All about Leonty Beria. Activities L

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria). Born on March 17 (29), 1899 in the village. Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (Russian Empire) - shot on December 23, 1953 in Moscow. Russian revolutionary, Soviet statesman and party leader.

General Commissar of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (1943), stripped of these titles in 1953. Since 1941, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 - Council of Ministers) of the USSR I.V. Stalin, after his death on March 5, 1953 - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkova and at the same time Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. 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 of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1946-1952), member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee (1952-1953). He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, in particular those related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. Since August 20, 1945, he led the implementation of the USSR nuclear program.

Lavrentiy Beria was born on March 17 (29 according to the new style) March 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh region of Abkhazia) into a poor peasant family.

Mother - Martha Jakeli (1868-1955), Mingrelian. According to the testimony of Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, she was distantly related to the Mingrelian princely family of Dadiani. After the death of her first husband, Martha was left with a son and two daughters in her arms. Later, due to extreme poverty, the children from Martha’s first marriage were taken in by her brother Dmitry.

Father - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922), moved to Merheuli from Megrelia.

Martha and Pavel had three children in their family, but one of the sons died at the age of 2, and the daughter remained deaf and dumb after an 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 with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School (although according to other sources, he studied mediocrely and was left in the second year in the fourth grade), left for Baku and entered the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Technical Construction School.

From the age of 17, he supported his mother and deaf-mute sister, who moved in with him.

Working since 1916 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.

Since 1915, he was a member of the illegal Marxist circle of the Mechanical Engineering School and was its treasurer. In March 1917, Beria became a member of the RSDLP(b).

In June - December 1917, as a technician of a hydraulic engineering detachment, he went to the Romanian front, served in Odessa, then in Pascani (Romania), 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 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 of Soviet power in Azerbaijan (April 1920).

From October 1918 to January 1919 - clerk at the Caspian Partnership White City plant, Baku.

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: “During the first time of the Turkish occupation, I worked in the White City at the Caspian Partnership plant as a clerk. In the autumn of the same 1919, from the Gummet party, I entered the counterintelligence service, where I worked together with comrade Moussevi. Around March 1920, after the murder of Comrade Moussevi, I left my job in counterintelligence and worked for a short time at the Baku customs.”.

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 because “The fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by statements from 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: “From the very first days after the April coup in Azerbaijan, the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the register of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army was sent to Georgia for underground work abroad as an authorized representative. In Tiflis I contact the regional committee represented by Comrade. Hmayak Nazaretyan, I spread a network of residents in Georgia and Armenia, establish contact with the headquarters of the Georgian army and guard, and regularly send couriers to the register of the city of Baku. In Tiflis I was arrested together with the Central Committee of Georgia, but according to negotiations between G. Sturua and Noah Zhordania, everyone was released with an offer to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, I manage to stay, having entered the service under the pseudonym Lakerbaya in the representative office of the RSFSR with Comrade Kirov, who by that time had arrived in the city of Tiflis.”.

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 wrote about this: “In May 1920, I went to the register office in Baku to receive directives in connection with the conclusion of a peace treaty with Georgia, but on the way back to Tiflis I was arrested by a telegram from Noah Ramishvili and taken to Tiflis, from where, despite the efforts of Comrade Kirov, I was sent to Kutaisi prison. June and July 1920, I was in custody, only after four and a half days of hunger strike declared by political prisoners, I was gradually deported to Azerbaijan.”.

Returning to Baku, Beria tried several times to continue his studies at the Baku Polytechnic Institute, into which the school was transformed, and completed three courses.

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. The Chairman of the Cheka of the Azerbaijan SSR at that time was Mir Jafar Bagirov.

In 1921, Beria was sharply criticized by the party and KGB leadership of Azerbaijan for exceeding his powers and falsifying criminal cases, but escaped serious punishment - Anastas Mikoyan interceded for him.

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), combining the post of head of the Special Department of the Transcaucasian Army.

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.

From March 1926 - Deputy Chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR, Head of the Secret Operations Unit.

On December 2, 1926, Lavrentiy Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR (he held this position until December 3, 1931), 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 (until April 17, 1931). 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 her 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 (until December 3, 1931). At the same time, from August 18 to December 3, 1931, he was a member of the board of the OGPU of the USSR.

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 (in office until October 17, 1932); on November 14, 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (until August 31). 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee while maintaining the post of first secretary of 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.

On December 5, 1936, the TSFSR was divided into three independent republics; the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on April 23, 1937.

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 for the first time.

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.

At the beginning of March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the USSR Central Executive Committee and its presidium. On March 17, 1935, he was awarded his first Order of Lenin. In May 1937, he concurrently headed the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks) (until August 31, 1938).

In 1935 he published a book “On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia”- although according to researchers, its real authors were Malakia Toroshelidze and Eric Bedia. In the draft publication of Stalin's Works at the end of 1935, Beria was listed as a member of the editorial board, as well as a candidate editor of individual volumes.

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 of industrial production in Georgia increased 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural production - 2.5 times, with a fundamental change in the structure of 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.): the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.

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. In Georgia, in particular, persecution began against the People's Commissar of Education of the Georgian SSR, Gaioz Devdariani. His brother Shalva, who held important positions in the state security agencies and the Communist Party, was executed. In the end, Gayoz Devdariani was accused of violating Article 58 and, on suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities, was executed in 1938 by the verdict of the NKVD troika. In addition to party functionaries, local intellectuals also suffered from the purge, even those who tried to stay away from politics, including Mikheil Javakhishvili, Titian Tabidze, Sandro Akhmeteli, Yevgeny Mikeladze, Dmitry Shevardnadze, Giorgi Eliava, Grigory Tsereteli and others.

On January 17, 1938, from the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR.

On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov. Simultaneously with Beria, another first deputy people's commissar (from April 15, 1937) was M. P. Frinovsky, who headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR. On September 8, 1938, Frinovsky was appointed People's Commissar of the USSR Navy and left the posts of 1st Deputy People's Commissar and Head of the NKVD Directorate of the USSR; on the same day, September 8, he was replaced in his last post by L.P. Beria - from September 29, 1938 to the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, restored within the structure of the NKVD (December 17, 1938, Beria will be replaced in this post by V.N. Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from December 16, 1938).

On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank.

With the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions decreased sharply. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand.

In 1939-1940, the vast majority of people who were not convicted in 1937-1938 were released. Also, some of those convicted and sent to camps were released. In 1938, 279,966 people were released. The Moscow State University expert commission estimates the number of people released in 1939-1940 at 150-200 thousand people.

From November 25, 1938 to February 3, 1941, Beria led Soviet foreign intelligence (then it was part of the functions of the NKVD of the USSR; from February 3, 1941, foreign intelligence was transferred to the newly formed People's Commissariat for State Security of the USSR, which was headed by Beria's former first deputy in NKVD V. N. Merkulov). Beria in the shortest possible time stopped Yezhov's lawlessness and terror that reigned in the NKVD (including foreign intelligence) and in the army, including military intelligence.

Under the leadership of Beria in 1939-1940, a powerful intelligence network of Soviet foreign intelligence was created in Europe, as well as in Japan and the USA.

Since March 22, 1939 - candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of 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. He oversaw the work of the NKVD, NKGB, people's commissariats of the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and river fleet.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria - what he really was like

During the Great Patriotic War, from June 30, 1941, L.P. Beria was a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO).

