Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (born March 17 (29), 1899 - death December 23, 1953) - Soviet statesman and party leader, ally of I.V. Stalin, one of the initiators mass repression.

Origin. Education

Lavrenty was born in the village of Merheuli near Sukhumi into a poor peasant family.

1915 - Beria graduated from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, and in 1917 from the Secondary Mechanical Construction School in Baku with a degree in Architectural Technician. Lavrenty always excelled in his studies, and the exact sciences were especially easy for him. There is information that 2 standard buildings on Gagarin Square in Moscow were erected according to his design.

Beginning of a political career

1919 - he joins the Bolshevik Party. True, the data about this period of his life are very contradictory. According to official documents, Lavrenty Pavlovich joined the party back in 1917 and served as a trainee technician in the army on the Romanian front. According to other sources, he avoided service by obtaining a disability certificate for a bribe, and joined the party in 1919. There is also evidence that in 1918 - 1919. Beria worked simultaneously for 4 intelligence services: Soviet, British, Turkish and Musavat. But it is not clear whether he was a double agent on instructions from the Cheka or whether he was actually trying to sit on 4 chairs at once.

Work in Azerbaijan and Georgia

In the 1920s Beria holds a number of responsible positions in the Cheka GPU (Extraordinary Commission of the Main Political Directorate). He was appointed deputy head of the Cheka of Georgia, from August to October 1920 he worked as the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan (Bolsheviks), from October 1920 to February 1921 he served as the executive secretary of the Cheka for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improving the living conditions of workers in Baku. Over the next year, he became deputy chief, and then head of the secret political department and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka. 1922 - Receives appointment to the post of head of the secret operational unit and deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka.

1924 - an uprising broke out in Georgia, in the suppression of which Lavrenty Pavlovich took part. Dissenters were brutally dealt with, more than 5 thousand people were killed, and Beria was soon awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Lavrenty Beria and Joseph Stalin

Meeting with Stalin

He first met the leader somewhere in 1929-1930. Stalin was then treated in Tskhaltubo, and Lavrentiy provided his security. Since 1931, Beria joined Stalin’s inner circle and in the same year he was appointed first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) and secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee.

1933, summer - the “father of all nations” was on vacation in Abkhazia. There was an attempt on his life. Stalin was saved by Beria, covering him with himself. True, the attacker was killed on the spot and there are many ambiguities left in this story. Nevertheless, Stalin could not help but appreciate Lavrenty Pavlovich’s dedication.

In Transcaucasia

1934 - Beria became a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and in 1935 he made a very cunning and prudent move - by publishing the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia,” in which the theory of “two leaders” was substantiated and developed. Cleverly juggling the facts, he argued that Lenin and Stalin at the same time and independently of each other created two centers of the Communist Party. Lenin stood at the head of the party in St. Petersburg, and Stalin in Transcaucasia.

Stalin himself tried to implement this idea back in 1924, but at that time the authority of L.D. was still strong. Trotsky, and Stalin did not have much weight in the party. The theory of “two leaders” then remained a theory. Her time came in the 1930s.

Stalin’s Great Terror, which began after the murder of Kirov, actively took place 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). 1936, December - after dinner at Lavrenty Pavlovich's, Nestor Lakoba, the head of Soviet Abkhazia, who before his death openly called Beria his murderer, unexpectedly died. By order of Lavrenty, Lakoba’s body was later dug out of the grave and destroyed. S. Ordzhonikidze’s brother Papulia was arrested, and the other (Valiko) was dismissed from his post.

Beria with Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. In the background is Stalin

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs

1938 - the first wave of repressions carried out by the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N.I. ended. Yezhov. A puppet in the hands of the “father of all nations”, he played the role assigned to him and now became unnecessary, and therefore Stalin decided to replace Yezhov with the smarter and cunning Beria, who personally collected dirt on his predecessor. Yezhov was shot. They immediately carried out a purge of the ranks of the NKVD: Lavrentiy got rid of Yezhov’s henchmen, replacing them with his own people.

1939 - 223,600 people were released from the camps, 103,800 from the colonies. But this amnesty was nothing more than a demonstration, a temporary relief before the next, even bloodier wave of repression. More arrests and executions soon followed. Almost immediately, more than 200 thousand people were arrested. The ostentatious nature of the amnesties was also confirmed by the fact that back in January 1939, the leader signed a decree authorizing the use of torture and beatings against those arrested.

Before the Great Patriotic War, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria supervised foreign intelligence agencies. He ignored numerous reports from Soviet intelligence officers that he was preparing to attack the Soviet Union. He could hardly fail to understand the seriousness of the threat, but he knew that Stalin simply did not want to believe in the possibility of war and would rather consider intelligence reports to be misinformation than admit his own mistakes and incompetence. Beria reported to Stalin what he wanted to hear from him.

In a memo to the leader dated June 21, 1941, Lavrentiy wrote: “I again insist on the recall and punishment of our ambassador in Berlin, Dekanozov, who continues to bombard me with “disinformation” about Hitler’s allegedly preparing an attack on the USSR. He reports that this attack will begin tomorrow... Major General V.I. also radioed the same. Dead ends.<…>But I and my people, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise destiny: in 1941 Hitler will not attack us!..” The next day the war began.

During the Great Patriotic War Lavrenty Pavlovich continued to hold leadership positions. He organized Smersh detachments and NKVD barrage detachments, which had orders to shoot at those retreating and surrendering. He was also responsible for public executions at the front and in the rear.

1945 - Beria was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, and from 1946 he was assigned to oversee the top-secret First Main Directorate - the group of I.V. Kurchatov, which was developing the atomic bomb.

Until the early 1950s, Beria continued to carry out mass repressions. But by that time, the painfully suspicious Stalin began to doubt the loyalty of his henchman. 1948 - Minister of State Security of Georgia N.M. Rukhadze was entrusted with collecting incriminating evidence against Beria, and many of his proteges were arrested. Beria himself was ordered to be searched before his meetings with Stalin.

Sensing danger, Lavrenty made a preemptive move: he provided the leader with incriminating evidence on his faithful assistants, the chief of security N.S. Vlasik and secretary A.N. Poskrebysheva. 20 years of impeccable service could not save them: Stalin put his henchmen on trial.

Death of Stalin

1953, March 5 - Stalin died unexpectedly. The version about his poisoning by Beria with the help of warfarin received in Lately there is a lot of indirect evidence. Summoned to the Kuntsevskaya dacha to see the struck leader on the morning of March 2, Beria and Malenkov convinced the guards that “Comrade Stalin was simply sleeping” after a feast (in a puddle of urine), and convincingly advised “not to disturb him”, “to stop alarmism.”

The call for doctors was delayed for 12 hours, although the paralyzed Stalin was unconscious. True, all these orders were tacitly supported by the remaining members of the Politburo. From the memoirs of Stalin's daughter, S. Alliluyeva, after the death of her father, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was the only one present who did not even try to hide his joy.

Personal life

Lavrenty Pavlovich and women are a separate topic that requires serious study. Officially, L.P. Beria was married to Nina Teimurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991) 1924 - they had a son, Sergo, named after the prominent political figure Sergo Ordzhonikidze. All her life, Nina Teymurazovna was a faithful and devoted companion to her husband. Despite his betrayals, this woman was able to maintain the honor and dignity of the family. Of course, Lawrence and his women with whom he had intimate relationships gave rise to many rumors and secrets. According to the testimony of Beria's personal guard, their boss was very popular with women. One can only guess whether these were mutual feelings or not.

