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Lavrenty Beria Case
Soviet Archives/Beria Case/Beria Case Plenum.pdf
SESSION THREE Evening, July 3
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Let us continue the work of the Plenum. Comrade Patolichev has the floor 23 . Comrade Kirichenko (Ukraine) should prepare.
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Kirichenko has the floor 24 . Comrade Mikoyan, get ready.
Chairman, Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Mikoyan has the floor. Comrade Shatalin, please prepare.
Mikoyan: Comrades, in the speeches of comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich the entire state of affairs with Beria's criminal adventure is quite clearly outlined and documented, a due political assessment is given and those organizational and political conclusions are noted that the party should draw from this sad, but instructive event in our party.
I fully agree with what the comrades have said. I would like to add some additional considerations and a number of facts that confirm that what has been said is absolutely correct.
From the day that Comrade Stalin fell ill and the doctors told us that he would not recover, the main concern for each of us was to maintain the iron unity of the party’s leadership , for the unity of the party had already been ensured during Stalin’s lifetime.
When the leadership of the state and the party was being formed, all of Stalin's students, who had worked under his leadership for many years and who could help in the work, found their area of work and their share of responsibility for the matter. And everyone understood that Stalin's leadership could only be replaced by the leadership of the collective, that only the collective as a whole could replace Comrade Stalin, and not an individual. At first, the work went well and there were obvious great successes of our party and government in foreign and domestic policy. However, soon signals began to appear that Beria was taking measures in our midst to put pressure on everyone and dictate himself, and for these purposes he was spoiling the work of the leadership. We knew Beria's intriguing character before, but we saw it in such an unbridled form only after the death of Comrade Stalin, when he went too far, playing his criminal game, and finally played himself out.
Many comrades may ask how it was that the members of the Central Committee, having known Beria for many years, failed for so long to recognize in their midst a foreign and harmful person. Meanwhile, this is not such a simple matter, it is not so easy to achieve. Firstly, not all the facts were known to all of us at the time . Secondly, the facts took place at different times and, taken separately, did not have the significance that they acquire when linked together . We must not forget that a great deal of clever work was done to disguise these facts , to gloss over their significance and to interpret them in a completely different sense. There were many facts of Beria's positive work , in the shadow of which the negative facts were covered.
It must be said honestly and truthfully that the Presidium of the Central Committee, first and foremost Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Molotov and Bulganin, showed foresight and accomplished a real feat - having finished off this adventurer in one sitting. The Party will always be grateful to them for the feat they accomplished.
I first met Beria in 1920 in Baku after the establishment of Soviet power, when he was selected by the Baku Party Committee to be sent to Georgia as a courier to deliver a secret letter. I did not know him before that. After that, I did not meet him in Baku since I myself was transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Committee four months later.
After Beria moved to work in Moscow, I had about the same relationship with him as many other comrades from the Politburo of the Central Committee. The relationship was uneven, sometimes good, in the last two months bad, when he, in order to demonstrate his attitude, rejected several correct proposals I had made.
I only learned that Beria worked in the counterintelligence of the Azerbaijani bourgeois government when this issue was raised at the Plenum of the Central Committee in 1937.
In 1919, while in hiding, the Baku Bolshevik organization used two Azerbaijanis, Musevi 25 and Ashum Aliyev, to maintain illegal communications with Astrakhan, where Kirov was working at the time. They were known as socialists and enjoyed the trust of the bourgeois government, but in fact had already joined the communists. Their task, as well as that of the communists assigned to them, was to obtain complete information necessary to prevent the failures of the illegal Bolshevik organization and to facilitate illegal travel to Astrakhan and back, as well as to ensure the illegal transportation of aviation gasoline to Astrakhan by boat, and the delivery of money and literature to Baku.
I used to admit the possibility that Beria, perhaps as an ordinary worker among others, was sent. But now, having gone over the facts in my memory, I strongly doubt it. And is it a coincidence that, having received such a blow at the Plenum of the Central Committee, as the accusation that he worked in bourgeois counterintelligence, but was not sent by the party, he did not consider it necessary to find confirmation from at least one of the Baku workers, who were all alive at the time, in order to remove such a stain from himself.
At the same time, he was scrupulous about his own personality in such matters . Otherwise, he would never have missed an opportunity to refute any reproach against him. Since he did not do this , it means that he was not sent by the organization. Therefore, Comrade Khrushchev was absolutely right when he said: "Whether he was or was not sent by the party organization does not increase confidence when he is exposed in our eyes." The question really arises : was his work in counterintelligence not a screen for carrying out orders not from the Communists, but from other masters?
Malenkov: No one confirmed that he was sent by the party organization?
Mikoyan: Not a single person, and he never tried to. He never spoke to me about this topic. Sergo Ordzhonikidze asked me at that time, Comrade Stalin also asked me about it, I said the same thing. But Beria never tried to present to Comrade Stalin, or Sergo, or the Plenum of the Central Committee confirmation from anyone that he was sent to counterintelligence by the Party. Meanwhile, such a document was necessary.
Now that the whole matter has been revealed, this way of posing the question by Comrade Khrushchev is completely legitimate.
Malenkov: Who could have sent it?
