Beria biography personal life. The beginning of a political career. Head of State and his natural successor

Everyone more or less knows about Stalin, at least by hearsay. But L.P. Beria - "iron mask". Therefore, I will allow myself a small experiment to show how unlike Lavrenty Pavlovich was either from his contemporaries or from many of us. Beria's archives were either destroyed or not found. In 1953, during a mock trial of him, his autobiographical statement was added to the case (based on it, L.P. Beria was “exposed” as a spy for enemy intelligence). But this document is interesting to me for a completely different reason. Lavrentiy Beria was only 24 years old at the time of writing this document. But he was already (according to his position) no less than a lieutenant general (general ranks were introduced in the USSR in the late 30s). And he asks. He needs what he asks for so much that he writes not just a statement, but his entire biography to show how good and deserved he is. He tries with all his might to convince the one he asks to be given what he asks for. But first, this is his biography-statement, dated “1923 22/X”. "Autobiography. I was born on March 17, 1899 in the village of Merkheuli (15 versts from the city of Sukhumi) into a poor peasant family. Due to the fact that my education was a burden to my parents, while still a student at the Sukhumi City School, I trained students junior classes, thus helping the family, and this continued intermittently until 1915. In 1915 I moved to Baku; from this moment my independent life begins. Since then, while studying at a technical school, I have been supported by an old mother, a deaf-mute sister and a 5-year-old niece. My studies, which began in 1907 in the city of Sukhum, after completing the course at the higher primary school (in 1915) with my move to Baku, continued here and proceeded as follows: having arrived in Baku, I entered the secondary mechanical engineering technical school here. , where I have been studying for 4 years. In 1919 I completed a course at the school, and in 1920, with the transformation of the technical school into a polytechnic institute, I entered the latter. From that moment on, regular training ceased, and my studies at the institute continued intermittently until 1922. However, during all this time I did not lose contact with the institute, and only in 1922, in connection with my transfer by the Transcaucasian Regional Committee (Transcaucasian Regional Committee - Yu. M.) RCP from Baku to Tiflis I stop studying, being listed as a 3rd year student by this time. This is how my teaching in Baku, which began here in 1915 and continued with interruptions until 1922, is interrupted. In the same year, 1915, my participation in party life began for the first time, then still in its embryonic form. In October of this year, we, a group of students from the Baku Technical School, organized an illegal Marxist circle, which included students from other educational institutions. The circle existed until February 1917. I was the treasurer of this circle. The motives for creating the circle were: organization of students, mutual material support and self-education in the Marxist spirit (reading essays), analysis of books received from workers' organizations, and so on. At the same time, he was elected head of his class (illegally). In March 1917, I, together with comrade. V. Egorov, Pukhovich, Avanesov and another comrade (I don’t remember his last name) are organizing a cell of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), where I am a member of the bureau. In 1916 (summer vacation) I served as an intern at Nobel's main office in Balakhany, earning food for my family and myself. In the course of further events, starting from 1917, in Transcaucasia, I was drawn into the general mainstream of the party- Soviet work, which transfers me from place to place, from the conditions of the legal existence of the party (in 1918 in the city of Baku) to the illegal (1919 and 1920) and is interrupted by my departure to Georgia. In June 1917, as a trainee technician, I entered the hydraulic engineering organization of the army of the Romanian front and went with the latter to Odessa, from there to Romania, where I worked in the forestry detachment of the village of Negulyashti. At the same time, I am the chairman of the detachment committee elected by the workers and soldiers and a delegate from the detachment, and I often attend district congresses of district representatives in Pascani (Romania). I remained in this job until the end of 1917 and at the beginning of 1918, upon arrival in Baku, I continued to work at a technical school at an accelerated pace, quickly making up for what I missed. In January 1918, I entered the Baku Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Sailors' Deputies, working here in the secretariat of the Council as an employee, doing all the current work, and I devote a lot of energy and strength to this work. Here I remain until September 1918, but October of this year finds me in the liquidation of the commission of Soviet employees, where I remain until the city of Baku is occupied by the Turks. During the first time of the Turkish occupation, I worked in the White City at the Caspian Partnership plant as a clerk. Due to the start of intensive studies at a technical school and the need to pass some transitional exams, I was forced to quit my service. From February 1919 to April 1920, being the chairman of the communist cell of technicians, under the guidance of senior comrades he carried out individual assignments of the district committee, himself working with other cells as an instructor. In the autumn of the same 1919, from the Hummet party (a social democratic organization that operated from the end of 1904 to February 1920, created for political work among working Muslims. - Author) I entered the counterintelligence service, where I worked together with comrade Moussevi. Around March 1920, after the assassination of Comrade Moussevi, I left my job in counterintelligence and worked for a short time at the Baku customs. From the very first days after the April coup in Azerbaijan, the regional committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from the register of the 11th Caucasian Front under the RVS12 of the 11th Army was sent to Georgia for underground foreign work as an authorized person. 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. In May 1920, I went to Baku to the register office 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. Upon arrival (August 1920), the Central Committee of the RCP requested me from the army and appointed me manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of Azerbaijan. I remained in this position until October 1920, after which the Central Committee appointed me the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and the improvement of the living conditions of the workers. I and Comrade Sarkis (chairman of the commission) carried out this work in an urgent manner until the liquidation of the Commission (February 1921). With the end of my work on the Commission, I managed to persuade the Central Committee to give me the opportunity to continue my education at the institute, where by that time I was listed as a student (since its opening in 1920). According to my requests, the Central Committee sent me to the institute, giving me a scholarship through the Baku Council. However, not even two weeks pass before the Central Committee sends a demand to the Caucasian Bureau to send me to work in Tiflis. As a result, the Central Committee removes me from the institute, but instead of sending me to Tiflis, by its resolution appoints me to the Azerbaijani Cheka as deputy head of the secret operational department (April 1921) and soon as the head of the secret operational department, deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka . I will not dwell on the tense and nervous nature of work in the Azerbaijani Cheka. As a result of this work, positive results soon appeared. I will dwell here on the defeat of the Muslim organization “Ittihat”, which had tens of thousands of members. Next - the defeat of the Transcaucasian organization of right Socialist Revolutionaries, for which the GPU (VChK) by its order of February 6, 1923 for No. 45 expresses gratitude to me and rewards me with weapons. The results of the same work were noted by the Council of People's Commissars of the ASSR in its letter of commendation dated September 12, 1922 and in the local press. While working in the Azerbaijani Cheka, I was also the chairman of Azmezhkom (Azerbaijan Interdepartmental Commission) from VII - 1921 to XI - 1922. Then in the commission of the Supreme Economic Council (Higher Economic Council) and in the commission for the examination of the revolutionary tribunal. Along the party line, I am attached from the BC AKP14 to workers' cells, and later, for convenience, to a cell of the Cheka, where I am a member of the bureau, was elected to almost all congresses and conferences of the AKP, and was also a member of the Baku Council. In November 1922, the Transcaucasian Regional Committee recalled me from the Azerbaijani check to the Central Committee of the KKE15, which appointed me head of the secret operational unit and deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka. Here, taking into account the seriousness of the work and the large object, I devote all my knowledge and time to it, as a result, in a relatively short period of time, it is possible to achieve serious results that affect all areas of work: this is the elimination of banditry, which had assumed enormous proportions in Georgia, and the defeat of the Menshevik organization and the anti-Soviet party in general, despite the extreme conspiracy. The results of the work achieved were noted by the Central Committee and the Central Election Commission of Georgia in the form of awarding me the Order of the Red Banner. In Georgia, working in the Cheka, I am also a member of the bureau of the communist cell and a member of the Tiflis Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies...”72 I will interrupt Beria’s statement at this point to specifically draw the attention of the readers: before us is an honored general of the special services. He knows very well intelligence work, since he himself began as an ordinary intelligence officer. He knows counterintelligence work very well - he has defeated more than one anti-Soviet underground to his credit. He organized two military operations to defeat banditry, incomparably larger in scale than the current endless operation in Chechnya. Dzerzhinsky awarded him an honorary weapon , the government - a very rare order at that time. And he is only 24 years old! What is he asking? To appoint him as a people's commissar in Moscow? To provide a palace for a dacha in Zavidovo? To transfer currency to a Swiss bank? What could a 24-year-old, but already honored general, want? With the permission of the readers, I won’t tell you this now, and I will place the end of his statement, his request, at the end of this book. Maybe you can guess from the text of this study what young Lavrenty really wanted... _ _ _ _ _ _ Completely different from the crowd of ordinary people and Beria. If readers remember, then at the beginning of the book, giving the autobiography of L.P. Beria, I wrote that this is not his actual biography, but an extended statement in which Beria asks for a very important favor for himself. I invited readers to think about the question - what could a 24-year-old general of the special services, who had distinguished himself and been awarded the highest state awards, ask for? Asked to appoint him as a minister, transfer money to a Swiss bank, build him a villa? I don’t know if you guessed what Beria asked, but his request made a deep impression on me, made me look at him in a new way and, in fact, begin an investigation into his case. Beria asked: “During my party and Soviet work, especially in the bodies of the Cheka, I fell far behind both in terms of general development, and also without completing my special education. Having a vocation for this field of knowledge, having spent a lot of time and effort, I would ask the Central Committee provide me with the opportunity to continue this education in order to complete it as quickly as possible. Completed special education will give me the opportunity to give my experience and knowledge in this area to Soviet construction, and the party to use me as it sees fit. 1923 22/X (signed) ".72 As you can see, Beria did not value his general position one penny; he did not care about the “state prospects” that opened up before him, still a very young man. He wanted to study! He wanted to become a student and then a civil engineer. He didn’t need power, he was a creator, he wanted to build and admire the creations of his hands. Therefore, I will end this book with an excerpt with which I ended my article by A.P., mentioned at the beginning of the book. Parshev. “In one century, the Georgian land gave Russia two great people. But this is not a reproach to Russia - we had and will have great compatriots of Russian origin, and without Russia, both Stalin and Beria would not have become great. But there are no monuments to them in our squares . But it doesn’t matter. Go to Poklonnaya Hill, just don’t look at the terrible monuments and buildings there. From there you can clearly see the building of Moscow University - lonely, wonderful, looking up. There is nothing like it in the world. The head of the construction of this building was L.P. Beria, and this is to some extent a monument to him." _ _ _ _ _ _ As for historians, with few exceptions they have a standard “creative approach”: they strain their imagination, put themselves in Beria’s place, take facts from his life, present themselves as scoundrels (and often this is what makes them there is no need to strain) and give these facts appropriate motivation. Those. they believe that as they would have acted in Beria’s place, Beria himself would have acted in the same way. Having described Lavrenty Pavlovich in this way, they read what was written and are horrified - what a scoundrel he was! Yes, their character is really a scoundrel, but what does Beria have to do with it? (In the same way, by the way, I.V. Stalin is very often described).

