On June 26, 1953, three tank regiments stationed near Moscow received an order from the Minister of Defense to load up with ammunition and enter the capital. The motorized rifle division received the same order. Two air divisions and a formation of jet bombers were ordered to await, in full combat readiness, an order for a possible bombing of the Kremlin.
Subsequently, a version of all these preparations was announced: the Minister of Internal Affairs Beria was preparing a coup d'etat, which was required to be prevented, Beria himself was arrested, tried and shot. For 50 years this version has not been questioned by anyone.
An ordinary, and not a very ordinary person knows only two things about Lavrentiy Beria: he was an executioner and a sex maniac. Everything else is removed from history. So it’s even strange: why did Stalin put up with this useless and gloomy figure near him? Was he afraid or what? Riddle.
Yes, he was not at all afraid! And there is no mystery. Moreover, without understanding the true role of this person, it is impossible to understand the Stalin era. Because in reality everything was not at all the way the people who seized power in the USSR and privatized all the victories and achievements of their predecessors later came up with.
"Economic miracle" in the Caucasus
Many have heard about the "Japanese economic miracle". But who knows about Georgian?
In the fall of 1931, the young Chekist Lavrenty Beria became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia - a very remarkable personality. In 20, he ran an illegal network in Menshevik Georgia. In the 23rd, when the republic came under the control of the Bolsheviks, he fought against banditry and achieved impressive results - by the beginning of this year there were 31 gangs in Georgia, by the end of the year there were only 10 of them. On the 25th, Beria was awarded the Order of the Battle Red Banner. By 1929 he became simultaneously the chairman of the GPU of the Transcaucasus and the plenipotentiary representative of the OGPU in the region. But, oddly enough, Beria stubbornly tried to part with the Chekist service, dreaming of finally completing his education and becoming a builder.
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In 1930, he even wrote a desperate letter to Ordzhonikidze. Dear Sergo! I know you will say that now is not the time to bring up the issue of education. But what to do. I feel that I can’t take it anymore.”
Moscow fulfilled the request exactly the opposite. So, in the fall of 1931, Beria became the first secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia. A year later, he became the first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee, in fact the owner of the region. And we don't like to talk about how he worked in this post.
Beria's district went to the same one. Industry as such did not exist. Beggar, hungry outskirts. As you know, collectivization was going on in the USSR since 1927. By 1931, it was possible to drive 36% of farms into collective farms in Georgia, but this did not make the population less hungry.
And then Beria made a knight's move. He stopped collectivization. He left private traders alone. On the other hand, the collective farms began to plant not bread and not corn, from which there was no sense, but valuable crops: tea, citrus fruits, tobacco, grapes. And it was here that large agricultural enterprises justified themselves one hundred percent! The collective farms began to grow rich at such a rate that the peasants themselves poured into them. By 1939, 86% of the farms were socialized without any coercion. One example: in 1930, the area of tangerine plantations was 1,500 hectares, in 1940 - 20,000. The yield per tree has increased, in some farms - as much as 20 times. When you go to the market for Abkhaz tangerines, remember Lavrenty Pavlovich!
He worked just as efficiently in industry. During the first five-year period, the volume of gross industrial production of Georgia alone increased almost 6 times. For the second five-year plan - another 5 times. It was the same in the rest of the Transcaucasian republics. It was under Beria, for example, that they began to drill the shelves of the Caspian Sea, for which he was accused of extravagance: why bother with all sorts of nonsense! But now there is a real war between the superpowers over Caspian oil and its transportation routes.
At the same time, Transcaucasia also became the "resort capital" of the USSR - who then thought about the "resort business"? In terms of education, already in 1938 Georgia came to one of the first places in the Union, and in terms of the number of students per thousand souls, it surpassed England and Germany.
In short, during the seven years that Beria was in the post of "the main man" in the Transcaucasus, he so rocked the economy of the backward republics that until the 90s they were one of the richest in the Union. If you look closely, doctors of economic sciences who carried out perestroika in the USSR have a lot to learn from this Chekist.
But that was the time when it was not political talkers, but the business executives who were worth their weight in gold. Stalin could not let such a person pass. And Beria's appointment to Moscow was not the result of apparatus intrigues, as they are now trying to imagine, but a completely natural thing: a person who works in the region can be entrusted with big things in the country.
