by the American science fiction writer R. Heinlein, which was published immediately after the war and became extremely popular in the USA. There, as the main goal of American policy, it was proposed to create a network of orbital stations with nuclear bombs under the command of the Americans, who, in the event of disobedience of any country, would immediately destroy its capital. Maybe it sounds strange (what is there, some kind of science fiction), but this book greatly influenced the public consciousness of the United States in terms of introducing the idea of world domination based on the US monopoly on nuclear and orbital technology. In our country, it was not translated until the 90s, and without reading it, it is impossible to understand why a uniform panic arose in the United States after the launch of the Soviet satellite.
The dictatorship of the West has been abolished, and, no matter what happens, forever.
Did L.P. Beria deserve at least a modest monument on Red Square for this?
Merits
The second merit is the organization of the largest breakthroughs in the scientific and technical field. And not in the form that has been actively promoted in our country since the 50s (dubious discoveries without practical utility). It has already been written about the development of an air defense missile ring around Moscow, carried out under the leadership of L.P. Beria. In its own way, no less revolutionary, this work was done contrary to all the canons of technology and, nevertheless, turned out to be successful. With a seemingly local significance, even if it concerned our capital, this development significantly influenced the direction of technical progress in the military field, and for all countries of the world. What neither cannon artillery nor aviation could provide, turned out to be within the power of rockets. Neither the Germans, nor the Japanese, nor the Western allies could do anything like this before us, although their problem of bombing was directly related during the war. From here began the victorious march of guided missiles around the world.
These projects gave concrete results during the life of L.P. Beria, and it is impossible to deny his role - too many witnesses and documents have been preserved. But his role in rocket projects is not covered, since the victorious reports of TASS were made only in 1957. Was L.P. away from heavy missiles? It is unlikely, because the development of nuclear weapons and rocket launchers for him constituted a single whole. I think that not without the participation of Beria, the government "Decree on the development of jet technology" of 1946 was developed.
There is an opinion in the mass consciousness that the boss can be completely ignorant, you just need to surround yourself with smart, but not responsible advisers, and the matter will be in the bag. That's where it ended up being.
This is clearly seen in economic policy. The growth rates of the Soviet economy in the 1930s and 1950s are well known. But in 1965, Kosygin, at the suggestion of a group of "advisers", carried out the first official reform of the Stalinist economy (it is known abroad as the "Lieberman reform", after the name of the head of the group of advisers). The result was not fatal, but "the process has started." Gorbachev and Ryzhkov, for their mind-blowing experiments in transferring funds from non-cash to cash with the help of small businesses, attracted another group of "economists", presumably from Shatalin, but everyone knows about the current advisers, and about the results of the reform too.
Beginning with Khrushchev, life has shown that if a leader, instead of keeping himself up to date, begins to trust advisers, then the results of his rule are bad. Expressing the same idea, but in other words, I will say: the leader must be educated and smart not only in the science of coming to power. The fate of the country depends on this. How to achieve this is another question, but attracting advisers is not a replacement for brains. Well, Gorbachev attracted Bovin, Burlatsky and Yakovlev as political advisers - and what did he come to, what did he lead the country to? But do not say anything, smart people, smarter than Gorbachev.
After all, you also need to be able to evaluate advisers. Another, with all his ranks, is a real sheep, among the specialists there are both adventurers and swindlers.
As a historical anecdote, I will tell the following story. We had such a Lev Theremin, the inventor of electric musical instruments, known for showing his "theremin" to Lenin himself. Then Termen lived in America, then he sat in a "sharashka". So when Beria asked him if he could make an atomic bomb, he said he could. And when asked what he needed for this, he answered that "a personal car with a driver and one and a half tons of steel corner."
But this is a curiosity, but there were critical moments in the history of the "uranium project". How did we start work on the "bomb"?
The physicist Flerov was at the front, served as an aircraft technician without any armor. And it was at the front, looking through Western scientific journals (if someone skipped this place, I repeat - being at the front and looking through Western scientific journals), he noticed that articles on the uranium problem had disappeared from them. He concluded that military work had begun in the West in this area, and therefore they were classified, and he began to write letters to Stalin (and not to the leadership of domestic physics, apparently well aware of its level), and one of them reached the addressee.
The Soviet leadership drew attention to Flerov's warning, which was the impetus for the implementation of the uranium project. The corresponding tasks were assigned to our strategic intelligence, and L.P. Beria set them, you guessed it. It was he who was in charge of our intelligence, among other things.
And Stalin had an unpleasant conversation with our "leading" physicists. For some reason, not some venerable scientist was chosen for the scientific leadership of the project, but not the too well-known Kurchatov.
Pay attention - neither Flerov nor Kurchatov were perceived by the "scientific community" as a value. Kurchatov, instead of evacuating to the East, demagnetized the hulls of ships under German bombs in Sevastopol, and Flerov fought in general, by no means on the "Kazan Front". He didn't even get armor!
This suggests that the Soviet leadership of that time itself understood the problem sufficiently to listen not to authorities, but to little-known scientists.
And imagine what would happen if Stalin and Beria relied on advisers!
CONSPIRACY
After the war, Khrushchev, Malenkov and Beria formed a stable group. Jealous senior members of the Politburo derisively called them "Young Turks." Beria did not believe to the last and, perhaps, did not find out that he was betrayed by those whom he considered friends - Malenkov and Khrushchev.
So why did Beria become hated by everyone?
The reason is in the unhealthy situation in the country after the war, and especially in the leadership. Stalin, apparently due to illness, clearly "released the reins", which he used to control so well. The proof of this is the fact of a fierce struggle for power between the factions - this is a clear sign of the absence of a real case. There was no one to set tasks for the "ruling elite" and ask for their solution.
War is not a school of humanism. Any, no matter how fair it may be. War is a catastrophe that disfigures all aspects of public and state life.
Ask any veteran front-line soldier, a wounded hero, and he will confirm that they were better than him, but they died. The best died in the war.
At the end of the war, people and structures associated with the war and military production begin to play an absurdly important role. After the war, they are no longer needed and should lose their importance, but do they want this?
Paradoxically, the defeated countries, whose military elite has been destroyed, suffer less from this. In Japan and Germany, there were no problems with the orientation of politics - only towards peaceful construction. But in France and the United States, for example, instead of peaceful pre-war leaders, generals and hawks came to power, soon plunging their countries into new inglorious wars.
The 10-million army was no longer needed in the USSR either. Where are the generals to go?
