In what year was Beria shot? Three deaths of Lavrentiy Beria

Nikolai Debrukha

THE LAST SECRET OF LAVRENTIY BERIA

He was shot 60 years ago. But no one still knows where the grave of the “bloody people’s commissar” is. According to official data, L.P. Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and in the same year on December 23, by a court verdict, he was executed in an underground bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. However, as archives show, official data from those years too often diverges from reality. Therefore, other versions circulating in the form of rumors also attract attention. Two of them are especially sensational...

The first assumes that Beria somehow managed not to fall into the trap of a conspiracy prepared against him or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America, where after 1945 almost everyone fled Nazi criminals. And thus he was able to stay alive for the time being...

The second says that during the arrest of Beria, he and his guards resisted and were killed. They even name the author of the fatal shot, namely Khrushchev... There are those who say that the pre-trial execution took place in the already mentioned bunker almost immediately after the arrest in the Kremlin. And this rumor unexpectedly received confirmation.

In the archives of Old Square, I discovered documents personally endorsed by Khrushchev and Kaganovich. According to them, Beria was liquidated even before the July 1953 Emergency Plenum of the Central Committee, convened on the occasion of exposing the criminal activities of the sinister man in the pince-nez...

Where is the main "enemy of the people" buried?

My colleagues - researchers N. Zenkovich and S. Gribanov, with whom we periodically call each other to exchange information - have collected a number of documented facts about the fate of Beria after the news of his arrest. But especially valuable evidence on this matter was discovered by Hero Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of USSR writers Vladimir Karpov. Studying the life of Marshal Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute: did Zhukov participate in the arrest of Beria? The secret, handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found say directly: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So the statement of Beria’s son Sergo that Zhukov has nothing to do with his father’s arrest is untrue!

The last find turns out to be important also because it refutes the rumor about Nikita Sergeevich’s heroic shot during the detention of the all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security.

What happened after the arrest, Zhukov personally did not see and therefore wrote what he learned from hearsay, namely: “In the future, I did not take part either in the security, or in the investigation, or in trial. After the trial, Beria was shot by the same people who guarded him. During the execution, Beria behaved very poorly, like the very last coward, cried hysterically, knelt down and, finally, soiled himself all over. In a word, he lived disgustingly and died even more disgustingly." Note: this is what Zhukov was told, but Zhukov himself did not see it...

But here is what, as they say, S. Gribanov managed to find out first-hand from the real author of the bullet for the main enemy of the people, then Colonel General P.F. Batitsky: “We took Beria down the stairs into the dungeon. He obliterated... Stink. Then I shot him like a dog.”

Everything would have been fine if other witnesses to the execution, and General Batitsky himself, had said the same thing everywhere. However, inconsistencies could have occurred due to negligence and from the literary fantasies of researchers, one of whom, the son of the revolutionary Antonov-Ovseenko, wrote this: “They executed a man sentenced to death in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters. They took off his tunic, leaving a white undershirt, and tied him with a rope from behind hands and tied to a hook driven into wooden shield. This shield protected those present from bullet ricochets. Prosecutor Rudenko read out the verdict. Beria: “Let me tell you...” Rudenko: “You’ve already said everything.” (To the military): “Gag his mouth with a towel.” Moskalenko (to Yuferev): “You are our youngest, you shoot well. Come on.” Batitsky: “Comrade commander, allow me (takes out his “parabellum”). With this thing, I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.” Rudenko: “I ask you to carry out the sentence.” Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, the second Beria squinted, Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of his forehead. The body hung on the ropes. The execution took place in the presence of Marshal Konev and those military men who arrested and guarded Beria. They called the doctor... All that remained was to confirm the fact of death. Beria's body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium." In conclusion, Antonov-Ovseyenko paints a picture similar to horror films: supposedly, when the performers pushed Beria's body into the flames of the crematorium and clung to the glass of the furnace, they were gripped by fear - the body of their bloody boss on the fiery the tray suddenly began to move and gradually began to sit down... Later it turned out that the service personnel “forgot” to cut the tendons, and they were under the influence high temperature began to decline. But at first it seemed to everyone that in the flames of hell the dead executioner came to life...

An interesting story. However, while reporting eerie physiological details, the narrator does not provide a link to any document. Where, for example, are the acts confirming the execution and burning of Beria? This is not an empty quibble, for if anyone read the act of execution, they could not help but notice that the doctor required in such cases was not present at the execution of Beria, and did not at all testify to her... So the question arises: “A Was it Beria who was there? Or another one: “Or maybe the report was drawn up retroactively and without a doctor?” And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not coincide. To prove these words, I will cite the act of execution dated December 23, 1953.

“On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the order of the chairman of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953 N 003, by me, the commandant of the special judicial presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, the actual state counselor of justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General Moskalenko K.S., the sentence of the special judicial presence was carried out in relation to Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment. Three signatures. And no more guarding generals (as Zhukov was told); no Konev, Yuferev, Zub, Baksov, Nedelin and Getman, and no doctor (as Antonov-Ovseenko was told).

These discrepancies could have been ignored if Beria’s son Sergo had not insisted that a member of that same court, Shvernik, told him personally: “I was part of the tribunal in the case of your father, but I never saw him.” Sergo was even more doubtful by the confession of court member Mikhailov: “Sergo, I don’t want to tell you about the details, but we didn’t see your father alive”... Mikhailov did not expand on how to evaluate this mysterious statement. Either an actor was put in the dock instead of Beria, or Beria himself changed beyond recognition during his arrest? It is possible that Beria could have doubles...

This concerns the act of execution. Another act - cremation, as far as I know, no one saw at all, as well as the body of the person who was shot. Of course, with the exception of those three who signed the act. They signed it, but then what? Where are the Burial or Cremation Certificates? Who cremated? Who buried? It turns out like in the song: and no one will know where your grave is... Indeed, no one has yet provided any evidence about the burial place of Beria, although the “grave accounting department” of the state security agencies has kept records in this regard in such a way that, if necessary, you can quickly get all the information.
Why was Malenkov silent?

I’ll start with the letters that the arrested Beria wrote to his former “associates”. There were several of them. And all of them, as far as I know, were written before the July Plenum, i.e. from June 26 to July 2. I've read some. Of greatest interest, apparently, is the very last letter addressed “To the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Pervukhin, Bulganin and Saburov,” i.e. those who made the decision to arrest. But before citing its text in full, it is necessary to make an explanation.

The vote on Beria's arrest was very tense and took place twice. The first time, according to Malenkov’s assistant D. Sukhanov, only Malenkov, Pervukhin and Saburov were in favor, while Khrushchev and Bulganin and, of course, Mikoyan abstained. Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Molotov were generally “against”. Moreover, Molotov allegedly stated that arresting without an arrest warrant one of the first leaders of the party, government and legislative branch- this is not only a violation of parliamentary immunity, but also of all major party and Soviet laws. However, when military men entered the meeting room with weapons and it was proposed to vote again, everyone immediately voted in favor, as if feeling that if they violated the “unanimity” required in such cases, then they too would be counted among Beria’s accomplices. Many are inclined to believe Sukhanov’s memories recorded years later, although we must not forget that he himself was outside the office in which the events took place. Therefore, I could only find out about what happened from hearsay. And most likely in the words of his master Malenkov, who did not really like his rivals in the struggle for the first place in power - Molotov, Khrushchev and Bulganin.

