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Lavrenty Beria

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; (29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953), was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ... Lavrenty Beria, an official portrait File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Lavrenty Beria, an official portrait File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... March 29 is the 88th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (89th in Leap years). ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... December 23 is the 357th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (358th in leap years). ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Soviet republics Area  - Total  - % water 1st before collapse 22,402,200 km² Approx. ...

Beria is now remembered chiefly as the executor of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s, even though he actually presided only over the closing stages of the purge. His period of greatest power and influence was during and immediately after World War II — after Stalin's death he was removed from office and executed by Stalin's successors. According to some estimates as many as ten million Soviet citizens have been purported to be executed by the NKVD under Beria's supervision (Rhodes, 1996), although this is in contravercy with Soviet archives. (Russian: Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин, Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin; December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953), also spelled Josef Stalin, was the leader (Premier) of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet... The Great Purge (Russian: ) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. ... This article or section is missing references or citation of sources. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France/Free France, United States, China, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Greece, Norway, Honduras, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Burma, Slovakia Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military... The NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del )(Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or Peoples Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Unions affairs of state. ...

Rise to power

Beria was born the son of Pavel Khukhaevich Beria, a peasant, in Merkheuli, near Sukhumi in the Abkhazian region of Georgia. He was a member of the Mingrelian ethnic group and grew up in a Georgian Orthodox family. His mother, Marta Ivanovna, was a deeply religious, church-going woman; she was previously married and widowed before marrying Beria's father, and had a son from her first marriage.[1] He was educated at a technical school in Sukhumi, and is recorded as having joined the Bolshevik Party in March 1917 while an engineering student in Baku. Sukhumi (სოხუმი in Georgian, Аҟəа in Abkhaz language) is the capital of Abkhazia, a de facto independent state that is internationally recognised, however, as being part of Georgia. ... Official languages Abkhaz¹ ², Russian¹ Georgian² ¹ Used by the de-facto separatist government ² According to the Constitution of Georgia Political status De Facto: Independent De Jure (internationally recognized): Autonomous Republic within Georgia Capital Sukhumi Capitals coordinates President¹ Sergei Bagapsh Prime Minister¹ Alexander Ankvab ¹ De-facto separatist government Chairman of the... The Megrelian language (Megruli ena in Georgian, Margaluri nina in Megrelian), sometimes called Mingrelian, is a language spoken in northwest Georgia. ... The Georgian Orthodox Church (full title Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church, or in the Georgian language საქართველოს მართლმადიდებელი სამოციქულო ეკლესია Saqartvelos Samotsiqulo Avtokepaluri Martlmadidebeli Eklesia) is one of the worlds most ancient Christian Churches, and tradition traces its origins to the mission of Apostle Andrew in the 1st century. ... The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Russian: Коммунисти́ческая Па́ртия Сове́тского Сою́за = КПСС) was the name used by the successors of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party from 1952 to 1991, but the wording Communist Party was present in the partys name since 1918 when the Bolsheviks became the All... 1917 (MCMXVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Satellite view of Baku The Baku harbour on the south of Absheron peninsula The Maiden Tower in old town Baku Baku (Azerbaijani: Bakı), sometimes known as Baky or Baki, is the capital of Azerbaijan. ...

In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), the original Bolshevik political police. At that time, a Bolshevik revolt, supported by the Red Army, occurred in the Menshevik Democratic Republic of Georgia, and the Vecheka was heavily involved in this conflict. By 1922 Beria was deputy head of the Vecheka's successor, the OGPU (Combined State Political Directorate), in Georgia. Some sources allege that Beria was at this time an agent of the British and/or Turkish intelligence services, but this has never been proved. 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar) // Events January January 3 - Babe Ruth is traded by the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees for $125,000, the largest sum ever paid for a player at that time. ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Cheka-KGB emblem: sword and shield The Cheka (ЧК - чрезвычайная комиссия) was the first of many Soviet secret police organizations, created by decree on December 20, 1917 by Vladimir Lenin and led by Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. ... A secret police (sometimes political police) force is a police organization that operates in secret to enforce state security. ... Leaders of the Bolshevik Party and the Communist International, a painting by Malcolm McAllister on the Pathfinder Mural in New York City and on the cover of the book Lenin’s Final Fight published by Pathfinder. ... The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (in Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya), the armed forces first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ... Leaders of the Menshevik Party at Norra Bantorget in Stockholm, Sweden, May 1917. ... National motto: n/a Language Georgian (official), Russian (unofficial) Capital Tbilisi (aka Tiflis) Chairman of the Government Noe Ramishvili (1918–1919), Noe Zhordania (1919–1921) Area 107,600 km² Population 2. ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Obedinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (or OGPU) (Combined State Political Directorate, also translated as All Union State Political Board) was the name of the secret police in the Soviet Union in one of the stages of its development. ...

