The black myth of the "bloody" Beria
5 March, 1953, a real titan, one of the greatest figures of not only Russian, but also global stories - Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. A whole epoch went away with him, full of struggle and accomplishments, the USSR plunged into mourning. In the leadership of the Union began the carve-up of posts. As early as March 2, after Stalin's stroke, the covert negotiations of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Bulganin began. And on March 6 they gathered to decide on the new supreme power. In fact, it was a top conspiracy; congresses, plenary sessions, sessions of the Supreme Soviet were not convened.And the decisions of the last XIX Congress and the plenum, which Stalin held, they immediately turned. The Bureau of the Presidium of the Central Committee was abolished; the Presidium was reduced from 36 to 14 people. From it they threw out new Stalinist promoted by whom Stalin “diluted” the old cadres. But the old cadres were returned, which at the end of the leader’s life fell into disgrace - Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Voroshilov.
Malenkov began to consider Stalin's "heir," he received the posts of chairman of the Council of Ministers, first secretary of the Central Committee. Beria was considered the “second man” in the state, controlling the united MIA-MGB, receiving the post of the first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers. Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich received the posts of deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers. Voroshilov received the honorary post of Chairman of the Presidium. But the redistribution of power did not stop there, the comrades of Malenkov decided that he had received too much a “piece of cake”. They put pressure on him and 14 of March was faced with a choice to keep the post of head of the Council of Ministers or the party. Malenkov could not resist this pressure and chose the Council of Ministers. The first secretary of the Central Committee was N. Khrushchev.
But in reality, the “shadow leader” was Beria. Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria had a real authority, high business qualities, behind him were real victories and achievements, plus the entire repressive apparatus of the USSR. In addition, he acted in tandem with Malenkov.
After the death (murder?) Of Beria, a “black” myth was created about him as a Stalinist “executioner”, an absolute monster. This myth was happily supported in the West and among the cosmopolitans of the USSR. They created this myth, like the myth about Stalin, in order to completely discredit the Stalin era. Subsequent leaders, especially Khrushchev, looked too “pygmy” compared to these two titans. Instead of his actions to prove their high qualities of a leader, Khrushchev went by “belittling” the former leaders.
In reality, many of the crimes that fell on the dead Beria, and he had no defenders, they committed themselves. So, the same Malenkov, in the period of “Yezhovshchina” (N.I. Ezhov headed the NKVD during the 1936-1938 period), supervised the NKVD in the Politburo during the most famous “purges”, he personally carried out repressions in Belarus. And Khrushchev led the "purges" in the Moscow party organization, in Ukraine. And even when large-scale "cleansing" began to turn off, Khrushchev did not stop. In 1939, Stalin sent him a telegram: "Calm down, you fool." Beria, on the contrary, when he headed the NKVD (since December 1938 of the year), began active work on carrying out “work on the mistakes”, then thousands of people were rehabilitated, restored to their rights, and especially zealous executioners were “cleared out”.
Of course, it is not necessary to idealize him either, it was not a knight in "white gloves". It was a typical figure of that brutal era, past the school of underground struggle, revolution, civil war. Strong-willed, with an iron will, cruel, with a quirky mind. But this was, unlike Khrushchev, a very clever man who knew how to think strategically and deeply, without sadistic inclinations. Not a supporter of excess bloodshed. So, back in Georgia two interesting episodes can be noted. In 1924, he was the deputy chairman of the local Cheka, wanted to prevent a nationalist uprising - he leaked information that everything was known about the conspiracy. It was believed that after learning of this, the nationalists would abandon their plans. True, they did not heed the warning. And during the period of the “great purge”, when he headed the Communist Party of Georgia, he did not allow big terror. In Georgia, 5, thousands of people, were repressed in total; for Georgia, where the positions of nationalists, Trotskyists, former Mensheviks, etc. were traditionally strong, it was not much.
