Throughout Stalin’s time in power, he would execute and slaughter millions of his own
people.
The word purge is synonymous with his time in control, and it was his secret police the
NKVD who would carry out these orders.
Anyone who was suspected of political dissent and opposition would not be safe, and everyone
feared the knock on the door in the middle of the night.
Even senior people in government were not safe, and Stalin would purge anyone who had
the slightest amount of animosity towards him.
One man who led the NKVD was Lavrentiy Beria who’s considered today a man who was one
of the Soviet Union’s greatest criminals and executioners.
He was a man who oversaw the Gulag system and expanded it on a huge scale.
But following the Death of Stalin, Beria would be turned upon, and he was a man who wanted
to get to the very top.
However he would be executed also like thousands who went before.
Join us today as we look at the brutal execution of Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s Chief of Police.
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Lavrentiy Beria was born on the 29th March 1899, and his mother was incredibly religious.
His father was a landowner.
He attended a technical school in Sukhumi, and in March 1917 whilst he was a student
he joined the Bolsheviks.
He was skilled at school in science and maths, but he then continued his work inside of political
spheres.
He had previously worked for anti-Bolshevik Mussavatists in Baku, and then following the
Red Army capture of the city in April 1920 he was threatened with execution.
He was actually saved from his as there was no enough time to arrange for his shooting.
But he had began at the age of 20 his career in state security in Azerbaijan, and in 1920
he joined the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police.
The red army at this time invaded Georgia, and the Cheka were involved in this and Beria
was involved in leading the repression of a Georgian Natiolianist Uprising in 1924,
where its believed around 10,000 people were executed.
He then gained further positions in the state security, but he then became an ally of Stalin
and would then help elevate him to the position of the Head of Soviet State.
Beria was in charge of the Georgian OGPU and he destroyed many different intelligence networks
that were using agents to spy on the Soviets.
Beria was an effective leader inside the Secret Service, and the then later became the First
Secretary of the Communist Party of Georgia and the Party leader for the whole region.
He then shifted to becoming a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union in 1934, and he turned on other members of the Georgian Communist Party
and ordered many executions to make sure he had complete power.
But he had become one of the most trusted advisors of Stalin, and Beria was in charge
of many purges in the land what he oversaw.
He remained loyal too Stalin, and in a speech he said ‘Let our enemies know that anyone
who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party
of Lenin and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.’
But then Stalin brought Beria to Moscow, and he became the deputy head of the NKVD and
the secret forces which oversaw state security and police forces.
He was working to begin with along with Nikolai Yezhov, and they carried out the great purge,
which resulted in over a million people being executed or being sent to concentration camps
and sites known as Gulags.
The oppression across the state was huge, and they were known as enemies of the people.
Beria then gained promotion, and after Yezhov his boss was purged and executed in 1940,
Lavrentiy Beria took his position and became the head of the NKVD.
He was closely linked to the great purge, but as the head of the secret service, he
did ease up on the repression to begin with.
But at this time, the Second World War was on.
But the executions and arrests did continue, and Beria also oversaw mass deportations of
those during the war from Soviet occupied countries such as Poland.
He was becoming one of the most senior figures in the Soviet Union, and he was made a commissar
General of State security.
Beria would have some involvement in the war as he would tell Stalin that polish prisoners
of war kept in camps and prisons in Belarus and Ukraine were considered enemies, and for
this they were recommended for execution.
His NKVD also took part in the Katyn massacre, in which NKVD executions shot and executed
a total of 22,000 people in just a matter of days.
He carried out a purge of the Red Army also which caused damage to the Soviet war effort,
and he also mobilised millions of people imprisoned in gulag camps into war time production.
He was in charge of armaments manufacture including aircraft production, and as the
war turned in favour of the Soviets, he was in charge of dealing with people who were
considered collaborators or invaders.
Beria then became the Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Beria also wanted Stalin to ensure that occupied lands had a communist leader, but as Stalin
was getting older and getting near to 70, there was a power struggle at the top of the
Soviet unions.
In January 1946, Beria resigned as the Head of the NKVD, but he had control of national
security as the Deputy Prime Minister under Stalin.
The new NKVD chief did not like Beria though, and there were a number who were in rivalry
with him.
There were many who would dig their claws in and it was clear that Beria was a favourite
to succeed Stalin.
But there were many men who fought for power at this time.
But then the time came of Stalin’s death.
Beria was one of the first to see Stalin when he was found unconscious.
He needed medical attention, and Beria dismissed things as he was worried that Stalin would
wake up and would be furious that people were seeing him in his weak moments.
Stalin remained paralysed and incontinent for 12 hours, and was not able to speak.
Beria decided against calling a doctor immediately, and he remained by his side.
Following the death of Stalin on the 6th March 1953, Beria decided to go on the offensive
to claim the top position.
He was the first one to kiss Stalin’s body, and he stood over the body allegedly radiating
as others sobbed.
Many believed he was off to take power, but he was appointed the First Deputy Premier.
His close ally Malenkov became the new Premier, but Nikita Kruschev would oppose this alliance,
and he was not to begin with able to challenge them.
But this came when an uprising broke out in East Berlin, and many after this believed
Beria was too dangerous and his policies damaged the Soviet Union.
But on the 26th June 1964, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested near to Moscow.
His downfall came incredibly swiftly and quickly, as Kruschev launched an ambush and he launched
an attack on him saying he was a traitor and a spy for the British.
Beria was shocked, but he had a feeling this was coming and he knew what was happening.
He was taken after Malenkov his old friend pressed a button under his desk and then armed
officers swooped in and arrested him.
Beria’s men were guarding him in the Kremlin, and he was held in a special cell until the
evening, and was then smuggled in the boot of a car.
He was then taken to the Moscow Guardhouse and was then held in a bunker of the Moscow
Military District’s headquarters building.
Many of his closest allies were also arrested, and Beria and his men were brought on trial.
Beria was found guilty of Treason, and it was alleged that he had secret connections
with foreign intelligence services, and that he tried to talk peace with Hitler in 1941.
He was also accused of terrorism as he had took part in the Red army purge of 1941, and
also counter revolutionary activity during the Russian Civil War.
He was sentenced to death on the day of the trial, and the other six men who were tried
with him were shot immediately after the trial ended.
Lavrentiy Beria was executed separately, and he was dragged from the courtroom kicking
and screaming.
He knew that he was about to be killed, and he was surrounded by soviet officials.
He was on his knees and he collapsed in tears and begged for mercy and for his life to be
spared.
Then Pavel Batitsky came up to him with his pistol, and shot Beria straight through the
head.
He had been selected to perform the execution, and after this Beria was cremated.
Lavrentiy Beria was the brutal and barbaric head of Stalin’s NKVD who met his end begging
for his life.
He was a man who carried out the brutal will of Stalin and he was responsible for the executions
and killings of hundreds of thousands of people, and many were sent to the Gulags.
After his death many brutal stories came out about Beria, including the fact he himself
was a serial killer who had abducted girls off the streets and had murdererd them.
It was believed some girls were buried in his wife’s rose garden, and that under his
home in Moscow was a torture basement.
He was a man who fought for power with others after Stalin’s death, But he was a man who
Stalin considered ‘My HImmler,’ and he was a terrible murderer who was responsible
for the slaughter of millions.
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