Mikoyan: We sent two or three dozen comrades. I sent the top management, the rest - other comrades . Sarkis could also send Viktor Naneishvili. I was absent from Baku for several months, came to Moscow with a report to the Central Committee and returned to Baku together with the troops.
Even before Beria arrived in Moscow, and especially when he was in Moscow, he managed to cleverly, by hook or by crook, gain the trust of Comrade Stalin. Even during Comrade Stalin's life, especially in his last years, when Comrade Stalin could no longer do business normally, as before , when he began to meet with people less, read less information, at that time Beria cleverly got himself into the position of Comrade Stalin's main informant.
It must be said that Comrade Stalin had not trusted Beria in recent times. Beria was forced to admit at his last meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee that Comrade Stalin had not trusted him, that the Mingrelian case had been created in order to arrest Beria on this basis, that Stalin had not managed to complete what he wanted.
During the war, Comrade Stalin divided the Ministry of Internal Affairs and State Security. It seems to me that this was also done out of some mistrust of him, otherwise there was no point in dividing the ministry. This had to be done in order to deprive him of his rights as Minister. Then he was appointed to the Council of Ministers and the State Defense Committee . This was also one of the signs of mistrust. But despite all this, Comrade Stalin showed him great trust.
Beria's information was usually of an intriguing nature and served special purposes. He managed to carry out many difficult decisions through Comrade Stalin , while others did not always succeed, and it was known that if Beria was against this or that decision, it would be botched under one or another sauce. In this way he created authority for himself. He pretended to be a friend of one or another, saying one thing to their face and another behind their back, he divided comrades, first some, then others, and mixed up the cards for his own purposes - we all saw this, but we did not attach the importance that all this acquired after Comrade Stalin was gone.
The late Sergo, a few days before his death, said in a conversation with me alone: "I don't understand why Stalin doesn't trust me. I am absolutely loyal to him , I don't want to fight him, I want to support him, but he doesn't trust me. Beria's intrigues play a big role here, he gives Stalin incorrect information, and Stalin believes him." At that time, Beria worked in Tbilisi.
Some may tell us why you did not discover this scoundrel in time. I explain this matter to myself as follows: the trust he enjoyed with Comrade Stalin, his high position in the leadership of the Party created too many difficulties to recognize everything in a short time without Stalin, bearing in mind the disunity between the members of the Presidium, which excluded the possibility of exchanging opinions, as is customary among the Bolsheviks, in order to give a full assessment of this or that fact. Sometimes you analyze some facts and think: maybe I am mistaken, since the opinion of other comrades is unknown. The main obstacle to revealing his true face was the fact that we wanted to preserve the unity of the leadership collective by all means . It was difficult to recognize everything as quickly as is now desirable. to draw conclusions to the end. Psychologically, it is very difficult to make such a drastic decision in one sitting , almost unprecedented in the history of our Central Committee.
Knowing Beria's negative sides and condemning him, it was difficult for me to immediately get used to the idea of arresting a member of the Presidium of the Central Committee. However, during the discussion, his adventurist image became complete and the danger of a conspiratorial threat became obvious.
This led to the complete isolation of Beria and the Presidium’s unanimous decision to arrest him.
In addition to intrigue and treachery inciting some against others, Beria’s main weapon was his duplicity.
How did Beria's duplicity manifest itself?
Once I asked him: why do you need the NKVD? And he answered: we need to restore the law, we can’t tolerate this situation in the country. We have a lot of people arrested, they need to be released and not send people to camps in vain. The NKVD needs to be reduced, we don’t have security, we have surveillance. This needs to be changed, the guards need to be sent to Kolyma and one or two people need to be left to guard the members of the Government. These are the kinds of statements he made. And then, when it came to work, he began to do the opposite, he started to spin the machine even more . When he spoke on Red Square over the coffin of Comrade Stalin, after his speech I told him: your speech includes a place for guaranteeing every citizen the personal rights granted to him by the Constitution . In the speech of another figure, this would have been only a political declaration, but in the speech of the Minister of Internal Affairs, it is a program of action, you must implement it. He answered me: and I will implement it. And then he made a proposal allowing people to be arrested for ten years without trial or investigation through a special meeting chaired by him. This kind of duplicity gradually began to be revealed.
Comrade Molotov is absolutely right in his assessment of his brochure "On the Question of the History of the Bolshevik Organizations of Transcaucasia". Stalin's great role in the creation of the Transcaucasian organization and the entire party is known and cannot be revised by anyone. But part of what Beria wrote in the brochure is incorrect.
That he was a great scoundrel and falsifier is also evident from the following: recently, a few days before this event, after a meeting of the Presidium , several people were walking through the Kremlin. Beria started a conversation in which he let it slip. He said that this brochure contained a falsification, a number of facts and articles were cited without evidence, attributed to Stalin: he thought that Stalin would like this.
Beria used this brochure of his as a springboard for jumping onto the tower of the general party leadership, which, unfortunately, he succeeded in doing. His brochure was studied in all the circles. He received the aura of a theoretical worker and a loyal Stalinist. From here and what followed - all this helped him to gain Stalin's trust. You see, Beria is a good fellow, he selected the material, studied it, worked on himself, authored a good book, said Comrade Stalin. Beria understood that it is impossible to come to the leadership of the party without having generally recognized revolutionary services to the party or some theoretical works. He was a sly fellow, and he managed to get into the leadership of the party according to a specially developed plan . He also falsified the period of work in Transcaucasia in his biography, which I was convinced of when I read the Soviet Encyclopedia for the first time today on the advice of a comrade 26 .
