Lavrenty Beria - biography, photo, personal life. Beria's short reign
He led the atomic project, wanted the democratization of society and the “thaw”, carried out an amnesty, but cleared given name he never made it from notoriety to the fatal shot.
Musavata counterintelligence
Beria was born in the village of Merheuli, Kutaisi province, into a poor peasant family, but managed to get a good education(builder-architect). As a young man, Beria joined an illegal Marxist circle, and after the revolution he worked in the city Bolshevik organization.
Soon the Baku Republic fell under the pressure of Turkish-Azerbaijani troops. From this moment, the darkest story in Beria’s biography begins - he becomes an agent of Mussavatin (Azerbaijani) intelligence. According to Beria, he worked as a double agent, carrying out the task of the Bolsheviks. According to another version, he simply went over to the side of the enemies of the proletarian revolution.
Executioner
At the Yalta Conference, in response to Roosevelt’s question: “Who is Beria?” - Stalin replied: “This is our Himmler.” However, the scale of his participation in the repression is still debatable.
After the end of the Yezhovshchina and the appointment of Beria as head of the NKVD in 1938, the intensity of executions and imprisonments began to decrease, and many cases were sent for review. Some even associate something similar to the “thaw” with the name of Beria. According to another version, one stage of repression ended and another began. Beria signed execution lists, led operations for the resettlement of peoples and created SMERSH, but it was under Beria that the NKVD from a punitive organ of the revolution turned into an economic-industrial complex with hundreds of thousands of prisoners, and repressive functions were transferred to the People's Commissariat state security. Many consider Beria a sadist, but he was best at implementing scientific and technical projects, which somewhat does not fit with the image of a bloody executioner. So who was Beria: a born sadist or a technical executor of someone else’s will?
Katyn massacre
Decades have passed, many archival documents have been declassified (in particular, the notorious “Package No. 1”), the Russian leadership has recognized the responsibility of the NKVD for organizing the execution, but this topic still remains one of the most painful in Russian-Polish relations.
Almost five thousand were killed directly in the Katyn Forest, and in total, about twenty thousand people were killed as part of the operation to exterminate Polish prisoners. The details of the operation are amazing: the Poles had their hands tied and shot in the back of the head from a German weapon, the corpses were dumped in a pit, not even a common grave. The signal for brutal reprisals was allegedly given by People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria.
True, to date there is no direct evidence that this was done by NKVD officers or Red Army soldiers.
Blue Beard
One of the main accusations against Beria, including that voiced in the official verdict, is “moral laxity.” Rumors circulated around Moscow about numerous rapes committed by Beria. His subordinates allegedly grabbed women right on the street, forced them into a car and took them to his dacha. In her book of memoirs, the famous Soviet actress Tatyana Okunevskaya talks in detail about several such episodes.
In 1948, married to Nina Gegechkori, Beria fell in love with 16-year-old Lyalya Drozdova and began living with two families. Lyalya gave birth to his daughter. After Beria’s arrest, apparently to save herself, Drozdova reported rape. In this regard, it is still quite difficult to figure out what is true in the stories about Beria’s adventures and what is exaggeration and myth.
Head of the atomic project
In 1945, Beria headed the leadership of the Soviet atomic project. Under his command is not a giant repressive machine, but brilliant Soviet intellectuals: Sakharov, Zeldovich, Kurchatov, Tupolev, Korolev and many others. The construction of closed scientific campuses begins; equipment and specialists are brought from defeated Germany. Four years later, successful tests of the first domestic atomic bomb took place in Semipalatinsk, and on October 29, 1949, Beria was awarded the Order of Lenin and he was awarded the Stalin Prize “For organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of testing of atomic weapons.” But his role in the nuclear project is still ambiguous. Could the task have been completed earlier? In other words: thanks to or despite?
Leader's Killer
More and more historians are inclined to believe that Stalin died a violent death as a result of a Kremlin conspiracy. The reasons are obvious: the aging leader was planning a new purge of the party elite: the “Leningrad affair”, the “Mingrelian affair” - none of the members of the Politburo could feel safe, especially the Mingrelian Lavrentiy Beria. If there really was a conspiracy to eliminate the leader, and Stalin was in fact poisoned, the most obvious organizer of the murder is Beria.
