Lavrenty Beria

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria ({{lang-ka|???????? ?????}}; {{lang-ru|????????? ???????? ?????}}; (29 March, 1899 - 23 December, 1953), Soviet politician and police chief, is remembered chiefly as the executor of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s, although in fact he presided only over the closing stages of the Purge. His period of greatest power was during and after World War II. After Stalin's death he was removed from office and executed by Stalin's successors.

After Stalin

On March 5 1953 Stalin died 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, however, that for many hours after Stalin was found unconscious, Beria denied him medical help, claiming that Stalin was "sleeping." It is possible that all the Soviet leaders agreed to allow Stalin, whom they all feared, to die.

Related Topics:
March 5 - 1953 - Stalin - Vyacheslav Molotov - 1993

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After Stalin's death Beria was appointed First Deputy Prime Minister and reappointed head of the MVD. 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.

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Despite Beria's history as one of Stalin's most ruthless henchmen, he 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 of political prisoners from labour camps. In April he signed a decree banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signalled a more liberal policy towards the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. He persuaded the Praesidium (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 has manoeuvred to marginalize the role of the party apparatus in the decision-making process in policy and economic matters.

Related Topics:
Doctors' plot - Solomon Mikhoels - Praesidium - East Germany

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Some writers have held that Beria's liberal policies after Stalin's death were a tactic to manoeuvre himself into power. Even if he was sincere, they argue, Beria's past made it impossible for him to lead a liberalising 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.

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Others have argued that he had represented a truly reformist agenda, and that his eventual removal from power has delayed a radical political and economic reform in the Soviet Union by almost forty years. Even though some of Beria's rhetoric was later adopted by Khrushchev, Communist ideology continued to dominate the country and cripple its economy until 1991.

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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). This 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.

Related Topics:
1953 - East Berlin - Workers Uprising of 1953 in East Germany - Nikolai Bulganin

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