Another fact of his double- dealing. In the first days after Comrade Stalin's death, he fought against the personality cult. We understood that there had been excesses in this matter during Comrade Stalin's lifetime. Comrade Stalin harshly criticized us. The fact that they are creating a cult around me, Comrade Stalin said, is being created by the Socialist Revolutionaries. We could not correct this matter then, and it went on like that. It is necessary to approach the role of personality in a Marxist way. But, as it turned out, Beria wanted to undermine the personality cult of Comrade Stalin and create a cult of his own personality . (Laughter.)
This soon became apparent when his report was attached to the Central Committee's decision on the western regions of Ukraine and Lithuania. At the same time, the Central Committee's decision was not signed by the members of the Presidium, not a single name is under this decision , but the attached report, in which all the instructions are given, has the signature of Minister Beria. Thus, the necessary decision had to be worked out with only the name of Beria. This fact also speaks of his duplicity.
In order to maintain the cult of his own personality, he kept a watchful eye and ensured that the departmental interests of the ministry he supervised, even when they were wrong, were defended to the end. All ministers knew that it was almost impossible to give the ministry under his control any assignment if the ministry itself objected.
There was, for example, such a case. An agreement on commodity deliveries between Czechoslovakia and the USSR for 1953 was discussed, in which, for a number of types of deliveries, it was proposed to accept what the Czechs considered possible to deliver, reducing the quantities stipulated by the long-term agreement.
Thus, according to the long-term agreement between Czechoslovakia and the USSR, signed three years ago, it was written to deliver 800 diesel engines for oil production in 1953, 500 hp each, with a total capacity of 400 thousand hp. In the draft agreement for 1953, only 400 units were written down, i.e., as many as the Czechs offered, which corresponded to the specified needs of the oil industry. In accordance with the request of the Czechs, slightly less was written down for oil equipment than the oil workers demanded, since this is new, complex equipment, which the Czechs are mastering with great difficulty according to Soviet drawings. There were also cuts in some other articles, which is explained by the refusal of the Czechs. The Czechs have their own difficulties. They do not yet really own their factories and do not manage them well.
Beria went berserk. He demanded that the draft agreement be rejected, declaring on what basis Mikoyan was proposing to supply 400 diesel engines if the long-term agreement stipulated 800. Why were such concessions being given to the Czechs , etc. It took 2 months of arguing with the Czechs, and only recently was this agreement approved by the Presidium of the Central Committee, when Beria was no longer a member.
This fact affected departmental interests, and therefore Beria prevented us from making a decision in time.
Agreements with all the countries of people's democracy and a number of important decisions on trade with capitalist countries were adopted by the Presidium unanimously over the past 2-3 months, which made it possible to seriously intensify our foreign trade and strengthen economic cooperation with the countries of people's democracy.
Beria decided to show his strength in another case - on the issue of trade with India.
The Presidium of the Council of Ministers discussed the question of India. The Indians are playing between us and the Americans. They asked us to let the Soviet Union give them about 300,000 tons of grain in exchange for Indian goods. The Presidium of the Central Committee decided not to refuse the Indians in order to reduce the influence of the Americans, to knock the ground off those enemies of the Soviet people who exist in India, and instructed Molotov and me to draw up such a project. We prepared, found grain from export resources by canceling sales to other capitalist countries, in order to sell this grain to the Indians, considering it politically more advantageous. This proposal was planned as a program of work for our new ambassador to India, Comrade Benediktov, in the economic sphere.
Beria proposed not to accept this project and to postpone it until the country’s grain and forage balance and grain export fund were verified.
Two days ago, the Presidium, having reviewed it, accepted the draft submitted by Molotov and me on India as correct.
Further. Beria, having completely lost his temper, apparently decided that he had taken everything into his hands within the country, and recently took up the affairs of the people's democracies. You read the report that his sycophants bragged that he would take over the people's democracies as well.
We have three bodies through which cooperation between us and the countries of people's democracy is carried out. These are the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, the Military Coordination Committee, and the Secretariat of the Cominform. Comrade Stalin took an active part in the work of these bodies in the first period after their formation , but in the last two years he ceased to be interested in them. These bodies stopped meeting and worked poorly. I was responsible for the work of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.
This trickster Beria, having decided to take into the hands of the Ministry of Internal Affairs our levers of relations with the countries of people's democracy, submitted proposals prepared by his apparatus, which provide a cleverly composed criticism of the state of affairs in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, sharply criticize the economic and military policies of the countries of people's democracy, and propose creating a new body of the highest representatives of states to lead this matter.
Comrade Malenkov called me to critically examine this document. And indeed, a careful analysis showed that the project could not be accepted in this form, because it lumped all the countries of people's democracy together and, most importantly, the purpose of the document was not to improve matters, but to use criticism as a springboard for seizing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, for Beria's own purposes , and the economic and military affairs of the countries of people's democracy.
He never saw his proposal discussed in the Presidium.
Beria sacrificed both major and minor political issues to his dark designs, trying to disrupt the ranks of our leadership and disorganize its work.
