Beria attended a technical school in Sukhumi, and later claimed to have joined the Bolsheviks in March 1917 while a student in the Baku Polytechnicum (subsequently known as the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy).
She was 17, a trained scientist from an aristocratic family. In 1919, at the age of twenty, Beria started his career in state security when the security service of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic hired him while he was still a student at the Polytechnicum.
In 1919 Beria worked in the security service of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
After the Red Army captured the city on 28 April 1920, Beria was saved from execution because there was not enough time to arrange his shooting and replacement; it may also have been that Sergei Kirov intervened.
In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the Cheka, the original Bolshevik secret police.
In 1920 or 1921 (accounts vary) Beria joined the Cheka, the original Bolshevik secret police.
By 1922, Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU. In 1924, he led the repression of a Georgian nationalist uprising, after which up to 10,000 people were executed.
By 1922, Beria was deputy head of the Georgian branch of Cheka's successor, the OGPU. In 1924, he led the repression of a Georgian nationalist uprising, after which up to 10,000 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, Beria became head of the Georgian OGPU; Sergo Ordzhonikidze, head of the Transcaucasian party, introduced him to fellow-Georgian Joseph Stalin.
Beria ordered the executions of Devdariani's brothers George and Shalva, who held important positions in the Cheka and the Communist Party respectively. He reportedly won Stalin's favour in the early 1930s, after faking a conspiracy to assassinate the Soviet leader that he then claimed to have foiled.
He also took over Stalin's holiday security. Beria was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in Georgia in 1931, and party leader for the whole Transcaucasian region in 1932.
He also took over Stalin's holiday security. Beria was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in Georgia in 1931, and party leader for the whole Transcaucasian region in 1932.
He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1934.
When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and government began in 1934 after the assassination of Leningrad party boss Sergei Kirov (1 December 1934), Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia.
By 1935, Beria had become one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates.
By 1938, however, the oppression had become so extensive that it was damaging the infrastructure, economy and even the armed forces of the Soviet state, prompting Stalin to wind the purge down.
Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organizing purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials.
During this period, Beria supervised deportations of people identified as political enemies from Poland and the Baltic states after Soviet occupation of those regions. In March 1939, Beria was appointed as a candidate member of the Communist Party's Politburo.
Yezhov was executed in 1940, and one account says he was personally strangled by Beria.
The liberalisation was only relative: arrests and executions continued, and in 1940, as war approached, the pace of the purges again accelerated.
In 1941, Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, the highest quasi-military rank within the Soviet police system of that time, effectively comparable to a Marshal of the Soviet Union. On 5 March 1940, after the Gestapo–NKVD Third Conference was held in Zakopane, Beria sent a note (no.
With Stalin's approval, Beria's NKVD executed them in what became known as the Katyn massacre. From October 1940 to February 1942, the NKVD under Beria carried out a new purge of the Red Army and related industries.
His final moments bore great similarity to those of his own predecessor, NKVD Chief Nikolai Yezhov, who begged for his life before his execution in 1940.
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия|p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ლავრენტი ბერია|tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin from 1941.
In 1941, Beria was made a Commissar General of State Security, the highest quasi-military rank within the Soviet police system of that time, effectively comparable to a Marshal of the Soviet Union. On 5 March 1940, after the Gestapo–NKVD Third Conference was held in Zakopane, Beria sent a note (no.
In February 1941, Beria became Deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, and in June, following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, he became a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO).
In particular, attempts to initiate peace talks with Hitler in 1941 through the ambassador of the Kingdom of Bulgaria were classified as treason, though Beria had been acting on the orders of Stalin and Molotov.
Beria's participation in the Purge of the Red Army in 1941 was classified as an act of terrorism. Counter-revolutionary activity during the Russian Civil War.
With Stalin's approval, Beria's NKVD executed them in what became known as the Katyn massacre. From October 1940 to February 1942, the NKVD under Beria carried out a new purge of the Red Army and related industries.
This affair damaged Beria; not only had he championed the creation of the committee in 1942, but his own entourage included a substantial number of Jews. After Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, Beria and Malenkov consolidated their power by means of a purge of Zhdanov's associates in the so-called "Leningrad Affair".
It was also alleged that Beria, who in 1942 helped organise the defence of the North Caucasus, tried to let the Germans occupy the Caucasus.