Reformer
After Stalin's death, the incredibly powerful Beria developed extraordinary activity. Almost immediately he came up with the idea of a large-scale amnesty, which was carried out. He banned torture and began the process of rehabilitation of political prisoners. Beria nurtured the idea of unifying the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR, and also took the initiative to “indigenize” the Soviet republics - in his opinion, to lead in different parts The empire should have been national elites, not proteges from Moscow.
Beria planned to limit the role of the Communist Party in the leadership of the country, limiting it to the propaganda function; Soviet technocrats and specialists were to come to real power. In fact, we were talking about large-scale liberalization and a radical restructuring of the entire Soviet system. Beriev's "thaw", if realized, could go much further than Khrushchev's. But this did not happen, as the wits joked, soon:
“Lavrentiy Palych Beria // Lost his trust, // And Comrade Malenkov // Kicked him.”
In the Kremlin struggle for power, Beria and his associates lost, were arrested and executed. But the question “What was it and what could it lead to the country?” - remained.
In “Song about Rumors” by Vladimir Vysotsky, a neighbor is mentioned who was taken away by vigilant authorities “because he looks like Beria.” For the authorities themselves, the very mention of Beria in the 70s looked not only seditious, but unacceptable in any weather. As much as this man ascended under Stalin and after his death, they tried to erase him from our history in the following decades - as an enemy of the people, an immoral type and, in general, a bearer of all possible sins...
Biography and activities of Lavrentiy Beria
There is not much reliable information regarding the personality of Lavrenty Pavlovich - some of the archives are still classified. Georgian by nationality. Place of birth (03/17/29/1899) – the village of Merkhiuli. The mother belonged to an ancient princely family, but lived poorly. She, a widow with two children, was wooed by an equally poor man, three years younger.
She bore him three more children. Only the youngest, Lavrenty, grew up healthy, inquisitive and active. When the child was seven years old, the parents divided the property and mother and son moved to Sukhumi. She never returned to her husband. The boy was sent to study. He graduated from the Sukhumi School in 1915 with honors.
However, the fact that Beria conscious life wrote illiterately, suggests that his craving for new knowledge is only part of a myth, moreover, created by himself. He even managed to earn extra money by teaching lessons. French without knowing a word of French. Beria was introduced into the bowels of the nationalist Musavat party that ruled Azerbaijan.
This was the powerful debut of the future intelligence officer. He was introduced there on the instructions of the Bolshevik Party and A. Mikoyan personally. The latter, however, categorically denied this fact. Most likely, Beria worked exclusively for himself - according to the principle of a weather vane, wanting to always be in the camp of the winners.
Beria spent two months in prison. Upon leaving, he proposed to his cellmate’s daughter, Nina Gegechkori, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. Beria graduated from the Baku Mechanical and Construction School and did it by vocation. It cannot be ruled out that a first-class builder died in it. Politics took him into its arms powerfully and forever. In the 20s, Beria served in the Georgian Cheka and so far nothing foreshadowed his rapid career rise.
Acquaintance with Stalin occurs in the early 20s. Stalin appreciated his new acquaintance and took note of him. That's why in the 30s. Beria is already the First Secretary of the Communist Central Committee in Georgia. This was no longer a purely security service, but rather a party-economic position. Beria accepted Georgia as poor, and by 1940 he made it the richest republic in the USSR. And he spared no expense for this. Beria made especially strong progress in oil production. Giants of heavy industry were erected.
In 1939, the first official biography of Beria was published. A giant granite statue was erected in his homeland. A real cult of personality has developed. IN last years work in Georgia, Beria not only destroyed the imaginary enemies of the people, but also finished off his personal possible competitors and enemies. He oversaw the implementation of mass repressions throughout the Transcaucasus. Soon Stalin transferred Beria to Moscow and promoted him.
In August 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy to N. Yezhov, who had already fallen out of favor, and was promoted to state security commissar of the first rank. Beria dealt with Yezhov on Stalin’s orders. Until the end of the war, Beria headed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and updated its apparatus. As part of the “renewal”, the writer I. Babel and the journalist M. Koltsov were shot. Under Beria, repressions began to hit those who carried them out - i.e. according to the NKVD officers themselves. Beria personally loved to be present when prisoners were tortured.
