Marx-Engels |  Lenin  | Stalin |  Home Page

TRANSCRIPTS FROM SOVIET ARCHIVES

 

Lavrenty Beria Case

Soviet Archives/Beria Case/Beria Case Plenum.pdf

The chairman is Comrade Bulganin. Comrade Molotov now has the floor.

Molotov: Comrades, we are discussing the following question - the question of Beria, in relation to which it is necessary to take into account both the special situation of recent months and the special position of Beria as the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was at the same time one of the members of the leadership core.

The peculiarity of the situation, as comrades here said, is that after the death of I. V. Stalin we had to demonstrate the unity of the Central Committee. This was necessary both from the point of view of the internal and international situation.

The peculiarity of Beria's situation also deserves serious attention. Having achieved the post of head of the Ministry that united the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Beria, as is now evident, decided to use the apparatus of the Ministry for his own anti-Party and anti-Soviet purposes. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was persistently making his way to seize a leading post in the government. The decisions on the alignment of forces in the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee, adopted during the March days, were viewed by him as nothing more than a short-term, transitional stage.

His plans failed. In just three and a half months he was exposed as a traitor, as an enemy of our party and the Soviet state. But these three and a half months deserve special attention.

I consider it necessary first of all to share with the comrades at the Plenum of the Central Committee some personal observations over the past three and a half months. These observations, like the observations of other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, at first made us wary, and then made necessary certain decisive conclusions, which you are now aware of.

Here is the first fact relating to these observations.

You, members of the Plenum of the Central Committee, remember who came forward here in March with the proposal about the Chairman of the Council of Ministers. It was Beria, who then arrogated this right to himself. After that, as is known, the Supreme Council convened. And at the Supreme Council, Beria came forward with the proposal about the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, although this time he did it without any decision of the Central Committee.

We, members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, could not help but pay attention to this. Even before the meeting of the Supreme Soviet, I called him on the phone and tried to dissuade him from this intention. It seemed to me that it would be more correct for our party's proposal about the head of the Soviet Government to come directly from the Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade Khrushchev, at the session of the Supreme Soviet. This is what I proposed in a conversation with Beria. However, he did not agree with this proposal and insisted that he be the one to make this proposal in the Supreme Soviet. In order not to introduce discord, but on the contrary, in this case to demonstrate the unity of the party's leading core, we had to refuse to put this question to the Presidium of the Central Committee for consideration.

The second fact that cannot be ignored. You read the minutes of the Presidium of the Central Committee and probably ask yourself why there is no signature of the Secretary of the Central Committee under these minutes. There is an anonymous signature - "Presidium of the Central Committee". Meanwhile, for many years there has been a tradition that the minutes of the Presidium of the Central Committee, and earlier the Politburo of the Central Committee, are signed by the Secretary of the Central Committee. And this is quite natural. This is done in all the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the republics and in the regional committees.

The party had long ago established a rule that had been in effect under both Lenin and Stalin: the Chairman of the Council of Ministers presided over the Politburo, and the Secretary of the Central Committee kept the minutes. There was no reason to change this order in March. Nevertheless, it was done.

In this connection, I turned to Comrade Khrushchev: why is there no signature of the Secretary of the Central Committee under the minutes of the Presidium? Why are they anonymous? He agreed that this was abnormal, that it was necessary to restore the previously existing order. I called Comrade Malenkov, and he agreed with this. I called Beria - and here I came across an objection. To my proposal to restore normal order - he replied: if this is how this issue is resolved, then other important issues must be resolved as well. Beria kept silent - what "other important issues" he had in mind. However, it became clear that he was waiting for something and did not yet want to talk about his existing plans regarding the alignment of forces in the leading core of the Central Committee.

On June 26, the entire Presidium of the Central Committee was engaged in the issue of Beria's criminal behavior and for two and a half hours demanded explanations from him on many issues . Then we asked him to explain what he meant when he said that before restoring the signature of the Secretary of the Central Committee to the minutes of the Presidium, it was supposedly necessary to consider some "other important issues." But he did not say anything intelligible about this even then, mentioning only that it was supposedly necessary to agree on how the agenda of the Presidium should be drawn up . Apparently, he did not want to reveal his plans then either and was simply lying, continuing to hide his thoughts and "plans."

The third fact that cannot be ignored.

Since March, we have had an abnormal situation in the discussion of some important issues. For some reason, all issues of international politics have been transferred to the Presidium of the Council of Ministers and, contrary to the unchanging Bolshevik tradition, have ceased to be discussed in the Presidium of the Central Committee. This has removed Comrades Voroshilov, Saburov, Pervukhin, who are not members of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, from the discussion of international issues; Comrade Khrushchev, it is true, was invited to the corresponding meetings of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, but his position in this case was not entirely clear. All this was done under pressure from Beria. At the same time, on his part, as is now obvious, the goal was to undermine the work and authority of the LLK.

The fourth fact that finally made us wary in relation to Beria.

For most of us, Beria's true political physiognomy became clear when, in May, we began to discuss the German question.

A number of facts that have become known to us recently have made it absolutely obvious that an unfavorable political and economic situation has developed in the German Democratic Republic, that there is serious discontent among broad sections of the population of the GDR. This, by the way , found its expression in the fact that during the period from January 1951 to April 1953, 450,000 people crossed over from the GDR to West Germany. It was established that the migration of the population to West Germany increased especially in the first months of this year. Among those who fled were many workers, including several thousand members of the SED and the Free German Youth. It is clear that this was an indicator of major shortcomings in the work of our friends in East Germany. Such a situation could only be advantageous to the Adenauer government, the West German bourgeoisie, and foreign imperialist circles.

In examining the case, it was obvious that the German Democratic Republic had taken an excessively rapid course toward industrialization and that large-scale new construction was being carried out there that did not correspond to the possibilities. All this was being carried out under conditions in which East Germany, in addition to having to bear significant occupation costs and pay reparations, not to mention the need to carry out major reconstruction work after the end of the war. Meanwhile, it must not be forgotten that East Germany is in particularly difficult conditions, when, taking advantage of the position of the occupying powers in Berlin, the authorities of the USA, England, and France, as well as the authorities of West Germany, have the opportunity to take many steps that have a disorganizing effect on the political and economic situation in the GDR. It must not be forgotten either that Germany continues to be split into two parts and that traces of Hitler's influence have not yet been eradicated throughout Germany.

Under these conditions, we considered it our duty to take urgent measures to help our German friends quickly correct the clearly leftist course that the GDR had taken, especially since the summer of 1952. We did just that.

During the discussion of the German question in the Presidium of the Council of Ministers , however, it became clear that Beria was holding positions that were completely alien to our party . He then began to talk about how there was no point in building socialism in East Germany, that it was enough for West and East Germany to unite as a bourgeois peace-loving state.

These speeches of Beria could not escape our attention. None of us could forget that Germany bore a very great responsibility for unleashing the First World War, and that bourgeois Germany bore an even greater responsibility for unleashing the Second World War. For us as Marxists it was and remains clear that in the existing situation, that is, in the conditions of the current imperialist era, to proceed from the prospect that bourgeois Germany could become a peace-loving or neutral state in relation to the USSR is not only an illusion, but also means a de facto transition to positions alien to communism. The question arose that perhaps Beria's words about a "peace-loving" bourgeois Germany were a random polemical passion, that perhaps this was said in the heat of the moment. However, it soon became clear that this was not at all the case.

In the draft resolution of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers submitted by Beria on this issue, it was proposed to recognize "the course of building socialism, pursued in the German Democratic Republic, as erroneous in the current conditions." In this regard, it was proposed "to abandon the course of building socialism in the GDR at the present time." Of course, we could not accept this. To my objection on this matter, Beria tried to answer that he was proposing to abandon the course of building socialism in the GDR only "at the present time," and not in general. However, this trick did not help him either.

In the draft resolution, I proposed to make amendments in both cases mentioned above: instead of saying that the "course of building socialism" was wrong, to say that the "course of accelerating the building of socialism" was wrong. Everyone agreed with this. This is how it was written down in the resolution of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers on May 27, contrary to Beria's initial proposal.

From what has been said it is clear that Beria's speeches at previous meetings of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers on the German question were not accidental. He had already gone so far as to openly propose abandoning the course of building socialism in East Germany and tried in every way to obtain our consent for our party to abandon its basic line with respect to Germany. He expatiated on the fact that it would be enough for the Soviet Union if Germany were to reunite as a single state on bourgeois principles, as if modern bourgeois Germany could not help but be bound by close ties with other imperialist states and as if under current conditions a bourgeois Germany could exist that would not at the same time be an aggressive, imperialist Germany. It became clear that Beria did not hold communist positions. In such a situation we felt that in Beria we had a man who had nothing in common with our party, that he was a man of the bourgeois camp, that he was an enemy of the Soviet Union.

The capitulatory meaning of Beria's proposals on the German question is obvious. In fact, he demanded capitulation to the so-called "Western" bourgeois states. He insisted that we abandon the course of strengthening the people's democratic system in the GDR, leading to socialism. He insisted on untying the hands of German imperialism not only in Western Germany, but also in Eastern Germany. This meant abandoning what had been won with the blood of our soldiers, the blood of our people in the difficult struggle against Hitlerism, for it must be clear to us that the existence of the German Democratic Republic, strengthening the people's democratic system and gradually implementing the course of building socialism, is a serious blow not only to German imperialism, but to the entire imperialist system in Europe. With the right political course, the German Democratic Republic will become an increasingly dependable friend of the Soviet Union and will become a serious obstacle to the implementation of imperialist plans in Europe.

You see how Beria's political image began to reveal what he had previously hidden in every possible way. At the same time, it began to become apparent that we had not looked closely enough at this man before. It became clear to us that he was a stranger, that he was a man from the anti-Soviet camp.

Voices. Correct.

Molotov: It was not so easy to expose Beria. He skillfully disguised himself and for a number of years, hiding, concealing his true face, sat in the leadership center. However , the last three and a half months have made many things clearer for us. This was also helped by the fact that Beria during this time clearly became unbridled and showed excessive self-confidence . As a result of all this, he was exposed and put in prison. I believe that this decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee should be approved. (Stormy applause.)

Voices. Correct.

Molotov: For a number of years, we, members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, stood close to Beria, often had dealings with him . But only now has it become clear to us how alien he is to us and how dirty and immoral a type he is. Now it is clear that he has caused a lot of harm to our party and the Soviet state, that he is a great criminal and a dangerous adventurer.

There can be no doubt that he was making his way, or rather sneaking, to seize the highest office in the state. He made plans to use the Ministry of Internal Affairs, thinking to clear the way for himself to rise above the Government and the Party. But he turned out to be too narrow-minded a man and grossly miscalculated.

Due to his political shortsightedness, he relied too much on some of his protégés in the Ministry of Internal Affairs apparatus. As it now turns out, he was eavesdropping on each of us. He was watching our every move. He was already making open attempts to break the party line and at the same time he began to trip up people he didn't like, people he wanted to deal with as quickly as possible.

Why did he need this? Would he have needed this if he, like us, had been pursuing a course towards the victory of communism? Of course not! Whoever wants to follow the path of building communism in our country will not find better comrades for this than those who are members of our Central Committee and its leading core. But he went against the line of the Central Committee, against the leading core. It is quite obvious that he was harboring a plan directed against the building of communism in our country. He had a different course - a course towards capitalism. This capitulator-traitor had nothing else in mind except a return to capitalism, just like other capitulator-traitors with whom the Party had finished off earlier.

I will have to draw your attention once again to Beria’s attempt to establish contact with Rankovich and Tito, which Comrade Malenkov has already spoken about.

It is known that our Central Committee recently adopted a decision aimed at changing official relations with the government of Yugoslavia 19 . In connection with this, certain steps were taken and it was decided to exchange ambassadors with Yugoslavia.

Malenkov: We, naturally , wanted to normalize relations.

Molotov. The Presidium of the Central Committee came to the conclusion that it was impossible to continue the line that had been pursued recently in relations with Yugoslavia. It became clear that since we had failed to solve a certain problem with a frontal attack, we should move on to other methods. It was decided to establish the same relations with Yugoslavia as with other bourgeois states connected with the North Atlantic aggressive bloc 20 : ambassadors, official telegrams, business meetings, etc.

Beria wanted to use this moment in a completely different way.

According to the plan he had developed, the appropriate representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Yugoslavia was to hand over a letter to Rankovic in Belgrade, in which, in the name of Beria, views were set forth that were alien to our party, alien to the Soviet government. According to Beria’s plan, the representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was to state at a meeting with Rankovic: “I take this opportunity to convey to you, Comrade Rankovic, great greetings from Comrade Beria.” He was then to say that Beria and his friends “stand for the need for a fundamental revision and improvement of relations between the two countries,” that “in connection with this, Comrade Beria asked you (i.e., Rankovic) to personally inform Comrade Tito about this, and if you and Comrade Tito share this point of view, then it would be advisable to organize a confidential meeting of persons especially authorized to do so,” etc. This entire letter, drafted by Beria, was designed to establish close relations with “Comrade Rankovic” and with “Comrade Tito.” Beria failed to send this letter to Yugoslavia - with the draft of this letter in his pocket, he was arrested as a traitor.

But isn't it clear what this attempt by Beria to conspire with Rankovic and Tito, who are behaving like enemies of the Soviet Union, means? Isn't it clear that this letter, written by Beria in secret from the present Government, was yet another brazen attempt to stab the Soviet state in the back and to render a direct service to the imperialist camp? This fact alone would be enough to conclude: Beria is an agent of the alien camp, an agent of the class enemy.

Voices. Correct.

Molotov. Beria got into our combat headquarters and sat there for a long time, hiding. While he was waiting, he certainly did not sit with his hands folded. We still have to thoroughly sort out his dark deeds and dealings. Now we have the necessary opportunities for this.
He wanted to use Comrade Stalin's death for his own hostile purposes. He, like our enemies abroad, counted on the fact that at that moment the party would be weakened, that there would be confusion in our midst - and he would be able to use this for his own purposes. We see now that his calculations were connected first of all with the use of the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, although I have no doubt that these calculations were built on sand, since it is certain that the overwhelming majority of the Chekists would not have followed him.

Voices. Correct.

Molotov. Of course, there could have been some scoundrels in the MVD apparatus, especially from among the people previously selected by Beria himself . But there were enough strong communists in the MVD apparatus, as well as in other main organizations. Therefore, Beria's treacherous calculations on the MVD apparatus could not be justified, although it does not follow from this that attempts to implement these calculations could not cause enormous damage to the Soviet state.

What internal forces in the country could Beria count on?

Couldn't Beria and the people associated with him count on getting support for their hidden plans from the workers, or the collective farmers, or the intelligentsia? Of course, they couldn't. He and his anti-Soviet plans did not have and could not find any real support inside the country, in the working class, among the workers.

His anti-Soviet plans were connected with the expectation of support from the imperialist camp.

He could count mainly on the sympathy and support of certain foreign bourgeois circles, on the support of, say, the Churchills, Dulles, or Tito-Rankoviches. He could not count on anyone except the sworn enemies of the Soviet Union in his plans to seize power. It follows from this that we must dig deep into his biography, into his past, in order to fully understand his vile, treacherous role in our country, in our party.

We haven't done much work on his biography. Now we must do more seriously.

How did it happen that such a seasoned enemy as Beria could get into our party and its governing body?

To this question, without going into the deep reasons for such facts, one can give a simple answer: this is the result of insufficient vigilance of our Central Committee, including Comrade Stalin. Beria found some human weaknesses in I. V. Stalin, and who doesn’t? He cleverly exploited them, and he succeeded in this for a number of years.

I personally have to work in Moscow . Looking back, I see that since Beria came to Moscow in 1938, the general atmosphere and working environment in the Central Committee began to noticeably deteriorate. He had poisoned the atmosphere with his intrigues before, but especially since he came to work in Moscow.

Beria also played his vile role in the fact that the work of the Central Committee of the Party was weakened to the point that the plenary sessions of the Central Committee stopped meeting for several years. The Politburo of the Central Committee stopped working normally and, as a rule, did not meet in full, etc. All of us who worked in the center did not pay enough attention to Beria's criminal role in this regard.

But the above answer to the question of how it could have happened that Beria made his way into the leadership center of our party cannot be satisfying.

In this connection it is necessary to dwell on one important fundamental question: the question of the existence in our country of only one party, namely the Communist Party, which is in power. We do not always fully realize the significance of this essential political circumstance. Meanwhile, this means that along with the bulk of communists who join our party to fight for communism in the ranks of its honest, ideological supporters, alien elements are also flocking to our party: careerists, unprincipled hustlers who want to exploit the position of the party in power, as well as disguised agents of the class enemy, the danger of which cannot be underestimated.

In the USSR there are no more antagonistic classes, since there are no capitalists, landowners, kulaks, etc. In the USSR there are only two classes: workers and peasants, who are in friendly relations with each other. The friendly alliance established between the workers and peasants of our country is directed toward one common goal - the implementation of communism. In view of the aforementioned special social conditions, our country has no basis for the existence of two or more parties, but only ours - the Communist Party, which heads the alliance of workers and peasants and guides this alliance.

However, the question of the existence of one party in the USSR is connected not only with such a primary fact as the absence of antagonistic classes in our country. As is known, even when the kulaks still existed, the experience of the struggle for the existence of the Soviet state in the conditions of capitalist encirclement showed that under the given circumstances the existence of other parties could not be allowed. Any other political organization that would like to be different from the Communist Party in some way would, in our conditions, turn into a tool of the class enemy, a tool of foreign capital, an agent of the intelligence agencies of the imperialist powers. One should not forget, for example, the history of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, which in this sense is very instructive.

There is no doubt that foreign capital would throw in any millions and billions of rubles, if only to have the opportunity to rely in the USSR on some political organization opposing itself to the Communist Party in power. Such a special political organization could have the most leftist platform and wear any signboard, but it would certainly be used in one way or another by foreign capital and imperialist intelligence services to create a crack and to cause a split among the workers of the USSR, which is the dream of the imperialists. Such a special organization would be used by them for the purpose of undermining the alliance of workers and peasants, for the purpose of all kinds of undermining socialist construction, for the purpose of intrigue and the disintegration of the Soviet state. After all, Tito's anti-communist clique seized power in Yugoslavia under the guise of communism. After all, this clique still calls itself "communist", although it is already openly in the service of the North Atlantic bloc of imperialists. Why shouldn't someone like Beria in our country impersonate a communist and use all the tricks to gain the trust of certain people and get into the main headquarters of our party? The bourgeoisie would, of course, be ready to shower such an agent with gold and support him at the right moment not only with money but also with other means. Only in this connection can we explain the possibility of the appearance in the ranks of our party of such a seasoned enemy as Beria, who waited for a long time and twisted and turned in order to use a more opportune moment, but in the end failed miserably.

