Beria's politics. Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich. Biography of an outstanding Bolshevik

19.10.2019

During its existence Soviet Union The country's history has been rewritten many times. Due to modest funding, school textbooks were sometimes not reprinted; students were simply instructed to black out in ink portraits of leaders who suddenly became enemies.

Yagoda, Yezhov, Uborevich, Tukhachevsky, Blucher, Bukharin, Kamenev, Radek and many others were erased in this way from books and from memory. But the most demonized figure of the Bolshevik Party was, without a doubt, His biography was supplemented by work for British intelligence, which, of course, was not true, otherwise MI6 would proudly recall such success today.

In fact, Beria was a very ordinary Bolshevik, no worse than others. He was born in 1899 into a peasant family, and from childhood he was drawn to knowledge. At the age of sixteen, having graduated with honors from the Sukhumi primary school, he expressed a desire to continue his education at the Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School, where he received a diploma in architecture. A year later, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute, where he became involved in underground work. He was deported, but not far away, to Azerbaijan.

Thus, at the top of the social democratic underground there were few such intellectual people as Biography after the revolution demonstrates his desire to control the situation. He is involved in secret operational matters, and over time, having ousted Redens (the son-in-law of Stalin himself), he occupies the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia. Not without the knowledge, of course, of the secretary himself, who believed that business qualities more important than those closest to you

Having successfully dealt with the Mensheviks and other enemies of Soviet power, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, whose biography could not stall in this post due to his active nature, covered Stalin with his chest during the shooting on Lake Ritsa, which was opened by no one and why.

This readiness for self-sacrifice was appreciated, but the main factor was still not it, but truly outstanding organizational skills and amazing performance. Yezhov's deputy, who soon took his place, candidate member of the Politburo - these steps career ladder were passed in 1938.

It is believed that Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich was Stalin’s main executioner; his biography, however, refutes this. He managed state security affairs for only a short time (until 1941). The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars is much higher than just the chief security officer. His field of attention includes the entire defense industry of the USSR during the war years, including the creation of nuclear weapons, which he supervised since 1943.

A special article for conversation - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich and women. The wife of Stalin's closest ally, the beautiful Nino, took all the allegations about his amorous-maniacal habits with great skepticism. Her husband was known to her; he didn’t even have enough time to sleep. He had a mistress, very young, but she gave evidence that Beria committed violence against her under pressure from the investigation. In fact, the girl received an apartment on Gorky Street in Moscow, and her mother even had her teeth treated at the Kremlin hospital. So everything was entirely voluntary.

Much has been written about the bold conspiracy, as a result of which Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was arrested and soon executed (or killed). His photo was just as quickly erased from all textbooks, like the images of previous exposed enemies of the people. The projects proposed by him for economic and political reforms, in particular, the limited introduction of private property and were further implemented during Gorbachev's perestroika.

The man who stopped Yezhov's meat grinder of the Great Terror. Beria is one of the most odious personalities of the twentieth century. The political and personal life of this man is still controversial.

Unambiguously appreciate and fully understand this political and public figure no historian today can. Many materials from his personal life and government activities are kept classified as "secret".

Lavrenty Pavlovich became a victim of completely clear and unambiguous repression from political opponents. The name of this man was dragged through the mud by unscrupulous opponents, sullied with false accusations and subsequently filled up with tons of shameful myths and gossip. And yet, he was an outstanding person, a man who fought for justice, legality, who freed orders of magnitude more people than he imprisoned.

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, People's Commissar-Liberator. Creator of the Motherland's atomic shield. A talented organizer and a victim of vile accusations in the style of the most vulgar “hedgehog-ism”, which he fought in the authorities and which looked extremely stupid and anachronistic in 1953, when Beria was called by the crowd both a British spy and a Mussavatist counterintelligence agent, and, of course, was accused of counter-revolutionary activities.

The fighter against Yezhovism was shot purely in Yezhov’s style - on stupid, obviously absurd and phony charges. Isn't this political repression? What is this then?

We have certain differences in attitude towards 1937. They say, is this good, is it right - to have “troikas”, quotas for those arrested and executed, and so on? We need to focus on Stalin and Beria - and they quite definitely tell us: no, we don’t need to do that. Mass arrests and mass shootings- a matter unworthy of the Soviet government, and there is no need to try to justify it.

In order to destroy Yezhov and, as far as possible, restore justice, Lavrenty Pavlovich was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. And then, in two years, 1938 and 39, Beria released from 200 to 300 (the numbers, of course, vary, but they are large one way or another) thousand victims of the Yezhovshchina. Released and rehabilitated. Yezhov - planted. Beria - liberated. It is clear that many who had already been shot and died in the camps could not be saved, but Beria did what he could.