Crazed sword of revolution
In our country, the name of Beria is primarily associated with repression. In this regard, allow me the simplest question: when were the "Beria repressions"? Date please! She's gone. Comrade Yezhov, the then chief of the NKVD, is responsible for the notorious "Year 37". There was even an expression like that - "iron fist". Post-war repressions were also carried out when Beria was not working in the organs, and when he came there in 1953, the first thing he did was to stop them.
When there were "Beria's rehabilitation" - this is clearly recorded in history. And "Beria's repressions" are purely a product of "black PR".
What really happened?
The country was not lucky with the leaders of the Cheka-OGPU from the very beginning. Dzerzhinsky was a strong, strong-willed and honest man, but, extremely busy with work in the government, threw the department over to his deputies. His successor Menzhinsky was seriously ill and did the same. The main cadres of the "organs" were promoted by the Civil War, poorly educated, unprincipled and cruel, one can imagine what kind of situation reigned there. Moreover, since the end of the 1920s, the heads of this department were increasingly nervous about any kind of control over their activities:
Yezhov was a new person in the "organs", he started well, but quickly fell under the influence of his deputy Frinovsky. He taught the new People's Commissar the basics of Chekist work right "in production". The basics were extremely simple: the more enemies of the people we catch, the better; you can and should beat, but beat and drink is even more fun. Drunk with vodka, blood and impunity, the People's Commissar soon openly "swam". He did not particularly hide his new views from those around him. “What are you afraid of? - he said at one of the banquets. - After all, all power is in our hands. Whom we want - we execute, whom we want - we have mercy: After all, we are everything. It is necessary that everyone, starting with the secretary of the regional committee, walk under you: "If the secretary of the regional committee had to walk under the head of the regional administration of the NKVD, then who, I ask,had to walk under Yezhov? With such personnel and such views, the NKVD became mortally dangerous both for the authorities and for the country.
It is difficult to say when the Kremlin became aware of what was happening. Probably sometime in the first half of 1938. But to realize - realized, but how to curb the monster?
The way out is to plant your own man, of such a level of loyalty, courage and professionalism, so that, on the one hand, he can cope with the management of the NKVD, and on the other, stop the monster. Stalin hardly had a large selection of such people. Well, at least one was found.
Curbing the NKVD
In 1938, Beria, in the rank of Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, became the head of the Main Directorate of State Security, taking over the control levers of the most dangerous structure. Almost immediately, right before the November holidays, the entire top of the People's Commissariat was removed and mostly arrested. Then, having placed reliable people in key posts, Beria began to deal with what his predecessor had done.
The chekists who had missed the point were fired, arrested, and some were shot. (By the way, later, again becoming Minister of Internal Affairs in 1953, do you know what order Beria issued the very first? On the prohibition of torture! He knew where he was going.
The bodies were cleaned up abruptly: 7372 people (22.9%) were dismissed from the rank and file, and 3830 people (62%) from the management. At the same time, they began to deal with the verification of complaints and the review of cases.
Recently published data have provided insight into the scope of this work. For example, in 1937-38 about 30 thousand people were dismissed from the army for political reasons. Returned to service after a change in the leadership of the NKVD 12.5 thousand. It turns out about 40%.
According to the most approximate estimates, since the full information has not yet been made public, in total until 1941, 150-180 thousand people were released from camps and prisons out of 630 thousand convicted during the years of Yezhov. That is about 30 percent.
It took a long time to "normalize" the NKVD and did not succeed to the end, although the work was carried out right up to 1945. Sometimes you have to deal with completely incredible facts. For example, in 1941, especially in those places where the Germans were advancing, they did not really stand on ceremony with the prisoners - the war, they say, will write off everything. However, it was not possible to write off it for the war. From June 22 to December 31, 1941 (the most difficult months of the war!) 227 NKVD workers were brought to trial for abuse of power. Of these, 19 people received the death penalty for extrajudicial executions.
Beria also belongs to another invention of the era - "sharashka". Among those arrested were many people who were very necessary for the country. Of course, these were not poets and writers, about whom they shout the most and loudest, but scientists, engineers, designers, primarily working for defense.