Beria, a fellow Georgian, was an ally of Joseph Stalin in his rise to power within the Communist Party and the Soviet regime although he was not introduced to Stalin until 1926. Some historians^{[citation needed]}, however, claim that he worked to further his own cause by wooing Stalin to get into the inner circles of the Soviet regime; and that he was hardly an "ally", more of a henchman. In 1924 he led the repression of nationalist disturbances in Tbilisi, after which it is said that up to 5,000 people were executed. For this display of "Bolshevik ruthlessness" Beria was appointed head of the "secret-political division" of the Transcaucasian OGPU and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. In 1926 he became head of the Georgian OGPU. He was appointed Party Secretary in Georgia in 1931, and for the whole Transcaucasian region in 1932. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1934. Even after moving on from Georgia, he continued to effectively control the republic's Communist Party until it was purged in July 1953. 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Tbilisi (Georgian თბილისი ) is the capital city of the country of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura (Mtkvari) river, at . ... Transcaucasia is the name given to a region south of the Caucasus Mountains that covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. ... The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Battle Red Banner, better-known as the Order of the Red Banner (in Russian: Орден Крaсного Знамени Orden Krasnogo Znameni) on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1931 calendar). ... Transcaucasia is the name given to a region south of the Caucasus Mountains that covers Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... 16th Central Committee meeting of the Communist Party of China Central Committee most commonly refers to the central executive unit of a communist party, whether ruling or non-ruling. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ...

By 1935 Beria was one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Stalin's entourage with a lengthy oration "On the History of the Bolshevik Organisations in Transcaucasia" (later published as a book), which allegedly^{[citation needed]} rewrote the history of Transcaucasian Bolshevism emphasizing Stalins's role in it. When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and government began in 1934 after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia, using the opportunity to settle many old scores in the politically turbulent Transcaucasian republics. In June 1937 he said in a speech: "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed". 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Sergei Mironovich Kirov (Серге́й Миро́нович Ки́ров) (March 15 O.S. = March 27 N.S., 1886 - December 1, 1934) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet communist. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the founder of the ideology of Leninism. ...

Beria at the NKVD

An official poster eulogising Beria

In August 1938 Stalin brought Beria to Moscow as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the ministry which oversaw the state security and police forces. Under Nikolai Yezhov, the NKVD carried out prosecution of the perceived enemies of the state known as the Great Purge, that affected millions of people. By 1938, however, the purge had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure of the Soviet state, its economy and armed forces, and Stalin had decided to wind the purge down. In September Beria was appointed head of the Main Administration of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD, and in November he succeeded Yezhov as head of NKVD (Yezhov was executed in 1940). The NKVD itself was then purged, with half its personnel replaced by Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucasus. In 1940, Beria was in charge of the Katyn Massacre. File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ... The NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del )(Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or Peoples Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Unions affairs of state. ... Security agency is an organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation, state or organization. ... Yezhov along Moscow-Volga channel. ... The Great Purge (Russian: ) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... The Ethnolinguistic patchwork of the modern Caucasus - CIA map This article concerns the geographic region. ... Katyn is the name of both a village and a forest near Smolensk, Russia. ...