BERIA LAVRENTY PAVLOVICH - Soviet party and statesman, head of state security agencies.

Beria was born into a poor peasant family, his parents - Pavel Khukhaevich Beria (1872-1922) and Marta Jakeli (1868-1955) - Mingrelians. In 1906, he entered the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, where he studied for nine years and graduated with honors in 1915. He received a Beria certificate, showing a clear inclination to continue his studies, moved from Sukhum to the provincial center of Baku and was enrolled in the local secondary mechanical engineering school. During his studies, he became actively interested in Marxism and soon became part of the illegal Marxist circle operating at the school and became its treasurer. Beria graduated from the College in 1919 with a degree in construction technician. Later he tried several times to get higher education, especially since his school turned into the Baku Polytechnic Institute, but in the early 1920s he was already completely absorbed in party and security service work and managed to complete only three courses, after which he abandoned his studies.

Revolution and civil war

Soon after the February Revolution in March 1917, Beria - according to official data - joined the RSDLP (b) and organized a local Bolshevik cell in Baku. Then in June 1917 he was drafted into the army and served for six months as a trainee technician in a hydraulic engineering detachment on the Romanian front. After the October Revolution, the proven Bolshevik was sent back to Baku and in January 1918 he received a position in the secretariat of the Baku Council.

After Baku was occupied by units of the Turkish-controlled Caucasian Islamic Army in October 1918, Beria remained in the city - according to the official biography, on the instructions of the party. He got a job at the plant of the oil-industrial and trading joint-stock company "Caspian Partnership" as a clerk, and already in February 1919 he headed the underground cell of the RCP (b) in Baku. During this period, in the fall of 1919, Beria became an agent of the Organization for Combating Counter-Revolution under the State Defense Committee of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, i.e. Musavatist counterintelligence. Later he will be accused of collaborating with the intelligence services, but he will be able to prove that he agreed to cooperate with counterintelligence on the direct instructions of the leadership of the Social Democratic Party "Hummet".

In March 1920, Beria left his job in counterintelligence and got a job at the Baku customs, and the next month the 11th Red Army of the Caucasian Front entered Baku, where the creation of the Azerbaijan SSR was proclaimed. Berlia, in the same month, was appointed commissioner of the Caucasian regional committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army and was sent to underground work in Georgia. Beria did not prove himself very well as an underground fighter: he was soon arrested by the Georgian authorities and, although he was released, he was ordered to leave Georgia within 3 days. However, he remained and, under the name Lakerbaya, was hired at the embassy of the RSFSR in Tbilisi. In May he was arrested again and now ended up in Kutaisi prison. In the end, S.M. Kirov, who these days was the plenipotentiary representative in Georgia, categorically demanded on July 9 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia release several imprisoned communists, incl. and Beria, actually threatening open conflicts. The Georgian Mensheviks were not ready for the aggravation of relations with the RSFSR and soon Beria was sent to Azerbaijan .

In leadership work in Transcaucasia

Upon returning to Baku in August 1920, he was appointed to the rather influential post of manager of the affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Azerbaijan, and from October 1920 to February 1921 he was the executive secretary of the Extraordinary Commission for the expropriation of the bourgeoisie and improving the living conditions of workers in Baku. In this post, he became acquainted with the work of the special services and in April 1921 he was transferred to the Cheka as deputy head of the Secret Operations Department of the Azerbaijan Cheka; here he encountered the head of the Central Committee M.D. Bagirov, who at this stage constantly supported Beria and did a lot for his successful career (later Beria would support and promote Bagirov). In May 1921, Beria was promoted to deputy chairman of the AzChK and head of the Secret Operations Unit.

In November 1922, Beria was sent to Georgia, which had recently been transformed into the Georgian SSR, as the head of the Secret Operations Unit and deputy chairman of the Georgian Cheka (in March 1926, transformed into the GPU of the Georgian SSR). From December 2, 1926 to December 3, 1931, Berlia served as chairman of the GPU of the Georgian SSR. At the same time, he held a number of influential positions, concentrating great power in his hands: deputy OGPU plenipotentiary representative in the Transcaucasian SFSR, deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU, head of the Secret Operations Directorate of the OGPU plenipotentiary mission in the OGPU in the TransSFSR (December 2, 1926 - April 17, 1931), People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Georgian SSR (April 4, 1927 - December 1930), head of the Special Department of the OGPU of the Caucasian Red Banner Army and plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic - Chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU (April 17 - December 3, 1931), member of the Board of the OGPU of the USSR (August 18 - December 3, 1931 ).

At the end of 1931, Beria’s career moved to a new level: on the recommendation of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, on October 31, he was elected 2nd Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, and on November 14, he also became 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks), and in May 1937 also 1st Secretary of the Tbilisi City Party Committee. Moreover, from October 17, 1932 to December 5, 1936. Beria was at the same time the 1st secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In the summer of 1933, when I.V., who was vacationing in Abkhazia, An assassination attempt was made on Stalin, Beria covered it with his body (the assassin was killed on the spot and this story has not been fully revealed, according to a number of researchers - the assassination attempt was organized by Beria himself. In February 1934, Beria was elected a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Received became widely known after the publication in 1935 under his name of the book “On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations of Transcaucasia” (the authors were a group led by M.G. Toshelidze, which included E. Bedia, P.I. Shariya, etc.) , where the role of I.V. Stalin in the revolutionary movement was exaggerated many times.In early March 1935, Beria was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, and then a member of its Presidium (in January 1938 he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR).

As the head of the party organization of Georgia and Transcaucasia, Berlia became one of the leaders of the campaign of mass purges in Georgia (the NKVD Directorate for the Georgian SSR, and then the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR was his protege and confidant S.A. Goglidze). He also participated in the deployment of a campaign of repression in neighboring republics: in September 1937, he was sent to Armenia to “cleanse” the republican party organization. Speaking at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia (June 1937), Beria stated: “Let the enemies know that anyone who tries to raise their hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin - Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.”

Head of the NKVD

On August 22, 1938, Beria was appointed 1st Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N.I. Yezhova. Formally, this was a serious demotion, but it was immediately clear that it was his I.V. Stalin intended to replace " iron people's commissar", who has already done his job - carried out the most large-scale cleansing of the party-Soviet apparatus. At the same time, Beria headed the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR from September 8-29, and from September 29 - the most important Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) in the NKVD of the USSR.

On November 25, 1938, Beria replaced Yezhov as People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, for the first time retaining the direct leadership of the GUGB, which he handed over to his nominee V.N. only on December 17. Merkulov. He renewed the NKVD apparatus almost halfway, replacing Yezhov’s associates with people personally obligated to himself; people whom he brought with him from Transcaucasia were appointed to the highest positions in the NKVD: Merkulov, Goglidze, V.G. Dekanozov, B.Z. Kobulov and others. For propaganda purposes, he carried out the release of some of the “unreasonably convicted” from the camps: in 1939, 223.6 thousand people were released from the camps, 103.8 thousand from the colonies; At the same time, up to 200 thousand people were arrested, not counting those deported from the western regions of Belarus and Ukraine. At the insistence of Beria, the rights of the Special Meeting under the People's Commissar to issue extrajudicial verdicts were expanded. Under Beria, on January 10, 1939, the leaders of party organizations and local internal affairs bodies were informed by a coded telegram from I.V. Stalin on the legality of the use of torture (practised since 1937): “The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party believes that the method of physical coercion must necessarily be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and undisarmed enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method.”

On March 22, 1939, Beria became a candidate member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. As the head of the NKVD and a member of the highest party body, he was responsible for organizing the mass extermination of captured Poles in Katyn (1940). On February 3, 1941, Beria, without leaving his post as People's Commissar, became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (from March 15, 1946 - the Council of Ministers of the USSR), but at the same time, state security bodies were removed from his subordination, forming an independent People's Commissariat.

War and post-war period

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the NKVD and NKGB were again united under the leadership of Beria, and on June 30, 1941 he himself became part of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR. Through the GKO, Beria was entrusted with control over the production of weapons, ammunition and mortars, as well as (together with G.M. Malenkov) for the production of aircraft and aircraft engines. On October 16, 1941, on Beria’s personal order, 138 prisoners (who previously held high positions) were shot in the country’s prisons without even the appearance of a trial, and then several hundred more.