Repression in this environment is a special topic. Who and under what circumstances imprisoned the developers of military equipment in the conditions of the impending war? This is not a rhetorical question. Firstly, there were real agents of Germany in the NKVD, who, according to real assignments of real German intelligence, tried to neutralize people useful to the Soviet defense complex. Secondly, there were no fewer “dissidents” in those days than in the late 1980s. Plus, the environment is incredibly quarrelsome, and denunciation has always been a favorite means of settling scores and promoting career.
Be that as it may, having accepted the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, Beria was faced with the fact: in his department there were hundreds of arrested scientists and designers, whose work the country just needs to the bone.
As it is fashionable to say now - feel like a Commissar!
The case lies before you. This person may be guilty, or may be innocent, but he is necessary. What to do? Write: "Free", showing the subordinates an example of the opposite lawlessness? Checking cases? Yes, of course, but you have a closet with 600 thousand cases. In fact, each of them must be re-investigated, but there are no personnel. If we are talking about already convicted, it is also necessary to achieve the cancellation of the sentence. Where to start? Scientists? From the military? And time goes by, people are sitting, the war is getting closer …
Beria found his bearings quickly. Already on January 10, 1939, he signed an order on the organization of a Special Technical Bureau. Research topics are purely military: aircraft construction, shipbuilding, shells, armored steel. Whole groups were formed from specialists in these industries who were in prison.
When the opportunity arose, Beria tried to free these people. For example, on May 25, 1940, the aircraft designer Tupolev was sentenced to 15 years in the camps, and in the summer he was released under an amnesty. Designer Petlyakov was amnestied on July 25 and already in January 1941 was awarded the Stalin Prize. A large group of developers of military equipment was released in the summer of 1941, another in 1943, the rest were freed from 1944 to 1948.
When you read what has been written about Beria, one gets the impression that he was catching "enemies of the people" like that throughout the war. Oh sure! He had nothing to do! On March 21, 1941, Beria became deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. To begin with, he oversees the people's commissariats for the timber, coal and oil industries, non-ferrous metallurgy, and soon added ferrous metallurgy here. And from the very beginning of the war, more and more defense industries fell on his shoulders, since, first of all, he was not a Chekist or a party leader, but an excellent organizer of production. That is why he was entrusted in 1945 with the atomic project, on which the very existence of the Soviet Union depended.
He wanted to punish Stalin's killers. And for this he himself was killed
Two leaders
A week after the start of the war, on June 30, an extraordinary body of power was established - the State Defense Committee, in whose hands all the power in the country was concentrated. Stalin, naturally, became the chairman of the GKO. But who entered the office besides him? This question is neatly avoided in most publications. For one very simple reason: among the five members of the GKO there is one unmentioned person. In the brief history of World War II (1985), in the index of names given at the end of the book, where there are such vital persons for victory as Ovid and Sandor Petofi, Beria is not. I didn't, I didn't fight, I didn't participate … So: there were five of them. Stalin, Molotov, Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov. And three commissioners: Voznesensky, Mikoyan, Kaganovich. But soon the war began to make its own adjustments. Since February 1942, Beria, instead of Voznesensky, began to oversee the production of weapons and ammunition. Officially. (But in reality, he was already doing this in the summer of 1941.) That same winter, the production of tanks was in his hands. Again, not because of some intrigue, but because he was better at it. The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22 the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942, these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944, we had 89 thousand against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2,000 tanks a month, far ahead of Germany.not because of some intrigue, but because he did better. The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22, the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942, these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944, we had 89 thousand against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2,000 tanks a month, far ahead of Germany.not because of some intrigue, but because he was better at it. The results of Beria's work are best seen from the numbers. If on June 22, the Germans had 47 thousand guns and mortars against our 36 thousand, then by November 1, 1942, these figures were equal, and by January 1, 1944, we had 89 thousand against the German 54.5 thousand. From 1942 to 1944, the USSR produced 2,000 tanks a month, far ahead of Germany.
On May 11, 1944, Beria became chairman of the GKO Operations Bureau and deputy chairman of the Committee, in fact, the second person after Stalin in the country. On August 20, 1945, he takes on the most difficult task of that time, which was a question of survival for the USSR - he becomes chairman of the Special Committee for the creation of an atomic bomb (there he performed another miracle - the first Soviet atomic bomb, contrary to all forecasts, was tested only four years later, 20 August 1949).