Therefore, Stalin appointed Beria to the place of Yezhov. A new campaign of repression was now aimed at the perpetrators of unmotivated arrests, those who fanned the flames of terror. A large-scale audit of all cases was carried out, mass rehabilitation took place. Thus, in the 1939 year, thousands of priests and their parishioners were released on Stalin’s orders, who were convicted on “church” matters. In the NKVD, a “church” department was created that dealt with the review of cases and other issues of the church. He not only supervised, but in fact “took care of” the church from attacks, various inclinations. As before 1943, the patriarchal apparatus actually operated in an illegal situation.
It was Beria who straightened out the most difficult situation in the field of Soviet intelligence (which was actually defeated in 1937-1938 years), the defense industry. Tupolev, Myasishchev, Petlyakov, Korolev, Tomashevich and many other designers, engineers, directors of factories were thrown behind bars. Namely, these people will then make up the pride of the history of the USSR, and of the entire Russian history. They could simply perish or fail to fulfill their great deeds after the conclusion. Beria not only rehabilitated them, but also took under personal care, helped to restore the defeated enterprises, design bureaus, institutes. Helped with frames, equipment.
Beria personally led the restoration of Soviet intelligence. PA took over as assistants in this important matter. Sudoplatov, who had already planned to expel from the party and arrest. According to his statements, Beria groups released all the surviving specialists who sat in the camps and prisons. He ensured that in the Politburo he was assigned to oversee strategic intelligence. That is, Beria was able to centralize the management of the special services of various departments - the NKVD INO, the GRU of the Red Army and others. It was a very important task, it happened that they competed with each other, acted separately. According to Sudoplatov, Beria radically revised the strategy of the Soviet intelligence agencies. If from the beginning of the 1920-ies, the main tasks were the organization of sabotage operations through foreign communist parties, the struggle against organizations of emigrants, now this activity has ceased to be a priority. Beria shifted the priorities of Soviet intelligence to debug resident work for political, economic, technological, military intelligence, recruiting or introducing agents of influence. Began energetic work on the restoration of intelligence networks. In a very short time (to build without breaking), before the war, we were able to accomplish this titanic task. The mechanisms of the Soviet special services reached the level of the best world intelligence services, British or German.
In the 1942 year, Beria, as a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), was able to organize a defense of the Caucasus, without specially prepared in advance, by small forces. It is also his victory and merit. Beria’s merit is that at the beginning of the war the German security services failed to organize serious actions of the “fifth column” in the Soviet rear. Although the hopes were very high, the Germans launched vigorous activity, but did not achieve success in this matter. Although they are not to be blamed for the absence of high qualifications. Before the war, the USSR succeeded in neutralizing most of the enemy agents.
After 1942, Beria was transferred, as an outstanding manager of his era, to another crucial front of work. There was a reorganization: the NKGB, led by Merkulov, was separated from the NKVD, and strategic intelligence was separated from the NKGB; it remained under the control of Beria. Beria was appointed to oversee the development of new weapons. Under his auspices, a number of institutions responsible for the defense power of the country, including the Moscow Mechanical Institute for Ammunition (then the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute) were created. He headed the Special Committee, that is, the development of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. It was the right decision - heading foreign intelligence and special projects, Beria could send the most valuable data on German and American developments to Soviet scientists. Soviet science was able to reduce the time to develop nuclear weapons and other projects. But to say that the USSR "stole" the secret of a nuclear bomb from the United States is wrong. The Americans acted by the same methods, receiving most of the scientific and technical heritage of the Third Reich. Therefore, Beria must say “thank you” for the fact that in the most difficult period, when the USSR threatened the Third World War with the use of nuclear weapons, we received our nuclear weapons. This fact has cooled the hawks from London and Washington. Relative equilibrium has been established. By the way, the son of Beria made a brilliant scientific career, worked for the good of the motherland.
It is clear that stories about the "seduction and abduction of women" have nothing to do with reality. Lavrenty Pavlovich was a convinced and loving family man. Even simple logic, these gossip contradict. Under Stalin, such adventures were mortally dangerous. The same Abakumov would gladly report such a case. And Beria was never a fool.