Beria and Malenkov (in the foreground)

Kremlin rapist

Rumors circulated throughout Moscow about how the Lubyanka marshal personally organized a hunt for Moscow schoolgirls, how he took the unfortunate victims to his gloomy mansion and raped them there until they lost consciousness. There were even “witnesses” who allegedly personally observed Beria’s actions in bed.

When Beria is interrogated after his arrest, he admits that he had physical relations with 62 women, and also suffered from syphilis in 1943. This happened after the rape of a 7th grade student. According to him, he has an illegitimate child from her. There are many confirmed facts of his sexual harassment. Young girls from schools near Moscow were kidnapped more than once. When the all-powerful official noticed beautiful girl, his assistant Colonel Sarkisov approached her. Showing his ID as an NKVD officer, he ordered us to go with him.

Often these girls were brought to soundproof interrogation rooms on Lubyanka or in the basement of a house on Kachalova Street. Sometimes, before raping girls, Beria used sadistic methods. Among high-ranking government officials, Beria enjoyed a reputation as a sexual predator. He kept a list of his sexual victims in a special notebook. According to the minister's domestic servant, the number of victims of the sexual predator exceeded 760 people.

When searching him personal account Women's toiletries were found in armored safes. According to the inventory compiled by members of the military tribunal, the following were discovered: women's silk slips, ladies' tights, children's dresses and other women's accessories. Letters containing love confessions were kept with state documents. This personal correspondence was vulgar in nature.

Beria's abandoned dacha in the Moscow region

Arrest. Execution

After the death of the leader, he continued to increase his influence, apparently intending to become the first person in the state.

Fearing this, Khrushchev led a secret campaign to remove Beria, in which he involved all members of the senior Soviet leadership. On June 26, Beria was invited to a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and was arrested there.

The investigation into the case of the former People's Commissar and Minister lasted six months. Six of his subordinates were tried together with Beria. In prison, Lavrenty Pavlovich was nervous, he wrote notes to Malenkov with reproaches and a request for a personal meeting.

In the verdict, the judges found nothing better than to declare Beria a foreign spy (although they did not forget to mention other crimes) who acted in favor of England and Yugoslavia.

After the verdict (death penalty) was pronounced, the former People's Commissar was in an excited state for some time. However, he later calmed down and behaved quite calmly on the day of the execution. He probably finally realized that the game was lost and accepted defeat.

Beria's house in Moscow

He was executed on December 23, 1953 in the same bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters where he was located after his arrest. Present at the execution were Marshal Konev, the commander of the Moscow Military District, General Moskalenko, the first deputy commander of the air defense forces, Batitsky, Lieutenant Colonel Yuferev, the head of the political department of the Moscow Military District, Colonel Zub, and a number of other military men involved in the arrest and protection of the former People's Commissar.

First, they took off Beria’s tunic, leaving a white undershirt, then they tied his hands behind him with a rope.

The military looked at each other. It was necessary to decide who exactly would shoot Beria. Moskalenko turned to Yuferov:

“You are our youngest, you shoot well. Let's".

Pavel Batitsky stepped forward, taking out a parabellum.

“Comrade Commander, allow me. With this thing I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.”

Rudenko hurried:

“I ask you to carry out the sentence.”

Batitsky took aim, Beria raised his head and a second later went limp. The bullet hit right in the forehead. The rope prevented the body from falling.

The corpse of Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich was burned in the crematorium.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria(1899 - December 23, 1953) - Soviet statesman and politician, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (since 1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (since 1943).

Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946-1953), First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1953). Member of the USSR State Defense Committee (1941-1944), deputy chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee (1944-1945). Member of the USSR Central Executive Committee of the 7th convocation, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations. Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1934-1953), candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939-1946), member of the Politburo (1946-1953). He was part of J.V. Stalin's inner circle. He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology.

After Stalin's death, in June 1953, L.P. Beria was arrested on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power. Executed by the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR in December 1953.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Lavrentiy Beria was born in 1899 in the village of Merheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi General Government, into a poor peasant family. Now the village is part of the Gulrypshsky district of Abkhazia. His mother, Marta Jakeli (1868-1955), a Mingrelian, according to Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, was in some distant relationship with the princely family of Dadiani. On his mother’s side, his second cousin was Paval Rafalovich Bermond Avalov (Prince Avalishvili). After the death of her first husband, Martha was left with a son and two daughters in her arms. According to some information, the youngest of the children could be the child of a local nobleman Lakerbay, where Martha worked as a servant after the death of her husband. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha’s first marriage were taken in by her brother, Dmitry.

Lawrence's father, Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merheuli from Megrelia, where he participated in some kind of uprising. Martha and Pavel had three children in their family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2 from smallpox, and the daughter remained deaf and dumb after the illness. Noticing Lavrenty's good abilities, his parents tried to give him a good education- at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. To pay for studies and living expenses, parents had to sell half of their house.

In 1915, Beria, having graduated from college with honors, left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School. From the age of 17, he supported his mother and sister, who moved in with him.

Since 1915, he was a member of an illegal Marxist circle. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP (b). In June - December 1917, as a technician in a hydraulic engineering detachment, he went to the Romanian Front, was discharged due to illness and returned to Baku, where from February 1918 he worked in the city organization of the Bolsheviks and the secretariat of the Baku Council of Workers' Deputies. After the defeat of the Baku Commune and the capture of Baku by Turkish-Azerbaijani troops (September 1918), he remained in the city and participated in the work of the underground Bolshevik organization until the establishment Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920). While working as an intern at the main office of the Nobel oil company, he simultaneously continued his studies at the school. He graduated from it in 1919, receiving a diploma as a construction technician-architect.

In the fall of 1919, on the instructions of the leader of the Baku Bolshevik underground, A. Mikoyan, he became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution (counterintelligence) under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. During this period, he established close relations with Zinaida Krems (von Krems (Kreps)), who had connections with German military intelligence. In his autobiography, dated October 22, 1923, Beria wrote:

Beria did not hide his work in counterintelligence of the ADR - for example, in a letter to G.K. Ordzhonikidze in 1933, he wrote that “he was sent to Musavat intelligence ... by the party and that this issue was examined by the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (b) in 1920.” , that the Central Committee of the AKP(b) “completely rehabilitated” him, since “the fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by the statements of comrade. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others.”

In April 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was sent to work illegally in the Georgian Democratic Republic as an authorized representative of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. Almost immediately he was arrested in Tiflis and released with an order to leave Georgia within three days. In his autobiography, Beria wrote:

Later, participating in the preparation of an armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, he was exposed by local counterintelligence, arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison, then deported to Azerbaijan. He writes about this:

In the state security agencies of Azerbaijan and Georgia

Returning to Baku, Beria entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study. In August 1920, he became the manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and in October of the same year, he became the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improvement of the living conditions of workers, working in this position until February 1921. In April 1921, he was appointed deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the Azerbaijan SSR, and in May he took the positions of head of the secret operations department and deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka.

In 1921, Beria was sharply criticized by the party and security service leadership of Azerbaijan for exceeding his powers and falsifying criminal cases, but escaped serious punishment.

In 1922, he participated in the defeat of the Muslim organization “Ittihad” and the liquidation of the Transcaucasian organization of right-wing Social Revolutionaries.

In November 1922, Beria was transferred to Tiflis, where he was appointed head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Cheka under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, later transformed into the Georgian GPU (State Political Administration).

In July 1923, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Republic by the Central Executive Committee of Georgia. In 1924, he participated in the suppression of the Menshevik uprising and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.