By the GKO decree of February 4, 1942 on the distribution of responsibilities between members of the GKO, L. P. Beria was assigned responsibilities for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the production of aircraft, engines, weapons and mortars, as well as for monitoring the implementation of GKO decisions on the work of the Red Air Force Armies (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 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 from the leadership of the country and the party, both related to the management of the national economy and at the front. In fact, he led the defense of the Caucasus in 1942. 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 Order of Lenin (February 21, 1945), and the Order of the Red Banner (November 3, 1944).

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. But already in the decree of the USSR State Defense Committee on Laboratory No. 2 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.

On July 9, 1945, during the recertification of special state security ranks into military ones, L.P. Beria was awarded the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

On September 6, 1945, the Operational Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was formed, of which Beria was appointed chairman. The tasks of the Operations Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars included issues of the operation of industrial enterprises and railway transport.

Since March 1946, Beria was 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, armaments, and the functioning of the 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.

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

Based on the State Defense Order of August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created under the State Defense Committee. 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 refused from participating in the project due to disagreements with Beria), 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 renamed the Special Committee under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he exercised general management of the entire project. Personnel issues of the project were entrusted to M. G. Pervukhin, V. A. Malyshev, B. L. Vannikov and A. P. Zavenyagin, who staffed the organization’s areas of activity with scientific and engineering personnel and selected experts to solve individual issues.

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 removal and arrest 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, 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.” According to the testimony of P. A. Sudoplatov, published in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness,” two project leaders - L. P. Beria and I. V. Kurchatov - were awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” with the wording “for outstanding merits in strengthening the power of the USSR,” it is indicated that the recipient was awarded a “Certificate of Honorary Citizen of the Soviet Union.” Subsequently, the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” was not awarded.

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

In March 1949 - July 1951, there was a sharp strengthening of Beria's position in the country's leadership, which was facilitated by the successful testing of the first atomic bomb in the USSR, the creation of which Beria supervised. However, then came the “Mingrelian case” directed against him.

After the 19th Congress of the CPSU, which took place in October 1952, 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 Bureau of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee created at the suggestion of I.V. Stalin, and also received the right to replace Stalin at meetings of the Bureau of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

On the day of Stalin's death - 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, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was held, where appointments to the highest posts of the party and the Government of the USSR were approved, and, by prior agreement with the Khrushchev group -Malenkov-Molotov-Bulganin, Beria, without much debate, was appointed First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. The United Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR included the previously independent Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR (1946-1953) and the Ministry of State Security of the USSR (1946-1953).

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.

Beria, along with 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. Beria's henchmen 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.

From mid-March to June 1953, Beria, as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with his orders for the ministry and proposals (notes) to the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee (many of which were approved by relevant resolutions and decrees), initiated the termination of the doctors’ case, the Mingrelian case and a number of other legislative and political changes:

- Order on the creation of commissions to review the “doctors’ case”, the conspiracy in the USSR MGB, the Headquarters of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the MGB of the Georgian SSR. All defendants in these cases were rehabilitated within two weeks.

- Order on the creation of a commission to consider cases of deportation of citizens from Georgia.

- Order to review the “aviation case”. Over the next two months, People's Commissar of the Aviation Industry Shakhurin and Commander of the USSR Air Force Novikov, as well as other defendants in the case, were completely rehabilitated and reinstated in their positions and ranks.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on amnesty. According to Beria’s proposal, on March 27, 1953, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee approved the decree “On Amnesty,” according to which 1.203 million people were to be released from places of detention, and investigations against 401 thousand people were to be terminated. As of August 10, 1953, 1.032 million people were released from prison. the following categories of prisoners: sentenced to a term of up to 5 years inclusive, convicted of: official, economic and some military crimes, as well as: minors, elderly, sick, women with young children and pregnant women.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the rehabilitation of persons involved in the “doctors’ case”. The note admitted that innocent major figures in Soviet medicine were presented as spies and murderers, and, as a result, as objects of anti-Semitic persecution launched in the central press. The case from beginning to end is a provocative fiction of the former deputy of the USSR MGB Ryumin, who, having embarked on the criminal path of deceiving the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, in order to obtain the necessary testimony, secured the sanction of I.V. Stalin to use physical coercion measures against the arrested doctors - torture and severe beatings. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the so-called case of pest doctors” dated April 3, 1953 ordered support for Beria’s proposal for the complete rehabilitation of these doctors (37 people) and the removal of Ignatiev from the post of Minister of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, and Ryumin by that time was already arrested.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on bringing to criminal liability persons involved in the death of S. M. Mikhoels and V. I. Golubov.

- Order “On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical coercion against those arrested”. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On approval of measures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR to correct the consequences of violations of the law” dated April 10, 1953, read: “Approve the activities carried out by comrade. Beria L.P. measures to uncover criminal acts committed over a number of years in the former Ministry of State Security of the USSR, expressed in the fabrication of falsified cases against honest people, as well as measures to correct the consequences of violations of Soviet laws, bearing in mind that these measures are aimed at strengthening the Soviet state and socialist legality."

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on the improper handling of the Mingrelian affair. The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the falsification of the case of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group” dated April 10, 1953 recognizes that the circumstances of the case are fictitious, all defendants are to be released and completely rehabilitated.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of N. D. Yakovlev, I. I. Volkotrubenko, I. A. Mirzakhanov and others”.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the rehabilitation of M. M. Kaganovich”.

- Note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “On the abolition of passport restrictions and sensitive areas”.

Lavrenty Beria. Liquidation

Arrest and execution of Lavrentiy Beria

Having secured the support of the majority of members of the Central Committee and high-ranking military personnel, Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on June 26, 1953, where he raised the issue of Beria’s suitability for his position and his removal from all posts except member of the Presidium (Politburo) of the CPSU Central Committee. Among others, Khrushchev voiced accusations of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the worsening situation in the GDR, and espionage for Great Britain in the 1920s.

Beria tried to prove that if he was appointed by the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, then only the plenum could remove him, but following a special signal, a group of generals led by a marshal entered the room and arrested Beria.

Beria was accused of spying for Great Britain and other countries, of striving to eliminate the Soviet worker-peasant system, to restore capitalism and restore the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as of moral decay, abuse of power, and falsification of thousands of criminal cases against his colleagues in Georgia and Transcaucasia and in organizing illegal repressions (this Beria, according to the accusation, committed, also acting for selfish and enemy purposes).

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. 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. On July 27, 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.

The investigative group was actually headed by R.A. Rudenko, who was appointed Prosecutor General of the USSR on June 30, 1953. The investigative team included investigators from the USSR Prosecutor's Office and the Main Military Prosecutor's Office of the USSR, Tsaregradsky, Preobrazhensky, Kitaev and other lawyers.

His closest associates from the state security agencies were accused along with him, immediately after his arrest and later named in the media as “Beria’s gang”:

Merkulov V.N. - Minister of State Control of the USSR;
Kobulov B.Z. - First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Goglidze S. A. - Head of the 3rd Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Meshik P. Ya. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR;
Dekanozov V.G. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Vlodzimirsky L.E. - head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs.

On December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev.

