120 years ago, on March 29, 1899, Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was born. Future Marshal of the Soviet Union, Hero of Socialist Labor, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (since 1946 of the Council of Ministers), curator of the missile and nuclear programs of the USSR. Thanks to Beria, the USSR became a nuclear and missile superpower. However, it is difficult to find a person in the history of Russia who would have been poured with so much dirt.
The future Soviet Marshal and Stalinist People's Commissar was born into a poor peasant family. Lavrenty was gifted by nature, he graduated from the Sukhum primary school and the Baku secondary mechanical-technical construction school. Received a diploma of a technician-builder-architect. From a young age he worked, supported his mother and sister. He began his studies at the Baku Polytechnic Institute, but did not complete the course. He became interested in Marxism, in 1917 he became a member of the Bolshevik Party. As a technician, he took part in the World War, served on the Romanian front, was discharged due to illness and returned to Baku, where he returned to revolutionary activities.
After the defeat of the Baku commune and the capture of the city by the Turkish army, he remained in the city and became an underground member. Beria joined the ranks of the Azerbaijani counterintelligence, and at the same time remained a Bolshevik, passed the information received to the headquarters of the Southern Front of the Red Army in Tsaritsyn. After the restoration of Soviet power in Baku in 1920, he was sent to an illegal position in Georgia. However, he was arrested and deported.
In 1921-1931. served in the state security agencies in the Transcaucasus. He fought against the then "fifth column" - the Dashnaks, Musavatists, Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, agents of foreign special services, etc. Also, a hard struggle had to be waged with the bandits. The revolution, the collapse of the Russian Empire and the Civil War triggered a powerful criminal revolution. Transcaucasia was engulfed in rampant banditry, political and criminal. And from abroad, gangs, in particular, Kurdish, raided. People could not live and work in peace, their lives and property were constantly in danger. By the beginning of the 1930s, they were able to restore order at the border. This was also the merit of Lavrenty Pavlovich. For the fight against counter-revolution and banditry in 1923, Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the Georgian Republic, and in 1924 he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of the USSR.
From the late 1920s to 1938, Lavrenty Pavlovich switched to party work - first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, first secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR. He proved himself to be an excellent manager in this area. At this time, the economy of the previously backward outskirts of Russia was developing rapidly. Beria was a real technocrat manager. He paid great attention to the development of the oil industry, metallurgy, coal and manganese mining. Industrialization was underway in the Transcaucasus, many industrial facilities were opened. The agrarian sector also developed at a significant pace. In Georgia, a huge work was done to drain the swamps, which significantly increased the area for agricultural crops and turned the republic into an all-Union resort zone. The region also became a place for the cultivation of subtropical crops, unique for Russia-USSR. This is how the famous tangerines of Abkhazia appeared during the years of Beria's leadership. Gardens with citrus fruits appeared in Transcaucasia, tea, grapes, and various industrial crops were also actively grown. This made it possible to dramatically raise the standard of living of the local peasantry. For example, during the Great Patriotic War, when in many regions of the USSR they were starving (especially in the lands occupied by the Nazis) or lived from hand to mouth, there was no shortage of food in Transcaucasia. In addition, construction was actively going on in the Caucasus, social and cultural infrastructure was developing. All this led to a rapid demographic growth of the local population.
Thus, Transcaucasia was raised to a fairly high level of civilization precisely during the Soviet period, although now local Nazis prefer not to remember this, and lie about the "Russian-Soviet occupation", "Russian violence and plunder", their colonial policy.
As a party leader, Lavrenty Pavlovich fought against such local phenomena as socialism with "Caucasian specifics" - group, tribal interests were placed above national and all-Union interests. Beria cleansed and rehabilitated the local party organization, cut short the ambitions of the local "princes and khans." At the same time, in his personal life, Lawrence was a simple man, he did not strive for luxury. He was a well-educated person, an intellectual.
In the summer of 1938, Beria became the first deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR N. I. Yezhov, in November - the head of the NKVD. He held this post until December 1945. Within the framework of the Khrushchev and then liberal myth, Beria became the main executioner of the Stalinist regime. However, this is a deception. Lavrenty Pavlovich has nothing to do with organizing mass repressions in 1936-1937, since at that time he worked in the Caucasus. That is, when decisions on repressions were made, he was at party work in the Transcaucasus. And Beria received the right to vote in the Politburo only in 1946, and before that (since 1939, he was only a candidate. Beria was able to participate in the development of a political course only since 1946.
Nor was he a "bloody executioner and maniac" as the Liberal Democrats portray him. G. Yagoda (head of the NKVD in 1934-1935) and N. Yezhov (head of the NKVD in 1936-1938) were responsible for the mass repressions. On the contrary, Stalin assigned Beria to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in order to stop the disintegration of the state security organs, to stop the flywheel of repression that touched many innocent people. Trotskyists Yagoda and Yezhov, "fiery revolutionaries" who were still in large numbers in the security agencies, used the fight against the "fifth column", which was the reality of that time, to cause social discontent, discredit the Stalinist government and its course. That is, to create conditions for a coup d'etat in the conditions of the impending great war of the West against the USSR. Hence the scale of the repression. In addition, Yezhov suppressed the activities of intelligence and counterintelligence, which was extremely dangerous in the face of the approaching big war. He was mentally "reborn", concentrated enormous power in his hands, felt like a "god", became dangerous for the Soviet regime and the people.