Here are some more examples. By the spring of last year, we had already, to put it bluntly, a meat supply crisis, an acute shortage of meat and animal fat. I reported to Comrade Stalin that we did not have enough meat and butter . He asked why not. I answered that things were bad with livestock farming, we were stocking up on little , but demand was growing quickly. He did not agree, he said that this was wrong. He was dissatisfied. And then he himself decided that this issue needed to be looked into.
Please pay attention to the following fact. In the first half of the current year, we sold as much meat as in the whole of 1940 from centralized resources. However, we only really sell meat in Moscow, Leningrad, with difficulty in Donbass and the Urals, and in other places with interruptions.
Kaganovich. In the Urals, not by half, but by a quarter. There is little meat.
Mikoyan: Moreover, since 1948, meat prices have been reduced as follows: if 1948 is considered as 100, then now it is 42, that is, more than twice.
As prices for all goods fall, some of the freed-up money is switched by consumers to more valuable products - meat and butter, so demand for them is growing faster than for other goods. In addition, in recent years, the yen has fallen more than half as much for meat and butter than for most other products. In 5 years, prices have been reduced more than twice. It is clear that we have a rapid growth in the population's demand for meat, without a corresponding increase in meat resources.
In November, the Minister of Agriculture Benediktov reported to the Presidium of the Central Committee on the state of affairs with livestock farming.
Benediktov reported formally: high loss of livestock, low growth in livestock, low productivity, lack of feed, lack of space, unwillingness of collective farmers to look after livestock. It turned out that the collective farmers were almost enemies of their own business.
Comrade Stalin, who was able to draw big conclusions with brilliant insight on the basis of a few facts, to see what others, studying the topics of the materials, could not see, said: if collective farmers do not look after their cattle well, it means that they are not interested in public livestock farming. Therefore, it is necessary to create economic interest of collective farmers in the development of public livestock farming.
At the same time, the Commission of the Presidium of the Central Committee on Animal Husbandry was formed, headed by Comrade Khrushchev. I was a member of this Commission.
The commission worked conscientiously for two months . It presented a project, which, among other measures, included the issue of increasing procurement prices.
Of course, we understood that in principle it is impossible to raise procurement prices, but in this case, in terms of meat and milk, it was impossible not to raise the question of raising the yen, because the current prices are wrong and hinder the rapid development of livestock farming. The prices are as follows: the price of live beef of average fatness is 25 kopecks per kilogram.
Malenkov: Was this under Comrade Stalin?
Mikoyan: Yes.
For comparison, let's take the price of kerosene. Kerosene cost 10 kopecks per liter in 1930, after repeated reductions it now costs 1 ruble 5 kopecks. Previously, to buy 1 liter of kerosene, a peasant sold half a kilogram of live cattle, and now four kilograms of cattle. Prices for live cattle have not changed once over a period of more than 20 years, although the general level of all prices has increased significantly, despite the decline in prices in recent years.
When we Bolsheviks really get down to business, we can achieve great success, as can be seen in the rise in cotton, beet, and tea production. I am convinced that flax production will also rise quickly. Why can't we solve a problem like raising livestock farming? We can, and with complete success. Khrushchev and I were of the same opinion that pricing policy was a pressing issue. We offered two options - whichever comrade Stalin wanted to accept, that would be it. The first option was an average price for cattle of 90 kopecks per kilogram, the second option - 70 kopecks. Comrade Stalin said that he was proposing a third option - 60 or 50 kopecks. We did not have time to finish examining this issue under Comrade Stalin. It would seem that four months after his death, with a ready-made draft , a decision could have been made , but to this day no decision has been made. I raised the issue in the Presidium several times. Comrade Khrushchev proposed restoring the work of the commission on livestock farming.
Khrushchev: When the third version was prepared , a proposal was made to increase the tax on collective farms and collective farmers by 40 billion rubles, and the total income is calculated at 42 billion.
Mikoyan. The current tax of 15 billion should be increased to 40 billion. This was already impossible. At that time, we ourselves were in no hurry with this project. At that time, Beria was also indignant. He said that if we accept Comrade Stalin's proposal about the tax, it will mean leading to a peasant revolt. These were his words, and as soon as Stalin was gone, he began to interfere with the solution of the livestock issue.
Back in 1950 we had enough vegetables and potatoes. But for two years now we have had a severe shortage. Not long ago, prices for potatoes, vegetables and fruits were halved 27 , and the population complains: who needs such a price reduction when you can’t buy these products at such prices in stores, and at collective farm markets, prices have not decreased, but even increased .
Along with the weak mechanization of potato and vegetable production, the main reason here is economic.
Of course, a price of 3-4 kopecks per kilogram of potatoes cannot interest collective farms in developing this business. And what did we do? Every year, institutions in Moscow and other cities sent employees who were paid 1,000 rubles a month to plant or dig potatoes, and the collective farmers watched and laughed.
Instead of interesting collective farmers in growing potatoes, we replace them in the fields with highly paid employees and skilled workers.
It is necessary for collective farmers to grow potatoes, and for employees and workers to do their own thing.
And to increase the procurement prices for potatoes, only about 400 million rubles per year are needed. To increase the prices for meat, milk, and vegetables, about 3 billion rubles are needed - funds that we could easily find by reducing other expenses.
