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.

Beria at the NKVD

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 being removed, and was restaffed with Beria loyalists, many of them from the Caucasus.

Related Topics:
1938 - Moscow - NKVD - State security - Nikolai Yezhov - Great Purge - 1940 - Caucasus

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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. In March 1940 he prepared the order for the execution of 25,700 Polish intellectuals, including 14,700 Polish prisoners of war at Katyn Wood near Smolensk and two other mass execution sites.

Related Topics:
1940 - Poland - Baltic states - Prisoners of war - Katyn Wood - Smolensk

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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.

Related Topics:
1939 - Politburo - 1946 - 1941

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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, be 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 armaments production, and also (together with Georgy Malenkov), the production of aircraft and aircraft engines. This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malenkov, which later became of central importance.

Related Topics:
1941 - Council of People's Commissars - Nazi Germany - World War II - Georgy Malenkov

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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, with significant loss of life. See "Population transfer in the Soviet Union".

Related Topics:
1944 - Chechens - Ingush - Crimean Tatars - Volga Germans - Central Asia - Population transfer in the Soviet Union

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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.

Related Topics:
1944 - Soviet atomic bomb project - United States - Atomic weapons programme - 1949

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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.

Related Topics:
1945 - Marshal of the Soviet Union

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