However, if you believe not Sukhanov, but the mentioned letter from Beria, then on the day of the arrest, whoever, but Malenkov and Khrushchev were more unanimous than ever. To see this, let’s read Beria’s downright screaming letter.

“Dear comrades, they can deal with me without trial or investigation, after 5 days of imprisonment, without a single interrogation, I beg you all, so that this is not allowed, I ask for immediate intervention, otherwise it will be too late. We must warn you directly by phone...

Why do they do it the way they are doing now? They put us in the basement, and no one finds out or asks anything. Dear comrades, perhaps the only and The right way decision without trial and clarification of the case against a member of the Central Committee and his comrade after 5 days in the basement to execute him. Once again I beg you all...

I affirm that all charges will be dropped if only you want to investigate this. What a rush, and a suspicious one at that.

I ask T. Malenkov and Comrade Khrushchev not to persist. Would it be bad if she was rehabilitated?

Again and again I beg you to intervene and not to destroy your innocent old friend. Your Lavrentiy Beria."

Here's a letter. However, no matter how Beria begged, exactly what he was madly afraid of happened...

At the closed Plenum, which took place from July 2 to July 7, 1953, in numerous accusatory speeches there were words that no one (!) paid attention to then in the general turmoil and victorious euphoria. Khrushchev was the first to spill the beans. Having entered into the excitement of the story of how they deftly dealt with Beria, he, among other enthusiastic phrases, suddenly blurted out: “Beria... has given up his spirit.”

Kaganovich spoke even more clearly: “...having eliminated this traitor Beria, we must completely restore Stalin’s legal rights...” And most definitely: “The Central Committee destroyed the adventurer Beria...” And that’s the point. You can't say more precisely.

Of course, these words of top officials can also be taken in a figurative sense. But why then did none of them even mention that at the upcoming investigation it was necessary to properly question Beria about all his dirty deeds? It is no coincidence, apparently, that none of them even hinted that Beria himself should have been brought to the Plenum, so that everyone could listen to his confessions and ask the accumulated questions, as, for example, Stalin did in relation to Bukharin. Most likely they didn’t hint because there was no one to deliver... It’s also possible, however, that they were afraid that Beria would expose them and, first of all, his “old friends” Khrushchev and Malenkov...

Is this the reason why Malenkov was silent about the events of those years? Even his son Andrei laments that even after a third of a century his father preferred to avoid talking about this topic.

Special cuisine of the Kremlin

With Gennady Nikolaevich Kolomentsev, former boss The special cuisine of the Kremlin, I have developed a good relationship. The memories of the honorary (now deceased) security officer of the USSR helped correct many mistakes of researchers and historians, but one of his confessions makes us especially think.

It began with the fact that I told him a number of details about the arrest of Beria, which came from the already mentioned son of Antonov-Ovseenko, who, in particular, said that “Beria had to change his suit to a soldier’s uniform - a cotton tunic and trousers. Food for the arrested man was delivered from garage of the Moscow Military District headquarters - soldier's rations, soldiers' serving: a pot and an aluminum spoon...".

Hearing this, Kolomentsev literally exploded: “All this is nonsense! My people served Beria. So I saw him often. I didn’t like him. Through his pince-nez, he had a kind of snake-like look... When he was arrested, we They brought food to him on Osipenko Street, where he was sitting. They were afraid that there were people interested in poisoning him. All the food was transported there under seal. A special waiter arrived with dishes and left..."

- What did they feed Beria? - I ask. - Regular soldier's rations?

Yes you! He was given a special menu in which he noted what he needed. Even after being arrested, Beria made up his own menu from the list that we offered him. And the list was not at the level of a soldier or officer, and not even at the level of a general, but even higher... Beria was shot there, in the dungeon. The only thing I saw - no... my deputy told me this - was how Beria’s corpse was carried out in a tarpaulin and loaded into a car. And where they burned him and buried him, I don’t know.”

It would seem that there is nothing special about this memory. However, in the memoirs of the military men who arrested and guarded Beria, it is categorically emphasized that in order to avoid organizing an escape, Beria’s former subordinates were not allowed anywhere near him (at least before the Plenum).

From this we can draw a logical conclusion: Kolomentsev was allowed to feed Beria only when it was no longer Beria who was sitting there in the bunker, but someone playing his role. Therefore, neither the possible escape of the double nor his poisoning no longer worried the “old friends” and, above all, Malenkov and Khrushchev.

As for the corpse, you never know who could have been carried out wrapped in a tarpaulin. We had the opportunity to observe a similar scene in our days, when television showed the removal of the lifeless body of the criminal authority Pasha-Tsvetomuzika after an attack on him by a contract killer. And after a while everyone again saw Pasha’s face alive and unharmed.

...So where is Beria’s grave located?

Nikolay Dobryukha

He was shot 60 years ago. But no one still knows where the grave of the bloody People's Commissar is. According to official data, L.P. Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and in the same year on December 23, by a court verdict, he was executed in an underground bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. However, as archives show, official data from those years too often diverges from reality. Therefore, other versions circulating in the form of rumors also attract attention. Two of them are especially sensational...

The first assumes that Beria somehow managed not to fall into the trap of a conspiracy prepared against him, or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America, where almost all Nazi criminals fled after 1945. And thus he was able to stay alive for the time being...

The second says that during the arrest of Beria, he and his guards resisted and were killed. They even name the author of the fatal shot, namely Khrushchev... There are those who say that the pre-trial execution took place in the already mentioned bunker almost immediately after the arrest in the Kremlin. And this rumor unexpectedly received confirmation.

Where is he buried? main enemy people?

My colleagues, researchers N. Zenkovich and S. Gribanov, with whom we periodically call each other to exchange information, have collected a number of documented facts about the fate of Beria after the news of his arrest. But especially valuable evidence on this matter was discovered by the Hero of the Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of writers of the USSR Vladimir Karpov. Studying the life of Marshal Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute: did Zhukov participate in the arrest of Beria? The secret, handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found say directly: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So the statement of Beria’s son Sergo that Zhukov has nothing to do with his father’s arrest is untrue!

Zhukov personally did not see what happened after the arrest and therefore wrote what he learned from hearsay, namely: “In the future, I did not take part in the security, nor in the investigation, nor in the trial. After the trial, Beria was shot by the same people who guarded him. During the execution, Beria behaved very poorly, like the very last coward, cried hysterically, knelt down and, finally, soiled himself all over. In a word, he lived disgustingly and died even more disgustingly.” Note: this is what Zhukov was told, but Zhukov himself did not see it...