Having become People's Commissar, Beria stopped the flywheel of political repression in the fullest sense: in 1939, only 2.6 thousand people were shot - and these were mostly former Yezhov executioners. All further “political repressions” (“the doctors’ case”, etc.) after the war were, firstly, very targeted and few in number, and secondly, Beria cannot be “hanged” - he ceased to hold office in 1945 People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, focusing on the nuclear program.

This is what the “terrible, terrible and bloody maniac” Beria was like at work - he shot everyone in one go:

“In 1949, when we were reaching maximum capacity, Kurchatov and Beria arrived. And they came to our laboratory. Beria then was not at all the same as he is portrayed today. All exhausted, not getting enough sleep, with red eyes, bags under the eyes, in a tattered raincoat, not very rich. Work, work, work. He didn’t even look at us beauties.

On the first day I arrived, got out of the car and rubbed my butt: “What lousy roads you have!” The next day he comes and limps: he went to bed, and the bed net fell through under him. And no one was imprisoned for this. And then one day they rented it out in a socialist town... After all, Chelyabinsk-40 is the villages of Tatysh and Tech, ancient Russian settlements, there are several kilometers between them.

And now the first wooden theater is being built on Techa. Everyone came together: unconvoyed prisoners, prisoners under escort, engineers, guards, Muzrukov and Beria himself. His driver is dozing, and Beria’s tattered raincoat, the same one he wore when he first arrived, lies in the car. The celebrations are over, Beria returns to the car, but there is no cloak, someone cut him off. And no one was imprisoned either. It seemed like he didn’t give a damn about anything there except work.”

As a result, in as soon as possible the Soviet atomic program was completed, and the country gained that shield that did not allow the Americans to attack it according to their numerous plans - “Dropshot”, “Charriotir”, “Unthinkable” and so on. Beria saved the country! Saved you and me, our parents and grandfathers from unpunished atomic bombings. For this alone, his name should be on a par with Kurchatov and Sakharov.

And then - the death of Stalin. Beria takes the lead and again becomes Minister of Internal Affairs. Now this maniacella will go wild, rivers of blood will flow, he will kill everyone - that’s what he is! And he – a mass amnesty for a million people. Villainous!

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

Born on March 16 (29), 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Tiflis province, now the Republic of Abkhazia (Georgia), in a peasant family. Georgian.

In 1915 he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. Since 1915 he studied at the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction Technical School.

In October 1915, with a group of comrades, he organized an illegal Marxist circle at the school. Member of the RSDLP(b)/RCP(b)/VKP(b)/CPSU since March 1917. Organized a cell of the RSDLP(b) at the school.

During the First World War of 1914-18, in June 1917, as a technician trainee at the army hydraulic engineering school, he was sent to the Romanian front, where he conducted active Bolshevik political work among the troops. At the end of 1917, he returned to Baku and, while continuing his studies at a technical school, actively participated in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization.

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

In June 1920, he was arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. But at the request of the Soviet plenipotentiary representative S.M. Kirov Lavrentiy Beria was released and deported to Azerbaijan. Returning to Baku, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study (which he did not graduate from).

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

From November 1922 to March 1926 - deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka, head of the secret operational unit; from March 1926 to December 2, 1926 - deputy chairman of the Main Political Directorate (GPU) of the Georgian SSR, head of the secret operational unit;

From December 2, 1926 to April 17, 1931 - deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (ZSFSR), deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU; from December 1926 to April 17, 1931 - head of the secret operational department of the plenipotentiary representative office of the OGPU in the Trans-SFSR and the Transcaucasian GPU.

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

At the same time, the party organizations of Transcaucasia were obliged to put an end to the unprincipled struggle for the influence of individuals observed among the leading cadres of both the entire Transcaucasian Federation and the republics within it and to achieve the necessary solidity and Bolshevik cohesion of the party ranks.

In connection with this decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, L.P. Beria was transferred to leading party work. From October 1931 to August 1938 he was the 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) and at the same time from November 1931 the 2nd, and in October 1932 - April 1937 - the 1st Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) .

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

Since February 1934, L.P. Beria is a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In June 1937, at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, he declared from the podium: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise his hand against the will of our people, against the will of the Lenin-Stalin party, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”

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

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

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

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

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

On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (from 1946 - the Council of Ministers) of the USSR, but at the same time, state security bodies were removed from his subordination, forming an independent People's Commissariat.

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

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

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

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

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

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 9, 1945, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was awarded a higher military rank"Marshal of the Soviet Union" with the presentation of a special Certificate of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the insignia "Marshal'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 is Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Under his leadership and with direct participation, the first in the USSR was created atomic bomb, tested on August 29, 1949, after which some began to call him the “father of the Soviet atomic bomb.” After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, as part of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a “leading five” was created, which included L.P. Beria.

