Lavrenti Beria

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria, the head of Iosif Stalin’s dreaded secret police apparatus, was born in Merkheuli, Russia, on March 29, 1899. He joined the Bolshevik wing of the Communist Party in 1917 and was active in Stalin’s native Georgia during the October 1917 Revolution. Beria joined the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (Cheka), the first secret police apparatus of the new Soviet Union that was tasked with liquidating counter-revolutionaries and enemies of the state. Eventually he was appointed chief of the Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in Georgia.Stalin summoned Beria to Moscow in 1938, during the height of the Purges, and installed him as second in command to NKVD chief Nikolai Yezhov. Soon afterwards Yezhov was arrested and Beria replaced him. Beria became the driving force behind Stalin’s pre-World War II rein of terror, overseeing the purging of the armed forces. Apprioximately one-third of all officers were arrested by the NKVD, and three out of five marshals and 14 out of 16 army commanders were subsequently were executed.Beria became a favorite of Stalin, and as commissar–and then later minister of internal affairs–he wielded great power. He was appointed to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and in February 1941 he was named deputy prime minister. He was appointed to the Politburo in 1946, the first secret police chief to be so honored.Stalin died on March 5, 1953, and Beria tried to succeed him as dictator. With Beria’s support, Georgi Malenkov was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers (Premier); Malenkov then appointed Beria first deputy premier. Beria appeared on the cover of “Time” magazine on July 20, 1953, which was captioned “Enemy of the People”.As the real “power behind the throne”, Beria positioned himself as an anti-Stalinist reformer. When an uprising in East Germany led to fears in the Presidium that Beria might allow the reunification of Germany on terms favorable to the West, it was time to act against the secret policeman. Beria’s machinations were defeated by a group led by Nikita Khrushchev, who was named First Secretary of the Communist Party and who lead the denunciation of Beria. His ally Malenkov had earlier been forced to resign from the Presidium, and Beria was arrested in July, accused of conducting “anti-state” activities and of conspiracy. He was found guilty and shot on December 23, 1953.