Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich biography interesting. Lavrenty Beria short biography and interesting facts. Childhood and teenage years of the future politician

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenty Pavles dze Beria; March 17, 1899, village of Merheu li Sukhumi district of Kutaisi province, Russian Empire - December 23, 1953, Moscow) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and political figure, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), Honorary Citizen of the USSR (1950), deprived of these titles in 1953 due to accusations of organizing “Stalinist repressions”.

The atrocities of L. Beria were thoroughly investigated and brought to court

Beria's case consisted of 45 volumes, which were collected over six months. But 90% of the materials are not original documents and interrogation reports, but typewritten copies certified by Prosecutor General Yuryeva. What kind of prosecutor doesn't demand originals? And did they exist at all? There were many violations in the Beria case. If he was arrested on June 26, then on what grounds, since the case was opened only on June 30? The decree depriving Beria of parliamentary immunity dated June 26 contains a reference to a case that had not yet been opened! This was obviously done in hindsight. There is not a single protocol in the case, even in the form of a certified copy, of Beria’s confrontation with others arrested because of him. This suggests that the “gang members” no longer had anyone to meet with. The arrested, realizing what this meant, began to blame everything on the boss. There is not a single examination, not a single investigative experiment in the case, and no forensic photography was used. There were many references to long-dead persons who could not refute their words.

L. Beria repressed leading officials of Ukraine

We are talking about Postyshev, Kosior and Chubar. Firstly, they themselves were quite cruel leaders who carried out mass repressions. Thus, Postyshev generally signed not even lists of convicts, but lines with their number. In January 1938, at the Plenum, he defiantly declared that he would continue arrests and extermination of enemies of the people. Almost immediately, Postyshev was removed from the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo and arrested. But then Yezhov was at the head of the NKVD. There was still six months before Beria arrived there. Postyshev’s case was personally checked by Molotov and Voroshilov, and the politician was shot for the wholesale destruction of party members and innocent people. Kosior and Chubar were behind collectivization in Ukraine and the subsequent famine. Kosior was arrested on May 3, 1938, again long before Beria joined the NKVD. And the verdict was passed on the criminals by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court.

L. Beria suggested that Stalin create barrier detachments to shoot the retreating

In fact, barrier detachments have been known since ancient times; they were used even before Ancient Rome. But in the Russian army such measures were not used. During the Civil War, barrier detachments were created at critical moments to avoid escape from the front. And during the Second World War, the directive on the creation of detachments was signed on June 27 by Timoshenko and Zhukov. By order of the Headquarters, this practice was extended to all fronts. The NKVD barrage detachments caught stragglers and those who fled from the front, detaining 650 thousand people only until October 10, 1941! In this way, Beria’s units solved the strategic problem, preventing the front from falling apart. Of this number, only 25 thousand were arrested, the rest returned to the front. So what kind of atrocities can we talk about? There are orders from Zhukov, who proposed shooting all deserters indiscriminately.

L. Beria sent the liberated Soviet prisoners of war to the Gulag

It turns out that even in the 1938 edition of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, an article appeared according to which surrender to the enemy in an inappropriate situation was punishable by execution with confiscation of property. First of all, it is worth noting that there is a myth that the Red Army surrendered en masse, especially in 1941. Figures range from 4.5 to 6.2 million people. The Germans themselves meticulously calculated that in 1941 they captured 2.5 million soldiers. On August 16, 1941, the headquarters issued a strict order that made it possible to punish deserters and those who surrendered. These were cruel measures, but the country was also on the brink of disaster. In December 1941, by orders of the State Defense Committee and Stalin, filtration camps were created to check those released from captivity. In fact, this was a completely necessary measure. There is a document dated October 1, 1944, according to which 350 thousand military personnel who emerged from encirclement and were released from captivity were checked. 250 thousand people were transferred back to the army after verification, another 30 thousand were sent to work in industry. Only 11,500 people were arrested by SMERSH authorities. It follows from the document that over 95% of former prisoners of war were checked; in total, based on the results of the war, the figure fluctuates at 90%. With the end of the battles, the number of people in the filtration camps increased sharply. Of the 1.8 million people, 1 million passed the test and these people were returned to the army. Another 600 thousand were sent to work in industry and to restore the economy. 340 thousand people ended up in the camps, that is, only about 18% of those checked. There is also an interesting GKO document dated August 18, 1945, in which the “ferocity” towards former prisoners is refuted by at least permission to take families to their place of work.

L. Beria was a member of a special tribunal of the 1937 model.

Even Khrushchev’s investigators could not find information that L. Beria was a member of a special tribunal of the 1937 model, colloquially referred to as the “troika”.

L. Beria, together with Abakumov, concocted the fake Leningrad case

On December 29, 1945, Marshal Beria was relieved of his duties as People's Commissar and began implementing the atomic project. So he had no relationship with the state security agencies, with the exception of atomic intelligence. The ministry was under the control of Abakumov, who launched the high-profile case. And execution sentences were carried out by the MGB.

Myth.

L. Beria killed Stalin, who stopped trusting him

The issue of transferring Beria to the Lubyanka to the post of minister was decided during Stalin’s lifetime. Would he appoint a person he did not trust as head of the intelligence services? This decision was due to the chaos and violations that have appeared in the MGB in recent years. And Khrushchev was in charge of the ministry; Beria immediately began to dismiss his proteges from the authorities. Lavrentiy Pavlovich already had experience in restoring the work of state security and internal affairs agencies. He even managed to request the Central Committee's sanction for the arrest of former Minister of State Security Ignatiev, having identified Stalin's killers. But L. Beria was no longer allowed to complete the matter.

L. Beria, being an agent of Western intelligence, advocated the unification of Germany

This charge was brought against Beria retroactively, after his execution. The most interesting thing is that history has proven him right. In 1989, Germany was united thanks to Gorbachev, although this could have happened much earlier and on the initiative of a completely different person. The very idea of ​​fragmenting Germany belonged to the Americans and the British, who did not want to see a powerful competitor in the center of Europe. Stalin repeatedly emphasized that in the future he saw a united and strong democratic Germany, and saw its split as an extreme measure. Back in March 1947, unrest began in the American zone due to the looting of the occupiers. Western propaganda trumpeted with all its might that in the Soviet half they did not live so well-fed and democratically. The USSR closely followed the unrest that arose in the GDR, not without the participation of Western intelligence services. Molotov, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, proposed sending Soviet troops into this country to support the regime. Unexpectedly, Beria spoke up and said that the main thing was peace in Germany, and what form of government would no longer matter. He motivated his position by saying that a single country, even a bourgeois one, would become a serious counterweight to America. Thanks to harsh measures and the deployment of troops, the unrest in the GDR was suppressed. And Beria’s principled position turned out to be misunderstood, but prophetic.