From Beria's last words at the trial: “I have already shown the court what I plead guilty to. I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service for a long time. However, I declare that even while serving there, I did not do anything harmful. I fully admit my moral and everyday decay. Numerous connections with the women mentioned here disgrace me as a citizen and former member of the party...Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and perversions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I have selfish and enemy goals in doing so was not. The reason for my crimes was the situation at that time. ... I do not consider myself guilty of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. I ask you, when sentencing me, to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply them to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve".

The verdict read: "The Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR decided: to sentence Beria L.P., Merkulov V.N., Dekanozov V.G., Kobulov B.Z., Goglidze S.A., Meshik P.Ya., Vlodzimirsky L.E. ... to the highest degree of criminal punishment - execution, with confiscation of personal property belonging to them, with deprivation of military ranks and awards".

All the accused were shot on the same day, and L.P. Beria was shot a few hours before the execution of the 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, the first shot was fired from his service weapon by Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky. The body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the New Donskoy Cemetery (according to other statements, Beria's ashes were scattered over the Moscow River).

A brief report about the trial of L.P. Beria and his employees was published in the Soviet press. However, some historians admit that Beria’s arrest, trial and execution were technically illegal: unlike other defendants in the case, there was never a warrant for his arrest; interrogation protocols and letters exist only in copies, the description of the arrest by its participants is radically different from each other, what happened to his body after the execution is not confirmed by any documents (there is no certificate of cremation).

These and other facts subsequently provided food for all sorts of theories, in particular that L.P. Beria was killed during his arrest, and the entire trial was a falsification designed to hide the true state of affairs.

The version that Beria was killed on the orders of Khrushchev, Malenkov and Bulganin on June 26, 1953 by a capture group directly during the arrest in his mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya Street is presented in an investigative documentary film by journalist Sergei Medvedev, first shown on Channel One on June 4 2014.

After 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 subsequent years, other, lower-ranking members of Beria's gang were convicted and shot or sentenced to long prison terms:

Abakumov V.S. - Chairman of the Collegium of the USSR MGB;
Ryumin M.D. - Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR;
Milshtein S. R - Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR; on the “Baghirov case”;
Bagirov M.D. - 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Markaryan R. A. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic;
Borshchev T.M. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Turkmen SSR;
Grigoryan Kh. I. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Armenian SSR;
Atakishiev S.I. - 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the Azerbaijan SSR;
Emelyanov S.F. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Azerbaijan SSR;
in the “Rukhadze case” Rukhadze N. M. - Minister of State Security of the Georgian SSR;
Rapava. A. N. - Minister of State Control of the Georgian SSR;
Tsereteli Sh. O. - Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR;
Savitsky K.S. - Assistant to the First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR;
Krimyan N. A. - Minister of State Security of the Armenian SSR;
Khazan A.S. - in 1937-1938 head of the 1st department of the SPO of the NKVD of Georgia, and then assistant to the head of the STO of the NKVD of Georgia;
Paramonov G.I. - Deputy Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
Nadaraya S.N. - Head of the 1st Department of the 9th Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs;
and others.

In addition, at least 100 generals and colonels were stripped of their ranks and/or awards and dismissed from the authorities with the wording “as having discredited himself during his work in the authorities... and therefore unworthy of a high rank.”

In 1952, the fifth volume of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia was published, which contained a portrait of L.P. Beria and an article about him. In 1954, the editors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent out a letter to all its subscribers, in which it was strongly recommended that “with scissors or a razor” they cut out both the portrait and the pages dedicated to L.P. Beria, and instead paste in others (sent in the same letter) containing other articles starting with the same letters. In the press and literature of the “Thaw” times, the image of Beria was demonized; he, as the main initiator, was blamed for all the mass repressions.

By the ruling of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on May 29, 2002, Beria, as the organizer of political repressions, was declared not subject to rehabilitation. Guided by Art. Art. 8, 9, 10 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression” of October 18, 1991 and Art. 377-381 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation determined: “Recognize Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, Bogdan Zakharyevich Kobulov, Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze as not subject to rehabilitation”.

Personal life of Lavrentiy Beria:

In his youth, Beria was fond of football. He played for one of the Georgian teams as a left midfielder. Subsequently, he attended almost all the matches of Dynamo teams, especially Dynamo Tbilisi, whose defeats he took painfully.

Beria studied to be an architect and there is evidence that two buildings of the same type on Gagarin Square in Moscow were built according to his design.

“Beri's orchestra” was the name given to his personal guards, who, when traveling in open cars, hid machine guns in violin cases, and a light machine gun in a double bass case.

Wife - Nina (Nino) Teymurazovna Gegechkori(1905-1991). In 1990, at the age of 86, the widow of Lavrentiy Beria gave an interview in which she fully justified her husband’s activities.

The couple had a son who was born in the early 1920s and died in early childhood. This son is mentioned in the documentary film “Children of Beria. Sergo and Marta,” as well as in the interrogation protocol of Nino Taimurazovna Gegechkori.

Son - Sergo (1924-2000).

Nina Gegechkori - wife of Lavrentiy Beria

In recent years, Lavrentiy Beria had a second (unofficially registered) wife. He lived with Valentina (Lalya) Drozdova, who was a schoolgirl at the time they met. Valentina Drozdova gave birth to a daughter from Beria, named Marta or Eteri (according to the singer T.K. Avetisyan, who was personally acquainted with the family of Beria and Lyalya Drozdova - Lyudmila (Lyusya)), who later married Alexander Grishin - the son of the first secretary of the Moscow city committee of the CPSU Victor Grishin.

The day after the report in the Pravda newspaper about Beria’s arrest, Lyalya Drozdova filed a statement with the prosecutor’s office that she had been raped by Beria and lived with him under the threat of physical harm. At the trial, she and her mother A.I. Akopyan acted as witnesses, giving incriminating testimony against Beria.

Valentina Drozdova was subsequently the mistress of currency speculator Yan Rokotov, who was executed in 1961, and the wife of shadow knitwear trader Ilya Galperin, who was executed in 1967.

After Beria’s conviction, his close relatives and close relatives of those convicted along with them were deported to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, Sverdlovsk Region and Kazakhstan.

Bibliography of Lavrentiy Beria:

1936 - On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia;
1939 - Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches;
1940 - The greatest man of our time;
1940 - About youth

Lavrentiy Beria in cinema (performers):

Mikhail Kvarelashvili (“Battle of Stalingrad”, 1 episode, 1949);
Alexander Khanov (“The Fall of Berlin”, 1949);
Nikolai Mordvinov (“Lights of Baku”, 1950; “Donetsk Miners”, 1950);
David Suchet (“Red Monarch”, UK, 1983);
(“The Feasts of Belshazzar, or a Night with Stalin”, USSR, 1989, “Lost in Siberia”, Great Britain-USSR, 1991);

