| rdfs:comment
| - Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (also Anglicised as Lavrenty; Russian, Лаврентий Павлович Берия; Georgian, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია) (29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, and chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin. By the end of the Great Purge he had become deputy head and subsequently head of the NKVD and carried out a purge of the NKVD itself. Beria was most influential during and after World War II, and immediately after Stalin's death in 1953, when as First Deputy Prime Minister he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling "troika" with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov until the political maneuvering of his political enemies, spear-headed by Nikita Khrushchev, saw Beria arrested for t
- Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия; 29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years (1946–1953).
|
| abstract
| - Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (also Anglicised as Lavrenty; Russian, Лаврентий Павлович Берия; Georgian, ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია) (29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, and chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin. By the end of the Great Purge he had become deputy head and subsequently head of the NKVD and carried out a purge of the NKVD itself. Beria was most influential during and after World War II, and immediately after Stalin's death in 1953, when as First Deputy Prime Minister he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling "troika" with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov until the political maneuvering of his political enemies, spear-headed by Nikita Khrushchev, saw Beria arrested for treason and executed with a bullet to the head in short order. According to several sources, including Molotov, Beria claimed to have killed Stalin, although whether or not he meant he'd directly poisoned Stalin or simply prevented Stalin from getting proper treatment through his own inaction is unclear. Prior to his execution, Beria confessed to a variety of crimes under torture, but directly assassinating Stalin was not one of them.
- Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия; 29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years (1946–1953). 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. He simultaneously administered vast sections of the Soviet state and served as de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union in command of the NKVD field units responsible for anti-partisan operations on the Eastern Front during World War II, as well as for acting as barrier troops and the apprehension of thousands of "turncoats, deserters, cowards and suspected malingerers". Beria administered the vast expansion of the Gulag labor camps and was primarily responsible for overseeing the secret defense institutions known as sharashkas, critical to the war effort. He also played the decisive role in coordinating the Soviet partisans, developing an impressive intelligence and sabotage network behind German lines. He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as "our Himmler". After the war, he organized the communist takeover of the countries of Central Europe and Eastern Europe. Beria's uncompromising ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project. Stalin gave it absolute priority and the project was completed in under five years in no small part due to Soviet espionage against the West organized by Beria's NKVD. Beria was promoted to First Deputy Premier, where he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling "troika" with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. Beria's overconfidence in his position after Stalin's death led him to misjudge the feelings of his associates, many of whom still had relatives in his prisons. In addition, his proposals to free East Germany and normalize relations with the United States alarmed other Politburo members, especially in the wake of the 1953 East German uprising which was put down only after an invasion by Soviet troops. During the coup d'etat led by Nikita Khrushchev and assisted by the military forces of the Marshal Georgy Zhukov, they formed an alliance to remove and kill Beria. In that same year, he was arrested on false charges of treason by Zhukov's soldiers during a meeting in which the full Politburo condemned him. The compliance of the NKVD was ensured by Zhukov's troops, and after interrogation Beria was taken to the basement of the Lubyanka and shot by General Pavel Batitsky along with his most trusted associates.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)