On December 2, 1926, Lavrentiy Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR, deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the TSFSR and deputy chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the TSFSR. At the same time, from December 1926 to April 17, 1931, he was the head of the Secret Operational Directorate of the Plenipotentiary Representation of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the Trans-SFSR and the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Trans-SFSR.

At the same time, from April 1927 to December 1930 - People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. His first meeting with Stalin apparently dates back to this period.

On June 6, 1930, by a resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the Georgian SSR, Lavrentiy Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia. On April 17, 1931, he took the positions of Chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the ZSFSR, the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR in the ZSFSR, and the head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army. At the same time, from August 18 to December 3, he was a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.

At party work in Transcaucasia

On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recommended L.P. Beria for the post of second secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, on November 14 he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks), and on October 17, 1932 - the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee while retaining the post of first secretary The Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Armenia and Azerbaijan. He headed the Transcaucasian Regional Committee until 1936, when the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic was divided into three independent republics.

On March 10, 1933, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks included Beria in the distribution list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - minutes of meetings of the Politburo, Organizing Bureau, and Secretariat of the Central Committee. In 1934, at the XVII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, he was elected a member of the Central Committee.

On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was included in the commission chaired by L. M. Kaganovich, created to develop a draft Regulation on the NKVD of the USSR and the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR

In December 1934, he attended a reception with Stalin in honor of his 55th birthday. At the beginning of March 1935, he was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and its presidium. On March 17, 1935 he was awarded the Order of Lenin. In May 1937, he concurrently headed the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) (he held this position until August 31, 1938).

During the leadership of L.P. Beria, the national economy of the region developed rapidly. Beria made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry in Transcaucasia; under him, many large industrial facilities were commissioned (Zemo-Avchala hydroelectric station, etc.). Georgia was transformed into an all-Union resort area. By 1940 the volume industrial production in Georgia increased 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural - 2.5 times with a fundamental change in the structure Agriculture towards highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone. High purchasing prices were set for agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.), and the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.

In 1935 he published the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia,” which was declared the most important work on the history of the party.

In September 1937, together with G.M. Malenkov and A.I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a “cleansing” of the party organization of Armenia. The “Great Purge” also took place in Georgia, where many party and government workers were repressed. Here the so-called a conspiracy among the party leadership of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, whose participants allegedly planned the secession of Transcaucasia from the USSR and transition to the protectorate of Great Britain.

In the NKVD of the USSR

Since January 17, 1938, Beria has been a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. On August 22 of the same year, he was appointed First Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Ezhov, and on September 8 - Head of the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. On September 11, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank, and on September 29 he took the position of head of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR. On November 25, 1938, he was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

With the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions decreased. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand. Moreover, in 1939-1940 they were released from prison and rehabilitated, according to one source 837 thousand people, according to others - 223.8 thousand camp prisoners, and 103.8 thousand exiles.

L. Beria organized the execution of Polish prisoners and the deportation of their relatives in 1940, while sources claim that the deportations in Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were directed primarily against a part of the Polish population hostile to the Soviet regime and nationalist-minded.

Since March 22, 1939 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). On January 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of General Commissioner of State Security. On February 3, 1941, he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he oversaw the work of the NKVD, NKGB, people's commissariats of the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and river fleet.

The Great Patriotic War

During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO). All power in the country was concentrated in the hands of the State Defense Committee. By the Decree of the State Defense Committee of February 4, 1942 on the distribution of responsibilities among members of the State Defense Committee, L.P. Beria was assigned responsibilities for monitoring the implementation of State Defense Committee decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as monitoring the implementation of State Defense Committee decisions on the work of the Red Army Air Force (formation of air regiments, their timely transfer to the front, etc.). By decree of the State Defense Committee of December 8, 1942, L.P. Beria was appointed a member of the most important division of the State Defense Committee - the Operational Bureau of the State Defense Committee. By the same decree, L.P. Beria was additionally assigned responsibilities for monitoring and monitoring the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and the People's Commissariat of Railways. In May 1944, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee and chairman of the Operations Bureau. The tasks of the Operations Bureau included, in particular, control and monitoring of the work of all People's Commissariats of the defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper and pulp, electrical industries, and power plants.

Beria also served as permanent adviser to the Headquarters of the Main Command of the USSR Armed Forces.

During the war years, he carried out important assignments of the country's leadership and the ruling party, both related to the management of the national economy and at the front. Oversaw the production of aircraft and rocketry.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 30, 1943, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor “for special merits in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions.”

During the war, L.P. Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) (July 15, 1942), the Order of the Republic (Tuva) (August 18, 1943), the Hammer and Sickle medal (September 30, 1943), two Orders of Lenin (30 September 1943, February 21, 1945), Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).

Start of work on the nuclear project

On February 11, 1943, J.V. Stalin signed the decision of the State Defense Committee on the work program for the creation of an atomic bomb under the leadership of V.M. Molotov. But already in the decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR on the laboratory of I.V. Kurchatov, adopted on December 3, 1944, it was L.P. Beria who was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium,” that is, approximately a year and ten months after their supposed start, which was difficult during the war.

Deportation of peoples

During the Great Patriotic War, peoples were deported from their places of compact residence. Representatives of peoples whose countries were part of Hitler's coalition (Hungarians, Bulgarians, many Finns) were also deported. The official reason for the deportation was mass desertion, collaboration and active anti-Soviet armed struggle of a significant part of these peoples during the Great Patriotic War.

On January 29, 1944, Lavrentiy Beria approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” and on February 21, he issued an order to the NKVD on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush. On February 20, together with I. A. Serov, B. Z. Kobulov and S. S. Mamulov, Beria arrived in Grozny and personally led the operation, which involved up to 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH, and also about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops, drawn from all over the country to participate in “exercises in the mountainous areas.” On February 22, he met with the leadership of the republic and senior spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and offered to carry out the necessary work among the population, and the eviction operation began the next morning. On February 24, Beria reported to Stalin: “The eviction is proceeding normally... Of those scheduled for removal in connection with the operation, 842 people were arrested.”. On the same day, Beria suggested that Stalin evict the Balkars, and on February 26, he issued an order to the NKVD “On measures to evict the Balkar population from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” The day before, Beria, Serov and Kobulov held a meeting with the secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional party committee Zuber Kumekhov, during which it was planned to visit the Elbrus region in early March. On March 2, Beria, accompanied by Kobulov and Mamulov, traveled to the Elbrus region, informing Kumekhov of his intention to evict the Balkars and transfer their lands to Georgia so that it could have a defensive line on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. On March 5, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the eviction from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and on March 8-9, the operation began. On March 11, Beria reported to Stalin that “37,103 Balkars were evicted”, and on March 14 reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Another major action was the deportation of Meskhetian Turks, as well as Kurds and Hemshins living in the areas bordering Turkey. On July 24, Beria addressed I. Stalin with a letter (No. 7896). He wrote:

He noted that “The NKVD of the USSR considers it expedient to resettle from the Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, Adigeni, Aspindza, Bogdanovsky districts, some village councils of the Adjara Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic - 16,700 farms of Turks, Kurds, Hemshins”. On July 31, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution (No. 6279, “top secret”) on the eviction of 45,516 Meskhetian Turks from the Georgian SSR to the Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Uzbek SSRs, as noted in the documents of the Special Settlements Department of the NKVD of the USSR.