B. Goladze (“Stalingrad”, USSR, 1989);
Roland Nadareishvili (“Little Giant of Big Sex”, USSR, 1990);
V. Bartashov (“Nikolai Vavilov”, USSR, 1990);
Vladimir Sichkar (“War in the Western Direction”, USSR, 1990);
Yan Yanakiev (“Law”, 1989, “10 years without the right of correspondence”, 1990, “My best friend is General Vasily, son of Joseph”, 1991);
(“To hell with us!”, 1991);
Bob Hoskins (“The 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);
Bari Alibasov (“Die of Happiness and Love”, Russia, 1996);
Farid Myazitov (“Ship of Doubles”, 1997);
Mumid Makoev (“Khrustalev, car!”, 1998);
Adam Ferenczi (“Journey to Moscow” (“Podróz do Moskwy”), Poland, 1999);
Nikolai Kirichenko (“In August ’44...”, Russia, Belarus, 2001);
Viktor Sukhorukov (“Desired”, Russia, 2003);
(“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 Seen Through Time", Russia, 2009, "Beria. Loss", Russia, 2010, "Vangelia", Russia, 2013, "On the Razor's Edge", 2013);

Yervand Arzumanyan (“Archangel”, UK-Russia, 2005);
Malkhaz Aslamazashvili (“Stalin. Live”, 2006);
Vadim Tsallati (“Utesov. A Lifelong Song”, 2006);
Vyacheslav Grishechkin (“The Hunt for Beria”, Russia, 2008; “Furtseva”, 2011, “Countergame”, 2011, “Comrade Stalin”, 2011);
(“Zastava Zilina”, Russia, 2008);
Sergey Bagirov (“Second”, 2009);
Adam Bulguchev (“Burnt by the Sun-2”, Russia, 2010; “Zhukov”, 2012, “Zoya”, 2010, “Cop”, 2012, “Kill Stalin”, 2013, “Bomb”, 2013, “Heteras of Major Sokolov” , 2013, “Orlova and Alexandrov”, 2014);

Vasily Ostafiychuk (“Ballad of a Bomber,” 2011);
Alexey Zverev (“Serving the Soviet Union”, 2012);
Sergei Gazarov (“Spy”, 2012, “Son of the Father of Nations”, 2013);
Alexey Eibozhenko Jr. (“Second Uprising of Spartak”, 2012);
Yulian Malakyants (“Life and Fate”, 2012);
Roman Grishin (“Stalin is with us”, 2013);
Tsvet Lazar (“The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared,” Sweden, 2013)

60 years ago, on June 26, 1953, the outstanding statesman of the USSR, an outstanding organizer of the economy and science of the USSR, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, was vilely and treacherously killed.

REFERENCE

Was born L.P. Beria On March 29, 1899, in the Caucasus, a Georgian by nationality, he joined the Bolshevik Party after the February Revolution and first began working in the Cheka - in intelligence and counterintelligence. He was a very good Chekist, was awarded orders, and the legendary organizer and head of the Cheka F.E. Dzerzhinsky awarded him an honorary weapon for the elimination of criminal banditry in the Caucasus, as well as for the elimination of Dashnaks and various kinds of anti-Soviet organizations. At the end of the 20s, Beria became deputy chairman of the Cheka for operational work of all the Transcaucasian republics, in fact, a general, and at this time he suddenly wrote a statement asking to be relieved of his post and given the opportunity to become a student and civil engineer. He was not released, but was promoted and appointed chairman of the Cheka of Transcaucasia.

In 1931, he nevertheless left the special services and became the party leader of the entire Transcaucasus, and already in this position he showed himself to be a powerful organizer of the economy.

Under him, the oil industry of the Caspian Sea was developed, Georgia received metallurgy, Tbilisi, which before was a dirty provincial town, under Beria received sewerage, water supply, many palaces and beautiful residential buildings. Beria brought eucalyptus trees to the ancient land of Colchis, suffering from malarial swamps, and drained these swamps, under him the production of domestic tea increased 60 times. For comparison: the USSR in those years developed the economy in a way that no one in the world had ever dreamed of, but Beria developed the economy of Transcaucasia twice as fast as the average USSR. L.P. Beria was not greedy, he always lived modestly, without arrogance, plunging headlong into the affairs entrusted to him.

In 1937, the Soviet Union had a problem - “ Yezhovshchina" Having received the task of ridding the Soviet Union of the fifth column, the People's Commissar (Minister) of Internal Affairs of the USSR is a traitor N. Ezhov picked up scoundrels in the NKVD and unleashed terror, including on hundreds of thousands of innocent people. An unconditionally honest and intelligent person was needed, capable of simultaneously continuing the fight against traitors and correcting the crimes of the Yezhovshchina. Beria, contrary to his wishes, is appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

In this post, Beria cleared the NKVD apparatus of criminals who had infiltrated positions under Yezhov ( rather, from the very beginning of the “Great Jewish Revolution” - approx. ed. ), and began reviewing cases opened under Yezhov. It is characteristic that this enormous work was entrusted not to the prosecutor’s office or the court, but to the NKVD under the leadership of Beria. In 1939 alone, 330 thousand people were released, and the review of cases continued in subsequent years, while Beria continued to cleanse the country of the “fifth column.” Before the war, Beria became deputy head of the USSR government, remaining the head of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs (from which by this time the Commissariat of State Security had been separated).

With the beginning of the war, L.P. Beria is elected one of the 5 members of the State Defense Committee, which concentrated in its hands all power in the USSR. Beria was entrusted with organizing the production of small arms, mortars, ammunition, tanks, aircraft and engines, as well as organizing the work of the People's Commissariats (ministries): defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper pulp, electrical industry, power plants, Beria also controlled the formation of the Air Force.

In 1944, Beria was elected deputy chairman of the GKO and chairman of the GKO Operations Bureau, which considered all current issues of the GKO. That is, by the end of the war L.P. Beria was the de facto second leader of the USSR. Of course, he led the NKVD, and was also responsible for the rear of the Red Army, for the partisan movement behind enemy lines. In 1942, when confidence in the generals of the Red Army fell to its lowest point, L.P. Beria led the defense of the Caucasus.

After the war, he was relieved of his workload, freed from the leadership of the NKVD, but was additionally tasked with the creation of nuclear weapons, and a little later - air defense missile systems. In August 1949, an atomic bomb was created and tested; in August 1953, after the assassination of Beria, a “dry” hydrogen bomb, that is, a hydrogen bomb accessible for transportation by air, was tested for the first time in the world.

L.P. Beria together with Kurchatov- the only ones Honorary citizens of the USSR .

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS FOR THE ANNIVERSARY

Since the murder of L.P. Beria, I wrote a book " Murder Stalin and Beria", then by this date I will limit myself to answering questions Nils Johannsen, editor of the economics department of the newspaper “Culture”.

- How, where and when did L.P. die? Beria, was he tried and shot according to the law, or was he simply killed?

The fact that he was killed on June 26, 1953 is certain. But due to the fact that this was a secret murder, not documented in any way and carefully hidden, the details of which even the accomplices, participants and witnesses were far from all aware of, it is difficult to accurately restore the location of the murder. This could have been the air defense headquarters of the Moscow Military District, where the commander of the Moscow air defense Moskalenko could have lured Beria due to the fact that Beria led the creation of anti-aircraft missile systems, the first of which were installed to protect the skies of the capital. This version convinces me more. At the same time, there are memoirs of witnesses, from which we can conclude that Beria was killed at home in his office, where the killers arrived under the guise of resolving business issues.

Murder according to the law is execution by court verdict. As of June 26, there is no trial of L.P. Beria was not there, there were not even government decisions to arrest Beria and initiate criminal proceedings against him. The facts show that Generals Moskalenko and Batitsky They were obliged not to kill Beria, but to ensure his arrival at the meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. And at this meeting of the Presidium the issue of Beria should have been considered, since Khrushchev disinformation was invented that Beria allegedly organized a conspiracy.

