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.

Further reading

• The Mystery of Stalin's Death by Abdurahman Avtorkhanov, in: "Novyi Mir", #5, 1991, pp. 194-233 (in Russian)
• Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant by Amy Knight, Princeton University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-691-03257-2
• Beria, Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, Moscow, 1999
• Beria, My Father, Sergo Beria, London, 2001
• Khruschev Remembers: Last Testament by Nikita Khruschev, Random House, 1977, ISBN 0517175479
• ' by Pavel Sudoplatov, Little Brown & Co, 1994 ISBN 0316773522
• 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, by A.N. Yakovlev, Ed., V. Naumov, Yu. Sigachev, International Democracy Foundation, Moscow, 1999 (in Russian). ISBN 5-89511-006-1