Look at the statistics - how much unnecessary military equipment was produced in 1945. The manufacturers themselves understood that it was no longer needed, so they drove a real marriage. Switch to products that still have to win over the buyer? This is a risk. You can't persuade a buyer! It is a completely different matter when it is enough to persuade a military receptionist, albeit in marshal's stars. Who will make consumer goods? Yes, someone will.
Here are these captains of industry, instructors of departments of district committees, regional committees, and republican committees. They gave a military plan, and they gave it well. Of course, who is unhappy that the war is over? But to give power to people who are better, and, most importantly, cheaper in tailoring dresses and assembling TV sets ...? Sorry!
That is why the development of the economy went along a paradoxical path - consumer goods were not evaluated by the consumer with their own ruble, but by something like the Defense Council, only it was not called that.
And without a special analysis, it is clear who the main governing body of the country, the Central Committee, consisted of after the war.
And the problem was deeper - when the direction of the country's development had already been chosen in the 30s, when politics managed to be defended from the adherents of the "world revolution" (Trotskyists) and the supporters of the return to the primitive communal system (right), after that the party was no longer needed , more precisely, it remained needed only as a personnel sieve - after all, theoretically it was possible to democratically block the promotion of the unworthy at the initial stage.
But after the war, the party lost its significance. In the late 40s and early 50s, everyone seemed to understand this. The words "Politburo", "Central Committee", "General Secretary" seemed to have been completely banished from the lexicon. Looking ahead, I note that all decisions on the "Beria case" were made, judging by the reports, by the Council of Ministers and the Presidium of the Supreme Council.
The course of the conspiracy against Beria is a separate issue, but it is obvious that two currents have collided. One is Beria's approach: the party is a political instrument that requires oversight and should not deal with economic issues that should be the responsibility of the Council of Ministers.
As we now know, the other line won then. Now it is clear that the duplication of the Council of Ministers by the industrial departments of the Central Committee, which took shape in the 50-80s, was a perversion, the result of the victory of the party nomenklatura.
The leaders of the opposing Beria line were Malenkov and Khrushchev, and Khrushchev was not very significant - he was the chief party personnel officer, like Yezhov until 1937.
But after Stalin's death, the situation escalated. There were two key events, the main pain points.
Firstly, among the cases implemented by the new Minister of Internal Affairs, the main thing was not to stop the "case of the Kremlin doctors." Especially not the amnesty of 1953. Such decisions - political ones - are not made at the level of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this is a decision of the political leadership of the state, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is only an executor.
The main event was a meeting of the leadership of the ministry, at which Beria gave his vision of the tasks of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Among these tasks was special control over the cleanliness of the ranks of party bodies - a task somewhat forgotten by those years.
The point is not that there were fewer repressions after the war, although a kind of "era of mercy" had begun - the death penalty was abolished until 1953. For some crimes, they were still shot, but to control the party elite, ... the party elite itself was used! It is hard to believe, but an investigative unit was created in the party apparatus to investigate the "Leningrad case", and even in Matrosskaya Tishina ... a party isolation ward was allocated! G.M. Malenkov conducted the case. So the NKVD not only had nothing to do with this case, it was not allowed.
But back to 1953. Information about the meeting of the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was reported to the party bosses. In particular, Khrushchev was reported by his man - General Strokach. This figure has managed to win the sincere hatred of both the Western Ukrainian rebels and, oddly enough, the border guards. During the war, he had the idea to send "border regiments" to the German rear, which were immediately destroyed by the Germans in open battle. Thousands of the best people died.
Information about possible state control over the party elite caused a unanimous reaction. It's hard to say exactly how it happened. But the indictment in the Beria case said specifically: "an attempt to put the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the Party."
Thus began an almost open confrontation. Khrushchev swore before the Central Committee that there would be no control by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
But with all his mind, L.P. Beria was completely unprepared for the fact that, without any objective prerequisites, he would be overthrown and shot. Why he did not understand the intentions of his friends is still a mystery.
In fact, in 1953 there was a coup d'état in favor of those circles that wanted to lead the country in their own interests, without being responsible in any way for the results of their rule.
By 1953, after the assassination of Beria, there were also serious decisions regulating the activities of law enforcement agencies. Since then, when applying for a job, employees of the "organs" were informed that persons in vacated party positions were not available to them. They cannot be recruited, they cannot be tracked.
It was then that vile personalities like A. Yakovlev "flopped the chip."
Frankly, I believe that such a development of events was generated by Stalin's system. For its time, it was a strong, flexible weapon - the layer of managers was tightly controlled by the top leadership, monolithic and had no other goals than the prosperity of the country. What is the program of action of the then leadership, what they wanted - it is not known exactly now. It is precisely the goals, tasks, and program of action of the Stalinist leadership of the 1930s and 1940s that are the most carefully concealed secret of "democratic historians."
But the seed of destruction was also hidden in this system. With the disappearance of the leading and guiding force, the layer of managers begins to live its own life, solve its problems, following the problems of the state and society only in so far as.
Beria's fault was that this man, having no personal interests, wanted to do something unprecedented, wanted to express himself in projects for the future and could force others to act not for personal, but for public purposes.
His enemies are tired of working for the future. They wanted to live "here and now" and not for others, but for themselves.
It was difficult to deceive such a person, but the conspirators succeeded for one simple reason. In the conspiracy against Beria, they relied on the full support of their class, which wanted to lead - and led - the country and the people straight into the 90s.
Awards
Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR (1923)
Order of the Red Banner (1924)
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR (1931)
Order of Lenin (1935, 1943, 1945 and 1949)
Order of the Red Banner (1942 and 1944)
Order of the Republic (Tannu-Tuva) (1943)
Hero of Socialist Labor (1943)
Order of Sukhbaatar (1949)
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Armenian SSR (1949)
Order of Suvorov, 1st class (1949)
Stalin Prize, 1st class (1949)
Certificate of "Honorary Citizen of the Soviet Union" (1949)
When mentioning the Stalin era, one of the first to come to mind is the name of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. His life, both political and personal, is still a topic of controversy today. No historian can objectively assess his activities and influence on the course of history. The political life of this person has not yet been fully declassified, perhaps in the future society will receive answers to many questions and it will be possible to unequivocally answer the main question: who L.P. Beria really was.
