At the Yalta Conference in 1945, Stalin described Beria as “our Heinrich Himmler”. Both Beria and Himmler were dedicated ruthless enforcers on behalf of their leaders Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler, the main difference between the two, was there ideology, Communism did not discriminate, those who suffered in the Gulags, or were victims of mass murder, were just “enemies of the state” whereas in the case of National Socialism the various atrocities and mass murder were mainly selective, most of those who suffered were targeted victims of racial hatred.
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was born on 29 March 1899, he was a Georgian Soviet politician, a state security administrator who became head of the Soviet security and secret police organisation [NKVD] during WW2, and Deputy Premier in the post-war years [1946-1953]. Beria was the most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, especially during and after WW2, in the war period, as a Marshal of the Soviet Union, he was in command of the NKVD field units responsible for anti-partisan operations against anti-Soviet ethnic groups and Nazi collaborators, they also carried out summary executions of thousands of deserters and suspected malingerers. In addition Beria administered the vast expansion of Gulag slave labour camps, on 5 March 1940 Beria sent a note to Stalin in which he stated that the Polish prisoners of war [mostly military officers and intelligentsia] a total of over 22,000, were enemies of the state, and recommended their execution, which Stalin approved, resulting in the Katyn massacre.
In 1919 at the age of 20, Beria started his career in state security, working in Azerbaijan. Around 1920/21, Beria then joined Cheka, the original Bolshevik secret police, Cheka was heavily involved in the Red Army invasion of Georgia. In 1924 he led the repression of a Georgian nationalist uprising, subsequently around 10,000 people were executed, as a result of this, Beria was appointed head of the “secret-political division” of the Transcaucasian OGPU, and was awarded the order of the Red Banner.
In August 1938, Stalin brought Beria to Moscow as deputy head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs [NKVD], Which oversaw the state security and police forces, in November1938, Beria became the head of NKVD. In 1940, as war approached, the pace of purges increased, Beria supervised the deportations of so called political enemies, from Poland and the Baltic states, after the Soviet occupation of those regions.
From October 1940 to February 1942, the NKVD under Beria carried out a new purge of the Red Army, following the German invasion in June 1941 he became a member of the State Defence Committee [GKO], he went on to use millions of people imprisoned in NKVD camps as labour for wartime production. In 1944, as the Germans were being driven out of the Soviet Union, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of collaboration with the Germans, all were deported to Soviet Central Asia. In January 1946, Beria resigned as chief of the NKVD, while retaining general control over national security matters, as Deputy Prime Minister.
Joseph Stalin died on the 5 March 1953, after suffering a stroke, after his death, Beria was reappointed head of the MVD [Ministry of Internal Affairs], his close ally Malenkov was the new Prime Minister, and the most powerful man in the post-Stalin leadership, with Beria becoming the second most powerful.. On the 26 June 1953, Beria was arrested , after being denounced by many of his colleagues, he was then taken into custody. In December 1953 Pravda announced that Beria and six accomplices had been in the pay of foreign intelligence agencies, and had been conspiring for many years to take power and restore capitalism.
Beria was tried by a special session of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union, with no defence counsel, and no right of appeal, on 23 December 1953, he was found guilty of treason, terrorism, and counter revolutionary activity. Beria was sentenced to death, it was said that when the sentence was passed, Beria pleaded on his knees for mercy, before collapsing to the floor wailing and crying, but to no avail, he was executed by firing squad on the same day as the trial, namely 23 December 1953.
Home 