The liberation of the regions from the German occupiers also required new actions against the families of German collaborators, traitors and traitors to the Motherland, who voluntarily left with the Germans. On August 24, an order from the NKVD followed, signed by Beria, “On the eviction from the cities of the Caucasian Mining Group resorts of the families of active German collaborators, traitors and traitors to the Motherland who voluntarily left with the Germans.” On December 2, Beria addressed Stalin with the following letter:

“In connection with the successful completion of the operation to evict from the border regions of the Georgian SSR to the regions of the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz SSR 91,095 people - Turks, Kurds, Hemshins, the NKVD of the USSR requests to award orders and medals USSR The most distinguished employees of the NKVD-NKGB and military personnel of the NKVD troops during the operation.”

Post-war years

Supervision of the USSR nuclear project

After the first American atomic device was tested in the desert near Alamogordo, work in the USSR to create its own nuclear weapons was significantly accelerated.

The Special Committee was created based on the GKO resolution of August 20, 1945. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (then removed due to disagreements with L.P. Beria, formally based on personal hostility), V.A. Makhnev, M.G. Pervukhin. The Committee was entrusted with “the management of all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium.” Later it was transformed into a Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. L.P. Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he provided general management of the entire project. In March 1953, the Special Committee was entrusted with the management of other special works of defense significance. Based on the decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee of June 26, 1953 (the day of the arrest and removal of L.P. Beria), the Special Committee was liquidated, and its apparatus was transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR.

On August 29, 1949, the atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site. On October 29, 1949, L.P. Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, “for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the testing of atomic weapons.” L.P. Beria was also awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the USSR.

The test of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb, the development of which was supervised by G. M. Malenkov, took place on August 12, 1953, shortly after the arrest of L. P. Beria.

Career

On July 9, 1945, when special state security ranks were replaced with military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

On September 6, 1945, the Operations Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was formed, and L.P. Beria was appointed its chairman. The tasks of the SNK Operations Bureau included work issues industrial enterprises and railway transport.

Since March 1946, Beria has been one of the “seven” members of the Politburo, which included I.V. Stalin and six people close to him. This “inner circle” covered the most important issues of public administration, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, weapons, functioning armed forces. On March 18, he became a member of the Politburo, and the next day he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he oversaw the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of State Control.

In March 1949 - July 1951, there was a sharp strengthening of L.P. Beria's position in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the work on which L.P. Beria supervised.

After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, which took place in October 1952, L. P. Beria was included in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, which replaced the former Politburo, in the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and in the “leading five” of the Presidium created at the suggestion of J. V. Stalin.

Former USSR MGB investigator Nikolai Mesyatsev, who conducted an audit of the “doctors’ case,” claimed that Stalin suspected Beria of patronizing the arrested ex-Minister of State Security Viktor Abakumov, who was accused of falsifying criminal cases.

Death of Stalin. Power struggle

On March 5, 1953, a Joint meeting of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR took place. At this meeting, L.P. Beria, on behalf of the Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, proposed electing G.M. Malenkov to the post of chairman of the Soviet government. This proposal was unanimously supported by the meeting. On the same day, L.P. Beria was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The newly formed Ministry of Internal Affairs merged the previously existing Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security.

On March 9, 1953, L.P. Beria participated in the funeral of I.V. Stalin, and made a speech at a funeral meeting from the platform of the Mausoleum.

L.P. Beria, along with N.S. Khrushchev and G.M. Malenkov, became one of the main contenders for leadership in the country. In the struggle for leadership, L.P. Beria relied on the security agencies. L.P. Beria’s proteges were promoted to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Already on March 19, the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were replaced in all union republics and in most regions of the RSFSR. In turn, the newly appointed heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs replaced personnel in the middle management.

L.P. Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one of his first orders, created commissions and investigative groups to review cases being processed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. These groups also dealt with the cases of arrested “wrecker doctors”, those arrested in the “aviator case”, etc. As a result of investigations launched on the initiative of L.P. Beria, in April many convicts and those under investigation in cases under review were released. On March 26, Lavrentiy Beria sent a note on amnesty to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. This note proposed the release from places of imprisonment of those sentenced to a term of up to 5 years, convicted of economic, official and certain military crimes, regardless of the term of imprisonment, women with children under the age of 10, pregnant women, minors, terminally ill people, and the elderly. It was also proposed to halve the term of imprisonment for those convicted for a term of over 5 years. On March 27, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree “On Amnesty,” according to which more than a third of prisoners in the USSR were subject to release. In fact, over 1 million people were released and about 400 thousand criminal cases were discontinued. On April 4, Beria signed order No. 0068, classified top secret, “On the prohibition of the use of any coercive measures against those arrested and physical impact", decreeing:

1. Categorically prohibit the use of any coercive measures or physical coercion against arrested persons by the Ministry of Internal Affairs; in the investigation, strictly observe the norms of the criminal procedure code.
2. Eliminate in Lefortovo and internal prisons the premises organized by the leadership of the (former) USSR Ministry of State Security for applying physical measures to those arrested, and destroy all the instruments through which torture was carried out.
3. The entire operational staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs must be familiarized with this order and warned that from now on, for violations of Soviet legality, not only the direct culprits, but also their leaders will be held accountable, up to and including being brought to trial.

The son of L.P. Beria, Sergo Lavrentievich, published a book of memoirs about his father in 1994. In particular, L.P. Beria is described there as a supporter of democratic reforms and an end to the violent construction of socialism in the GDR.

Arrest and sentence

The strengthening of L.P. Beria and his lack of allies in the top party leadership led to his downfall. Members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, on the initiative of N. S. Khrushchev, were informed that L. P. Beria was planning to carry out a coup d'état and arrest the Presidium at the premiere of the opera “The Decembrists.” At the July plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, almost all members of the Central Committee made statements about the sabotage activities of L. Beria. At the end of July 1953, a secret circular was issued by the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which ordered the widespread seizure of any artistic images of L.P. Beria. On July 7, by a resolution of the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Beria was relieved of his duties as a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and removed from the CPSU Central Committee.

L.P. Beria appeared, along with some of his former employees from the state security agencies (V.N. Merkulov, B.Z. Kobulov, S.A. Goglidze, P.Ya. Meshik, V.G. Dekanozov and L.E . Vlodzimirsky), arrested during the same year, before the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I. S. Konev. He was accused of spying for Great Britain and other countries, seeking to eliminate the Soviet worker-peasant system, restore capitalism and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie. Beria was also accused of moral corruption, abuse of power, as well as falsifying thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and organizing illegal repressions (Beria, according to the accusation, also committed this while acting for selfish and enemy purposes).

On December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I. S. Konev. All defendants were sentenced to death and executed on the same day. Moreover, L.P. Beria was shot several hours before the execution of other convicts in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky fired the first shot from his personal weapon. Brief message the trial of L.P. Beria and his employees was published in the Soviet press.

In 1952, the fifth volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published, which contained a portrait of L.P. Beria and a laudatory article about him. In 1954, the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent out a letter to its subscribers (libraries), in which it was strongly recommended to cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria “with scissors or a razor”, and instead paste in others (sent in the same letter) , containing other articles starting with the same letters. As a result of Beria's arrest, one of his closest associates, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR, Mir Jafar Bagirov, was arrested and executed. In the press and literature of the “Thaw” times, the image of Beria was demonized; he was blamed both for the repressions of 1937-38 and for the repressions of the post-war period, to which he had no direct connection.

Family

His wife, Nina (Nino) Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991), gave an interview in 1990 at the age of 86, where she fully justified her husband’s activities. The son, Sergo Lavrentievich Beria, advocated the moral (without claiming to be complete) rehabilitation of his father.