Childhood and youth
The birthplace of Lavrenty Beria was the small village of Merkheuliv, Abkhazia, not far from Sukhumi. The future People's Commissar was born on March 29, 1899 in a peasant family. Father Pavel Khukhaevich Bariya was engaged in agriculture all his life, mother Marta Dzhakeli was connected by origin with the ancient family of princes Dadiani. Beria's mother was a deeply pious person, and spent all her free time in church. Before Pavel Beria, she was already married, she gave birth to six children in marriage, but after the death of her first husband and because of poverty, the sons Kapiton, Luka, Noy and daughters Tamara, Elena and Pasha were brought up by relatives. The family of Lawrence lived in poverty, his parents grew grapes, tobacco and were engaged in beekeeping. Their first child died of smallpox at the age of two, Lavrentia's younger sister Annette was born in 1905, due to illness she could not hear or speak. Lavrenty Beria took care of his sister all his life, and as soon as he was able to earn money himself, he immediately took his sister and mother to the city.
Even as a little boy, Lavrenty was actively interested in literacy and sought to gain knowledge, such a zeal for learning made him unlike the typical children of the village. Seeing the boy's craving for knowledge, the parents decided to give their son an education at all costs. To pay for their studies, they had to sell half of their house, so Lavrenty Beria was able to study at the Higher Primary School of Sukhumi. Beria from childhood was inquisitive, independent and reasonable, showed will and character. To attend elementary school, he went several kilometers from home barefoot in any weather. Admission to the Sukhum school allowed him to escape from poverty, for 4 years of study the boy showed himself as a talented and diligent student.
Money was sorely lacking, parents could barely make ends meet, but paid for their son's education. Becoming a teenager, Beria himself tried to earn money as best he could, from the age of 12 he worked as a tutor. In 1915 he graduated from a school in Sukhumi and entered the Baku Secondary School of Mechanical Engineering. Since 1916, his sister and mother began to live with him in the city, the young man provided for himself and his relatives, in parallel with his studies, worked as a worker in the company of the Nobel brothers and as a postman. After graduating from a construction school in Baku, the young man became an architect-builder. By that time, he was already a member of the underground Bolshevik Party, where Beria's career began, but not at all as an architect.
Party activities
Lavrenty joined the Bolsheviks back in 1917, and in 1919, after graduating from college in Baku, he began working in the counterintelligence of the Baku Musavats. This organization fought the Bolshevik regime, as Beria himself later stated, his role was to carry out the actions of a communist agent in the camp of the enemy. This is his own version and has not been officially confirmed by anything or anyone. Moreover, there is some evidence to support a different view. When Baku was captured by the Red Army on April 28, 1920, the future people's commissar miraculously escaped execution. While arrested, he became close to a cellmate who introduced him to his niece. Together they manage to escape by train, later it turned out that the girl comes from a family of aristocrats. Her uncle held the high post of minister in the Bolshevik Party. In the near future, Nino Gegechkori (that was the name of the girl) became the wife of Lavrenty Pavlovich.
In 1921 (according to some sources in 1920) Beria became a member of the secret police of the Bolsheviks (Cheka). In August 1921, he began to deal with the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan as a manager, and a few months later he began to hold the post of secretary of the Cheka for expropriating the property of the bourgeois class and improving the life of workers. In the same year, Beria was charged with abuse of power and falsification of facts in criminal cases. Severe punishment was avoided thanks to Anastas Mikoyan, who stood up for Lavrenty Pavlovich.
Meanwhile, the Bolshevik underground revolted against the Mensheviks of the Democratic Republic of Georgia. The uprising was actively supported by the Cheka, as a result, the Menshevik Party was defeated, Georgia became a Soviet republic. One of the activists of the uprising was Beria, in 1922 he was transferred to Tiflis to the post of head of the secret operational unit of the OGPU of Georgia, soon Lavrenty Pavlovich became the deputy head of this unit. In 1924, there was a big Georgian uprising, the future People's Commissar played a key role in suppressing the rebellion, it all ended with a death sentence for 10 thousand people.
In December 1926, Beria headed the OGPU of the Georgian SSR, and in April of the following year he became the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia. During this period of life, an important event takes place, with the assistance of the head of the Bolshevik Party of Transcaucasia, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Lavrenty Pavlovich meets Joseph Stalin. In the ascent of Joseph Vissarionovich to power, Beria played a significant role and subsequently provided all kinds of support. Working as the head of intelligence of the OGPU of Georgia, he managed to actually completely eliminate the agent networks of the foreign intelligence of Turkey and Iran in the territory of Transcaucasia, moreover, he recruited many agents from these countries.
At that time, Stanislav Redens was the head of the Transcaucasian OGPU, unfriendly relations developed between him and Beria, and this despite the fact that Redens was married to the sister of Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. The leadership of Georgia and Redens, among other things, actively attempted to get rid of the upstart and careerist Beria and exile him to the Volga. However, against the sophisticated mind and virtuoso ability to weave intrigues of Beria, they were far away. One day, he managed to get Stanislav Redens drunk to unconsciousness and sent him home on foot, after stripping him naked. After this incident, the head of the OGPU of Transcaucasia was sent to Belarus and nothing threatened the career of Lavrenty Pavlovich.
In 1931, he became the head of the Communist Party of Georgia, and a year later, in 1932, he began to head the party of the entire Transcaucasus. Since 1934, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b). In the same year, the struggle for power begins, part of the Bolsheviks wanted to remove Stalin. At the XVII Party Congress, the issue of the composition of the Central Committee of the Communist Party was decided, the head of the Communists of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was ahead of Stalin in the number of votes, but this fact was hidden by the election commission and, in particular, by Lazar Kaganovich, the head of the commission. The communists of the old guard at that time still had serious influence and made attempts to make Kirov the leader of the party. The issue of appointment was decided in a close circle of influential party members at the apartment of Sergo Ordzhonikidze. The political struggle between Stalin and the opposition continued until the end of 1934. Stalin stubbornly insisted on recalling Kirov from Leningrad for appointment as secretary of the Central Committee, but he did not agree, realizing what pressure would be exerted on him. Perhaps Stalin could get his way, but he weakened the pressure when Kuibyshev and Ordzhonikidze spoke out in favor of retaining Kirov's position in Leningrad. Against the backdrop of increasingly deteriorating relations with Stalin, Kirov relied on support from Ordzhonikidze and counted on a meeting in November 1934 at the plenum of the Central Committee.