After the death on March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin Lavrentiy Beria took over leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, concentrating in his hands the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he headed the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, created on the day of Stalin's death by merging the former ministry and the Ministry of State Security.

On the initiative of Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared in the USSR, which freed one million two hundred thousand people, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases involving four hundred thousand people were closed. Beria advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal and the Volga-Baltic Canal).

He achieved the start of armistice negotiations in Korea, tried to restore friendly relations with Yugoslavia, opposed the creation of the German Democratic Republic, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving bourgeois state.” He sharply reduced the state security apparatus abroad.

Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, L.P. Beria sent documents to the Republican Central Committee of the party, which spoke about the wrong Russification policy and illegal repressions. On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. was arrested.

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

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

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

The body of the executed man was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium on December 23, 1953. Attempts by L.P.’s relatives Beria's efforts to reconsider the 1953 case were unsuccessful. On May 29, 2000, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

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He led the atomic project, wanted the democratization of society and the “thaw”, carried out an amnesty, but cleared given name he never made it from notoriety to the fatal shot.

Musavata counterintelligence

Beria was born in the village of Merheuli, Kutaisi province, into a poor peasant family, but managed to get good education(builder-architect). As a young man, Beria joined an illegal Marxist circle, and after the revolution he worked in the city Bolshevik organization.

Soon the Baku Republic fell under the pressure of Turkish-Azerbaijani troops. From this moment the most dark history in Beria's biography, he becomes an agent of Mussavatin (Azerbaijani) intelligence. According to Beria, he worked double agent, carrying out the task of the Bolsheviks. According to another version, he simply went over to the side of the enemies of the proletarian revolution.

Executioner

At the Yalta Conference, in response to Roosevelt’s question: “Who is Beria?” - Stalin replied: “This is our Himmler.” However, the scale of his participation in the repression is still debatable.
After the end of the Yezhovshchina and the appointment of Beria as head of the NKVD in 1938, the intensity of executions and imprisonments began to decrease, and many cases were sent for review. Some even associate something similar to the “thaw” with the name of Beria. According to another version, one stage of repression ended and another began. Beria signed execution lists, led operations for the resettlement of peoples and created SMERSH, but it was under Beria that the NKVD from the punitive organ of the revolution turned into an economic-industrial complex with hundreds of thousands of prisoners, and repressive functions were transferred to the People's Commissariat of State Security. Many consider Beria a sadist, but he was best at implementing scientific and technical projects, which somewhat does not fit with the image of a bloody executioner. So who was Beria: a born sadist or a technical executor of someone else’s will?

Katyn massacre

Decades have passed, many have been declassified archival documents(in particular, the infamous "Package No. 1"), Russian leadership recognized the responsibility of the NKVD for organizing the execution, but this topic still remains one of the most painful in Russian-Polish relations.
Almost five thousand were killed directly in the Katyn Forest, and in total, about twenty thousand people were killed as part of the operation to exterminate Polish prisoners. The details of the operation are striking: the Poles had their hands tied and shot in the back of the head from a German weapon, the corpses were dumped in a pit, not even a common grave. The signal for brutal reprisals was allegedly given by People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria.
True, to date there is no direct evidence that this was done by NKVD officers or Red Army soldiers.

Bluebeard

One of the main accusations against Beria, including that voiced in the official verdict, is “moral laxity.” Rumors circulated throughout Moscow about numerous rapes committed by Beria. His subordinates allegedly grabbed women right on the street, forced them into a car and took them to his dacha. In her book of memoirs, the famous Soviet actress Tatyana Okunevskaya talks in detail about several such episodes.
In 1948, married to Nina Gegechkori, Beria fell in love with 16-year-old Lyalya Drozdova and began to live with two families. Lyalya gave birth to his daughter. After Beria’s arrest, apparently to save herself, Drozdova reported rape. In this regard, it is still quite difficult to figure out what is true in the stories about Beria’s adventures and what is exaggeration and myth.

Head of the atomic project

In 1945, Beria headed the leadership of the Soviet atomic project. Under his command is not a giant repressive machine, but brilliant Soviet intellectuals: Sakharov, Zeldovich, Kurchatov, Tupolev, Korolev and many others. The construction of closed scientific campuses begins; equipment and specialists are brought from defeated Germany. Four years later, successful tests of the first domestic atomic bomb took place in Semipalatinsk, and on October 29, 1949, Beria was awarded the Order of Lenin and he was awarded the Stalin Prize “For organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the test atomic weapons" But his role in the nuclear project is still ambiguous. Could the task have been completed earlier? In other words: thanks to or despite?