According to the surviving theses of the supposed speech Malenkova on the issue of Beria and the draft he wrote of the proposed decision of the Presidium of June 26 (Malenkov was at that time the head of the USSR government), Beria should have been relieved of all his positions (deputy head of the USSR, Chairman of the Special Committee, Minister of the United Ministries of Internal Affairs and State Security) and appoint as Minister of Petroleum Industry.

Secondly, Beria did not agree to stop the surveillance, which had been going on since ancient times, of members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and senior government officials. The surveillance was carried out by the USSR intelligence services (which, after Stalin's death, was again headed by Beria) in order to protect senior officials of the state from attempts to betray the USSR - from their contacts with foreign residents and dubious persons. But, you understand, such surveillance greatly interfered with the “personal life” of these bosses. The bosses wanted simple personal freedom - to spend money without explaining their origin to anyone, and to have mistresses, but the reports of the personal guards to the government prevented this. For example, Malenkov was going to reproach Beria and Stalin’s order at the Presidium:At the same time, the members of the Presidium (except for Khrushchev, who had his own motives) were dissatisfied with Beria not for the reasons of his “conspiracy” - hardly any of the members of the Presidium truly believed in this conspiracy. For example, in Malenkov’s aforementioned draft there is not a word about a conspiracy. And it turns out that for the majority of members of the Presidium, the “conspiracy” was only a reason to have a cool conversation with Beria and remove him from his posts for two reasons. Firstly, Beria, perhaps the only one, accurately carried out the decisions of the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at which the party was removed from state power and all power in the USSR passed to the Soviets. And according to the new Charter, Beria ignored party bodies and did not allow them to interfere in government affairs. “Recruitment and propaganda” - these are Beria’s requirements for party bodies, and this is exactly what the new CPSU Charter required. But left without Stalin, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee actually and secretly left the situation with power in the country as it was before the 19th Congress of the CPSU - Beria stood in their way.

“Security Management” – Central Committee

From morning to evening I can't take a step [sh] no control!
Our protection is for each individual, for the one who is being guarded (without denunciations)
We are at [comrade] St [alina] nedov [olny]
Organization of eavesdropping – Central Committee – control
T [companions] not sure [us] who will overhear whom [hips]."

I would also like to emphasize that none of the members of the Presidium were going to arrest Beria, and the fact that Moskalenko and Batitsky did not bring Beria to the meeting of the Presidium, but reported that they had killed him, must have shocked all the members of the Presidium (except for Khrushchev, this is a murder and organizer).

Major General P.F. sent a bullet to Beria. Batitsky. Boasting about executioner functions is not the Russian way, but he boasts about this “feat”, in addition, under “ act of execution“is his signature, therefore, he did it. Let me remind you that after the murder of Beria, countless awards were showered on Moskalenko and Batitsky, it was even planned to award them the title of Heroes of the Soviet Union. However, even without this, Colonel General Moskalenko, who had held this rank for 10 years, immediately accepted the rank of army general and the position of commander of the Moscow Military District, and in 1955 he already became a marshal. And the infantry staff officer, Major General Batitsky, immediately grabbed the rank of colonel general (!) and the position of commander of the air defense of the Moscow Military District. True, Wikipedia reports that Batitsky was already a lieutenant general at that time, but in this case I believe Moskalenko more, and Moskalenko writes that he invited Major General Batitsky “to the cause.”

- Why L.P. Beria was killed precisely at the end of June 1953, what steps did his enemies-Partocrats fear so much regarding the reforms of the Soviet state and the CPSU, and for what purpose was he so hastily “removed”?

Apparently, at this time Beria was reaching the finish line in the investigation of Stalin’s murder, and Khrushchev could no longer wait, otherwise Beria would have exposed him. The rest of the partycrats (I’ll call them that, since you think it’s appropriate) “carried along at the will of the waves.”

The partycrats were just political enemies of Beria (I wrote above about the reasons for these political differences), and they would not have agreed to any murder of Beria. Beria, as I see it, was alone among the top partyocrats, and they were the majority; they could well have removed Beria from his post and shoved him somewhere as an ambassador or head of construction, as they later did with Malenkov and Bulganin. In the end, if Beria began to propagate the ideas of the 19th Congress below or in the Soviets and create some kind of bloc of his supporters, the partyocrats would organize a real trial of him, as they previously did of members of the opposition.

It was also unprofitable for the partyocrats to uncover the murder of Stalin by Beria for a banal reason - why wash dirty linen in public, and such a scandalous one at that? Beria’s actions to implement the decisions of the 19th Congress were not beneficial to them, and it was for this reason that the partycrats, suppressing their conscience, agreed with Khrushchev’s delusional version of the “Beria conspiracy” and the subsequent, as it were, trial of him and his execution, as it were.Only those who themselves were in danger of death from Beria’s activities could decide to kill Beria. In reality it could only be Khrushchev. Probably, all members of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee had suspicions that something was fishy with Stalin’s death, but Stalin’s death was very beneficial to all partycrats - supporters of the removal of the party from power were deprived of such a powerful leader as Stalin. And without Stalin, it was possible to restore the power of the party, that is, theirs, the partycrats, power, in full. And that is why even outstanding partycrats (the same Molotov And Kaganovich) pretended that they believed in the naturalness of Stalin’s death, and that everything was in order with this death. Only Beria did not believe in the naturalness of Stalin’s death, and this can be seen from the actions he took when he became Minister of Internal Affairs. One thing is that he arrested the Deputy Minister of the MGB Ogoltsova, who had hidden poisons at his disposal, but was not formally involved in Stalin’s death, suggests that Beria was sure that Stalin was poisoned. The killer - Khrushchev - was afraid of precisely this part of Beria’s activities, and not, say, the denunciations of Khrushchev’s personal guard about the details of his personal life - what worried Malenkov.

At one time, I called the last surviving member of the then CPSU Central Committee N.K. Baibakov. During a conversation on technical issues, I asked him if he remembered the July 1953 Plenum of the Central Committee, which took place a week after the murder of Beria and was dedicated to his “criminal” activities? When Nikolai Konstantinovich remembered him (he was already 90 years old), I unexpectedly asked him a question: “ Did you know at the Plenum that Beria had already been killed?" He quickly replied: " No, I didn't know anything then“- but then, after a hesitation, he said: “ But the fact is that he ended up killed" I don’t believe Baibakov that before the Plenum he did not know that Beria had already been killed - it was too cool and unfair at this Plenum that Baibakov “convicted” his boss Beria - if Beria had been alive and even under arrest, Baibakov would not have denounced him so harshly. Before the incident with Beria, all accused of this rank were called by members of the Central Committee to the plenum for personal explanations, say, the same Bukharin And Rykova, they arranged confrontations, but in the case of Beria, no one even mentioned calling Beria to the Plenum meetings. This means, most likely, all members of the Central Committee knew that Beria had already been killed. They knew, but they were silent, and this silence made them accomplices in the murder, forced to continue to remain silent.