From December 1942, he was entrusted with supreme control over the work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and Communications. On May 16, 1944, Beria also became deputy chairman of the State Defense Committee of the USSR and chairman of the Operations Bureau (he was a member of this bureau on December 8, 1942). All people's commissariats of the defense industry, railway and water transport, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, coal, oil, chemical, rubber, paper and pulp, electrical industries, power plants.

Beria was entrusted with the development, preparation and implementation of operations for the eviction of peoples North Caucasus, as well as Meskhetian Turks, Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, Kurds, Hemshins, etc. He personally led the deportation operations of Chechens and Ingush (February 1944), and then Balkars (March 1944).

On December 3, 1944, Beria was entrusted with “monitoring the development of work on uranium” (“nuclear project”). After the end of the war, Beria, in whose hands the leadership of many departments was concentrated, left the post of minister on December 29, 1945, transferring it to S.N. Kruglov. From August 20, 1945 to June 26, 1953, he also headed the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee (then under the Council of People's Commissars and the Council of Ministers) and State Committee No. 1. Under the leadership and with the direct participation of Beria, the first in the USSR was created atomic bomb(tested on August 29, 1949), after which some began to call him “the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.” Being a successful organizer, he managed, using incl. and coercive methods, to form a system of research centers where serious discoveries were made that laid the foundation military power THE USSR. On March 18, 1946, Beria became a full member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

At the XIX Congress, when the CPSU (b) was renamed the CPSU, Beria on October 16, 1952 was elected a member of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee and a member of its Bureau. After the party congress, at the suggestion of Stalin, a “leading five” was created as part of the Presidium, which included Beria. At the same time, Stalin took a number of measures directed against Beria: leadership and control over the state security organs was transferred to the proteges of G.M. Malenkov, the Mingrelian case was initiated against Beria. According to Khrushchev’s memoirs, “he was an intelligent man, very smart. He responded quickly to everything."

Death of Stalin

After the death of I.V. Stalin, Beria took a leading place in the Soviet party hierarchy, on March 5, 1953, he became 1st Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in addition, he personally became the head of the new Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, which was created on the same day by merging the old Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ministry of State Security of the USSR. On his initiative, an amnesty was announced in the country on May 9, under which 1.2 million people were released, several high-profile cases were closed (including the “doctors’ case”), and investigative cases on 400 thousand people were closed. Bearia advocated reducing military spending and freezing expensive construction projects (including the Main Turkmen Canal, Volgo-Balt, etc.). He achieved the start of negotiations on a truce in Korea and tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia. He opposed the creation of the GDR, proposing to take a course towards the unification of West and East Germany into a “peace-loving, bourgeois state.” The state security apparatus abroad was sharply reduced.

Pursuing a policy of promoting national personnel, Beria sent documents to the republican Central Committee that spoke about the incorrect Russification policy and illegal repressions. Beria's excessive activity and the strengthening of his positions caused discontent among his comrades in the leadership of the country. N.S. Khrushchev, G.M. Malenkov, L.M. Kaganovich, V.M. Molotov and others united against Beria. On June 26, 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, Khrushchev unfoundedly accused Beria of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the situation in the GDR, espionage for Great Britain, and announced the removal of Beria from all posts. After this, Beria was arrested by the secretly smuggled G.K. Zhukov to the Kremlin by a group of military personnel of the Moscow Air Defense District (commander of the district troops, Colonel General K.S. Moskalenko, his 1st deputy, Lieutenant General P.F. Batitsky, chief of staff of the district, Major General A.I. Baksov, head of the political department of the district Colonel I.G. Zub and officer for special assignments Lieutenant Colonel V.I. Yuferev). Beria remained under guard until late at night, then he was transported to the Moscow garrison guardhouse, and a day later - to a bunker command post Moscow Air Defense District.

At the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee on July 2-7, 1953, Berlia was criticized, removed from the Presidium and the Central Committee, and expelled from the party as “an enemy of the Communist Party and the Soviet people.” His former associates also made accusations against him, incl. M.D. Bagirov. He was accused of large number crimes, the main ones of which were clearly absurd - espionage for Great Britain, the desire for “the elimination of the Soviet worker-peasant system, the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie.”

To consider the case of Beria and “his gang,” a Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR was created: Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev (chairman), chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions N.M. Shvernik, 1st Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Court of the USSR E.D. Zeidin, Army General K.S. Moskalenko, Secretary of the Moscow Regional Party Committee N.A. Mikhailov, Chairman of the Moscow City Court L.A. Gromov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR K.F. Lunev, Chairman of the Georgian Republican Council of Trade Unions M.I. Kuchava. The former People's Commissar of State Security of the USSR, Army General V.N., was involved in the process. Merkulov, 1st Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Colonel General B.Z. Kobulov, former 1st Deputy Minister of State Security of the USSR, Colonel General S.A. Goglidze, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant General P.Ya. Meshik, Minister of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR V.G. Dekanozov, Head of the Investigative Unit for Particularly Important Cases of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lieutenant General L.E. Wlodzimirski.

On December 23, 1953, all defendants were found guilty and sentenced to capital punishment - execution, with confiscation of their personal property, with deprivation military ranks and awards. Shot by General P.F. Batitsky. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated December 31, 1953, Beria was deprived of the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor and all state awards.

In 2000, the question of Beria’s rehabilitation was raised, but it was again refused.

Family

Wife - Nina Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905 - June 10, 1991), niece of the Bolshevik Sasha Gegechkori, cousin of the Menshevik E. Gegechkori, head of the Menshevik government of Georgia (1920). Researcher at the Agricultural Academy named after. YES. Timiryazeva, was arrested in July 1953, and in November 1954 sent into administrative exile.

Son - Sergo (November 24, 1925 - October 11, 2000), Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, in 1948-1953 he worked in design bureau No. 1 at the 3rd Main Directorate. On June 26, 1953 he was arrested and deported in November 1954. He was married to the granddaughter of A.M. Gorky to Marfa Maksimovna Peshkova. In 1953, his last name was changed to Gegchkori, and in the 1990s, he changed his last name from Gegechkori to Beria and wrote a book in which he justified his father.

Ranks

State Security Commissioner 1st rank (09/11/1938)

General Commissioner of State Security (01/30/1941)

Marshal of the Soviet Union (07/09/1945)

Works

On the question of the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. Report at the meeting of the Tiflis party activist on July 21-22, 1935. Partizdat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, 1936.

Lado Ketskhoveli. M., 1937.

Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939.

Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. Kyiv, 1939.

Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938. Sukhumi, 1939.

The greatest man modernity [I.V. Stalin]. Kyiv, 1940.

Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Alma-Ata, 1938;

About youth. Tbilisi, 1940.

The “diaries” of L.P. published in 2011 Beria is a fake.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria - 2nd Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR during the period March 5, 1953 - June 26, 1953)

Head of Government: Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov

Predecessor: Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov
Successor: Sergey Nikiforovich Kruglov
3rd People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR
November 25, 1938 - December 29, 1945
Head of Government: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin
6th First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia
November 14, 1931 - August 31, 1938
Predecessor: Lavrenty Iosifovich Kartvelishvili
Successor: Kandid Nesterovich Charkviani
First Secretary of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks)
May 1937 - August 31, 1938
First Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks
October 17, 1932 - April 23, 1937
Predecessor: Ivan Dmitrievich Orakhelashvili
Successor: Position abolished
People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR
April 4, 1927 - December 1930
Predecessor: Alexey Alexandrovich Gegechkori
Successor: Sergey Arsenievich Goglidze

Birth: March 17 (29), 1899
Merkheuli, Gumistinsky district, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province, Russian empire
Death: December 23, 1953 (age 54)
Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Father: Pavel Khukhaevich Beria
Mother: Marta Vissarionovna Jakeli
Spouse: Nino Teymurazovna Gegechkori
Children: son: Sergo
Party: RSDLP(b) since 1917, RCP(b) since 1918, CPSU(b) since 1925, CPSU since 1952
Education: Baku Polytechnic Institute

Military service
Years of service: 1938—1953
Affiliation: (1923-1955) USSR
Rank: Marshal of the Soviet Union
Commanded by: Head of the GUGB NKVD USSR (1938)
People's Commissar of the USSR Internal Affairs (1938-1945)
Member of the State Defense Committee (1941-1944)

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria(Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; March 17, 1899, Merkheuli village, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province. - December 23 1953, Moscow) - Soviet statesman and politician, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945).

Since 1941 Lavrenty Beria- Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Sovnarkom until 1946) of the USSR Joseph Stalin, with his death on March 5, 1953 - First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR G. Malenkov 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 (1946-1953).

He was part of J.V. Stalin's inner circle. He oversaw a number of the most important sectors of the defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology.

On June 26, 1953, L.P. Beria was arrested on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power. Executed by the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR on December 23, 1953.

Childhood and youth

Lavrenty Beria born on March 17, 1899 in the village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province (now in the Gulrypsh region of Abkhazia) into a poor peasant family.

His mother Marta Jakeli (1868-1955) was a Mingrelian, according to Sergo Beria and fellow villagers, and 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 Lawrence Beria, 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, Lavrentiy Beria, with honors (according to other sources, he studied mediocrely, and was left in the fourth grade for the second year), having graduated from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, 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 a trainee in the main office oil company Nobel, at the same time 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.

Execution of Baku commissars

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).

British troops in Baku

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, since “the fact of working in counterintelligence with the knowledge of the party was confirmed by the statements of comrade. Mirza Davud Huseynova, Kasum Izmailova and others.”

In April 1920, after the establishment of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, he was sent to work illegally in the Georgian Democratic Republic as an authorized representative of the Caucasian Regional Committee of the RCP (b) and the registration department of the Caucasian Front under the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army.
In liberated Baku. 1920. From left to right: S. M. Kirov, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, A. I. Mikoyan, M. G. Efremov, M. K. Levandovsky, K. A. Mekhonoshi

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 writes 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. »

In the state security agencies of Azerbaijan and Georgia

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 security service 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), with the combination of the position 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.
December 2, 1926 Lavrenty Beria became chairman of the GPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR (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 Stalin apparently dates back to this period.