We now see that the provocateur Beria had to disguise himself for a long time, for many years wearing the mask of a communist. This is another of the striking examples of the vile methods our class enemy resorts to and how dodgy he is.

At the same time, Beria used various camouflage techniques.

Thus, he did not stop at any big words, speaking, where he considered it necessary, about his devotion to the party. In order to appear as an ideologically prepared person, Beria used well-known methods of pedantry in his speeches. Back in the 1930s, a brochure entitled “On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia” appeared under his name. Quite cleverly composed, the brochure touches on the pre-revolutionary history of the Bolshevik organizations of Transcaucasia and the role of I. V. Stalin in these organizations, which, as we know, is one of the remarkable pages in the history of our party. The brochure is replete with quotations from articles by I. V. Stalin and clearly has the goal of not stopping at various kinds of flattery in order to attract the attention of a certain person. Now it turns out that this brochure, published under the name of L. Beria, was not written by Beria at all, but by such close friends of his as Sharia, who had infiltrated our party with hostile goals, and some others. Beria did not hesitate to put his signature under a brochure written by some of his henchmen and intended to play a role in his advancement to a central position.

Beria also used other methods for his careerist purposes. The methods of a businessman and a shameless careerist, when activity in work is not at all explained by ideological considerations and real devotion to the party. One cannot deny his organizational abilities, which were reflected in the organization and implementation of a number of economic events. The Party could not help but use these abilities when they were aimed at fulfilling the necessary tasks. The Party does not refuse to use even the abilities of exposed saboteurs when there are opportunities for this.

Khrushchev. Ramzin received the Order of Lenin.

Molotov: There are also known former saboteurs who gave us good aircraft designs and subsequently so decisively renounced their anti-Soviet past that they became major figures in our industry, as advanced design engineers 21 .

Beria, of course, knew that in order to reach leading government posts, one must have a party card and certain merits in government work. Like it or not, in our country, in order to reach high posts and influence the work of central bodies, one must have the trust of the party. Beria, of course, understood this long ago. Now it is clear that, while always remaining alien to the ideas and goals of our party, he nevertheless showed considerable dexterity and even art in order to attract attention to himself, imitating the appropriate techniques of active government figures and real communists. He succeeded in this for quite a number of years, and we must not forget that this testifies to insufficient vigilance on our part.

At times we clearly underestimated some of his non-partisan techniques.

In particular, this can be shown by one example, when Beria managed to push through the highest party organs a clearly wrong decision regarding his friend Shariy, who was an outsider to our party. Beria especially patronized this man, whom I already mentioned in connection with the brochure "On the Question of the History of Bolshevik Organizations in Transcaucasia", and apparently considered him his ideological inspirer.

In 1948, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia was forced to consider the issue of a brochure by Shariy, who was at that time one of the secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. The matter concerned one of Shariy's poems, completely hostile in its ideological character to our party, which this so-called writer had published in 1943 in a small number of copies and distributed among his acquaintances as a manuscript. There is no need to discuss the contents of this brochure in detail here. It is enough to read the beginning of the resolution of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia regarding this brochure to understand what is at stake. This resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia states: “The Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia considers it established that in 1943, in connection with the death of his son ( he died of tuberculosis. — V.M.), Sharia P.A. wrote an ideologically harmful work in verse, imbued with deep pessimism and religious-mystical sentiments.” Instead of expelling this outsider from the ranks of the party, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, as if for show, condemned the publication of Sharia’s “ideologically harmful book in verse,” decided to remove him from his job as secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia for propaganda, and at the same time sent him to teach at an institution of higher education in the city of Tbilisi, which in fact meant “absolution ” for this scoundrel. This decision was motivated by the fact that Sharia admitted his guilt in publishing the aforementioned religious-mystical brochure.

The matter did not end there. The said decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia was submitted to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for approval. Thanks to Beria's assistance, on May 31, 1948, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) approved the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia on Sharia without changes. Meanwhile, it must be acknowledged that the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) had no grounds to approve the said decision of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia on Sharia. It should have been done completely differently: to cancel the incorrect decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Georgia on Sharia and expel this empty-headed mystic from the ranks of the party.

However, for Beria, this was not just a friend, but an ideologically close person. Suffice it to say that right up until Beria's arrest, this same Sharia worked in his secretariat and was his assistant on ideological issues, drafting speeches for him. He formulated projects on various political issues, which Beria submitted for consideration to the highest party bodies.

I'll move on to other questions.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that recently, under pressure from Beria, we have made some hasty decisions. These include, first of all, recent decisions in connection with the revealed inaccuracies in the implementation of national policy in Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. Beria was particularly furious about this. He demanded, for example , that Comrade Patolichev be removed from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus and replaced by another comrade, although there were no grounds for this. Beria also inflated the issue of shortcomings in the implementation of national policy in Western Ukraine. The same should be said about Lithuania.

Having seized upon individual shortcomings in party work in Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania, Beria sought to give the correction of the corresponding shortcomings such a character that the blow would be dealt not to certain nationalist sentiments, great-power or local, but to the experienced party cadres in these republics. At the same time, he sought to undermine the authority of a number of responsible party workers. As a result, not only unstable but also openly nationalist elements became more active and raised their heads. This lesson must be taken into account. Such facts testify to the fact that we are still lagging far behind in our party work and that we must significantly intensify the fight against shortcomings in party, and in particular party-educational, work.

Malenkov: Correct.

Molotov: Yes, comrades, in the order of self-criticism we must acknowledge the existence of these serious shortcomings. It is also impossible not to acknowledge that some of the decisions taken recently, since they were influenced by a certain amount of pressure from Beria, we must again carefully examine and accordingly correct, eliminating the one-sidedness and haste in the formulations that have been revealed in certain cases.

What was Beria counting on when he recently began to impose his individual proposals with such impudence, directed against the party line, directed against the main party cadres? Obviously, he sought to use the first period of I. V. Stalin's death, considering this time more suitable for striking blows at the party. But this is not the only issue .

He could not help but take into account the strength of the political situation in the country. He could not help but see that our country was in its prime, that it was growing stronger economically, that its achievements in technology and science were growing every day, that we were creating numerous and well-trained qualified personnel for further steady progress in socialist construction.

But, comrades, let us not forget that we also have many shortcomings in our work, that there are also omissions and irregularities in the national economy that have not received due attention for a long time.

In recent years, some decisions have been made, sometimes in obvious haste, which we are obliged to immediately check and correct. We have already been forced to make a number of such decisions, for example, canceling the decision to build the Turkmen Canal. The decision to build this canal was made at the time without serious preparation. At first, this construction was estimated at several billion rubles and the matter was considered more or less justified. However, it soon became clear that the construction of this canal, together with all the accompanying irrigation and other work, would cost 30 billion rubles. Everyone also remembers that the initiators of this construction were by no means any Soviet or party organizations of Turkmenistan. The corresponding decision was made at the behest of the central authorities, without the necessary discussions with comrades from Turkmenistan and without any serious preparation at all. To date, we do not know of any institutions or leading comrades who would insist on the urgency of building this canal. Naturally, we came to the conclusion to cancel the previously adopted decision on this construction. This same lack of preparation was reflected in the decisions on some other construction projects, for which it was proposed to allocate many billions of rubles, but the urgency of the construction of which was by no means proven.

On the other hand, from the speeches of Comrades Malenkov and Khrushchev you see how urgent are, for example, such agricultural issues as livestock and vegetable growing, which have not received any attention in recent years. We must take up such issues now, without delay. This will require the allocation of considerable state funds, materials, and machinery in the near future .

The urgency of solving these issues is also known to the provocateur Beria. It is for this reason, apparently, that he not only did not help in correcting and improving the aforementioned areas of economic work, but did just the opposite. It was obvious that he was hindering the correction of the situation, holding up the discussion of these issues and in every way delaying the implementation of the relevant measures. But no one, no provocateur will succeed in achieving his vile goals. We just need to really get down to these issues, without being afraid to seriously correct some things in our work.

Voices from the floor. Correct!

Molotov: We must also dwell on the international situation.

Indeed, after the Second World War , such changes took place in the international situation that they raised the international weight of the USSR to an unprecedented level. The Soviet Union together with its friendly states now unites 800 million people. China, North Korea, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania, and the Mongolian People's Republic now stand in the same ranks with the Soviet Union. Two world markets have been formed, as was remarkably correctly stated in I. V. Stalin's "Economic Problems." And the formation of two world markets, one of which has the Soviet Union as its base, is a historical event of the greatest importance. The balance of international forces changed radically after the Second World War in favor of the USSR and its friendly states. It cannot be said that these events were not given serious attention in the capitalist world. In capitalist countries, anxiety is growing for their future, for their existence, and the governments of the imperialist states are not sitting idly by.

Before our very eyes, new adventures are being carried out against the Soviet Union and the people's democracies. In mid-June, the well-known Berlin adventure made a noise, resulting in a kind of putsch. Lately, everything has been done to delay the conclusion of an armistice in Korea, although the measures taken to strengthen peace-loving steps by the USSR, China and North Korea are making it extremely difficult to carry out such aggressive imperialist plans. You know that in recent months we have launched the so-called "peace initiative" of the USSR, which has caused considerable tremors in the ranks of our aggressive opponents. In the imperialist camp, they sense that the strength of our country and our friends is steadily growing.

If we take all these circumstances into account, it will become clear why, under the present circumstances, our class enemies abroad are striving to intensify their anti-Soviet work. They have now moved on to open acts of subversion, terror and sabotage against countries belonging to the camp of socialism and democracy. They are prepared to resort to almost any means to bring about disorganization or at least sow uncertainty in the USSR and the countries of people's democracy. It seems to me that it is precisely in this connection that we should consider the question of Beria, who has become too unbridled in recent weeks and has thereby unwittingly contributed to his own exposure.

In the last three months, Beria's behavior was characterized by the fact that he began to become impudent and hasten his attacks against our party and the Soviet government. Obviously, this was not only his personal desire, but it also reflected the fact that he was being hurried. Apparently, he was being hurried from abroad. It seems that those imperialist circles whose agent he was in our midst were apparently afraid of missing what they considered to be a suitable moment and, losing patience, began to push their agent-provocateur to hasty adventurist actions. The matter ended in failure for Beria, failure for yet another agent of the imperialists, with whose use they had significant calculations.

The class enemy has made another attempt to weaken the leadership of our party, the combat staff of our country. He counted on weakening our state, but his calculations have failed. We have cleansed ourselves of one of the dangerous agents of the class enemy. By this we have strengthened our party, strengthened the Soviet state. (Stormy applause )

Today, as before, we stand firmly on our own feet. Having cleared our central organ of a dangerous enemy - the provocateur, we have become even stronger. Now in our midst, in the core of leaders, relations have become clearer, and this has a great positive significance: we are not afraid to talk to each other, and when necessary, to argue among ourselves, although not long ago we were forced to look around every now and then, so that we would not be overheard and stabbed in the back.

From all this we must draw simple but serious Bolshevik conclusions: we must raise even higher the banner of party spirit, integrity, and vigilance in all work, and then we can confidently look forward to our country being assured of further and even greater successes in the construction of communism. (Applause )

Chairman Comrade Bulganin. There is a proposal, comrades, to stop the work of the Plenum today and to announce a break until tomorrow. No objections? No.
The meeting is tomorrow at 12 noon .


SESSION TWO

Morning, July 3rd

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. I declare the meeting of the Plenum open. We continue the discussion of Comrade Malenkov's report.

Comrade Bulganin has the floor. Comrade Serdyuk, get ready.

Bulganin: Comrades! Comrade Malenkov reported everything thoroughly, correctly and, I would say, well. Comrades Khrushchev and Molotov correctly continued to cover the issue . However, the issue is such in its significance that I would also like to express my opinion .

Our party has seen more serious events. We know how the party broke the backs of adventurers and conspirators on a larger scale, who acted in groups rather than alone. We also know from the history of our party that by suppressing and eliminating adventurers and conspirators, the party became tougher, stronger, and its authority among the people increased.

Everything we have heard here about Beria, and what we now know about him, tells us, comrades, that we are dealing with an enemy of the party, with an enemy of the Soviet state and people.

Even during Comrade Stalin's lifetime, Beria behaved very suspiciously. Before our very eyes, we saw it, he behaved rudely, impudently, brazenly disregarding the collective, disregarding comrades, intriguing before Comrade Stalin. Each of us saw many times from Beria the most vile, the most vile intrigues before Comrade Stalin about the comrades surrounding him. This was in Beria's character and, apparently, he did it in the interests of a long-term goal.

After the death of Comrade Stalin, Beria not only continued this line of disunity among the collective, intrigue, and discreditation, but, as you see, he behaved even more brazenly and openly engaged in direct anti-party, anti-state activity.

It became clear that we couldn't leave things like that. If we left things like that, we would inevitably end up in an adventure.

Despite the fact that we tolerated Beria in our midst, and moreover, treated him with visible respect, in reality it was completely different. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov spoke correctly here about the actual mood of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee in relation to Beria.

Comrade Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev did indeed speak to me about Beria before Comrade Stalin's death, and I want to speak about it in more detail here. "As you see," Comrade Khrushchev said, "we are standing on the eve of our leader's death, but I foresee and fear that Beria will greatly complicate matters for us. I foresee that when Stalin dies, he will rush to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And why do you think he needs the Ministry of Internal Affairs? So that he can then take matters into his own hands, subjugate the party and the state."

As you can see, we had such sentiments back then. And that's what happened. The members of the Presidium found themselves under the supervision of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Beria. The members of the Presidium were put under surveillance.

There was talk here about wiretapping. Comrades, we have at our disposal the wiretapping records of comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Voroshilov. We were being watched. I will give one small fact, but it is typical for understanding the situation. Two or three days before Beria was arrested on June 26, at half past one in the morning , having finished work, we went to an apartment - comrade Malenkov, comrade Khrushchev, I and Beria - he gave us a ride . We live - Georgy Maximilianovich, Nikita Sergeyevich, and I - in the same building. Nikita and I live opposite each other on the same floor, and Georgy lives on the floor below. Georgy Maximilianovich went to the fourth floor, and Nikita and I went up to the fifth. We went out onto the landing, stood there, and said that it was hot at home, it would be better to go to the dacha.

Khrushchev says: "I'll go home and have a look." I replied: "And I'll go straight to the dacha." I got into the elevator, went down, and went to the dacha. The next day Nikita Sergeyevich calls me and says: "Listen, I want to check with you . Didn't you tell anyone that we went to the dacha? Didn't you talk to anyone? How does Beria know that we went to the dacha? He calls me and says: "You went to the dacha with Bulganin."

The next day, in Comrade Malenkov's office . Beria said about us : "They're being cunning. They went up to the apartment and then went to the dacha." I replied : "It was very hot at home, so we went to the dacha." "Come on," he said, "you didn't even go into the apartment, you went down in the elevator without going into the apartment and went to the dacha, and Khrushchev, he really did go in and followed you." We decided to turn it into a joke. Nikita Sergeyevich said: "How could you possibly know that you have agents?"

Khrushchev. Spies.

Bulganin: Yes, that's right, he said spies. Beria didn't answer. The fact cited , comrades, shows that this man had already gone wild, and it was certainly dangerous to put off the matter any longer.

I will say one more thing about which Beria spoke at the meeting of the Presidium, which the comrades of the Presidium know. The German question was discussed here. On this major issue, Beria was rebuffed at the meeting of the Presidium. From the speeches of Comrade Malenkov and Comrade Molotov, you heard that the question was about which path we should take - the path of strengthening the German Democratic Republic, that is, the path of socialism , or the path of liquidating the German Democratic Republic and creating a bourgeois Germany. Beria held the latter point of view. The members of the Presidium spoke out against Beria.

The next day there was a meeting of the so-called special committee, the chairman of which was Beria and of which I was a member of the Presidium. Arriving at the meeting of the Committee, Beria postponed the meeting for an hour to talk to me about the German question. The conversation was of the following nature. I gave him examples of the neutralization of Germany in its time and said that nothing would come of it. As an example, I pointed out that in history there were such facts as the Treaty of Versailles, according to which Germany was disarmed, and then what happened? Germany armed itself and attacked the Soviet Union. Beria rudely and rather brazenly stated the following: “This cannot continue any longer. If things go on like this, then we will have to remove some ministers from the Presidium from their ministerial posts.”

I say that in our Presidium we have ministers Molotov, Bulganin, Beria, and Mikoyan - who are we talking about? He says: "The current leadership will have to be changed." This was, of course , a direct threat. If, they say you continue this line, you do not vote for my proposals, then we will simply throw you out.

If we add to this the conversation with Strokach, which Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov spoke about here: "We will expel, arrest, rot in the camps, grind into camp dust", then there is no need to say more about who we were dealing with. These facts speak for themselves.

Moreover, comrades, there is every reason to believe, and we are convinced of this, that we are dealing with a big, seasoned international adventurer, an international agent and spy. His letter , which remained unsent, was read here, a letter to "comrades" Rankovic and Tito. Further, comrades , I will cite some more facts. Just before his arrest, we learned that Beria was collecting materials of a military nature, in particular materials about our Naval Forces. He had developed a questionnaire, and according to this questionnaire, data was collected on what our Naval Forces could counter the American and English fleets, what our coastal defense consists of, what kind of artillery we have, what its qualities are, and some other data. He was also asked questions and data was requested on our air defense, on our anti-aircraft artillery, its effectiveness. Then, at the same time, a questionnaire was compiled and sent to the Air Force about our aircraft, their features, ceiling, armament, etc.

The investigation of this case showed that the data was allegedly selected in order to examine some special issues related to rocket weapons. But the question arises, why were these data required without the knowledge of the Central Committee of the Party, bypassing the Minister of Defense? Of course, all this data was not given to Beria , it was reported to me, and I reported it to the Central Committee. It may turn out that this data was needed in order to give advice and instructions to someone.

Now, comrades, look at the internal issues that Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov reported on here and that Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov also spoke about . Every issue has a background that is extremely dangerous for the state. Take the issue of amnesty: releasing thieves and repeat offenders is a blow to public order in the country. Right?