Abakumov had headed SMERSH from 1943 to 1946; his relationship with Beria involved close collaboration (since Abakumov owed his rise to Beria's support and esteem), but also rivalry.
This was the beginning of Beria's alliance with Malenkov, which later became of central importance. In 1944, as Russia had repelled the German invasion, Beria was placed in charge of the various ethnic minorities accused of anti-sovietism and/or collaboration with the invaders, including the Balkars, Karachays, Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Pontic Greeks, and Volga Germans.
All these groups were deported to Soviet Central Asia (see "Population transfer in the Soviet Union"). In December 1944, Beria's NKVD was assigned to supervise the Soviet atomic bomb project ("Task No.
The NKVD ensured the necessary security for the project. In July 1945, as Soviet police ranks were converted to a military uniform system, Beria's rank was officially converted to that of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Order of Victory), as he did for most other Soviet Marshals. Abroad, Beria had met with Kim Il-sung, the future leader of North Korea, several times when the Soviet troops had declared war on Japan and occupied the northern half of Korea from August 1945.
He later officially joined the Politburo in 1946. Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II.
Although he did not rise to full membership until 1946, he was by then one of the senior leaders of the Soviet state.
Zhdanov had served as the Communist Party leader in Leningrad during the war, and by 1946 had charge of all cultural matters.
After 1946, Beria formed an alliance with Malenkov to counter Zhdanov's rise. In January 1946, Beria resigned as chief of the NKVD while retaining general control over national security matters as Deputy Prime Minister and Curator of the Organs of State Security under Stalin.
Also, by the summer of 1946, Beria's man Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov was replaced as head of the Ministry for State Security (MGB) by Viktor Abakumov.
Abakumov had headed SMERSH from 1943 to 1946; his relationship with Beria involved close collaboration (since Abakumov owed his rise to Beria's support and esteem), but also rivalry.
These operations were aimed by Stalininitially tangentially, but with time more directlyat Beria. One of the first such moves involved the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee affair, which commenced in October 1946 and eventually led to the murder of Solomon Mikhoels and the arrest of many other members.
This affair damaged Beria; not only had he championed the creation of the committee in 1942, but his own entourage included a substantial number of Jews. After Zhdanov died suddenly in August 1948, Beria and Malenkov consolidated their power by means of a purge of Zhdanov's associates in the so-called "Leningrad Affair".
Starting in 1948, Abakumov initiated several investigations against these leaders, which culminated with the arrest in November 1952 of Rudolf Slánský, Bedřich Geminder, and others in Czechoslovakia.
1"), which built and tested a bomb by 29 August 1949.
Medical examiners estimated that the remains had been placed alongside the conduit at the time it was laid, in the summer of 1949.
Similar investigations in Poland and other Soviet satellite countries occurred at the same time. In 1951, Abakumov was replaced by Semyon Ignatyev, who further intensified the anti-Semitic campaign.
Starting in 1948, Abakumov initiated several investigations against these leaders, which culminated with the arrest in November 1952 of Rudolf Slánský, Bedřich Geminder, and others in Czechoslovakia.
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (; Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия|p=ˈbʲerʲiə; ლავრენტი ბერია|tr, ; – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin from 1941.
Stalin gave it absolute priority, and the project was completed in under five years. After Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria became First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
After being arrested, he was tried for treason and other offenses, sentenced to death, and executed on 23 December 1953.
On 13 January 1953, the biggest anti-Semitic affair in the Soviet Union started with an article in Pravdait began what became known as the Doctors' plot, in which a number of the country's prominent Jewish physicians were accused of poisoning top Soviet leaders and arrested.
They arrived at Stalin's dacha at Kuntsevo at 03:00 on 2 March 1953, after being called by Khrushchev and Bulganin.
When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat. After Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, Beria's ambitions sprang into full force.
Khrushchev's opportunity came in June 1953 when a spontaneous uprising against the East German Communist regime broke out in East Berlin.
On 26 June 1953, Beria was arrested and held in an undisclosed location near Moscow.
Pravda did not announce Beria's arrest until 10 July, crediting it to Malenkov and referring to Beria's "criminal activities against the Party and the State". Beria and the others were tried by a "special session" (специальное судебное присутствие) of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union on 23 December 1953 with no defence counsel and no right of appeal.