June 6, 1930, by resolution of the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of the Georgian SSR Lavrenty Beria was appointed a member of the Presidium (later the Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia (Bolsheviks). 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.

At party work in Transcaucasia

The promotion of Beria from the KGB to party work was facilitated by the leader of Abkhazia Nestor Lakoba.

Nestor Apollonovich Lakoba

On October 31, 1931, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks recommended L. P. Beria to 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 (by August 31, 1938), and on October 17, 1932 - the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee while maintaining his position First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia, was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) 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.
Since February 10, 1934 L. P. Beria- Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
On March 20, 1934, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was included in the commission chaired by L. M. Kaganovich, created to develop a draft Regulation on the NKVD of the USSR and the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR

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

From left to right: Philip Makharadze, Mir Jafar Bagirov and Lavrenty Beria, 1935.

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.), and the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.

In 1935 he published the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia.” Beria is credited with poisoning the then leader of Abkhazia Nestor Lakoba.

In September 1937, together with G.M. Malenkov and A.I. Mikoyan sent from Moscow, he carried out a “cleansing” of the party organization of Armenia. The “Great Purge” also took place in Georgia, where many party and government workers were repressed. Here the so-called a conspiracy among the party leadership of Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, whose participants allegedly planned the secession of Transcaucasia from the USSR and transition to the protectorate of Great Britain.
In 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.
Since January 17, 1938, from the 1st session of the USSR Supreme Council of the 1st convocation, member of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR.

In the NKVD 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 1st Deputy People's Commissar (from 04/15/37) 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, to last post he is replaced by L.P. Beria - from September 29, 1938, at the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, restored within the structure of the NKVD (on December 17, 1938, Beria will be replaced in this post by V.N. Merkulov - 1st Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD from 12/16/38). On September 11, 1938, L.P. Beria was awarded the title of State Security Commissioner of the 1st rank.
November 25, 1938 Beria was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

With the arrival of L.P. Beria as head of the NKVD, the scale of repressions sharply decreased and the Great Terror ended. In 1939, 2.6 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment on charges of counter-revolutionary crimes, in 1940 - 1.6 thousand. the overwhelming majority of persons not convicted in 1937-1938 were released; Also, some of those convicted and sent to camps were released. The Moscow State University expert commission estimates the number of people released in 1939-1940. 150-200 thousand people. “In certain circles of society, he has since had a reputation as a person who restored “socialist legality” at the very end of the 30s,” notes Yakov Etinger.

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

Oversaw the operation to eliminate Leon Trotsky.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky before his death

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. As deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, he oversaw the work of the NKVD, NKGB, people's commissariats of the forestry and oil industries, non-ferrous metals, and river fleet.

The Great Patriotic War

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

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

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

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

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

Start of work on the nuclear project

An official letter from the head of the NKVD L.P. Beria addressed to I.V. Stalin with information about work on the use of atomic energy for military purposes abroad, proposals for organizing this work in the USSR and secret familiarization with NKVD materials by prominent Soviet specialists, versions of which were prepared by NKVD employees back in late 1941 - early 1942, it was sent to I.V. Stalin only in October 1942, after the adoption of the GKO order on the resumption of uranium work in the USSR.

Already in March 1942, Beria sent Stalin all the information received from the USA, England, Scandinavia and occupied Kharkov, where sent German scientists began to study the results of the work of a strong physics and technology institute. Beria proposed creating a scientific advisory group of prominent scientists and senior officials under the State Defense Committee to coordinate the work of scientific organizations on atomic energy research. Beria asked permission to familiarize a number of prominent scientists (Ioffe, Kurchatov, Kapitsa) with information obtained through intelligence in order to evaluate it. Stalin agreed with this.

In February 1944, the first meeting of the heads of military intelligence and the NKVD on the atomic problem took place in Beria’s office on Lubyanka, at which Ilyichev and Milshtein were present from the military, and Fitin and Hovakimyan from the NKVD.

Already the first results of the work of the government's Atomic Special Committee showed the weakness of Molotov's leadership. In this regard, Kurchatov and Joffe raised the question of replacing Molotov with Beria to Stalin.

Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov and Abram Fedorovich Ioffe

On August 20, 1945, Resolution of the State Defense Committee of the USSR No. 9887-ss/op “On the Special Committee under the State Defense Committee” appeared, according to which the production of the atomic bomb in the Soviet Union was put on an industrial basis. Two special government organizations were created: the Special Committee (SC) headed by L.P. Beria and the First Main Directorate (PGU) headed by B.L. Vannikov. The last paragraph of this document prescribed “to entrust comrade. Beria to take all measures to organize overseas intelligence work to obtain more complete technical and economic information about the uranium industry and atomic bombs.”

The key issue for the success of all nuclear projects was the availability of uranium from the developer of nuclear materials. In defeated Germany, the Americans tried to get ahead of us, and more often than not they succeeded. But we also managed to do something. Kurchatov made the following confession at the beginning of 1946:
“Until May 1945, there was no hope of implementing a uranium-graphite boiler, since we had only 7 tons of uranium oxide at our disposal and there was no hope that the required 100 tons of uranium would be produced before 1948. In the middle of last year, Comrade Beria sent a special group of workers from Laboratory No. 2 and the NKVD to Germany, headed by Comrade Comrade Zavenyagin, Makhnev and Kikoin to search for uranium and uranium raw materials. As a result of a lot of work, the sent group found and transported to the USSR 300 tons of uranium oxide and its compounds, which seriously changed the situation not only with the uranium-graphite boiler, but also with all other uranium structures.”

Kurchatov assembles the first in Europe with his own hands in Moscow atomic reactor, which does not yet have a heat removal system. L.P. is present at the reactor start-up. Beria and N.I. Pavlov. When Kurchatov informed Beria that the Experimental Reactor had been launched, Beria, not really understanding what had happened, chuckled, “That’s all!” And this was the first chain reaction in Europe, but without heat removal. The reactor was launched in Moscow, and next to the reactor there appeared the “Forester’s Hut” - Kurchatov’s apartment. And this proved that there was no need to be afraid of a reactor explosion. Later Kurchatov will achieve permanent job this reactor for many years.

The task of constructing the first reactor arose during the design of the first Soviet atomic bomb RDS-1. The reactor was created as an experimental site for testing technologies and processes for creating plutonium. Atomic explosive Due to its simplicity, speed and cost, weapons-grade plutonium (plutonium-239), which is the result of neutron irradiation of uranium-238, was chosen.
reactor “F-1”

The reactor was built at Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow (now the Kurchatov Institute). On December 25, 1946, a group of laboratory employees led by I.V. Kurchatov, Europe's first research uranium-graphite reactor F-1 was launched and a self-sustaining chain reaction was carried out in nuclear reactor. Based on the results obtained at F-1, the first weapons-grade nuclear reactor A-1 in the USSR and Europe was developed.

Deportation of peoples

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

On January 29, 1944, Lavrentiy Beria approved the “Instructions on the procedure for the eviction of Chechens and Ingush,” and on February 21, he issued an order to the NKVD on the deportation of Chechens and Ingush. On February 20, together with I. A. Serov, B. Z. Kobulov and S. S. Mamulov, Beria arrived in Grozny and personally led the operation, which involved up to 19 thousand operatives of the NKVD, NKGB and SMERSH, and also about 100 thousand officers and soldiers of the NKVD troops, drawn from all over the country to participate in “exercises in the mountainous areas.” On February 22, he met with the leadership of the republic and senior spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and offered to carry out the necessary work among the population, and the eviction operation began the next morning.

On February 24, Beria reported to Stalin: “The eviction is proceeding normally... Of the persons scheduled for removal in connection with the operation, 842 people have been arrested.” On the same day, Beria suggested that Stalin evict the Balkars, and on February 26 he issued an order to the NKVD “On measures to evict the Balkar population from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.” The day before, Beria, Serov and Kobulov held a meeting with the secretary of the Kabardino-Balkarian regional party committee Zuber Kumekhov, during which it was planned to visit the Elbrus region in early March. On March 2, Beria, accompanied by Kobulov and Mamulov, traveled to the Elbrus region, informing Kumekhov of his intention to evict the Balkars and transfer their lands to Georgia so that it could have defensive line on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. On March 5, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the eviction from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and on March 8-9, the operation began. On March 11, Beria reported to Stalin that “37,103 Balkars were evicted,” and on March 14 he reported to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Another major action was the deportation of Meskhetian Turks, as well as Kurds and Hemshins living in the areas bordering Turkey. On July 24, Beria addressed I. Stalin with a letter (No. 7896). He wrote:
“For a number of years, a significant part of this population associated with residents of the border areas of Turkey family ties, relationships, exhibits emigration sentiments, engages in smuggling and serves as a source for Turkish intelligence agencies to recruit spy elements and plant bandit groups. »

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

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

“In connection with the successful completion of the operation to evict from the border regions of the Georgian SSR to the regions of the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kirghiz SSR 91,095 people - Turks, Kurds, Hemshins, the NKVD of the USSR requests that the NKVD workers who most distinguished themselves during the operation be awarded with orders and medals of the USSR. NKGB and military personnel of the NKVD troops."

Post-war years

Supervision of the USSR nuclear project.