Voices from the audience: Correct.

Bulganin: Let's take the questions of Latvia, Lithuania, Western Ukraine. Now it is clear to us that this was, undoubtedly, an attempt to strike a blow at the Leninist-Stalinist national policy and the moral and political unity of the Soviet people.
Voices from the audience: Correct.

Bulganin: When speaking about the national question, we cannot ignore the Georgian question. You have read the material. This scoundrel has taken upon himself the monopoly right to decide all Georgian questions with regard to Georgia. I will express the general opinion of the Presidium of the Central Committee: he has confused this matter so much that we must seriously examine what is currently happening in Georgia.

Voices from the audience: Correct.

Bulganin: We hope that the Georgian party organization will be unanimous with the entire party in the matter of exposing and expelling this vile scoundrel and adventurer from the party ranks .

Comrades, if we add to this what Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev said about our agriculture, then here too, undoubtedly, the hand of Beria is visible . Agriculture was brought to a state that was in the interests of Beria and his ilk.

All these facts indicate that Beria acted according to the principle: the worse, the better.

Comrades, we have heard about Beria's supposedly positive role in his affairs on the release of doctors, on the liquidation of the Georgian case, on the liquidation of the Shakhurin and Novikov case, the case of Marshal Yakovlev. We must debunk him here too. He has no positive role in these affairs. On the contrary, all this was done in order to create the appearance of popularity.

Voices from the audience: Correct.

Bulganin: How did things really stand? I'll tell you that even during Comrade Stalin's lifetime, we, members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, said among ourselves that the doctors' case was a sham. Is that right, comrades?

Voices from the Presidium. Correct.

Bulganin: We said that the Georgian case is a phony, a phony case. The Shakhurin and Novikov case is a shameful case for us. Did you say that? We did. The Marshal Yakovlev case is a shameful case for us. Did you say that? We did.

Beria knew about these conversations. I ask, what was he supposed to do after the death of Comrade Stalin, when he took over as Minister of Internal Affairs? Of course, he had to finish these things. And these things were finished not because he personally played some positive role, but because the situation forced him to. He knew the opinion of the Central Committee, the opinion of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee on these issues.

Now it turns out that Beria took a written statement from all those released (the doctor Ryzhikov told me about this) on how they should behave in the future . It is clear that the statements were taken in order to keep these people in his hands.

Comrades, the exposure of Beria, especially the completion of this exposure and the arrest of Beria itself, was a difficult and risky matter. And here we must give credit to comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, and Molotov (stormy applause), who organized this matter well and brought it to the end.

Khrushchev: There is one amendment: don't exclude yourself. (Applause.)

Bulganin: I am very grateful to you, Nikita, for this remark and I declare to you and all other comrades that I acted only as every honest member of the party should act. (Applause.)
Comrades, after the death of Comrade Stalin, the Presidium of the Central Committee had to carry out very difficult work, to resolve complex issues of domestic and foreign policy.

The exposure of Beria and his arrest testify to the firmness, the Leninist-Stalinist principledness of our Central Committee and its Presidium, and their irreconcilability toward enemies. The Beria case shows that our current Central Committee and its Presidium, educated and tempered by Comrade Stalin, are a loyal stronghold, a dependable leader of the party and our Soviet people. (Stormy applause.)

Now, comrades, I want to touch on the issue of some practical measures in relation to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It must be admitted, comrades, frankly, that we have poorly controlled and checked the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and its organs. When I say we, I mean not only the Presidium of the Central Committee, but all those sitting here.

Voices. Correct.

Bulganin: Our regional party committees, the Central Committees of the republics, the territorial committees, despite the fact that we have written down many times in the Central Committee decisions the need to decisively put an end to the lack of control in the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs , still have not exercised and do not exercise real, deep control over the work of these bodies. We must put an end to this. This is indisputable. Today at this Plenum this has become especially clear. But I think, comrades, that it is not enough if we just say this. I think we should say it more specifically. We must establish control over these bodies on specific practical issues. The bureau of the regional committee, territorial committee, the Central Committee of the republic, the Presidium of the Central Committee must know who is being arrested, how they are being interrogated, who is in prison, what the procedures are there.

Khrushchev: And most importantly, to strengthen party work among the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Bulganin: Yes, to strengthen them and help them to remain good party members. They say that they are not allowed to control under the pretext that incredible secrecy is imposed on all activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs . But our party organizations, instructors of regional and regional committees and other leading party officials have access to the most secret laboratories, research institutes, where exclusively secret work is done . Why can't they go to prison and check on the conditions of those arrested?

Voroshilov. Check who is arrested and why they are arrested .

Bulganin: Yes, and how are interrogations conducted? Why can't a regional committee instructor go and check all this ? Why can a regional committee instructor go to any top secret laboratory, but can't go here?

And another question - about personnel. I think that we also did not finish the job with personnel, we wrote down many times , but did not do what needed to be done. We often talked about the need to replace many people in the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to change, to put in new ones. But how was this done? For the center, we took people from the periphery, the same people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We need to put new people there.

Voices. Correct.

Bulganin. From our party and state apparatus.

Voices. That's right, we need new people.

Bulganin: I often heard that newly appointed workers were experienced Chekists, and it was these experienced Chekists who spoiled the work.

What happened ? What is the MVD? It is the Cheka – the Extraordinary Commission. You remember, at least most remember and know the Cheka for combating counterrevolution, sabotage, and speculation. They were created in the most difficult years of the Soviet power, during the civil war. The MVD remains the same today, nothing has changed except the name. And the rights are the same, the methods of work are the same, and we have already lived for 35 years. Can we tolerate this any longer? We need to put an end to this.

There are some questions that I think need to be reconsidered. For example, should prisons be left under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs? Should they be transferred to the justice authorities, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs made into an intelligence agency?

Another question. We must implement Comrade Stalin's repeated instructions to make the Ministry of Internal Affairs a civilian ministry, not a military one.

Voices. Correct.

Bulganin: We have an army, there are generals, officers, and soldiers. But why is our Ministry of Internal Affairs militarized? We all know that Comrade Stalin repeatedly scolded and scolded Beria: "This," he said, "is your tricks, your work." The Ministry of Internal Affairs must be de-militarized. For the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the simpler they are , the better, and their work will become more effective.

Comrades, I am finishing. I will say in conclusion that a great deal has been done. A serious and dangerous adventure for the party and the state has been prevented. All this shows that our party is a strong and solid party. Comrade Stalin left us a strong and united party. It remains so today. This Plenum of the Central Committee also shows this. Everything that is happening at the Plenum shows that the present Plenum will be unanimous in its decision and will approve the actions of the Presidium of the Central Committee. (Prolonged applause.)

The decisions of the Plenum will further strengthen the ranks of our party, will further unite these ranks around our Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee, so that with honor and dignity we can carry forward the banner of Lenin-Stalin to communism. (Applause.)

Chairman comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Serdyuk has the floor. Comrade Bakradze, get ready.

Serdyuk: Comrades, the history of our Communist Party, as Comrade Malenkov, Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, and Comrade Bulganin just spoke to me about it very vividly, has shown how the enemies of our Soviet people, the Soviet state, the party tried to strike a blow first of all at the leadership of our party, to sow discord, to disunite, to strike at the most sacred of our Soviet people - the workers, the collective farmers, the intelligentsia - this is our Communist Party, which is leading our Soviet people to a bright future - to communism, and is leading it successfully. And so at this Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party we are discussing the issue of one of the notorious enemies (I say directly that this is an enemy of the party, the Soviet state) trying to strike a blow at our Communist Party, the leadership of the Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee of the Party.

But, as Comrade Malenkov reported in his report, and in their speeches Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, Comrade Bulganin showed that the party exposed and destroyed the enemies of the party and the people , and after each destruction of the enemies it grew stronger, united, and led the people along the path to communism outlined by Lenin and Stalin.

I believe that the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party acted absolutely correctly in removing Beria , who had infiltrated the leadership of this adventurer, spy, and notorious enemy of our Soviet state, from his posts, expelling him from the Party and arresting him. This decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party found unanimous approval from all of us present at this Plenum. We approved it after listening to the report of Comrade Malenkov and the speeches of Presidium members Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, Comrade Bulganin.

I believe, like everyone else present here, that this decision will find unanimous support and approval from all communists of our great party of Lenin and Stalin. (Applause.)

Comrades, our leadership, the Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee of our party, will be supported by the communists, will be supported by our Soviet people, who have shed so much blood and sweat to build a new, bright, communist society in our country. From the detailed report of Comrade Malenkov, from the speeches of Presidium members Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov, and Bulganin, we see to what baseness the enemy who had infiltrated our ranks had reached. He, comrades, wanted to decapitate our Soviet state. He, as Comrade Malenkov and all the speakers have said here, wanted, having become Minister of Internal Affairs , to subjugate the party. If you think about it, comrades, he was planning something terrible. He did not succeed, and in this lies the strength of the Leninist-Stalinist education of the leadership of our party.

Look at what this scoundrel tried to do among the leadership? To sow mistrust, but the leaders of our party, brought up by Lenin and Stalin, decided the issue correctly, and its solution will find, I repeat, the unanimous support of the entire Soviet state, the entire Soviet people.

Beria, as is now very clearly evident from Comrade Malenkov's report and other speeches, having made his way to the leadership, forced the plans he had outlined. I, comrades, knew Beria as one of the leaders and did not know him closely, and I believed that he was working for the benefit of our party, for the benefit of our state.

Voroshilov: That's what everyone thought.

Serdyuk. But now, in light of events, you can clearly see how skillfully he carried it out, at least in the examples after he became Minister of Internal Affairs, in the placement of personnel. Comrades, in one and a half to two months he replaced all the heads of the regional departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Ukraine without the knowledge of the Central Committee . While in Lvov, Kirichenko told me that Strokach was being recalled to Moscow. Why, I asked. It is probably because Strokach is a party man, a most devoted communist, he goes to the regional committee, informs the regional committee and me as the secretary of the regional committee what he is thinking of doing and what some Meshik, appointed by Beria, demands of him. Look - in two months he moved all the heads. Comrade Strokach is a communist, a real Bolshevik, he is objectionable . And what is the matter? I understood when comrade Malenkov reported at the Plenum and from the speeches of comrades. I did not know these things. I, placed by the party at the head of the party organization, was guided by the decisions of the Central Committee and carried out the party policy of strengthening the party, strengthening the unity of the party and the Soviet people. And here are the facts.

Comrade Strokach comes to me at the regional party committee and says: "Comrade Serdyuk, I don't understand, maybe I've fallen behind." And he was recently the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, and the MGB had all the intelligence, all the arrests, all the prisons... It was all in the MGB. Comrade Strokach says: "Maybe I've fallen behind, but Meshik demands that I photograph the two most backward collective farms and give them to him." You understand, comrades, that, of course, he didn't photograph them with a Leica, but simply gave a description of these collective farms. I ask why the most backward, we have huge shortcomings in agriculture, but we do have good collective farms, which can be used as examples to show the life of peasants . What was this necessary for?

Where should I have gone? To the Central Committee. Comrade Melnikov was the secretary of the Ukrainian Central Committee, a candidate for membership in the Presidium. I reported to him that I didn't understand what Meshik wanted .

The second question. Comrades Poperek and Strokach came to me with information and reported that Melnikov was interested in what the political situation was in the western regions . Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev and Molotov were right when they said that for Beria the worse the situation, the better. What is the political situation in the western regions? Meshik portrayed it as if there was no Soviet power in the western regions. During the day it was still supported by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but at night the OUN members were in complete control.

I then told Comrade Strokach, who is present here, that the work of our party, the communists have been working since 1939, then the Nazi occupiers were driven out, the Soviet people defeated the enemies, people revived, began to breathe more freely.

I go to collective farms at night, I am present when the chairman of the collective farm gives orders to the foremen and team leaders . Soviet power is felt, why do scoundrels say that there is no Soviet power?

I reported with indignation to the former Secretary of the Central Committee of Ukraine Melnikov that this was being done, he was also indignant. You can't say everything over the phone. If you allow me, I'll tell you why you can't say it. I felt it myself. Not because I was offended. I am a member of the great Communist Party, I cannot be offended, it was not about one person, it was about the freedom of the Soviet people.
This is how far the presumptuous provocateur has gone. Comrade Strokach and I went to see Melnikov when he was in Lvov and told him how it was possible that the party was working, that the Central Committee, the Soviet government , was paying so much attention to the western regions, so many heroic deeds of our Soviet people - and suddenly they were saying that there was no Soviet power. Comrade Melnikov was indignant. What should I have done? Maybe I should have gone further. It was my fault that I did not report to Comrades Malenkov and Khrushchev. But that is not the point.

Here is the latest case. Comrade Strokach comes to me and says: “Comrade Serdyuk, I can’t go on. Meshik gave him the task of giving him information on how many Russians, Ukrainians, including locals , work in the party apparatus, in the regional committee, city committees, and district committees . I don’t know what to do.” I know comrade Strokach as an honest communist, as the most devoted to our party, to the Soviet people. I say to him jokingly: “Well, go ahead. I know the resolution of the Central Committee on the liquidation of agents.” We burned the files of the agents who were there before 1938. I know the decision of the Central Committee of the party on the attention and observation of the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by the party committees, that we need to intervene. I say to Strokach: the head of the special sector in the regional committee has such information, but if you go to him, he will not give it to you without permission from the Secretariat. Maybe you have agents, then the agents will give, but this is a terrible thing. I decided to call comrade Melnikov, I think that things are going in the wrong direction, and then I think to myself: I will call comrade Melnikov, Melnikov will probably call Meshik, and Strokach will fall into disgrace. And then I think again: after all, I will not call just anywhere , but the Central Committee, and if some Meshik attacks Strokach, the Central Committee will protect him. I call Melnikov, I am indignant, I say, how is this possible, since when should the regional committee report to the MGB? I take an active part in the work of the party, I know the decisions of the Central Committee, I know what line the Central Committee of the party is pursuing, and I do not allow the thought that the regional committee should report to the MGB. Of course, as the Ukrainians say, I “didn’t quite get it” that Beria was there. Melnikov tells me: yes, this is an outrage, I will find out and call. Strokach and I are sitting and waiting for a call. After the decision of the Central Committee, I personally went to the prison, interrogated. We have just captured one enemy of the people, the organizer of the murder of the writer Yaroslav Golan, I interrogated this murderer too, I needed to know who he was relying on.

Comrade Melnikov calls, he says: "Comrade Serdyuk, look at the information, maybe we should give it, this is Beria's assignment. But why doesn't Meshik contact the Central Committee? I thought that if the Ukrainian Central Committee had said: such information is needed - it would have been there in 2 hours. I received the Central Committee's decision and a note, I will speak about this note separately.

I told Comrade Strokach : I will not give you the information. Comrade Strokach is here and he will confirm that I did not give you the information, and Beria nevertheless received this information through the Ministry of Internal Affairs . Comrade Strokach, is it correct that I did not give you the information?

Take the Central Committee's decision, Beria's note. As the regional committee secretary, I look, I see shortcomings, I see that there are a lot of shortcomings in practical work. But now, after Comrade Malenkov reported, after the Presidium members spoke, I came to the conclusion that everything is in this note, but what is missing?

There is no single figure of how many Soviet party workers, Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, were killed, whom the Central Committee of the Party sent to the western regions in order to quickly pass on the experience of our Communist Party in building socialism, accumulated over decades . How many honest peasants were killed just because they honestly worked on the collective farm. The people of the western regions - workers, collective farmers, intellectuals - adopted this experience. We are standing on the eve of a historic event - the three hundredth anniversary of the reunification of two great peoples - Russian and Ukrainian. Russians and Ukrainians fought hand in hand against enemies for centuries, and now Beria wanted to sow discord. But now we read in the note that so many were killed.

Khrushchev: What is there to apologize for?

Serdyuk. More than 20 thousand of our people were killed in Lviv region alone . This is not in the note. It was not in Beria's interests to show this .

Comrades, when I listened to Comrade Malenkov's report , I understood that it was not about Serdyuk. After the Plenum of the Central Committee, when I had a conversation with Meshik, I will say at the Plenum that the words were Ukrainian, but the essence is not Ukrainian, not Soviet, but anti-Soviet.

Khrushchev: I was told that one of the intellectuals who sat at the Plenum and listened to Meshik's speech said, look how well he speaks Ukrainian-Bengali. (Laughter.)

Serdyuk: A couple more examples. The phone rings on the high frequency and they say that Minister Meshik will speak to you now. He was in the region for 10 days and did not stop by the regional party committee to talk about the work of the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Then I told Comrade Strokach that if Meshik does not stop by the regional party committee, I will make such a scandal that he will not be well. Indeed, he is planning some events, why not consult with the regional party committee? And so he relented and stopped by the regional party committee, yes stopped by. He said that he gave operational instructions, and that was it, said goodbye, and I replied: all the best. And he left. This minister wants to fight the enemies of our party, but outside the party.

Or another example. Meshik calls me and says : why, comrade Serdyuk, am I the last to know about the question you raised with the Central Committee? It was about transferring the former prison to business organizations. And I actually raised the question with the Central Committee of Ukraine about transferring the former prison to a school for training machine operators. Meshik was indignant why I reported to the Central Committee and not to him, and at the same time told me that, well , for how long he has been working in the organs, this is the first time, that we almost never contacted the Central Committee. I indignantly answered him that for as long as I have worked in the party organs, I have always contacted the Central Committee, and not the Central Committee, but the Central Committee, and hung up. In my office were the head of the regional administration Shevchenko, two secretaries of the regional committee, the chairman of the regional executive committee. I was very indignant and told comrade Shevchenko that he wanted to arrest me. The secretaries witnessed this. When there was a Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine to discuss the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of May 26 , Meshik was invited to this Plenum of the Central Committee. Meshik's behavior at the Plenum was outrageous. A meeting was scheduled for 11 o'clock, he arrived at 1 o'clock. He left, came, and so on without end. I expressed my opinion to Comrade Struev, we were outraged by his behavior. I said, you serve the party, why do you treat us like that? I said this not to Meshik, but to Struev, we exchanged opinions. If you tell him, he will arrest you. (Laughter.)