L. Beria is personally to blame for the repressions against Molotov’s ex-wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina

This myth appeared thanks to Molotov himself. There is a legend about how, immediately after his appointment to the post of People's Commissar, Beria asked Molotov how he could help. Allegedly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs asked to return Polina Zhemchuzhina. Based on the wording, one might think that it was Lavrenty Pavlovich who put her behind bars. In fact, Beria had nothing to do with this, since at the time of the woman’s arrest, investigation and sentencing, he was not the head of the MGB. Abakumov sat in this post. He knew that Zhemchuzhina conveyed Molotov’s secrets to the Israeli ambassador, and her other actions directly spoke of espionage activities. Molotov’s wife was released the day after Stalin’s death, on the orders of Beria, and was immediately rehabilitated and reinstated in the party. So Lavrenty Pavlovich played only a positive role in the fate of Zhemchuzhina.

because of L. Beria, potatoes, vegetables and herring disappeared from the USSR in 1953

Beria is often blamed for problems in agriculture. Allegedly, he sent a draft solution to the problem with vegetables to the Presidium of the Central Committee for revision. But there were 10 people on the Presidium who could make a decision with an overwhelming majority. In fact, it was Beria who understood more than all other politicians in agriculture, closely dealing with this issue in the 1930s in Georgia. He fundamentally demanded a revision of the crude project. And later Mikoyan blamed Beria for the shortage of herring, which has nothing to do with reality at all.

L. Beria eavesdropped on Stalin in the Kremlin

This myth has appeared in our time. During the recent reconstruction of the Kremlin, evidence emerged that Stalin's office was bugged. They immediately blamed the “gray eminence” of the Soviet Union, Beria, for everything. Journalists seized on the famous surname, realizing that no one would be interested in a smaller figure. Within the structure of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - CPSU there was a special service department, which in 1952-1953 was headed by Deputy Minister of State Security I. Savchenko, a close comrade of Khrushchev. It was she who had every opportunity to bug Stalin’s office. In the last year of his life, he was alarmed by the activities of Khrushchev. It was not difficult to install wiretapping - the leader rarely came to the Kremlin in the last months of his life.

on the eve of the war, L. Beria defeated Soviet intelligence

Before 1937, military intelligence was a sad spectacle. Failures followed one after another, chaos reigned. There were many suspicious characters among the agents; the employees were foreigners with relatives abroad. In addition, there were plenty of Trotsky supporters in the composition. For whom such a structure worked is another question. Beria only completed the process begun under Yezhov. Under him, both the age and national composition of the service changed. As a result, during World War II, Soviet intelligence began to be considered the strongest in the world. Those who remained at the post were professionals who served not for the ephemeral ideas of the world revolution, but for their Motherland. Beria restored legality in the activities of special departments, helped improve the efficiency of the service, its interaction and coordination.

Myth.

on the eve of the war, L. Beria initiated the deportation of the population of Western Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and the Baltic states

The archives contain quite clear figures on the deportation of the Baltic states on the eve of the war. Out of a population of 4 million, only 40 thousand people were arrested and deported, including prostitutes and criminals. State security agencies had accurate information that in the event of war, a fifth column would be involved in the new territories. Merkulov prepared a note for the Central Committee on clearing the Baltic states of counter-revolutionaries, former guards, gendarmes, officers, and landowners. This measure was cruel and in no way democratic. But the state sought to strengthen its security in this way. And Merkulov left the signature on the document. Similar measures were taken in Ukraine. Belarus and Moldova. Also, not everyone was evicted, but those who were already compromised and posed a potential danger.

on the initiative of L. Beria, at the end of the war, mass deportation of Chechens, Crimean Tatars, Ingush, Kabardians and other small peoples was carried out

From the point of view of Soviet laws, representatives of these peoples committed such crimes that almost the entire male population would have to be shot. This would be real genocide. So the Soviet government chose a much softer path for retribution. The peoples who collaborated with the Germans were deported to places where they could not bring harm to the country. There is no point in talking about genocide, because the deported peoples surpassed other peoples of the country, especially the Slavs, in demographics. The statement that Beria received the Order of Suvorov for such an action is also a lie. The award took place on March 7, 1944, as the head of the NKVD was recognized by the leadership for his participation in making a turning point during the war. And the eviction of Chechens and Ingush began only on February 23, which cannot be connected with the reward. And the cooperation of the mentioned peoples with the fascists is a proven fact - the Germans understood the importance of the Crimea and the Caucasus and were preparing to start a civil war there, collaborating with the indigenous peoples. And often the initiators of the eviction of peoples were not Stalin and Beria, but the commanders of the fronts. They had to attract up to 15% of their forces to fight gangs in the rear. So the problem needed a solution.

under the leadership of L. Beria, the internal affairs bodies allowed mass espionage by the German intelligence services, which in many ways became the cause of the tragedy of June 22

It is easy to debunk this myth if you turn to the professional opinion of the Germans. At the Nuremberg trials, the Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces, Field Marshal Keitel, said that information about the Soviet Union and the Red Army was extremely scarce. The agents' data concerned the tactical zone, but information was never received that seriously affected the course of hostilities. One of the leaders of the Abwehr, General Pickenbrock, said that military intelligence in the USSR did not fulfill its tasks. But this happened not because of the lack of professionalism of the employees, but because of good counterintelligence and the vigilance of the military and civilians. And there were many similar testimonies - German intelligence failed, not revealing our secrets. On the eve of the war, the Germans did not know how many divisions were opposing them, nor how many tanks could be produced for the war. And the tragedy of June 22 was caused, first of all, by the military’s mistakes and violation of banal camouflage.

L. Beria planned to surrender the Caucasus to Hitler

This myth was invented by the generals; they could not admit that the Caucasus was preserved precisely thanks to Beria. True, there is little scientific material left about his participation in those events; one has to be content with the memoirs of biased contemporaries. For example, A.A. Grechko wrote that the arrival of Beria in his army caused harm, he introduced nervousness and disorganization. In fact, the 46th Army was unable to protect the passes, and GKO member Beria was sent there at the most crucial moment. The defense of the Caucasus was carried out poorly from a strategic point of view. Beria immediately appointed reliable officers to key positions, removing Budyonny and Kaganovich from command. On Beria’s initiative, 175 passes were urgently studied and their protection and defense was organized. The construction of defensive structures has begun on the Georgian Military and Ossetian Military roads, and the security of communications has been strengthened. Beria organized the air defense of the Baku oil field. And the NKVD troops, under the direct leadership of their people's commissar, performed excellently in the most difficult days.

special departments led by L. Beria prevented the commanders of the Red Army from fighting effectively with their denunciations

This myth was beneficial to Soviet military leaders, who blamed their failures on Beria and the NKVD. From the reports of the same Abakumov it is clear that the command made many mistakes, including tactical ones, losing personnel. Obviously, these comments went to the top, helping to correct the shortcomings.