Beria was supposed to put things in order in the NKVD and brought it about. With his arrival, the scale of repression has sharply decreased. A tremendous amount of work was done on those already convicted, and in 1939 - 1940 the cases were revised. many of those who had not been convicted in the cases of 1937-1938 were released, large-scale amnesties were carried out for those already convicted. At the same time, a purge of the security agencies themselves was carried out, many of the active organizers of the repressions themselves were repressed. The executioners Yagoda and Yezhov were convicted and executed. An operation was organized to eliminate Trotsky, the ideological leader of the "fifth column" in the USSR, whom the masters of the West planned to make the new leader of the USSR-Russia.
Thus, under the leadership of Beria, socialist justice was restored in the USSR, and many active members of the "fifth column" were destroyed, which was supposed to strike the country during the West's aggression against the Union. The successful fight against the "fifth column" became one of the main factors in the victory of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War
Lavrenty Pavlovich also contributed to the overall Great Victory as the head of foreign intelligence. The new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs quickly put an end to the outrage that was going on in intelligence under Yezhov (external and military intelligence was literally destroyed). Under his leadership in 1939 - 1940. was restored and created a new excellent network of Soviet agents in the West and Japan. This helped to win the world war and to get many of the enemy's secrets (including the atomic project).
Also, the head of the NKVD played a large role in the development of the border troops, which during the war showed themselves as elite units of the Soviet armed forces. The border guards were the first to meet the enemy and, unlike the army, passed the terrible exam at the beginning of the Great War. Then they became the elite of the Soviet army, performing intelligence, counterintelligence and special functions to maintain order and discipline in the troops, and protect the rear. So, the troops of the NKVD did not allow the Germans to organize sabotage activities in the rear of the Soviet troops, provided reliable protection for the rear of the army, industry and communications, and successfully fought the bandits. The NKVD troops also fought successfully on the front line.
During the Great Patriotic War, Beria continued to be the head of the NKVD, as a member of the State Defense Committee (GKO), he oversaw the work of the oil and timber industry, the production of non-ferrous metals and the river fleet. Work of the People's Commissariat of the Coal Industry and Ways of Communication. He also supervised the implementation of GKO decisions on the most important industries - aircraft, engines, weapons. Lavrenty Pavlovich was one of the leaders of a unique operation to evacuate the USSR industry, strategic reserves, cultural and scientific institutions to the east of the country. In May 1944, Beria was appointed Deputy Chairman of the State Defense Committee and Chairman of the Operations Bureau (OB). OB controlled the work of key sectors of the USSR economy. In 1943, Beria's merits were noted by conferring the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. Thus, Beria was one of the leaders and organizers of the successful and effective work of the rear during the war.
In fact, it was the war that made Lavrenty Pavlovich the second person in the USSR. At a critical moment, he showed himself as "the best manager of the 20th century." Beria oversaw key sectors of the USSR that brought victory to the country and made it a world superpower - state security, the military-industrial complex, and breakthrough scientific projects. Lavrenty Beria organized the nuclear industry practically from scratch, in fact becoming the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb." His analytical mind, energy, organizational skills and will combined the best "brains" (scientists, engineers) with talented management. Allowed to concentrate all the necessary resources on this project. As a result, the USSR did what was considered impossible in the West! We gave the country a nuclear shield! Thanks to this, several generations of Soviet and Russian citizens lived in safety, the West and NATO could not attack Russia like Hitler.
Beria became the organizer of a number of other key research projects: the Kometa cruise missile, the Berkut air defense system, and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). This allowed the Soviet Union to become the world leader in space and rocket technologies. To create a powerful air defense system, when the country did not yet have nuclear weapons and their carriers, and the military of the West made plans to bomb the USSR, including atomic ones, to destroy our country. Thus, Stalin and Beria stood at the origins of the USSR's space-nuclear might.
Thus, Lavrenty Pavlovich has come an amazing way - from a poor peasant to a Soviet marshal, "the father of the atomic bomb", a man who is called "the best manager of the XX century."Beria deservedly became the second person in the Soviet empire after Joseph Stalin. The enemies of Soviet civilization, after the murder of Beria, created a black myth "about the bloody executioner of Stalin." He was slandered, hung with many accusations, creating the image of a maniac executioner and even a sexual pervert.
However, modern objective research, for example, the work of S. Kremlev “Beria. The best manager of the XX century "; "12 victories of Lavrenty Beria"; Yu. Mukhin "The Murder of Stalin and Beria", "USSR named after Beria"; A. Martirosyan "One hundred myths about Beria", prove that Lavrenty Beria was not an executioner and a traitor. He, like many other associates of Stalin, was an excellent manager, creator and statesman who devoted his entire life and energy to the creation of the Soviet superpower.
Vile lies about Beria, as well as about Stalin, were invented and put into motion under Khrushchev. It was necessary to destroy the Stalinist project, to carry out de-Stalinization. Therefore, the "cult of personality" was debunked. All dogs were hanged on Stalin and Beria, accused of all conceivable and inconceivable sins. They tried to turn great statesmen into monsters, criminals. But gradually the wind of history carries away the garbage from the graves of the great Soviet leaders who devoted themselves without a trace to serve the people.