Frankly speaking, before Meshik's speech at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, I thought that he was simply a non-party person, did not know what a party was, that he was, excuse me, a martinet. I reasoned that he did not understand what a party was, what a Central Committee was, that's what I thought. And then, when he spoke at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Comrade Struyev and I exchanged opinions on this matter, I said then that he spoke in such a way that he wanted to intimidate everyone, to sit above the Central Committee here in Ukraine. I also expressed this to Comrade Mzhavanadze, a member of the Lvov Regional Committee Bureau. I went to see Comrade Kirichenko, who was also the Secretary of the Central Committee of Ukraine , Comrade Nazarenko, I was outraged and I said to Comrade Kirichenko: Alexander Illarionovich, if Meshik continues to behave like this in Ukraine, especially in Western Ukraine, I will not tolerate it. He will arrest me. Right, Comrade Kirichenko?

Kirichenko. Right.

Serdyuk. He stands up and says, "Are you crazy?" And I say, "Comrade Kirichenko, he will arrest you and give you the inquiry report, and Serdyuk's signature will be there." He tells me again, "Are you crazy?" (Laughter).

I say, Comrade Kirichenko, there are two of you secretaries here, if he arrests me, please take action. I beg you, help me. I am an honest communist, I have been in the party for many years, I am not guilty of anything before the party. I fought together with the Soviet people against our enemies, saving our Motherland. Can I say this frankly? (Addressing the Presidium.)

From the Presidium. Yes.

Serdyuk: Arriving home (addressing the Presidium): Nikita Sergeyevich, you know me, I told my wife: you know what could happen, they could arrest me, but I am not guilty of anything before the party. (Animation in the hall.) I only said that I am not guilty before the party and ask you to then turn to Nikita Sergeyevich, he knows me. And about the fact that they could arrest me, the secretary, and they could make it so that I am the most notorious Banderite.
Voroshilov: And they can do it.

Serdyuk: They won't do it now. Our party is strong, and the leadership of our party unanimously cut off the dirty paws of these enemies of the people, now this will not happen to anyone.

Comrades, what is the strength of the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee ? It is that the members of the Presidium , educated by Lenin and Stalin, consulted and made the right decision. As a grassroots worker, as a secretary, as a communist, I believe that the party will perceive this as the greatest victory of our leadership, the entire Soviet people will support it, and we will go forward along the direct path that the great Lenin and Stalin showed us, under the leadership of the Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee, and build communism in our country . (Applause.)

Chairman comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Bakradze has the floor. Comrade Kaganovich, prepare.

Bakradze: Comrades, the facts and materials reported to this Plenum by Comrade Malenkov and then supplemented by Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov and Comrade Bulganin prove beyond doubt that in the person of Beria the Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has exposed the greatest adventurer of international scale, a notorious troublemaker and intriguer, an irrepressible careerist and, of course, a seasoned spy, of which I personally have no doubt.

For all of us, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is the holy of holies, and to some extent one feels annoyed that such a notorious highwayman as Beria turned out to be lurking in this governing body for so long . However, this unpleasant feeling is more than compensated for by the fact that we finally managed to expose and cut off this absolutely exceptional Jesuit in such a short period of time as 3 1/2 months . This is an enormous and invaluable service to the party of our Stalinist collective leadership - the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU .

A colossal task has been accomplished for the further consolidation and strengthening of the collective leadership of our glorious Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Not only this Plenum, but the entire Party, the entire Soviet people will unanimously, with a feeling of great satisfaction, approve the decision that will be taken by this Plenum regarding the scoundrel Beria.

In light of the facts published here at the Plenum, revealing the vile, treasonous work of Beria, I would like to recall the story of his rise to leadership in the Communist Party of Georgia in 1931 and then to the leadership of the Transcaucasian party organizations.

It is now absolutely clear that Beria did not come to this leadership by entirely honest means. This scoundrel gained Stalin's trust and by means of intrigues, squabbles, slander and undermining unexpectedly (few people knew him then) found himself at the head of the Transcaucasian party organizations. Subsequently, he did literally everything only to exalt his personality , and for this he did not disdain literally anything. He did not tolerate any criticism or any contradiction, he implanted sycophancy and servility, gathered people personally devoted to him, dispersed those who were objectionable, and attributed everything that the party and the Soviet government did to himself. Having left for Moscow in 1937, he left in Georgia, along with the Central Committee of Georgia and the Council of People's Commissars, his understudies, people personally devoted to him. The situation was such that Sharia and Rapava, left by Beria as backups, began to pose as the actual First Secretary of the Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, literally sat on the heads of the Central Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, and when they were finally exposed, Beria took them under his protection and offered to call Sharia and Rapava and give them only a verbal warning. This is how Beria corrupted the work in Georgia. The fact that Beria always acted only on the basis of personal careerist considerations, by the way, is evident from his vile behavior in the so-called provocative case of the Mingrelian nationalists. Beria knew better than anyone from the very beginning that it was a provocation, he knew who and how created provocative materials on honest people, he himself raised the provocateurs Mgeladze and Rukhadze, he knew that honest workers were being tortured, but until the last moment, until it became profitable for him, he said nothing about it. On the contrary, he himself added fuel to the fire, which is evident at least from his speech at the April Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia in 1952. During the life of Comrade Stalin, Beria did nothing to clarify this case of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group, and only after the death of Comrade Stalin, when he became the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, did he need to drag this case out and earn cheap authority on it.

I must say that I fully agree with Comrade Bulganin's statement that the scoundrel Beria confused and harmed much in Georgian affairs and that it is necessary to specifically sort out these matters. This will help us, Georgian communists, to quickly eliminate the extremely harmful consequences of Beria's patronage. This patronage oppressed us until the very last days. It was literally impossible to do anything independently, sometimes they even did not allow us to bury the dead where we wanted. Beria took mainly dishonest people under his protection, as soon as you touched someone, a telegram immediately flies to Beria, and from him the order - do not touch. Beria almost never contacted me personally, everything was through Shariy, he harassed us. Therefore, not everything is well with us in Georgia, especially in terms of personnel placement and ideological work. Much has been confused, spoiled and now we need to quickly fix it.

I fully agree with Comrade Khrushchev's statement that the case of the Mingrelian nationalist group was concocted for provocative purposes. In this vile case, the overwhelming majority of workers were arrested incorrectly, and the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee acted correctly when it made the decision to rehabilitate all honest workers. However, Beria also did harm in this case, since all those arrested were rehabilitated indiscriminately, and as a result, such scoundrels as Sharia, who had been released long before the decision of the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, were released. The decision of the CPSU Central Committee on Georgian cases was made on April 10 of this year, and Sharia was released from prison in mid-March. Beria did this for his own vile purposes since Sharia was his executor. In addition, among the workers involved in this case, there were individual workers who had committed serious economic and domestic crimes, for which they should still have been punished to some extent. In fact, everyone was indiscriminately rehabilitated, and now certain individuals who escaped punishment for the above-mentioned offenses walk around here strutting around as if rehabilitated in all their sins and demand high positions, no lower than Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers or no lower than Minister .

Voice from the floor. Many were appointed.

Bakradze: It is correct that the case as a whole was provocative, but in my opinion, individual personalities still need to be looked into further.

I would like to dwell on one more issue. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, it seems to me that in light of today's facts regarding Beria, all that fuss that Beria started with the Georgian Menshevik emigration looks very, very suspicious. I was always against it. I told Charkviani back then that there was no need to deal with this bandit scum, no one needed them in Georgia. However, they still started the fuss through Shariy with the delivery of Menshevik emigrants to Georgia. It is now completely clear to me that Beria was trying to achieve this for his own hostile purposes.

As for the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the party leadership over them, dear comrades, let it be known to you that in Georgia the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs have been in charge of everyone for a long time now. When Beria was the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, he had the Ministry of Internal Affairs in his pocket, and when he left, he appointed his man Rapava as Minister of Internal Affairs, who did not take anyone into account, then they pulled out Rukhadze, who not only did not take anyone into account, but also began beating up Bolshevik cadres, and after the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU of April 10 of this year on Georgian affairs, Beria sent us his people - Dekanozov as Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia and Mamulov, head of the department of party, Komsomol and trade union cadres of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. When we received the decision of the Central Committee, we did not understand the appointment of Mamulov and Dekanozov to the above-mentioned positions with their introduction into the composition of the members of the Bureau of the Central Committee. Moreover, after the Presidium's decision, Beria summoned Mirtskhulava and me and, in the presence of Dekanozov and Mamulov, proposed that all issues be discussed only in the presence of Dekanozov and Mamulov. I then realized that Beria had assigned his controllers to us. In fact, that is what happened. They systematically, in addition to us, informed Beria about the affairs in Georgia as they wanted.

Before Dekanozov was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia, the chief of police systematically submitted to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Georgia reports on certain criminal offenses committed in the city of Tbilisi. From the day of Dekanozov's appointment, these reports also ceased, and there could be no talk of any other information. Dekanozov was so self-important and rebellious that, while serving as Minister for more than two months, he never once visited the Chairman of the Council of Ministers or even called him. I was forced to tell the Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade Mirtskhulava, about this, and we agreed that when we were in Moscow, we would specifically raise this issue.

I would like to tell you about one more thing. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU instructed me to report to the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia on the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU on the issue of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group. After the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Beria called me at the hotel and asked if I had received the decision. I said that I had. "Have you read it?" I said that I had. "How are you going to report to the Plenum?" I said that I was thinking of reading the decision of the Central Committee. "No," he said, "read it all from the beginning to the end, from point to point." The fact is that Beria's report and the minutes of the investigative commission were attached to the resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which I did not consider necessary to read at the Plenum, but Beria demanded that everything be read, and this in order to push himself forward. At the beginning of April of this year Before the meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Comrade Malenkov and Comrade Khrushchev called us, explained the resolution on the issue of the so-called Mingrelian nationalist group, instructed us on how to explain the resolution and how to conduct the Plenum. I followed these instructions exactly and I believe that we conducted the Plenum correctly. However, someone immediately informed Beria, as it turned out later, it was Sharia, Mamulov and Dekanozov. The latter directly sent Beria the transcript of the Plenum of the Tbilisi Committee and the transcript of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. After that, suddenly there was a phone call from Moscow, I was sitting in the Council of Ministers, and Beria said: "What have you done? How did you conduct the Plenum?" I answered: "The Plenum was conducted normally and well." Beria began to shout: "Nothing of the sort, we conducted the Plenum incorrectly, you failed the Plenum, you don't understand anything, you are a canner, not a politician." (Laughter in the audience.)
I was completely perplexed, it is true that I worked as the Minister of Food Industry of Georgia for five years and did something in this industry with the help of the government. I understand the policy of the party and the Soviet government well and I implement it in all my practical work, but Beria says that I understand nothing about politics. We wanted to finish the discussion of the resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on Georgian issues at the Plenum of the Central Committee and at the plenary sessions of the regional committees and not get into further details, since the issue was clear and it was necessary to organize practical work to fulfill the plans of 1953, where there was a big lag. However, Beria forced us to open a broad campaign, to involve all the communists in this matter. As a result, for a month and a half, the entire asset was engaged in this matter, and the spring agricultural work almost failed. Now I think that Beria wanted our sowing and all other work to fail. Otherwise, how can one explain his behavior when I told him that such a broad campaign could affect sowing, the fulfillment of the tea plan, etc., and he invariably replied: what sowing, we must engage in politics. (Laughter in the hall.) What tea, we must engage in politics. I did not understand this. It is known that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet government develop policy, guide us, give directives on all fundamental issues, and we are obliged to invariably implement them. These directives say that collective farms should be strengthened, that state plans should be drawn up correctly and fulfilled, that the political situation in the city and village should be strong. I understand all this well and am working in this direction with all my might, and what other policy is needed? I have no business engaging in international politics, because our foreign policy is handled by the Central Committee of the CPSU and Comrade Molotov. (Laughter in the hall.) I told Beria that I was working as I understood and as I could, and after that he never called me again.

When I read in the press the announcement of Kobulov's appointment as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, my heart sank. I had no facts, but this man always seemed suspicious and not entirely honest to me. Then I thought: who needed to drag him back to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after all, he was kicked out of this body during Stalin's lifetime. Now it is clear that the scoundrel Beria was gathering his people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs for treasonous work.

Beria's patronage did a great deal of harm in Georgia. I must report to this Plenum and Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee that even after the CPSU Central Committee's decision of April 10 on Georgian affairs, not everything has settled down: the situation is not yet completely normal, much remains unfinished, Beria's henchmen have greatly hindered us. Comrade Bulganin said here that Beria confused a lot in Georgian affairs and that the CPSU Central Committee needs to thoroughly sort out the situation in Georgia. I fully agree with this statement by Comrade Bulganin. We are firmly convinced that the CPSU Central Committee will help us in the matter of normalizing life and work in Georgia. Beria did a lot of harm with his harmful patronage. Many anti-Soviet-minded individuals, especially from the remnants of the bourgeois, nationalist intelligentsia, enjoyed his patronage and have become so brazen that they put their feet on the table. We must put an end to this. Many worthless workers who failed to do their jobs were supported by Beria. They could not be touched. Now this too must be put an end to. Beria put his dirty hand to the recently implemented amnesty, and as a result, a huge number of professional murderers, robbers and thieves have returned to our cities and are again robbing and killing honest people. This is causing serious discontent among the population.

We have a serious lag in Georgia in the area of economic work, and especially in agriculture. Comrade Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev said here that in the Union as a whole, collective farmers currently have 300 thousand cows less than before the war. In Georgia, the situation with livestock farming is so difficult that in just one year the number of cows owned by collective farmers has decreased by 63 thousand heads. In some of our regions, 80% of collective farmers do not have any livestock at all. The acute shortage of vegetables, potatoes, dairy products, etc. is reflected in the mood of the urban population. With proper work, all this can be had in Georgia, but Beria did not give us the opportunity to work properly, he ridiculed every good undertaking of ours and poured cold water on it. This will not happen any further, and things in Georgia will quickly improve.

After this Plenum, after the report of Comrade Malenkov and after the speeches of Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov and Bulganin, who have revealed to us a terrible picture of the hostile work of the now exposed major wrecker and, apparently, old spy Beria (I heard here for the first time today that Beria used to be in Musavat intelligence and that this issue was raised back in 1937 at the Plenum), our entire Party will have even greater confidence in our collective leadership. With its decisive actions against the scoundrel Beria, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee has once again and convincingly proven that the leadership of our Party is in the firm hands of the Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee. There is no doubt that not only this Plenum of the Central Committee, but also our entire Communist Party and the entire Soviet people will greet the Plenum's decision regarding the scoundrel Beria with the greatest satisfaction and approval.

As for the Communist Party of Georgia, created in the distant past by our great leader Comrade Stalin, it is certainly healthy and firmly united around the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

In general, the entire Communist Party of Georgia was , is and will always be one of the loyal detachments and reliable support of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (Applause.)

As for the attitude of the Georgian people to all these matters, I can, comrades, assure this Plenum that the Georgian people seventeen decades ago, fleeing from the threat of physical and national destruction from the Turks and Persians, forever linked their fate with the great Russian people, and no scoundrels like Beria will succeed in upsetting the most sincere friendship of the Georgian people with the great Russian people, their devotion to the unbreakable friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union, their firm confidence in the Soviet system and their selfless devotion to the great cause of Lenin and Stalin. (Applause.)

Chairman, Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Kaganovich has the floor. Comrade Bagirov, prepare.

Kaganovich. Comrades, Comrade Malenkov reported vividly, clearly, and correctly, and Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov and Bulganin supplemented and illuminated for the Plenum the political essence and all the circumstances of the case of the anti-party, anti-state criminal Beria. We cannot underestimate the significance of this entire case, its place in our political life and the lessons that we must learn from this case.

This is not a question of a political deviation from the party line, but of a dangerous counter-revolutionary, adventurist plot against the party and the government. From the facts reported by comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and Bulganin, it is not difficult to see, by all methods, by the essence of the actions themselves, by the goals, that Beria was leading the matter to a coup of a fascist nature.

We know that in our socialist state, with our close connection of the party and government with the people and with the complete separation of the adventurer Beria and his ilk from the people, any attempt at a "palace" coup is doomed to inevitable failure. However, Beria could do harm, cause great harm to the party and the state both internally and externally, and to the leadership of the party.

It must be said frankly that if the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party had been late for a very short time, perhaps measured in days, we would be in a completely different situation today.

It is possible and necessary to learn lessons from this case, to reveal our shortcomings and mistakes from this case, but first of all, at this Plenum we must note and establish the main and fundamental thing. And the main thing is that when the facts showed us that we were dealing with a counter-revolutionary, fascist conspirator, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party acted decisively, quickly, and most importantly, intelligently. The hand did not tremble. The enemy was expelled from the Party and arrested. In this way, the Presidium of the Central Committee justified the trust of its Central Committee. (Applause.)

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich: Comrade Bulganin here correctly noted the particularly outstanding role of the initiators in this matter, comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and as comrade Khrushchev added, also comrade Bulganin and other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee.

When this case came to light here, I was in the Urals, I arrived the day before the decision.

Malenkov: But when we informed Comrade Kaganovich, he unconditionally, immediately made the same decision as all of us. (Applause.)

Kaganovich: Because we are all people of the same school, the school of Lenin and Stalin, and all of us in our activities strive to be worthy students of our teachers in times of peace, war, and any other difficult time. (Applause.)

And this time our party and the peoples of the Soviet Union led by it were convinced once again, as was more than once in the history of our party in the struggle against the enemies of the people, against the enemies of the party, that the peoples of the Soviet Union and the party can entrust leadership completely and entirely to their Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee and its Presidium, the faithful disciples of the great teachers and leaders of the working class, Lenin and Stalin. (Applause.)

Of course, comrades, we may be legitimately asked the question: it is good that you acted decisively and put an end to Beria's adventurist plans and to him personally, but where were you before, why did you allow such a person into the very heart of the leadership? This question naturally arises among those present and among each of us who wants to answer this question honestly for ourselves, to understand and answer it truthfully. This question will also arise among party members.

I must say that, analyzing the state of affairs, as it happened, we must distinguish two periods in the behavior and activities of this provocateur, as Comrade Malenkov, Khrushchev, Bulganin correctly called here, the great provocateur, Beria. The first period is before Stalin's death, the second period is after Stalin's death.

Of course, today we look at it with different eyes, we analyze all his activities differently, we weigh the facts differently. However, it must still be said that in the first period hardly any of us had, so to speak, the mood or assessment of Beria that was even close to the assessment we give him today, when his vile activities were revealed. He behaved much more modestly, his negative sides did not stick out as much as they began to appear after Stalin's death. He acted from the background, like a real provocateur of the Fouché type, but on a smaller scale, he acted on the sly.