Beria's name has become closely identified with the Great Purge as well, but in fact he presided over the NKVD during an easing of the repression. Over 100,000 people were released from the labour camps, and it was officially admitted that there had been some injustices and "excesses" during the purges, which were blamed on Yezhov. Nevertheless this liberalisation was only relative: arrests and executions continued, and in 1940, as war approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated. During this period Beria supervised the deportations of population from Poland and the Baltic states following their occupation by Soviet forces. 1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1940 calendar). ... Baltic states and the Baltic Sea The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a term which nowadays refers to three countries in Northern Europe: Estonia Latvia Lithuania Prior to World War II, Finland was sometimes considered, particularly by the Soviet Union, a fourth Baltic state. ...

In March 1939 Beria became a candidate member of the Communist Party's Politburo. Although he did not become a full member until 1946, he was already one of the senior leaders of the Soviet state. In 1941 Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, a highest military-like rank within the Soviet police ranking system of that time. 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Politburo is short for Political Bureau. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ...

In February 1941 he became a Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom), and in June, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, he became a member of the State Defence Committee (GKO). During World War II he took on major domestic responsibilities, using the millions of people imprisoned in NKVD labour camps for wartime production. He took control of production of armaments and (with Georgy Malenkov) aircraft and aircraft engines. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malenkov, which later became of central importance. For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1941 calendar). ... Sovnarkom (Russian language СовНарКом, the abbreviation of the phrase Совет Народных Комиссаров, Sovet Narodnykh Komissarov, the Council of Peoples Commissars, sometimes Russian СНК, the SNK), was the name of administrative arm of the Soviet governments until 1946. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... State Defense Committee (Russian: , GKO) was the extraordinary superior organ in the USSR during the Great Patriotic War which held the total power in the state. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France/Free France, United States, China, Canada, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Greece, Norway, Honduras, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Finland, Romania, Hungary, Burma, Slovakia Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military... Georgy (Georgii) Maximilianovich Malenkov (Russian: , his first name then surname pronounced GHYOR-ghee mah-leen-KOF; January 8 [O.S. December 26, 1901] 1902 – January 14, 1988) was a Soviet politician, Communist Party leader and close collaborator of Joseph Stalin. ...

In 1944, as the Germans were driven from Soviet soil, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the invaders, including the Chechens, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars and the Volga Germans. All these were deported to Soviet Central Asia. See "Population transfer in the Soviet Union". 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Capital Grozny Area - total - % water 79th - 15,500 km² - negligible Population - Total - Density 49th _ est. ... The Republic of Ingushetia (Russian: ; Ingush: ГIалгIай Мохк) is a federal subject of Russia (a republic). ... The Crimean Tatars (Qırımtatar (aka Qırım, Qırımlı and Qırım türkü), Pl. ... The Volga Germans are ethnic Germans living near the Volga River and the Black Sea, maintaining German culture, German language, German traditions and religions: Evangelical Lutherans or Roman Catholic. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia (Russian: Средняя Азия/Srednyaya Azia for Middle Asia or Центральная Азия/Tsentralnaya Azia for Central Asia; in Turkic languages Orta Asya; in Persian آسياى مرکزی; (Urdu: وسطى ايشيا)Wasti Asia; Standard Mandarin Chinese... Not by Their Own Will. ...

In December 1944 Beria was also charged with supervision of the Soviet atomic bomb project. In this connection he ran the successful Soviet espionage campaign against United States atomic weapons programme which resulted in Soviets obtaining a nuclear bomb technology, building and testing a bomb in 1949. However his most important contribution (and arguably the main reason for putting him in charge) was providing a necessary workforce. The actual implementation of a nuclear project requires huge human resources for various support, often hazardous, works, not just a team of talented nuclear physicists. The Gulag system provided tens of thousands of workers for mining uranium, construction and running of uranium processing plants, and construction of test facilities (at Semipalatinsk, Vaygach, Novaya Zemlya and others). NKVD also ensured the necessary security and secrecy of the project. 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... Andrei Sakharov (left) with Igor Kurchatov (right) The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb began during World War II in the Soviet Union. ... The Manhattan Project resulted in the development of the first nuclear weapons, and the first-ever nuclear detonation at the Trinity test of July 16, 1945. ... 1949 (MCMXLIX) was a common year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1949 calendar). ... General Name, Symbol, Number uranium, U, 92 Chemical series actinides Group, Period, Block n/a, 7, f Appearance silvery gray metallic; corrodes to a spalling black oxide coat in air Atomic mass 238. ... The Semipalatinsk Test Site (STS) was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Unions nuclear weapons. ... Vaygach Island (Вайгач in Russian) is an island in the Arctic Sea on the border of the Barents Sea and Kara Sea. ... Novaya Zemlyas position on the map. ...