The time when Beria replaced Yezhov became a kind of “thaw” - about 200,000 people were released from prisons and camps. There were much fewer executions. However, new arrests continued. The repressive machine did not slow down. Beria also carried out mass deportations of “small” peoples.
During the war, Beria organized a department in which arrested scientists worked. WITH light hand Solzhenitsyn dubbed them “sharashkas.” Since 1945, Beria has controlled the production and testing of atomic weapons. The atomic bomb was tested in 1949, the hydrogen bomb in 1953. Four months after Stalin’s death, Beria was arrested and another six months later he was executed.
What was going on in the government during this period is a complete puzzle. One thing is clear - there was a mortal struggle for power. Everyone without exception feared Beria like fire. And everyone wanted his elimination - including physical. According to the version of Beria’s son, Sergo, his father was shot on December 23, 1953. during the storming of the mansion, and everything else - the process and interrogations - is just a skillful staging.
- A certain Sergei Kremlev published a few years ago the so-called. "Beria's diaries" for the period from 1937 to 1953. Most serious historians recognize them as fakes, although very plausible. Numerous grammatical errors by the diary author also support the version of authenticity.
During its existence Soviet Union The country's history has been rewritten many times. Due to modest funding school books sometimes they were not reprinted; students were simply instructed to shade out in ink the portraits of leaders who suddenly became enemies.
Yagoda, Yezhov, Uborevich, Tukhachevsky, Blucher, Bukharin, Kamenev, Radek and many others were erased in this way from books and from memory. But the most demonized figure of the Bolshevik Party was, without a doubt, His biography was supplemented by work for British intelligence, which, of course, was not true, otherwise MI6 would proudly recall such success today.
In fact, Beria was a very ordinary Bolshevik, no worse than others. He was born in 1899 into a peasant family, and from childhood he was drawn to knowledge. At the age of sixteen, having graduated with honors from the Sukhumi primary school, he expressed a desire to continue his education at the Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School, where he received a diploma in architecture. A year later, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute, where he became involved in underground work. He was deported, but not far away, to Azerbaijan.
Thus, at the top of the social democratic underground there were few such intellectual people as Biography after the revolution demonstrates his desire to control the situation. He is involved in secret operational matters, and over time, having ousted Redens (the son-in-law of Stalin himself), he occupies the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of Georgia. Not without the knowledge, of course, of the secretary himself, who believed that business qualities more important than those closest to you
Having successfully dealt with the Mensheviks and other enemies of Soviet power, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, whose biography could not stall in this post due to his active nature, covered Stalin with his chest during the shooting on Lake Ritsa, which was opened by no one and why.
This readiness for self-sacrifice was appreciated, but the main factor was still not it, but truly outstanding organizational skills and amazing performance. Yezhov's deputy, who soon took his place, candidate member of the Politburo - these steps career ladder were passed in 1938.
It is believed that Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich was Stalin’s main executioner; his biography, however, refutes this. He managed state security affairs for only a short time (until 1941). The Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars is much higher than just the chief security officer. His field of attention includes the entire defense industry of the USSR during the war years, including the creation nuclear weapons, which he supervised since 1943.
A special article for conversation - Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich and women. The wife of Stalin's closest ally, the beautiful Nino, took all the allegations about his amorous-maniacal habits with great skepticism. Her husband was known to her; he didn’t even have enough time to sleep. He had a mistress, very young, but she gave evidence that Beria committed violence against her under pressure from the investigation. In fact, the girl received an apartment on Gorky Street in Moscow, and her mother even had her teeth treated at the Kremlin hospital. So everything was entirely voluntary.
Much has been written about the bold conspiracy, as a result of which Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was arrested and soon executed (or killed). His photo was just as quickly erased from all textbooks, like the images of previous exposed enemies of the people. The projects of economic and political reforms he proposed, in particular, the limited introduction of private property, were subsequently implemented during Gorbachev's perestroika.
BERIA LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH - Soviet party and statesman, head of state security agencies.