Awards

• Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR (1923)
• Order of the Red Banner (1924)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR (1931)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Azerbaijan SSR (1932)
• Order of Lenin (1935, 1943, 1945 and 1949)
• Order of the Red Banner (1942 and 1944)
• Order of the Republic (Tannu-Tuva) (1943)
• Hero of Socialist Labor (1943)
• Order of Sukhbaatar (1949)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Armenian SSR (1949)
• Order of Suvorov, 1st class (1949)
• Stalin Prize, 1st degree (1949 and 1951)

Proceedings

• L.P. Beria. On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. - 1935.

Objects named after L.P. Beria

In honor of Beria they were named:

• Berievsky district - now Novolaksky district, Dagestan, in the period from February to May 1944.
• Beriaaul - Novolakskoe village, Dagestan
• Beriyashen - Sharukkar, Azerbaijan
• Beriakend - two villages, Azerbaijan

In addition, villages in Kalmykia and the Magadan region were named after him.

The name of L.P. Beria was previously named after the current Cooperative Street in Kharkov, Pobedy Avenue in Ozyorsk, Apsheronskaya Square in Vladikavkaz (Dzaudzhikau), Tsimlyanskaya Street in Khabarovsk, Gagarin Street in Sarov, Pervomaiskaya Street in Seversk.

Film incarnations

• Nikolai Mordvinov (“Donetsk Miners”, 1950)
• David Suchet (Red Monarch) (England, 1983)
• Valentin Gaft (“The Feasts of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin”, USSR, 1989, “Lost in Siberia”, UK-USSR, 1990)
• Roland Nadareishvili (" Little giant big sex", USSR, 1990)
• B. Goladze (“Stalingrad”, USSR, 1989)
• Vladimir Sichkar (“War in the Western Direction”, USSR, 1990)
• Yan Yanakiev (“Law”, 1989, “10 years without the right of correspondence”, 1990)
• Vsevolod Abdulov (“To hell with us,” 1991)
• Bob Hoskins (“Inner Circle”, Italy-USA-USSR, 1992)
• Roshan Seth (Stalin, USA-Hungary, 1992)
• Fedya Stojanovic (“Gospodja Kolontaj”, Yugoslavia, 1996)
• Paul Livingstone (Children of the Revolution, Australia 1996)
• Farid Myazitov (“Ship of Doubles”, 1997)
• Mumid Makoev (“Khrustalev, car!”, 1998)
• Adam Ferenczi (“Journey to Moscow” Podróz do Moskwy, (Poland, 1999)
• Viktor Sukhorukov (“Desired”, Russia, 2003)
• Nikolay Chindyaykin (“Children of Arbat”, Russia, 2004)
• Seyran Dalanyan (“Convoy PQ-17”, Russia, 2004)
• Irakli Macharashvili (“Moscow Saga”, Russia, 2004)
• Vladimir Shcherbakov (“Two Loves”, 2004; “The Death of Tairov”, Russia, 2004; “Stalin’s Wife”, Russia, 2006; “Star of the Epoch”; “Apostle”, Russia, 2007; “Beria”, Russia, 2007; “ Hitler kaput!”, Russia, 2008; “The Legend of Olga”, Russia, 2008; “Wolf Messing: who saw through time”, Russia, 2009)
• Yervand Arzumanyan (“Archangel”, England-Russia, 2005)
• Malkhaz Aslamazashvili (“Stalin. Live”, 2006).
• Vyacheslav Grishechkin (“The Hunt for Beria”, Russia, 2008; Furtseva, 2011)
• Alexander Lazarev Jr. (“Zastava Zilina”, Russia, 2008)
• Adam Bulguchev (“Burnt by the Sun-2”, Russia, 2010)
• Vasily Ostafiychuk (Ballad of a Bomber, 2011)

Notes

bat-smg:Lavrentėjos Berėjė

be-x-old:Laurentsi Beryya

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (1899-1953) - a prominent statesman and political figure of the USSR during the Stalinist period. IN last years Stalin's life was the second man in the state. His authority especially increased after the successful test of the atomic bomb on August 29, 1949. This project was directly supervised by Lavrenty Pavlovich. He assembled a very strong team of scientists, provided them with everything they needed, and in the shortest possible time a weapon of incredible power was created.

Lavrenty Beria

However, after the death of the leader of the peoples, the career of the powerful Lawrence also ended. The entire leadership of the Leninist party opposed him. Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953, accused of treason, tried and executed on December 23 of the same year by court decision. This is the official version of those distant historical events. That is, there was arrest, trial and execution of the sentence.

But these days the opinion has become stronger that there was no arrest or trial. All this for the broad masses and Western journalists were invented by the leaders of the Soviet state. In reality, Beria's death was the result of a banal murder. The mighty Lawrence was shot by the generals Soviet army, and they did it completely unexpectedly for their victim. The body of the murdered man was destroyed, and only then the arrest and trial were announced. As for the procedural actions, they were fabricated at the highest state level.

However, we should not forget that such a statement requires proof. And these can only be obtained by making sure that the official version consists of continuous inaccuracies and flaws. So first let's ask ourselves: At a meeting of which government body was Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria arrested??

Khrushchev, Molotov, Kaganovich initially told everyone that Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee. However, then smart people explained to the leaders of the state that they were confessing to a crime under Art. 115 of the Criminal Code – Unlawful detention. The Presidium of the Central Committee is the highest party body and it does not have the authority to detain the first deputy of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, appointed to the position by the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Therefore, when Khrushchev dictated his memoirs, he stated that the arrest was made at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, where all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee were invited. That is, Beria was arrested not by the party, but by the government. But the whole paradox is that none of the members of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers mentioned such a meeting in their memoirs.

Zhukov and Khrushchev

Now let's find out: which of the military men arrested Lavrenty, and who commanded these military men? Marshal Zhukov said that it was he who led the capture group. Colonel General Moskalenko was given to help him. And the latter stated that it was he who commanded the detention, and took Zhukov for quantity. All this sounds strange, since the military is initially clear who gives the commands and who carries them out.

Zhukov further said that he received the order to arrest Beria from Khrushchev. But then he was told that in this case he had encroached on the freedom of the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers on the orders of the Secretary of the Central Committee. Therefore, in subsequent memoirs, Zhukov began to claim that he received the order for arrest from the head of the government, Malenkov.

But Moskalenko presented those events differently. According to him, the task was received from Khrushchev, and the instructions were given by Defense Minister Bulganin. He received the order himself from Malenkov personally. At the same time, the head of government was accompanied by Bulganin, Molotov and Khrushchev. They left the meeting room of the Presidium of the Central Committee to Moskalenko and his capture group. It should be said that already on August 3, Colonel General Moskalenko was awarded the next rank of Army General, and in March 1955, the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. And before that, since 1943, for 10 years, he wore three general stars on his shoulder straps.

A military career is good, but who to believe, Zhukov or Moskalenko? That is, there is discord - one says one thing, and the other says something completely different. Perhaps, after all, Moskalenko commanded the detention of Beria? There is an opinion that he received the highest ranks not for his arrest, but for the murder of Beria. It was the Colonel General who shot Lavrenty, and he did this not after the trial, but on June 26, 1953, on the basis of an oral order from Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin. That is, Beria’s death occurred in the summer, and not in the last ten days of December.

But let's get back to official version and let's ask: was Lavrentiy Palych given the floor to explain before his arrest?? Khrushchev wrote that Beria was not allowed to speak. First, all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee spoke, and after that Malenkov immediately pressed the button and called the military into the meeting room. But Molotov and Kaganovich argued that Lavrenty was justified and denied all charges. But they did not report what exactly the debunked deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers said. By the way, for some reason the minutes of this meeting have not been preserved. Maybe because there was no such meeting at all.