Myth.

Beria is guilty of the death of Sergo Ordzhonikidze and the persecution of his family

The myth was born thanks to Khrushchev. Judging by the known facts, Ordzhonikidze actively defended Beria and maintained friendly relations with him through correspondence. Beria even named his son in honor of his older comrade. And the areas of activity of these two people did not intersect. When Ordzhonikidze’s brother was arrested and the second one was injured, Sergo asked Beria to help, which he did. And the reason for Ordzhonikidze’s suicide lies in his poor health and nervous, impressionable character. And he himself saw that his People’s Commissariat was subjected to an inspection that showed poor results, which was the cause of stress. So Beria had nothing to do with Ordzhonikidze’s death. Even when he came to Tbilisi, he stayed not at the brothers’ house, but at his friend Lavrentiy’s.

L. Beria's behavior in everything, including in foreign policy affairs, sharply contrasted with the state laxity of the rest of his colleagues, but was Beria to blame for that? And his state energy and leadership qualities would be very useful to Russia not only within the country, but also in the foreign policy arena. Khrushchev sometimes behaved impudently in the outside world. He knocked his shoes on the table at the UN - this is where his behavior really needs to be assessed as idiotic and cheeky. At the same time, Khrushchev could behave almost like a lackey. There is a very expressive photograph - on June 4, 1956, in the Kremlin, Khrushchev obsequiously shakes the hand of the monumentally frozen Joseph Broz Tito. He presses, almost bent into an arc, smiling like a sex worker who is about to be given a generous tip. Is it possible to imagine Beria behaving in this way? In relations with external partners, he behaved with the utmost correctness and politeness, but with an undoubted sense of both personal and state dignity.

L. Beria did not look at our foreign economic relations as a way to “feed” the countries of people's democracy and thereby turn them into parasites of the Soviet Union. Under Khrushchev and later Brezhnev, this vicious practice became stronger and stronger, not strengthening the USSR, but weakening it. Under Beria, everything would have been different. To see this, let us turn to Mikoyan’s speech at the Anti-Beria plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in July 1953. Then Mikoyan was indignant that Beria did not want to agree to halving (!) Czechoslovakia’s contractual obligations for the supply of diesel engines to the USSR for the oil industry. I quote Mikoyan: “We had a long-term agreement on supplies. True, perhaps the deliveries could have gone a little better, but that’s not the point. But Beria got mad when he somehow learned about the long-term agreement. On what basis is there such disintegration, such an indulgence for the Czechs and so on". It is worth saying that the “brotherly” Czech state economy was not averse to starting to speculate on “brotherly” relations and treating orders from the USSR carelessly. This is exactly what the Minister of Trade Mikoyan agreed to, this is what the Khrushchevites began to do after the elimination of Beria. And this is exactly what Beria would not do! In the countries of the world socialist camp, they would begin to look at the USSR not as a feeding trough, but as a tough partner in business relations, but extremely profitable due to the hugeness of the domestic market.

The place of the People's Commissariats of Internal Affairs and State Security in the system of state and military administration of the USSR was also determined by the fact that all this work was carried out under the direct control of I.V. Stalin and L.P. Beria. The purposefulness inherent in their style of activity, the dominance of political expediency over ideological and legal considerations, strict demands and control of execution, timely adoption of the necessary organizational and legal decisions (110 GKO resolutions were devoted to the regulation of the activities of the NKVD alone) contributed to the fact that the goals set before them in years of war have been achieved. Attempts by enemy special services to destabilize the situation in the country, using the internal political and economic problems of the USSR, as well as difficulties caused by the complex ethnocultural and religious composition of the population, the presence of vast poorly developed territories, did not produce any significant results. Achieving individual successes, they ultimately lost the confrontation with similar services of the USSR: the Soviet political regime survived, the state did not collapse even in its most difficult days, when the enemy had the strategic initiative and the victorious outcome of the war for the Soviet Union was not yet obvious (Encyclopedia "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945").

"At the beginning of 1944, after L.P. Beria was appointed administrative head of the Soviet atomic project, under his leadership the first meeting of the heads of military intelligence and NKVD intelligence was held, dedicated to the analysis of the possibilities for obtaining documentary materials and samples related to the development of USA atomic weapons. To increase the efficiency of the actions of the Soviet intelligence services in the field of obtaining information about the atomic projects of the USA and England, on the instructions of L. P. Beria, department “C” was created in the NKVD, and Colonel P. A. Sudoplatov was appointed its head. The main tasks of this department were to coordinate the activities of the Intelligence Directorate and the NKVD in collecting information on the uranium problem and implementing the obtained data within the country" (Encyclopedia "The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945").

From the memoirs of an atomic project worker V.N. Mokhov: “In our team there was an extraordinary freedom of discussion and exchange of opinions. Apparently, the curator of work on the creation of nuclear weapons L.P. Beria considered this acceptable and necessary for creating a creative atmosphere. We could spend hours discussing not only scientific and technical problems, but also philosophical issues related to nuclear weapons, including purely political aspects."

As we see, a major Soviet weapons physicist directly points to the personality of L. Beria as the source of the creative atmosphere in the Soviet scientific community! It turns out that it was from Beria that a businesslike, but mutually friendly, atmosphere came in the relations between efficient workers, between people of action, honestly doing this common, one for all, business.

As the war progressed, the domestic military-industrial complex not only eliminated the temporary superiority of the Third Reich in the production of weapons and military equipment, but was also able to surpass the enemy in both the quantity and quality of weapons. During the war, the USSR produced more than 108 thousand combat aircraft (1.4 times more than Germany), 104.4 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns (1.8 times more), about 445.7 thousand field guns caliber 76 mm and higher (2.2 times) and mortars (5.1 times). By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 30, 1943, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor “for special services in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions.”

An ordinary, and not so ordinary, person knows about Lavrentiy Beria only two things: he was an executioner and a sexual maniac. Everything else has been removed from history. So it’s even strange: why did Stalin tolerate this useless and gloomy figure near him?...
The material is offered without evaluation - “as is”. The author's spelling, punctuation and terminology have been preserved.
On June 26, 1953, three tank regiments stationed near Moscow received an order from the Minister of Defense to load up with ammunition and enter the capital. The motorized rifle division also received the same order. Two air divisions and a formation of jet bombers were ordered to wait in full combat readiness for orders for a possible bombing of the Kremlin.