Everything would have been fine if other witnesses to the execution, and General Batitsky himself, had said the same thing everywhere. However, inconsistencies could have occurred due to negligence and from the literary fantasies of researchers, one of whom, the son of the revolutionary Antonov-Ovseenko, wrote this: “They executed a man sentenced to death in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters. They took off his tunic, leaving him with a white undershirt, tied his hands with a rope behind him and tied him to a hook driven into a wooden shield. This shield protected those present from bullet ricochets. Prosecutor Rudenko read out the verdict. Beria: “Let me tell you...” Rudenko: “You’ve already said everything.” (To the military): “Gag his mouth with a towel.” Moskalenko (to Yuferev): “You are our youngest, you shoot well. Let's". Batitsky: “Comrade Commander, allow me (takes out his “parabellum”). With this thing I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front.” Rudenko: “I ask you to carry out the sentence.” Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, the second Beria squinted, Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of his forehead. The body hung on the ropes. The execution took place in the presence of Marshal Konev and those military men who arrested and guarded Beria. They called the doctor... All that remained was to confirm the fact of death. Beria’s body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium.” In conclusion, Antonov-Ovseyenko paints a picture similar to horror films: supposedly, when the performers pushed Beria’s body into the flames of the crematorium and clung to the glass of the furnace, they were seized with fear - the body of their bloody boss on the fiery tray suddenly moved and gradually began to sit down... Later it turned out that that the service personnel “forgot” to cut the tendons, and they began to contract under the influence of high temperature. But at first it seemed to everyone that in the flames of hell the dead executioner came to life...

An interesting story. However, while reporting eerie physiological details, the narrator does not provide a link to any document. Where, for example, are the acts confirming the execution and burning of Beria? This is not an empty quibble, for if anyone read the act of execution, he could not help but notice that the obligatory doctor in such cases was not present at the execution of Beria, and did not at all testify to her... So the question arises: “Was there Is it Beria there? Or another one: “Or maybe the report was drawn up retroactively and without a doctor?” And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not coincide. To prove these words, I will cite the act of execution dated December 23, 1953.

“On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the order of the chairman of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953 N 003, by me, the commandant of the special judicial presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Actual State Counselor of Justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General Moskalenko K.S., the sentence of the special judicial presence was carried out in relation to Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment - execution.” Three signatures. And no more guarding generals (as Zhukov was told); no Konev, Yuferev, Zub, Baksov, Nedelin and Getman, and no doctor (as Antonov-Ovseenko was told).

These discrepancies could have been ignored if Beria’s son Sergo had not insisted that Shvernik, a member of that same court, told him personally: “I was part of the tribunal in the case of your father, but I never saw him.” Sergo was even more doubtful by the confession of court member Mikhailov: “Sergo, I don’t want to tell you about the details, but we didn’t see your father alive”... Mikhailov did not expand on how to evaluate this mysterious statement. Either an actor was put in the dock instead of Beria, or Beria himself changed beyond recognition during his arrest? It is possible that Beria could have doubles... This concerns the act of execution. Another act - cremation, as far as I know, no one saw at all, as well as the body of the person who was shot. Of course, with the exception of those three who signed the act. They signed it, but then what? Where are the Burial or Cremation Certificates? Who cremated? Who buried? It turns out, as in the song: and no one will know where your grave is... Indeed, no one has yet provided any evidence about the burial place of Beria, although the “grave accounting department” of the state security agencies has kept records in this regard in such a way that, if necessary, you can quickly get all the information.

Why was Malenkov silent?

I’ll start with the letters that the arrested Beria wrote to his former “associates.” There were several of them. And all of them, as far as I know, were written before the July Plenum, i.e. from June 26 to July 2. I've read some. Of greatest interest is, apparently, the very last letter addressed “To the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Pervukhin, Bulganin and Saburov,” i.e. those who made the decision to arrest. But before citing its text in full, it is necessary to make an explanation.

The vote on Beria's arrest was very tense and took place twice. The first time, according to Malenkov’s assistant D. Sukhanov, only Malenkov, Pervukhin and Saburov were in favor, while Khrushchev and Bulganin and, of course, Mikoyan abstained. Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Molotov were generally “against”. Moreover, Molotov allegedly stated that arresting one of the first leaders of the party, government and legislative branch without an arrest warrant is not only a violation of parliamentary immunity, but also of all major party and Soviet laws in general. However, when military men entered the meeting room with weapons and it was proposed to vote again, everyone immediately voted in favor, as if feeling that if they violated the “unanimity” required in such cases, then they too would be counted among Beria’s accomplices. Many are inclined to believe Sukhanov’s memories recorded years later, although we must not forget that he himself was outside the office in which the events took place. Therefore, I could only find out about what happened from hearsay. And most likely in the words of his master Malenkov, who did not really like his rivals in the struggle for the first place in power - Molotov, Khrushchev and Bulganin.

However, if you believe not Sukhanov, but the mentioned letter from Beria, then on the day of the arrest, whoever, but Malenkov and Khrushchev were more unanimous than ever. To see this, let’s read Beria’s downright screaming letter.

“Dear comrades, they can deal with me without trial or investigation, after 5 days of imprisonment, without a single interrogation, I beg you all, so that this is not allowed, I ask for immediate intervention, otherwise it will be too late. You need to warn us directly by phone...

Why do they do it the way they are doing now? They put us in the basement, and no one finds out or asks anything. Dear comrades, is the only and correct way to resolve without trial and clarify the case against a member of the Central Committee and his comrade after 5 days in the basement, to execute him. Once again I beg you all...

...I affirm that all charges will be dropped if you only want to investigate this. What a rush, and a suspicious one at that.

I ask T. Malenkov and Comrade Khrushchev not to persist. Would it be bad if she was rehabilitated?

Again and again I beg you to intervene and not to destroy your innocent old friend. Your Lavrentiy Beria."

Here's a letter. However, no matter how much Beria begged, exactly what he was madly afraid of happened...

Kaganovich spoke even more clearly: “...having eliminated this traitor Beria, we must completely restore Stalin’s legal rights...” And most definitely: “The Central Committee destroyed the adventurer Beria...” And that’s the point. You can't say more precisely.

Of course, these words of top officials can also be taken in a figurative sense. But why then did none of them even mention that at the upcoming investigation it was necessary to properly question Beria about all his dirty deeds? It is no coincidence, apparently, that none of them even hinted that Beria himself should have been brought to the Plenum, so that everyone could listen to his confessions and ask the accumulated questions, as, for example, Stalin did in relation to Bukharin. Most likely, they didn’t hint because there was no one to deliver... It’s also possible, however, that they were afraid that Beria would expose them and, first of all, his “old friends” Khrushchev and Malenkov...

Is this the reason why Malenkov was silent about the events of those years? Even his son Andrei laments that even after a third of a century his father preferred to avoid talking about this topic.

Special cuisine of the Kremlin

I have a good relationship with Gennady Nikolaevich Kolomentsev, the former head of the Kremlin Special Kitchen. The memories of the honorary (now deceased) security officer of the USSR helped correct many mistakes of researchers and historians, but one of his confessions makes us especially think.

