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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Literature

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

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

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

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria is one of the most influential politicians of the Stalinist period, the all-powerful chief of the NKVD, whose name is associated with the execution of representatives of the party and military elite, mass repression, as well as important achievements in the field of increasing the economic potential of the country, reorganizing foreign intelligence activities, creating a domestic nuclear weapons.

By the time of Joseph Stalin’s death, he headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs (which included the MGB), taking control of the entire political and economic life of the country, and was one of the most likely contenders for the position of “Leader of the Peoples” along with Malenkov and Khrushchev).

Childhood and adolescence

The future high-ranking security official was born on March 29, 1899 into a family of peasants living in the mountain village of Merkheuli near Sukhumi. Mother Marta Vissarionovna and father Pavel Khukhaevich were descendants of Mingrelians (Georgian subethnic group). Mom was related to the main aristocratic, but bankrupt Mingrelian family of Dadiani. She had six children from a previous marriage - Kapiton, Tamara, Elena, daughter Pasha and son Noah (twins) and Luka, who were given to relatives to raise due to extreme poverty.

Lawrence's parents lived an ordinary peasant life: they were engaged in growing grapes, tobacco, and raising bees. Their common first-born, elder brother Lavrentiy, died at the age of 2, contracting smallpox. In 1905, in addition to Lavrenty, the youngest daughter Annette appeared in the family, who became deaf and dumb after an illness.

Since childhood, my son was a smart boy, he showed independence and character - in any weather, for lack of shoes, he went barefoot to primary school, located three kilometers from home. Then, in an effort to learn and escape from a miserable existence, he entered the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, where during 4 years of study he showed high abilities in the natural sciences and drawing.

It was not easy for the parents to pay for their son’s life in the city; they even had to sell half of their house. The teenager also tried to earn money to the best of his ability - from the age of 12 he was engaged in tutoring.

After finishing his studies in Sukhumi in 1915, he continued his education at the Baku Secondary Mechanical and Construction School educational institution. In 1916, the young man decided to take his mother and sister to his city. He began to independently support himself and them financially, working in parallel with his studies at the oil company of the Nobel brothers. According to some reports, he also worked as a postman, delivering letters before classes. In 1919, the young man received the prestigious specialty of architect-builder.

Party activities

Beria began to engage in party work while studying in Baku - he became a member of an underground student Marxist cell, where he served as treasurer. In 1917 he joined the Bolshevik Party. In the same year, as a trainee technician at a hydraulic engineering enterprise, he traveled to Romania.

In 1918, Lavrenty Pavlovich returned to his homeland and subsequently worked in various party and Soviet posts in Transcaucasia. During the period 1919-1921. he was a student at the Baku Polytechnic University, but was then recalled to serve in the Cheka of Azerbaijan.

Since 1931, he worked as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, making a huge contribution to the development of the national economy of the republic. In 1938, he moved to Moscow, where he headed the State Security Directorate of the NKVD, and then the People's Commissariat itself.

While in this position, he initiated the release from prisons of persons imprisoned on false charges. In 1939, more than 11 thousand military commanders were rehabilitated. But then the arrests of the military elite continued, reducing the combat effectiveness of the army. In addition, on the eve of the Second World War, the NKVD carried out the eviction of “unreliable elements” from the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Belarus to the east of the USSR.

With the outbreak of the war, Beria joined the State Defense Committee, which had full power in the country. It was headed by Joseph Stalin, and Lavrenty Pavlovich in 1944-45. was chairman of the Operations Bureau, controlling heavy industry, coal and oil industries, and transport. He was also involved in organizing the rapid evacuation to the rear of enterprises located in the west of the country, creating roads and airfields for their work in new places in order to provide the front with everything necessary.

During wartime, he was directly involved in issues of deportation, when innocent citizens and children were resettled along with criminals. In 1941, during the Nazi offensive on Moscow, on his orders, hundreds of prisoners were shot without trial. Moreover, for all soldiers who were captured or did not want to fight, the public death penalty was applied.

In 1945, Beria led the activities of the Special Committee to create an atomic bomb, as well as the work of a network of foreign intelligence agents, thanks to which the USSR was aware of all the most important technical developments in this area of ​​US nuclear researchers. In 1949, the first domestic atomic bomb was successfully tested, and Beria received the Stalin Prize.