Therefore, Comrade Khrushchev was absolutely right when he stated that Beria sought to disrupt these measures to improve agriculture in order to undermine the authority of the leadership.
The new Minister of Agriculture and Procurement , Comrade Kozlov, was in a miserable position: no matter what project he came up with, Beria always attacked him .
Finally, Comrade Stalin in his work “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” said that objective economic laws cannot be ignored, but in our area of meat, milk, and potato production these laws are trampled.
A political adventurer, Beria turned out to be an adventurer in economic policy as well. In order to disorganize the leadership and break up the members of the Presidium, he managed to get the necessary proposals rejected by a clever maneuver. For example, he failed the supply plan for the second half of the year under the guise of protecting reserves. And only after his arrest was this plan approved and sent out to the regions on the 30th.
It was such a disruptor, especially recently, that it was impossible to work calmly. That is why the decision taken not only does not weaken us, but opens up the opportunity to work creatively on the further rise and strengthening of our country.
Malenkov. The devil is not as black as he is painted.
Mikoyan. And how pathetic he looked at the Presidium!
Over the last 3 months, our government has done a great deal of work to increase market funds, to improve the supply of the population and trade. A large group of measures has been adopted to ensure an increase in commodity funds for sale to the population during the year in excess of the annual plan by 20 billion rubles. A decision has been made to purchase wool abroad, due to a shortage here, and our wool fabric industry is now fully loaded.
In response to Comrade Malenkov’s request for what else needs to be done to help the market, I suggested that, given that we now have the opportunity, we purchase a certain amount of high-quality imported woolen fabrics for sewing suits and coats, since the domestic industry cannot provide fabrics in excess of the program, and also purchase 30-40 thousand tons of herring, since the fishing industry does not meet the needs of the population.
And Beria began to slow down this matter in order to thereby prevent further improvement of the supply of our population.
Khrushchev: It may seem that we really sat and trembled before him. There were many cases when we gave him a good punch in the teeth and made decisions. But it seems that we sat and looked at him.
Mikoyan: I want to say how he disrupted things where it was clear to everyone that it was harmful to the state, so that if we threw him out of our midst, then this only strengthens our party and gives us the opportunity to work well.
Beria’s sabotage also consisted in the fact that when the Government and the Central Committee made good decisions that could bring great benefit to the country, he tried to do something bad so that instead of a positive result he would get a negative one.
This can be seen in the example of the Central Committee’s decisions to correct distortions and excesses in national policy in the Baltic republics and Western Ukraine.
If these decisions are skillfully implemented , the authority of the Russian people, who through their policies ensure the equality of the peoples of the Soviet Union, should rise even higher among the Baltic peoples .
This provocateur tried to use these decisions to his advantage, in order to direct the mood of the peoples of the young Soviet republics against the Russians.
The task of our comrades in the Baltics and Western Ukraine is to ensure the steadfast implementation in practice of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy in order to further strengthen the friendship of their peoples with the great Russian people and all the peoples of the Union .
From this it is clear that, having cleansed ourselves of this degenerate provocateur, we have become stronger. Now there are no such obstacles in the further work of our Central Committee.
From this case it is necessary to draw conclusions and lessons not only for the Central Committee, but also for local party organizations and the entire party.
Since this is not the only case, and there have been other cases, it is necessary to study the conditions that give rise to the possibility of such phenomena, and put the Ministry of Internal Affairs in its place, as Comrade Khrushchev simply and clearly said.
This is not enough. Bolshevik integrity must be placed at the forefront of all work, both in the work of the Central Committee and local organizations. Intra-party democracy, collective leadership of both the Central Committee and local party organizations, revitalization of the activities of Soviet bodies, from the Councils of Ministers to local Soviets.
The question of intra-party democracy must be raised to its full height. Here there is not only criticism and self-criticism, but also the responsibility of the members of the Central Committee to the Central Committee, the secretaries of the regional committees and members of the bureau of the regional committees to the plenum of the regional party committee and to the entire regional organization, and so on down.
We do not yet have direct data on whether he was a spy, whether he received instructions from foreign masters , but is that the main thing? Whether there are instructions or not , the main thing is under whose dictation he did this, it is clear that he carried out the social mandate of the bourgeoisie, our capitalist environment, and their agents within the country, corrupting the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, introducing alien skills and methods, like a degenerate who entered the service of the bourgeoisie.
The Central Committee and the Party, having cleansed themselves of this scum , will be strengthened in the area of principles , will be strengthened in the area of organization, will become even more monolithic, and will achieve new successes in both domestic and foreign policy , sacredly fulfilling the precepts of Lenin and Stalin on the construction of communism in our country, strengthening international ties with fraternal countries and parties. (Applause.)
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Shatalin has the floor. Comrade Mikhailov (Moscow) should prepare.
Shatalin: Comrades, the essence of the question in the report of Comrade Malenkov and in the speeches of the members of the Presidium is set out with the utmost clarity and thoroughly proven. I must say that the operation to suppress Beria's hostile activity and his arrest evoked a feeling of joyful satisfaction. And this is not accidental. And as I observed the secretaries of the regional committees, they were no less happy about this circumstance, this happy circumstance.
Voices. Correct.
Shatalin: Why did this happen and why did we respond to it in this way? Why did we react in such a Bolshevik way?