In July 1945, as Soviet police ranks were converted to a uniform military system, Beria's rank was converted to that of a Marshal of the Soviet Union. Although he had never held a military command, Beria, through his organisation of war production, made a significant contribution to the Soviet Union's victory in World War II. 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... The rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union (Russian: Marshal Sovietskogo Soyuza [Маршал Советского Союза]) was in practice the highest military rank of the Soviet Union. ...

Postwar politics

Beria with Stalin (in background) and Stalin's daughter Svetlana

With Stalin nearing 70, the postwar years were dominated by a concealed struggle for the succession among his lieutenants. At the end of the war the most likely successor seemed to be Andrei Zhdanov, party leader in Leningrad during the war, then in charge of all cultural matters in 1946. Even during the war Beria and Zhdanov had been rivals, but after 1946 Beria formed an alliance with Malenkov to block Zhdanov's rise^{[citation needed]}. Source: http://www. ... Source: http://www. ... Svetlana with father Stalin in 1935. ... Andrei Zhdanov Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov (Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов) (February 26 [O.S. February 14] 1896–August 31, 1948) was a Soviet politician. ... Saint Petersburg (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of Finland... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ...

In January 1946 Beria left the post of the head of the NKVD (which was soon renamed MVD), while retaining general control over national security matters from his post of Deputy Prime Minister, under Stalin. The new head, Sergei Kruglov, was not Beria's protégé. In addition, by the Summer of 1946, Beria's loyalist Vsevolod Merkulov was replaced by Viktor Abakumov as head of the MGB. Kruglov and Abakumov then moved expeditiously to replace the security apparatus leadership with new people outside of Beria's inner circle, such that very soon Deputy Minister of MVD Stepan Mamulov represented the only remnant of it outside foreign intelligence, on which Beria kept a grip. In the following months, Abakumov started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Zhdanov, and sometimes on Stalin's direct orders. Some observers^{[citation needed]} argue that these operations were aimed---initially tangentially, but with time more directly---at Beria. 1946 (MCMXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... The NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del )(Russian: НКВД, Народный комиссариат внутренних дел) or Peoples Commisariat for Internal Affairs was a government department which handled a number of the Soviet Unions affairs of state. ... Modern emblem of Russian MVD Russian Gendarme officers in the 1860s The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) (Министерство внутренних дел) was the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the imperial Russia, later USSR, and still bears the same name in the Russian Federation. ... Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov (Russian: Сергей Никифорович Круглов) (1907 - 1977) was the minister of the interior of the USSR from March of 1953 until March of 1954. ... Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov (Всеволод Николаевич Меркулов in Russian) (10. ... Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov (1894 - December 18, 1954), Soviet police official, was a protege and subordinate of Lavrenty Beria, head of the Soviet political police aparatus from 1938 to 1953. ... The word MGB has several different meanings: MGB (USSR) was a predecessor of the KGB (secret police). ...

One of the first such moves was the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair that commenced in October of 1946 and eventually led to the murder of Solomon Mikhoels and the arrest of many other members. The reason this campaign had negatively reflected on Beria was that not only did he champion^{[citation needed]} creation of the committee in 1942, but his own entourage included a substantial number of Jews. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC, Russian language: Еврейский антифашистский комитет, ЕАК) was formed in Kuibyshev in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. ... Young Mikhoels Solomon Mikhoels (real surname - Vovsi), Yiddish: ; Russian: (16 March [O.S. 4 March] 1890 - January 12/13, 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and director in Yiddish theater and the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. ... This article is about the year. ...

Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, and Beria and Malenkov then moved to consolidate their power with a purge of Zhdanov's associates known as the "Leningrad Affair". Among the more than 2,000 people executed were Zhdanov's deputy Aleksei Kuznetsov, the economic chief Nikolai Voznesensky, the Leningrad Party head Pyotr Popkov and the Prime Minister of the Russian Republic, Mikhail Rodionov. It was only after Zhdanov's death that Nikita Khrushchev began to be considered as a possible alternative to the Beria-Malenkov axis. 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... Alexei Kuznetsov was Deputy Leningrad Party Leader during the seige of Leningrad. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... State motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Workers of the world, unite!) Official language None (Russian in practice) Capital Moscow Chairman of the Supreme Council Boris Yeltsin Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 1st in former Soviet Union 17,075,200 km² 0,5% Population  - Total (1989)  - Density Ranked 1st in the former... (Russian: , Nikita Sergeevič Hruščëv; surname commonly romanized as Khrushchev, IPA: ; April 17, 1894 – September 11, 1971) was the leader of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin. ...

Zhdanov's death did not, however, stop the anti-Semitic campaign. During the postwar years Beria supervised the establishment of Soviet-style systems of secret police, and hand-picked the leaders, in the countries of the Eastern Europe. A substantial number of these leaders were Jews. Starting in 1948, Abakumov initiated several investigations against these leaders, which culminated with the arrest in November of 1951 of Rudolf Slánský, Bedřich Geminder, and others in Prague, who were generally accused of Zionism and cosmopolitanism, but, more specifically, of using Czechoslovakia to funnel weapons to Israel. From Beria's standpoint, this charge was extremely explosive, because massive help to Israel was provided on his direct orders. Altogether, 14 leaders of Czechoslovakia, 11 of them Jewish, were tried, convicted, and executed in Prague (see Prague Trials). (Similar investigations have concurrently proceeded in Poland and other Soviet satellite countries.^{[citation needed]}) The definition of continental subregions in use by the United Nations. ... Rudolf Slánský (July 31, 1901, NezvÄ›stice near Kladno – December 2, 1952) was a Czech Communist politician and the partys General Secretary after the World War II. Later he fell into disfavour with the regime and was executed after a show trial. ... Prague (Czech: Praha (IPA: ), see also other names) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. ... Poster promoting a film about Jewish settlement in Palestine, 1930s: Toward a New Life (in Romanian),The Promised Land (in Hungarian), in small (down) text is written First Palestinian sound movie 1844 Discourse on the Restoration of the Jews by Mordecai Noah, page one. ... Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian language: безродный космополит, bezrodny kosmopolit) was a Soviet euphemism during Joseph Stalins anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the exposure of the alleged Doctors plot. The term and the persecutions by the authorities unmistakably targeted the Jews. ... The Prague Trials were a series of Stalinist and largely anti-Semitic show trials in Czechoslovakia. ...

Around that time, Abakumov was replaced by Semyon Ignatiev, who further intensified the anti-Semitic campaign. On January 13, 1953, the widest anti-semitic affair in the Soviet Union—that later came to be known as Doctors' plot—was initiated with an article in Pravda. A number of the country's prominent Jewish doctors were accused of poisoning top Soviet leaders and arrested. Concurrently, an hysterical anti-Semitic propaganda campaign sprang in the mass-media. Altogether, 37 doctors (17 of them were Jewish) were arrested, and MGB, on Stalin's orders, started to prepare^{[citation needed]} for deportation of the entire Jewish population to Russia's far east. January 13 is the 13th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... The Doctors plot (Russian language: дело врачей (doctors affair), врачи-вредители (doctors-saboteurs) or врачи-убийцы (doctors-killers)) was an alleged conspiracy to eliminate the leadership of the Soviet Union by means of Jewish doctors poisoning top leadership. ... This article describes the Soviet/Russian newspaper. ...

Days after Stalin's death, Beria freed all the arrested doctors, announced that the entire matter was fabricated, and indeed arrested the MGB functionaries directly involved.