Subsequently, a version of all these preparations was announced: the Minister of Internal Affairs Beria was preparing a coup d'etat, which had to be prevented, Beria himself was arrested, tried and shot. For 50 years this version was not questioned by anyone.
The average person knows only two things about Lavrentiy Beria: he was an executioner and a sexual maniac. Everything else has been removed from history. So it’s even strange: why did Stalin tolerate this useless and gloomy figure near him? Afraid, or what? Mystery.

I wasn’t afraid at all! And there is no mystery. Moreover, without understanding the true role of this man it is impossible to understand the Stalinist era. Because in fact, everything was completely different from what the people who seized power in the USSR and privatized all the victories and achievements of their predecessors later came up with.

St. Petersburg journalist Elena Prudnikova, author of sensational historical investigations, participant in the historical and journalistic project “Riddles of History,” talks about a completely different Lavrentiy Beria on the pages of our newspaper.

"Economic miracle" in Transcaucasia
Many people have heard about the “Japanese economic miracle”. But who knows about Georgian?
In the fall of 1931, the young security officer Lavrentiy Beria, a very remarkable personality, became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. In 20, he led an illegal network in Menshevik Georgia. In 1923, when the republic came under the control of the Bolsheviks, he fought against banditry and achieved impressive results - by the beginning of this year there were 31 gangs in Georgia, by the end of the year there were only 10 of them left.

In 1925, Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. By 1929, he became both the chairman of the GPU of Transcaucasia and the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the region. But, oddly enough, Beria stubbornly tried to part with the KGB service, dreaming of finally completing his education and becoming a builder.

In 1930, he even wrote a desperate letter to Ordzhonikidze. “Dear Sergo! I know you will say that now is not the time to bring up the issue of studying. But what to do? I feel like I can’t do it anymore.”

In Moscow, the request was fulfilled exactly the opposite. So, in the fall of 1931, Beria became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. A year later - first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee, in fact the owner of the region. And we really, really don’t like to talk about how he worked in this position.

Beria still got the same district. Industry as such did not exist. A poor, hungry outskirts. As you know, collectivization began in the USSR in 1927. By 1931, 36% of Georgian farms had been transferred to collective farms, but this did not make the population any less hungry.
And then Beria made a move with his knight. He stopped collectivization. Left the private owners alone. But on collective farms they began to grow not bread or corn, which were of no use, but valuable crops: tea, citrus fruits, tobacco, grapes. And this is where large agricultural enterprises justified themselves one hundred percent!

Collective farms began to grow rich at such a speed that the peasants themselves flocked to them. By 1939, without any coercion, 86% of farms were socialized. One example: in 1930, the area of ​​tangerine plantations was one and a half thousand hectares, in 1940 - 20 thousand. The yield per tree has increased, in some farms by as much as 20 times. When you go to the market to buy Abkhaz tangerines, remember Lavrenty Pavlovich!

In industry he worked just as effectively. During the first five-year plan, the volume of gross industrial output of Georgia alone increased almost 6 times. During the second five-year period - another 5 times. It was the same in the other Transcaucasian republics.

It was under Beria, for example, that they began to drill on the shelves of the Caspian Sea, for which he was accused of wastefulness: why bother with all this nonsense! But now there is a real war between the superpowers over Caspian oil and over its transportation routes.
At the same time, Transcaucasia became the “resort capital” of the USSR - who then thought about the “resort business”? In terms of education level, already in 1938 Georgia took one of the first places in the Union, and in terms of the number of students per thousand souls it surpassed England and Germany.

In short, during the seven years that Beria held the post of “main man” in Transcaucasia, he so shaken up the economy of the backward republics that until the 90s they were among the richest in the Union. If you look at it, the doctors of economic sciences who carried out perestroika in the USSR have a lot to learn from this security officer.

But that was a time when it was not political talkers, but business executives, who were worth their weight in gold. Stalin could not miss such a person. And Beria’s appointment to Moscow was not the result of apparatus intrigues, as they are now trying to imagine, but a completely natural thing: a person who works in this way in the region can be entrusted with big things in the country.

Mad Sword of Revolution
In our country, the name of Beria is primarily associated with repression. On this occasion, allow me the simplest question: when did the “Beria repressions” take place? Date please! She's gone.

The then chief of the NKVD, Comrade, is responsible for the notorious “37th year” Yezhov. There was even such an expression - “tight-knuckle gloves.” Post-war repressions were also carried out when Beria was not working in the authorities, and when he arrived there in 1953, the first thing he did was stop them.
When there were “Beria’s rehabilitations” - this is clearly recorded in history. And “Beria’s repressions” are in their purest form a product of “black PR”.

What really happened?
The country had no luck with the leaders of the Cheka-OGPU from the very beginning. Dzerzhinsky was a strong, strong-willed and honest person, but, extremely busy with work in the government, he abandoned the department to his deputies. His successor Menzhinsky was seriously ill and did the same.

The main cadres of the “organs” were promoters from the Civil War, poorly educated, unprincipled and cruel; one can imagine what kind of situation reigned there. Moreover, since the late 20s, the leaders of this department were increasingly nervous about any kind of control over their activities:
Yezhov was a new person in the “authorities”, he started out well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy Frinovsky. He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better; You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun.

Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.” He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands.

Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting from the secretary of the regional committee, should walk under you: “If the secretary of the regional committee had to walk under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, should have walked under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country.

It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster?
The way out is to put your own man in prison, with such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he can, on the one hand, cope with the control of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large choice of such people. Well, at least one was found.

Curbing the NKVD
In 1938, Beria, with the rank of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, became the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, seizing control of the most dangerous structure. Almost immediately, right before the November holidays, the entire top of the People's Commissariat was removed and mostly arrested. Then, having placed reliable people in key positions, Beria began to deal with what his predecessor had done.

Chekists who went too far were fired, arrested, and some were shot. (By the way, later, having again become the Minister of Internal Affairs in 1953, do you know what order Beria issued the very first? On the prohibition of torture! He knew where he was going.

The authorities were thoroughly cleaned: 7,372 people (22.9%) were dismissed from the rank and file, and 3,830 people (62%) from the management. At the same time, they began to verify complaints and review cases.

Recently published data have made it possible to assess the scale of this work. For example, in 1937-38, about 30 thousand people were dismissed from the army for political reasons. 12.5 thousand were returned to service after the change of leadership of the NKVD. It turns out about 40%.

According to the most approximate estimates, since complete information has not yet been made public, up to 1941 inclusive, 150-180 thousand people out of 630 thousand convicted during the Yezhovshchina were released from camps and prisons. That is about 30 percent.