We all saw that he was an intriguer, that he intrigued one against another, set one against another, set Stalin against us and other comrades, but many of us believed that perhaps these were specific features of his personal quarrelsome, intriguing character.

Khrushchev. And vile.

Kaganovich. And a vile one, of course. But mainly a figure who works with us in the party.

Voroshilov: Correct.

Kaganovich: It must be said that there was something else that hung over us: he cleverly gained the trust of Comrade Stalin.

After the death of Comrade Stalin, this vile man, who during Stalin's life had shown himself to be the first disciple, loyal and devoted, began to discredit Stalin. Without fearing anyone, he moved from the background to the foreground, he began to act with an open visor, he began to behave insolently and brazenly. We became more and more convinced of the intolerance of the situation he created, the intrigue, the setting one against another, as was said here (comrades cited facts, I will not repeat them), and the suppression of the slightest critical remarks at meetings - be it a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, be it a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee.

This impudent fellow, this insolent man and this provocateur , as we already began to regard him then, and later, as has now been established, this adventurer and counter-revolutionary, who did not know the strength of the Bolshevik Party, who did not know the strength and roots of each of us, thinking that he could take each of us by the throat with impunity, he imagined himself to be the most “strong” and “great” man, who could do everything, who was allowed everything and who was forgiven everything. Each of us felt this, saw it, experienced it, each of us accumulated a feeling of indignation, which later took the form of an organized and firm decision, known to you.

The reason why we did not conspire and expose him earlier is, firstly, that it was necessary to be firmly convinced that he was not simply an insolent person, but an adventurer and an anti-state counter-revolutionary conspirator; secondly, we considered the question politically, and here Comrade Malenkov, Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Molotov, Comrade Bulganin correctly presented the essence of the matter. We were in no hurry, we had no right to hurry as serious political figures. Each of us could have jumped out, revealed his cards at the wrong time , in advance, unprepared, and he, of course, could have done quite a few vile political counter-revolutionary deeds.

It is necessary to take into account that he had opportunities. Of course, comrades, if he had turned to the people, the people would have failed him, expelled him, but he had serious means in his hands - he was the Minister of Internal Affairs. It was not for nothing that he was eager for this post, and he was eager. When I once asked: "It is strange that you are planning on the Ministry of Internal Affairs ." "That is better," he said dully. In general, he was taciturn with most of us, only at meetings.

When we had accumulated these facts and when we had become firmly convinced that we were dealing not only with an intriguer, but that we were dealing with a counter-revolutionary conspirator, an adventurer, a provocateur, we began to act, and the Presidium was unanimous in this matter. I noted the role of the most active comrades, but we all quickly and decisively made a decision. I think that everyone who soberly evaluates the facts will admit that 3-4 months after the death of Comrade Stalin is a short period for the exposure and liquidation of such an enemy as Beria.

It must be said frankly that under Stalin, with his general political leadership, we lived more peacefully, although Comrade Stalin, as was rightly said, was not able to work so actively and participate in the work of the Politburo in recent times. There were two periods - before the war and after the war, when Comrade Stalin gathered us less often , when there was not such a collective lively exchange as before . Of course, this was reflected and created a favorable environment for Beria's intrigue and vile underground activities . He is a clever man. It was still more difficult for him at open meetings, and we did not show due vigilance to his underground activities . Each of us knew - Stalin unites and there is nothing to fear.

After Stalin died, after we suffered a great grief, it is natural that we, all members of the Presidium, old and new, we treated the leadership of the collective that was formed after Stalin with great intensity and care. We tried not to complicate the work. We worked in such a way as to introduce as few elements of contention as possible. Of course, there were business disputes, but still, we made decisions, generally, unanimously. We did not only demonstrate unity outwardly, no, comrades. Each of us internally tried to achieve this unity, not to complicate the work of the top leadership collective. We saw the inconsistencies associated specifically with Beria, but still, each of us thought - maybe the first period of scrapping, adjustment will pass, and the work of the leadership will proceed more normally.

However, this impudent fellow, and now it is clear that he is a provocateur and a political adventurer, perceived this sacred care of ours, sacred concern for the unity of the party, for the unity of the collective in a completely different way. He perceived it in such a way that now he can let loose, he can act, he can be impudent and trample underfoot everything sacred in our party. And he became more and more impudent, he became so impudent that when the Central Committee decision on the issue of Ukraine was adopted, there was no mention in the decision of Beria's note being attached to the minutes, and so he calls Comrades Malenkov and Khrushchev and insistently demands that it be written down: "Approve Beria's note", he demanded that it be attached to the minutes and sent to everyone to whom the Presidium minutes are sent . And then, too, the fact that private disputes and disagreements should not be arranged had an effect on us, because it would be necessary to argue with him in high tones.

Malenkov. We had to deal with him right away.

Kaganovich: Exactly. You can argue with any of us normally, but you couldn't do that with him. Everyone remembers our old, wonderful Bolshevik, Sergo Ordzhonikidze. He was a temperamental, sharp-witted man. Any of us would get into a heated argument with him, but everyone knew that he was a high-party, ideological, principled Bolshevik, and any argument that happened between us ended with us moving on to the next business two or three hours later, as if there had been no argument. We couldn't and didn't have anything like that with someone like Beria. May our late friend Sergo forgive me for the comparison, but I do this to emphasize Beria's meanness. He was, first of all, a vindictive man, and most importantly, he had his own far-reaching conspiratorial goals. If we had entered into an argument on individual issues, he might have felt mistrust based on the sum of the issues and might have accelerated his conspiracy, and started acting in a forced manner . Therefore, I believe that we acted correctly politically, as Marxists, as Leninists.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich: We held out until the end, and then with one blow we finished off this scoundrel forever. (Applause.)

The Presidium of the Central Committee summed up all his actions and came to the conclusion that we were dealing with an enemy of the Party and the people. We exposed this matter in good time. I think that the Presidium has no need to apologize. We have shortcomings and mistakes, we will expose them in the course of criticism and self-criticism, but we speak before the members of the Central Committee with a clear conscience. In this short period of time, we were able to accumulate facts, we were able to summarize the facts in a consistent manner and, at the right moment, decide the matter as our great teachers Lenin and Stalin would have decided.

The Party and the people will undoubtedly approve of this decision of the Presidium, which will, we hope, be confirmed by a resolution of the Plenum of the Central Committee of our Party. (Applause.)

But, comrades, of course, it is not enough to expel and arrest. We need - and for this reason we are discussing this question - to learn lessons from it and mobilize the party for a new upsurge on this basis, to raise the political and ideological-theoretical level on the basis of the struggle against enemies, as has always been the case in our party, and to correctly explain this matter to the party and the people. We hope that the party and the people, as the comrades rightly said here, will approve of this measure.

Who and what were we dealing with? What is the socio-political face of this whole event?

The first and absolutely correct answer is that we are dealing with an adventurer, a rogue, a provocateur and, of course, a spy of international scale, who has infiltrated the leadership of the party and the state and has set himself the goal of attempting to use his position to seize power. But this is the subjective side of the matter.

What is the objective basis, the objective background, who does he reflect, what line did he base his activity on? An ordinary adventurer sets himself the goal of personal gain, but when we deal with a political adventurer, we must look deeper, that this adventurer pulled up some views, unprincipled, without ideas, but still his "principles".

Unlike the ideological principles of a Bolshevik party member, who subordinates his work, his position, his post to the principles of ideological service to the cause of the working class, the cause of communism, the adventurer, careerist Beria, on the contrary, subordinated his behavior, his "line", his "principles" to his adventurous plans - the seizure of power. In the name of what and whom? Certainly not in the name of communism, for communism and Soviet power, the party are inseparable. He, Beria, wanted to seize power in the name of liquidating the dictatorship of the proletariat, in the name of restoring capitalism in our country. He certainly had his own system, his own counter-revolutionary line. Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, and Bulganin spoke correctly here about the line of a bourgeois degenerate.

This line of bourgeois degeneration is aimed at undermining the socialist country, undermining its power, and preparing its complete subordination to foreign capital, at the degeneration of our state into a bourgeois state. That is why Beria slowed down our work in agriculture and other sectors, he carried out preparatory work to replace the line of communism, the line of Bolshevism, the line of Lenin-Stalin with the line of bourgeois degeneration. Of course, this is only an attempt by an adventurer, it is ridiculous to think that he would have succeeded. But he still messed up in many matters, and if we had not exposed him, he would have done very serious harm. This matter cannot be underestimated. We were facing a serious threat, which was eliminated by the Central Committee of our party.

Before taking decisive action, he sought to aggravate and complicate the situation in the country. Let us take the national question. Everyone knows that the basis of the power of our multinational state is the friendship of peoples. This friendship is the result of the victory of the Leninist-Stalinist theory and practice of our party on the national question. It played an important and decisive role both in peacetime and during the war. Our party won this friendship of peoples in the fight against deviations - great-power and local nationalism. That is how Lenin, Stalin, and all of us always formulated this question. How did Beria approach it? He replaced the struggle for the purity of our party's national policy, the struggle on two fronts, with setting one nation against another, serving it up under the sauce of flattery. In his speech at the party congress, his speech should now be viewed in a different light, as Comrade Khrushchev rightly said. In fact, with his praise, he actually contrasted one nation with another.

Comrade Stalin, after the Great Patriotic War, at a banquet, when we summed up the heroism of all the peoples of the Soviet Union who participated in the war, fairly, rightfully - and every communist, no matter what nation he belongs to, will say that this is fair - paid tribute to the people who sacrificed their lives most, the people who were the vanguard in this initially unequal, difficult war with German fascism. He paid tribute and made a wonderful toast to the great Russian people. Beria, however, casually, in passing, flatteringly mentioned the Russian people and, without developing the essence of the matter, filled his speech with flattering praise of the national republics, inflaming national pride instead of ideologically elucidating the national policy of our party, which, relying on the best people of all nations, ensured great victories in the struggle against nationalists of all stripes.

Our policy is based on the internationalism of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. The national question reflects the struggle of classes. Beria had nothing of the sort. He had flattery, flattery and flattery, praise, praise, and praise. This was already his speculation on the national question.

As a result of the implementation of our policy on the national question, on the basis of the victory of a single socialist structure in the national economy, we have created new, socialist nations. These socialist nations must be united more and more for their flourishing, and not opposed. Beria led to the disunity of nations.

His line, which he pursued as Minister of Internal Affairs, was aimed at setting one nation against another within the Union republics. Even if, for example, we take the doctors' case, which some elements incorrectly linked with Jewry in general, even the case of the release of doctors, which the party did correctly. Beria presented it sensationally, artificially, since here Beria also applied his method of praising himself, that it was I who was doing this, not the Central Committee, I was correcting, not the government.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich: This was presented in such a way that some people reacted with opposition and incitement.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich: Further. Take all the decisions as he presented them, for example, on Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and other republics. Of course, there are shortcomings, there are no words. I think that we at the Plenum of the Central Committee are evaluating these decisions on the republics correctly, basically a number of shortcomings were noted correctly.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich. However, how did he present it, in what way? It resulted in a sweeping accusation. Firstly, a sweeping justification of the OUN members. During the war, it was an anti-Soviet army that had to be destroyed, and he portrayed the OUN members as innocent lambs. Secondly, the entire note was presented in such a way that after the decision was made, distortions of the opposite order occurred: they began to expel Russians and workers of other nationalities from the national republics, including Western Ukraine.

If it is necessary to replace the current ones in order to promote local personnel, then this must be done in a prepared, organized manner, new personnel must be trained, and the current workers must be given good work. But Beria, as an anti-Soviet conspirator, is not interested in this. For him, as an adventurer, the main thing is to exacerbate national relations, set one nation against another, destroy the friendship of peoples, inspire, and activate nationalists of all stripes, win over dissatisfied nationalist elements to his side, and obtain in their person personnel for the struggle against the party, against the Soviet power.

This is exactly how he acted with his "amnesty" project. We were all in favor of releasing petty thieves and especially those who were serving time for truancy and other petty crimes, but he, Beria, despite the fact that the first project did not include repeat offenders or bandits, he insisted and achieved the inclusion of everyone - both repeat offenders and other malicious criminals . Now it is clear that he did this in order to release them , get a receipt of loyalty from them and then use them for his vile deeds. These rabid released bandits are the core of Beria's fascist gang.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich. The Central Committee has destroyed the adventurer Beria and will certainly correct everything that is necessary on the national question, will ensure better preparation for the implementation of these measures and, of course, I have no doubt that we will ensure the flourishing of the socialist nations, we will ensure the further strengthening of the national policy of our state and the further implementation of the policy that Lenin and Stalin taught us and which the party carried out. We will not allow the fight between nations, which was and is the lot of bourgeois states, which was the lot of oppressed peoples under tsarism and was eliminated in our country, to flourish in some way or to exist at all. We will strengthen the friendship of peoples. This, comrades, is the guarantee of our successful advancement.

Let's take the question of Beria's attitude to the working class. I must say that he generally treated trade unions with great disdain. All comrades remember how he spoke about trade unions, that they were worthless , that they were slackers. But we know what significance the party attached and attaches to this large union of the working class.

Lenin's great definition that trade unions are a school of communism remains in force to this day. It is no accident that Beria always tried to push Comrade Shvernik away from work. For example , he objected to being invited to meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee. Beria stubbornly pushed housing construction for workers into the background, even when a great opportunity arose in connection with the liquidation and mothballing of a number of large construction projects. Incidentally, I must note that Beria also raised these issues demonstratively, not in a businesslike manner. He was in a hurry to raise all these issues immediately after Stalin's death.

Voice. Correct.

Kaganovich. And to show: here, they say, is "my" new course. This was presented as a revision of Stalin. Each of us is convinced that Stalin himself would have corrected the mistakes, as always, when he discovered them, especially when his opportunities and health allowed him to. And we are not dogmatists, we can and will make amendments. We have already made a number of decisions. However, Beria presented this under a special sauce, with his own special goals. So, the party will undoubtedly direct the freed up capital investments to improving agriculture. And it is necessary to direct part of this freed up money to housing , to give more housing to workers.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich: For Beria, this was not a question . It's okay, he says, they'll tolerate it, there's no need to rush into it. Not to mention that this man didn't know the workers, hadn't been to the factories, hadn't spoken to the workers, he treated all these issues with disdain.

Meanwhile, the housing issue is now the most acute issue in the entire country. For example, I was in the Urals. There are wonderful factories there, they can provide new reserves of capacity, but it is impossible to recruit workers, because some of the existing ones do not have housing, and some still live in semi-dugouts . At Uralvagonzavod, at the Berezniki Chemical Plant, for example , which were built 20 years ago, and they have many old barracks that were built 20 years ago. New factories are building houses, and the barracks there are falling apart, and now the factories built in the 1st Five-Year Plan are in a worse state with housing than the new ones. There is no more acute issue than housing. Of course, the food issue is also acute: there is little meat, not enough sausage, but housing is especially acute . This also applies to metallurgical plants, building materials plants , water and rail transport and other industries. Beria's attitude towards the working class was careless, provocative, it was aimed at causing discontent among the working class against us, against the party.

Voices. Correct.

Kaganovich. He carried out provocative work to slow down our communist construction, he led the matter to the bourgeois degeneration of our system. I will not speak here about agriculture, comrades have already spoken about it in detail. After all, it is a fact that even before the death of Comrade Stalin, and after the death of Comrade Stalin, he slowed down the adoption of a number of decisions on agriculture, especially on livestock farming.

It must be said that he knew little about agriculture. He knew about viticulture, and as for livestock farming, potato and vegetable growing, grain farming, he knew little, but he spoke with great aplomb on agricultural issues. At first we thought that he was confusing things because he didn't know, but then it turned out that he not only didn't know, but was deliberately slowing down.

The question of potatoes arose. Comrade Stalin in "Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR" teaches us that economic adventurers (as if it was written for him) do not know and do not recognize the objective laws of economics, they think that they can write laws themselves. Comrade Khrushchev, Comrade Malenkov, Comrades Mikoyan, Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov, and others prove to him that it is necessary to raise the procurement prices for potatoes, that it is impossible to keep the procurement price for potatoes at 4 kopecks per kilogram. For the collective farmer, this price is too low, while we sell them at a higher price. No economics, no objective laws of economic calculations allow this to be done. And he, putting on the toga of a "true believer", slowed down this issue in order to finally leave the country without potatoes . For an adventurer, nothing is worth: no and no, for him there is only the method of pressure. When necessary, the Party knows how to put pressure. We pressed at the time when it was necessary: during the civil war, during the Patriotic War. However, this is not the main method of our economy. The main method of our economy is an economic understanding of the essence of the matter - economic interest.

Now, I think things will go better. We have many shortcomings in agriculture, but our collective farm system is a healthy system, it contains huge reserves, huge opportunities.

For example, in the Urals, agriculture is in a difficult situation, the regions there are industrial, for example, in the Sverdlovsk region, 11% of the population is engaged in agriculture. In the Chelyabinsk region, the same thing - 88% of the industrial population. Of course, the healthiest population leaves the collective farms, women, old people, children remain, there is no one to work. We need to equip ourselves with high mechanization and create a balance of labor so that agriculture is not undermined, so that all agricultural products are not imported to the Urals, so that the Urals feed themselves primarily with vegetables. dairy products. This is a major agricultural problem. Now that we have finished with the provocateur Beria, who was holding back our movement , the party and the government will certainly quickly correct the affairs of agriculture and others .

The main thing is that our party and its Central Committee demonstrated their strength and great vitality.

You and I know from history that any hostile act against the state, against socialism, has always been directed first of all against the party. Why? Because the party stands like a rock, it is the backbone of the state, it is the leader of the working class; the party is the fortress of the working class, and no one can do anything without ruining the party. That is why the oppositionists of the previous period, even before the Trotskyists, and the so-called "Workers' Opposition" and others - Trotskyists , Zinovievists, rightists, Bukharinists and so on - they all attacked the party. The times are different now, of course, the period is different, but we must always remember this.

Comrade Stalin back in 1937, dwelling on the shortcomings of party work and the lessons of sabotage, said that the Trotskyists, the rightists, who were a political movement 7-8 years ago, had ceased to be a political movement. They had degenerated into bandits, especially this can be applied to Beria - this degenerate of degenerates, who has absolutely no one behind him , but attacked the party surreptitiously, counting on his forces in the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. As is known, to our satisfaction, these calculations of his did not come true.