The point is that Beria’s non-partisanship and his desire to oppose himself to the Central Committee could be observed even from afar (I mean comrades who were not closely involved with him at work).
How did this manifest itself, how did these symptoms appear?
Few of the secretaries of regional committees, the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics have not experienced the arrogance, self-confidence, impudence, and insolence of this scoundrel.
Voices. Everything is correct.
Shatalin. We in the Central Committee apparatus also felt a clear abnormality in relations with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, especially in work with personnel. Beria had recently become so brazen that he began to clearly bypass at least the apparatus of the Central Committee. In many cases, he appointed and dismissed people without a decision from the Central Committee. I - please understand me correctly - tried to grumble, expressing dissatisfaction...
Khrushchev. It was.
Shatalin: But Nikita Sergeyevich told me that in the given conditions , expressing discontent in such a form is nothing more and nothing less than waving your hands and leaving them in the air. (Laughter.)
He was talking about a swing that would really hit the table with his fist. I admit, I didn't quite understand the whole story at the time. (Laughter.)
And so this powerful blow was dealt to a very clever and dangerous adventurer. The endurance, and when necessary, the determination of the members of the Presidium of our Central Committee did their noble work. He thought to take it by cunning, by cleverness, but there were people who were more cunning and smarter.
It is now absolutely clear that Beria would do anything for criminal careerist purposes. Comrades Malenkov, Molotov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, and others who spoke here spoke about the Jesuit methods of the villain Beria. I would like to emphasize once again that, cleverly hiding behind Lenin-Stalin positions on both national and other issues, he ultimately did us a great deal of harm; he presented every matter, every issue exclusively from the point of view of elevating his own person, from the point of view of his personality. State and party interests, of course, did not bother him.
Indeed, take the well-known issue of doctors. As it turned out, they were arrested incorrectly. It is absolutely clear that they should be released, rehabilitated and let them work. No, this perfidious adventurer achieved the publication of a special communiqué of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this issue was discussed in every possible way in our press, etc. It must be said that all this made a painful impression on our public. The error was corrected by methods that caused considerable harm to the interests of our state. The responses abroad were also not in our favor.
In light of the materials we now have on Beria, it is absolutely clear that the presentation of the case about the doctors was beneficial only to him and his patrons. He wanted to earn capital as a humanist and a bold initiator on this case. What does this scoundrel care about the interests of the state!
For criminally careerist purposes, Beria achieved the inclusion in the Presidium protocol of his notes on the western regions of Ukraine and Lithuania with manipulated and falsified figures and alleged facts.
In a few words I would like to dwell on the issue that characterizes the obvious non-partisanship, hostile activity of Beria in terms of his attitude to party organizations. Take the Georgian party organization.
Beria did everything to tear the Georgian party organization away from the Central Committee of the CPSU. He arbitrarily and single-handedly gave instructions to the Central Committee of the CPSU of Georgia, placed workers there that pleased him. Beria convinced comrades from the Georgian party organization that they should deal only with him. And it must be said, he achieved a lot. Even the secretaries of the Central Committee of the CPSU of Georgia do not call the Central Committee of the CPSU, they have only one addressee and subscriber in Moscow. Needless to say, only an anti-party person, an enemy of our party, can act like that.
Take Beria's behavior lately. He was clearly trying to find a certain support among the secretaries of the regional party committees. He ran into the wrong people ! The disciples of the great Stalin and the Lenin-Stalin Central Committee will give any scoundrel a slap on the wrist, so that he will not dare to do it again .
Here Vyacheslav Mikhailovich said that after everything that had happened we washed our hands with satisfaction from the dirt, from the filth that had stuck to our core during this time. But he apparently had in mind the political side of the issue.
Molotov: Both.
Shatalin: I consider it necessary to acquaint the members of the Plenum with the facts that characterize Beria's moral character.
The Presidium of the Central Committee instructed me to find documents in Beria's office (in the Council of Ministers) related to the activities of the former First Main Directorate. While carrying out this task, looking through the contents of safes and other places where documents might be kept, we came across things and objects unusual for office spaces. Along with the documents, we found large quantities of all sorts of, what can I call them, attributes of, perhaps, a woman's toilet. Here are excerpts from the inventory that I would like to read out. Let me remind you that this was found in the office space. The inventory includes: women's tracksuits, women's blouses, women's stockings from foreign companies - 11 pairs, women's silk slips - 11 pairs, women's silk tights - 7 pairs, lengths for women's dresses - 5 lengths, women's silk kerchiefs, handkerchiefs from foreign companies, etc. - a whole list of 29 serial numbers. We have found numerous letters from women with intimate and vulgar content. We have also found a large number of objects of a depraved man. These things speak for themselves, and, as they say, comments are unnecessary.
However, to make this side of the case more convincing, I will read the testimony of a certain Sarkisov, who worked in Beria's security for 18 years. He was most recently the head of his security.
Here is what this same Sarkisov testified: "I know of Beria's numerous connections with all sorts of random women. I know that through a certain citizen S. (allow me not to mention the last name) Beria was acquainted with S.'s friend, whose last name I do not remember. She worked at the House of Models. Later, I heard from Abakumov that this friend S. was the wife of a military attaché. Later, while in Beria's office, I heard Beria calling Abakumov on the phone and asking - why hasn't this woman been jailed yet?