It took a long time to “normalize” the NKVD and it was not completely possible, although the work was carried out right up to 1945. Sometimes you have to deal with completely incredible facts. For example, in 1941, especially in those places where the Germans were advancing, they did not stand on ceremony with prisoners - the war, they say, would write off everything.

However, it was not possible to blame it on the war. From June 22 to December 31, 1941 (the most difficult months of the war!) 227 NKVD employees were brought to criminal liability for abuse of power. Of these, 19 people received capital punishment for extrajudicial executions.

Beria also owned another invention of the era - the “sharashka”. Among those arrested there were many people who were very needed by the country. Of course, these were not poets and writers, about whom they shout the most and loudest, but scientists, engineers, designers, who primarily worked for defense.

Repression in this environment is a special topic. Who and under what circumstances imprisoned the developers of military equipment in the conditions of an impending war? The question is not at all rhetorical. Firstly, there were real German agents in the NKVD who, on real assignments from real German intelligence, tried to neutralize people useful to the Soviet defense complex.

Secondly, there were no fewer “dissidents” in those days than in the late 80s. In addition, this is an incredibly quarrelsome environment, and denunciation has always been a favorite means of settling scores and career advancement.

Be that as it may, having taken over the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Beria was faced with the fact: in his department there were hundreds of arrested scientists and designers, whose work the country simply desperately needed.

As it is now fashionable to say - feel like a people's commissar!

There is a case before you. This person may or may not be guilty, but he is necessary. What to do? Write: “Liberate”, showing your subordinates an example of the opposite kind of lawlessness? Check things? Yes, of course, but you have a closet with 600 thousand things in it.
In fact, each of them needs to be re-investigated, but there are no personnel. If we are talking about someone who has already been convicted, it is also necessary to get the sentence overturned. Where to start? From scientists? From the military? And time passes, people sit, war is getting closer...

Beria quickly found his bearings. Already on January 10, 1939, he signed an order to organize a Special Technical Bureau. The research topic is purely military: aircraft construction, shipbuilding, shells, armor steels. Entire groups were formed from specialists from these industries who were in prison.

When the opportunity presented itself, Beria tried to free these people. For example, on May 25, 1940, aircraft designer Tupolev was sentenced to 15 years in the camps, and in the summer he was released under an amnesty. Designer Petlyakov was granted amnesty on July 25 and already in January 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. A large group of military equipment developers was released in the summer of 1941, another in 1943, the rest received freedom from 1944 to 1948.

When you read what is written about Beria, you get the impression that he spent the entire war catching “enemies of the people.” Yes, sure! He had nothing to do! On March 21, 1941, Beria became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

To begin with, he oversees the People's Commissariats of the forestry, coal and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy, soon adding ferrous metallurgy here. And from the very beginning of the war, more and more defense industries fell on his shoulders, since, first of all, he was not a security officer or a party leader, but an excellent organizer of production.
That is why he was entrusted with the atomic project in 1945, on which the very existence of the Soviet Union depended.

He wanted to punish Stalin's murderers. And for this he himself was killed
Two leaders
Already a week after the start of the war, on June 30, an emergency authority was established - the State Defense Committee, in whose hands all power in the country was concentrated. Naturally, Stalin became the chairman of the State Defense Committee. But who entered the office besides him? This issue is carefully avoided in most publications. For one very simple reason: among the five members of the State Defense Committee there is one unmentioned person.

In the brief history of the Second World War (1985), in the index of names given at the end of the book, where such vital figures for victory as Ovid and Sandor Petofi are present, Beria is not present. I wasn’t there, I didn’t fight, I didn’t participate... So: there were five of them. Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov. And three commissioners: Voznesensky, Mikoyan, Kaganovich. But soon the war began to make its own adjustments.
Since February 1942, Beria, instead of Voznesensky, began to oversee the production of weapons and ammunition. Officially. (But in reality, he was already doing this in the summer of 1941.) That same winter, the production of tanks also fell into his hands. Again, not because of any intrigue, but because he did better.

The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22 the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942 these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944 we had 89 thousand of them against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2 thousand tanks per month, far ahead of Germany.
On May 11, 1944, Beria became chairman of the GKO Operations Bureau and deputy chairman of the Committee, in fact, the second person in the country after Stalin. On August 20, 1945, he took on the most difficult task of that time, which was a matter of survival for the USSR - he became chairman of the Special Committee for the creation of an atomic bomb (there he performed another miracle - the first Soviet atomic bomb, contrary to all forecasts, was tested just four years later , August 20, 1949).

Not a single person from the Politburo, and indeed not a single person in the USSR, even came close to Beria in terms of the importance of the tasks being solved, in terms of the scope of powers, and, obviously, simply in terms of the scale of his personality. In fact, the post-war USSR was at that time a double star system: the seventy-year-old Stalin and the young - in 1949 he turned only fifty - Beria. Head of state and his natural successor.

It was this fact that Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev historians hid so diligently in holes of silence and under piles of lies. Because if on June 23, 1953, the Minister of Internal Affairs was killed, this still leads to the fight against the putsch, and if the head of state was killed, then this is what the putsch is...

Stalin's scenario
If you trace the information about Beria, wandering from publication to publication, to its original source, then almost all of it follows from Khrushchev’s memoirs. A person who, in general, cannot be trusted, since a comparison of his memories with other sources reveals an exorbitant amount of unreliable information in them.

Who hasn’t done “political science” analyzes of the situation in the winter of 1952-1953. What combinations were not thought of, what options were not calculated. That Beria was blocked with Malenkov, with Khrushchev, that he was on his own... These analyzes have only one sin - as a rule, they completely exclude the figure of Stalin. It is silently believed that the leader had retired by that time, was almost insanity... There is only one source - the memories of Nikita Sergeevich.

But why, exactly, should we believe them? And Beria’s son Sergo, for example, who saw Stalin fifteen times during 1952 at meetings devoted to missile weapons, recalled that the leader did not at all seem weakened in mind...
The post-war period of our history is no less dark than pre-Rurik Russia. Probably no one really knows what was happening in the country then. It is known that after 1949, Stalin withdrew somewhat from business, leaving all the “turnover” to chance and to Malenkov. But one thing is clear: something was cooking.

Based on indirect evidence, it can be assumed that Stalin was planning some kind of very big reform, first of all economic, and only then, perhaps, political. Another thing is clear: the leader was old and sick, he knew this very well, he did not suffer from a lack of courage and could not help but think what would happen to the state after his death, and not look for a successor.
If Beria had been of any other nationality, there would have been no problems. But one Georgian after another on the throne of the empire! Even Stalin would not have done this. It is known that in the post-war years, Stalin slowly but steadily squeezed the party apparatus out of the captain's cabin. Of course, the functionaries could not be happy with this.