Not a single person from the Politburo, and indeed not a single person in the USSR, even came close to Beria in terms of the importance of the tasks to be solved, in terms of the scope of powers, and, obviously, simply in terms of personality. In fact, the post-war USSR was at that time a system of a double star: seventy-year-old Stalin and young - in 1949 he was only fifty - Beria. The head of state and his natural successor.
It was this fact that the Khrushchev and post-Khrushchev historians hid so diligently in the funnels of silence and under heaps of lies. Because if the Minister of Internal Affairs was killed on June 23, 1953, it still pulls the fight against the coup, and if the head of state was killed, then this is the coup, and there is …
Stalin's script
If we trace the information about Beria, wandering from publication to publication, to its original source, then almost all of it follows from Khrushchev's memoirs. A person who, in fact, cannot be trusted, since a comparison of his memories with other sources gives them an incredible amount of inaccurate information.
Who else has not done "political" analyzes of the situation in the winter of 1952-1953. What combinations did not come up with, what options were not calculated. That Beria blocked himself with Malenkov, with Khrushchev, that he was on his own … These analyzes are the only sin - in them, as a rule, the figure of Stalin is completely excluded. It is tacitly believed that the leader had retired by that time, was almost in insanity … There is only one source - the memories of Nikita Sergeevich.
But why, in fact, should we believe them? And Beria's son Sergo, for example, who saw Stalin fifteen times during 1952 at meetings devoted to missile weapons, recalled that the leader did not seem like a weakened mind … The post-war period of our history is dark no less than Doryurik's Russia. What was happening in the country then, no one really knows, probably. It is known that after 1949 Stalin somewhat retired from business, leaving all the "routine" to chance and to Malenkov. But one thing is clear: something was being prepared. According to indirect data, it can be assumed that Stalin conceived some very big reform, primarily an economic one, and only then, perhaps, a political one. Another thing is also clear: the leader was old and sick, he knew it perfectly well, he did not suffer from a lack of courage and could not help thinking what would happen to the state after his death, and not looking for a successor. If Beria was of any other nationality, there would be no problems. But one Georgian after another is on the throne of the empire! Even Stalin would not have done this. It is known that in the postwar years Stalin slowly but steadily squeezed the party apparatus out of the captain's cabin. Of course, the functionaries could not be happy with this. In October 1952, at the CPSU congress, Stalin gave the party a decisive battle, asking to be relieved of his duties as general secretary. It didn't work out, they didn't let me go. Then Stalin came up with a combination that is easy to read: a deliberately weak figure becomes the head of state, and the real head, the "gray eminence", is formally on the sidelines. And so it happened: after Stalin's death, the uninitiated Malenkov became the first, but in reality Beria was in charge. He not only carried out an amnesty. He is listed, for example, a resolutioncondemning the violent russification of Lithuania and Western Ukraine, he also proposed a beautiful solution to the "German" question: if Beria had remained in power, the Berlin Wall would simply not have existed. Well, along the way, he again took up the "normalization" of the NKVD, launching the rehabilitation process, so that Khrushchev and the company then had only to jump on the already running steam locomotive, pretending that they were there from the very beginning.
It was later that they all said that they "did not agree" with Beria, that he "pressed" on them. Then they said a lot of things. But in fact, they completely agreed with Beria's initiatives.
But then something happened.
Calm down! This is a coup
A meeting of either the Presidium of the Central Committee or the Presidium of the Council of Ministers was scheduled for June 26 in the Kremlin. According to the official version, the military, led by Marshal Zhukov, came to him, the members of the Presidium called them into the office, and they arrested Beria. Then he was taken to a special bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District, an investigation was carried out and he was shot. This version does not stand up to criticism. Why - to talk about this for a long time, but there are a lot of outright exaggerations and discrepancies … Let's just say one thing: after June 26, 1953, none of the outsiders, disinterested people saw Beria alive. His son Sergo was the last to see him - in the morning, at the dacha. According to his recollections, his father was going to stop by the city apartment, then go to the Kremlin, to a meeting of the Presidium. Around noon, Sergo received a call from his friend, pilot Amet-Khan, and said that there was a shootout at Beria's house and his father,apparently, no longer alive. Sergo, together with a member of the Special Committee Vannikov, rushed to the address and managed to see broken windows, smashed doors, a wall covered with traces of bullets from a large-caliber machine gun.
