After Stalinʼs death in March 1953, three of his closest associates became the main contenders for the highest power in the USSR: Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Nikita Khrushchev. Malenkov received the highest state post of the head of the government at that time, so he demonstratively occupied Stalinʼs cabinet. Khrushchev headed the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU and was supposed to manage all party work in the country. Beria got, it would seem, less significant positions of deputy head of the government and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But in fact, he was the most powerful and influential of the three.
Beria was an old Chekist. He started working in the Soviet special services in the early 1920s in the Caucasus. In 1938, Stalin took him to Moscow and appointed him head of the NKVD. During the Second World War, Beria oversaw the work of not only law enforcement agencies, but also the most important branches of the defense industry, including the development of nuclear weapons. He organized Stalinʼs international meetings, such as the Yalta Conference in February 1945. And, of course, he was responsible for repressions — purges among party members and officials, murders of political opponents abroad, executions of Polish prisoners of war, deportations of Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush and other peoples.
In 1945, Beria was dismissed from the post of head of the NKVD. But he still remained the curator of the law enforcement agencies, and also joined the small circle of Stalinʼs closest associates who decided all the most important state issues. Even the Soviet dictator himself at the end of his life began to fear Beriaʼs influence. There is a version that Stalin planned to repress him, but did not have time to do that. Subsequently, rumors began to spread among the Kremlin elite that it was Beria who had a hand in Stalinʼs death.
In the photo next to Stalinʼs coffin, his closest associates (from left to right): Lazar Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, Mykola Bulganin, Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria and Nikita Khrushchev, March 1953.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
In March 1953, Beria was the first to regain control over the special services. The Ministry of State Security (MGB), the predecessor of the KGB, was added to the Ministry of Internal Affairs headed by him. At that time, the state security authorities kept all officials under their hood, even the highest level. It was the MGB that had the last word regarding any reshuffle of party, state, or economic personnel. And Beria further strengthened his influence on the power structures by appointing his proteges to the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow and the Union republics.
Khrushchev described Beria as follows: "He was intelligent and very clever. He instantly responded to any situation." As for Khrushchev himself, at the top of the leadership he developed the image of a humble and submissive executor. So Beria did not consider him as a serious competitor in the struggle for power at all. He considered Malenkov to be uninitiative and weak-willed and was confident that he would be able to manage him. In particular, with his help, Beria planned to reduce the influence of the Communist Party so that it was only engaged in ideology and did not interfere in state affairs. So already in May 1953, on Beriaʼs submission, Malenkov passed a resolution through the government, according to which the salaries of the top party leadership were halved, and additional payments were canceled altogether.
During this period, Beria was as confident in his power as it gets. At meetings of the Council of Ministers and the CheKa, he could interrupt anyone, summarizing the discussion in his own words. And he also liked to keep officials in fear and periodically arranged a public scandal for some of the ministers or party members.
Malenkov, Beria and Kaganovich receive a foreign delegation, 1953.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
In addition, Beria single-handedly began to implement very radical liberal reforms. In fact, they were ripe for a long time, but no one dared to raise these issues during Stalinʼs lifetime. In foreign policy, Beria tried to establish relations with the West. First of all, he removed Stalinʼs veto on peace negotiations in the Korean War, which at that time had reached a dead end. Beria was going to return Königsberg to the Germans, and the GDR considered it a failed project and planned to allow it to unite with West Germany. He was also inclined to return the Kuril Islands to Japan, and Karelia to Finland.
In domestic politics, Beria announced a large-scale amnesty, primarily of political prisoners, and closed several high-profile political trials, including the "doctorsʼ case". He cut spending on the army and armaments. He canceled several expensive "big constructions of communism", which were implemented as part of "Stalinʼs plan for the transformation of nature", such as the Volga-Ural canal and the Main Turkmen Canal.