In October 1952, at the CPSU Congress, Stalin gave the party a decisive battle, asking to be relieved of his duties as General Secretary. It didn’t work out, they didn’t let me go. Then Stalin came up with a combination that is easy to read: an obviously weak figure becomes the head of state, and the real head, the “gray cardinal,” is formally in a supporting role.

And so it happened: after Stalin’s death, the lack of initiative Malenkov became the first, but Beria was really in charge of politics. He not only carried out an amnesty. For example, he was responsible for a resolution condemning the forced Russification of Lithuania and Western Ukraine; he also proposed a beautiful solution to the “German” question: if Beria had remained in power, the Berlin Wall simply would not have existed.

Well, and along the way, he again took up the “normalization” of the NKVD, launching the process of rehabilitation, so that Khrushchev and the company then only had to jump on an already moving locomotive, pretending that they had been there from the very beginning.

It was later that they all said that they “disagreed” with Beria, that he “pressured” them. Then they said a lot of things. But in fact, they completely agreed with Beria’s initiatives.
But then something happened.

Calmly! This is a revolution!
A meeting of either the Presidium of the Central Committee or the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was scheduled for June 26 in the Kremlin. According to the official version, the military, led by Marshal Zhukov, came to see him, members of the Presidium called them into the office, and they arrested Beria. Then he was taken to a special bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District troops, an investigation was carried out and he was shot.
This version does not stand up to criticism. Why - it will take a long time to talk about this, but there are many obvious stretches and inconsistencies in it... Let's just say one thing: none of the outside, uninterested people saw Beria alive after June 26, 1953. The last thing he saw was his son Sergo - in the morning, at the dacha.

According to his recollections, his father was going to stop by a city apartment, then go to the Kremlin for a meeting of the Presidium. Around noon, Sergo received a call from his friend, pilot Amet-Khan, who said that there had been a shootout at Beria’s house and that his father, apparently, was no longer alive. Sergo, together with member of the Special Committee Vannikov, rushed to the address and managed to see broken windows, knocked out doors, a wall dotted with traces of bullets from a heavy machine gun.

Meanwhile, members of the Presidium gathered in the Kremlin. What happened there? Wading through the rubble of lies, bit by bit recreating what happened, we managed to roughly reconstruct the events. After Beria was dealt with, the perpetrators of this operation - presumably these were military men from Khrushchev's old, Ukrainian team, whom he dragged to Moscow, led by Moskalenko - went to the Kremlin.
At the same time, another group of military men arrived there. It was headed by Marshal Zhukov, and among its members was Colonel Brezhnev. Curious, isn't it? Then, presumably, everything unfolded like this. Among the putschists were at least two members of the Presidium - Khrushchev and Defense Minister Bulganin (Moskalenko and others always refer to them in their memoirs).

They confronted the rest of the government with a fact: Beria had been killed, something had to be done about it. The whole team inevitably found themselves in the same boat and began to hide their ends. Another thing is much more interesting: why was Beria killed?

The day before, he returned from a ten-day trip to Germany, met with Malenkov, and discussed with him the agenda for the meeting on June 26. Everything was amazing. If something happened, it happened in the last 24 hours. And, most likely, it was somehow connected with the upcoming meeting. True, there is an agenda, preserved in Malenkov’s archive. But most likely it's a linden tree. No information has been preserved about what the meeting was actually supposed to be devoted to.

It would seem... But there was one person who could know about this. Sergo Beria said in an interview that his father told him in the morning at the dacha that at the upcoming meeting he was going to demand from the Presidium a sanction for the arrest of the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev.

But now everything is clear! So it couldn't be clearer. The fact is that Ignatiev was in charge of Stalin’s security in the last year of his life. It was he who knew what happened at Stalin’s dacha on the night of March 1, 1953, when the leader had a stroke.
And something happened there, about which many years later the surviving guards continued to lie mediocrely and too obviously. And Beria, who kissed the hand of the dying Stalin, would have torn all his secrets from Ignatiev. And then he organized a political trial for the whole world against him and his accomplices, no matter what positions they held. This is just his style...

No, these same accomplices under no circumstances should have allowed Beria to arrest Ignatiev. But how do you keep it? All that remained was to kill - which was done... Well, and then they hid the ends. By order of Defense Minister Bulganin, a grandiose “Tank Show” was organized (equally ineptly repeated in 1991).

Khrushchev's lawyers, under the leadership of the new Prosecutor General Rudenko, also a native of
Ukraine, they staged the trial (dramatization is still a favorite pastime of the prosecutor's office). Then the memory of all the good things that Beria did was carefully erased, and vulgar tales about a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were put into use.
In terms of “black PR,” Khrushchev was talented. It seems that this was his only talent...

And he wasn’t a sex maniac either!
The idea of ​​​​presenting Beria as a sexual maniac was first voiced at the Plenum of the Central Committee in July 1953. Secretary of the Central Committee Shatalin, who, as he claimed, searched Beria’s office, found in the safe “a large number of objects of a libertine man.”
Then Beria's security guard, Sarkisov, spoke and spoke about his numerous relationships with women. Naturally, no one checked all this, but the gossip was started and went for a walk around the country. “Being a morally corrupt person, Beria cohabited with numerous women...” the investigators wrote in the “sentence.”

There is also a list of these women on file. There’s just one problem: it almost completely coincides with the list of women with whom General Vlasik, Stalin’s security chief, who was arrested a year earlier, was accused of cohabiting with them. Wow, how unlucky Lavrenty Pavlovich was. There were such opportunities, but the women came exclusively from under Vlasik!

And without laughing, it’s as simple as shelling pears: they took a list from Vlasik’s case and added it to the “Beria case.” Who will check? Nina Beria many years later, in one of her interviews, said a very simple phrase: “It’s an amazing thing: Lavrenty was busy day and night with work when he had to deal with a legion of these women!”

Drive along the streets, take them to country villas, and even to your home, where there was a Georgian wife and a son and his family lived. However, when it comes to denigrating a dangerous enemy, who cares what really happened?

Elena Prudnikova
The opinion of the editors may not coincide with the point of view of the authors of publications.


Article on the topic:
Lavrentiy Beria: Devilish love

10 facts from life

March 29 marks the 108th anniversary of the birth of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, a man about whom legends have been created and destroyed to this day. Without a doubt, he was an extraordinary person: this man amazingly combined cruelty, passion, vanity, tenderness and intelligence. Recently, more and more declassified documents and memoirs have appeared, which create a very contradictory portrait.

