Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (/ˈbɛriə/; Russian: Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия; Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია 29 March [O.S. 17 March] 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Georgian Bolshevik and Soviet politician, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security, and chief of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during the Second World War, and promoted to deputy premier under Stalin in 1941. He officially joined the Politburo in 1946.
Real life biography[]
Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after the war. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, he was responsible for organising purges such as the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and officials. He would later also orchestrate the forced upheaval of minorities from the Caucasus to Central Asia as head of the NKVD. He simultaneously administered vast sections of the Soviet state, and acted as the de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union in command of NKVD field units responsible for barrier troops and Soviet partisan intelligence and sabotage operations on the Eastern Front. Beria administered the expansion of the Gulag labour camps, and was primarily responsible for overseeing the secret detention facilities for scientists and engineers known as sharashkas.
After the war, Beria organised the communist takeover of the state institutions in central and eastern Europe. His ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project. Stalin gave it absolute priority, and the project was completed in under five years.
After Stalin's death in March 1953, Beria became First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers and head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In this dual capacity, he formed a troika with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov that briefly led the country in Stalin's place. A coup d'état by Nikita Khrushchev, with help from Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, removed Beria from power in June 1953. After being arrested, he was tried for treason and other offences, sentenced to death, and executed on 23 December 1953. During his trial, and after his death, numerous allegations arose that Beria had been a serial rapist and serial killer.
Bond[]
- "Smiert Spionam? Was a Beria operation, in Stalin's time. It was deactivated 20 years ago."
- ― General Pushkin
General Grubozaboyschikov was selected to be the head of SMERSH after the death of Lavrenty Beria in the novel From Russia with Love. He was one of many SMERSH personnel who conspired to kill and disgrace James Bond.
Grubozaboyschikov has had a distinguished military career. However, his post-war career in the MGB was hampered by the enmity of Beria, who controlled State Security. By 1952 Grubozaboyschikov was deputy to one of the Heads of the MGB, but his post was abolished when the MGB was absorbed into Beria's own MVD on 5 March 1953. Grubozaboyschikov thereafter plotted to help bring about Beria's downfall, working under the secret instructions of General Serov. Beria fell from power on 26 June 1953 and was executed on 23 December following, and Serov was appointed Head of the newly formed KGB on 13 March 1954. As a reward for his loyalty, Grubozaboyschikov was given command of SMERSH, now subordinated to the KGB.
After the death of Lavrentiy Beria in 1953, Rosa Klebb gained the position of Head of Operations for SMERSH (Otdyel II - Operations and Executions). Klebb was present at every torture session conducted since she had became the Head of Operations.