Where the military waited for the signal to arrest Beria? Khrushchev and Zhukov said that the meeting itself took place in Stalin’s former office. But the capture group was waiting in the room of Poskrebyshev’s assistant. There was a door from it directly into the office, bypassing the reception area. Moskalenko stated that he and the generals and officers were waiting in the reception area, while Beria’s guards were nearby.

How the signal was given to the military to arrest Lavrentiy? According to Zhukov’s memoirs, Malenkov made two calls to Poskrebyshev’s office. But Moskalenko says something completely different. Malenkov’s assistant Sukhanov conveyed the agreed signal to his capture group. Immediately after this, five armed generals and a sixth unarmed Zhukov (he never carried a weapon) entered the meeting room.

Marshal Moskalenko, fourth from right

At what time was Beria arrested?? Moskalenko stated that his group arrived in the Kremlin at 11 o’clock on June 26, 1953. At 13:00 the prearranged signal was received. Marshal Zhukov claimed that the first bell rang at one o'clock in the afternoon, and a little later the second bell rang. Malenkov's assistant Sukhanov gives a completely different chronology of those events. According to him, the meeting began at 2 pm, and the military waited for about two hours for the agreed signal.

Where did Lavrenty Pavlovich’s arrest take place?? Eyewitnesses identified this place more or less identically. The debunked deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers was arrested right at the table of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Zhukov recalled: “I approached Beria from behind and commanded: “ Get up! You are under arrest." He started to get up, and I immediately twisted his hands behind his back, lifted him up and shook him like that." Moskalenko outlined his version: “ We entered the meeting room and pulled out our weapons. I went straight to Beria and ordered him to raise his hands up».

But Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev sets out these historical events in your own way: " They gave me my word, and I openly accused Beria of state crimes. He quickly realized the degree of danger and extended his hand to the briefcase lying in front of him on the table. At that very second I grabbed my briefcase and said: “You’re being naughty, Lavrenty!” There was a pistol there. After this, Malenkov proposed to discuss everything at the Plenum. Those present agreed and went to the exit. Lavrentiy was detained at the door as he was leaving the meeting room».

How and where Lavrenty was taken after his arrest? Here again we take a look at Moskalenko’s memoirs: “ The arrested man was kept under guard in one of the Kremlin rooms. On the night of June 26-27, the headquarters of the Moscow Air Defense District on the street. Five ZIS-110 passenger cars were sent to Kirov. They took 30 communist officers from the headquarters and brought them to the Kremlin. These people replaced the security inside the building. After this, surrounded by guards, Beria was taken outside and seated in one of the ZIS cars. Batitsky, Yuferev, Zub and Baksov sat with him. I got into the same car in the front seat. Accompanied by another car, we drove through the Spassky Gate to the garrison guardhouse in Moscow».

From the above official information it follows that Beria’s death could not have occurred during his detention. Justice was done after the trial on December 23, 1953. The sentence was carried out by Colonel General Batitsky. It was he who shot Lavrenty Pavlovich, firing a bullet straight into his forehead. That is, there was no firing squad. Prosecutor General Rudenko read out the verdict in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters, Lavrentiy’s hands were tied with a rope, tied to a bullet catcher, and Batitsky fired.

Everything seems to be normal, but something else is confusing - was there a trial of the debunked deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers? According to official data, the arrest took place on June 26, 1953. From July 2 to July 7, the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee was held, dedicated to Beria’s anti-state activities. Malenkov was the first to speak with the main accusations, then 24 people spoke about less significant atrocities. In conclusion, a Resolution of the Plenum was adopted, condemning the activities of Lavrenty Pavlovich.

After this, an investigation began under the personal leadership of Prosecutor General Rudenko. As a result of investigative actions, the “Beria case” appeared, consisting of many volumes. Everything seems to be fine, but there is one caveat. None of the officials could give the exact number of volumes. For example, Moskalenko said that there were exactly 40 of them. Other people called about 40 volumes, more than 40 volumes and even 50 volumes of the criminal case. That is, no one ever knew their exact number.

But maybe the volumes are stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Security? If so, then they can be viewed and recalculated. No, they are not stored in the archive. Where then are these ill-fated volumes located? Nobody can answer this question. That is, there is no case, and since there is no case, then what kind of court can we even talk about. However, the trial officially lasted 8 days from December 16 to 23.

It was presided over by Marshal Konev. The court included Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions Shvernik, First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR Zeidin, Army General Moskalenko, First Secretary of the Moscow Regional Committee of the CPSU Mikhailov, Chairman of the Union of Right Forces of Georgia Kuchava, Chairman of the Moscow City Court Gromov, First Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR Lunev. All of them were worthy people and selflessly devoted to the party.

However, it is noteworthy that they later recalled the trial of Beria and his six comrades with extreme reluctance. This is what Moskalenko wrote about the 8-day trial: “ After 6 months, the investigation was completed and a trial took place, which Soviet citizens learned about from the press." And that’s it, not a word more, but Moskalenko’s memoirs are even thicker than Zhukov’s.

Other members of the court turned out to be just as taciturn. But they took part in the process, which became one of major events their lives. Thick books could have been written about him and become famous, but for some reason the members of the court got away with only skimpy general phrases. Here, for example, is what Kuchava wrote: “ The trial revealed a disgusting, monstrous picture of intrigue, blackmail, slander, and mockery of the human dignity of Soviet people." And that's all he could say about the 8 days of endless court hearings.

On the left is Marshal Batitsky

And who guarded Lavrenty Pavlovich during the investigation?? This was Major Khizhnyak, the commandant of the Moscow air defense headquarters. He was the only guard and escort. He later recalled: “ I was with Beria all the time. He brought him food, took him to the bathhouse, and stood guard at the trial. The trial itself lasted more than a month. Every day except Saturday and Sunday. Meetings were held from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a lunch break." These are the memories – more than a month, and not 8 days at all. And who is telling the truth and who is deceiving?

Based on the above, the conclusion suggests itself that there was no trial at all. There was no one to judge, since Beria's death occurred on June 25 or 26, 1953. He was killed either in his own home, where he lived with his family, or at a military facility to which the deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers was lured by the generals. The body was taken from the crime scene and destroyed. And all other events can be called in one word - falsification. As for the reason for the murder, it is as old as time - the struggle for power.

Immediately after the destruction of Lavrenty, his closest associates were arrested: Kobulov Bogdan Zakharyevich (b. 1904), Merkulov Vsevolod Nikolaevich (b. 1895), Dekanozov Vladimir Georgievich (b. 1898), Meshikov Pavel Yakovlevich (b. 1910). b.), Vlodzimirsky Lev Emelyanovich (b. 1902), Goglidze Sergey Arsentievich (b. 1901). These people were kept in prison until December 1953. The trial itself took place in one day.

Members of the court gathered together and took photographs. Then the six accused were brought in. Konev announced that due to the illness of the main accused Beria, the trial would take place without him. After this, the judges held a formal hearing, sentenced the defendants to death and signed the verdict. It was carried out immediately, and everything that concerned Lavrenty Pavlovich was falsified. Thus ended those distant events, the main character of which was not Beria at all, but only his name.