Leader's Killer

More and more historians are inclined to believe that Stalin died violent death, as a result of a Kremlin conspiracy. The reasons are obvious: the aging leader was planning a new purge of the party elite: the “Leningrad affair”, the “Mingrelian affair” - none of the members of the Politburo could feel safe, especially the Mingrelian Lavrentiy Beria. If there really was a conspiracy to eliminate the leader, and Stalin was in fact poisoned, the most obvious organizer of the murder is Beria.

Reformer

After Stalin's death, the incredibly powerful Beria developed extraordinary activity. Almost immediately he came up with the idea of a large-scale amnesty, which was carried out. He banned torture and began the process of rehabilitation of political prisoners. Beria hatched the idea of unifying the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, and also took the initiative of “indigenization” Soviet republics- to lead according to his thoughts in different parts The empire should have been national elites, not proteges from Moscow.
Beria planned to limit the role of the Communist Party in the leadership of the country, limiting it to an agitation and propaganda function; Soviet technocrats and specialists were to come to real power. In fact, we were talking about large-scale liberalization and a radical restructuring of the entire Soviet system. Beriev's "thaw", if realized, could go much further than Khrushchev's. But this did not happen, as the wits joked, soon:

“Lavrentiy Palych Beria // Lost his trust, // And Comrade Malenkov // Kicked him.”
In the Kremlin struggle for power, Beria and his associates lost, were arrested and executed. But the question “What was it and what could it lead to the country?” - stayed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The death sentence was carried out by Colonel General Batitsky P.F., who shot the convict with a captured Parabellum pistol 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:

“On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the Order of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953, No. 003, by me, the commandant of the Special Judicial Presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Actual State Counselor of Justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General K.S. Moskalenko the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence was carried out in relation to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment - execution".

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

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

Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939;
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1939;
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938 - Sukhumi: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man modernity [I.V. Stalin]. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Translation by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Detyunizdat of the Georgian SSR, 1940;
On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. 8th ed. M., 1949.

politician

BERIA, LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH(1899–1953), politician. Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in a peasant family in the Abkhaz village of Merkheuli. From childhood, he was distinguished by his ability to study and, with the money of his fellow villagers, was sent to study in Sukhum at an elementary school, from which he graduated in 1915. A history teacher predicted for him the fate of the “second Fouche” - the famous minister of police under Emperor Napoleon the First. Beria continued his education in Baku, where in 1919 he graduated with honors from the Mechanical and Construction Technical School with a diploma as an architect-builder. In 1920–1922 he studied in the first and second years of the Baku Polytechnic Institute. Beria himself claimed that he joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917; but, according to other sources, this happened in 1919. In the summer of 1917 he was sent as a technician to the Romanian front, but the young specialist received an exemption from military service and at the end of the same year he returned to Baku. There he worked in the apparatus of the Council of Workers' Deputies, and after the fall of Soviet power in 1918 he got a job as a clerk. In April 1920, the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) sent him to underground activities in Georgia, which was then controlled by the Menshevik government. There, Beria was arrested and declared exiled, but disappeared and, under a false name, became an employee of the Russian embassy in Tiflis, headed by Sergei Kirov. In May he was arrested again and deported to Azerbaijan, where by that time the Bolsheviks had won. In Azerbaijan, Beria worked in the party and state apparatus (in particular, he was the manager of the affairs of the Azerbaijani Central Committee), took part in the establishment of Bolshevik power in Georgia, and then completely focused on serving in the Cheka. In 1921, Beria became the head of the secret operational service and deputy chairman of the Cheka of Azerbaijan, and in 1922 he took similar positions in the Cheka of Georgia. During this period, he became close to Stalin, to whom he sent reports during the period of his intelligence activities in Baku. Unlike some of Georgia's old Bolshevik leaders, Beria fully supported him in the struggle for power.

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

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

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

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

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

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

During World War II, Beria's position strengthened. He played a primary role in the State Defense Committee (in 1944 he was officially appointed deputy chairman), responsible for the production of weapons and ammunition, and became one of the de facto leaders of the Supreme Command Headquarters. Essentially, Beria turned into the administrator of the rear and the organizer of the military industry, which surpassed the industrial machine of Germany. Many prominent scientists worked in closed institutes that were part of the NKVD system. He organized the "Smersh" teams and the "barrier detachments" of the NKVD. For his activities he received the rank of marshal.

After the war, Beria lost his post as Minister of Internal Affairs, but retained key influence in the state, being deputy head of government, and from March 1946, a member of the Politburo. He was entrusted with overseeing the military-industrial complex and leading the creation of the nuclear industry. In the struggle for power in Stalin's encirclement in 1946–1948, Beria acted in alliance with Malenkov against Andrei Zhdanov. He is considered one of the authors of the concept of “Finlandization,” that is, greater independence of Eastern European countries while maintaining them in the political orbit of the USSR. He also influenced the state security system (the post of minister was held by his student Abakumov).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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