Beria was born into a poor peasant family, his parents - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922) and Marta Jakeli (1868-1955) - Mingrelians. In 1906, he entered the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, where he studied for nine years and graduated with honors in 1915. He received a Beria certificate, showing a clear inclination to continue his studies, moved from Sukhum to the provincial center of Baku and was enrolled in the local secondary mechanical engineering school. During his studies, he became actively interested in Marxism and soon became part of the illegal Marxist circle operating at the school and became its treasurer. Beria graduated from the College in 1919 with a degree in construction technician. Later he tried several times to get higher education, especially since his school turned into the Baku Polytechnic Institute, but in the early 1920s he was already completely absorbed in party and security service work and managed to complete only three courses, after which he abandoned his studies.
Revolution and civil war
Soon after February Revolution in March 1917, Beria - according to official data - joined the RSDLP (b) and organized a local Bolshevik cell in Baku. Then in June 1917 he was drafted into the army and served for six months as a trainee technician in a hydraulic engineering detachment on the Romanian front. After the October Revolution, the proven Bolshevik was sent back to Baku and in January 1918 he received a position in the secretariat of the Baku Council.
After Baku was occupied by units of the Turkish-controlled Caucasian Islamic Army in October 1918, Beria remained in the city - according to the official biography, on the instructions of the party. He got a job at an oil-industrial and trading plant. joint stock company“Caspian Partnership” as a clerk, and already in February 1919 he headed the underground cell of the RCP (b) in Baku. During this period, in the fall of 1919, Beria became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, i.e. Musavatist counterintelligence. Later he will be accused of collaborating with the intelligence services, but he will be able to prove that he agreed to cooperate with counterintelligence on the direct instructions of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party "Hummet".
In March 1920, Beria left his job in counterintelligence and got a job at the Baku customs, and the next month the 11th Red Army of the Caucasian Front entered Baku, where the creation of the Azerbaijan SSR was proclaimed. Berlia, in the same month, was appointed commissioner of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army and was sent to underground work in Georgia. Beria did not prove himself very well as an underground fighter: he was soon arrested by the Georgian authorities and, although he was released, he was ordered to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, he remained and, under the name Lakerbaya, was hired at the embassy of the RSFSR in Tbilisi. In May he was arrested again and now ended up in Kutaisi prison. In the end, S.M. Kirov, who these days was the plenipotentiary representative in Georgia, categorically demanded on July 9 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia release several imprisoned communists, incl. and Beria, actually threatening open conflicts. The Georgian Mensheviks were not ready for the aggravation of relations with the RSFSR and soon Beria was sent to Azerbaijan .
In leadership work in Transcaucasia
Upon returning to Baku in August 1920, he was appointed to the rather influential post of manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and from October 1920 to February 1921 he was the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improving the living conditions of workers in Baku. In this post, he became acquainted with the work of the special services and in April 1921 he was transferred to the Cheka as deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Azerbaijan Cheka; here he encountered the head of the Central Committee M.D. Bagirov, who at this stage constantly supported Beria and did a lot for his successful career (later Beria would support and promote Bagirov). In May 1921, Beria was promoted to deputy chairman of the AzChK and head of the Secret Operations Unit.
In November 1922, Beria was sent to Georgia, which had recently been transformed into the Georgian SSR, as the head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka (in March 1926, transformed into the GPU of the Georgian SSR). From December 2, 1926 to December 3, 1931, Berlia served as chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR. At the same time, he held a number of influential positions, concentrating great power in his hands: deputy OGPU plenipotentiary representative in the Transcaucasian SFSR, deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU, head of the Secret Operations Directorate of the OGPU plenipotentiary mission in the OGPU in the TransSFSR (December 2, 1926 - April 17, 1931), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Georgian SSR (April 4, 1927 - December 1930), head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic - Chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU (April 17 - December 3, 1931), member of the Board of the OGPU of the USSR (August 18 - December 3, 1931 ).