In addition, I know that Beria cohabited with a student of the Institute of Foreign Languages, Maya. Later, she became pregnant by Beria and had an abortion. Beria also cohabited with an 18-20-year-old girl, Lyalya. Beria gave birth to a child with whom she now lives in Obruchnikov's former dacha.
While in Tbilisi, Beria met and cohabited with citizen M. After cohabiting with Beria , M. had a child, whom, on Beria’s instructions , I, together with my aide Vitonov, took and handed over to an orphanage in Moscow .
I also know that Beria cohabited with a certain Sophia. At Beria's suggestion, through the head of the medical unit of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs Voloshin, she had an abortion. I repeat that Beria had many such relationships.
On Beria's orders, I kept a special list of women with whom he cohabited. (Laughter in the audience.)
Subsequently, at his suggestion, I destroyed this list. However, I saved one list . This list contains the names, surnames, addresses and telephone numbers of more than 25 such women. This list is in my jacket pocket at my apartment. (The list Sarkisov is talking about has been found, it contains 39 women's names. - Sh.)
A year or a year and a half ago I learned with absolute certainty that as a result of Beria's connections with prostitutes he suffered from syphilis. He was treated by a doctor from the Ministry of Internal Affairs clinic, Yu.B., I don't remember his last name. Sarkisov."
Here, comrades, is the true face of this, so to speak, pretender to the leadership of the Soviet people. And this dirty little dog dared to compete with a giant, with our party, with our Central Committee. Please do not misunderstand me in the sense that I underestimate the capabilities of this very clever, treacherous adventurer and the extent of the trouble he could cause. He has already done a lot of harm. I want to say that the party, the Central Committee have dealt with bigger curs. At a time when the entire Soviet people, our entire party, are united as never before around the Central Committee, its Presidium, no one will be able to sow discord in our ranks, no one will be able to prevent the implementation of the tasks assigned to us by V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin.
Having cleansed ourselves of filth, having driven out the provocateur and adventurer from our ranks, now free of the obstacles that he managed to create, under the leadership of our Leninist-Stalinist Presidium of the Central Committee we will be even more successful in building a communist society. (Applause.)
Chairman, Comrade Khrushchev. Comrades, there is a motion to declare a break. Are there any objections? No. A break of 15 minutes is declared.
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Let us continue the work of our Plenum. Comrade Mikhailov has the floor 28 . Comrade Mirtskhulava, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, should prepare.
Chairman comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Mirtskhulava has the floor. Comrade Zavenyagin, please prepare.
Mirtskhulava: Comrades, Comrade Malenkov has given the Plenum of the Central Committee a detailed account of Beria's hostile actions. There is no doubt that we are dealing with a notorious provocateur who intended to disrupt the Leninist-Stalinist unity and cohesion in the leadership of our Bolshevik Party.
The deceiver and provocateur of the party Beria was caught and exposed by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for the crimes he had committed. The resolution adopted by the Presidium of the Central Committee to remove Beria from his posts, to expel him from the ranks of the party and to arrest him is the only correct measure, because criminals and scoundrels like Beria have no right to breathe our clean Soviet air.
Comrades, I would like to dwell on some issues concerning the work of the Georgian Party Organization, since, as is known to those present here, Beria exercised harmful patronage over the Georgian Party Organization.
While discussing in party organizations the resolution of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of April 10, 1953 on violations of Soviet laws in Georgia, we uncovered many blatant facts of trampling on Soviet laws, beating up honest, loyal party personnel, gross administration in party work and the imposition of morals alien to our party by former secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia Charkviani and Mgeladze.
In an atmosphere of mutual patronage and servility, dulling of revolutionary vigilance, suppression of criticism, and especially criticism from below, Charkviani and Mgeladze, having degenerated into political philistines, imposed a vicious style of intoxication with imaginary successes, self-promotion, and ceremonial hype.
Having listened yesterday to the report of Comrade Malenkov and the speeches of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Comrades Khrushchev, Molotov, Bulganin, and others, I came to the conclusion that in all this, to the detriment of the interests of the party, this scoundrel Beria played a major role. Feeling the support of Beria, Charkviani and Mgeladze ignored the Central Committee of our party, they did not take into account the apparatus of the Central Committee and did not even visit the Central Committee of our party. They addressed Beria directly and resolved all issues directly in connection with Beria.
Comrades, I had the good fortune to work for a year and a half in the apparatus of the Central Committee of our party. I went through a great school of Bolshevik education. Even then, the Central Committee received many incriminating statements, letters, and complaints from communists of the Georgian party organization. The communists reported to the Central Committee about serious distortions of party policy and about the lawlessness committed by Charkviani and Mgeladze. Comrades dealing with the Georgian party organization in the department of party organs of the Central Committee carefully examined these statements, tried to verify the correctness of these letters, but Beria's intervention did not allow this to be done, as a result of which these political degenerates (Charkviani and Mgeladze) remained unpunished for a long time.
Recently it has been established that everything that was written in the Central Committee by the communists turned out to be correct.
