From the moment of his arrest and for about half a century, Lavrenty Beria was considered the main villain of Soviet history. Today he is perceived rather as a technocrat and a failed reformer. The facts of his biography are also evaluated differently. For example, in some versions of the arrest and execution, Beria appears almost a hero who fell in battle, in others - a coward.
Lavrenty Beria ended up in the top union leadership in 1938, when he became People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, replacing the no less famous Nikolai Yezhov. With his appointment, many cases were revised, and some of the repressed even left the camps, which, of course, made a good impression on Soviet citizens. During the Great Patriotic War, Beria, along with Malenkov, was in charge of the military industry, including the work on the atomic project launched in 1943.
Almost Decembrists
Stalin appreciated both for their business acumen and in 1946 he brought them into the composition of the highest party body of the Politburo of the Central Committee - there they turned out to be the youngest and, like a little hair, they stuck together. Khrushchev and Bulganin joined their company, but the Leningraders Kuznetsov and Voznesensky were considered rivals of the Moscow group. In 1950, they were shot in the "Leningrad case", although the question of what role the intrigues of the Malenkov-Beria tandem played in their death remains open.
Another open question is Stalin's death. If he was poisoned, then most likely it was Lavrenty Pavlovich, who had both a motive and technical capabilities for this.
At the end of his life, the Generalissimo renamed the Politburo into the Presidium, expanded it with young cadres, and also planned to get rid of old associates. Therefore, his comrades-in-arms were not particularly upset by his death, and Beria (about whose role in the death of the leader they guessed) raised his reputation by several positions.
Having absorbed, as the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of State Security, he concentrated in his hands the leadership of all the special services, and also became Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Georgy Malenkov.
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In the notes sent to his colleagues on the Presidium, Beria suggested expanding the powers of state bodies at the expense of party bodies and giving more independence to the union republics. The regional party nomenclature should have liked this idea.
Having invaded the sphere of foreign policy, he was going to close the German question and make peace with Yugoslavia.
Due to the absence of a clear leader, the members of the Presidium preferred to speak of "collective leadership", but sooner or later the strongest had to come to the fore.
Beria put forward too persistently, rubbing off Malenkov, who was considered Stalin's successor, if not in fact, then formally - as the head of the Council of Ministers.
Khrushchev, who was keeping in the shadows, was already preparing to jump, betting on the party nomenklatura concerned about the curtailment of powers.
Much in the imminent battle of the "comrades-in-arms" depended on Nikolai Bulganin as the Minister of Defense of the USSR, since only the army could withstand the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the event of a violent conflict.
His deputy, Georgy Zhukov, enjoyed great prestige, although many in the Kremlin had a grudge against the "Victory Marshal" according to the old accounts coming from the war.
Disgrace from Zhukov was removed immediately after the death of Stalin, but from whose submission? Bulganin himself, Malenkov or Khrushchev?
The answer to this question could shed light on the circumstances of Beria's arrest and death. After all, some argued that Zhukov played almost the main role in his arrest, while others insisted that he was either absent, or participated as an unarmed extra.
The son of Lavrenty Pavlovich Sergo went even further - "Marshal of Victory" when he met him allegedly said: "If your father were alive, I would be with him …"
Where would you be with him?
Probably, it was about a party congress, at which Beria was going to make claims to leadership, criticizing the mistakes of the past and proposing a program for the future.
Neither Malenkov nor Khrushchev wanted to start a public duel for power with him. And they set foot on the path of the palace coup.
At the same time, Beria himself was later accused of conspiracy: he was allegedly going to arrest the country's top leadership when it gathered in the box of the Bolshoi Theater for the premiere of the opera The Decembrists. Probably to win the plaudits of the audience. And even the name of the opera made sense.
Capture group
There are several versions of Beria's arrest and death, which are based on the testimonies of Khrushchev, Zhukov, Malenkov's secretary - Sukhanov, Moskalenko. The only pity is that most of the testimonies are transmitted from the words of historians and journalists who spoke with them.
The first and second versions agree that Beria was indeed arrested on June 26, 1953 at a meeting of the limited composition of the Presidium of the Central Committee, held in Malenkov's office. In addition to the owner, Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Pervukhin, Saburov were definitely there.
In the room opposite Malenkov's office sat a "capture group" - Georgy Zhukov, Chief of the Air Force General Staff Pavel Batitsky, Commander of the Moscow District Troops Kirill Moskalenko, Artillery Commander Mitrofan Nedelin and another 5-7 people, either generals or officers from the entourage of these military leaders. We sat for a long time - more than an hour, waiting for the signal that Malenkov was supposed to give by pressing the bell button placed under the table twice.
Meanwhile, a meeting was underway in the office. Suddenly, either Malenkov or Khrushchev was offered to change the agenda and consider the question of Beria, who is preparing an anti-state conspiracy.
According to Sukhanov's testimony, when his boss proposed the arrest of Beria, only the least influential Pervukhin and Saburov voted in favor. Bulganin, Khrushchev and Mikoyan abstained, while Molotov, Kaganovich and Voroshilov were categorically against, accusing the owner of the cabinet of arbitrariness. Since Beria was also against it, formally the situation was in his favor. In fact, Khrushchev, Bulganin and Mikoyan were only waiting for the appearance of the "capture group."
Batitsky and Moskalenko claimed that it was they who had commanded the arrest, and that Zhukov, although present, arrived unarmed on Bulganin's orders. It is clear that in a dubious situation, the military are inclined to follow the orders of their superior. Of the participants in the meeting, three had the rank of Marshal - Beria, Voroshilov and Bulganin. The question arises: why was Zhukov included in the "capture group" if they doubted his loyalty? Bulganin's "capture group" in any case had to obey as the Minister of Defense. But Zhukov, if he took the side of Beria, could mix all the cards for the conspirators.