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.

atomic bomb explosion in Alamogordo

The Special Committee was created based on the GKO resolution of August 20, 1945. It included L. P. Beria (chairman), G. M. Malenkov, N. A. Voznesensky, B. L. Vannikov, A. P. Zavenyagin, I. V. Kurchatov, P. L. Kapitsa (then removed due to disagreements with L.P. Beria, formally based on personal hostility), V.A. Makhnev, M.G. Pervukhin. The Committee was entrusted with “the management of all work on the use of intra-atomic energy of uranium.” Later it was transformed into a Special Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. L.P. Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, provided general management of the entire project. In March 1953, the Special Committee was entrusted with the leadership of other special works 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.

We prepared thoroughly for it in order to collect as much information as possible about the effectiveness of the new weapon and the consequences of its use. On an experimental site with a diameter of 10 km, divided into sectors, buildings imitating residential and fortification structures were erected, military and civilian equipment were placed, more than one and a half thousand animals were housed, engineering structures, measuring and film-photo equipment. On August 29, an RDS-1 charge with a capacity of 22 kilotons exploded in the center of the site at the top of a 37-meter tower, raising a huge nuclear mushroom to a height. Not only military and scientists, but also ordinary civilians who became hostages of their time could observe this terrible and majestic spectacle. After all, as paradoxical as it may sound, the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site is known not only as one of the largest in the world and not only because the most advanced and deadly nuclear weapons were stored on its territory, but also because people permanently lived on its vast territory. local population. There was nothing like this anywhere else in the world. Due to the imperfection of the first nuclear charges out of 64 kg of uranium, only about 700 grams entered the chain reaction; the rest of the uranium simply turned into radioactive dust that settled around the explosion.

Photo: Nuclear Weapons Museum RFNC-VNNIEF

On October 29, 1949, L.P. Beria was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, “for organizing the production of atomic energy and the successful completion of the testing of atomic weapons.” According to the testimony of P. A. Sudoplatov, published in the book “Intelligence and the Kremlin: Notes of an Unwanted Witness” (1996), two project leaders - L. P. Beria and I. V. Kurchatov - were awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of the USSR” with the wording “for outstanding services 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, shortly after the arrest of L. P. Beria.

Career

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

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

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

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

creators of the USSR nuclear missile shield

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

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

V.S. Abakumov V.N. Merkulov L.P. Beria

Death of Stalin. Reforms and struggle for power

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 newly formed Ministry of Internal Affairs merged the previously existing Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security.

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

funeral of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

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

Already a week after Stalin’s death - 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 a number of legislative and political transformations directly or indirectly exposing the Stalinist regime and the repressions of the 30-50s in general, subsequently called by a number of historians and specialists “unprecedented” or even “democratic” reforms:

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 the 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: those sentenced to a term of up to 5 years inclusive, those convicted of official, economic and some military crimes, as well as minors, the elderly, the sick, women with young children and pregnant women.

A 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 invention 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.

A note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee on bringing to criminal liability those 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 influence on those arrested” The subsequent resolution of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee “ON THE APPROVAL OF MEASURES OF THE USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs TO CORRECT THE CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLATIONS OF THE LAW” dated April 10, 1953, read: “Approve the ongoing 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."

A note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee about 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, release all defendants and completely rehabilitate them.

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 REGIME AREAS

The son of L.P. Beria, Sergo Lavrentievich, published a book of memoirs about his father in 1994.

son Sergei, wife Nino, L.P. Beria, daughter-in-law Marfa (granddaughter of A.M. Gorky)

In particular, L.P. Beria is described there as a supporter of democratic reforms and an end to the violent construction of socialism in the GDR.
Arrest and sentence

Circular from the head of the 2nd Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR K. Omelchenko on the seizure of portraits of L. P. Beria. July 27, 1953.

In June, Beria officially invited the famous writer Konstantin Simonov and presented him with execution lists from the 1930s signed by Stalin and other members of the Central Committee. All this time, the hidden confrontation between Beria and the Khrushchev-Malenkov-Bulganin group continued. Khrushchev feared that Beria would declassify and present to the public archives where the participation of him (Khrushchev) and others in the repressions of the late 30s would become obvious.

All this time, Khrushchev put together a group against 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 USSR Council of Ministers on June 26, 1953, where he raised the question of his suitability for his position and his removal from all posts. Among others, Khrushchev voiced accusations of revisionism, an anti-socialist approach to the 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 he could remove it, but at the same moment, following a special signal, a group of Marshals of the Soviet Union led by Zhukov entered the room and arrested Beria.

arrest of L.P. Beria

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

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. At the end of July 1953, a secret circular was issued by the 2nd Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which ordered the widespread seizure of any artistic images of L.P. Beria.

On December 23, 1953, Beria’s case was considered by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR, chaired by Marshal I. S. Konev. L.P. Beria was accused along with his closest associates from the state security agencies, immediately after his arrest and later called the “Beria gang” in the media:

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.

All defendants were sentenced to death and executed on the same day. Moreover, L.P. Beria was shot several hours before the execution of other convicts in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R.A. Rudenko. On his own initiative, Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky fired the first shot from his personal weapon.

The body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery (according to other statements, Beria’s ashes were scattered over the Moscow River. Brief message the trial of L.P. Beria and his employees was published in the Soviet press.

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 in 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. -
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 50 generals were stripped of their titles and/or awards and dismissed from the authorities with the wording “discredited during their work in the authorities... and therefore unworthy of the high rank of general.”
“The state scientific publishing house “Great Soviet Encyclopedia” recommends removing pages 21, 22, 23 and 24 from volume 5 of the TSB, as well as the portrait pasted between pages 22 and 23, in return for which you will be sent pages with new text.” New page 21 contained photographs of the Bering Sea.
“Beria is accused of seducing about 200 women, but you read their testimonies about their relationships with the People’s Commissar, and it is clear that some openly used their acquaintance with him to great benefit for themselves.
A. T. Ukolov »
“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 nothing harmful. I fully admit my moral and everyday decay. The numerous relationships with women mentioned here disgrace me as a citizen and former party member.
... Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and distortions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I did not have any selfish or hostile goals. 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.
When sentencing me, I ask you to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve.
From last word Beria on trial"

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

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 recognized as not subject to rehabilitation:

...Based on the foregoing, the Military Collegium comes to the conclusion that Beria, Merkulov, Kobulov and Goglidze were the leaders who organized at the state level and personally carried out mass repressions against their own people. And therefore, the Law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression” cannot apply to them as perpetrators of terror.

...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 Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, Military Collegium of the Supreme Court Russian Federation determined:
“Recognize Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, Bogdan Zakharyevich Kobulov, Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze as not subject to rehabilitation.”

Family

His wife, Nina (Nino) Teymurazovna Gegechkori (1905-1991), gave an interview in 1990 at the age of 86, where she fully justified her husband’s activities.

The son, Sergo Lavrentievich Beria (1924-2000), advocated the moral (without claiming to be complete) rehabilitation of his father.

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

Interesting Facts

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..

Presumably, with his intervention, a replay of the semi-final match for the 1939 USSR Cup between Spartak and Dynamo (Tbilisi) was carried out, when the final had already been played.

In 1936, Beria, during interrogation in his office, shot and killed the secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia A.G. Khanjyan.

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

“Beria'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.

Awards

By court verdict he was deprived of all awards.

Hero of Socialist Labor No. 80 September 30, 1943
5 Orders of Lenin
No. 1236 March 17, 1935 - for outstanding achievements over a number of years in the field of agriculture, as well as in the field of industry
No. 14839 September 30, 1943 - for special services in the field of enhancing the production of weapons and ammunition in difficult wartime conditions
No. 27006 February 21, 1945
No. 94311 March 29, 1949 - in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of his birth and for his outstanding services to the Communist Party and the Soviet people
No. 118679 October 29, 1949
2 Orders of the Red Banner
No. 7034 April 3, 1924
No. 11517 November 3, 1944
Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, March 8, 1944 - for the deportation of Chechens
7 medals
Anniversary medal "XX years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army"
Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian SSR July 3, 1923
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Georgian SSR April 10, 1931
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Azerbaijan SSR March 14, 1932
Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the Armenian SSR
Order of the Republic (Tuva) August 18, 1943
Order of Sukhbaatar No. 31 March 29, 1949
Order of the Red Banner (Mongolia) No. 441 July 15, 1942
Medal "25 Years of the Mongolian People's Revolution" No. 3125 September 19, 1946
Stalin Prize, 1st degree (October 29, 1949 and 1951)
Badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-OGPU (V)” No. 100
Badge “Honorary Worker of the Cheka-GPU (XV)” No. 205 December 20, 1932
Personalized weapon - Browning pistol
Monogram watch

Proceedings

L.P. Beria. On the history of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. — 1935.
Under the great banner of Lenin-Stalin: Articles and speeches. Tbilisi, 1939;
Speech at the XVIII Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on March 12, 1939. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1939;
Report on the work of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia at the XI Congress of the Communist Party (b) of Georgia on June 16, 1938 - Sukhumi: Abgiz, 1939;
The greatest man of our time [I. V. Stalin]. - Kyiv: Gospolitizdat of the Ukrainian SSR, 1940;
Lado Ketskhoveli. (1876-1903)/(Life of remarkable Bolsheviks). Translation by N. Erubaev. - Alma-Ata: Kazgospolitizdat, 1938;
About youth. - Tbilisi: Detyunizdat of the Georgian SSR, 1940;

Objects named after L.P. Beria

In honor of Beria they were named:

Berievsky district - now Novolaksky district, Dagestan, in the period from February to May 1944.
Beriaaul - Novolakskoe village, Dagestan
Beriyashen - Sharukkar, Azerbaijan
Beriakend is the former name of the village of Khanlarkend, Saatli district, Azerbaijan.
Named after Beria - the former name of the village of Zhdanov in the Armavir region, Armenia

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

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

Tbilisi Dynamo Stadium was named after Beria.