However, in his calculations, this was his main instrument. It was no accident that he wanted to go not to the Central Committee, but nominated himself for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It would seem, why not to the Central Committee, but to the Cheka? Because this instrument is sharp and convenient for organizing various provocations and, as Beria calculated, for seizing power, and at first for opposing the party.

His calculations were based on the fact that this apparatus of the MVD is a partially corrupted instrument, as comrade Malenkov, comrade Khrushchev, comrade Molotov and others said. It is partially corrupted by the fact that for a number of years it was polluted not only by bad people - Yagoda, Yezhov, Abakumov - but it was polluted by the method. Gradually a tradition was created, a custom was created, the morals of the lack of control of the MVD and separation from the party were created. Old secretaries remember when the MVD, and earlier the MGB, were listened to at bureau meetings, listened to reports, analyzed individual specific issues, and in the last period, when I went, for example , to Ukraine in 1947, I already saw that the MGB already considered itself independent: if it wants, it informs, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t inform, it arrests, it doesn’t report.

All the facts that were presented are not just isolated facts, no, this is a system of opposing the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the Party. Pay attention - Comrade Khrushchev, the Central Committee apparatus summons Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Kobulov and wants to sort out the issue of what personal changes are taking place . It seemed that the bad, on the contrary, is good, the Central Committee wants to help, and he, Beria , calls Comrade Khrushchev angrily: "On what basis does the head of the department summon Kobulov - my deputy?" Comrade Khrushchev answers that this has long been the case in our Central Committee. "No, I will not allow this," Beria declares.

I remember in 1924, when I was the Secretary of the Central Committee and the Head of the Orgburo, the Orgburo meeting was considering the nomenclature of workers who needed to be approved in the Central Committee. The late Comrade Dzerzhinsky, a man of great ideology and integrity, an honest and outstanding figure in the party and state, expressed some doubts about how this would work out. He was a People's Commissar, a candidate member of the Politburo, and it would result in a kind of mistrust in his appointment of people, that the Orgburo apparatus would check his people, would say whether they were fit or not. Comrade Molotov should remember this . Then Comrade Stalin spoke up and said: "No, Felix, we are talking about the system of party control, about the system of party leadership. It is imperative that the party appoint leading people. It is difficult for you as a People's Commissar, and you should be grateful to the Central Committee for this." And Comrade Dzerzhinsky immediately declared that he was removing his doubts and agreed with the draft resolution.

And here Beria, who is not worth Dzerzhinsky's leg (even if he were an honest man) , rudely and brazenly trampled on the rights of the Central Committee. Why? Because he did not want the Central Committee to know his people, to have the Central Committee control him. He wanted to control the party himself. The facts that were reported here, when the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were given special assignments to collect compromising materials on the secretaries of regional committees and on the regional committees themselves, mean nothing other than an act that puts the party under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which means that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is watching the communists, the secretaries of the district committees, the secretaries of the regional committees.

If all the secretaries of the regional committees were in the same situation as Comrade Serdyuk, what kind of party and political leaders would they be ? It would be a disaster for our party. Such people under the supervision of "Beria's police" could not be leaders of the masses, could not be leaders of socialist competition, such people cannot be organizers of criticism and self-criticism, such people cannot lead. He wanted to paralyze our cadres, turn them into rags, so that he could dominate himself and so that it would be easier to carry out the fascist coup he had planned in the name of the party. It is impossible to appear before the people in the name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He needed to appear on behalf of the party, and to do this he had to break some people, turn some people into his agents and act. This is the enemy line, this is the line of the intelligence services of foreign countries, which are the masters of this vile traitor .

The plan was very big - to tear the Ministry of Internal Affairs away from the Government and to direct it against the Party and the Government. He bombarded us with papers, information, we read a lot, but we did not see or have a single paper on major issues. He acted as if democratically and presented us with information, but in fact he did not give us anything serious.

I have already said that he acted not only in local organizations, but also in the Presidium. It did not work out, he ran into the wrong people. But the local party workers also brought this to the attention of the Central Committee. He, this renegade, failed to create a wall between the Central Committee and local party organizations. Party people raised the issue with the Central Committee. Our Party managed to expose the enemy, the wolf in sheep's clothing. All his actions that he conducted, and all the measures that he took within the Party, were the actions of an enemy who wanted to suppress our Party. This is ridiculous, a Party with such rich experience, having such a Central Committee, such leaders, a Party that, under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, had made the path of great victories over enemies within the Party, within the country and over the enemies of our Motherland, over the imperialist sharks - such a Party this pygmy, this bug, of course, would never have managed to suppress. However, he had this in mind and could have destroyed people.

He began his attack on the party with an attack on Stalin. The day after Stalin's death, when Stalin was still lying in the Hall of Columns, he actually began to prepare a coup, began to overthrow the dead Stalin, he began to stir things up, to do dirty tricks, he would say that Stalin had said this about you, that about someone else, he would say that Stalin was going against him, Beria. He told us, a group of people: "Stalin didn't know that if he had tried to arrest me, the Chekists would have staged an uprising." Did he say that?

Voices from the Presidium. Spoke.

Kaganovich. He said this on the Mausoleum tribune. When he said this, we immediately felt that we were dealing with a scoundrel, a counter-revolutionary who was preparing something. He insulted, portrayed Stalin in the most unpleasant, insulting words. And all this was presented under the guise of the fact that we now need to live in a new way. It must be said that he achieved something. Stalin gradually began to disappear from the pages of the press. It is true that there was an excess in terms of the personality cult, and Comrade Stalin himself reproached us, but this does not mean that we should make a sharp turn in the other direction, in the direction of hushing up such leaders as Stalin.

Voices from the audience: Correct.

Kaganovich: We know very well that nothing human is alien to all people. Marx spoke of this. It is not alien to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin either. We know very well that every person, even a great one, has shortcomings, and Comrade Stalin had them too . And we, his students, do not intend to deify him and portray him without shortcomings. Moreover, we have always proceeded from and believed that our science, the great science of Marxism-Leninism, is not a dogma, we are not pedants, we understand Marxism creatively.

We know, as is written about in the final chapter of the party history, that Marxist-Leninist science cannot be considered as a collection of dogmas, as a catechism, and Marxists themselves as pedantic pedants. Marxist-Leninist science cannot but be enriched by new experience, new knowledge, and its individual provisions cannot but change over time. However, this does not mean that we will allow the foundations, the fundamentals of the great teaching of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin to be changed right and left. And this is precisely what this newly-minted candidate for "dictator" was leading things to. All his "innovations" are not amendments, but revisions.

The haste, the hissing, whistling dance that Beria raised showed that he was a careerist, an adventurer who wanted to undermine the foundation on which we were sitting and clear the way for himself by discrediting Stalin. He wanted to undermine the foundation of the teachings of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, although he himself not only underestimated the theory, but simply did not know it ; in his speeches, published and unpublished, you will find very little about Marxism-Leninism. He did not know Marxism-Leninism. He was poorly grounded in theory; the book that Comrade Molotov spoke about here was not written by him, he made his capital on it.

Beria was hostile to the statements that Stalin was the great continuer of the work of Lenin, Marx, and Engels. Today, having liquidated this traitor Beria, we must fully restore Stalin's legitimate rights and call the Great Communist Doctrine the Doctrine of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. (Applause.)

Beria did not want just the amendments we are talking about. Amendments can be made, but to what end, to the foundations of Marxism-Leninism, and he wanted to liquidate Marxism-Leninism, he needed it to clear its path to bourgeois degeneration, to a fascist revolution. That is why today we have finally consolidated our victories: economic, ideological-principled, and political.

Of course, we take the situation into account soberly, we do not get carried away, we know that we have shortcomings. Although the conditions are different, the situation is different, it is useful to recall the report of Comrade Stalin and the resolution adopted on his report at the Plenum of the Central Committee in 1937, on the question of shortcomings in the work and the lessons of sabotage. In this report and in this resolution, Comrade Stalin raises a number of questions, analyzes the rotten theories that the class struggle has supposedly been completely eliminated in our country, raises a number of acute questions, speaks of shortcomings in our work. Comrade Stalin demands that we have honest criticism and self-criticism, that we have no pomposity, he criticizes and demands the elimination of the situation in which, in the name of not arguing, people give in to each other on fundamental issues.

Of course, we must improve our party work. We must raise it to a higher level. Of course, we, in the Presidium of the Central Committee, have shortcomings, and I think that we will eliminate them now. Now the situation is different. We now have a truly party atmosphere, friendly, there is no such incitement as when this scoundrel sat among us. We will work as Leninists-Stalinists should, unanimously criticizing each other, not being afraid to become each other's enemies.

This is how we must work in the party organizations at the bottom. We must create an atmosphere of party democracy right down to the grassroots party organizations . We need criticism, but we need criticism that is not hostile, but criticism of shortcomings that we must eliminate in order to improve our work. We must raise our ideological and political work among workers and communists and we must strengthen the party organs.

The Party is above all for us. That scoundrel Beria said more than once: the Central Committee should only deal with propaganda and partly with personnel - that is what he reduced the role of the Central Committee to. But for us, old Bolsheviks, the Central Committee is the party, political and economic leadership of the entire life of the party, the country, and the state. The organizational question is subordinated to politics. The organizational question and politics are closely connected with each other, that is why we must preserve the strength of the Central Committee, protect it, strengthen it and so that the Central Committee would really not be what that scoundrel wanted, but so that it would remain, as it always was, a strong, central organ of our party, which directs the entire life of our country. We, comrades, of course understand that the domestic and international situation has changed, not what it was before. We have many victories and successes, however, we should not and will not get carried away by successes, we will be self-critical and vigilant. We must say that much of what was said in 1937 must be taken into account today.

The capitalist encirclement remains, it has become smaller, a number of countries have been included in the camp of democracy and socialism. We have such a friend as the great revolutionary China. However, those imperialist enemies that exist have intensified their hostile relations with us, and we must be on guard.

The enemy is still strong, and we must respond to his strength with even greater strength and vigilance. As before, and even with greater fury, the enemies will send spies, saboteurs to us, and most importantly, they will look for some points of support inside the country for their hostile work.

It is impossible, while being carried away by our achievements in strengthening our Soviet society, to deny that certain remnants of bourgeois elements both in the consciousness and in the unfinished hidden living and tenacious hostile elements exist and are fertile ground for imperialist intelligence services.

There are no opportunities now to act openly against a hostile political trend in our country, especially since we have one powerful party and there cannot be two parties. However, given the current activity and aggressiveness of imperialism and its intelligence, the remnants of bourgeois elements, including careerist and adventurist ones, in conjunction with foreign intelligence can not only be simple spies and saboteurs, but also prepare and organize counter-revolutionary conspiracies and adventures. This is precisely where the roots of Beria's fascist adventure lie. In the current international situation, no adventures are possible without connections with imperialist intelligence services.

Beria was certainly connected with international imperialist intelligence as their major agent and spy . The facts cited here, his letter and fraternization with Rankovic and Tito after Tito came from England and visited America, it is no coincidence that he proposed abandoning the construction of socialism in the GDR and focused on the actual liquidation of the GDR. This is the line of an agent of imperialism, who carried out the order of the imperialist powers - to betray our Motherland into the hands of the imperialists. Hence the conclusion once again - be vigilant and not yawn.

At the same time, it is necessary to carry out extensive patient educational work with those who need to be made healthy and treated from rotten embryos, but at the same time, skillfully identify adventurers and people with manifestations of bourgeois sentiments, who require vigilance and vigilance. The Central Committee and its Presidium will pursue this line firmly and definitely. The Central Committee and the entire party will strengthen our ties with the masses, increase concern for the needs of the masses and further strengthen our Soviet state.

Comrades, as the holy of holies, we must protect the unity of the party and the principled policy. Comrade Stalin said at the evening of the graduates of the Kremlin cadets: "The principled policy is the only correct policy." This is the very formula with which Lenin took new positions by storm. We are pursuing and will pursue this policy. This principled policy helped the Presidium to resolve the issue of exposing and isolating Beria.

If the Presidium of the Central Committee had gone down the path of examining minor cases and minor disputes, it would not have shown as much determination as it did . Only because the Presidium generalized the facts and looked at these facts from a political point of view, it saved the people, saved our party from upheavals, from the possibility of serious complications. We did not allow this to happen because we have a strong Central Committee. That is why I think that without boasting, despite all the shortcomings that exist in the Central Committee and party organizations, we can say - glory to our Bolshevik tradition of collectivism and party wisdom! Glory to our Central Committee, which was able to quickly and decisively draw the conclusions that it did!

Comrades ! Under the leadership of our party, a socialist society has been built on one sixth of the earth, where there is no exploitation of man by man, no crises and unemployment, no antagonistic classes, but friendly classes of society, a society where there is no division into lower and higher races, into dominant and oppressed nations. The great fraternal family of socialist nations is building a new culture, national in form and socialist in content, building communism.

The peoples are marching towards the great goal of communism under the banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin. The Party itself marched and led the working class, the toiling peasantry, the toiling intelligentsia throughout its history, not in the dark, not gropingly, but consciously, confidently, illuminating its path to communism with the most advanced and most revolutionary theory.

Our party successfully built, led, and inspired the people to labor and military exploits on the fronts of peaceful communist construction and on the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War, because it successfully fought the enemies of the party and united the people around its Central Committee, around its Soviet government.

And today the party, its Central Committee once again demonstrate their ideological and political strength and power, their loyalty to the theory, principles, and methods of Marxism-Leninism. We are emerging from this event even more united, even more united. We have cleansed ourselves of filth, we have cleansed ourselves of a major provocateur who spoiled the atmosphere, harmed, and prevented us from working.

From this new test our party is emerging even more united, and our Central Committee even more united.
Under the banner of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin, under the leadership of its strong, wise Central Committee of the Party, our Party will lead the people to new victories of communism not only in our country, but throughout the world. (Applause.)

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. There is a proposal, comrades, to have a break. No objections?

Voices. No.

[Khrushchev] A 15-minute break is announced.

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Let us continue, comrades. A proposal was made to establish a time limit, since many have signed up and it is necessary to give more comrades the opportunity to speak at the Plenum. There is a proposal to establish a time limit for a 20-minute speech.

Voices. Correct.

Chairman, Comrade Khrushchev. Are there no other proposals? No objections? Then the comrades speaking are requested to adhere to the established rules.

Comrade Bagirov has the floor. Comrade Malyshev, get ready.

Bagirov: Comrades, working far from Moscow, recently after the party and the country lost comrade Stalin, I must tell the Plenum of the Central Committee, I felt a kind of heaviness in my soul, that something was wrong.

What happened, what is the matter? Were all the measures that were taken in Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, the decision on the doctors' cases necessary in the form in which it was sent to the regions? I must say frankly, it was hard for me, and you cannot share it with comrades who do not receive documents from the Central Committee, you have no right. And so yesterday, when I first learned from Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev about the Presidium's decision on what had happened, it was as if a great burden had been lifted from my soul, and I immediately felt some relief. I think that not only I felt this relief, but other comrades as well. It is difficult, comrades, to overestimate the significance of the Presidium of the Central Committee's decision to expose Beria. Without exaggeration, I must say frankly, many thanks to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party for the fact that in such a relatively short time after the death of Comrade Stalin, this guy was exposed and imprisoned, and it was not so easy.

The report of Comrade Malenkov and the speeches here at the Plenum by Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, and other members of the Presidium with exhaustive completeness and persuasiveness revealed the face and the true methods of the hostile work of this international provocateur, this large-scale adventurer, Beria.

Beria, this chameleon, the worst enemy of our party, our people, was so cunning and dexterous that I personally, having known him for more than thirty years, could not see through him, could not reveal his true enemy guts, until the Presidium of the Central Committee exposed him. I cannot explain this otherwise than by my excessive trust and the dulling of my party, communist vigilance towards this double-dealer and scoundrel. This will be a serious lesson for me too.

In confirmation of what was said here in the report of Comrade Malenkov and other members of the Presidium about the adventurer Beria, his careerist aspirations that knew no bounds, his attempts to always put himself forward, to place himself above the leadership of the party and the government, I will give a couple of examples from recent events.

Before that, I would like to say a few words about what Nikita Sergeyevich said here in his speech - about the work of this adventurer in the Musavat police. In 1937, in this hall at the Plenum of the Central Committee, it was said that Beria worked in Musavat intelligence, in the Musavat police. I must say that after the temporary defeat of Soviet power in Azerbaijan, I left for Russia and returned to Azerbaijan in 1920 together with our Red Army. But I know very well that under the counterrevolutionary Musavat regime, all the underground work, all the personnel, everything that was done in Baku by the party organization, all the instructions of Lenin and Stalin, transmitted through Astrakhan, through Kirov to Baku - all this was carried out under the direct leadership of Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. Consequently, if Beria had really been sent by the party organization somewhere, especially to intelligence, then Anastas Ivanovich should have known about it. Anastas Ivanovich never said this.

As for the Baku archives, there are no traces to indicate that he was sent by the party organization.

Therefore, it seems that this man has not only been working for the enemy in recent years. Apparently, he was thrown into our party by an agent of international imperialism long ago with a distant goal .

Now, regarding his attempts, his aspirations to always jump forward, to show himself everywhere and anywhere. Every time I was in Moscow, the members of the Presidium knew, because we had to visit Comrade Stalin together. I saw, I watched how other members of the Presidium, then members of the Politburo, behaved modestly at Comrade Stalin's and how this impudent fellow behaved.

Two years ago, in 1950, a decision was made by the party and government to expand grain production, primarily wheat, in the Transcaucasian republics. Now, in connection with the revision of a number of decisions that did not and do not have any current significance for individual republics, territories and regions, the Council of Ministers decided to reconsider this issue as well and made a decision. Suddenly, out of the blue, Beria called Baku and said that he was preparing proposals to revise this decision. It turns out that it is not the party that is preparing, not the Council of Ministers, not the party leadership, but he is preparing. This was quite recently, the decision of the Council of Ministers was made a month ago. Moreover, on the day he called, the decision had already been received. It is clear that this is not his merit. I am saying this because he cleverly, being a member of the Presidium and a member of the Central Committee of the party, knowing what was happening in the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, tried to pass it off as his own, putting forward his own. Or the second case, which happened quite recently. We are talking about creating new republican orders. Beria calls me and says: you know, I am preparing the issue of orders. I say to him: how are you preparing? He corrected himself and said: we want to establish new orders. I think the issue of orders is not a simple matter. It is not an organizational issue. It is part of the functions of the Central Committee of the Party and the government, it is a political issue, so how can he prepare this issue.