At the end of 1931, Beria's career moved to new level: on the recommendation of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks), on October 31 he was elected 2nd Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, and on November 14 he also became 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks), and in May 1937 also 1st Secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee parties. Moreover, from October 17, 1932 to December 5, 1936. Beria was at the same time the 1st secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1933, when I.V., who was vacationing in Abkhazia, An assassination attempt was made on Stalin, Beria covered it with his body (the assassin was killed on the spot and this story has not been fully revealed, according to a number of researchers - the assassination attempt was organized by Beria himself. In February 1934, Beria was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Received became widely known after the publication in 1935 under his name of the book “On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations of Transcaucasia” (the authors were a group led by M.G. Toshelidze, which included E. Bedia, P.I. Shariya, etc.) , where the role of I.V. Stalin in the revolutionary movement was exaggerated many times.In early March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, and then a member of its Presidium (in January 1938 he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR).
As the head of the party organization of Georgia and Transcaucasia, Berlia became one of the leaders of the campaign of mass purges in Georgia (the NKVD Directorate for the Georgian SSR, and then the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR was his protege and confidant S.A. Goglidze). He also participated in the deployment of a campaign of repression in neighboring republics: in September 1937, he was sent to Armenia to “cleanse” the republican party organization. Speaking at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia (June 1937), Beria stated: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise their hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin - Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”
Head of the NKVD
On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Yezhova. Formally, this was a serious demotion, but it was immediately clear that it was his I.V. Stalin intended to replace the “iron commissar”, who had already done his job - carried out the most large-scale purge of the party-Soviet apparatus. At the same time, Beria headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR from September 8-29, and from September 29 - the most important Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) in the NKVD of the USSR.
On November 25, 1938, Beria replaced Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, for the first time retaining the direct leadership of the GUGB, which he handed over to his nominee V.N. only on December 17. Merkulov. He renewed the NKVD apparatus almost halfway, replacing Yezhov’s associates with people personally obligated to himself; people whom he brought with him from Transcaucasia were appointed to the highest positions in the NKVD: Merkulov, Goglidze, V.G. Dekanozov, B.Z. Kobulov and others. For propaganda purposes, he carried out the release of some of the “unreasonably convicted” from the camps: in 1939, 223.6 thousand people were released from the camps, 103.8 thousand from the colonies; At the same time, up to 200 thousand people were arrested, not counting those deported from the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine. At the insistence of Beria, the rights of the Special Meeting under the People's Commissar to issue extrajudicial verdicts were expanded. Under Beria, on January 10, 1939, the leaders of party organizations and local internal affairs bodies were informed by a coded telegram from I.V. Stalin on the legality of the use of torture (practised since 1937): “The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party believes that the method of physical coercion must necessarily be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method.”
On March 22, 1939, Beria became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. As the head of the NKVD and a member of the highest party body, he was responsible for organizing the mass extermination of captured Poles in Katyn (1940). On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving his post as People's Commissar, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (from March 15, 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR), but at the same time, state security bodies were removed from his subordination, forming an independent People's Commissariat.
War and post-war period
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD and NKGB were again united under the leadership of Beria, and on June 30, 1941 he himself became part of State Committee Defense (GKO) of the USSR, Through the GKO, Beria was entrusted with control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) over the production of aircraft and aircraft engines. On October 16, 1941, on Beria’s personal order, 138 prisoners (who previously held high positions) were shot in the country’s prisons without even the appearance of a trial, and then several hundred more.
From December 1942, he was entrusted with supreme control over the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and Communications. On May 16, 1944, Beria also became deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR and chairman of the Operations Bureau (he was a member of this bureau on December 8, 1942). 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, power plants.
Beria was entrusted with the development, preparation and implementation of operations for the eviction of peoples North Caucasus, as well as Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Kurds, Hemshins, etc. He personally led the deportation operations of Chechens and Ingush (February 1944), and then Balkars (March 1944).
