Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria (1899-1953), politician.
From 1921 to senior positions in the Extraordinary Commission - GPU Caucasus. In 1931-38 1 st secretary of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Georgia. In 1938-45 People's Commissar, in 1953 the Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR. In 1941-53 Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Council of Ministers) of the USSR. Since 1941 member, since 1944 Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee. Member of the Central Committee in 1934-53, a member of the Politburo (Presidium) of the Central Committee in 1946-53 (the candidate in 1939). Hero of Socialist Labor (1943). Marshal of the Soviet Union (1945). He was a member of the immediate political environment and. V. Stalin, one of the most active organizers of mass repressions, 1930 - Early. 50-ies. In June 1953 arrest, the sentence of the Special Bench of the Upper Court of the USSR in December 1953 was shot.
Childhood and adolescence
Born into a peasant family. After graduating from junior high school in Sukhumi (1914) studied at the Mechanics and Technical School building in Baku (1915-19, with interruptions), later in the Baku Polytechnic Institute. In March 1917 joined RSDLP (b). In the same year,
Beria was drafted into the army and sent to the Romanian Front. In late 1917 he returned to Baku.
In 1918
Beria was a member of the Board of Baku (Baku municipality), then an assistant A. I. Mikoyan, who led the Bolshevik underground in Azerbaijan. In 1920 was in Georgia, where he was arrested twice on suspicion of spying for Soviet Russia, and in August was sent on stage in Azerbaijan.
In Transcaucasia
Since 1921 the activities of
Beria, the KGB proceeded in the Caucasus. In December 1926 - Chairman of the Georgian GPU and deputy chairman of the Transcaucasian GPU. In 1931-32 - the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia, then headed Zakkraykomom CPSU (b), which controlled the activities of the Communist Parties of the Caucasus.
In July 1935,
Beria was made at a meeting of Party activists in Tbilisi with the report, which first proposed the thesis of the propaganda that the Bolshevik party - a 'party of Lenin - Stalin'. His rapid promotion in the party and the punitive organs, he was obliged to Stalin, who supplied the leaders of compromising material on the Transcaucasian republics.
At the head of security bodies
In 1938
Beria was transferred to Moscow, where he became deputy, then Commissar of Internal Affairs. Initially confronted with the task to eliminate 'Yezhovshchina', suspend flywheel of repression, have taken a terrible scale. Over time,
Beria gave a systematic state terror in nature, significantly improved the methods of repression. He was one of the organizers of the gulag system, initiated the creation of hard labor and special camps with the most inhuman regime. With his leadership security apparatus was used as a weapon in the fight against the factions in the top of the party. In 1939 he became candidate member of Politburo of the CPSU (b).
Personally loyal to Stalin,
Beria was the executor of his will, the organizer of numerous cases to eliminate 'undesirable' persons who personally took part in torturer consequences. In 1940, under his leadership was done killing L. D. Trotsky in Mexico. He was in charge of foreign and Soviet intelligence.
Since 1941
Beria was appointed Deputy Chairman of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the war years 1941-45 he was a member of T-bills, was in charge of the defense industry. On his instructions at the beginning of the war were organized processes against warlords, which culminated in the death penalty. He led the punitive expedition SMERSH and defensive squads. In 1944
Beria headed the operations of state security bodies on the deportation of the peoples of Northern Caucasus and Crimea. He was one of the organizers of the mass executions of Polish POWs in Katyn (1940). Since 1944,
Beria was in charge of all the work and research related to the creation of atomic weapons, showing the outstanding organizational abilities.
In 1943 he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and in 1945 he became Marshal of the Soviet Union. Since 1946 - Member of the Politburo of the CPSU (b).
In the postwar years, the state security organs under the direction of
Beria infinitely expand and strengthen its power.
Retired Beria
After Stalin's death in March 1953,
Beria became interior minister and deputy chairman of USSR Council of Ministers. He concentrated in his hands control over all law enforcement agencies. As a pragmatist,
Beria understood perfectly the need for change in domestic and foreign policy. According to some researchers, he was ready to abandon the ideological extremes, to make some steps to reform the totalitarian regime, was inclined to a more realistic policy towards Eastern Europe. But the party and government elite feared for their future in the event of seizure of power in the country
Beria. N. S. Khrushchev managed to organize a plot against
Beria, to attract the members of the Politburo and a group of generals led by Marshal F. K. Zhukov.
June 26, 1953 at a meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in the Kremlin,
Beria was arrested. He was accused of anti-Party and anti-state activities, espionage (as well as a number of rapes, including of minors). In December 1953, at a closed trial of
Beria was sentenced to death. The verdict resulted in the execution of the general P. F. Batitsky.