It began with the fact that I told him a number of details about the arrest of Beria, which came from the already mentioned son of Antonov-Ovseenko, who, in particular, said that “Beria had to change his suit to a soldier’s uniform - a cotton tunic and trousers. Food was delivered to the arrested person from the garage of the Moscow Military District headquarters - a soldier’s ration, a soldier’s serving: a pot and an aluminum spoon...”

Hearing this, Kolomentsev literally exploded: “All this is nonsense! My people served Beria. So I saw him often. I didn't like him. Through his pince-nez, he had a kind of snake-like look... When he was arrested, we brought him food to Osipenko Street, to the bomb shelter bunker where he was sitting. They were afraid that there were people interested in poisoning him. All products were transported there under seal. A special waiter arrived with dishes. He feeds and leaves..."

—What did they feed Beria? - I ask. - Regular soldier's rations?

- Yes you! He was given a special menu in which he noted what he needed. Even after being arrested, Beria made up his own menu from the list that we offered him. And the list was not at the level of a soldier or officer, and not even at the level of a general, but even higher... Beria was shot there, in the dungeon. The only thing I saw - no... my deputy told me this - was how Beria’s corpse was carried out in a tarpaulin and loaded into a car. And where they burned him and buried him, I don’t know.”

It would seem that there is nothing special about this memory. However, in the memoirs of the military men who arrested and guarded Beria, it is categorically emphasized that in order to avoid organizing an escape, Beria’s former subordinates were not allowed anywhere near him (at least before the Plenum).

From this we can draw a logical conclusion: Kolomentsev was allowed to feed Beria only when it was no longer Beria who was sitting there in the bunker, but someone playing his role. Therefore, neither the possible escape of the double, nor his poisoning no longer worried the “old friends” and, above all, Malenkov and Khrushchev.

Lavrentiy Beria is one of the most odious famous politicians of the 20th century, whose activities are still widely discussed in the modern society. He was an extremely controversial personality in the history of the USSR and went through a long political path, filled with gigantic repressions of people and immense crimes, which made him the most outstanding “death functionary” in Soviet times. The head of the NKVD was a cunning and treacherous politician, on whose decisions the fate of entire nations depended. Beria carried out his activities under the patronage of the then current head of the USSR, after whose death he intended to take his place at the “helm” of the country. But he lost in the struggle for power and, by court decision, was shot as a traitor to the Motherland.

Beria Lavrenty Pavlovich was born on March 29, 1899 in the Abkhaz village of Merkheuli in the family of poor Mingrelian peasants Pavel Beria and Martha Jakeli. He was the third and only healthy child in the family - the elder brother of the future politician died of illness at the age of two, and his sister suffered a serious illness and became deaf and dumb. From childhood, young Lavrenty showed a great interest in education and a zeal for knowledge, which was atypical for peasant children. At the same time, the parents decided to give their son a chance to become educated, for which they had to sell half of the house in order to pay for the boy’s studies at the Sukhumi Higher Primary School.

Beria fully justified the hopes of his parents and proved that the money was not spent in vain - in 1915 he graduated from college with honors and entered the Baku Secondary Construction School. Having become a student, he moved his deaf-mute sister and mother to Baku, and in order to support them, along with his studies, he worked at the Nobel oil company. In 1919, Lavrenty Pavlovich received a diploma as a construction technician-architect.

During his studies, Beria organized the Bolshevik faction, in whose ranks he took an active part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, while working as a clerk at the Baku Caspian Partnership plant White City" He also led the illegal Communist Party of Technicians, with whose members he organized an armed uprising against the Georgian government, for which he was imprisoned.

In mid-1920, Beria was expelled from Georgia to Azerbaijan. But literally after a short period of time he was able to return to Baku, where he was assigned to do security work, which made him a secret agent of the Baku police. Even then, colleagues of the future head of the NKVD of the USSR noticed in him harshness and mercilessness towards people who dissented from him, which allowed Lavrenty Pavlovich to rapidly develop his career, starting from the deputy chairman of the Azerbaijani Cheka and ending with the position of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR.

Policy

At the end of the 1920s, the biography of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was focused on party work. It was then that he managed to meet the head of the USSR Joseph Stalin, who saw his comrade-in-arms in the revolutionary and showed visible favor to him, which many attribute to the fact that they were of the same nationality. In 1931, he became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Party, and already in 1935 he was elected a member of the Central Executive Committee and the Presidium of the USSR. In 1937, the politician reached another high step on the path to power and became the head of the Tbilisi City Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Having become the leader of the Bolsheviks in Georgia and Azerbaijan, Beria won the recognition of the people and his comrades, who at the end of each congress praised him, calling him “their favorite Stalinist leader.”

During that period, Lavrentiy Beria managed to develop the national economy of Georgia to a large scale; he made a great contribution to the development oil industry and commissioned many large industrial facilities, and transformed Georgia into an all-Union resort area. Under Beria Agriculture Georgia's volumes increased 2.5 times, and high prices were set for products (tangerines, grapes, tea), which made the Georgian economy the most prosperous in the country.

Real fame came to Lavrentiy Beria in 1938, when Stalin appointed him head of the NKVD, which made the politician the second-largest person in the country after the head. Historians claim that the politician earned such a high position thanks to his active support of the Stalinist repressions of 1936-38, when the Great Terror took place in the country, which included “cleansing” the country of “enemies of the people.” In those years, almost 700 thousand people lost their lives because they were subjected to political persecution due to disagreement with the current government.

Head of the NKVD

Having become the head of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrentiy Beria distributed leadership positions in the department to his associates from Georgia, thereby strengthening his influence on the Kremlin and Stalin. In his new post, he immediately carried out a large-scale repression of former security officers and carried out a total purge in the country’s leadership apparatus, becoming “ right hand"Stalin in all matters.

At the same time, it was Beria, according to most historical experts, who was able to put an end to large-scale Stalin's repressions, as well as the release from prison of many military and civil servants who were recognized as “unreasonably convicted.” Thanks to such actions, Beria gained a reputation as the person who restored “legality” in the USSR.

During the Great Patriotic War Beria became a member State Committee defense, in which at that time all power in the country was localized. Only he made the final decisions on the production of weapons, aircraft, mortars, engines, as well as on the formation and transfer of air regiments at the front. Responsible for the “military spirit” of the Red Army, Lavrenty Pavlovich used the so-called “weapons of fear”, resuming mass arrests and public death penalty for all soldiers and spies who are captured and do not want to fight. Historians attribute the victory in the Second World War largely to the harsh policies of the head of the NKVD, in whose hands the entire military-industrial potential of the country was located.

After the war, Beria began developing the nuclear potential of the USSR, but at the same time continued to carry out mass repressions in the countries allied to the USSR in the anti-Hitler coalition, where most of the male population was imprisoned in concentration camps and colonies (GULAG). It was these prisoners who were involved in military production, carried out under conditions of strict secrecy, which was ensured by the NKVD.