Most likely, the partocrats initially had uncertainty and fear of speaking alone in defense of Beria. Then, thanks to their silence, everyone, I repeat, became accomplices in the murder of Beria, after which, even decades later, when they tried to tell the truth about the murder of Beria, they would immediately come across the question - why were you silent and allowed the people to be deceived with lies about " Beria's gang trial»?

- Why is the “trial” of L.P. Beria “walked” for so long, until the end of 1953, why was there such a long “show”, who needed it and why?

There was no trial - there were no sessions; by the way, even according to the liars, the trial itself was not very long - 8 days. But the killers, naturally, needed time for an “investigation” in order to fabricate documents for the archives and, in general, to create the appearance of a thorough investigation and court hearing. Most likely, the defendants were once gathered in a room allocated for the trial, photographed (Beria, of course, is not in the photo) and killed. And after 8 days they announced the end of the trial and the verdict.

- Who can directly be called the murderers of L.P. Beria, what is the role of each of the conspirators personally?

Batitsky and Moskalenko are hired killers, “killers.” They themselves, of course, even if they “had a grudge” against Beria, would not have decided on anything. Those who ordered the murder are the real murderers of Stalin - Khrushchev and Ignatiev. (S.D. Ignatiev was the Minister of the Ministry of State Security at the time of Stalin’s assassination; Beria sought Ignatiev’s arrest, becoming the Minister of the united Ministry of Internal Affairs).

Direct accomplices to the murder - those who actively, and not by silence, concealed the murder of L.P. Beria - those who fabricated the case of the “Beria gang” and convicted the innocent. Therefore, the marshal who presided over the trial of the “Beria gang” Konev and members of the Judicial Presence – Shvernik, Zeydin, Moskalenko, Mikhailov, Kuchava, Gromov, And Lunev- those who allegedly tried Beria and these people not only concealed the murder of Beria on June 26, but are also directly the murderers of 6 more people - Kobulov, Merkulov, Dekanozov, Meshik, Vlodzimirsky And Goglidze.

The fact that there was no trial of Beria is evidenced by another fact. When a defendant is sentenced to death, he naturally knows this. He is led to the executioner, in the presence of the executioner, the prosecutor makes sure that in front of him is the one who needs to be shot, he and the executioner sign the act and with this the prosecutor confirms to the executioner that he will indeed kill the one who was sentenced by the court, and the executioner kills. No matter what the condemned man says or does at this time, he knows that he is condemned, and the executioner will not doubt this from his words. Imagine that a man was brought to the executioner who claims that he has not yet been tried. Plus, there is a prosecutor present at the execution, whom the executioner does not personally know. What will the executioner think? That's right - he will understand that they want to make him a murderer. A conflict may arise - the armed executioner may demand that his boss and the prosecutor with whom he usually carried out executions demand that they deal with what is happening.

Thus, if there really was a trial and the verdict was legal, then the USSR Prosecutor General Rudenko could well have called the executioner to the bunker of the air defense headquarters of the Moscow Military District (where those arrested in the “Beria case” were killed), and he would have carried out the sentence.

But, according to the act of execution, in fact, it was not the executioner, but the prosecutor (Kitaev) and personally the member of the court (Lunev) who killed Kobulov, Merkulov, Dekanozov, Meshik, Vlodzimirsky and Goglidze. How do you like these judges and executioners “in one package”?

Meanwhile, all members of the CPSU Central Committee and, in general, everyone who knew about the murder of Beria and members of the “Beria gang” are also criminals, and not just according to the concepts of human morality, but also according to the law, even according to today’s Criminal Code. This is Article 312 – concealment of especially serious crimes that was not promised in advance.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the criminals (despite their relative numbers) spent their entire lives so carefully concealing the events related to the murder of Beria, adhering to the official version. And it is precisely because of their silence that it is so difficult to restore the details associated with the murder of Stalin and Beria.

- Why L.P. Beria, the head of the newly united Ministry of Internal Affairs, did not make any attempts to protect himself, to be proactive? What did he do in the last days of his life?

So what if he was the head of the united Ministry of Internal Affairs? Did this give him the right and opportunity to ignore the law and act as criminals acted? He conducted the investigation as required by law.

Of course, it would have been easier for him if he had understood from the very beginning who Stalin’s killer was and taken measures to protect himself from the actions of this man. But Stalin's killer - Khrushchev - was a close friend of Beria, many independent sources say this, without even intending to say it. For example, Stalin’s bodyguard recalled how Beria and Khrushchev played gorodki at Stalin’s dacha, while kindly calling each other by their own invented nicknames. This behavior indicates long-term friendly relations between Khrushchev and Beria; accordingly, Beria, most likely, could not even imagine that the threat came from Khrushchev.

WHO ARE OBLIGED TO?

Let me summarize.

Khrushchev organized the assassination of one of the most outstanding statesmen not only of the USSR, but also of Russia since ancient times. A man who found satisfaction in the great achievements of his Motherland, in addition, knew how to organize these achievements. Against the background of the current political bedbug, in which the goal is only the benefits given by the position, in which no one is capable not only of emotional impulse, but also of elementary creativity, L.P. Beria looks like a mighty canal against the backdrop of rural sewerage.

The overwhelming majority of even those who know about Beria’s role in the creation of nuclear weapons believe that the main thing is the design of the bombs. This is mistake. The design of bombs is the simplest thing in creating nuclear weapons, but the most difficult thing is the production of the “explosives” themselves - plutonium and the isotope uranium-235. Assess the complexity of at least these problems.

In nature, uranium is found mainly in the form of uranium-238, the isotope uranium-235 in this natural uranium is only 0.711% of all uranium. And in uranium ore itself - in what geologists call uranium ore - there is at best 2 kilograms of uranium per ton, and usually 200 grams. Thus, in order to extract this ore, it is necessary to shovel waste rock. And to obtain 1 ton of uranium metal, it is necessary to extract and process 100-120 thousand tons of initial minerals. A ton of uranium takes up a volume slightly larger than a 50-liter barrel, and to obtain this ton, you need to process 2,000 fully loaded railway cars of raw materials!

But even this ton of such uranium is not suitable for a bomb. This uranium must either be loaded into a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium, or those 0.711% of the uranium-235 isotope must be extracted from it. To carry out the reaction and produce plutonium from uranium-238, approximately 150 tons of uranium and at least 1000 tons of blocks of pure graphite must be loaded into an industrial reactor. Graphite and diamond are the chemical element carbon, so graphite for the reactor should be purer in impurities than pure diamond. It was unknown how to obtain such graphite in such quantities.

The reactor for producing plutonium must operate for three months and only after that plutonium will accumulate in more or less sufficient quantities in the uranium briquettes in this reactor. These uranium briquettes needed to be removed from the reactor, dissolved, plutonium isolated from the uranium (at that time - unknown how), and now this plutonium (after its processing was unclear at that time) could be used to create an atomic bomb.

After three months of operation of an industrial reactor, no more than 0.01% plutonium is formed in it, that is, up to a maximum of 100 grams per ton of uranium processed in the reactor, and taking into account the possibility of extraction - 50-60 grams, but for one atomic bomb 10 kg were required plutonium By the way, by that time only 370 tons of uranium had been explored in the USSR, and 150 tons were needed for just one load of the reactor to produce plutonium. By 1948, Beria’s department already employed 600 thousand people in uranium exploration and mining.