After the death of the “Father of Nations” in 1953, Beria headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was deputy. Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Trying to strengthen his position in power, he initiated a series of judicial reforms, an amnesty decree that released more than one million prisoners, an end to the sensational “Doctors’ Plot,” and a ban on cruel interrogation methods.

However, at the instigation of Nikita Khrushchev, a conspiracy was organized against Lavrentiy Beria, and in June 1953, at a meeting of the Presidium, he was arrested. He was accused of treason, moral corruption and connections with foreign intelligence.

Personal life of Lavrentiy Beria

The head of state security since 1922 was married to the beautiful Nina Teymurazovna (nee Gegechkori), whose family belonged to an impoverished noble family. The couple's first child died in early childhood. In 1924, their son Sergo was born. All her life she supported and justified the activities of her husband.

Besides her, in last years In his life, the minister had a common-law wife, at the time of their acquaintance she was still a schoolgirl, Valentina (Lalya) Drozdova, who gave birth to his daughter Marta. Joseph Stalin and Lavrentiy Beria with the daughter of the “Father of Nations” Svetlana On December 23, 1953, Lavrentiy Beria was shot

According to a number of historians and the son of the disgraced head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sergo Lavrentievich, there was neither his father’s arrest in the Kremlin nor a trial. He was allegedly shot dead during an attempted takeover in their house on Malaya Nikitskaya.

In “Song about Rumors” by Vladimir Vysotsky, a neighbor is mentioned who was taken away by vigilant authorities “because he looks like Beria.” For the authorities themselves, the very mention of Beria in the 70s looked not only seditious, but unacceptable in any weather. As much as this man ascended under Stalin and after his death, they tried to erase him from our history in the following decades - as an enemy of the people, an immoral type and, in general, a bearer of all possible sins...

Biography and activities of Lavrentiy Beria

There is not much reliable information regarding the personality of Lavrenty Pavlovich - some of the archives are still classified. Georgian by nationality. Place of birth (03/17/29/1899) – the village of Merkhiuli. The mother belonged to an ancient princely family, but lived poorly. She, a widow with two children, was wooed by an equally poor man, three years younger.

She bore him three more children. Only the youngest, Lavrenty, grew up healthy, inquisitive and active. When the child was seven years old, the parents divided the property and mother and son moved to Sukhumi. She never returned to her husband. The boy was sent to study. He graduated from the Sukhumi School in 1915 with honors.

However, the fact that Beria wrote illiterately throughout his adult life suggests that his craving for new knowledge is only part of a myth, moreover, created by himself. He even managed to earn extra money by teaching lessons. French without knowing a word of French. Beria was introduced into the bowels of the nationalist Musavat party that ruled Azerbaijan.

This was the powerful debut of the future intelligence officer. He was introduced there on the instructions of the Bolshevik Party and A. Mikoyan personally. The latter, however, categorically denied this fact. Most likely, Beria worked exclusively for himself - according to the principle of a weather vane, wanting to always be in the camp of the winners.

Beria spent two months in prison. Upon leaving, he proposed to his cellmate’s daughter, Nina Gegechkori, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. Beria graduated from the Baku Mechanical and Construction School and did it by vocation. It cannot be ruled out that a first-class builder died in it. Politics took him into its arms powerfully and forever. In the 20s, Beria served in the Georgian Cheka and so far nothing foreshadowed his rapid career rise.

Acquaintance with Stalin occurs in the early 20s. Stalin appreciated his new acquaintance and took note of him. That's why in the 30s. Beria is already the First Secretary of the Communist Central Committee in Georgia. This was no longer a purely security service, but rather a party-economic position. Beria accepted Georgia as poor, and by 1940 he made it the richest republic in the USSR. And he spared no expense for this. Beria made especially strong progress in oil production. Giants of heavy industry were erected.

The first was published in 1939 official biography Beria. A giant granite statue was erected in his homeland. A real cult of personality has developed. In the last years of his work in Georgia, Beria not only destroyed the imaginary enemies of the people, but also finished off his personal possible competitors and enemies. He oversaw the implementation of mass repressions throughout the Transcaucasus. Soon Stalin transferred Beria to Moscow and promoted him.