Among other domestic political reforms, Beria planned to return to the indigenization policy pursued by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and early 1930s. From his submission, the Central Committee adopted a resolution proposing "to strengthen the influence of local national cadres in the republics, to promote the cessation of Russification and the development of national languages and cultures." This was done to reduce the influence of underground national movements, and primarily concerned the Baltic republics and Ukraine. However, local officials were frightened and immediately began to repent and point out the "gross distortion of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy." For example, Mykola Pidhorny, the then secretary of the Kharkiv Regional Committee and the future head of the Communist Party of Ukraine, made a speech about the fact that many disciplines are taught in Russian in Kharkiv universities and this should be reviewed. But after the arrest of Beria, these changes were curtailed.
Such a one-man reform policy meant that Beria was not going to share power with anyone. So Malenkov and Khrushchev conspired to get rid of their competitor. And they also attracted several more influential "old Stalinists" to their side — former Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, member of the Presidium of the Central Committee Lazar Kaganovich and Minister of Trade Anastas Mikoyan. All of them were united by an incredible fear of Beria — they were afraid that he had compromising material on each of them and would sooner or later let it go. Later, there were legends about how more than ten bags of compromising materials were taken from the State Security Committee to the top management.
Stalin (in the center in the foreground) with his closest entourage (from left to right): Anastas Mikoyan, Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov, 1946.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
Being wary of eavesdropping, the conspirators conducted all their conversations exclusively on the street. At first they argued about what to do with Beria. For example, Mikoyan believed that it would be enough to send him to the outland as the secretary of the district committee or the director of a collective farm. But Molotov advocated only physical liquidation. In the end, everyone agreed exactly to Molotovʼs proposal.
For start, it was necessary to somehow balance the forces, because under the control of Beria were the special services and the police. For this, Khrushchev brought back from oblivion the "Marshal of Victory" Georgy Zhukov, who fell into disgrace during Stalinʼs time. Zhukov received the post of Deputy Minister of Defense, and the conspirators received army support, where Zhukov still had great authority. It was Zhukov who led the operation to neutralize Beria.
Meanwhile, Beria himself became so enamored with power that he openly failed the conspiracy. He had absolutely no suspicions when he came to the meeting of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, where the case of the former Minister of State Security Semyon Ignatiev, who was arrested on Beriaʼs order, was to be discussed. A little later, Zhukov arrived at the Kremlin together with a group of generals, they had weapons with them.
"Ten people entered the office. And Malenkov gently says, addressing Zhukov: "I suggest that you, as the head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, detain Beria." Zhukov ordered Beria: "Hands up!" Beria rushed to his briefcase, which was lying on the windowsill behind him. I grabbed Beriaʼs hand so that he couldnʼt use the weapon if it was in the briefcase. Then people checked: there were no weapons there, neither in the briefcase nor in the pockets. He simply made some kind of reflexive movement," Khrushchev recalled.
The first pages of Western newspapers with reports on the arrest of Beria and his sentence to death, 1953.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
Beria was kept in the Kremlin until dusk, and then taken to the bunker of the air defense headquarters of the Moscow Military District. On the same day, he was deprived of all positions, ranks and awards. A week after the arrest, at the beginning of July 1953, the Plenum of the Central Committee was held, where Malenkov, Khrushchev and other conspirators talked about Beriaʼs "malicious activities." He was accused of treason, conspiracy to seize power, working for foreign intelligence, and even that he organized the explosion of the first Soviet nuclear bomb without the partyʼs knowledge.
At the end of December 1953, a note about the case of the "Beria gang" appeared in central Soviet newspapers. It stated that a special session of the Supreme Court found Beria and six of his associates from the top leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs guilty of "anti-party and anti-state actions." They were sentenced to death and shot on December 23, 1953.
However, there are versions that the conspirators were so afraid of Beria that they ordered his execution immediately on the day of his arrest. And during the July plenum, Kaganovich allegedly slandered that Beria was already dead, declaring: "With one blow, we ended this scoundrel forever. The Central Committee destroyed the adventurer Beria."
Beria, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Molotov and the rest of the Soviet elite standing on the Kremlin tribune during parades on Red Square in Moscow, late 1940s-early 1950s.
Getty Images / «Babel'»
After getting rid of the main competitor, Malenkov and Khrushchev began to gnaw at each other for power. And the winner of this struggle was Khrushchev, on whom few bet after Stalinʼs death.
Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.
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