With the help of a team of nuclear physicists under the leadership of Beria and the coordinated work of intelligence officers, Moscow received clear instructions on the structure atomic bomb, created in the USA. First successful test nuclear weapons in the USSR was held in 1949 in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan, for which Lavrenty Pavlovich was awarded the Stalin Prize.

In 1946, Beria entered Stalin’s “inner circle” and became deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. A little later, the head of the USSR saw him as his main competitor, so Joseph Vissarionovich began to carry out a “purge” in Georgia and check Lavrenty Pavlovich’s documents, which complicated the relationship between them. In this regard, by the time of Stalin's death, Beria and several of his allies had created an unspoken alliance aimed at changing some of the foundations of Stalin's rule.

He tried to strengthen his position in power by signing a series of decrees aimed at introducing judicial reforms, a global amnesty and a ban on harsh interrogation methods with episodes of abuse of prisoners. Thus, he intended to create for himself new cult personality, the opposite of the Stalinist dictatorship. But, since he had practically no allies in the government, after Stalin’s death a conspiracy was organized against Beria, initiated by Nikita Khrushchev.

In July 1953, Lavrentiy Beria was arrested at a meeting of the Presidium. He was accused of connections with British intelligence and treason. This became one of the most high-profile cases in Russian history among members of the highest echelon of power of the Soviet state.

Death

The trial of Lavrenty Beria took place from December 18 to 23, 1953. He was convicted by a “special tribunal” without the right to defense or appeal. Specific charges in the case of the former head of the NKVD were a number of illegal murders, espionage for Great Britain, repressions of 1937, rapprochement with, treason.

On December 23, 1953, Beria was shot by decision of the Supreme Court of the USSR in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. After the execution, Lavrenty Pavlovich’s body was burned in the Donskoy crematorium, and the ashes of the revolutionary were buried in the New Donskoy cemetery.

According to historians, Beria’s death allowed everyone to breathe a sigh of relief to the Soviet people, which is up last day considered the politician bloody dictator and a tyrant. And in modern society he is accused of mass repressions of more than 200 thousand people, which included a number of Russian scientists and prominent intellectuals of that time. Lavrenty Pavlovich is also credited with a number of execution orders Soviet soldiers, which during the war years only played into the hands of the enemies of the USSR.

In 1941, the former head of the NKVD carried out the “extermination” of all anti-Soviet figures, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, including women and children. During the war years, he carried out the total deportation of the peoples of Crimea and North Caucasus, the scale of which reached a million people. That is why Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria became the most controversial political figure in the USSR, in whose hands was the power over the destinies of the people.

Personal life

The personal life of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria is still a separate topic that requires serious study. He was officially married to Nina Gegechkori, who bore him a son in 1924. The wife of the ex-head of the NKVD throughout his life supported her husband in his difficult activities and was the most devoted friend, whom she tried to justify even after his death.

Throughout its political activity At the heights of power, Lavrenty Pavlovich was known as a “Kremlin rapist” with an unbridled passion for the fair sex. Beria and his women are still considered the most mysterious part of the life of a prominent political figure. There is information that last years he lived in two families - his common-law wife was Lyalya Drozdova, who gave birth to his illegitimate daughter Marta.

At the same time, historians do not rule out that Beria had a sick psyche and was a pervert. This is confirmed by the politician’s “lists of sexual victims,” the presence of which was recognized in the Russian Federation in 2003. It is reported that the number of victims of the maniac Beria is more than 750 girls whom he raped using sadistic methods.

Historians say that very often the head of the NKVD sexually harassed schoolgirls 14-15 years old, whom he imprisoned in soundproof interrogation rooms at Lubyanka, where he subjected them to sexual perversion. During interrogation, Beria admitted that he had physical sexual relations with 62 women, and since 1943 he suffered from syphilis, which he contracted from a seventh-grader in one of the schools near Moscow. Also in his safe, during the search, items of women's underwear and children's dresses were found, which were stored next to items characteristic of perverts.

Source-Wikipedia

Beria's case

“The Beria Case” is a criminal case initiated in 1953 against Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria after his removal from all party and government posts. As a result of this case, he was shot in December 1953 by court verdict and has not yet been rehabilitated, although most of the accusations are disputed by historians and lawyers. The materials of Beria’s criminal case themselves are classified, but despite this, significant fragments of this case were published in the Russian and foreign press.
In 1953, after the death of Stalin, L.P. Beria became one of the main contenders for power in the country. In fact, the country was led by the Malenkov-Beria tandem: at the same time, the first person, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Malenkov, as noted by many researchers, for example, Roy and Zhores Medvedev, did not possess the necessary qualities of a leader (and was soon pushed out of power by Khrushchev).
The ambitious Beria, having headed the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, started whole line reforms. Among them, which were later successfully continued:
- termination of the doctors’ case and the Mingrelian case;
- mass amnesty for prisoners;
- prohibition of “measures of physical coercion” (torture) during interrogations (April 4, 1953);
- the first rehabilitation of those illegally repressed under Stalin;
- restriction of the rights of the Special Meeting under the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (it was finally abolished on September 1, 1953);
- transfer of construction departments from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to other ministries;
- cessation of a number of large-scale construction projects, including hydraulic engineering ones.
Beria’s proposals seemed too radical for his colleagues on the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee:
- to curtail the construction of socialism in the GDR and the unification of Germany;
- on the elimination of party control over economic activities;
- on the appointment of representatives of indigenous nationalities to the posts of leaders of Soviet republics;
- on the creation of national army units;
- on the ban on demonstrators wearing portraits of party and government leaders (the corresponding decree was issued on May 9, 1953);
- on the abolition of passport restrictions.
All this led to a conspiracy against Beria and his removal from power.
Deposition and arrest of Beria
On June 26, 1953, the case of the former Minister of State Security S. Ignatiev was supposed to be discussed at a meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. However, it became known that he had fallen ill the day before and could not attend the meeting. The meeting was devoted to criticism of Beria, which the members of the Presidium agreed on in advance. According to Molotov’s recollections, the discussion lasted two and a half hours. After the meeting, the criticized Beria was arrested. According to Khrushchev, Beria was arrested by Zhukov, but Zhukov himself does not confirm this version. He was arrested, apparently, by General Moskalenko and the people accompanying him, whom the Kremlin commandant let through, having instructions from Malenkov and Khrushchev. Then Beria was transported to the Moscow garrison guardhouse "Aleshinsky Barracks". Beria's arrest was accompanied by army cover: the Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya divisions were raised on alarm and brought into Moscow. On June 27, Beria was transported to the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District.
Main charges
On the day of Beria’s arrest, June 26, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR “On the criminal anti-state actions of Beria” was issued, signed by Voroshilov and Secretary Pegov. The decree stated “the criminal anti-state actions of L.P. Beria, aimed at undermining the Soviet state in the interests of foreign capital.” By this decree, Beria was deprived of his powers as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, removed from the posts of Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and from the post of Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, and also deprived of all titles and awards. The last paragraph of the decree decided to immediately transfer Beria’s case to the Supreme Court of the USSR (that is, even before the investigation).
On July 2, 1953, at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Beria was formally removed from the Presidium and the Central Committee and expelled from the CPSU. The main accusation was that Beria allegedly tried to place the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the party. The speeches were accompanied by the epithets “bourgeois degenerate”, “scum”, “adventurer”, “scoundrel”, “scoundrel”, “corrupt skin”, “fascist conspirator” (Kaganovich), “pygmy, bug” (Malenkov), etc. Only then Information about the arrest and removal of Beria appeared in Soviet newspapers and caused a great public outcry.
The resolution of Prosecutor General Rudenko dated July 3, 1953 on the detention of Beria indicated that he created an anti-Soviet conspiracy to seize power, wanted to place the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the party and government, planned the liquidation of the Soviet system and the restoration of capitalism. The charge was brought under Articles 58-1 "b" and 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
On July 7, 1953, based on the results of the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, a resolution was adopted “On Beria’s criminal anti-party and anti-state actions.” An information message about the plenum was published in the Pravda newspaper on July 10, and then in all other newspapers. So Beria was recognized as a criminal before any investigation or trial.
Portraits of Beria were removed from everywhere, and subscribers of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia received a recommendation to remove pages 22 and 23 from volume 2, which outlined Beria’s biography.
Accused
Together with Beria, people from his inner circle were arrested and charged as accomplices: V. Merkulov (Minister of State Control of the USSR), B. Kobulov (Beria’s first deputy in the Ministry of Internal Affairs), S. Goglidze (chief of military counterintelligence), V. Dekanozov (Minister of Internal Affairs Affairs of Georgia), P. Meshik (Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine) and L. Vlodzimirsky (head of the investigative unit for particularly important cases).
Beria's son and wife were also arrested and charged under Article 58 (they were released in 1954).
In parallel with the Beria case, many other cases were conducted against employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, hundreds of people were fired.