Lavrentiy Beria is one of the most odious famous politicians of the 20th century, whose activities are still widely discussed in modern society. He was an extremely controversial personality in the history of the USSR and went through a long political path, full of gigantic repressions of people and immense crimes, which made it the most outstanding “death function” in Soviet times. The head of the NKVD was a cunning and treacherous politician, on whose decisions the fate of entire nations depended. Beria carried out his activities under the patronage of the then current head of the USSR, after whose death he intended to take his place at the “helm” of the country. But he lost in the struggle for power and, by court decision, was shot as a traitor to the Motherland.

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born on March 29, 1899 in the Abkhaz village of Merkheuli in the family of poor Mingrelian peasants Pavel Beria and Martha Jakeli. He was the third and only healthy child in the family - the elder brother of the future politician died of an illness at the age of two, and his sister suffered serious illness and became deaf and dumb. From childhood, young Lavrenty showed a great interest in education and a zeal for knowledge, which was atypical for peasant children. At the same time, the parents decided to give their son a chance to become educated, for which they had to sell half of the house in order to pay for the boy’s studies at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School.

Beria fully justified the hopes of his parents and proved that the money was not spent in vain - in 1915 he graduated from college with honors and entered the Baku Secondary Construction School. Having become a student, he moved his deaf-mute sister and mother to Baku, and in order to support them, along with his studies, he worked at the Nobel oil company. In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich received a diploma as a construction technician-architect.

During his studies, Beria organized the Bolshevik faction, in whose ranks he took an active part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, while working as a clerk at the Baku plant “Caspian Partnership White City”. He also ran an illegal communist party technicians, with whose members he organized an armed uprising against the Georgian government, for which he was imprisoned.

In mid-1920, Beria was expelled from Georgia to Azerbaijan. But literally after a short period of time he was able to return to Baku, where he was assigned to do security work, which made him a secret agent of the Baku police. Even then, colleagues of the future head of the NKVD of the USSR noticed in him harshness and mercilessness towards people who dissented from him, which allowed Lavrenty Pavlovich to rapidly develop his career, starting from the deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka and ending with the position of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR.

Policy

At the end of the 1920s, the biography of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was focused on party work. It was then that he managed to meet the head of the USSR Joseph Stalin, who saw his comrade-in-arms in the revolutionary and showed visible favor to him, which many attribute to the fact that they were of the same nationality. In 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party, and already in 1935 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee and the Presidium of the USSR. In 1937, the politician reached another high step on the path to power and became the head of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Having become the leader of the Bolsheviks in Georgia and Azerbaijan, Beria won the recognition of the people and his comrades, who at the end of each congress praised him, calling him “their favorite Stalinist leader.”

During that period, Lavrentiy Beria managed to develop the national economy of Georgia to a large scale; he made a great contribution to the development of the oil industry and commissioned many large industrial facilities, and transformed Georgia into an all-Union resort area. Under Beria Agriculture Georgia's volumes increased 2.5 times, and high prices were set for products (tangerines, grapes, tea), which made the Georgian economy the most prosperous in the country.

Real fame came to Lavrentiy Beria in 1938, when Stalin appointed him head of the NKVD, which made the politician the second-largest person in the country after the head. Historians claim that the politician earned such a high position thanks to his active support of the Stalinist repressions of 1936-38, when the Great Terror took place in the country, which included “cleansing” the country of “enemies of the people.” In those years, almost 700 thousand people lost their lives because they were subjected to political persecution due to disagreement with the current government.

Head of the NKVD

Having become the head of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrentiy Beria distributed leadership positions in the department to his associates from Georgia, thereby strengthening his influence on the Kremlin and Stalin. In his new post, he immediately carried out a large-scale repression of former security officers and carried out a total purge of the country’s leadership apparatus, becoming Stalin’s “right hand” in all matters.

At the same time, it was Beria, according to most historical experts, who was able to put an end to large-scale Stalinist repressions, as well as release from prison many military and civil servants who were recognized as “unreasonably convicted.” Thanks to such actions, Beria gained a reputation as the person who restored “legality” in the USSR.

During the Great Patriotic War, Beria became a member of the State Defense Committee, in which at that time all power in the country was localized. Only he made the final decisions on the production of weapons, aircraft, mortars, engines, as well as on the formation and transfer of air regiments at the front. Responsible for the “military spirit” of the Red Army, Lavrenty Pavlovich used the so-called “weapons of fear”, resuming mass arrests and public executions for all soldiers and spies who did not want to fight and were captured. Historians attribute the victory in the Second World War largely to the harsh policies of the head of the NKVD, in whose hands the entire military-industrial potential of the country was located.

After the war, Beria began developing nuclear potential The USSR, but at the same time continued to carry out mass repressions in the countries allied with the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, where most of the male population was imprisoned in concentration camps and colonies (GULAG). It was these prisoners who were involved in military production, carried out under conditions of strict secrecy, which was ensured by the NKVD.

With the help of a team of nuclear physicists led by Beria and the coordinated work of intelligence officers, Moscow received clear instructions on the construction of an atomic bomb created in the United States. The first successful test of nuclear weapons in the USSR was carried out in 1949 in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, for which Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the Stalin Prize.

In 1946, Beria entered Stalin’s “inner circle” and became deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. A little later, the head of the USSR saw him as his main competitor, so Joseph Vissarionovich began to carry out a “purge” in Georgia and check Lavrenty Pavlovich’s documents, which complicated the relationship between them. In this regard, by the time of Stalin's death, Beria and several of his allies had created an unspoken alliance aimed at changing some of the foundations of Stalin's rule.

He tried to strengthen his position in power by signing a series of decrees aimed at introducing judicial reforms, a global amnesty and a ban on harsh interrogation methods with episodes of abuse of prisoners. Thus, he intended to create for himself a new cult of personality, opposite to the Stalinist dictatorship. But, since he had practically no allies in the government, after Stalin’s death a conspiracy was organized against Beria, initiated by Nikita Khrushchev.

In July 1953, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium. He was accused of connections with British intelligence and treason. This became one of the most high-profile cases in Russian history among members of the highest echelon of power of the Soviet state.

Death

The trial of Lavrenty Beria took place from December 18 to 23, 1953. He was convicted by a “special tribunal” without the right to defense or appeal. Specific charges in the case of the former head of the NKVD were a number of illegal murders, espionage for Great Britain, repressions of 1937, rapprochement with, treason.

On December 23, 1953, Beria was shot by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. After the execution, Lavrenty Pavlovich’s body was burned in the Donskoy crematorium, and the ashes of the revolutionary were buried in the New Donskoy cemetery.

According to historians, Beria’s death allowed the entire Soviet people to breathe a sigh of relief, who until the last day considered the politician a bloody dictator and tyrant. And in modern society he is accused of mass repressions of more than 200 thousand people, which included a number of Russian scientists and prominent intellectuals of that time. Lavrentiy Pavlovich is also credited with a number of execution orders Soviet soldiers, which during the war years only played into the hands of the enemies of the USSR.

In 1941, the former head of the NKVD carried out the “extermination” of all anti-Soviet figures, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, including women and children. During the war years, he carried out a total deportation of the peoples of Crimea and the North Caucasus, the scale of which reached a million people. That is why Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became the most controversial political figure in the USSR, in whose hands was the power over the destinies of the people.

Personal life

The personal life of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria is still a separate topic that requires serious study. He was officially married to Nina Gegechkori, who bore him a son in 1924. The wife of the ex-head of the NKVD throughout her life supported her husband in his difficult activities and was his most devoted friend, whom she tried to justify even after his death.

Throughout its political activity At the heights of power, Lavrenty Pavlovich was known as a “Kremlin rapist” with an unbridled passion for the fair sex. Beria and his women are still considered the most mysterious part of the life of a prominent politician. There is information that in recent years he lived in two families - his common-law wife was Lyalya Drozdova, who gave birth to his illegitimate daughter Marta.

At the same time, historians do not rule out that Beria had a sick psyche and was a pervert. This is confirmed by the politician’s “lists of sexual victims,” the presence of which was recognized in the Russian Federation in 2003. It is reported that the number of victims of the maniac Beria is more than 750 girls whom he raped using sadistic methods.

Historians say that very often the head of the NKVD sexually harassed schoolgirls 14-15 years old, whom he imprisoned in soundproof interrogation rooms at Lubyanka, where he subjected them to sexual perversion. During interrogation, Beria admitted that he had physical sexual relations with 62 women, and since 1943 he suffered from syphilis, which he contracted from a seventh-grader in one of the schools near Moscow. Also in his safe, during the search, items of women's underwear and children's dresses were found, which were stored next to items characteristic of perverts.

I think you will be interested in reading this opinion about this historical figure. Someone is aware of this information, someone will not accept it in any case, and someone will learn something new for themselves.

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria is one of the most famous and at the same time the most unknown statesmen of Russia. Myths, lies and slander against him almost exceed the amount of slop poured into the name of Stalin. It is all the more important for us to understand who Beria really was.

On June 26, 1953, three tank regiments stationed near Moscow received an order from the Minister of Defense to load up with ammunition and enter the capital. I received the same order motorized rifle division. Two air divisions and a formation of jet bombers were ordered to wait in full combat readiness for orders for a possible bombing of the Kremlin. Subsequently, a version of all these preparations was announced: the Minister of Internal Affairs Beria was preparing a coup d'etat, which had to be prevented, Beria himself was arrested, tried and shot. For 50 years this version was not questioned by anyone. An ordinary, and not so ordinary, person knows only two things about Lavrentiy Beria: he was an executioner and a sexual maniac. Everything else has been removed from history. So it’s even strange: why did Stalin tolerate this useless and gloomy figure near him? Afraid, or what? Mystery. I wasn’t afraid at all! And there is no mystery. Moreover, without understanding the true role of this man it is impossible to understand the Stalinist era. Because in fact, everything was completely different from what the people who seized power in the USSR and privatized all the victories and achievements of their predecessors later came up with.

