Downfall and Execution After Stalin

Few figures have inspired as much fear as LaVrenti Berri . As the ruthless head of Stalin's secret police, he oversaw purges, mass arrests, deportations, and a vast system of terror that touched millions of lives. Yet after Stalin's death, the man who seemed untouchable found himself facing a stunning downfall of his own. His rise and dramatic fall remained one of the darkest and most fascinating chapters of Soviet history. Learn more about LaVrenti Berria and Stalin's Terror on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily This episode is sponsored by Hexclad . Over a year ago, I invested in a set of Hexclad cookware. I got a griddle, a stockpot, and two frying pans, and I have been loving it, and I use it almost every single day in my house. Hexclad completely changed the game by combining the performance of stainless steel with the convenience of non stick in a single pan. 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They were certainly responsible for what happened during their rule, but they almost never personally had blood on their hands. They had underlings who did their dirty work . And the dirtiest of all the underlings in the Soviet Union had to be Lawrence Berri . Berri was born in eighteen ninety nine in the village of Merculi , Georgia, which at the time was part of the Russian Empire. His parents were deeply religious, especially his mother, who descended from a Georgian noble family and was a member of the Georgian Orthodox Church. By nineteen fifteen, Bar hadrier comple ted his early education and moved to Baku, Azerbaijan, which was also part of the Russian Empire. While in Baku, Baria attended the Baku Polytechnicum, a technical school focused on the growing petroleum industry, where he studied engineering. Beria joined the Bolsheviks as part of the Baku City Soviet in March of nineteen seventeen, approximately one month after the Russian Revolution began. However, Beria wasn't considered a true Bolshevi k at this point. During the Russian Civil War, which lasted from nineteen seventeen to nineteen twenty two, Berry proved to be opportunistic, shifting allegiances as opportunities arose. This pattern set the stage for his l ater behavior in Soviet politics. In nineteen nineteen, Beria had relationships with both the Bolsheviks and their main opposition in Azerbaijan, the Muslim Democrat Musavat Party, or the Musavadas . Berry took a position as the State Secretary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Party in nineteen nineteen and began gathering information for Bolsheviks, motivated more by the prospect of personal advancement than by ideological commit ment . When the Red Army invaded and defeated the Musavadus in Baku in April of nineteen twenty, Baria was captured as a result of the upheaval and narrowly avoided execution. Reportedly, he was spared by Sergei Kirov, a prominent Soviet political figure, and instead of being executed, Beria was simply imprisoned. During his time in prison, Berry developed a relationship with his cellmate's niece, Nina Gig Koya, whom he mar ried in nineteen twenty two. After his release from prison, Beria decided to join the Checka, an early version of the Soviet secret police. As part of the Checka, Baria rose quickly through the ranks, becoming the deputy chairman of the Georgian branch of the Checka by nineteen twenty two , which had been later renamed the OGPU or Joint State Political Doctorate . By this time, Berry appeared to be fully committed to the Bolshevik cause and participated he in the brutal repression of the nineteen twenty four Georgian nationalist uprising . His work eventually led him to his promotion to the Chairman of the Georgian OGPU and deputy chairman of the Trans caucasia OGPU, the regional branch of the Secret Police that encompassed modern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. Berry first met Joseph Stalin in nineteen thirty one when Stalin was already established as the leader of the Soviet Union. The meeting took place during a spot trip that Stalin took to Georgia, where Beria's assignment to overseas security provided an opportunity for their connection. Stalin took quite a liking to Baria, something that he had not found with other members of the party leadership in Georgia. He found Baria to be organized, efficient, and extremely capable . And also, like Baria, Stalin was a native Georg ian . Berri's favorable introduction to Stalin was enough for the dictator to recommend that Berrier take the position of second secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party and the second Secretary of the Transcaucasian Party. In nineteen thirty two, shortly after his initial promotion, Berry became first secretary. This promotion allowed him to strengthen the region's ties to Moscow, and he combined his previous security role with his new duties consolidating his power base. Under Baria by nineteen thirty five, levels of electrical power production and resource extraction had risen dramatically. These results, however, relied heavily on forced lab or, underscoring the harsh methods that he used to achieve them. One unique aspect of Georgia under Beria's leadership was his choice not to implement Stalin's rustification policies as as strictly everywhere else . These policies designed for forced assimilation into Russian culture conflicted with Berri's relative tolerance for his native Georgian culture. These assimilation policies created resistance through out the Soviet Union, however because Baria permitted Georgian culture and language, Georgia was somewhat less resistant to Soviet control . During this time, Beria became a member of the seventy one member central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Imberia used his positions to become closer to Stalin. One of the things he did was publishing a piece titled On the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Trans Caucasia, which lionized Joseph Stalin. In nineteen thirty two, Stalin began his campaign of purges. The purges were driven by a desire to eliminate any real or imagined threats to his power . Deeply suspicious of rivals and convinced that enemies were everywhere, he used arrests, executions, and imprisonment to remove political opponents, intimidate the Communist Party, control the military, and instill fear throughout Soviet society. The agency that carried out the purges was the NKVD, the successor to the OGPU . The NKVD or the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the Soviet