Progress of the investigation
The investigation was entrusted to the newly appointed Prosecutor General Rudenko.
At the very first interrogation on July 8, Beria was accused of anti-Soviet conspiratorial activities; he did not admit his guilt. Experienced investigators, according to lawyer Andrei Sukhomlinov, author of a book about the Beria case, understood that the main accusation would not be mythical anti-Soviet activity, but specific malfeasance, and therefore tried to prove as many facts as possible characterizing such.
An important fact in the Beria case was the existence of Professor Mayranovsky’s toxicology laboratory, where poisons were tested on people (Mayranovsky himself was arrested back in 1951 in the JAC case).
Investigators paid a lot of attention to the period of Beria’s activities in leadership positions in Georgia and Transcaucasia. Beria was blamed for the repressions carried out there in 1937, one of the organizers of which was Beria.
Beria and his entourage were also charged with the murder of the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative in China I.T. Bovkun-Lugants and his wife in 1939, the execution without trial in 1940 of the wife of Marshal G.I. Kulik - Simonich-Kulik K.I., the execution of a group of 25 people imprisoned in 1941 in Kuibyshev, Saratov and Tambov.
Contrary to rumors about mass rape Beria, the case contains only one statement of rape, which Beria allegedly carried out in 1949. The statement came from his constant mistress Beria Drozdova, with whom he had an illegitimate child. Apparently, this statement was written under pressure from the investigation.

Trial
Beria and his associates were tried in December 1953 by a special judicial presence. The trial took place without the participation of the prosecutor and lawyers, according to a special procedure developed back in 1934 in connection with the murder of Kirov. In accordance with this procedure, cassation appeals and petitions for pardon were not allowed, and the sentence to capital punishment was carried out immediately.
Contrary to the rules, eight people participated in the judicial presence, not three. Moreover, of the eight judges, only two were professional judges: E. L. Zeidin and L. A. Gromov, the rest, in a sense, represented the public: the army was represented by commanders I. S. Konev and K. S. Moskalenko, the party - N. A. Mikhailov, trade unions - N. M. Shvernik, Ministry of Internal Affairs - K. F. Lunev, Georgia - M. I. Kuchava.
The trial began on December 18. The indictment was read out, the accused were heard, then the witnesses.
Beria was the last of the accused to be interrogated. He pleaded not guilty. Regarding the repressions of 1937, he said that then a wave of struggle against the “right-wing Trotskyist underground” took place in the country, and this led to “great excesses, perversions and outright crimes.”
According to Beria, he was not a traitor or a conspirator; he had no intention of seizing power. Regarding the murders, in particular Bovkun-Lugants and his wife, Beria said that there was “an order from the authorities” (it is not clear who he means - Stalin, Molotov, the government or the Politburo).
In his last word, Beria admitted guilt that he hid his service in the Musatist counterintelligence, but stated that while in service there, he did not do anything harmful. Beria also admitted “moral and everyday decay” and his connection with Drozdova, but did not admit the fact of rape. Beria confirmed his responsibility for the “excesses” in 1937-1938, explaining them by the situation at that time. Beria did not admit the counter-revolutionary charges. He also rejected the accusation of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the war.
On December 23, 1953, the guilty verdict was read out.
All the accused were found guilty of numerous crimes and called a “group of conspirators” who planned to seize power, eliminate the Soviet system and restore capitalism.
Of the specific charges in the verdict, the following are noted:
- murder of the old Bolshevik M. S. Kedrov;
- extortion of false testimony from arrested persons under torture in the cases of Belakhov, Slezberg and others;
- execution of 25 prisoners in 1941;
- inhumane testing of poisons on prisoners sentenced to capital punishment;
- arrest, accusation of crimes and execution of relatives of Sergo Ordzhonikidze.
A number of episodes are blamed on Beria and are classified as treason:
- Beria’s service in the Musavatist counterintelligence in Azerbaijan in 1919;
- connection in 1920 with the secret police of the Menshevik Georgian government;
- an attempt in 1941 to establish contact with Hitler through the Bulgarian ambassador Stamenov and cede a significant part of the USSR territory to Germany in order to conclude a peace agreement;
- an attempt to open the passes through the Main Caucasus Range to the enemy in 1942;
- an attempt in May-June 1953 to establish a personal secret connection with Tito-Rankovic in Yugoslavia.
Beria is accused of “cohabitation with numerous women, including those associated with foreign intelligence services,” as well as the rape of 16-year-old schoolgirl V. S. Drozdova on May 7, 1949.
For some reason, the episodes with the murder of Bovkun-Luganets and his wife, as well as the abduction and execution of Marshal Kulik’s wife, were not included in the verdict.
All defendants were sentenced to death with confiscation of property. On his own initiative, the first shot was fired from a personal weapon by Colonel General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P. F. Batitsky. Brief message about the trial of Beria and the people around him appeared in the Soviet press.
Currently, the overwhelming majority of qualified lawyers, including the former chief military prosecutor Katusev, believe that the charge of Beria with treason (Article 58-1 "b" of the then Criminal Code of the RSFSR) in the form of espionage is absurd. The maximum that could be charged against Beria and other participants in that process is malfeasance.