Lavrentiy Beria (03/29/1899-12/23/1953) is one of the most odious personalities of the twentieth century. The political and personal life of this man is still controversial. Today no historian can unambiguously evaluate and fully understand this political and public figure. Many materials from his personal life and government activities are kept classified as “secret”. Perhaps some time will pass, and modern society will be able to give a complete and adequate answer to all questions concerning this person. It is possible that his biography will also receive a new reading. Beria (Lavrentiy Pavlovich's pedigree and activities are well studied by historians) is an entire era in the history of the country.

Childhood and teenage years of the future politician

Who is the origin of Lavrenty Beria? His nationality on his father's side is Mingrelian. This is an ethnic group of the Georgian people. Many modern historians have disputes and questions regarding the politician’s pedigree. Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich ( real name and name - Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria) was born on March 29, 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Kutaisi province. The family of the future statesman came from poor peasants. From early childhood, Lavrentiy Beria was distinguished by an unusual zeal for knowledge, which was not at all typical for the peasantry of the 19th century. To continue his studies, the family had to sell part of their house to pay for his studies. In 1915, Beria entered the Baku Technical School, and 4 years later he graduated with honors. Meanwhile, after joining the Bolshevik faction in March 1917, he accepted Active participation in the Russian revolution, being a secret agent of the Baku police.

First steps in big politics

The career of the young politician in the Soviet security forces began in February 1921, when the ruling Bolsheviks sent him to the Cheka of Azerbaijan. The head of the then department of the Extraordinary Commission of the Azerbaijan Republic was D. Bagirov. This leader was famous for his cruelty and mercilessness towards dissident fellow citizens. Lavrentiy Beria engaged in bloody repressions against opponents of Bolshevik rule, even some leaders of the Caucasian Bolsheviks with great apprehension related to his violent methods of work. Thanks to his strong character and excellent oratorical qualities as a leader, at the end of 1922 Beria was transferred to Georgia, where at that time there were big problems with the establishment of Soviet power. He took office as deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka, throwing himself into the work of combating political dissent among his fellow Georgians. Beria's influence on the political situation in the region had authoritarian significance. Not a single issue was resolved without his direct participation. The career of the young politician was successful; he ensured the defeat of the national communists of that time, who were seeking independence from the central government in Moscow.

Georgian reign period

By 1926, Lavrenty Pavlovich rose to the position of Deputy Chairman of the GPU of Georgia. In April 1927, Lavrentiy Beria became People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR. Beria's competent leadership allowed him to win the favor of I.V. Stalin, a Georgian by nationality. Having expanded his influence in the party apparatus, Beria was elected in 1931 to the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party. A remarkable achievement for a man of 32 years old. From now on, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, whose nationality corresponds to the state nomenklatura, will continue to ingratiate himself with Stalin. In 1935, Beria published a large treatise that greatly exaggerated the importance of Joseph Stalin in the revolutionary struggle in the Caucasus before 1917. The book was published in all major state presses, which made Beria a figure of national importance.

Accomplice of Stalin's repressions

When I.V. Stalin began his bloody political terror in the party and country from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria was an active accomplice. In Georgia alone, thousands of innocent people died at the hands of the NKVD, and thousands more were convicted and sent to prisons and labor camps as part of Stalin's nationwide vendetta against the Soviet people. Many party leaders died during the purges. However, Lavrenty Beria, whose biography remained unblemished, came out unscathed. In 1938, Stalin rewarded him with appointment to the post of head of the NKVD. After a full-scale purge of the NKVD leadership, Beria gave key leadership positions to his associates from Georgia. Thus he increased his political influence to the Kremlin.

Pre-war and war periods of the life of L. P. Beria

In February 1941, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria became Deputy Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, and in June, when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union, he became a member of the Defense Committee. During the war, Beria had complete control over the production of weapons, aircraft and ships. In a word, the entire military-industrial potential of the Soviet Union was under his control. Thanks to his skillful leadership, sometimes cruel, Beria’s role in the great victory of the Soviet people over Nazi Germany had one of the key meanings. Many prisoners in the NKVD and labor camps worked for military production. These were the realities of that time. It is difficult to say what would have happened to the country if the course of history had had a different direction.

In 1944, when the Germans were expelled from Soviet soil, Beria oversaw the case of various ethnic minorities accused of collaborating with the occupiers, including Chechens, Ingush, Karachays, Crimean Tatars and Volga Germans. All of them were deported to Central Asia.

Management of the country's military industry

Since December 1944, Beria has been a member of the Supervisory Council for the creation of the first atomic bomb in the USSR. To implement this project, great working and scientific potential was required. This is how the system was formed Government controlled Camps (GULAG). A talented team of nuclear physicists was assembled. The Gulag system provided tens of thousands of workers for uranium mining and the construction of testing equipment (in Semipalatinsk, Vaigach, Novaya Zemlya, etc.). The NKVD provided the necessary level of security and secrecy for the project. The first tests of atomic weapons were carried out in the Semipalatinsk region in 1949.

In July 1945, Lavrenty Beria (photo on the left) was promoted to the high military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Although he never took part in direct military command, his role in organizing military production was a significant contribution to the final victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. This fact of Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria’s personal biography is beyond doubt.

Death of the Leader of the Nations

I.V. Stalin's age is approaching 70 years. The question of the leader's successor as head of the Soviet state is increasingly becoming an issue. The most likely candidate was the head of the Leningrad party apparatus, Andrei Zhdanov. L.P. Beria and G.M. Malenkov even created an unspoken alliance to block the party growth of A.A. Zhdanov.

In January 1946, Beria resigned from his post as head of the NKVD (which was soon renamed the Ministry of Internal Affairs), while maintaining overall control over national security issues, and became a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. New chapter law enforcement agency S.N. Kruglov is not Beria’s protégé. In addition, by the summer of 1946, V. Merkulov, loyal to Beria, was replaced by V. Abakumov as head of the MGB. A secret struggle for leadership in the country began. After the death of A. A. Zhdanov in 1948, the “Leningrad Case” was fabricated, as a result of which many party leaders of the northern capital were arrested and executed. In these post-war years, under the secret leadership of Beria, an active intelligence network was created in Eastern Europe.

JV Stalin died on March 5, 1953, four days after the collapse. Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov's political memoirs, published in 1993, claim that Beria boasted to Molotov that he had poisoned Stalin, although no evidence was ever available to support this claim. There is evidence that for many hours after J.V. Stalin was found unconscious in his office, he was denied medical care. It is quite possible that all Soviet leaders agreed to leave the ailing Stalin, whom they feared, to certain death.

The struggle for the state throne

After the death of I.V. Stalin, Beria was appointed first deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. His close ally G. M. Malenkov becomes the new Chairman of the Supreme Council and the most powerful person in the country's leadership after the death of the leader. Beria was the second powerful leader, given Malenkov's lack of real leadership qualities. He effectively becomes the power behind the throne, and ultimately the leader of the state. N. S. Khrushchev becomes Secretary of the Communist Party, whose position was considered as a less important post than the position of Chairman of the Supreme Council.

Reformer or "great schemer"

Lavrentiy Beria was at the forefront of the country's liberalization after Stalin's death. He publicly condemned the Stalinist regime and rehabilitated more than a million political prisoners. In April 1953, Beria signed a decree prohibiting the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signaled a more liberal policy towards non-Russian nationalities of citizens of the Soviet Union. He convinced the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the need to introduce a communist regime in East Germany, and gave rise to economic and political reforms in the country of the Soviets. There is an authoritative opinion that Beria’s entire liberal policy after Stalin’s death was an ordinary maneuver to consolidate power in the country. There is another opinion that the radical reforms proposed by L.P. Beria could speed up the processes of economic development of the Soviet Union.