One way or another, but Lavrenty Pavlovich was tied up and taken out. But then discrepancies begin.
The first version was the investigation and the death sentence passed by the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court on December 23, 1953. The second version - Beria was killed. But when exactly?
Towel instead of an iron mask
Logic suggests that the liquidation of Lavrenty Pavlovich made sense immediately after his arrest. Let us ask ourselves one more question: how were the arrested Beria going to be taken out of the Kremlin, if the protection of the residence was carried out by units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs subordinate to him?
The story, as if he was wrapped in a carpet, is clearly inspired by the story of the kidnapping of the son of the Hungarian dictator Horthy by saboteurs Otto Skorzeny. In practice, it is rather difficult to imagine how not the youngest generals in broad daylight drag a rolled carpet (probably twitching and swearing) along the Kremlin corridors.
Immediately after the arrest, at about 14:00, Bulganin called the Kantemirovsk division and ordered to be in the center of Moscow in 40 minutes, occupying the streets adjacent to Red Square.
For example, the appearance of elite army units clearly demonstrated to the units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs guarding the Kremlin who is the boss. And only after that Beria was sent to a place of detention - to an underground bunker at the headquarters of the Moscow district. True, there is evidence that at first he was taken to the guardhouse at the district headquarters, which had been cleared of other arrested persons in advance - with the personal participation of Marshal Zhukov.
There will be many more such contradictions. After the arrest, many people communicated with Beria for a long time - his escorts, jailers, investigators, judges.
And at the same time, in fact, no distinct memories of how he behaved in the last almost six months of his life have not survived.
Starting from June 26, Lavrenty Pavlovich has generally turned into a phantom. District headquarters officers watched as, from time to time, a man with a face wrapped in a towel and a hat pulled tight was taken away for interrogation. The head of the investigation team, Roman Rudenko, presents the protocols of the interrogation of the deposed minister, as well as his letters to the members of the Presidium, but they never saw Beria himself - the trial of him and six of his associates was broadcast to the Kremlin via radio communications. And if his accomplices spoke a lot and passionately, then he usually kept silent.
Neither the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Roman Rudenko, nor the presiding officer of the court, Marshal Ivan Konev, shared their memories of this trial. Beria was shot separately and a few hours before the other accused. In some recollections, he allegedly sobbed and on his knees begged for mercy, in others he also sobbed, but being tied to the board.
The doctor's signature on the death certificate is absent, although it is on the execution certificate of accomplices. Three people are mentioned in the act of execution of Beria: Batitsky - as the executor of the sentence, Rudenko and Moskalenko - as those present. It seems that unnecessary people were not initiated into this intrigue.
Someone "covered with a tarp"
Sergo Beria, talking about the events of June 26, 1953, paints a completely different picture. He himself was on that day with his father's deputy for the atomic project, Boris Vannikov. Suddenly, Sergo's friend, the famous pilot, twice Hero of the Soviet Union Amet-Khan Sultan, called and said that shots were heard near Beria's mansion on Malaya Nikitskaya.
Sergo rushed to the scene. When I arrived, the shots did not sound anymore. In the courtyard, there were soldiers and two armored personnel carriers.
“The broken glass in the windows of my father’s office immediately caught my eye. So, they really did shoot … The internal security did not let us in. Vannikov demanded an explanation, tried to check the documents of the military, but I already understood everything. Father was not at home. Arrested? Killed? When I was returning to the car, I heard from one of the guards: "Sergo, I saw someone carried out on a stretcher covered with a tarpaulin."
It is clear that the seizure of Beria's mansion could be accompanied by shooting and even lead to casualties, but the version that it was Lavrenty Pavlovich who was under the tarpaulin is unconvincing. It was possible to start an assault on a well-guarded object in broad daylight in the center of Moscow only with a strong special forces, which would be guaranteed to solve the issue in a matter of minutes. The guards at the chief of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were probably prepared and would give him time to contact reliable units that were much closer than the Kantemirovsk division.
The stories about the arrest in the Kremlin, for all their contradictions, nevertheless converge at the key points. And it was easier to twist it in Malenkov's office. Another matter: how to proceed further?
Beria allegedly found a piece of paper with the word "Alarm!" Written twice in red pencil. A note to yourself? But even without this he could call for help from the sentries who were in the corridors, who, we recall, were staffed by employees of his department. Rather, one of the participants in the conspiracy was trying to warn him. But who? And why did the experienced and careful Lavrenty Pavlovich ignore this signal? Or didn’t leave, but something went wrong? Continuous questions.
In general, pulling Beria out of the Kremlin before replacing the external and external guards was deadly. Which way in this situation seemed the simplest and most obvious? To kill Beria - if not in Malenkov's office itself, then, for example, in the room where the "capture group" was sitting.
Thus, the organizers of the conspiracy cut off the escape routes for the wavering members of the Presidium. And at the same time, they were opening a new radiant perspective before them: all Stalin's and own sins of recent times can be shoved onto Beria.
This interpretation explains why Lavrenty Pavlovich was so fiercely smeared with black paint. The Soviet people should have been busy with something so as not to explain why the members of the "collective leadership" were killing each other right in the Kremlin corridors. I had to use a double, who figured in the farcical trial.
If Beria had not been led into the trap of his “comrades-in-arms,” he would most likely have done the same thing that Khrushchev arranged at the XX Congress. Only criticism of the past and a program for the future would be much clearer and more logical for him.
Oleg Pokrovsky