Now about the isolation of the uranium-235 isotope from its mixture with uranium-238. These isotopes are the same chemical element, so it is impossible to separate them by any chemical means. You have to spin. Uranium is first converted into gaseous form - combined with fluorine to form uranium hexafluoride - uranium hexafluoride, and this is a gas in which the molecules of uranium-238 are slightly heavier than the molecules of uranium-235.

The difference is negligible - a molecule of uranium-238 hexafluoride weighs 352 atomic units, and a molecule of uranium-235 hexafluoride weighs 349 atomic units. If we assume that a molecule of 235 weighs a kilogram, then a molecule of 238 will weigh a kilogram and another 8 grams. And for this difference - for these 8 grams per kilogram, for this 0.8% - I had to cling.

We started with a diffusion method for separating these isotopes, in which at each stage - in each machine - the amount of uranium-235 hexafluoride increased by 0.2%. They took the source gas and passed it through one diffusion machine, after which the content of the uranium-235 isotope in this gas rose from 0.711% to 0.712%. The gas obtained after the first enrichment was put into the next diffusion machine, then into the next one, and so on, and so on. After passing through, say, 14 machines, the content of uranium-235 increased from 0.711% to 0.730%, and it was necessary to have at least 90%! And in order to obtain this content, it was necessary to have up to 10 thousand cars in one column, one after another, of different types. The production is terrible in its complexity, because the malfunction of one machine out of these thousands will lead to a stoppage of all! No wonder that after a year of trying to launch this production, the director and chief engineer announced that it was impossible! Beria was forced to go to this plant and organize its withdrawal from the technological and organizational impasse. The second atomic bomb of the USSR was already made from uranium-235.

All scientists in the creation of nuclear weapons praise themselves and each other, but their role is that of a cook who managed to fry a beef sirloin steak. And the role of Beria is the role of the one who built the cowsheds, sowed the fields, received the calves, fed them with the resulting corn and alfalfa, slaughtered the bulls, butchered them, delivered the tenderloin to the restaurant and made sure that the cook did not steal or get drunk at work.

But that's not all. Both the British and the Americans failed to organize the separation of isotopes using centrifuges. And Beria invested money and selected engineers to develop this method. As a result, the world's first centrifuge isotope separation plant was built in the USSR in 1964 - 10 years earlier than anywhere else in the world. This method is almost three times more productive than the diffusion method, and the energy consumption per unit of separated isotopes is 25 times lower. Beria not only knew how to organize the most complex cases, he sensed the future!

His work load on the atomic project was enough for any smart person to come to work at 8 am and leave at 8 pm. Seven days a week. But Beria was Stalin’s deputy on many issues. For example, when in 1945 he outlined plans to increase oil production three times and bring its production to 60 million tons by 1960, the Minister of the Oil Industry panicked and went to complain to Stalin Baibakov– neither the explored reserves nor the available technologies allowed this to be done. Beria took this problem into his own hands, organized exploration, improved technology, production of drill bits and casing pipes, drilling machines, etc., etc. And not by 1960, but by 1955, oil production in the USSR reached 70 million tons, and by 1960 - 147 million!

The current “democrats” in power have stolen and are stealing everything – both weapons-grade uranium reserves and oil reserves. Well, you should at least know whose intellectual work for the benefit of the people of the USSR, they are using for expensive food and expensive whores.

The death of the leader of a world power always entails an inevitable struggle for power, even if an official successor has been appointed. Actions of the environment I.V. Stalin, who unexpectedly left in the spring of 1953, was no exception to the rule. Party and military functionaries, rightly fearing possible reprisals from L.P. Beria, accused him of treason, and then shot him. The only question is when it was done: illegally during the arrest or after the trial in compliance with all legal formalities?

Conspiracy of like-minded people

The fact that the party elite, tired of the constant purges of its ranks during the life of I.V. Stalin, will try to eliminate L.P. Beria, who concentrated the levers of control of the USSR intelligence services in his hands, was not doubted by anyone. The unfolding struggle for power did not become a revelation for Lavrenty Pavlovich himself. True, he planned to emerge victorious, but he miscalculated. Even his closest friend and ally G.M. betrayed him. Malenkov, who was immediately appointed to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It should be noted that L.P. Beria was largely ruined by excessive self-confidence. At his disposal was not only the entire repressive apparatus of the country, but also a huge package of documents compromising all the leaders of the country. He knew perfectly well all the hidden pages of their biographies, which they themselves sincerely wanted to forget.

However, as the proverb goes, don't push the cat into a corner. The leaders of the country and the party who remained after the death of I.V. felt themselves in the position of just such a cat. Stalin alone with Lavrentiy Pavlovich. However, they did not have any real power to rely on in the confrontation with their main competitor for power in the country. In this situation, the military played a significant role, having recently emerged victorious from the bloodiest war of mankind. The military generals knew how to act quickly and decisively, moreover, they had an army behind them, and the authority of G.K. Zhukova was indisputable.

Soon at the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee (July 2-7, 1953), taking advantage of the absence of L.P. Beria, party bosses formulated charges that they planned to bring against their victim. They were going to blame Beria for creating a nervous situation in the circle of people surrounding I.V. Stalin; spying on members of the state and party leadership; criminal connections with Josip Broz Tito; the desire to organize a united state of bourgeois Germany, as well as work in his youth for intelligence work in capitalist countries - Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Execution of Beria: official version

When Beria's fate was finally decided, the question arose of how to implement the plan. Further options for the development of events differ significantly. According to the official version, L.P. Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on July 26, 1953 by a group of military men led by G.K. Zhukov. True, the participants in this event subsequently described its details differently. However, minor inconsistencies in their words can be explained by the desire of each to take credit for the main merit in this matter. After the arrest of L.P. Beria was placed in the guardhouse of the headquarters bunker of the Moscow Military District. A closed trial and execution of L.P. also took place here. Beria on December 23, 1953.

Version of conspiracy theorists: a double was tried

The most surprising thing is that, according to a number of researchers, it was not L.P. who was arrested. Beria, and his double, specially prepared for such cases. It was he who was shot on December 23, 1953. Moreover, this hypothesis arose almost immediately after the events described and was quite popular in the corridors of power of those years. Firstly, at the trial, for some reason, Beria was not recognized by his former comrades who were not involved in the conspiracy against him. Secondly, historians have not found an act on the cremation of L.P.’s body. Beria, while similar documents about the cremation of his closest deputies who were shot on the same day were preserved. Thirdly, there are known memoirs of contemporaries who claim that, according to their data, on the day of the arrest, machine gun shots were heard in Beria’s mansion, and then a body covered with a tarpaulin was taken out of the building, which, judging by the outline, could belong to Beria. The main supporter of this version is the son of L.P. Beria - Sergo.

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 of mass repressions.

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 and Construction School in Baku with a degree in Architectural Technician. Lavrentiy 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 Tskaltubo, 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 position.

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 engaged in the development of 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 the 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 of his poisoning by Beria with the help of warfarin has recently received a lot of indirect confirmation. 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 is 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 an all-powerful official noticed a 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.

During a search of his personal office, 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 him right in the forehead. The rope prevented the body from falling.

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

The influence of the opposition immediately after Stalin’s death on the country’s development path indicates that in Soviet Stalinist Russia everything was done in the Russian way, without much bloodshed, and the opposition was only driven underground, and not destroyed. This opposition, many of whose representatives were the fifth column of the West, was the third force that contributed to Khrushchev’s rise to power over the country.