St. Petersburg journalist Elena Prudnikova, author of sensational historical investigations, participant in the historical and journalistic project “Riddles of History,” talks about a completely different Lavrentiy Beria on the pages of our newspaper. “Economic miracle” in Transcaucasia Many people have heard about the “Japanese economic miracle”. But who knows about Georgian? In the fall of 1931, the young security officer Lavrentiy Beria, a very remarkable personality, became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. At 20 he led illegal network in Menshevik Georgia. In 23, when the republic came under the control of the Bolsheviks, he fought against banditry and achieved impressive results - by the beginning of this year there were 31 gangs in Georgia, by the end of the year there were only 10 of them left. In 25, Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle. By 1929, he became both the chairman of the GPU of Transcaucasia and the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the region. But, oddly enough, Beria stubbornly tried to part with the KGB service, dreaming of finally completing his education and becoming a builder. In 1930, he even wrote a desperate letter to Ordzhonikidze. “Dear Sergo! I know you will say that now is not the time to bring up the issue of studying. But what to do? I feel like I can’t do it anymore.” In Moscow, the request was fulfilled exactly the opposite. So, in the fall of 1931, Beria became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. A year later he became the first secretary of the Transcaucasian regional committee, in fact the owner of the region. And we really, really don’t like to talk about how he worked in this position. Beria still got the same district.

Industry as such did not exist. A poor, hungry outskirts. As you know, collectivization began in the USSR in 1927. By 1931, 36% of Georgian farms had been transferred to collective farms, but this did not make the population any less hungry. And then Beria made a move with his knight. He stopped collectivization. Left the private owners alone. But on collective farms they began to grow not bread or corn, which were of no use, but valuable crops: tea, citrus fruits, tobacco, grapes. And this is where large agricultural enterprises justified themselves one hundred percent! Collective farms began to grow rich at such a speed that the peasants themselves flocked to them. By 1939, without any coercion, 86% of farms were socialized. One example: in 1930, the area of ​​tangerine plantations was one and a half thousand hectares, in 1940 - 20 thousand. The yield per tree has increased, in some farms by as much as 20 times. When you go to the market to buy Abkhaz tangerines, remember Lavrenty Pavlovich! In industry he worked just as effectively. During the first five-year plan, the volume of gross industrial output of Georgia alone increased almost 6 times. During the second five-year period - another 5 times. It was the same in the other Transcaucasian republics. It was under Beria, for example, that they began to drill on the shelves of the Caspian Sea, for which he was accused of wastefulness: why bother with all this nonsense! But now it is paying for Caspian oil and its transportation routes real war between superpowers. At the same time, Transcaucasia became the “resort capital” of the USSR - who then thought about the “resort business”? In terms of education level, already in 1938 Georgia took one of the first places in the Union, and in terms of the number of students per thousand souls it surpassed England and Germany. In short, during the seven years that Beria held the post of “main man” in Transcaucasia, he so shaken up the economy of the backward republics that until the 90s they were among the richest in the Union. If you look at it, the doctors of economic sciences who carried out perestroika in the USSR have a lot to learn from this security officer. But that was a time when it was not political talkers, but business executives, who were worth their weight in gold.

Stalin could not miss such a person. And Beria’s appointment to Moscow was not the result of apparatus intrigues, as they are now trying to imagine, but a completely natural thing: a person who works in this way in the region can be entrusted with big things in the country.

Lavrenty Beria in 1934

Mad Sword of Revolution

In our country, the name of Beria is primarily associated with repression. On this occasion, allow me the simplest question: when did the “Beria repressions” take place? Date please! She's gone. The then chief of the NKVD, Comrade Yezhov, is responsible for the notorious “37th year”. There was even such an expression - “tight-knuckle gloves.” Post-war repressions were also carried out when Beria was not working in the authorities, and when he arrived there in 1953, the first thing he did was stop them. When there were “Beria’s rehabilitations” - this is clearly recorded in history. And “Beria’s repressions” are in their purest form a product of “black PR”. What really happened? The country had no luck with the leaders of the Cheka-OGPU from the very beginning. Dzerzhinsky was a strong, strong-willed and honest person, but, extremely busy with work in the government, he abandoned the department to his deputies. His successor Menzhinsky was seriously ill and did the same. The main cadres of the “organs” were promoters from the Civil War, poorly educated, unprincipled and cruel; one can imagine what kind of situation prevailed there. Moreover, since the end of the 20s, the leaders of this department were increasingly nervous about any kind of control over their activities: Yezhov was a new person in the “authorities”, he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy Frinovsky. He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of security service work directly “on the job.” The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better; You can and should hit, but hitting and drinking is even more fun. Drunk on vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly “swimmed.”

He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all the power is in our hands. Whoever we want, we execute, whoever we want, we pardon: After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting from the secretary of the regional committee, should walk under you: “If the secretary of the regional committee had to walk under the head of the regional department of the NKVD, then who, one wonders, should have walked under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country. It is difficult to say when the Kremlin began to realize what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - they realized, but how to curb the monster? The solution is to imprison your own man, with such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism that he can, on the one hand, cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large choice of such people. Well, at least one was found. Curbing the NKVD In 1938, Beria, with the rank of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, became the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, seizing control of the most dangerous structure. Almost immediately, right before the November holidays, the entire top of the People's Commissariat was removed and mostly arrested. Then, having placed reliable people in key positions, Beria began to deal with what his predecessor had done. Chekists who went too far were fired, arrested, and some were shot. (By the way, later, having again become the Minister of Internal Affairs in 1953, do you know what order Beria issued the very first? On the prohibition of torture! He knew where he was going. The organs were cleaned out abruptly: 7372 people (22.9%) were dismissed from the rank and file, from management - 3830 people (62%).

At the same time, they began to verify complaints and review cases. Published in Lately the data allowed us to estimate the scale of this work. For example, in 1937-38, about 30 thousand people were dismissed from the army for political reasons. 12.5 thousand were returned to service after the change of leadership of the NKVD. It turns out about 40%. According to the most approximate estimates, since complete information has not yet been made public, up to 1941 inclusive, 150-180 thousand people out of 630 thousand convicted during the Yezhovshchina were released from camps and prisons. That is about 30 percent. It took a long time to “normalize” the NKVD and it was not completely possible, although the work was carried out right up to 1945. Sometimes you have to deal with completely incredible facts. For example, in 1941, especially in those places where the Germans were advancing, they did not stand on ceremony with prisoners - the war, they say, would write everything off. However, it was not possible to blame it on the war. From June 22 to December 31, 1941 (the most difficult months of the war!) 227 NKVD employees were brought to criminal liability for abuse of power. Of these, 19 people received capital punishment for extrajudicial executions. Beria also owned another invention of the era - the “sharashka”. Among those arrested there were many people who were very needed by the country. Of course, these were not poets and writers, about whom they shout the most and loudest, but scientists, engineers, designers, who primarily worked for defense. Repression in this environment is a special topic. Who and under what circumstances imprisoned the developers of military equipment in the conditions of an impending war? The question is not at all rhetorical.

Firstly, there were real German agents in the NKVD who, on real assignments from real German intelligence, tried to neutralize people useful to the Soviet defense complex. Secondly, there were no fewer “dissidents” in those days than in the late 80s. In addition, this is an incredibly quarrelsome environment, and denunciation has always been a favorite means of settling scores and career advancement. Be that as it may, having taken over the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Beria was faced with the fact: in his department there were hundreds of arrested scientists and designers, whose work the country simply desperately needed. As it is now fashionable to say - feel like a people's commissar! There is a case before you. This person may or may not be guilty, but he is necessary. What to do? Write: “Liberate”, showing your subordinates an example of the opposite kind of lawlessness? Check things? Yes, of course, but you have a closet with 600 thousand things in it. In fact, each of them needs to be re-investigated, but there are no personnel. If we are talking about someone who has already been convicted, it is also necessary to get the sentence overturned. Where to start? From scientists? From the military? And time passes, people sit, war is getting closer... Beria quickly got his bearings. Already on January 10, 1939, he signed an order to organize a Special Technical Bureau. The research topic is purely military: aircraft construction, shipbuilding, shells, armor steels. Entire groups were formed from specialists from these industries who were in prison. When the opportunity presented itself, Beria tried to free these people. For example, on May 25, 1940, aircraft designer Tupolev was sentenced to 15 years in the camps, and in the summer he was released under an amnesty.

Designer Petlyakov was granted amnesty on July 25 and already in January 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize. Large group developers of military equipment was released in the summer of 1941, another one in 1943, the rest received freedom from 1944 to 1948. When you read what is written about Beria, you get the impression that he spent the entire war catching “enemies of the people.” Yes, sure! He had nothing to do! On March 21, 1941, Beria became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. To begin with, he oversees the People's Commissariats of the forestry, coal and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy, soon adding ferrous metallurgy here. And from the very beginning of the war, more and more defense industries fell on his shoulders, since, first of all, he was not a security officer or a party leader, but an excellent organizer of production. That is why he was assigned in 1945 nuclear project, on which the very existence of the Soviet Union depended. He wanted to punish Stalin's murderers. And for this he himself was killed.