Kirov's plans were violated, Sergo Ordzhonikidze did not come to Moscow for health reasons. At the beginning of the month, together with Beria, he rested in Baku, where he urgently had to go to the hospital in Tbilisi. After the November parade, Ordzhonikidze again ended up in the hospital with a heart attack and internal bleeding. The best doctors in Moscow were sent to help local doctors, but after the examination they could not diagnose the disease, there were no reasons for a sharp deterioration in health. Ordzhonikidze, despite his health, decided to go to the Plenum in Moscow, but Stalin, referring to the recommendations of doctors, forbade him to come to Moscow. It is quite possible that behind the mysterious circumstances of the deterioration of the health of Sergo Ordzhonikidze, due to which the meeting with Kirov did not take place, was Lavrenty Beria, led by Stalin himself.
Stalin during a visit home to his mother (along with him Beria and Kipchidze) On December 1, 1934, Kirov was killed, and repressions began, the main goal of the purge was the highest ranks of the party. Beria, began to carry out a purge in the Transcaucasus, using his official position to solve his own problems, namely the elimination of objectionable people and the settlement of personal scores. In 1935, Lavrenty Beria became the right hand of Joseph Stalin. To gain a foothold in this position, he even publishes the book "On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia." For the most part, the publication praised Stalin and his role in the revolutionary movement in every possible way. The copy presented to the leader of the peoples, Beria signed as follows: “To my dear and beloved Master, the great Stalin! » According to some reports, the authorship of the book does not belong to Beria at all, but to M. Toroshelidze and E. Bedia.
During the Stalinist repressions, the 1st secretary of the Central Committee of Armenia, Aghasi Khanjyan, committed suicide (quite probably killed), according to some reports, was shot personally by Beria. In December 1936, Nestor Lakoba, the head of Abkhazia, who had previously actively supported Lavrenty Pavlovich and helped to take off his career, died suddenly. However, it is noteworthy that he died after dinner at the People's Commissar's house, where he was invited for the purpose of reconciliation after a major quarrel. After his death, Nestor Lakoba was declared an enemy of the people for supporting Trotsky. The wife of Nestor Lakoba was arrested as the wife of an enemy of the people and went crazy in prison, a snake was thrown into the cell, from such a neighborhood the woman had an acute psychosis.
Gaioz Devdariani, People's Commissar for Education of Soviet Georgia, fell victim to the purge, and his two brothers Georgy and Shalva, who held high positions in the Communist Party and the NKVD, were also shot. The brothers of Sergo Ordzhonikidze fell into the millstone of repression. Papulia was arrested, and Valiko was dismissed from the Tiflis council. Beria did not spare his enemies, in one of his speeches he expressed the following phrase: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise his hand against the will of our people, against the will of the Lenin-Stalin party, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”
The pre-war and war period of L.P. Beria
Before the war, in February 1941, Beria began to hold the post of Deputy Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, after the attack of the fascist invaders, he became a member of the Defense Committee. During the Great Patriotic War, he controlled the production of weapons, as well as ships, and oversaw aviation. In fact, the entire military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union was in his hands. One cannot underestimate the huge contribution that L.P. Beria made to the overall victory over the Nazis, although many historians call such leadership too tough, most agree that the actions were justified.
During the war, almost all labor camp inmates worked for the defense industry. Now it is impossible to predict how history would have developed if Lavrenty Pavlovich had not been at the helm. In addition to the defense industry, he controlled rail and water transport, metallurgy, coal industry, oil, chemical, paper and others. During the war years, he performed important tasks, both in the national economy and on the front. In 1942, the Caucasian Front was actually under his command. Since 1944, Beria led the investigation into the case of ethnic minorities. After the expulsion of the Germans from the territory of the USSR, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, small peoples of the Volga region and some others were accused of collaborating with the Nazis. After a short trial, small ethnic groups were forcibly resettled in Central Asia.
Recruitment of defense equipment with labor from labor camps Head of the NKVD
After Lavrenty Beria became the head of the NKVD, all leadership positions were occupied by his Georgian associates, as a result, the influence on Stalin and the party increased significantly. In his post, he first of all carried out mass repressions not only in the NKVD, but also in the leadership of the party. However, later, after the death of Stalin, Beria initiated the release of many military leaders and civil servants from labor camps with the wording "unreasonably convicted." As head of the NKVD, his duties were not limited. During the war years, he was largely responsible for the "military spirit" of the army. Mass arrests and public executions of those who refused to fight, as well as spies and captured German soldiers, resumed. Many experts argue that the victory in the Great Patriotic War was forged, among other things, thanks to the cruel actions of the NKVD leadership and largely thanks to the head of the department personally.
After the end of World War II, Beria was assigned to oversee the development of nuclear weapons. Unofficially, he continued to engage in mass repressions through his people in other countries, mainly in those that were allies of the USSR in the war with Germany. Prisoners in labor camps worked in military production, which was controlled by Beria's department in the strictest secrecy.
Thanks to the actions of foreign intelligence and a team of nuclear physicists led by Lavrenty Pavlovich, the USSR received the first atomic bomb according to the drawings of American nuclear weapons. In 1949, the first test of an atomic bomb was carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site, which was crowned with success. For the creation of nuclear weapons, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize.
It all started with the fact that the Supervisory Board for the creation of the atomic bomb of the USSR (of which Beria was also a member) was faced with the task of obtaining nuclear weapons as soon as possible. For these purposes, both workers and scientists were needed, a huge potential was required. The way out was proposed by the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Pavlovich. The labor camp system provided the project with thousands of people to work in the construction of test equipment and in the mining of radioactive uranium. The NKVD ensured the security and secrecy of the development of the bomb and the construction of facilities in Semipalatinsk, Vaygach and other testing and extraction sites for radioactive substances.
Thanks to Beria's intelligence efforts, most of the documentation on US atomic bomb technology was obtained by the Soviet nuclear team. More than three hundred thousand scientists, technicians and workers participated in the project. Most of the labor force was made up of prisoners of labor camps. Despite the influence and power of Beria, the talented physicist Pyotr Kapitsa did not agree to work under the leadership of the NKVD. Lavrenty Pavlovich even tried to give a bribe in the form of a hunting rifle, thereby bribing a nuclear engineer, but this did not help. It is not known how this confrontation would have ended if Stalin had not stood up for Kapitsa.
In 1945, Lavrenty Pavlovich became Marshal of the Soviet Union. The People's Commissar and the head of the NKVD skillfully organized the defense industry, which was a huge contribution to the victory of the Soviet people in the war against the German invaders. This fact cannot be doubted, even despite the controversial activities of Lavrenty Beria.