After Stalin

Stalin died on March 5, 1953, four days after collapsing during the night following a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders. The political memoirs of Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claim that Beria boasted to Molotov that he had poisoned Stalin, although no hard evidence has ever been produced to support this assertion. There is evidence^{[citation needed]}, however, that for many hours after Stalin was found unconscious, he was denied medical help. It is possible that all the Soviet leaders agreed to allow Stalin, whom they all feared, to die. March 5 is the 64th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (65th in leap years). ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... Vyacheslav Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (Russian: ) (March 9 [O.S. February 25] 1890 –November 8, 1986), Soviet politician and diplomat, was a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protege of Joseph Stalin, to the 1950s, when he was dismissed from... 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...

After Stalin's death Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister and reappointed head of the MVD, which he merged with the MGB. His close ally Malenkov was the new Prime Minister and initially the most powerful man in the post-Stalin leadership. Beria was the second most powerful leader and, given Malenkov's lack of real leadership qualities, was in a position to become the power behind the throne and ultimately leader himself. Khrushchev became Party Secretary, which was seen as a less important post than the Prime Ministership. Modern emblem of Russian MVD Russian Gendarme officers in the 1860s The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) (Министерство внутренних дел) was the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the imperial Russia, later USSR, and still bears the same name in the Russian Federation. ... The Ministry of State Security (MGB) ( Russian: Министерство государственной безопасности (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti)) was the name of the state security agency of the Soviet Union when it existed and also the planned sucessor of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. ... Premier of the Soviet Union is the commonly used English term for the offices of Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR (Председатель Совета Народных Комиссаров СССР) (1923-1946) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (Председатель Совета Министров СССР) (1946-1991), who...

Beria was at the forefront of liberalisation after Stalin's death. Beria publicly denounced the Doctors' plot as a "fraud," investigated and solved the murder of Solomon Mikhoels, and released over a million political prisoners from labour camps. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signalled^{[citation needed]} a more liberal policy towards the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. He persuaded the Presidium (as the Politburo had been renamed) and the Council of Ministers to urge the Communist regime in East Germany to allow liberal economic and political reforms. Beria maneuvered^{[citation needed]} to marginalize the role of the party apparatus in the decision-making process in policy and economic matters. The Doctors plot (Russian language: дело врачей (doctors affair), врачи-вредители (doctors-saboteurs) or врачи-убийцы (doctors-killers)) was an alleged conspiracy to eliminate the leadership of the Soviet Union by means of Jewish doctors poisoning top leadership. ... Young Mikhoels Solomon Mikhoels (real surname - Vovsi), Yiddish: ; Russian: (16 March [O.S. 4 March] 1890 - January 12/13, 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and director in Yiddish theater and the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. ... The Politburo (in Russian: Политбюро), known as the Presidium from 1952 to 1966, functioned as the central policymaking and governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ... GDR redirects here. ...

Some writers have held^{[citation needed]} that Beria's liberal policies after Stalin's death were a tactic to maneuver himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalizing regime in the Soviet Union, a role which later fell to Khrushchev. The essential task of Soviet reformers was to bring the secret police under party control, and Beria could not do this since the police were the basis of his own power.

Others have argued^{[citation needed]} that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Soviet Union by almost forty years.

"Beria: Enemy of the people". TIME magazine cover, July 20, 1953

Given his record, it is not surprising that the other party leaders were suspicious of Beria's motives in all this. The alliance between Beria and Malenkov was opposed by Khrushchev, but he was initially unable to challenge the Beria-Malenkov axis. His opportunity came in June 1953 when demonstrations against the Communist regime in East Germany broke out in East Berlin (see Workers Uprising of 1953 in East Germany). There was a suspicion that the practical Beria was willing to trade the reunification of Germany and end the cold war, for massive aid from the United States such as had been received in World War II. The East German demonstrations convinced Molotov, Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin that Beria's policies were dangerous and destabilising to Soviet power. Days after the events in Germany, Khrushchev persuaded the other leaders to support a party coup against Beria, whose principal ally Malenkov quickly decided to abandon him. Image File history File links Beria_timemag_1101530720_400. ... Image File history File links Beria_timemag_1101530720_400. ... The term enemy of the people (Russian language: враг народа, vrag naroda) was a fluid designation under the Bolsheviks rule in regards to their real or suspected political or class opponents, sometimes including former allies. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Notable Time magazine covers from the dates May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ... July 20 is the 201st day (202nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 164 days remaining. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. ... Protestors marching through the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin The Uprising of 1953 in East Germany took place in June and July 1953. ... Image:Nikolay Bulganin. ...