On December 3, 1944, Beria was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium” (“ nuclear project"). After the end of the war, Beria, in whose hands the leadership of many departments was concentrated, left the post of minister on December 29, 1945, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From August 20, 1945 to June 26, 1953, he also headed the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (then under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers) and State Committee No. 1. Under the leadership and with the direct participation of Beria, the first in the USSR was created atomic bomb(tested on August 29, 1949), after which some began to call him “the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.” Being a successful organizer, he managed, using incl. and coercive methods, to form a system of research centers where serious discoveries were made that laid the foundation for the military power of the USSR. On March 18, 1946, Beria became a full member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
At the XIX Congress, when the CPSU (b) was renamed the CPSU, Beria on October 16, 1952 was elected a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and a member of its Bureau. After the party congress, at the suggestion of Stalin, a “leading five” was created as part of the Presidium, which included Beria. At the same time, Stalin took a number of measures directed against Beria: leadership and control over the state security organs was transferred to the proteges of G.M. Malenkov, the Mingrelian case was initiated against Beria. According to Khrushchev's memoirs, “it was clever man, very smart. He responded quickly to everything."
Death of Stalin
After the death of I.V. Stalin, Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, on March 5, 1953, he became 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he personally became the head of the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which was created on the same day by merging the old Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of State Security of the USSR. On his initiative, an amnesty was announced in the country on May 9, under which 1.2 million people were released, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases on 400 thousand people were closed. Bearia advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal, Volgo-Balt, etc.). He achieved the start of negotiations on a truce in Korea and tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia. He opposed the creation of the GDR, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving, bourgeois state.” The state security apparatus abroad was sharply reduced.
Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, Beria sent documents to the republican Central Committee that spoke about the incorrect Russification policy and illegal repressions. Beria's excessive activity and the strengthening of his positions caused discontent among his comrades in the leadership of the country. N.S. Khrushchev, G.M. Malenkov, L.M. Kaganovich, V.M. Molotov and others united against Beria. On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev unfoundedly accused Beria of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the situation in the GDR, espionage for Great Britain, and announced the removal of Beria from all posts. After this, Beria was arrested by the secretly smuggled G.K. Zhukov to the Kremlin by a group of military personnel of the Moscow Air Defense District (commander of the district troops, Colonel General K.S. Moskalenko, his 1st deputy, Lieutenant General P.F. Batitsky, chief of staff of the district, Major General A.I. Baksov, head of the political department of the district Colonel I.G. Zub and officer for special assignments Lieutenant Colonel V.I. Yuferev). Beria remained under guard until late at night, then he was transported to the Moscow garrison guardhouse, and a day later - to the bunker of the command post of the Moscow Air Defense District.
At the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee on July 2-7, 1953, Berliya was criticized, removed from the Presidium and the Central Committee and expelled from the party as “an enemy of the Communist Party and Soviet people" His former associates also made accusations against him, incl. M.D. Bagirov. He was accused of large number crimes, the main ones of which were clearly absurd - espionage for Great Britain, the desire for “the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.”
A Special Judicial Presence was created to consider the case of Beria and “his gang” Supreme Court USSR: Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev (chairman), chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions N.M. Shvernik, 1st Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR E.D. Zeidin, Army General K.S. Moskalenko, Secretary of the Moscow Regional Party Committee N.A. Mikhailov, Chairman of the Moscow City Court L.A. Gromov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR K.F. Lunev, Chairman of the Georgian Republican Council of Trade Unions M.I. Kuchava. The former People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR, Army General V.N., was involved in the process. Merkulov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel General B.Z. Kobulov, former 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel General S.A. Goglidze, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant General P.Ya. Meshik, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR V.G. Dekanozov, Head of the Investigative Unit for Special Investigations important matters Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Lieutenant General L.E. Wlodzimirski.
On December 23, 1953, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to to the highest degree criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of personal property belonging to them, with deprivation of military ranks and awards. Shot by General P.F. Batitsky. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated December 31, 1953, Beria was deprived of the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and all state awards.
In 2000, the question of Beria’s rehabilitation was raised, but it was again refused.
Family
Wife - Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905 - June 10, 1991), niece of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori, cousin of the Menshevik E. Gegechkori, head of the Menshevik government of Georgia (1920). Researcher at the Agricultural Academy named after. YES. Timiryazeva, was arrested in July 1953, and in November 1954 sent into administrative exile.
Son - Sergo (November 24, 1925 - October 11, 2000), Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, in 1948-1953 he worked in design bureau No. 1 at the 3rd Main Directorate. On June 26, 1953 he was arrested and deported in November 1954. He was married to the granddaughter of A.M. Gorky to Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova. In 1953, his last name was changed to Gegchkori, and in the 1990s, he changed his last name from Gegechkori to Beria and wrote a book in which he justified his father.