Pegov: Moreover, this is not the Ministry of Internal Affairs' business.

Bagirov. And even more so, it never happens that even on the smallest issues related to our practical work, the first person to not call is from the Central Committee of the Party or the Council of Ministers. As a rule, they always say: I am calling on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party or on behalf of the Council of Ministers. After all, he only has one “I”.

Malenkov: What orders?

Bagirov. Orders of culture, union, and republican orders of culture.

Bulganin. For what category of people?

Bagirov. For art workers, theater workers.

Malenkov: For example, what orders?

Bagirov: You should ask him, he told me - medals. (Laughter in the hall.)

Malenkov. Orders can be named after someone.

Yusupov: His assistant Ordyntsev called me on his instructions and said that Beria was making a proposal to establish two groups of orders: the first group would be Union orders, the second group would be Republican orders; then establish orders of great people of the national republics. For example, he had Nizami, the Uzbeks had Alisher Navoi, etc. I then said that we needed to think about this issue. (Laughter.)

Until now we were brought up differently. I said that we need to think about it.

Bagirov: Our opinion was that it would be better to discuss this issue in the Central Committee.

Voice: And did you call comrade Malenkov about this matter?

Bagirov: I didn't call.

Voice. Bad.

Bulganin: The Central Committee did not know about this.

Malenkov: The Central Committee didn't know, but it turns out that he talked to the republics without the Central Committee's knowledge . We found out about it only now.

Bagirov: The remark and retort that I did not inform the Central Committee was correct here. There is nothing to justify here. This is absolutely correct. But the fact remains a fact.

I will say more. Apparently, Beria tried to extend what he had done in Lithuania and Ukraine not only to those regions and districts that had not had Soviet power for such a long time. He did not contact us , the Central Committee, or the Council of Ministers of Azerbaijan , on this issue. On his instructions, they called the Minister of State Security of the Republic, Yemelyanov, to ask him to provide information on the national composition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs employees. Comrade Yemelyanov was also asked to give his thoughts on who could replace him from among the local nationalities. Yemelyanov, like a dozen other comrades, was raised by the Azerbaijani party organization. Yemelyanov answered the person who called him on Beria’s instructions that since the Minister of Internal Affairs requires information on the national composition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs , I can provide it, but regarding who could replace me, I ask you to contact the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers of the Republic.

Here comrades can say why I did not call the Central Committee. It must be said that we receive dozens of calls every day. Until yesterday Nikita Sergeyevich called me and told me what had happened, I did not know, and when he told me about Beria's arrest, I was not surprised.

Malenkov: Why are you behaving like this here, at the Plenum? No one is bringing charges against you, we are talking about exposing Beria.

Khrushchev: You explain it this way because everyone knows and I know. When they met you and asked - did Beria call? - you said - no. You know him more than others, that's why people say that you should tell, because you know him better.

Voices. Correct.

Bagirov: Regarding the calls. I left here after Comrade Stalin's death on March 16. During this time he called me twice, as I mentioned above. During Beria's 15 years here in Moscow (I don't want to absolve myself of responsibility for the fact that I couldn't figure out this man, I'm not saying this to justify myself), I visited him once at home, and then with Comrade Stalin, and the rest of the time I always met with Beria, as well as with the other members of the Presidium, or with Comrade Stalin, or at work.

Voice of the place. Comrade Bagirov, when you start making excuses, don't do it out loud. You will say that the Central Committee has forgotten in recent years...

Bagirov. Me?

Voice from the floor. We went to the boss.
Bagirov. Me?

Voice from the floor. And they kept going to Beria.

Bagirov: I don’t know whether the comrades have grounds for making such a demand of me, maybe they do, but I, for example, never forgot the Central Committee for a minute and on all issues, when I needed to resolve them, I always called one of the secretaries of the Central Committee.

I could not consider Beria the chief of Azerbaijan, although he tried to do so. That is another matter. Perhaps comrade Ignatov will speak out and say more in detail, but I cannot take it upon myself and say that I bypassed the Central Committee. I will tell you more: whenever I came to Moscow, I visited both the Central Committee and its departments.

Voice. That's another matter.
Bagirov: I want to tell it like it is. It's up to the Central Committee Plenum to see how it will react.

Suslov. The Central Committee instructors were afraid to go to Azerbaijan.

Bagirov. To Azerbaijan?

Suslov: Yes, to Azerbaijan, they were afraid that you had a boss.

Bagirov: I don’t know who they were afraid of and why you have remained silent about the bosses until now.

Malenkov: Comrade Bagirov, you are making excuses. You were close to Beria, but that is not the issue being discussed now.

Voice. Correct.
Malenkov. And that's why the Plenum is perplexed. You're making excuses, defending yourself. That's not the point.

Bagirov. Comrades, the exposure by the Presidium of the Central Committee of this seasoned, cunning, and clever enemy, the decisive actions of the Presidium are the best proof of the correctness of the line and the foresight of the leadership of the party. This is a guarantee, a sure guarantee, that any attempt, from whomever it may be, to shake the unity of the ranks of our party will be mercilessly crushed.

The fact of Beria's sabotage work once again shows that we, including me, especially after the death of Comrade Stalin, need to raise our vigilance even higher than ever, to raise the vigilance in the ranks of our party, in the ranks of all Soviet people. Now we need to expand and strengthen our party's ties with the broad masses of workers with even greater force, to unite the Soviet people even more closely around the party and the government.

The question of friendship among peoples. This was correctly stated here in the speeches of the members of the Presidium, this is the foundation on which our power, our might, is based. Further strengthening of this friendship and the unification of all the peoples of the Soviet Union around the great Russian people is our sacred task, our sacred duty.

The measures taken by the Presidium in relation to this scoundrel, the international adventurer Beria, and the decisions of the Plenum of the Central Committee will be unanimously confirmed and warmly approved by our party.

Comrades, our party is a party of action, a party of struggle, a party of creation, a party created by the great Lenin. In order to hold on to the helm of this party, on the great streams of the revolutionary movement, the goal of which is the construction of communism, one must be what a loyal soldier, a loyal son, a loyal student, a loyal member of our party should be. And therefore it is no accident that the appearance and disappearance of such adventurers as Beria not only cannot affect the pace of our forward movement, on the contrary, every case of such exposure further strengthens the ranks of our party, further raises the fighting capacity of our party, further unites the party around the Central Committee, further unites our people around the party and the government.

I, comrades, was, am and will remain until the end of my life faithful to the great precepts of Lenin and Stalin, a loyal soldier of my party, ready at any moment to carry out any tasks of the party and government.

I am not making excuses, I just want to say that it hurts me to listen to some of the comments of my comrades. Maybe there are many mistakes in my work, but the only thing I always do is one thing: serve the party, serve the cause of the party, serve the people, serve the country, serve socialism, serve communism - that's all I can say.
Chairman comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Malyshev has the floor. Comrade Snechkus (Lithuania ) will prepare.

Malyshev: Comrades, what we heard yesterday from Comrade Malenkov, from Comrade Khrushchev, from Comrade Molotov, today from Comrade Bulganin, from Comrade Kaganovich, shows us what kind of enemy in the person of Beria has made his way to the leadership of the party and government. Their speeches opened our eyes to many of Beria's actions, to his behavior, which many of us have seen over a long period of time. For example, as a minister, I worked under the leadership of several comrades - Comrade Molotov, Comrade Kaganovich , and Beria. I must say that every time you go to report on some issue to your comrades, you go with different feelings. You go to Comrade Molotov with one feeling, about whom we know that he is a strict leader, demanding, but always, when you go to him, you know that there will never be hasty decisions, adventuristic decisions, you will never, unless you have made a big and serious mistake, be under attack because of some mood. Here is Comrade Kaganovich - sometimes a hot-tempered person, but we know that he is also forgiving. He will flare up, but quickly calm down and make the right decision. Beria is a different matter. We, ministers, know that you go into the office as a minister, but who you will come out as - you don’t know, maybe a minister, or maybe you will end up in prison. The method was this: “he will hit you on the head”, you will come out and shake. In short , Beria’s leadership style is dictatorial, rude, non-partisan.

By the way, about party loyalty. I worked under Beria during the war, I was in charge of tank affairs and after the war for a year or a year and a half at Transmash and I was convinced that he never had party loyalty. He somehow set up or pushed, not directly, but indirectly, that the party organization should only provide services, from his side there were only orders, commands to the secretaries of the regional party committees. Many secretaries can say that there was only prodding - you do this, do that.
Voices. Correct.

Malyshev. There was no situation where he taught us party spirit , where he asked the regional party organization for help in organizing party work, and so on. He considered the secretaries of the regional party committees to be dispatchers. For whatever task Beria would take on, the regional party committee secretary had to be the dispatcher. Of course, this depressed us. We thought that something was wrong here, but we forgave him, we thought that the man was doing a great job, he was getting excited, maybe that was how it should be done . In fact, now it is clear that this was not accidental, that this was a non-party style of work. Beria did not make accidental mistakes. I must say that, of course, we took his authority into account, we often considered him infallible, and sometimes we were simply afraid, despite our position as members of the Central Committee, we were afraid of him , let's be honest.

Many of us saw how Beria literally every day, especially after the death of Comrade Stalin, became more and more insolent and unbridled. He mercilessly put pressure on people with his high position. Beria commanded without appeal, dictated, he insulted, intimidated people, including ministers and members of the Central Committee. At every step he emphasized his power and showed that what he was doing was all done in the name of the party, in the name of the government, and if today there was no formal decision, then he would still carry out the decision . And we had the impression that Beria wanted it, so he would carry it out. Obviously, not only I had this opinion, but many others. Now facts have become known that he deceived the Central Committee, that behind the back of the Central Committee and the government, using his position as chairman of the Special Committee, he single-handedly carried out and signed the most important state decisions, decisions of great state importance. Comrade Malenkov has already said that he signed a very important decision on experiments with the hydrogen bomb. We started digging into the archives and discovered that he signed a whole series of major decisions without the knowledge of the Central Committee and the government, for example, in the work plan for 1953 for a very important design bureau working on the design of atomic bombs. Shouldn't the party and the government know in what direction we will develop the atomic problem? He concealed and single-handedly signed a whole series of other decisions that will cost many, many hundreds of millions of rubles, decisions on special issues. He concealed them from the government, single-handedly signed them, using his position as chairman of the Special Committee.

I would also like to speak on one issue. Especially after the death of Comrade Stalin, and even during Comrade Stalin's life, it was somehow difficult for us to sometimes go to meetings of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers, especially when Beria was chairing. It was painful for us, I will say frankly, it was often offensive and painful to see how Beria rudely interrupted, harassed not only us, the ministers - we had already come to terms with this - but also the leading figures of our party and government. It was simply offensive, for example, for Comrade Voroshilov. Since our Komsomol days, we have become accustomed to the fact that Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov is Voroshilov. Am I right?

Voices. Correct.

Malyshev. One word - Voroshilov - said a lot to us, but Beria rudely interrupts Voroshilov at meetings, bullies him. Kliment Efremovich recently headed the culture, voluntary defense societies. I remember how Kliment Efremovich reported on the charter of the united voluntary society. Beria rudely interrupted, insulted him. You sit at a meeting, and your heart is scratched and squeezed with resentment and grief. What right did Beria have to interrupt and bully a man who is respected by everyone in our country , from small children to old people.

Beria also played tricks on comrade Shvernik. This has already been discussed here . He treated Shvernik with disdain , pulled him up rudely. He mocked Andrei Andreevich Andreyev . Andrei Andreevich was ill, we all saw that the man could not work, and from Beria there were mockeries about the illness, statements with a grin: "He is there, in the apartment, ill."

Such a disdainful attitude towards comrades whom we all respected was jarring to us. We were not accustomed to such an attitude towards old leading comrades.

Voroshilov: And to the young?

Malyshev. I don’t count the young ones. We were used to his “knocks on the head.” Frankly, we were afraid of him, he had great authority. We thought that it was forgivable for a big man to be rude, we tolerated his antics for the sake of our party and state affairs. We see how recently proven comrades, known to the whole country, to all the people, have been pushed out of the leadership of our party and government — these are comrades Molotov, Voroshilov, Mikoyan. This is a fact. We were very offended by this. We all know comrade Molotov since their Komsomol years. They are proven, tried and tested comrades, and suddenly for some reason it turned out that they are not needed in the party leadership. It was incomprehensible. Now everything has become clear. Beria was clearing his way to power. First, Voroshilov was pushed out under the guise of old age, then Molotov, having some far-fetched mistakes imposed on him, as if he almost kisses the Americans and the English at every crossroads. It is clear that Comrade Stalin did not say this from his own words, Beria presented him with these materials. Beria pushed aside one after another tried and tested party comrades, destroyed the collective work of the leading core of our party, so that it would be easier for him to get to power. Our souls ached, but we could not think very well. We could not figure everything out at once. Beria sought a dictatorial position, a leading position in the party and the country, he was straight up climbing into the prime minister, no matter what.

Such a person in the leadership of our party, in the leadership of our state, represented a mortal danger to our party and state. We, members of the Central Committee, see that the Presidium of the Central Committee of our party was equal to the situation, demonstrated Lenin-Stalin foresight and promptly saw through this adventurer, provocateur and enemy and made a courageous, precisely courageous, and wise, deeply party decision, neutralizing Beria and preventing the party and the country from great troubles. We fully approve of the decision made by the Central Committee of the party. (Stormy applause.)

We trust our Presidium of the Central Committee more than ever, the Leninist-Stalinist Presidium of the Central Committee, under whose leadership we will work. (Applause.)

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. The floor is given to Comrade Snechkus. Comrade Shatalin, prepare.

Snečkus: Comrades! Lithuania has acquired a sad reputation in connection with Beria's provocative note in the ninth year of the existence of Soviet power after liberation from the Nazi invaders. Now it is clear to us why Beria needed to inflate the significance and role of the bourgeois-nationalist underground in Lithuania. This was done in order to use our shortcomings in work, exaggerate these shortcomings, and show himself as the savior of Soviet power in Lithuania.

Everyone reading this provocative note wondered what kind of order there is in Lithuania: so many years of Soviet power, and the ground is burning underfoot.

And what was it like for us, the Lithuanian communists?

After all, it was said there that if measures were not taken immediately in Lithuania, the cause of Soviet power in Lithuania would be threatened.

At the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania, I could not provide anything convincing in support of this provocative thesis, and not a single member of the Plenum even recalled this provocative hysteria.

Beria also incredibly inflated the reactionary influence of the Catholic Church, saying that 90 percent of the population of Lithuania are Catholic believers. Ninety percent! Meanwhile, the Catholic Church could only wish for such a percentage in its best bourgeois times.

There are no words, the fight of the Lithuanian people against the Lithuanian bourgeois nationalists and their social support - the kulaks - was harsh and difficult. We must not forget that the Lithuanian bourgeois nationalists were armed by the Germans to fight the Soviet power, and then they were actively supported by the American imperialists. In this fight, we lost more than 13 thousand poor people, farm laborers and partly party and Soviet activists. But this fight against the class enemy under the leadership of the Central Committee was basically brought to an end. I must say that this year we have only 7 killed Soviet people. And this, of course, should not be. But where are the arguments that the cause of Soviet power in Lithuania is under threat ? The bourgeois nationalists themselves admit that they lost the fight. By the way, the note mentioned that the underground is led by the former captain of the Lithuanian bourgeois army Zemaitis, elected by the underground as the "president of Lithuania". That this captain of the bourgeois Lithuanian army, Zemaitis, was not caught then is, of course, our fault. But now Zemaitis has been caught, and the Lithuanian Chekists caught him without Beria's help.

Bulganin: And he took credit for it.

Sniečkus. What did this "president of Lithuania" Zemaitis turn out to be? The same as his popularizer Beria. This Zemaitis showed that he had not left his hideout in the forest for years, that he had only a few contacts , that he was completely cut off from the Lithuanian population. What does Beria do? He orders that Zemaitis be brought to Moscow for personal interrogation.

Malenkov. Did he interrogate him?

Sniečkus: Yes, he interrogated him on Thursday last week. He was brought by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Lithuanian SSR Martavičius. Comrade Martavičius said that after interrogating Žemaitis, Beria made an offer to create an underground nationalist organization with the help of Žemaitis. You see, first Beria inflated the role of Žemaitis, and now he makes an offer to the same Martavičius to create a fictitious nationalist organization with the help of Žemaitis.

Was Beria preparing another provocation in order to then write another note about the supposedly powerful nationalist underground?

By the way, how Beria tried to help the cause of liquidating the nationalist underground in Lithuania. After the meeting of the Presidium, 2-3 days later , I came to Beria for a personal conversation. This was the only conversation. (Laughter.)

Pervukhin. Did he call you?

Sniečkus: No, I called him myself and said that I would like to talk to him about some measures to combat bourgeois nationalism. He asked rudely : what do you want? I answered that I would like to talk. Comrade Gedvilas, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR , was also present at this personal conversation.

Malenkov: He hid from the Central Committee that you had visited him.
Snechkus. And now you can find out everything.

Khrushchev. Beria sought to summon the secretaries of the Central Committee and regional committees to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Snechkus: By the way, I have not used such "benefits".

Khrushchev: Even those whom he summoned cannot say this .

Sniečkus: I raised the question in this personal conversation about the need to block all transmissions of enemy stations that are broadcast in Lithuanian, and at least six transmissions a day are broadcast in Lithuanian , and radio transmitters in Lithuania can receive them. He responded to this by saying that he, you see, is preparing proposals to completely eliminate the blocking that currently exists. You see, bad blocking exists , and he wants to eliminate that too. So what kind of help is this in eliminating the bourgeois-nationalist underground? And on the radio, the American imperialists transmit all sorts of instructions to the bourgeois nationalist rump that is still in Lithuania, inspiring it.

Now a few words about how Beria's note was composed. I knew some of it a little earlier, but last night Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Martavičius told me (I may have broken the rules, but I said - tell me everything you know about Beria). (Laughter.)

So, this is how this note was composed. It was not composed by Sharia, who was mentioned, it was composed mainly by another wizard in a general's uniform - Sazykin. This Sazykin was in Lithuania twice, but he did not go to the Central Committee, and the Central Committee did not even know that he was in Lithuania, he was incognito. To add weight, they spread a rumor that he was also an atomic scientist. (Laughter.)

