BERIA, LAVRENTI (1899–1953). Soviet statesman and chief of the Soviet secret police. Born to a peasant family in Merkheuli (Abkhazia, Georgia), he finished high school in Sokhumi and studied at the technical college in Baku, where he became a Marxist sympathizer. He became a member of the Communist party in 1917, but the precise date of his formal membership is in dispute. After briefly serving in the Russian army on the Romanian front during World War I, he returned to Baku to complete his studies, which he did in 1919. In the summer of 1920, he was arrested by the Georgian authorities in Kutaisi and was accused of spying for the Bolsheviks. Through the intervention of Sergey Kirov, Russia’s diplomatic envoy in Georgia, he was released after several weeks in prison and was deported to Baku. In September 1920, he enrolled at the newly established Polytechnic University in Baku, but several months later he joined the Cheka (All Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage), the original Bolshevik political police, in Baku and participated in the Soviet takeover of Georgia.

In November 1922, Beria became the head of the Cheka in Georgia and acted with ruthless efficiency against anti-Communist dissidents. In November 1931, he was appointed first secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, and Joseph Stalin soon promoted him to first secretary of the Transcaucasian Party in 1932. During the purges in the 1930s, Beria supervised reprisals in Transcaucasia and had thousands of citizens executed or exiled. He also played an important role in the dissolution of the Transcaucasian Federation into the Soviet republics of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. In July 1938, Stalin summoned Beria to Moscow and appointed him first deputy to Nikolai Ezhov, the commissar of internal affairs and head of the secret police (NKVD, People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs). Six months later, in December of the same year, Beria replaced Ezhov and initiated a “purge of the purgers” in which Ezhov and other officials were imprisoned or executed. A partial amnesty released thousands of innocent victims who had been sentenced to forced labor camps, including Red Army officers and police officials purged by Ezhov. Beria improved prison and camp conditions, not for humanitarian reasons but to avoid wasting much-needed manpower. His methods increased the labor efficiency of the prisoners, who were given better food and other rewards based on their productivity.

 
In March 1939, Beria was elevated to candidate status in the Politburo, the ruling elite of the Communist party, but he did not achieve full membership until 1946. During World War II, he served on the five-member State Defense Committee and was responsible for internal security and foreign intelligence operations. He supervised the deportation of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Meskhetian Turks, Volga Germans, Kalmyks, and others thought to be a danger to state security. After the war, Beria was promoted to the rank of marshal and was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers in 1946. He supervised the Soviet atomic energy program that created the first nuclear bomb. Enjoying immense authority, Beria was among the three or four Party leaders who appeared to have the best opportunity to become Stalin’s political successor. However, starting in 1951, he began to lose favor with the dictator, and some of his associates were purged or demoted. In 1953, the Doctor’s Plot, a supposed conspiracy of Kremlin physicians, indicated that Stalin might be planning to purge Beria, who as chief of the secret police was responsible for any breakdown in internal security. However, Stalin died in March before the affair could be resolved. Some rumors had it that Beria was somehow involved in the dictator’s demise. 

In the new government, Beria ranked second behind Premier Georgi Malenkov and enjoyed immense power, controlling the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Beria assumed a liberal stance on public questions, recommending a relaxation of the collective farm system, greater autonomy for non-Russian nationalities, and less rigid control over the Soviet satellite countries. However, his ambition and sinister past prompted the Party leaders to forestall any attempt on his part to carry out a possible coup d’etat. On 26 June 1953, he was arrested and accused of anti-State activities. Found guilty on all charges, Beria was executed on 23 December 1953. 

ALM