Ranks
State Security Commissioner 1st rank (09/11/1938)
General Commissioner of State Security (01/30/1941)
Marshal of the Soviet Union (07/09/1945)
Works
On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. Report at the meeting of the Tiflis party activist on July 21-22, 1935. Partizdat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1936.
Lado Ketskhoveli. M., 1937.
Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939.
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. Kyiv, 1939.
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938. Sukhumi, 1939.
The greatest man modernity [I.V. Stalin]. Kyiv, 1940.
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Alma-Ata, 1938;
About youth. Tbilisi, 1940.
The “diaries” of L.P. published in 2011 Beria is a fake.
Beria Lavrentiy Pavlovich - Deputy Chairman of the Council People's Commissars(SNK) USSR, member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), People's Commissar Internal Affairs of the USSR, General Commissioner of State Security.
Born on March 16 (29), 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Tiflis province, now the Republic of Abkhazia (Georgia), in a peasant family. Georgian. In 1915 he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School. Since 1915 he studied at the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction Technical School. In October 1915, with a group of comrades, he organized an illegal Marxist circle at the school. Member of the RSDLP(b)/RCP(b)/VKP(b)/CPSU since March 1917. Organized a cell of the RSDLP(b) at the school. During the First World War of 1914-18, in June 1917, as a technician trainee at the army hydraulic engineering school, he was sent to the Romanian front, where he conducted active Bolshevik political work among the troops. At the end of 1917, he returned to Baku and, while continuing his studies at a technical school, actively participated in the activities of the Baku Bolshevik organization.
From the beginning of 1919 to April 1920, that is, until the establishment Soviet power in Azerbaijan, led an illegal communist organization of technicians and, on behalf of the Baku Party Committee, provided assistance to a number of Bolshevik cells. In 1919, Lavrentiy Beria successfully graduated from technical school, receiving a diploma as a technical architect-builder.
In 1918-20 he worked in the secretariat of the Baku Council. In April-May 1920 - commissioner of the registration department of the Caucasian Front at the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army, then sent to underground work in Georgia. In June 1920, he was arrested and imprisoned in Kutaisi prison. But at the request of the Soviet plenipotentiary representative S.M. Kirov Lavrentiy Beria was released and deported to Azerbaijan. Returning to Baku, he entered the Baku Polytechnic Institute to study (which he did not graduate from).
In August-October 1920, Beria L.P. - manager of the affairs of the Central Committee (Central Committee) of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan. From October 1920 to February 1921 - executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission (Cheka) for Baku.
In intelligence and counterintelligence agencies since 1921. In April-May 1921 he worked as deputy head of the secret operational unit of the Azerbaijan Cheka; from May 1921 to November 1922 - head of the secret operational unit, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijan Cheka. From November 1922 to March 1926 - deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka, head of the secret operational unit; from March 1926 to December 2, 1926 - deputy chairman of the Main Political Directorate (GPU) of the Georgian SSR, head of the secret operational unit; from December 2, 1926 to April 17, 1931 - deputy plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (ZSFSR), deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU; from December 1926 to April 17, 1931 - head of the secret operational department of the plenipotentiary representative office of the OGPU in the Trans-SFSR and the Transcaucasian GPU.
In 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.
January 30, 1941 to the Commissar of State Security 1st Rank Beria L.P. awarded the title of "General Commissioner of State Security".
On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (from 1946 - the Council of Ministers) of the USSR, but at the same time, state security bodies were removed from his subordination, forming an independent People's Commissariat.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD of the USSR and the NKGB of the USSR were again united under the leadership of the General Commissioner of State Security L.P. Beria.
On June 30, 1941, Lavrentiy Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), and from May 16 to September 1944, he was also Deputy Chairman of the GKO. Through the State Defense Committee, Beria was entrusted with the most important assignments of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, both for the management of the socialist economy in the rear and at the front, namely, control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) for production of aircraft and aircraft engines.
U by the Kazakh Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 30, 1943, for special services in the field of strengthening the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions, General Commissioner of State Security Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal ( No. 80).