Assessments of the Beria case
A small book, “Memo to the Russian Man,” was published abroad in 1979, the author of which, General Yu. M. Larikov (under the pseudonym V. Ushkuynik), among other things, welcomed the murder of Beria, positioning him as a Jewish conspirator. The book was first published in Russia in 1993.
Opposition politician and publicist Yuri Mukhin, in his discussion book “The Murder of Stalin and Beria,” evaluates the removal and destruction of Beria as a victory for the party apparatus, headed by Khrushchev, in the struggle for power. According to Mukhin’s interpretation, the late Stalin, as well as Beria in 1953, tried to limit the power of the party apparatus and the CPSU in the country (according to historian Yuri Zhukov and the Predsovminmin of the USSR, Malenkov, who headed the country immediately after Stalin’s death, was an active supporter of limiting the power of the party), but this line ended up crashing.

Denial of rehabilitation
The criminal case of Beria and others was considered on May 29, 2000 in the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in an open court session. The actions of Beria’s “accomplices” - Dekanozov, Meshik and Vlodzimirsky were reclassified and regarded as “abuse of power in the presence of especially aggravating circumstances”, and the sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison for each. The verdict against Beria, Merkulov, Goglidze and Kobulov was left unchanged, and they were not recognized as victims of political repression, so all of them are still formally considered spies and traitors to the motherland.
It is assumed that the refusal to rehabilitate Beria, Merkulov and Kobulov is due to the fact that they are officially considered one of the culprits

Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria 2nd Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR March 5, 1953 - June 26, 1953 3rd People's Commissar Internal Affairs of the USSR November 25, 1938 - December 29, 1945 Prime Minister: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin Predecessor: Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 6th First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Georgian SSR November 14, 1931 - August 31, 1938 Predecessor: Lavrentiy Iosifovich Kartvelishvili Party: RSDLP ( b) (March? 1917), RCP (b) (March 1918), All-Union Communist Party (b) (1925), CPSU (1952) Education: Baku Polytechnic Institute Birth: March 17 (29), 1899 Merkheuli, Gumistinsky district, Sukhumi district, Kutaisi province, Russian Empire Death: December 23, 1953 (54 years old) Moscow, RSFSR, USSR Father: Pavel Khukhaevich Beria Mother: Marta Vissarionovna Jakeli Spouse: Nino Teymurazovna Gegechkori Children: son: Sergo Military service Years of service: 1938-1953 Rank: Marshal Soviet Union Commanded by: Head of the GUGB NKVD USSR (1938) People's Commissar of the USSR Internal Affairs (1938-1945) Member of the State Defense Committee (1941-1944) Battles: Great Patriotic War Awards: Hero of Socialist Labor Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of Lenin Order of the Red Banner Order Red Banner Order of the Red Banner Order of Suvorov, 1st degree Order of Sukhbaatar Stalin Prize Stalin Prize Member of the USSR Armed Forces Deprived of all ranks and awards by court verdict shortly after the execution. Soviet state and political figure, General Commissioner of State Security (1941), Marshal of the Soviet Union (since 1945), Hero of Socialist Labor (since 1943). Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946-1953), First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1953). Member of the USSR State Defense Committee (1941-1944), deputy chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee (1944-1945). Member of the USSR Central Executive Committee of the 7th convocation, deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations. Member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (1934-1953), candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee (1939-1946), member of the Politburo (1946-1953). He was part of J.V. Stalin's inner circle. Supervised a number the most important industries defense industry, including all developments related to the creation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. After Stalin's death, in June 1953, L.P. Beria was arrested on charges of espionage and conspiracy to seize power. Executed by the verdict of the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR in December 1953. The last secret of Lavrentiy Beria He was shot 60 years ago. But no one still knows where the grave of the bloody People's Commissar is. According to official data, L.P. Beria was arrested on June 26, 1953 in the Kremlin and in the same year on December 23, by a court verdict, he was executed in an underground bunker in the courtyard of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. However, as archives show, official data from those years too often diverges from reality. Therefore, other versions circulating in the form of rumors also attract attention. Two of them are especially sensational... The first suggests that Beria somehow managed not to fall into the trap of a conspiracy prepared against him or even escape from the arrest that had already happened and hide in Latin America, where after 1945 almost all Nazis fled criminals. And thus he was able to stay alive for the time being... The second says that during the arrest of Beria, he and his guard resisted and were killed. They even name the author of the fatal shot, namely Khrushchev... There are those who say that the pre-trial execution took place in the already mentioned bunker almost immediately after the arrest in the Kremlin. And this rumor unexpectedly received confirmation. In the archives of Old Square, I discovered documents personally endorsed by Khrushchev and Kaganovich. According to them, Beria was liquidated even before the July 1953 Emergency Plenum of the Central Committee, convened on the occasion of exposing the criminal activities of the sinister man in the pince-nez... Where is the main enemy of the people buried? My colleagues - researchers N. Zenkovich and S. Gribanov, with whom we periodically call each other to exchange information - have collected a number of documented facts about the fate of Beria after the news of his arrest. But especially valuable evidence on this matter was discovered by the Hero of the Soviet Union, intelligence officer and former head of writers of the USSR Vladimir Karpov. Studying the life of Marshal Zhukov, he put an end to the dispute: did Zhukov participate in the arrest of Beria? The secret, handwritten memoirs of the marshal he found say directly: he not only participated, but also led the capture group. So the statement of Beria’s son Sergo that Zhukov has nothing to do with his father’s arrest is untrue! The last find turns out to be important also because it refutes the rumor about Nikita Sergeevich’s heroic shot during the detention of the all-powerful Minister of Internal Affairs and State Security. What happened after the arrest, Zhukov personally did not see and therefore wrote what he learned from hearsay, namely: “In the future, I did not take part either in the security, or in the investigation, or in the trial. After the trial, Beria was shot by the same who was guarding him. During the execution, Beria behaved very badly, like the very last coward, cried hysterically, knelt down and, finally, soiled himself all over. In a word, he lived disgustingly and died even more disgustingly.” Note: this is what Zhukov was told, but Zhukov himself did not see it... But this is what, as they say, S. Gribanov managed to learn first-hand from the real author of the bullet for the main enemy of the people, the then Colonel General P.F. Batitsky: “We took Beria down the stairs into the dungeon. He obliterated... Stink. Then I shot him like a dog.” Everything would have been fine if other witnesses to the execution, and General Batitsky himself, had said the same thing everywhere. However, inconsistencies could have occurred due to negligence and from the literary fantasies of researchers, one of whom, the son of revolutionary Antonov Ovseenko, wrote this: “They executed a man sentenced to death in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters. They took off his tunic, leaving a white undershirt, and tied his hands with a rope behind him and tied to a hook driven into a wooden shield. This shield protected those present from the ricochet of a bullet. Prosecutor Rudenko read out the verdict. ". Moskalenko (to Yuferev): "You are our youngest, you shoot well. Come on." Batitsky: "Comrade commander, allow me (takes out his parabellum). With this thing, I sent more than one scoundrel to the next world at the front." Rudenko: "Please carry out the sentence." Batitsky raised his hand. A wildly bulging eye flashed above the bandage, Beria squinted the other, Batitsky pulled the trigger, the bullet hit the middle of his forehead. The body hung on ropes. The execution took place in the presence of Marshal Konev and those military men who arrested and guarded Beria. They called a doctor... It remained to confirm the fact of death. Beria’s body was wrapped in canvas and sent to the crematorium.” In conclusion, Antonov-Ovseyenko paints a picture similar to horror films: supposedly, when the performers pushed Beria’s body into the flames of the crematorium and clung to the glass of the furnace, they were seized with fear - the body of their bloody boss on the fiery tray suddenly moved and gradually began to sit down. .. Later it turned out that the service personnel “forgot” to cut the tendons, and they began to contract under the influence of high temperature. But at first it seemed to everyone that in the flames of hell the dead executioner came to life... An interesting story. However, while reporting eerie physiological details, the narrator does not provide a link to any document. Where, for example, are the acts confirming the execution and burning of Beria? This is not an empty quibble, for if anyone read the act of execution, they could not help but notice that the doctor required in such cases was not present at the execution of Beria, and did not at all testify to her... So the question arises: “A Was it Beria who was there? Or another one: “Or maybe the report was drawn up retroactively and without a doctor?” And the lists of those present at the execution published by different authors do not coincide. To prove these words, I will cite the act of execution dated December 23, 1953. “On this date at 19:50, on the basis of the order of the chairman of the special judicial presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated December 23, 1953 N 003, by me, the commandant of the special judicial presence, Colonel General Batitsky P.F., in the presence of the Prosecutor General of the USSR, the actual state counselor of justice Rudenko R.A. and Army General Moskalenko K.S., the sentence of the special judicial presence was carried out in relation to Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, sentenced to capital punishment. Three signatures. And no more guarding generals (as Zhukov was told); no Konev, Yuferev, Zub, Baksov, Nedelin and Getman, and no doctor (as Antonov-Ovseenko was told). These discrepancies could have been ignored if Beria’s son Sergo had not insisted that a member of that same court, Shvernik, told him personally: “I was part of the tribunal in the case of your father, but I never saw him.” Sergo was even more doubtful by the confession of court member Mikhailov: “Sergo, I don’t want to tell you about the details, but we didn’t see your father alive”... Mikhailov did not expand on how to evaluate this mysterious statement. Either an actor was put in the dock instead of Beria, or Beria himself changed beyond recognition during his arrest? It is possible that Beria could have doubles... This concerns the act of execution. Another act - cremation, as far as I know, no one saw at all, as well as the body of the person who was shot. Of course, with the exception of those three who signed the act. They signed it, but then what? Where are the Burial or Cremation Certificates? Who cremated? Who buried? It turns out like in the song: and no one will know where your grave is... Indeed, no one has yet provided any evidence about the burial place of Beria, although the “grave accounting department” of the state security agencies has kept records in this regard in such a way that, if necessary, you can quickly get all the information. Why was Malenkov silent? I’ll start with the letters that the arrested Beria wrote to his former “associates”. There were several of them. And all of them, as far as I know, were written before the July Plenum, i.e. from June 26 to July 2. I've read some. Of greatest interest is, apparently, the very last letter addressed “To the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, Pervukhin, Bulganin and Saburov,” i.e. those who made the decision to arrest. But before citing its text in full, it is necessary to make an explanation. The vote on Beria's arrest was very tense and took place twice. The first time, according to Malenkov’s assistant D. Sukhanov, only Malenkov, Pervukhin and Saburov were in favor, while Khrushchev and Bulganin and, of course, Mikoyan abstained. Voroshilov, Kaganovich and Molotov were generally “against”. Moreover, Molotov allegedly stated that arresting one of the first leaders of the party, government and legislative branch without an arrest warrant is not only a violation of parliamentary immunity, but also of all major party and Soviet laws in general. However, when military men entered the meeting room with weapons and it was proposed to vote again, everyone immediately voted in favor, as if feeling that if they violated the “unanimity” required in such cases, then they too would be counted among Beria’s accomplices. Many are inclined to believe Sukhanov’s memories recorded years later, although we must not forget that he himself was outside the office in which the events took place. Therefore, I could only find out about what happened from hearsay. And most likely in the words of his master Malenkov, who did not really like his rivals in the struggle for first place in power - Molotov, Khrushchev and Bulganin. However, if you believe not Sukhanov, but the mentioned letter from Beria, then on the day of the arrest, whoever, but Malenkov and Khrushchev were more unanimous than ever. To see this, let’s read Beria’s downright screaming letter. “Dear comrades, they can deal with me without trial or investigation, after 5 days of imprisonment, without a single interrogation, I beg you all, so that this is not allowed, I ask for immediate intervention, otherwise it will be too late. You need to warn them directly over the phone... Why do things the way they are now done, they put you in the basement, and no one finds out or asks anything. Dear comrades, is the only and correct way to resolve without trial and clarify the case against a member of the Central Committee and his comrade after 5 days in the basement, to execute him. Once again I beg you all... ...I affirm that all charges will be dropped if you only want to investigate this. What a rush, and a suspicious one at that. I ask T. Malenkov and Comrade Khrushchev not to persist. Would it be bad if she was rehabilitated? Again and again I beg you to intervene and not to destroy your innocent old friend. Your Lavrentiy Beria." Here is such a letter. However, no matter how Beria begged, exactly what he was madly afraid of happened... At the closed Plenum, which took place from July 2 to July 7, 1953, the following words were heard in numerous accusatory speeches: which then, in the general turmoil and victorious euphoria, no one (!) paid attention to. Khrushchev was the first to let it slip, getting into the excitement of telling how they cleverly dealt with Beria, he suddenly blurted out, among other enthusiastic phrases: “Beria... let go of his spirit.” Kaganovich spoke even more definitely: “... having eliminated this traitor Beria, we must completely restore Stalin’s legal rights...” And most definitely: “The Central Committee destroyed the adventurer Beria...” And that’s the point, of course. The words of the top officials can also be taken in a figurative sense. But why then did none of them even mention that at the upcoming investigation it was necessary to properly question Beria about all his dirty deeds? It is no coincidence that, apparently, none of them even hinted that it was necessary? Beria himself should be brought to the Plenum so that everyone could listen to his confessions and ask accumulated questions, as, for example, Stalin did in relation to Bukharin. Most likely they didn’t hint because there was no one to deliver... It is possible, however, that something else happened: they were afraid that Beria would expose them and, first of all, his “old friends” Khrushchev and Malenkov... So, we established that Beria wrote letters from June 26 to July 2, the Plenum took place from July 2 to July 7, and the “statements” of Khrushchev and Kaganovich about the liquidation of Beria were made in the general turmoil and victorious euphoria, then we can assume that Beria was executed within 2 -July 6, and the executor of the sentence was Colonel General P.F. Batitsky. Nikolai Dobryukha "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" - Week No. 3370 12/20/2003, 03:50