Beria's fall

Accounts of Beria's fall vary considerably. According to the most recent accounts^{[citation needed]} Khrushchev convened a meeting of the Praesidium on June 26, where he launched an attack on Beria, accusing him of being in the pay of British intelligence. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, "What's going on, Nikita Sergeyevich?" Molotov and others then also spoke against Beria, and Khrushchev put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and a group of armed officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria. Some accounts say that Beria was killed on the spot, but this is incorrect^{[citation needed]}. June 26 is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 188 days remaining. ... Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, GCB (Russian: ) (December 1 [O.S. November 19] 1896–June 18, 1974), Soviet military commander and politician who, in the course of World War II, led the Red Army to liberate the Soviet Union from the Nazi occupation, to overrun...

Beria was taken first to the Lefortovo prison and then to the headquarters of General Kirill Moskalenko, commander of Moscow District Air Defence and a wartime friend of Khrushchev's. His arrest was kept secret until his principal lieutenants could be arrested. The NKVD troops in Moscow which had been under Beria's command were disarmed by regular Army units. Pravda announced Beria's arrest only on July 10, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State." In December it was announced that Beria and six accomplices, "in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies," had been "conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union and restore capitalism." Kirill Semenovich Moskalenko (May 11, 1902–June 17, 1985) Marshal of the Soviet Union, Commander in Chief Strategic Missile Forces, Inspector General Ministry of Defense, born in village of Grishino, near Donetsk in Ukraine. ... This article describes the Soviet/Russian newspaper. ... July 10 is the 191st day (192nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 174 days remaining. ...

Beria was tried by a "special tribunal" with no defense counsel and no right of appeal. When the death sentence was passed, according to Moskalenko's later account, Beria begged on his knees for mercy, but he and his subordinates were immediately executed.

However, according to other accounts including his son's^{[citation needed]}, Beria's house was assaulted on 26 June 1953, by military units and Beria himself was killed on the spot. A member of the special tribunal, Nikolay Shvernik, has subsequently told Beria's son that he had never seen Beria alive. June 26 is the 177th day of the year (178th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 188 days remaining. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... Nikolay Mikhailovich Shvernik (Никола́й Миха́йлович Шве́рник) (1888-1970) was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (or President of the USSR) from March 19, 1946 until March 15, 1953. ...

Beria's wife and son were sent to a labour camp, but survived and were later released: his wife Nina died in 1991 in exile in Ukraine; his son Sergo died in October 2000 still defending his father's reputation. After Beria's death the MGB was separated from the MVD and reduced from the status of a Ministry to a Committee (known as the KGB), and no Soviet police chief ever again held the kind of power Beria had wielded. The word MGB has several different meanings: MGB (USSR) was a predecessor of the KGB (secret police). ... Modern emblem of Russian MVD Russian Gendarme officers in the 1860s The Ministerstvo Vnutrennikh Del (MVD) (Министерство внутренних дел) was the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the imperial Russia, later USSR, and still bears the same name in the Russian Federation. ... The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for State Security Committee, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ...

In May 2000 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation refused an application by members of Beria's family to overturn his 1953 conviction. The application was based on a Russian law that provided for rehabilitation of victims of false political accusations. The court ruled, however, that "Beria was the organizer of repression against his own people, and therefore could not be considered a victim". This article is about the year 2000. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ...

Allegations against Beria

Although Beria was formally convicted for being a British spy, the Communist Leadership early on sought to aggravate the charges with informal accusations of a more personal nature. These included allegations that he raped numerous women, and that he personally tortured and killed many of his political victims.