Two leaders

Already a week after the start of the war, on June 30, an emergency authority was established - the State Defense Committee, in whose hands all power in the country was concentrated. Naturally, Stalin became the chairman of the State Defense Committee. But who entered the office besides him? This issue is carefully avoided in most publications. For one very simple reason: among the five members of the State Defense Committee there is one unmentioned person. In the brief history of the Second World War (1985), in the index of names given at the end of the book, where such vital figures for victory as Ovid and Sandor Petofi are present, Beria is not present. Wasn’t there, didn’t fight, didn’t participate...

So: there were five of them. Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov. And three commissioners: Voznesensky, Mikoyan, Kaganovich. But soon the war began to make its own adjustments. Since February 1942, Beria, instead of Voznesensky, began to oversee the production of weapons and ammunition. Officially. (But in reality, he was already doing this in the summer of 1941.) That same winter, the production of tanks also fell into his hands. Again, not because of any intrigue, but because he did better. The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22 the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942 these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944 we had 89 thousand of them against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2 thousand tanks per month, far ahead of Germany. On May 11, 1944, Beria became chairman of the GKO Operations Bureau and deputy chairman of the Committee, in fact, the second person in the country after Stalin. On August 20, 1945, he took on the most difficult task of that time, which was a matter of survival for the USSR - he became chairman of the Special Committee for the creation of an atomic bomb (there he performed another miracle - the first Soviet atomic bomb, contrary to all forecasts, was tested just four years later , August 20, 1949). Not a single person from the Politburo, and indeed not a single person in the USSR, even came close to Beria in terms of the importance of the tasks being solved, in terms of the scope of powers, and, obviously, simply in terms of the scale of his personality. In fact, the post-war USSR was at that time a double star system: the seventy-year-old Stalin and the young - in 1949 he turned only fifty - Beria.

Head of state and his natural successor.

It was this fact that Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev historians hid so diligently in holes of silence and under piles of lies. Because if on June 23, 1953, the Minister of Internal Affairs was killed, this still leads to the fight against the putsch, and if the head of state was killed, then this is what the putsch is... Stalin's Scenario If you trace the information about Beria that wanders from publication to publication, to its original source, then almost all of it follows from Khrushchev’s memoirs. A person who, in general, cannot be trusted, since a comparison of his memories with other sources reveals an exorbitant amount of unreliable information in them. Who hasn’t done “political science” analyzes of the situation in the winter of 1952-1953. What combinations were not thought of, what options were not calculated. That Beria was blocked with Malenkov, with Khrushchev, that he was on his own... These analyzes have only one sin - as a rule, they completely exclude the figure of Stalin. It is silently believed that the leader had retired by that time and was almost insanity...

There is only one source - the memories of Nikita Sergeevich. But why, exactly, should we believe them? And Beria’s son Sergo, for example, who saw Stalin fifteen times during 1952 at meetings devoted to missile weapons, recalled that the leader did not at all seem weakened in mind... The post-war period of our history is no less dark than pre-Rurik Russia. Probably no one really knows what was happening in the country then. It is known that after 1949, Stalin withdrew somewhat from business, leaving all the “turnover” to chance and to Malenkov. But one thing is clear: something was cooking. Based on indirect evidence, it can be assumed that Stalin was planning some kind of very big reform, first of all economic, and only then, perhaps, political. Another thing is clear: the leader was old and sick, he knew this very well, he did not suffer from a lack of courage and could not help but think what would happen to the state after his death, and not look for a successor. If Beria had been of any other nationality, there would have been no problems. But one Georgian after another on the throne of the empire! Even Stalin would not have done this. It is known that in the post-war years, Stalin slowly but steadily squeezed the party apparatus out of the captain's cabin. Of course, the functionaries could not be happy with this. In October 1952, at the CPSU Congress, Stalin gave the party a decisive battle, asking to be relieved of his duties. Secretary General. It didn’t work out, they didn’t let me go. Then Stalin came up with a combination that is easy to read: an obviously weak figure becomes the head of state, and the real head, the “gray cardinal,” is formally in a supporting role. And so it happened: after Stalin’s death, the lack of initiative Malenkov became the first, but Beria was really in charge of politics. He not only carried out an amnesty. For example, he was responsible for a resolution condemning the forced Russification of Lithuania and Western Ukraine; he also proposed a beautiful solution to the “German” question: if Beria had remained in power, the Berlin Wall simply would not have existed. Well, and along the way, he again took up the “normalization” of the NKVD, launching the process of rehabilitation, so that Khrushchev and the company then only had to jump on an already moving locomotive, pretending that they had been there from the very beginning. It was later that they all said that they “disagreed” with Beria, that he “pressured” them. Then they said a lot of things. But in fact, they completely agreed with Beria’s initiatives. But then something happened. Calmly! This is a revolution! A meeting of either the Presidium of the Central Committee or the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was scheduled for June 26 in the Kremlin. According to the official version, the military, led by Marshal Zhukov, came to see him, members of the Presidium called them into the office, and they arrested Beria. Then he was taken to a special bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District troops, an investigation was carried out and he was shot.

This version does not stand up to criticism. Why - it will take a long time to talk about this, but there are many obvious stretches and inconsistencies in it... Let's just say one thing: none of the outside, uninterested people saw Beria alive after June 26, 1953. The last person to see him was his son Sergo - in the morning, at the dacha. According to his recollections, his father was going to stop by a city apartment, then go to the Kremlin for a meeting of the Presidium. Around noon, Sergo received a call from his friend, pilot Amet-Khan, who said that there had been a shootout at Beria’s house and that his father, apparently, was no longer alive. Sergo, together with member of the Special Committee Vannikov, rushed to the address and managed to see broken windows, knocked out doors, a wall dotted with traces of bullets from heavy machine gun. Meanwhile, members of the Presidium gathered in the Kremlin. What happened there? Wading through the rubble of lies, bit by bit recreating what happened, we managed to roughly reconstruct the events. After Beria was dealt with, the perpetrators of this operation—presumably these were military men from Khrushchev’s old, Ukrainian team, whom he dragged to Moscow, led by Moskalenko—went to the Kremlin. At the same time, another group of military men arrived there.

People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR L.P. Beria with I.V. Stalin's daughter Svetlana. 1930s. Photo from the personal archive of E. Kovalenko. RIA News

It was headed by Marshal Zhukov, and among its members was Colonel Brezhnev. Curious, isn't it? Then, presumably, everything unfolded like this. Among the putschists were at least two members of the Presidium - Khrushchev and Defense Minister Bulganin (Moskalenko and others always refer to them in their memoirs). They confronted the rest of the government with a fact: Beria had been killed, something had to be done about it. The whole team inevitably found themselves in the same boat and began to hide their ends. Another thing is much more interesting: why was Beria killed? The day before, he returned from a ten-day trip to Germany, met with Malenkov, and discussed with him the agenda for the meeting on June 26. Everything was amazing. If something happened, it happened in the last 24 hours. And, most likely, it was somehow connected with the upcoming meeting. True, there is an agenda, preserved in Malenkov’s archive. But most likely it's a linden tree. No information has been preserved about what the meeting was actually supposed to be devoted to. It would seem... But there was one person who could know about this. Sergo Beria said in an interview that his father told him in the morning at the dacha that at the upcoming meeting he was going to demand an arrest warrant from the Presidium former minister State Security Ignatiev.

But now everything is clear! So it couldn't be clearer. The fact is that Ignatiev was in charge of Stalin’s security in the last year of his life. It was he who knew what happened at Stalin’s dacha on the night of March 1, 1953, when the leader had a stroke. And something happened there, about which many years later the surviving guards continued to lie mediocrely and too obviously. And Beria, who kissed the hand of the dying Stalin, would have torn all his secrets from Ignatiev. And then he organized a political trial for the whole world against him and his accomplices, no matter what positions they held. This is just in his style... No, these same accomplices under no circumstances should have allowed Beria to arrest Ignatiev. But how do you keep it? All that remained was to kill - which was done... Well, and then they hid the ends. By order of Defense Minister Bulganin, a grandiose “Tank Show” was organized (equally ineptly repeated in 1991). Khrushchev's lawyers, under the leadership of the new Prosecutor General Rudenko, also a native of Ukraine, staged the trial (staged to this day favorite hobby prosecutor's office). Then the memory of all the good things that Beria did was carefully erased, and vulgar tales about a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were put into use.

In terms of “black PR,” Khrushchev was talented. It seems that this was his only talent... And he was not a sex maniac either! The idea of ​​​​presenting Beria as a sexual maniac was first voiced at the Plenum of the Central Committee in July 1953. Secretary of the Central Committee Shatalin, who, as he claimed, searched Beria's office, found in the safe " a large number of objects of a lecherous man." Then Beria's security guard, Sarkisov, spoke and spoke about his numerous relationships with women. Naturally, no one checked all this, but the gossip was started and went for a walk around the country. “Being a morally corrupt person, Beria cohabited with numerous women...” the investigators wrote in the “sentence.” There is also a list of these women on file. There’s just one problem: it almost completely coincides with the list of women with whom General Vlasik, Stalin’s security chief, who was arrested a year earlier, was accused of cohabiting with them. Wow, how unlucky Lavrenty Pavlovich was. There were such opportunities, but the women came exclusively from under Vlasik! And without laughing, it’s as simple as shelling pears: they took a list from Vlasik’s case and added it to the “Beria case.” Who will check? Nina Beria many years later, in one of her interviews, said a very simple phrase: “It’s an amazing thing: Lavrenty was busy day and night with work when he had to deal with a legion of these women!” Drive along the streets, take them to country villas, and even to your home, where there was a Georgian wife and a son and his family lived. However, when it comes to denigrating a dangerous enemy, who cares what really happened?”

Elena Prudnikova