Beria’s execution was hailed by Georgy Zhukov, Konstantin Rokossovsky, Semyon Timoshenko, Nikolai Bulganin, Aleksandr Vasilevsky, Kliment Voroshilov, Semyon Budyonny and Rodion Malinovsky who at the time all held the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union, as well as Vasily Chuikov, who like Batitsky was a future Marshal of the Soviet Union. ==Sexual predation== At Beria's trial in 1953, it became known that he had committed numerous rapes during the years he was NKVD chief.
The Reversal of the Doctors' Plot and Its Immediate Aftermath, 17 July 1953. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence.
Purge of L.P. Beria, 17 April 1954. Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Current Intelligence.
Simon Russell Beale played Beria in the 2017 satirical film The Death of Stalin. === Television === In the 1958 CBS production of "The Plot to Kill Stalin" for Playhouse 90, Beria was portrayed by E.
In the novel, both men are on the same side, serving an alternate-world Catholic Empire. Beria is a significant character in the alternate history/alien invasion novel series Worldwar by Harry Turtledove as well as the Axis of Time series by John Birmingham In the 1981 novel Noble House by James Clavell set in 1963 Hong Kong, the main character Ian Dunross received from Alan Medford Grant a set of secret documents regarding a Soviet spy-ring in Hong Kong code-named "Sevrin".
In the novel, both men are on the same side, serving an alternate-world Catholic Empire. Beria is a significant character in the alternate history/alien invasion novel series Worldwar by Harry Turtledove as well as the Axis of Time series by John Birmingham In the 1981 novel Noble House by James Clavell set in 1963 Hong Kong, the main character Ian Dunross received from Alan Medford Grant a set of secret documents regarding a Soviet spy-ring in Hong Kong code-named "Sevrin".
The play is a fictionalised account of the events leading up to Stalin's death. ===Film=== Georgian film director Tengiz Abuladze based the character of dictator Varlam Aravidze on Beria in his 1984 film Repentance.
Although banned in the Soviet Union for its semi-allegorical critique of Stalinism, it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, winning the FIPRESCI Prize, Grand Prize of the Jury, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Beria was played by British actor Bob Hoskins in the 1991 film Inner Circle, and by David Suchet in Red Monarch.
Although banned in the Soviet Union for its semi-allegorical critique of Stalinism, it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, winning the FIPRESCI Prize, Grand Prize of the Jury, and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Beria was played by British actor Bob Hoskins in the 1991 film Inner Circle, and by David Suchet in Red Monarch.
In the 1992 HBO movie Stalin, Roshan Seth was cast as Beria. Beria appears in the third episode ("Superbomb") of the four-part 2007 BBC docudrama series Nuclear Secrets, played by Boris Isarov.
In 1993, construction workers installing streetlights unearthed human bones near Beria's Moscow villa.
Skulls, pelvises and leg bones were found.In 1998, the skeletal remains of five young women were discovered during work carried out on the water pipes in the garden of the same villa (now the Tunisian Embassy).
The document was signed by an LB, believed by Grant (and the mysterious Tip Tok-Toh) to be Lavrentiy Beria (written as Lavrenti Beria in the novel). Beria is a significant character in the opening chapters of the 1998 novel Archangel by British novelist Robert Harris. Beria is a minor character in the 2009 novel The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
The Russian government acknowledged Sarkisov's handwritten list of Beria's victims in 2003, which reportedly contains hundreds of names The victims' names will be released in 2028. Evidence suggests that Beria also murdered some of these women.
Beria would later also orchestrate the forced upheaval of minorities from the Caucasus as head of NKVD, an act that was declared as genocidal by various scholars and in 2004 as concerning Chechens by the European parliament.
In the 1992 HBO movie Stalin, Roshan Seth was cast as Beria. Beria appears in the third episode ("Superbomb") of the four-part 2007 BBC docudrama series Nuclear Secrets, played by Boris Isarov.
The document was signed by an LB, believed by Grant (and the mysterious Tip Tok-Toh) to be Lavrentiy Beria (written as Lavrenti Beria in the novel). Beria is a significant character in the opening chapters of the 1998 novel Archangel by British novelist Robert Harris. Beria is a minor character in the 2009 novel The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
In 2011, building workers digging a ditch in Moscow city centre unearthed a common grave near the same residence, containing a pile of human bones, including two children's skulls covered with lime or chlorine.
Simon Russell Beale played Beria in the 2017 satirical film The Death of Stalin. === Television === In the 1958 CBS production of "The Plot to Kill Stalin" for Playhouse 90, Beria was portrayed by E.
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