Does a person's name determine his fate? In the case of Lavrenty Beria, this assumption could be a coincidence, but... The name "Vegea" translated from Hebrew means "son of misfortune"; According to historical data, this name was given to a Syrian city located between Antioch and Hieropolis.

“He did not believe in God,” recalls Beria’s “last love” Nina Alekseeva. “He did not wear a cross. But he believed in psychics. He admired the then famous hypnotist Wolf Messing, with whom he was well acquainted. He told some story: how a hypnotist on The People's Commissar's amusement put all the guards to sleep in a few minutes."

American historian Kurt Singer believes that after the failure of the underground organization in Baku (1917), Beria fled to Albania, where he met Joseph Broz Tito. From there he returned to Russia to participate in the October Revolution. Under the name of Karapet Abamlyan, he commanded five hundred former Austrian prisoners of war: from among them he recruited the first intelligence officers of Soviet Russia. In 1920, Beria worked in Prague as an employee of the Ukrainian Embassy. There he organized a counterintelligence network that covered almost the entire European continent. Then he returned to Georgia, from where, after the suppression of the 1924 uprising, he again went abroad, this time to Paris, where he worked under the diplomatic “roof”. He was seen on the Champs Elysees, where he introduced himself as Colonel Enonlidze.

Many who knew this man personally noted that he had an incredibly subtle “sense of beauty.” Was Beria guided by him when in 1921 he kidnapped the daughter of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori Nina, whom he then cut her hair and kept locked up until she agreed to marry him. At the same time, as researchers write, Beria was very loving: he is credited with relationships with more than two hundred women.

All “atypical” actions for Beria are now explained quite clearly, however, the fact is a fact: it was on his initiative that an amnesty was held on March 28, 1953, according to which 1.2 million prisoners were released; 400 thousand investigative cases were closed. The passport regime has been relaxed. The Gulag was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice.

Beria raised the question of limiting (swinging at the holy of holies) party power, entrusting it only with ideological and propaganda tasks. In addition, he proposed depriving a special meeting of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - MGB of the right to pass a verdict without trial on capital punishment and imprisonment for 25 years.

Beria loved to give weapons. In October 1929, he sent Nestor Lakoba a pistol, accompanying the gift with a note: “Dear Nestor! I am sending you my revolver and two hundred and fifty cartridges. Don’t let its appearance bother you - it’s a prize revolver. Greetings, your Lavrentiy.”

Nami Mikoyan, daughter-in-law of A.I. Mikoyan, recalled that “on Sundays, Beria loved to gather his fellow neighbors - and play volleyball! Having played enough, the men gathered at Beria’s for tea, the windows were open, and their noisy voices and loud conversations could be heard from afar.. "Beria was also interested in photography. At his dacha, where we often visited, he took a photograph of me too."

Mark Perelman in the article “Lavrentiy Beria - the way to the top” wrote: “In the early 30s, the Vremya publishing house published the collected works of S. Zweig in 12 small volumes, one of which was “Joseph Fouche,” a psychologically subtly analyzed biography of the brilliant associate and Napoleon’s rival, who suppressed the partisan movement in the Vendée, etc. My aunt read it and immediately gave it to Beria: “Lavrenty,” she said, “well, it’s all as if it was all copied from you! Make sure [you] don’t end up like this.”

Lavrentiy Pavlovich read the book, did not return it, of course, and... this volume by Zweig was banned and removed from libraries."

His arrest is shrouded in mystery. However, researchers cite the following fact: “the day before his arrest, Beria submitted a note to the Presidium of the Central Committee addressed to Malenkov about the organization of the Leningrad process, about the role of the Secretary of the Central Committee Ignatiev in carrying out punitive actions. Malenkov knew perfectly well that Ignatiev was his right hand "If they hit this right hand, then Malenkov got it. The next day, Beria was arrested."

Enthusiasts say that now in Moscow there is a place where curious people can look at... the ghost of Lavrentiy Beria's car. Allegedly at night, from the direction of the Garden Ring, the sound of a driving car and a small luminous point are approaching the house where Beria used to live. At the same time, the sound effect is absolutely repeating the sound of a limousine engine of the first half of the twentieth century. At the house where Beria once lived, and now the Tunisian embassy is located, a ghost car stops, a man can be heard getting out of it and talking about something with an invisible guard, then the car drives off to return here the next night.

The material was prepared by the online editors of www.rian.ru based on information from the RIA Novosti Agency and other sources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lavrentiy Beria (March 17 (29), 1899 – December 23, 1953) was born in Merkheuli, near Sukhumi (Georgia) and belonged to the Mingrelians. His mother, Marta Jakeli, was related to the local princely family Dadiani, and his father, Pavel Beria, was a landowner from Abkhazia.

In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich served in the counterintelligence of the Azerbaijani government Musavatists, hostile to the Soviet republic. He himself later claimed that he infiltrated there on instructions from the party. Bolsheviks, but it is unknown how true this version is. Having ended up in prison for a while, Beria struck up a relationship there with the niece of his cellmate, the aristocrat Nina Gegechkori, whose relatives occupied high positions in Menshevik government of Georgia, and among the Bolsheviks. Apparently, thanks to these patronages, Beria after the capture Red Army Azerbaijan managed to advance in Cheka. In August 1920, he became the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and in October - secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improvement of the living conditions of workers, where he was soon accused of falsifying criminal cases, but got out of it due to intercession A. Mikoyan.

Beria in his youth. Photo from the 1920s

When the Bolsheviks put an end to the existence of independent Georgia, Beria moved from Baku to Tiflis, becoming deputy head of the Georgian GPU(successor to the Cheka). In 1924 he played a prominent role in the brutal suppression uprising raised by Georgians.

In December 1926, Beria became chairman of the GPU of Georgia, and in April 1927, the Georgian People's Commissar of Internal Affairs. Together with S. Ordzhonikidze, he supported a common fellow countryman - Stalin - in his rivalry with Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev. With the help of cynical intrigues, Beria ousted his main competitor, Stalin’s brother-in-law, from the Caucasus to Belarus S. Redensa, after which in November 1931 he was appointed head of the Communist Party of Georgia, in October 1932 - of the entire Transcaucasus, and in XVII Party Congress(February 1934) - elected member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

At the same congress, the influential party guard made attempts to remove Stalin and replace him S. Kirov. Behind the scenes efforts in favor of this were carried out throughout 1934. Ordzhonikidze was also inclined to side with Kirov, who, however, was unable to attend the very important November plenum of the Central Committee due to a sudden illness that befell him immediately after dinner in Baku with Beria.