Union's secret police and internal security agency from nineteen thirty four to nineteen forty six. It was responsible for law enforcement, intelligence, managing the Gulag labor camps, and carrying out Stalin's wishes. The Great Purge reached its height between nineteen thirty six and nineteen thirty eight under NKVD chief Nikolai Yezov . But ironically, Yezov himself became one of the Purge's victims. In August of nineteen thirty eight, Stalin appointed B eria as Yezov's deputy, and within months, Baria effectively replaced him as head of the NKVD . Yezov was arrested in nineteen thirty nine, accused of treason and conspiracy, tortured into confessing , and was executed himself in nineteen forty. Once Berria took charge, the NKVD deepened its involvement in the Great Purge, targeting not only party rivals, but also members of the police and expanding the use of labor camps. What particularly distinguished Barrier during this period was his personal participation in acts of violence and torture , which earned him an especially infamous reputation within theun Commist Party. When Russia entered the Second World War in nineteen thirty nine with their invasions of Finland and Poland, as one of Stalin's trusted leaders and head of the Secret Police, Beria held a quasi military rank within the Soviet system . This elevated position put him in charge of dealing with prisoners of war from the Polish campaign. The USSR had captured thousands of poles, and, mirroring some Nazi tactics, the Soviet Army under Var overias'sight committed multiple atrocities . One of the most horrific examples was the Koten Massacre, where twenty two thousand poles were executed and buried in the Koten forest. Baria orchestrated this event, claiming the POWs threatened Soviet plans in Poland. In nineteen forty one, before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Beria also participated in another massive purge of the Red Army murdering, roughly thirty thousand people , which also included three out of the five top ranking marshals of the Soviet Union and fourteen of sixteen army commanders. Simultaneously, Barry exerted authority over the Gulag camp system . He sent millions of people into forced labor to supply wartime production, furthering his reputation for brutality. Beria is often identified as the Soviet Union's version of Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS , a label which Stalin himself bestowed upon him. In many ways, the comparison's accurate given both men's propensity towards torture and murder. But on top of his World War two crimes, Baria was a known serial rapist. He cruised around Moscow in his car, picking up teenage girls off the street to be delivered to his office. The total number of victims is unknown, but estimates range from a few doz en to over a hundred . And there is evidence that Berry may have personally murdered many of the girls. In nineteen ninety three, the remains of young women were found at the location of his former home, and more bodies were discovered in nineteen ninety eight. His escapades were disturbing to fellow Soviet leaders who viewed him with disgust and fear . However, what he said was often a direct order from Stalin, which determined whether you lived or died. In August of nineteen forty five, after the United States dropped its second atomic bomb in Japan, Stalin gave Berry the oversight of the Soviet atomic bomb program. This move further expanded his influence within the Soviet power structure. Berry leveraged his authority as chief of the Secret Police to establish Department S within the NKVD . This move was a strategic effort to centralize oversight of the atomic bomb program, thereby bolstering his personal power and the government's capacity to safeguard critical secrets . However, Berrio was highly distrustful of the scientists and researchers who were working on the project . The decades of fear caused by political purges and warhead made him highly paranoid about the project's members . And this led to the scientists being under constant surveillance. His role in organiz ing the Atomic Bomb Program and Stalin's Purges earned him a seat on the Polybureo in nineteen forty six. Berry's success with the Atomic Bomb program and being the head of the Secret Police did not mean his position was secure . Stalin was falling ill and he was Baria's primary benefactor. Outside of Stalin, many leaders in the Soviet Union disliked and distrusted him. When Stalin died on march fifth, nineteen fifty three , Beria was well positioned to become the next leader of the Soviet Union. Following Stalin's death, he was promoted to Deputy Prime Minister and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With this position, he could easily mobilize the NKVD and take over the country. Other high ranking Soviet officials were terrified at the prospect of this . They had just endured almost three decades of Stalin's terror, and the last thing they wanted was someone in power who might be even worse and would have an incentive to kill them all. Amid the confusion and power struggle following Stalin's death, an anti barrier faction formed. Their mission was to discredit Baria as much as possible, giving them an excuse to push him out of power. This opportunity came in the form of Baria's opinions on the West. Baria feared that the satellite states in the eastern bloc would be disloyal, especially given the poor state of the Soviet economy. He had pushed for the Soviet Union to enter diplomatic negotiations with the United States in the hopes that it would help the Soviet economy . Other members of the Communist Party took this opportunity and claimed that Berri was harboring imperialist sympathies . This was enough for the Soviet leadership to organize Baria's arrest under the justification that he was an imperialist agent and a potential spy. Berio was arrested and tried in december nineteen fifty three by a secret tribunal. At the trial he was accused of numerous crimes, including treason and terrorism, with his actions during the purges being used as evidence. He was immediately found guilty, stripped of all of his titles and awards, and then was immediately executed on december twenty third, nineteen fifty three. It was reported by the executioner's wife that he did not meet his fate bravely, groveling for mercy. It was an ironic end for someone who had done the same thing to tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. His body was reportedly immediately cremated and the ashes were secretly buried.