Arrest and death: unanswered questions

Historical facts provide conflicting information regarding the overthrow of Beria. According to the official version, N.S. Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Presidium on June 26, 1953, where Beria was arrested. He was accused of having links with British intelligence. This was a complete surprise for him. Lavrentiy Beria briefly asked: “What’s going on, Nikita?” V. M. Molotov and other members of the Politburo also opposed Beria, and N. S. Khrushchev agreed to his arrest. Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov personally escorted the Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council. Some sources claim that Beria was killed on the spot, but this is incorrect. His arrest was kept a closely guarded secret until his top aides were arrested. The NKVD troops in Moscow, which were subordinate to Beria, were disarmed by regular army units. The Sovinformburo reported the truth about the arrest of Lavrentiy Beria only on July 10, 1953. He was convicted by a “special tribunal” without defense and without the right of appeal. On December 23, 1953, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was shot by verdict of the Supreme Court. Beria's death made the Soviet people breathe a sigh of relief. This meant the end of the era of repression. After all, for him (the people) Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was a bloody tyrant and despot.

Beria's wife and son were sent to labor camps, but were later released. His wife Nina died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine; his son Sergo died in October 2000, defending his father's reputation for the rest of his life.

In May 2002, the Supreme Court Russian Federation refused to satisfy the petition of Beria's family members for his rehabilitation. The statement was based on Russian law, which provided for the rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled: “L.P. Beria was the organizer of repressions against his own people, and, therefore, cannot be considered a victim.”

Loving husband and treacherous lover

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich and women is a separate topic that requires serious study. Officially, L.P. Beria was married to Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991). In 1924, their son Sergo was born, named after the prominent political figure Sergo Ordzhonikidze. All her life, Nina Teymurazovna was a faithful and devoted companion to her husband. Despite his betrayals, this woman was able to maintain the honor and dignity of the family. In 1990, being at a fairly advanced age, Nina Beria completely justified her husband in an interview with Western journalists. Until the end of her life, Nina Teymurazovna fought for the moral rehabilitation of her husband.

Of course, Lavrenty Beria and his women with whom he had intimate relationships gave rise to many rumors and mysteries. From the testimony of Beria’s personal guard it follows that their boss was very popular among women. One can only guess whether these were mutual feelings between a man and a woman or not.

Kremlin rapist

When Beria was interrogated, he admitted to having physical relationships with 62 women and also suffering from syphilis in 1943. This happened after the rape of a 7th grade student. According to him, he has an illegitimate child from her. There are many confirmed facts of Beria’s sexual harassment. Young girls from schools near Moscow were abducted more than once. When Beria noticed a beautiful girl, his assistant Colonel Sarkisov approached her. Showing his ID as an NKVD officer, he ordered to follow him.

Often these girls ended up in soundproof interrogation rooms at Lubyanka or in the basement of a house on Kachalova Street. Sometimes, before raping girls, Beria used sadistic methods. Among high-ranking government officials, Beria was known as a sexual predator. He kept a list of his sexual victims in a special notebook. According to the minister's domestic servants, the number of victims of the sexual predator exceeded 760 people. In 2003, the Government of the Russian Federation recognized the existence of these lists.

During a search of Beria's personal office, women's toiletries were found in the armored safes of one of the top leaders of the Soviet state. According to the inventory compiled by members of the military tribunal, the following were discovered: women's silk slips, ladies' tights, children's dresses and other women's accessories. Among the state documents were letters containing love confessions. This personal correspondence was vulgar in nature. In addition to women's clothing, large quantities of items characteristic of male perverts were found. All this speaks of the sick psyche of the great leader of the state. It is quite possible that he was not alone in his sexual preferences; he was not the only one with a tarnished biography. Beria (Lavrentiy Pavlovich was not completely unraveled either during his life or after his death) is a page in the history of long-suffering Russia, which will have to be studied for a long time.

Born into the family of a poor peasant in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Tiflis province. In 1919 he graduated from the secondary mechanical-construction school in Baku with a degree in civil engineering. I entered the Polytechnic Institute, but studied only two courses. Joined the Bolshevik Party. In the years Civil War at party and Soviet work in Transcaucasia, including illegal work. After the Civil War - in various positions in the Cheka-GPU-OGPU-NKVD, as well as in party posts. In 1938, he headed the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD, took the post of Deputy People's Commissar and in the same year became People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, remaining in this post until the end of 1945.

After Beria was appointed head of the NKVD and before the start of the Great Patriotic War, some of the “unreasonably convicted” were released from the camps, including officers arrested on false charges. In particular, in 1939, 11,178 previously dismissed and taken into custody commanders were reinstated in the army. However, in 1940-1941. arrests of commanding personnel continued, which affected the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. Before the war, the NKVD carried out the forced eviction of “unreliable” residents of the Baltic states, western regions of Belarus and Ukraine to the remote eastern regions of the USSR. At the insistence of Beria, the rights of the Special Meeting under the People's Commissar to issue extrajudicial verdicts were expanded.

Beria was responsible for the completeness and accuracy of reports to Stalin through the NKVD foreign intelligence about the impending German attack on the USSR. The information he supplied to the head of state was often biased, allowing one to think about the possibility of maintaining peace with Germany, at least until 1942. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Beria was included in the State Defense Committee, and in May 1944 - September 1945 - its chairman Operations Bureau, where decisions were made on all current issues.

He supervised the production of aircraft, engines, tanks, mortars, ammunition, the work of the People's Commissariat of Railways, the coal and oil industries. Directly coordinated all intelligence and counterintelligence activities through the NKVD-NKGB. He proved himself to be a talented organizer. In 1943 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In July 1945, he was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

During the war, Beria, as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, was directly responsible for the deportation of a number of peoples of the USSR to remote areas of the country, including Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Kalmyks, Crimean Tatars, Germans of the Volga region. Not only criminal elements and collaborators of the enemy were subjected to forcible relocation, but also many innocent people - women, children, and the elderly. Justice for them was restored only after 1953. In the fall of 1941, during the offensive of fascist troops on Moscow, by order of Beria, several dozen prisoners, including prominent military men and scientists, were shot without trial.

Since 1944, on behalf of the State Defense Committee, Beria dealt with the uranium problem. In 1945 he headed the Special Committee for the creation of the atomic bomb. He coordinated foreign intelligence activities to obtain the secrets of the American atomic bomb, which accelerated the work of Soviet nuclear physicists. On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet atomic bomb was successfully tested.

After his death, Beria headed the united Ministry of Internal Affairs, being also the first deputy. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In March-June 1953, he made a number of proposals related to domestic and foreign policy, including: amnesty for certain categories of prisoners, closing the “doctors’ case,” curtailing the “building of socialism” in the GDR, etc.

Beria's influence in special agencies and potential capabilities did not suit his opponents in the struggle for power in the Kremlin. On the initiative of N.S. Khrushchev and with the support of a number of high-ranking military men, on June 26, 1953, Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium (Politburo) of the CPSU Central Committee. Accused of espionage, “moral and everyday decay”, of striving to usurp power and restore capitalism. Deprived of party and state posts, titles and awards. The special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I.S. Konev was sentenced on December 23, 1953 by L.P. Beria and six of his accomplices were to be shot. On the same day the sentence was carried out.

Literature

Lavrenty Beria. 1953: Transcript of the July plenum of the CPSU Central Committee and other documents / Comp. V.P. Naumov and Yu.V. Sigachev. M., 1999.

Rubin N. Lavrenty Beria: myth and reality. M., 1998.

Toptygin A.V. Unknown Beria. St. Petersburg, 2002.