March 10, 1944 L.P. Beria introduced I.V. Stalin received a memo with a proposal to evict the Tatars from the territory of Crimea; later he provided general management of the eviction of Chechens, Ingush, Tatars, Germans, etc.
On December 3, 1944, he was assigned to “supervise the development of uranium work”; from August 20, 1945 to March 1953 - Chairman of the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (later under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers of the USSR).
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 9, 1945, Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was awarded a higher military rank"Marshal of the Soviet Union" with the presentation of a special Certificate of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the insignia "Marshal's Star".
After the end of the war on December 29, 1945, Beria left the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From March 19, 1946 to March 15, 1953 L.P. Beria is Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.
As head of the military science department of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks)/CPSU, L.P. Beria oversaw the most important areas of the military-industrial complex of the USSR, including the nuclear project and rocket science, the creation of the TU-4 strategic bomber, and the LB-1 tank gun. Under his leadership and with direct participation, the first atomic bomb in the USSR was created, tested on August 29, 1949, after which some began to call him “the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.”
After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, as part of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, a “leading five” was created, which included L.P. Beria. After the death on March 5, 1953, I.V. Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, concentrating in his hands the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he headed the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, created on the day of Stalin’s death by merging the former ministry and the Ministry of State Security.
On the initiative of Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. On May 9, 1953, an amnesty was declared in the USSR, which freed one million two hundred thousand people, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases involving four hundred thousand people were closed.
Beria advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal and the Volga-Baltic Canal). He achieved the start of armistice negotiations in Korea, tried to restore friendly relations with Yugoslavia, opposed the creation of the German Democratic Republic, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving bourgeois state.” He sharply reduced the state security apparatus abroad.
Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, L.P. Beria sent documents to the Republican Central Committee of the party, which spoke about the wrong Russification policy and illegal repressions.
On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Marshal of the Soviet Union Beria L.P. was arrested...
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, he was removed from the posts of 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, deprived of all titles and awards assigned to him.
In the verdict of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev. it was recorded that “having betrayed the Motherland and acting in the interests of foreign capital, the defendant Beria put together a treasonous group of conspirators hostile to the Soviet state with the aim of seizing power, eliminating the Soviet worker-peasant system, restoring capitalism and restoring the rule of the bourgeoisie.” The special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced L.P. Beria to death penalty.
The death sentence was carried out by Colonel General Batitsky P.F., who shot the convict with a captured Parabellum pistol in the forehead in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, which is confirmed by the corresponding act signed on December 23, 1953:
“On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the Order of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953, No. 003, by me, the commandant of the Special Judicial Presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Actual State Counselor of Justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General K.S. Moskalenko the sentence of the Special Judicial Presence was carried out in relation to Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment - execution".
Attempts by L.P.’s relatives Beria's efforts to reconsider the 1953 case were unsuccessful. On May 29, 2000, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused to rehabilitate the former Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR...
Beria L.P. was awarded five Orders of Lenin (No. 1236 from 03/17/1935, No. 14839 from 09/30/1943, No. 27006 from 02/21/1945, No. 94311 from 03/29/49, No. 118679 from 10/29/1949 ), two Orders of the Red Banner (No. 7034 from 04/03/1924, No. 11517 from 03/11/1944), the Order of Suvorov 1st degree; orders of the Red Banner of Georgia (07/03/1923), the Red Banner of Labor of Georgia (04/10/1931), the Red Banner of Labor of Azerbaijan (03/14/1932) and the Red Banner of Labor of Armenia, seven medals; badges “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (V)” (No. 100), “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (XV)” (No. 205 of December 20, 1932), personalized weapons - a Browning pistol, a watch with a monogram; foreign awards - the Tuvan Order of the Republic (08/18/1943), the Mongolian Order of the Red Banner of Battle (No. 441 from 07/15/1942), Sukhbaatar (No. 31 from 03/29/1949), the Mongolian medal “XXV years of the MPR "(No. 3125 dated September 19, 1946).
Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939;
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1939;
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938 - Sukhumi: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man of our time [I.V. Stalin]. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Translation by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Detyunizdat of the Georgian SSR, 1940;
On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. 8th ed. M., 1949.