Meanwhile, members of the Presidium gathered in the Kremlin. What happened there? Making his way through the rubble of lies, recreating what was happening bit by bit, it was possible to approximately reconstruct the events. After Beria was done away with, the performers of this operation - presumably they were the military from the old, still Ukrainian team of Khrushchev, whom he dragged to Moscow, led by Moskalenko - went to the Kremlin. At the same time, another group of military personnel arrived there. It was headed by Marshal Zhukov, and among its members was Colonel Brezhnev. Curious, right? Further, presumably, everything unfolded like this. Among the putschists were at least two members of the Presidium - Khrushchev and Defense Minister Bulganin (Moskalenko and others always refer to them in their memoirs). They put the rest of the members of the government before the fact: Beria was killed, something needs to be done about it. The whole team involuntarily ended up in the same boat and began to hide the ends. Much more interesting is another thing: why was Beria killed?
The day before, he returned from a ten-day trip to Germany, met with Malenkov, and discussed the agenda of the June 26 meeting with him. Everything was amazing. If something happened, then on the last day. And, most likely, it was somehow connected with the upcoming meeting. True, there is an agenda preserved in Malenkov's archive. But, most likely, it is a linden tree. No information about what the meeting really should have been devoted to has survived. It would seem … But there was one person who could know about it. Sergo Beria said in an interview that his father told him in the morning at the dacha that at the upcoming meeting he was going to demand from the Presidium a sanction for the arrest of the former Minister of State Security Ignatiev.
But now everything is clear! So, that it cannot be clearer. The fact is that Ignatiev was in charge of Stalin's security in the last year of his life. It was he who was the person who knew what happened at Stalin's dacha on the night of March 1, 1953, when the leader had a stroke. And something happened there, about which, many years later, the surviving guards continued to lie mediocre and too obvious. And Beria, who kissed the hand of the dying Stalin, would have snatched all his secrets from Ignatiev. And then he arranged a political trial for the whole world over him and his accomplices, no matter what posts they held. This is just in his style … No, these same accomplices in any case should not have allowed Beria to arrest Ignatiev. But how can you keep him? All that remained was to kill - which was done … Well, and then they hid the ends. By order of Defense Minister Bulganin, a grandiose "Tanks Show" was staged (just as ineptly repeated in 1991). Khrushchev's lawyers, under the leadership of the new Prosecutor General Rudenko, also a native of Ukraine, staged a trial (staging is still a favorite pastime of the prosecutor's office). Then the memory of all the good things that Beria did was carefully wiped out, and vulgar fairy tales about a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were put into use. Khrushchev was talented in terms of "black PR". It seems that this was his only talent …was carefully wiped out, and vulgar tales of a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were launched into circulation. Khrushchev was talented in terms of "black PR". It seems that this was his only talent …was carefully wiped out, and vulgar tales about a bloody executioner and a sexual maniac were launched into circulation. Khrushchev was talented in terms of "black PR". It seems that this was his only talent …
And he wasn't a sex maniac either
The idea to present Beria as a sex maniac was first announced at the Central Committee Plenum in July 1953. The secretary of the Central Committee, Shatalin, who, as he claimed, had searched Beria's office, found in the safe "a large number of objects of a male debauchery." Then the guard of Beria Sarkisov spoke, telling about his many connections with women. Naturally, no one checked all this, but the gossip was started up and went for a walk around the country. "Being a morally decayed person, Beria cohabited with numerous women …" - the investigators wrote down in the "sentence."
There is also a list of these women. Here's just a misfortune: it almost completely coincides with the list of women with whom General Vlasik, the head of Stalin's security, who was arrested a year earlier, was accused of cohabitation. Wow, how unlucky Lavrenty Pavlovich was. There were such opportunities, and women got exclusively from under Vlasik! And if not laughing, then it's as easy as shelling pears: they took a list from Vlasik's case and added it to the “Beria case”. Who will be checking? Nina Beria many years later, in one of her interviews, said a very simple phrase: "It's amazing: Lavrenty was busy day and night with work when he had to deal with a legion of these women!" Riding the streets, taking them to their country villas, or even to their home, where there was a Georgian wife and a son lived with his family. However, when it comes to denigrating a dangerous enemy, who is interested,what really happened?
Elena Prudnikova