Lavrenty Pavlovich strengthened his position in Stalin’s entourage with the publication (1935) of the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia,” written on his behalf. It inflated in every possible way the role of Stalin in the revolutionary movement. “To my dear and beloved Master, the great Stalin!” – Beria signed the gift copy.

Started after Kirov's assassination Great Terror Stalin was also active in Transcaucasia - under the leadership of Beria. Here, Agasi Khanjyan, the first secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia, committed suicide or was killed (they say, even personally by Beria). In December 1936, after dinner with Lavrenty Pavlovich, he suddenly died Nestor Lakoba, the head of Soviet Abkhazia, who before his death openly called Lavrentiy his murderer. By order of Beria, Lakoba’s body was then dug out of the grave and destroyed. S. Ordzhonikidze’s brother Papulia was arrested, and the other (Valiko) was dismissed from his position.

Having decided to reduce the scale of terror, which was already threatening the collapse of the economy and the state, Stalin decided to displace and destroy its main conductor - the head NKVD Yezhova. Beria, transferred from the Caucasus to Moscow in August 1938, became Yezhov’s deputy, and in November replaced him as All-Union People’s Commissar. At first, Beria released 100 thousand people from the camps, recognizing them as victims of false accusations, but this liberalization was only short-term and relative. Lavrentiy Pavlovich soon led the bloody “purges” in the Baltic republics that had just been annexed to the USSR, and organized Trotsky's assassination in Mexico, in a note to Stalin No. 794/B, he recommended the destruction of Polish prisoners captured after the practical implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact (this was accomplished by Katyn massacre).

Beria with Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva on his lap. In the background - Stalin

In 1941, Beria received the rank of General Commissar of State Security, equivalent to Marshal of the Soviet Union. After the start Great Patriotic War Lavrenty Pavlovich joined the State Defense Committee ( GKO). During the war years he transferred millions of prisoners Gulag to the army and military production. Their slave labor was widely used in the production of weapons.

In 1944 Beria led evictions of nationalities of the USSR who collaborated with the Nazis or were suspected of it (Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Pontic Greeks and Volga Germans). Since the end of the same year, he led the work on creating Soviet atomic bomb. Research “sharashkas” were formed from groups of arrested scientists. Tens of thousands of Gulag prisoners were sent to work in uranium mines and to build nuclear testing sites. The creation of the atomic bomb was completed in five years and thanks to Soviet espionage in the West conducted by Beria's NKVD.

In the post-war years, the struggle for the inheritance of the aging Stalin quickly intensified among the Soviet elite. Even during the war, an alliance between Beria and Malenkov. He was opposed by a bloc headed by A. Zhdanov and relying on the party leadership of Leningrad. With the support of Stalin himself, opponents ousted Beria from the post of head of the NKVD (December 30, 1945). In the summer of 1946, Beria's protege V. Merkulov was replaced at the head of another important punitive agency - the MGB - by a much more independent V. Abakumov. Having received the title of member of the Politburo as some “compensation”, Beria retained only the leadership of foreign intelligence (where he greatly contributed to helping the communists Mao Zedong in their fight with Kuomintang Chiang Kai-shek). Was destroyed (October 1946) Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, created during the war by the hands of Beria, who, according to some information, supported the old Bolshevik idea transfers to the Jews of Crimea as an “autonomous republic”.

However, in August 1948, A. Zhdanov died under rather mysterious circumstances, and from the beginning of the next year a terrible persecution began against his supporters - “ Leningrad case" This ferocious campaign was led by Beria's ally, Malenkov. However, Abakumov, hostile to Beria, simultaneously launched a series of purges accompanied by executions against the leaders of Eastern European countries dependent on the USSR. Beria sought an alliance with Israel to impose Soviet influence in the Middle East, but other Kremlin leaders decided instead to establish an anti-Israeli partnership with the Arabs. Among the Eastern European leaders, it was primarily the Jews who were “cleaned out,” whose percentage in the local leadership was many times greater than their share in the population. Partly continuing Zhdanov’s previous line of struggle against “rootless cosmopolitanism,” Abakumov’s successor, S. Ignatiev, in January 1953 opened the largest anti-Jewish action in the Soviet Union - “ The Doctors' Case».

In the midst of all these events, on March 5, 1953, unexpectedly Stalin died. The version of his poisoning by Beria with the help of warfarin has received a lot of indirect confirmation in recent years. Summoned to the Kuntsevskaya dacha to see the stricken leader, Beria and Malenkov, on the morning of March 2, convinced the guards that “Comrade Stalin was simply sleeping” after a feast (in a puddle of urine), and ordered “not to disturb him” and “to stop panicking.” The call to the doctors was delayed for 12 hours, although the paralyzed Stalin was unconscious. All these orders, however, were tacitly supported by the other members Politburo. According to the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, S. Alliluyeva, after the death of her father, Beria was the only one of those gathered at the body who did not even try to hide his joy.

Lavrenty Beria in the last years of his life

Beria was now appointed first deputy head of government and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which he immediately merged with the MGB. His close ally Malenkov became head of government. Khrushchev headed the party, and Voroshilov took the post of chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council (head of state). A power struggle immediately began between all these “comrades-in-arms.” At first, Beria’s position in it seemed perhaps the strongest, but the arrogance and power of Lavrenty Pavlovich pushed everyone else to unite against him. Even Malenkov recoiled from Beria. Rivals did not like Laurentius's risky foreign policy initiatives. Believing that the USSR was too weakened by the war, Beria hinted: in exchange for financial assistance from the United States, it would be reasonable to renounce hegemony over East Germany, return Moldova to Romania, the Kuril Islands to Japan, and even restore the independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The conspiracy against Beria was led by Khrushchev. Having convened the Presidium of the Central Committee on June 26, 1953 (as the Politburo was now called), he suddenly declared the stunned enemy there a “paid agent of Western intelligence services.” In order to prevent state security forces loyal to Beria from coming to the aid of their boss, Marshal Zhukov and the Minister of Defense participated in the conspiracy Bulganin They called the Kantemirovskaya tank division and the Tamanskaya motorized rifle division to Moscow. Beria was arrested right during the meeting of the Presidium. At the same time, other prominent punitive authorities were also captured.

By the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR on December 23, 1953 (presided by Marshal Koneva) Beria and his supporters were sentenced to death. When the verdict was read, Lavrenty Pavlovich begged for mercy on his knees, and then fell to the floor and sobbed desperately. During the execution, this recent all-powerful and ruthless arbiter of human destinies screamed so loudly that they had to stuff a towel into his mouth. Beria's executioner was General Batitsky, who hated him.