Postwar years
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin by the end of the 40s was already approaching the age of 70. Increasingly, on the sidelines, the question arose of who would become the successor to the leader of the peoples. The main contender for the post of head of the Soviet Union was at that time the head of the Leningrad party committee Andrei Zhdanov. The growth of Zhdanov's career was not in the interests of Lavrenty Beria, in this he was supported by G. M. Malenkov, an unspoken alliance arose between them to counter Zhdanov.
In early 1946, Beria leaves the post of head of the NKVD, but at the same time retains his influence and continues to control matters of state security. After leaving the post of chief security officer, he becomes a member of the political bureau of the Central Committee of the CPSU. S. N. Kruglov was appointed to the post of head of the NKVD, Beria had nothing to do with this appointment. In the same year, Beria's colleague Malenkov left the post of head of the MGB, and V. Abakumov was appointed in his place. It became clear to many that a tacit struggle for power had begun in the country.
In 1948, A. A. Zhdanov died due to a medical error, the “Leningrad case” was immediately fabricated, as a result of the investigation, a large number of influential party officials from Leningrad were arrested and later shot. In the years after the war, although Lavrenty Beria was not officially involved in intelligence affairs, the entire intelligence network in the countries of Eastern Europe was secretly under his control.
On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died suddenly. From the memoirs of the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, which were published in 1993, it became known that Beria, in a conversation with Molotov, once boasted that he had poisoned Stalin. However, this assertion remains without any solid evidence. There is also a version that after Joseph Stalin was found unconscious in his office, he was deliberately not provided with medical assistance for several hours. This version is similar to the truth, if only because the party leaders were afraid of Stalin and could well have left the seriously ill leader simply to die.
After Stalin's death, Lavrenty Beria becomes the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and again heads the NKVD, which by that time had been renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Beria's colleague Malenkov took the post of Chairman of the Supreme Council, nominally became the most influential and powerful person at the top of the USSR after Stalin's death. In fact, the power was concentrated in the hands of Lavrenty Pavlovich, Malenkov was never a leader, he did not have such qualities. Thus, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs became the “gray eminence” of the party leadership and the unspoken leader of the country. Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev became the secretary of the Communist Party, his position was considered a lower rank than the post of Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
After the death of the leader, Lavrenty Beria became the main liberal, began to publicly criticize Stalin's policies, more than a million political prisoners were rehabilitated. Beria went even further and in April 1953 forbade the torture of prisoners in prisons by his decree. Also in his actions there was a clear liberal policy towards ethnic minorities among the citizens of the Soviet Union. Large-scale economic and political reforms began in the USSR. According to many political scientists, the liberalism of Lavrenty Beria was needed only to strengthen power, this is nothing more than a cunning move. On the other hand, some historians agree that Beria's reforms could lead to a significant increase in the economy of the country destroyed after the war.
Arrest and execution
There is a number of contradictory information about how the power of Beria was overthrown. According to the official version, Nikita Khrushchev convened the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on June 26, 1953, where Lavrenty Pavlovich was arrested on charges of collaborating with British intelligence. For Beria, who led the foreign intelligence service and fought in every way with foreign agents, this accusation came as a surprise. To my question: “What is happening, Nikita?”, I did not receive an answer. Almost all members of the Politburo, including Molotov, turned out to be against L.P. Beria, and Khrushchev agreed with the arrest. Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov personally escorted the First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council.
Some historians claim that Beria was killed almost immediately, but this is not so. The thing is that the fact of the arrest of the second person in the party was kept secret, exactly until the closest associates and assistants were arrested next. The units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stationed in Moscow were personally subordinate to Beria, therefore they were disarmed by regular army units. The fact of the arrest of Lavrenty Beria was made public through the Soviet Information Bureau only on July 10, 1953. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was judged by a “special tribunal”, the defense of the accused was not provided, it was impossible to appeal the verdict. On December 23, 1953, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was executed by firing squad by the verdict of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union. For the entire people of the USSR, the death of Beria brought deliverance from mass and bloody repressions; for ordinary people, he has always been a tyrant and despot.
The wife and son of Lavrenty Pavlovich were arrested and sent to camps, but they were soon released. Nina Beria died in Ukraine in 1991, Sergo (son) died in 2000. Until the end of his days, he tried to protect his father's reputation, but in vain. Family members tried to the end to rehabilitate the name of Lavrenty Pavlovich, in order to recognize Beria as a victim of repression. However, in 2002 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation put an end to this case, refusing to satisfy the corresponding petition. By a court decision, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria could not be a victim of political repression, since he himself organized mass and bloody repressions against his own people.
Personal life
The personal life of Lavrenty Beria was so stormy that it may well become the topic of a separate article. Officially, he was married once, his wife's name was Nina Gegechkori, in 1924 she gave birth to her only son, Sergo. All her life, Nina supported her husband in everything and was his faithful ally and devoted friend. Even after the death of her husband, she tried with all her might to justify his controversial activities.
Beria with his family: with his son Sergo, wife Nino and daughter-in-law Marfa (Gorky's granddaughter) For all the time that Beria was in power, the glory of the “rapist from the Kremlin” was firmly entrenched in him, he really loved the representatives of the weaker sex and experienced real passion. How many women were in his life, it is not known for certain who was his mistress, and whom he raped, remains a mystery to this day. According to unofficial information, in the past few years he lived in two families, Lyalya Drozdova was considered his common-law wife, she gave birth to Beria's daughter, who was named Martha.
According to Lavrenty Pavlovich himself, he had intimate relationships with only 62 women.
Beria has been a football fan all his life and even played for one of the Georgian teams in his younger years as a left midfielder. He especially supported the Dynamo team from Tbilisi and tried to attend all their matches. The defeat of his favorite team has always been painful for him.
In his main specialty, Lavrenty Beria is an architect, according to some reports, several buildings on Gagarin Avenue were built according to his designs.
The politician's bodyguards were called "Beria's orchestra". When traveling in open top cars, they used violin cases for machine guns, and a light machine gun was hidden in a double bass case.
Name: Lavrentiy Beria
Age: 54 years old
Place of Birth: With. Merheuli, Sukhumi District
A place of death: Moscow
Activity: Head of the NKVD
Marital status: Was married to Nina Gegechkori
Biography
Many feared this man. Lavrenty Beria is an extraordinary person. He stood at the origins of the revolution, walked alongside Stalin throughout the war. Merciless to the traitors of the country and the blind executor of his leader, with pleasure in many ways exceeded the power given to him.