This arrival was preceded by a number of events. On March 27, 1953, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared an amnesty for prisoners whose term of imprisonment did not exceed five years. Liberals write that over 1 million people have been released from prison. But these data are distrustful, since throughout the USSR on January 1, 1953, there were 1,727,970 prisoners held in camps.

For what purpose were the criminals released? No doubt for the purpose of intimidating the people. The new government did not worry about the fact that released criminals would steal, beat and even kill working citizens of the country and their children. These were the first government actions that contradicted the traditions and essence of the Soviet state. And as they write, three people had real power in the country at that time: G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria and N. S. Khrushchev. They decided to use criminals in the political struggle. Stalin never allowed himself to do this. His authority and power rested on the working people.

About the amnesty S.G. Kara-Murza writes the following: “At the beginning of the summer of 1953, Moscow was filled with criminals of all ages. It was an amnesty, which was later written about a lot and even made into films. It is clear that, in addition to the amnesty, there was some kind of sign, because the behavior of these people changed dramatically. They gave battle to society - cautious but open. The rumors, of course, exaggerated everything, but they told a lot of terrible cases... The slopes of the Lenin Mountains were filled with strange people. They sat in groups around the fires, cooked something, played cards, and had young punks with them. These were those released under the amnesty who poured into Moscow... In the fall, military patrols began to walk around Moscow - a pair of soldiers with bayonets on their belts. We examined the nooks and crannies carefully and were on guard. The situation immediately returned to normal, but people still had a bad feeling. Previously, it seemed that such failures could not happen in our state machine.

By the way, in 1990, when law enforcement agencies were dispersed by the democratic press in large cities and crime began to rapidly increase, the government tried to introduce street patrolling by the military together with the police. A terrible cry arose; they were almost talking about a military dictatorship. And most importantly, this cry found a wide response among the townspeople. This made a very difficult impression - as if people had suddenly lost their common sense.”
The second event was the appointment of G.K. Zhukov, First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. Under Stalin, Zhukov was dismissed from the highest echelons of power because he violated the law on the export of valuables from Germany. I think that the departure of G.K. Zhukov from Moscow saved him from trial and allowed J.V. Stalin to declare that Zhukov had already been punished. Therefore, Zhukov was not tried, as, for example, under Stalin, People’s Commissar of the Aviation Industry A.I. Shakhurin was tried for the same illegal actions. In my opinion, the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of defeated Germany that appeared among these individuals after the end of the war is to a certain extent explained by the behavior of their families, who were expecting rich trophies. There was no point in “pushing” Zhukov for Stalin, since he himself contributed to the rise of the latter and, no matter what, after the war did not allow the glory of G.K. Zhukov to be debunked.

But the biggest event that influenced for the worse the entire further development of the country was the murder of L.P. Beria. I write murder because I share the opinion of researchers who quite reasonably prove the absence of the fact of the arrest of L.P. Beria and his trial. When L.P. Beria was allegedly tried, he had long been dead.

L.P. Beria brought quite a lot of benefit to the Soviet state and people. Before the war, he ensured the triumph of the law over clan interests and began bringing false informers to justice, thereby sharply reducing the number of denunciations received by the NKVD.

Beria contributed to the development of our intelligence service during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, organizing the dismantling and removal of industrial enterprises to the East of the country, ensuring a quiet life for home front workers, returning to the army in 1941 more than a million soldiers and officers who were left behind during the retreat from their units, escaped from encirclement and escaped from German captivity. Moreover, of these categories of military personnel, less than 4% were detained, and 96% were sent to the ranks of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) to continue military service.
During the war, in the troops of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), as in the army, there were people from the people who deserve to have monuments erected to them, just like the heroes of our army. And the image of the military personnel of the NKVD structures, which K. Simonov was one of the first writers to create in the novel “The Living and the Dead,” is largely untrue.

NKVD employees fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, laid down their lives on the altar of victory, obtaining intelligence data, counteracted the German intelligence services with the forces of military counterintelligence officers, ensured order in cities infested with German agents liberated by Soviet troops, fought in our rear with German agents, saboteurs and unruly soldiers. during the war as criminals, and also committed thousands of other matters that were very important for the security of the country. In my opinion, without the activities of the NKVD, victory in the war would have cost us significantly greater losses or would have been impossible altogether.

L.P. Beria made no less contribution to the Victory over Germany and its allies than our illustrious military leaders and heads of industries.

During the war, L.P. Beria joined the State Defense Committee (GKO). As Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief for operational issues, he dealt with a lot of different complex matters needed by the country, including transport and production of certain types.

Since 1946, L.P. Beria worked as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. How he handled his responsibilities on the main issues of creating new weapons, the reader can judge from the articles describing the creation of the atomic bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“And the thought involuntarily suggests itself: if Beria had not strived to become a creator, if he had continued to remain at the head of the special services, then, probably, the USSR would have had an atomic and hydrogen bomb 5 years later, probably Yu. Gagarin would have flown into space 5 -10 years later, but the USSR would have survived, and, most importantly, its movement towards communism would have been preserved,” writes Yu. I. Mukhin.

For 7 years from 1946 to 1953, L.P. Beria did not actually lead the state security and internal affairs services, and it would be wrong to talk about his omnipotence in the struggle for power.

From the point of view of the national interests of the USSR, many negative initiatives were attributed to Beria. For example, the reunification of Germany. In fact, on the contrary, Beria understood well that the unification of Germany, or rather the transfer of the Eastern part of Germany to the West, reduced the security of the Soviet Union by an order of magnitude. The statesman L.P. Beria, who devoted his entire life to ensuring the security of the Soviet Union, could not come up with such initiatives.

Its presence in Eastern Europe allowed the USSR, when attacking our country, to shoot down enemy planes and missiles over foreign territory, engage in battle with the enemy without allowing him to enter its land, thereby ensuring the security of the peoples of the Soviet Union.

Hundreds of myths have been composed about Beria, and all of them are aimed at discrediting him. They write that he freed Jews from prisons because he himself was a Jew by nationality. They don’t write about Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other fiery revolutionaries who fought against Russian communism that they were Jews by nationality, but they write about Beria, thereby hinting at the alienness of Russia’s national interests to him.

I have not come across exact information about Beria’s nationality, but I know that he has established himself as a patriot-statist and is confident that under his rule the well-being of the people and the power of the country would have grown much faster than under N.S. Khrushchev. The main thing is that the connection between generations would not be interrupted and the greatest and most fateful time in the Russian state called the USSR would not be slandered.

Yu. Mukhin proves that L.P. Beria was killed long before the trial at that time by Major General P.F. Batitsky and his accomplice, in those years a friend of N.S. Khrushchev, Colonel General K.S. Moskalenko.

During the reign of I.V. Stalin, the country's leadership did not allow or commit contract killings of members of the government. In particular, this is why L.P. Beria was defeated in the fight with N.S. Khrushchev. Beria did not expect a treacherous murder from around the corner.

The majority of the country's citizens, with the help of the media, were instilled with a completely different opinion about Beria and the events of those days, which did not correspond to reality. But most of the facts indicate that at the time of the July 1953 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, L.P. Beria had already been killed.