Beria was a man who supported Stalin’s endeavors and understood the importance of cardinal reforms. Thus, the party, according to Stalin, was to become a kind of "order of the Sword," a purely ideological structure that lost real power. The party was supposed to unite the most energetic, with high ideals of people. All power had to be transferred to local Soviets, that is, in fact, real local self-government would be restored. Other reforms were also developed, raising the standard of living for collective farmers, etc. You can read about this and another in the beautiful books of Yuri Mukhin. Beria, being the chief of intelligence, knew the real situation in the country better than many others. On the distortions in the economy, the difficult situation of the peasantry, etc.
Reforms Beria, plans
Therefore, when Stalin died, Beria tried to continue his work and begin reforming the system. A massive amnesty was held, which the fighters against "totalitarianism" recorded in the negative, they say, it was such a cunning plan. Former prisoners were supposed to increase the criminogenic background in the country, and Beria became the dictator, "Stalin's second edition." 900 thousand were released, according to other data 1 million 200 thousand people. The amnesty did not have any relation to “recidivist gangsters”: people with short periods of time — from 5 years and less — were released; mothers with children up to 10 years; people convicted of administrative and economic offenses received the freedom of “domestic wars”, “pointers” "- sat for violation of labor discipline, petty theft, registry, family members of the so-called. "Political" criminals. That is, let go of those who did not pose a threat to the state and people. From criminals released only petty hooligans, thieves.
And the Gulag himself Beria removed from the subordination of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and transferred to the Ministry of Justice. And the construction, production glavki GULAG gave industry ministries. The rights of the Special Meeting at the Ministry of Internal Affairs were cut, a number of cases were terminated - “Mingrelian”, “the case of doctors”, “the case of Shakhurin”, “the case of Marshal Yakovlev”. Beria began a new "purge" of repressive bodies, there was an investigation into the false accusations, illegal methods of work.
Beria proposed to carry out radical reforms in the field of national economy. A powerful military industrial complex, mechanical engineering, other heavy industries had already been created, the war ended in victory, there was no threat of a big war, so Lavrenty Pavlovich planned to urgently increase the development of the light and food industries. To increase investment in agriculture, reduce taxes on peasants, expand the collective farms' self-government, up to the creation of their own enterprises, cooperatives, and the establishment of economic relations with each other. Given the enormous successful experience in the field of national economy that Beria received in Georgia, we can say that after these reforms, the well-being of the people would increase dramatically, especially in the countryside.
As Stalin had planned, Beria wanted to weaken the role of the party, to remove a kind of “dual power” in the country — the presence of state bodies and the party apparatus. The party had to lose managerial, state functions.
In foreign policy, Beria was going to improve relations with the West. In Eastern European countries, it was proposed to stop building socialism according to the “Soviet model”; a more flexible model was necessary, taking into account local peculiarities. The binding of these countries to the USSR was to go through other channels — economic, diplomatic. This would make it possible to abandon “fraternal assistance” to young socialist countries, burdensome for the USSR and its peoples.
On the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, Beria planned to create a powerful resort zone of international class, with the involvement of Western investors, on a concession basis. Thus creating a kind of “window” for attracting foreign capital to the USSR. That is, Beria actually anticipated the current plans of the Russian Federation to create such a zone in the Krasnodar Territory, Sochi, etc.
A number of Beria’s activities seem controversial, but their overall positive direction cannot be denied. Beria could become a kind of Soviet "Deng Xiaoping", while preserving the Soviet ideology, he allowed more freedom in the economy, in local government. Yes, and as a manager, a man who knows how to carry out strategic planning, Beria was an order of magnitude higher than Khrushchev, and indeed other Soviet leaders.
Hindered all these plans, both Stalin and Beria, Khrushchev and the people behind him.
Sources of:
Vert N. History of the Soviet state. M., 1994.
Kremlin S. Beria. The best manager of the XX century. M., 2011.
Mukhin Yu. I. Why was Stalin killed? M., 2004.
Mukhin Y. Killers of Stalin. M., 2007.
Mukhin Yu. I. USSR Beria. M., 2008.
Shambarov V. Anti-Soviet. M., 2011.
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