Lavrenty Beria was born in the Kutaisi province, now it is Abkhazia. Mother was from a princely family. According to the father of noble origin, not a single biographer notes. First, the boy's parents, Marta and Pavel, had three children. One boy died when he was two years old. The daughter suffered a disease and lost her hearing and speech. The young man was the only hope of his father and mother, especially since he was very capable in childhood.
Parents did not spare anything for their son: they assigned him to the Sukhumi paid primary school. Sold half of their house to pay for tuition. After graduating from college, Lavrenty entered the construction school in Baku. When he was seventeen years old, he took his mother and sister to him, his father had already died at that time. Beria began to care for and support the remnants of his family. To do this, he had to work and study at the same time.
Policy
Lavrenty finds time for membership in the circle of Marxists, becomes its treasurer. After completing his studies, he goes to the front, but he was soon dismissed due to illness. He again lives in Baku and actively works in the local Bolshevik organization, goes underground. Only after the establishment of Soviet power did he begin to cooperate with the counterintelligence of Azerbaijan. He is sent to Georgia for underground work, he is too active in his activities, he is arrested and expelled from Georgia. Beria leads a very stormy political life, holds leading positions in the Cheka of the republic.
Already in the twenties, Lavrenty Pavlovich exceeded his authority and forged criminal cases, actively participating in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising. Until the beginning of the thirties, he was the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia. During this period of activity, his biography for the first time arranges an acquaintance with Stalin. Beria has been steadily growing up the career ladder. In 1934, he was a member of the commission on the project to create the NKVD of the Soviet Union.
Whatever Beria was, it is impossible to discard the positive that he achieved for the Transcaucasus from history. The oil industry is developing, thanks to the commissioning of several large stations. Georgia has become a resort area. In agriculture, they began to produce expensive crops: grapes, tangerines, tea. Lavrenty undertook a "purge" in the ranks of the party of Georgia, he boldly signed the death penalty. In the 38th year he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
For his impeccable service to the state, he is awarded many awards. Nearby, the name Yezhov appears, against whose lawlessness Beria begins to pursue a policy of mitigation: repressions are reduced by almost half, the prison is replaced by camps. Before the war, Lavrenty Pavlovich deployed an intelligence network in Europe, Japan and America. In his department are all intelligence services, the timber, oil industry, the production of non-ferrous metals and the river fleet.
At the beginning of the war, the production of aircraft, engines, and weapons fell under Beria's control. He makes sure that air regiments are formed and sent to the front in a timely manner. Later, the coal industry and all means of communication were given to Lavrenty Pavlovich. In addition, he was a permanent adviser to the headquarters of I.V. Stalin. He had a large number of awards, orders and medals. The development of the Atomic Bomb Program began.
But, although M. Molotov was appointed leader, the ubiquitous Beria was supposed to control the entire process. After successful tests, Lavrenty received the Stalin Prize and the title of "Honorary Citizen". After the death of the leader, he joined the struggle for a high post. He proposed an amnesty for more than a million people, the termination of four hundred cases.
Personal life
Beria's wife was Nina Teimurazovna Gegechkori, she outlived her husband for many years, lived until 1991.
The second unofficial wife was Valentina Drozdova. She was still a schoolgirl when Beria noticed her. In this civil marriage, a daughter, Martha, was born. Later, in order to rehabilitate herself, Valentina wrote a statement that he raped her and held her by force. All those related to Lawrence were sent away from the capital.
Death
N.S. Khrushchev fought for the post of leader, who chose a different path: he raised the question of removing Beria from his post. Khrushchev picked up several articles for his competitor, against which the entire Politburo could not object. Many accusations were brought, including espionage in the twenties, moral decay. Lavrenty Pavlovich was sentenced to death, like all his associates. After the execution, the body was burned, and the ashes were scattered over the Moscow River. Such is the unpredictable ending of the biography of the one who inspired fear from his own name alone.
BERIA, LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH(1899–1953), Soviet politician Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in a peasant family in the Abkhazian village of Merkheuli. From childhood, he was distinguished by his ability to study and was sent to study in Sukhum at the elementary school with the money of his fellow villagers, which he graduated in 1915. The history teacher predicted for him the fate of the “second Fouche” - the famous Minister of Police under Emperor Napoleon the First. Beria continued his education in Baku, where in 1919 he graduated with honors from the mechanical and construction technical school with a diploma of an architect-builder. In 1920-1922 he studied at the first and second courses of the Baku Polytechnic Institute.
Beria himself assured that he had joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917; but, according to other sources, this happened in 1919. In the summer of 1917 he was sent as a technician to the Romanian front, but the young specialist received an exemption from military service and returned to Baku at the end of that year. 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 underground activities in Georgia, which was then controlled by the Menshevik government. There, Beria was arrested and declared deported, but disappeared and, under a false name, became an employee of the Russian embassy in Tiflis, headed by Sergei Kirov. In May, he was arrested again and deported to Azerbaijan, where by that time the Bolsheviks had won. In Azerbaijan, Beria worked in the party and state apparatus (in particular, he was the manager of the affairs of the Azerbaijani Central Committee), took part in the establishment of Bolshevik power in Georgia, and then completely focused on serving in the Cheka. In 1921, Beria became the head of the secret operational service and deputy chairman of the Cheka of Azerbaijan, and in 1922 he took similar positions in the Cheka of Georgia. During this period, he became close to Stalin, to whom he sent reports even during his intelligence activities in Baku. Unlike some of the old Bolshevik leaders of Georgia, Beria fully supported him in the struggle for power.
Beria's further advancement is connected with his success 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 that Beria be appointed second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the Party, although first secretary Kartvelishvili categorically refused to work with the new appointee. Already in 1932, Beria was appointed to the post of party leader of Transcaucasia. He was a supporter of Stalin: in a special report on the history of the Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia at the plenum of the Georgian Central Committee, Beria called Stalin the founder of Bolshevism (along with Lenin). In 1933, he shielded the "leader" from shots while relaxing on Lake Ritsa (Abkhazia). In 1934, Beria was introduced to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
However, he, like many other then leaders of the country, did not feel completely safe. Historian A. Avtorkhanov cites evidence that Beria was on the list of people against whom People's Commissar Nikolai Yezhov collected incriminating testimony in 1938 and reported to Stalin. The result of the investigation was the removal of Yezhov. Beria was appointed in his place in 1938, and the following year he 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 bodies many workers who participated in the repressions of 1937. Initially, his coming to the leadership of the NKVD caused a weakening of mass terror. “In his position,” recalled a prominent political figure of the 1930s-1960s Anastas Mikoyan, “he stood up diplomatically. First of all, he said: enough “purges”, it’s time to do 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 who demanded strict adherence to criminal procedure rules. But the relief was temporary. The activities of Beria are associated with the abolition of the system of early departure of terms for "shock" work, the expansion of the powers of an extrajudicial body - the Special Conference of the NKVD, the mass deportations of the population from areas annexed to the USSR in 1939-1940.