Comrades from the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs initially objected to many provisions in Beria's note, but were then forced to sign the document after indecent rudeness. Comrade Martavičius, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Lithuanian SSR, writes as follows: "The report compiled by us ( i.e. Kondakov, Martavičius, an old Lithuanian communist with underground experience, Gailevičius, a communist also with underground experience . - A.S.), was a very self-critical report, but Beria was not satisfied with it. He accused us of concealing the real situation in Lithuania (although the leadership of the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs did not even think about it). Beria cursed us with the most vile abuse, threatened us and forced us to change things in the spirit he liked, that is, to inflate the state of the active nationalist underground and the leading centers of the Catholic clergy , to show them as massive, well-organized, and centralized, located outside our field of vision. As for the nationalist underground, we do not have such a situation in our republic, but we were forced to describe this underground the way Beria wanted. When I objected to Beria's objections to this biased assessment of the situation, he pounced on me with abuse and threats." This is how the note was composed.

Yes, by the way, about the notorious figure. The report gives a large figure - 270 thousand of all those repressed, but it was compiled dishonestly. Just take the fact that there, in the report, it is indicated from 1944, and meanwhile it includes those repressed before the war of 1941. That's one thing, and then, apparently, the same person appears several times. This figure also includes Germans repatriated to Germany . And this figure has now begun to circulate in our republic, after all , it was announced at the Plenum.

Why did Beria need to blow up the situation in Lithuania like that? Apparently, the Americans. We must recall, comrades, Eisenhower's speech last fall, when he said that the Americans were determined to liberate their blood brothers - the Baltic residents . Remember, there was an editorial on this subject in Pravda . Apparently, it was necessary to blow up the existence of the bourgeois-nationalist underground, to blow up the shortcomings beyond all measure, in order to give new trump cards to the American imperialists .

Of course, both this note and what became known abroad caused us great harm.

What is the situation now?

Comrade Khrushchev and Comrade Molotov were right when they said that the bourgeois-nationalist elements in Lithuania had begun to get out of hand, they had already begun to get out of hand after the most harmful rush to replace Russians with Lithuanians in the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And here Beria pursued the goal of showing himself as the sole conductor of national policy, belittling the authority of the Central Committee.

In fact, Beria acted in order to sow discord between Lithuanians and Russians and to inflame all sorts of nationalistic passions.

What is the nature of these rumors in Lithuania? The Russians will be expelled from Lithuania, and the expelled kulaks will return to Lithuania, and after the Russians, the Lithuanian communists will be expelled. We will kill these Lithuanian communists like rabbits. At the same time, rumors are spread that the collective farms will be dissolved. Lithuania, they say, will become a bourgeois-democratic state under the protection of America . This is how the bourgeois-nationalist elements are unleashed.

It must be said, comrades, that we have not allowed a mass replacement of Russian comrades , and have not released a single one of those working in the party apparatus. In view of the abolition of the regions, some of the comrades must, apparently, be recalled to other republics, and the Central Committee is now considering this contingent . We also have a Russian comrade as Deputy Chairman in the Council of Ministers, and some ministers are Russian comrades.
The day before yesterday, before flying to Moscow , Comrade Moskvinov (former secretary of the Vilnius regional committee) told me and the inspector of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Comrade Sheblykin, who is with us in Lithuania, that at the Plenum of the Sholginik district committee, a retired officer , a participant in the Great Patriotic War, an invalid, spoke and said: it is Beria who is to blame for the fact that such a situation has arisen with the Russians in Lithuania.

The colonel figured out what was learned here - at the Plenum. I could only say that this comrade should not be held accountable and, as they say, that this comrade should be explained. (Laughter in the hall.)

What could I say before the flight? We didn’t know anything about Beria then.

Of course, one cannot think that Beria with his provocative antics could turn more or less broad layers of Lithuania against the Soviet power. It would seem that these negative influences should have had an effect primarily among the collective farmers. After all, it was Beria who tried to discredit the cause of collectivization in Lithuania, to present the peasants as having been forcibly driven into collective farms. Look at the Facts for yourself. It was precisely during the spring campaign that all sorts of absurd rumors began to spread in connection with the hasty changes in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And we sowed well.

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Time to finish.

Snechkus: I would ask for another 5-7 minutes.

Voices. Give.

Snechkus. We have sown well. The collective farmers have come out to work in unison, and have begun to mow the hay in unison . There is not a single case of individual harvesting, while last year in some young collective farms there were cases of individual harvesting. This year there are none. This means that our collective farms are not inflated, not like Beria wanted to present them. We have some good collective farms, even good ones, but we have our own shortcomings in the collective farms and general shortcomings, which Comrade Khrushchev spoke about here. We are very carefully preparing proposals for the Presidium on measures to improve agriculture in Lithuania. Among these proposals will be the question of helping collective farmers moving from their farmsteads to collective farm settlements. Up to 90 percent of our peasants live on their farmsteads. This question has been raised for the last two years, the Central Committee actively supported it, and Comrade Malenkov personally, while Beria in the Council of Ministers rejected this question.

Of course, we have shortcomings in the implementation of the party's national policy, and Comrade Kaganovich spoke about them here - both in terms of national cadres and in terms of promotion, especially to the party apparatus. Over the past year, only 0.5 percent of Lithuanian communists have been promoted. There are very few Lithuanians in the apparatus of some rural district committees. We are aware of these shortcomings and will correct them. But Beria did not give an accurate picture in his note on the issue of national cadres either . He did not give a real picture of the composition of the Soviet organs, where we have approximately 80 percent Lithuanians. He did not cite these figures, it was not to his advantage, just as it was not advantageous to cite any positive data.

We asked for personnel from the Central Committee, we asked ourselves, and now we are trying to retain those comrades that we need. But after the Russian comrades heard Beria's note at the Plenum, they began to refuse. Look, we have 13 thousand Lithuanian communists, it is very difficult to lead when there are two and a half thousand collective farms, and in the collective farms there are only 5 thousand communists, and young ones at that. In some places we allowed the wrong placement of Russian comrades who were demobilized from the army. Here we really have shortcomings.

In no case can Beria be credited with the initiative in raising the issue of promoting national cadres. In every decision on Lithuania, the Central Committee noted this task before us, in particular, last year, according to the report of the Vilnius Regional Committee , such a task was set by Comrade Malenkov, but we still really did a poor job in promoting national cadres, and we were rightly criticized at the Presidium.

But it must be said here that at the same time there are shortcomings in party work, as comrade Molotov rightly said. Some of our comments regarding individual comrades sent by the Central Committee , who were in charge of party-organizational work in the republic and who worked poorly, did not always find due support among some workers of the Central Committee apparatus. Of course, we are to blame for not raising these issues with the secretaries of the Central Committee , but I do not want to bypass the party apparatus, and meanwhile the opinions of Lithuanian communists were not always heard there. Unfortunately, there were such facts. And this could not have a positive effect on our party-organizational work in cultivating communists of Lithuanian nationality.

About another maneuver of provocation of Beria. There are many Lithuanians abroad , about 800 thousand people in total, meanwhile the population of Lithuania is 2700 thousand people. You see what kind of family ties with those living abroad, especially in America . Almost the entire population was in the territory occupied by the Germans, people worked as agronomists, teachers, doctors, engineers, in some families there are repressed people. And really a difficult situation was created in the matter of nominating new people. Last year at the meeting of the Secretariat we raised the issue that we cannot nominate Lithuanian communists to the MGB bodies , because grandmothers and aunts and any kind of kinship played a decisive role here, and not the person himself, whom we could recommend as a person devoted to the party, despite the shady sides of some of his relatives. Then Comrade Malenkov said that the bandits among themselves trust each other more than our workers in the MGB. Ignatiev listened, but did not implement this instruction. Beria is there, who, using this position, acts as an amnestyr, see, I approach it differently. Now it is clear, and we understand this maneuver of Beria.

Beria's provocative note distorted the true position on the implementation of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy in Lithuania. Of course, there are shortcomings. But as a result of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy, Soviet Lithuania grew both in industrial terms and in cultural terms, and in the field of agriculture, even with shortcomings, but we have socialist agriculture, without landowners and kulaks. We have a collective farm system with rich prospects.

We have also seen considerable changes in the mood of the intelligentsia. We still have some disputes about our national affairs, about our history, but they are related to our practical work. These disputes exist even at our top. I will not give names - this is not the place - but here too we have seen the greatest sensitivity and attention on the part of the leaders of the Central Committee. We have had many successes in the area of developing the history and culture of the Lithuanian people, where the nationalist vestiges are most tenacious. I will cite one example. Recently we held a conference of the Academy of Sciences of the Baltic countries with the participation of Moscow historians. At this conference, Marxist concepts were supported by the best representatives of the Lithuanian intelligentsia. Comrade Pankratova, who participated in this conference , could tell us about this .

We will continue to learn to fight in principle against all nationalist remnants. Comrade Malenkov drew our attention to these remnants in his report . They are, of course, tenacious. We must be vigilant in every area of our work, as Comrade Molotov spoke about. Recently, instructions were intercepted from abroad, in which Lithuanian nationalist organizations were given the task of penetrating our organizations, to find out whether there were people of Tito's orientation among the Lithuanian communists.

We must be vigilant, we must put an end to the remnants of the bourgeois-nationalist rabble. But in this fight, of course, we must hit the target. In this regard, we were rightly criticized at the Presidium of the Central Committee, that the party and Soviet organs in Lithuania still allow for administration. We admit this guilt. But we do not admit it, and no one now accuses us of fighting against people who made it difficult to carry out land reform, who made it difficult to carry out collectivization.

In Lithuania we have many shortcomings both in the implementation of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy and in the inadequate management of the collective farms. Under the leadership and with the help of the Central Committee of the Party, with the help of its Presidium - monolithic, united, and cohesive - we will correct these shortcomings. I can state with full responsibility that the Communists of Lithuania will unanimously greet the forthcoming decision of the Plenum, which will brand Beria an enemy of the Party and the people. The Communists of Lithuania will continue to be loyal to the Central Committee of our Party. (Applause.)

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Shatalin asked me to speak later. The floor is given to Comrade Kruglov, Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

Kruglov: Comrades! The decision taken by the Presidium of the Central Committee of our party to arrest the enemy of our state, the bourgeois degenerate and adventurer Beria, is the only correct decision. The report of Comrade Malenkov and the speeches of members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich show the entire vile role and hostile face of this enemy of our state. The removal of this enemy and scoundrel will strengthen our party, strengthen its unity and solidarity around the Leninist-Stalinist leadership of the party and will be received by all members of the party and honest people with a feeling of special satisfaction.

A seasoned, cunning, and dangerous enemy has made his way to the heart of our party, to the leadership of our country. The neutralization of this enemy, the exposure of his hostile face and the suppression of his counter-revolutionary activity is a great merit of our Central Committee of the party and its Leninist-Stalinist Presidium.

The Party has won a major, great victory in the fight for communism, having exposed this adventurer and enemy in good time. Our Party and our state have neutralized a dangerous vermin who could have caused much harm. The correctness of this decision is especially clear to those who had even the slightest contact with this scoundrel at work. Beria's behavior often made one think, especially in the last three months. The adoption of categorical decisions, the complete disregard for all other opinions except his, the insolent and boorish judgment on all issues were in great contradiction with the Party's teaching on leadership methods, on the attitude toward people, on collectivism. There are many comrades present here in whose lives this scoundrel caused much harm and took away much health. Boorishness, impudence, intolerable rudeness, humiliation, the destruction of any human dignity - this is the lot of people whom fate brought together for a conversation with this parasite Beria. We witnessed at meetings of the Council of Ministers when this Beria allowed himself to be rude to people who are known to the Party, who are known to the entire Soviet people, who have enormous, immeasurable successes and merits in the cause of the victory of our revolution. I witnessed how at one meeting of the Presidium this Beria ignored and mocked comrade Voroshilov. I remember how Kliment Efremovich answered him very cleverly, everyone liked this answer very much, "I even dream about you." I thought then how cleverly Kliment Efremovich answered this impudent fellow.

Timoshenko: Then you were probably happy and smiling?

Malenkov. The Central Committee knows Comrade Kruglov , he grew up in the Central Committee apparatus. He was forced to endure a lot. When the Central Committee needed him, he served the party faithfully .

Kruglov: There is no doubt that if prison had not stopped him, he would have gone far in his fight against our party for his hostile purposes and, as has now become absolutely clear, he could have tried to use the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But this scoundrel would have miscalculated this time too. The vast majority of the staff of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with the exception of a small group of people especially close to Beria, are devoted to our party, its Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee, and no Beria will be able to use it for his vile purposes. (Applause.)

However, at the present time it is necessary to critically consider all of Beria's behavior during the last 3 months in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, I am talking about 3 months, because a number of workers who are now working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, such as Kruglov, Serov, Maslennikov, have had nothing to do with the current Ministry of Internal Affairs (the former MGB) for the last 10 years. After all, the current Ministry of Internal Affairs is the former MGB, and the MGB decided on issues of intelligence, counterintelligence, arrests of people, etc. The old Ministry of Internal Affairs, in which we worked until the death of Comrade Stalin, had nothing to do with the MGB and did not know what was going on there. And when you consider the behavior of this Beria in the new Ministry of Internal Affairs over the last 3 months, many things appear in a different, true sense, and his anti-party and hostile face becomes clear. It becomes clear that he wanted and took into account in his vile plans to use the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. For this purpose, under the sign of special secrecy, all intelligence and counterintelligence issues were decided by him and Kobulov. We, who were listed as deputies - Kruglov, Serov and Maslennikov - learned about many issues only from the minutes of the meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee. For example, we learned about the decision on Belarus only from the minutes of the decisions of the Central Committee. The decision on the Korean question was unknown to us. It was also unknown to us on the German Democratic Republic. There are also decisions in the minutes on the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the so-called special folder, but we do not know what kind of issues they are, they are unknown to us. We did not know about the cases in the investigative department on especially important cases, because they were decided by Kobulov and Beria. We did not know what operational measures were carried out in relation to certain comrades, and only now have we learned about this. We were mainly entrusted with issues of police work , fire protection issues, economic issues - in a word, everything that concerns the former Ministry of Internal Affairs. As for the former MGB, a ban was imposed on this.

Why did we put up with this matter? We bear responsibility for it. We failed to expose this enemy during this period. The Presidium of the Central Committee helped us. Therefore, like everyone present here, I express my deep gratitude and satisfaction at the firmness and correctness of the decision of the Central Committee of the Party on the question of Beria.

Our task now is to help completely, to the end, expose this rogue, three-time traitor, swindler, provocateur, who stood brazenly and smugly among our leadership, and our leadership is the pride of the people and the pride of our party. This intriguer, slanderer, provocateur by vocation, immoral scoundrel to the marrow of his bones combined in himself the greatest meanness and the greatest impudence.

The investigation will reveal all of Beria's hostile activities , but even now some of his measures, in our opinion, are sabotage and anti-state. Especially in intelligence matters. We now know that in April and May of this year, Beria simultaneously summoned about half of the employees of the MVD residencies to Moscow. Most of the summoned employees are in Moscow for 2-3 months.

Molotov: Where were they called from?

Kruglov. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, from abroad, from capitalist countries.

Malenkov. Several hundred such workers were called.

Kruglov. At present, there are about 200 people who have been living in Moscow for two or three months , and the issue about them has not been resolved. During this time, the work of the MVD residencies has weakened. Contacts with many valuable agents have been lost. The residencies of Soviet intelligence in capitalist countries have been exposed and have been left without leadership for a long time.

Voice: This was done deliberately.

Kruglov. Absolutely right. Further. The USSR Interior Ministry's representative for Germany and his deputies sat in Moscow for three months , and at the time of the preparation of the mutiny in Germany, Beria decided to reduce the staff of the Interior Ministry representative in the GDR by seven times. They decided to abolish the instructor staff in Germany, leaving only advisory functions. Thus, the Cheka staff in Germany was also sharply weakened during this time.

Beria's blanket denigration of everything that exists in foreign intelligence also seems dubious. He repeatedly stated that there is no intelligence, that there are no agents, no valuable information, no personnel, and that everything must be started from scratch. At the same time, as has now become known, Beria and Kobulov were oriented toward the rejection of a whole series of agent activities, and many materials on foreign intelligence were not reported to the Central Committee of the Party.

A number of facts regarding the appointment of leading employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs suggest that Beria pursued the goal of having people loyal to him in the areas, without taking into account their political loyalty to the party. A number of appointments of people such as Raikhman, Etingon 22 , Sudoplatov, Meshik, Milshtein, and others, who absolutely do not enjoy the political trust of the collective and were expelled from the organs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs before his arrival, as has now become clear, should be viewed as a desire to have people loyal to him to the end.

Beria subjected the intelligence department to a sharp reduction and purge. In a short period of time, a large number of people taken into the party mobilization organs were dismissed.

Particular attention is drawn to the recent creation by Beria, bypassing the structure of the Ministry approved by the Central Committee, of a new department, personally subordinate to him and doing unknown things. Even the personnel for this department were selected outside the Ministry's Personnel Department. The same Etingon, just released from prison, a certain Vasilevsky, who enjoys a dubious reputation, a person close to Beria, a certain Pravdin, a Frenchman by nationality, and so on, are taken into this department .

Recently, Comrade Kotov, who was newly appointed as a resident in Finland , reported that during his time at a reception with Beria, the latter suggested that he visit the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Finland, the renegade Leino, who had allegedly been wrongly rejected by the Finnish communists. Beria made it clear to Comrade Kotov that he needed to meet with Leino. This instruction from Beria looks extremely suspicious, since it cannot be considered normal for our Soviet workers to meet abroad with people who are renegades and traitors to the labor movement.
Comrades! In the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or rather, the former MGB, a grave situation has developed recently. Over the last three years there has been an incessant break-up and reorganization. This has greatly shaken the apparatus. But the Communists working in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where the Party sent them, know well that under the leadership of their own Communist Party, its Central Committee, having taken into account all the lessons, they will take all measures to strengthen the organs in order to turn them against our class enemies, they will increase revolutionary vigilance in their work and will make every effort to justify the great trust that the Motherland places in us, that the Leninist-Stalinist Central Committee of the Party places in us. (Applause.)

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Comrades, there is a proposal to take a lunch break now until 8 o'clock in the evening . No objections?

Voices. No.

Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. A break is declared until 8 o'clock in the evening .
 

SESSION THREE Evening, July 3