In August 1938, Beria was appointed first deputy to N. Yezhov, who had already fallen out of favor, and was promoted to state security commissar of the first rank. Beria dealt with Yezhov on Stalin’s orders. Until the end of the war, Beria headed the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs and updated its apparatus. As part of the “renewal”, the writer I. Babel and the journalist M. Koltsov were shot. Under Beria, repressions began to hit those who carried them out - i.e. according to the NKVD officers themselves. Beria personally loved to be present when prisoners were tortured.

The time when Beria replaced Yezhov became a kind of “thaw” - about 200,000 people were released from prisons and camps. There were much fewer executions. However, new arrests continued. The repressive machine did not slow down. Beria also carried out mass deportations of “small” peoples.

During the war, Beria organized a department in which arrested scientists worked. WITH light hand Solzhenitsyn dubbed them “sharashkas.” Since 1945, Beria has controlled production and testing work atomic weapons. The atomic bomb was tested in 1949, the hydrogen bomb in 1953. Four months after Stalin’s death, Beria was arrested and another six months later he was executed.

What was going on in the government during this period is a complete puzzle. One thing is clear - there was a mortal struggle for power. Everyone without exception feared Beria like fire. And everyone wanted to eliminate him – including physically. According to the version of Beria’s son, Sergo, his father was shot on December 23, 1953. during the storming of the mansion, and everything else - the process and interrogations - is just a skillful staging.

• A certain Sergei Kremlev published a few years ago the so-called. "Beria's diaries" for the period from 1937 to 1953. Most serious historians recognize them as fakes, although very plausible. Numerous statements also support the version of authenticity. grammatical errors diarist.

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born near Sukhumi, in the village. Merkheul, March 29, 1899. At the age of 15, he graduated with honors from the Sukhumi Higher Primary School, after which he entered the Mechanical Engineering Technical School in Baku. He was sent in 1917 to the Romanian Front as a trainee technician. In March 1917, he joined the ranks of the RSDLP, became an active member of the Baku Commune and an assistant to the leader of the underground, Mikoyan. Beria was arrested twice on suspicion of espionage.

The biography of Lavrentiy Beria since 1921 has been inextricably linked with service in state security agencies. He owed his fast career to Stalin's favor. IN AND. Stalin and Beria met during the leader's trips to the Caucasus. In 1922, Lavrenty Pavlovich married Nina Gegechkori. Two years later, their son Sergo was born in Tbilisi.

An important role in the rise of Beria was played by his personal devotion to Stalin and toughness in the fight against the enemies of the party. It was during Beria’s work that state terror acquired a systematic character. He also improved repressive methods and became one of the organizers of the Gulag. Beria was the ideal executor of Stalin's will, effectively eliminating all those disliked by the leader, including party leaders. Thus, the murder of Trotsky, which occurred in Mexico, was carried out under his personal leadership.

Beria was the curator of Soviet foreign intelligence, the defense industry, including the development of nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that this man had outstanding organizational skills. During Stalin's reign he was awarded many high awards. So, in 1943, Beria received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, in 1945 - the title of marshal. The capabilities of the state security agencies in the post-war years under the leadership of Beria increased significantly.

After Stalin's death, all power over the security agencies was concentrated in the hands of Beria, who by that time had become Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of Internal Affairs. However, the further strengthening of Beria, his high authority and political activity were considered dangerous for the leading Soviet elite.

June 26, 1953 during a meeting of the presidium Supreme Council Beria was arrested, which was carried out by the military led by Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov. Beria was expelled from the party and accused of anti-Soviet activities and espionage. The verdict was passed on December 23, 1953. Beria was executed on the same day.

L.P.'s wife Beria and their son Sergo were also arrested. After a year spent in solitary confinement, Sergo was exiled to the Urals, where he became a senior engineer at the Scientific Research Institute, post office box 320, and was later transferred to Kyiv, where he worked as a leading designer at NPO Kvant. He died on October 11, 2000.