At the beginning of 1941, Stalin decided that it was not advisable to concentrate the repressive, intelligence and punitive complex in one hand. The department of state security 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, the growing independence of Beria began to disturb Stalin. Supporter of Beria Abakumov was removed from the post of Minister of State Security and replaced by party apparatchik SD Ignatiev. Then a blow was dealt to Beria's supporters in the leadership of the Communist Party of Georgia. As a result of the "Georgian affair" in November 1951, on charges of "bourgeois nationalism", 427 secretaries of regional committees, city committees 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, the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, the Minister of Justice, prosecutor of the republic, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol and other figures. In the countries of Eastern Europe, purges of state security agencies unfolded. Realizing that he was in danger of disgrace, Beria delivered a speech at the 19th Congress of the CPSU in October 1952 - a panegyric to Stalin. However, this did not soften the distrust of the leader of the USSR.
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, are still a subject of dispute between historians. Some of them claim that Stalin intended to use the "doctors' case" and the anti-Semitic campaign in order to deal with the figures who provoked his anger under their cover. According to some of their versions, Beria and Malenkov managed to create their own "counter-conspiracy" and remove the closest people from their apparatus and Stalin's guards. The historian A. Avtorkhanov even believes that they eventually managed to eliminate Stalin. Be that as it may, the death of Stalin in March 1953 put an end to this confrontation.
After the death of Stalin, Beria became one of the top leaders of the country, officially the second after Malenkov. He took the post of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of the Interior, which was merged with the Ministry of State Security. Beria was a pragmatist who developed a plan for transformations and reforms.
First of all, he stopped the "doctors' case" and released dozens of arrested doctors from prison. New purges were carried out in the state security organs and the persons responsible for the mentioned "case" were themselves imprisoned. At the initiative of Beria, a partial amnesty was approved for those convicted for up to five years: as a result, more than one million 200 thousand people were released.
In the field of national policy, Beria advocated a significant softening of the policy of forced Russification in the Union republics. According to his report, the Presidium of the Central Committee issued a resolution in June 1953: "to put an end to the perversion of Soviet national 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, Russians by nationality, were replaced by a Ukrainian and a Belarusian.
There is evidence 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 management was to be in state, not party hands. A number of researchers prove that he planned to allow some freedom of private economic initiative. But none of these plans came to fruition.
In foreign policy, Beria was going to normalize relations with Yugoslavia and with 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. A sharp struggle for power unfolded between Beria and other members of the party-state elite.
The all-powerful Deputy Prime Minister tried to win over Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin, but they preferred to negotiate with Malenkov. Together with the military, a plan was developed to eliminate Beria. Under the pretext of holding summer maneuvers, military units loyal to the First Deputy Minister of Defense, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, were sent to 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 and state leadership on June 26, 1953, ostensibly to discuss maneuvers. According to one version, Khrushchev waited until Beria entered the meeting room and offered to remove and judge him, after which Malenkov called the military. According to another, when the military entered the hall, Malenkov accused Beria of preparing a conspiracy and ordered Zhukov to arrest him, which was immediately done. Not expecting such a turn of events, Beria offered no resistance. He only managed to write a few times on a piece of paper lying in front of him: "Alarm."
The arrested man was taken to the next room, where he was kept all night. He kept trying to weaken the vigilance of the officers guarding him and get to the phone. Only after the military replaced the Kremlin guards, subordinated to Beria, he was taken out of the Kremlin. In the future, he refused to repent and confess to any crimes, even held 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 December 18 to 23, 1953. A special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I .S. Koneva, sitting behind closed doors, sentenced them to death. December 23, 1953 Beria was shot.
Lavrenty Beria is one of the most odious well-known politicians of the 20th century, whose activities are still widely discussed in modern society. He was an extremely controversial personality in the history of the USSR and went through a long political path, full of gigantic repressions of people and boundless crimes, which made him the most outstanding "death functional" in Soviet times. The head of the NKVD was a cunning and treacherous politician, on whose decisions the fate of entire nations depended. Beria carried out his activities under the auspices of the then head of the USSR, after whose death he intended to take his place at the "helm" of the country. But he lost in the struggle for power and, by a court decision, was shot as a traitor to the Motherland.
Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born on March 29, 1899 in the Abkhazian village of Merkheuli in the family of poor Mengrel peasants Pavel Beria and Marta Jakeli. He was the third and only healthy child in the family - the elder brother of the future politician died of illness at the age of two, and his sister suffered a serious illness and became deaf and dumb. From childhood, young Lavrenty showed great interest in education and a zeal for knowledge, which was not typical for peasant children. At the same time, the parents decided to give their son a chance to become educated, for which they had to sell half of the house in order to pay for the boy's studies at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School.
Beria fully justified the hopes of his parents and proved that the money was not spent in vain - in 1915 he graduated from college with honors and entered the Baku Secondary Construction School. Having become a student, he moved his deaf-mute sister and mother to Baku, and in order to support them, along with his studies, he worked in the Nobel oil company. In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich received a diploma as a technician-builder-architect.
During his studies, Beria organized a Bolshevik faction, in whose ranks he took an active part in the Russian revolution of 1917, while working as a clerk at the Baku plant "Caspian Partnership White City". He also led the illegal Communist Party of Technicians, with whose members he organized an armed uprising against the government of Georgia, for which he was imprisoned.
In the middle of 1920, Beria was expelled from Georgia to Azerbaijan. But literally after a short period of time, he was able to return to Baku, where he was assigned to do Chekist work, which made him a secret agent of the Baku police. Even then, colleagues of the future head of the NKVD of the USSR noticed in him rigidity and ruthlessness towards people who thought differently from him, which allowed Lavrenty Pavlovich to rapidly develop his career, starting with the deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka and ending with the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR.