Charges of sexual assault and sexual deviance against Beria were first made in the speech by a Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Nikolay Shatalin, at the Plenary Meeting of the committee on July 10, 1953, two weeks after Beria's arrest. Shatalin said that Beria had had sexual relations with numerous women and that he had contracted syphilis as a result of his sex with prostitutes. Shatalin referred to a list (supposedly kept by Beria's bodyguard) of over 25 women with whom Beria had sex. Over time, however, the charges became more dramatic. Khrushchev in his posthumously published memoirs wrote: "We were given a list of more than a 100 names of women. They were dragged to Beria by his people. And he had the same trick for them all: all who got to his house for the first time, Beria would invite for a dinner and would propose to drink for the health of Stalin. And in wine, he would mix in some sleeping pills..." July 10 is the 191st day (192nd in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 174 days remaining. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by a spirochaete bacterium, Treponema pallidum. ...

By 1980s, the sexual assault stories about Beria included rape of teenage girls. The author Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, who wrote a biography of Beria, said in an interview: "At night he would cruise the streets of Moscow seeking out teenage girls. When he saw one who took his fancy he would have his guards deliver her to his house. Sometimes he would have his henchmen bring five, six or seven girls to him. He would make them strip, except for their shoes, and then force them into a circle on their hands and knees with their heads together. He would walk around in his dressing gown inspecting them. Then he would pull one out by her leg and haul her off to rape her. He called it the flower game." [2] (It should, however, be noted that Antonov-Ovseenko's book is based significantly on his personal prejudices and quotes few non-biased sources.) Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko (actual surname Ovseenko) (Russian: , Ukrainian: ; March 9, 1883 – February 10, 1939) was a prominent Soviet Bolshevik leader and diplomat. ...

Numerous stories have circulated over the years involving Beria personally beating, torturing and killing his victims. Since the 1970s, Muscovites have been retelling stories of bones found in either the back yard, cellars, or hidden inside the walls of Beria's former residence, currently the Tunisian Embassy. Such stories continue to re-appear in the news media. The London Daily Telegraph reported in December 2003: "The latest grisly find — a large thigh bone and some smaller leg bones — was only two years ago when a kitchen was re-tiled. In the basement, Anil, an Indian who has worked at the embassy for 17 years, showed a plastic bag of human bones he had found in the cellars." This article deals with The Daily Telegraph in Britain, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia) for the Australian publication The Daily Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper founded in 1855. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Such reports are treated with scepticism by many commentators due to prevalent bias of their sources. Despite partial opening of Soviet archives since 1991, most of the Beria-related material remains classified. Memoirs by the people close to Beria, such as his son Sergo Beria and a former Soviet foreign intelligence chief Pavel Sudoplatov deny these charges and draw a very different portrait of Beria. 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Pavel Sudoplatov 1907 - 1996 Pavel Sudoplatov (1907 - September, 1996) was a member of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union who rose to the rank of major general. ...

See also

• History of the Soviet Union
• List of Georgians

The History of the Soviet Union begins with the Russian Revolution of 1917 in an effort to implement socialism, eventually leading to communism by Vladimir Lenin on a large scale, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when its central government was dissolved. ... The following is a partial list of prominent people from the country Georgia, arranged chronologically within categories. ...

Further reading

• Antonov-Ovseenko, Anton, Beria, Moscow, 1999
• Avtorkhanov, Abdurahman, The Mystery of Stalin's Death, Novyi Mir, #5, 1991, pp. 194-233 (in Russian)
• Beria, Sergo, Beria: My Father, London, 2001
• Knight, Amy, Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant, Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0691032572
• Khruschev, Nikita, Khruschev Remembers: Last Testament, Random House, 1977, ISBN 0517175479
• Rhodes, Richard, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Simon and Schuster, 1996 ISBN 0684824140
• Stove, R. J., The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003). ISBN 189355466X
• Sudoplatov, Pavel, Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness - A Soviet Spymaster, Little Brown & Co, 1994, ISBN 0316773522
• Yakovlev, A.N., Naumov, V., and Sigachev, Y. (eds), Lavrenty Beria, 1953. Stenographic Report of July's Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Other Documents, International Democracy Foundation, Moscow, 1999 (in Russian). ISBN 5895110061

External links

• Interview with Sergo Beria
• An outline of the Russian Supreme Court decision of 29 May 2000
• Annotated bibliography for Lavrenty Beria from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues

May 29 is the 149th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (150th in leap years). ... This article is about the year 2000. ...