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, village of Merkheuli, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province. - 23 December 1953, Moscow) - Soviet state and political figure, General Commissar 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 an intern at the main office of the Nobel oil company, he simultaneously continued his studies at the school. He graduated from it in 1919, receiving a diploma as a construction technician-architect.

Since 1915 he was a member of the illegal Marxist circle mechanical engineering school, 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 contacted 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, while participating in the preparation armed uprising against the Georgian Menshevik government, 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. People's Commissars(SNK) of the Azerbaijan SSR, and in May he took the positions of head of the secret operational unit 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 combined position of chief Special Department 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 Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic was divided into three independent republics, the Transcaucasian Regional Committee was liquidated by decree Central Committee CPSU (b) 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 mailing list of materials sent to members of the Central Committee - minutes of meetings of the Politburo, the Organizing Bureau, and the 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 industrial production in Georgia increased by 10 times compared to 1913, agricultural by 2.5 times with a fundamental change in the structure Agriculture towards highly profitable crops of the subtropical zone.

High purchasing prices were set for agricultural products produced in the subtropics (grapes, tea, tangerines, etc.), and the Georgian peasantry was the most prosperous in the country.

In 1935 he published the book “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia.” 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. " Big purge” also took place in Georgia, where many party and government workers. 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 occupied important posts in state security agencies and the Communist Party. 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 Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Ezhov. 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 Navy USSR 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, on 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 those 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 the deportations Western Ukraine and in Western Belarus were directed primarily against the hostile to Soviet power and nationalist-minded part of the Polish population.

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, 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 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 ordered “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 great job 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 in Moscow is assembling with his own hands the first nuclear reactor in Europe, 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. Weapons-grade plutonium (plutonium-239), which is the result of neutron irradiation of uranium-238, was chosen as the atomic explosive due to its simplicity, speed and cost.
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. Official reason deportations were mass desertion, collaboration and active anti-Soviet armed struggle 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 the highest spiritual leaders, warned them about the operation and proposed to carry out 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 a defensive line on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus. On March 5, the State Defense Committee issued a decree on the eviction from the Design Bureau of the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and on March 8-9, the operation began. On March 11, Beria reported to Stalin that “37,103 Balkars were evicted,” and on March 14 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, connected with the residents of the border regions of Turkey through family ties and relationships, has shown emigration sentiments, is engaged in smuggling and serves for Turkish intelligence agencies a source of recruitment of spy elements and the establishment of 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 at 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, he provided general management of the entire project. In March 1953, the Special Committee was entrusted with the management of other special works of defense significance. Based on the decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee of June 26, 1953 (the day of the 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, engineering structures, measuring and film-photo equipment were placed. 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 men and scientists, but also ordinary people could observe this terrible and majestic spectacle. civilians who became hostages of their time. After all, as paradoxical as it may sound, Semipalatinsk nuclear test site 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 on its vast territory there were permanent residents 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 “ Honorable Sir 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.

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. They closed themselves on this “inner circle” critical issues government controlled, including: foreign policy, foreign trade, state security, weapons, functioning armed forces. On March 18, he became a member of the Politburo, and the next day he was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, he oversaw the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of State Control.

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

creators of the USSR nuclear missile shield

After the October 1952 XIX Congress CPSU 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.

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

Order “On the prohibition of the use of any measures of coercion and physical 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 on 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 famous writer Konstantin Simonov and showed him 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 espionage 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. By own initiative The first shot was fired from a personal weapon by Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky.

The body was burned in the oven of the 1st Moscow (Don) crematorium. He was buried at the 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 relationship with the People’s Commissar, and it is clear that some openly used their acquaintance with him great benefit for myself.
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 member parties.
... 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 Beria's last words at the 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” times, the image of Beria was demonized; he was blamed for both 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 dated 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 the state level and personally carried out mass repressions against 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 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the RSFSR, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation determined:
“Recognize Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Vsevolod Nikolaevich Merkulov, Bogdan Zakharyevich Kobulov, Sergei Arsenievich Goglidze as not subject to rehabilitation.”

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

According to the 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 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
Jubilee 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)
Chest sign“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 modernity [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, from February to May 1944.
Beriaaul - Novolakskoye 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.