Policy
In the late 1920s, the biography of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was concentrated on party work. It was then that he managed to get acquainted with the head of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, who saw his comrade-in-arms in the revolutionary and showed him a visible favor, which many associate with the fact that they were of the same nationality. In 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Party of Georgia, and already in 1935 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee and the Presidium of the USSR. In 1937, the politician reached another high step on the path to power and became the head of the Tbilisi city committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Becoming the leader of the Bolsheviks in Georgia and Azerbaijan, Beria won the recognition of the people and associates, who at the end of each congress glorified him, calling him "the beloved Stalinist leader."
At that time, Lavrenty Beria managed to develop the national economy of Georgia to a large scale, he made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry and commissioned many large industrial facilities, and transformed Georgia into an all-Union resort area. Under Beria, Georgian agriculture increased by 2.5 times in volume, and high prices were set for products (tangerines, grapes, tea), which made the Georgian economy the most prosperous in the country.
The real fame came to Lavrenty Beria in 1938, when Stalin appointed him head of the NKVD, which made the politician the second person in the country after the head. Historians argue that the politician deserved such a high post thanks to the active support of the Stalinist repressions of 1936-38, when the Great Terror took place in the country, which provided for the “cleansing” of the country from “enemies of the people”. In those years, almost 700 thousand people lost their lives, who were subjected to political persecution due to disagreement with the current government.
Head of the NKVD
Having become the head of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrenty Beria distributed leadership positions in the department to his associates from Georgia, which increased his influence on the Kremlin and Stalin. In his new post, he immediately carried out a large-scale repression of the former Chekists and carried out a total purge in the country's leading apparatus, becoming Stalin's "right hand" in all matters.
At the same time, it was Beria, according to most historical experts, who was able to put an end to large-scale Stalinist repressions, as well as to release from prison many military and civil servants who were recognized as "unreasonably convicted." Thanks to such actions, Beria gained a reputation as a man who restored "legality" in the USSR.
During the Great Patriotic War, Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee, in which at that time all power in the country was localized. Only he made the final decisions on the production of weapons, aircraft, mortars, engines, as well as on the formation and deployment of air regiments at the front. Responsible for the "military spirit" of the Red Army, Lavrenty Pavlovich launched the so-called "weapon of fear", resuming mass arrests and public executions for all soldiers and spies who were captured who did not want to fight. Historians attribute the victory in the Second World War to a greater extent with the tough policy of the head of the NKVD, in whose hands the entire military-industrial potential of the country was.
After the war, Beria took up the development of the nuclear potential of the USSR, but at the same time continued to carry out mass repressions by proxy in the allied countries of the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, where most of the male population was imprisoned in concentration camps and colonies (GULAG). It was these prisoners who were involved in military production, carried out under the conditions of a strict secrecy regime, which was provided by the NKVD.
With the help of a team of nuclear physicists led by Beria and the well-coordinated work of intelligence officers, Moscow received clear instructions on how to build an atomic bomb created in the United States. The first successful test of nuclear weapons in the USSR was carried out in 1949 in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, for which Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the Stalin Prize.
In 1946, Beria fell into Stalin's "inner circle" and became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. A little later, the head of the USSR saw him as the main competitor, so Iosif Vissarionovich began to carry out a “cleansing” in Georgia and check the documents of Lavrenty Pavlovich, which complicated relations between them. In this regard, by the time of Stalin's death, Beria and several of his allies had created an unspoken alliance aimed at changing some of the foundations of Stalin's rule.
He tried to strengthen his position in power by signing a series of decrees aimed at introducing judicial reforms, a global amnesty and a ban on harsh interrogation methods with episodes of abuse of prisoners. By doing so, he intended to create for himself a new cult of personality, opposed to the Stalinist dictatorship. But, since he had practically no allies in the government, after the death of Stalin, a conspiracy was organized against Beria, initiated by Nikita Khrushchev.
In July 1953, Lavrenty Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium. He was accused of links with British intelligence and treason. It became one of the most high-profile cases in the history of Russia among members of the highest echelon of power in the Soviet state.
Death
The trial of Lavrenty Beria took place from December 18 to 23, 1953. He was convicted by a "special tribunal" without the right to defense and appeal. Specific accusations in the case of the former head of the NKVD were a number of illegal murders, espionage for Great Britain, repressions in 1937, rapprochement with, treason.
On December 23, 1953, Beria was shot by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. After the execution, the body of Lavrenty Pavlovich was burned in the Donskoy crematorium, and the ashes of the revolutionary were buried in the New Donskoy cemetery.
According to historians, the death of Beria allowed the entire Soviet people to breathe a sigh of relief, who until the last day considered the politician a bloody dictator and tyrant. And in modern society, he is accused of mass repression of more than 200 thousand people, including a number of Russian scientists and prominent intellectuals of that time. Lavrenty Pavlovich is also credited with a number of orders for the execution of Soviet soldiers, which during the war years was only in the hands of the enemies of the USSR.
In 1941, the former head of the NKVD carried out the "extermination" of all anti-Soviet figures, as a result of which thousands of people died, including women and children. During the war years, he carried out a total deportation of the peoples of the Crimea and the North Caucasus, the scale of which reached a million people. That is why Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became the most controversial political figure in the USSR, in whose hands was power over the fate of the people.
Personal life
The personal life of Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich is still a separate topic that requires serious study. He was officially married to Nina Gegechkori, who bore him a son in 1924. The wife of the ex-head of the NKVD throughout her life supported her husband in his difficult activities and was his most devoted friend, whom she tried to justify even after his death.
Throughout his political activities at the heights of power, Lavrenty Pavlovich was known as a "Kremlin rapist", having an unbridled passion for the fair sex. Beria and his women are still considered the most mysterious part of the life of a prominent political figure. There is information that in recent years he lived in two families - his common-law wife was Lyalya Drozdova, who gave birth to his illegitimate daughter Marta.
At the same time, historians do not exclude that Beria had a sick mind and was a pervert. This is confirmed by the "lists of sexual victims" of the politician, the presence of which in 2003 was recognized in the Russian Federation. It is reported that the number of victims of the maniac Beria is more than 750 girls and girls whom he raped using sadistic methods.
Historians say that very often schoolgirls aged 14-15 were subjected to sexual harassment by the head of the NKVD, whom he imprisoned in soundproof interrogation rooms at Lubyanka, where he plunged them into sexual perversion. During interrogations, Beria admitted that he had physical sexual relations with 62 women, and since 1943 he suffered from syphilis, which he contracted from a seventh grader from one of the schools near Moscow. Also, during the search, items of lingerie and children's dresses were found in his safe, which were stored next to items characteristic of perverts.