From the detailed report of Comrade Malenkov we learned that the adventurer Beria distorted the Lenin-Stalin national policy. However, this should not be surprising, since Beria's protégés - Charkviani and Mgeladze have long been unceremoniously distorting the national policy of our party, in fact pursuing a policy of bourgeois nationalism. It turns out now that in Abkhazia, when Mgeladze worked there as secretary of the regional party committee , feeling Beria's support , he did not allow Russian comrades to work in party and soviet bodies, gave instructions to the police not to register Russians, changed the Russian names of settlements. Mgeladze abolished the Russian theater in Sukhumi, which enjoyed the love of the population. A sufficient number of Russian intelligentsia live in Sukhumi , but no one took them into account.
The Central Committee of the Georgian Party knew about this, and I am convinced that Beria knew about this too, and that is why he always defended these scoundrels and rogues.
Comrades! When we began to discuss in party organizations the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of our party of 10.IV 1953, the communists began to expose and identify people who had fraudulently ingratiated themselves into the ranks of our party. Previously, they were in someone else's party, and then they found themselves in the governing bodies - in the party and the Soviet. I will list them. Shaduri, the son of a former major Menshevik, a business-unfit and morally unstable element, worked as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. The communists raised this issue and wrote to the Central Committee. An investigation was conducted, the accusations were confirmed, but Charkviani saved him through Beria . As a result of Beria's intervention, this scoundrel Shaduri remained unexposed until recently. We expelled Shaduri from the ranks of our party for deception.
The former federalist Egnatashvili, who had actively fought against the Bolsheviks in the past, worked as the Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Georgian Republic for a long time. On the recommendation of Beria and other enemies of the party, he managed to join the ranks of the Bolshevik Party and ended up in a leadership position, where he behaved in an anti-party manner. Egnatashvili has now been expelled from the party.
The former Menshevik commissar in different regions of Georgia, Elisavetoshvili, worked as the Minister of Social Security . As has now been established, Beria knew about this when he was the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Elisavetoshvili had to be removed from the post of minister, and his party membership is being considered in the party organization.
I must say, comrades, that to our shame (meaning the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia), a member of the Central Committee of our party is a former member of the National Democratic Party , Zakhari Nikolaevich Ketskhoveli. He hides behind the name of Lado Ketskhoveli, a revolutionary, a comrade-in-arms of the great Stalin.
Ketskhoveli Z. N. hid from our party his stay in the National Democratic Party during the period 1917-1921 and his arrest in 1923 for the second time on charges of anti-Soviet work.
We carefully checked these documents, and these facts were confirmed. Ketskhoveli's brother, Nikolai Ketskhoveli, had actively fought against the Soviet government in the past, had been arrested, but had given his word to the GPU that he would stop working against the Soviet government and would be loyal to all the activities of the Soviet government. After this receipt, he was released from custody by the OGPU. Ketskhoveli Z.N. wrote in his explanations that he joined the party on Beria's advice. As if Beria had asked him in 1938 why he did not join the Bolshevik Party. He replied that he was not prepared to join the party. Beria then said: "It's okay, I recommend that you join the party." It was advantageous for Ketskhoveli to refer to Beria at that time. Because Beria was the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. When Ketskhoveli was accepted into our party, he hid his affiliation with an alien party, as a result of which he was accepted into the party in violation of the charter of the Communist Party. Ketskhoveli himself confirms that he was nominated by the Chairman of the Government of Georgia on the recommendation of Beria. I have collected all this material and will present it to the Central Committee for consideration . I do not know how Beria found out about this, he called me and said: what is going on with you, what kind of discussion are you having there, you will work on all the people like that. I ask whom he has in mind. He names the names of the head of the road Kiknadze and Ketskhoveli. I said that the communists are making serious accusations, they are pressuring us and we cannot hide the truth from the communists. (Laughter in the hall.)
Then Beria says: "That's not true, I know them. Send me the material. They are such people that we know them all, and you have only just started working." I could not argue with Beria. I answered him: "We will check this material again."
I say this because Beria polluted the governing bodies of Georgia, party and Soviet, with alien elements. He wanted to gain cheap authority with this.
I gave the name Kiknadze. He works for us as the head of the road. He is a former Menshevik. And Beria tells me that Kiknadze is a good manager. I said that he is a good manager, but he has no party affiliation. "Yes," says Beria, "he will never be a party man, but he is a good manager. Look, we should not discuss him, otherwise your road is big, everything will fail." I said then that we will see. I repeat that I could not argue with Beria.
What happened in Georgia? What happened was that the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia was the son of a notorious Menshevik, the Council of Ministers was a former national democrat, and the head of the road was a former Menshevik. Comrade Bakradze and I decided that when we were in Moscow, we would talk to Beria and raise the issue in the Central Committee of the Party, because it was impossible to work with former Mensheviks. The Party gave former Mensheviks the opportunity to join the ranks of the Communist Party, but there was a certain order - this is an honest admission of one's mistakes and in the future, working tirelessly for the good of the Soviet Motherland. The people I named did not comply with these conditions, they put their personal interests above public and state interests.
Voice from the audience. The Central Committee will consider it.
Mirtskhulava. The material is known, you signed it yourself. You cannot deny that under Soviet power you were arrested twice as an enemy of Soviet power.
I have been working in the Central Committee of Georgia for only two and a half months, we have accomplished some things, but we have not yet been able to resolve all the issues.
The next question is about Beria's calls. I can't say that he didn't call me, there was such a case. We have serious distortions in the line of party work, in the line of state work, in the line of spending state funds. People did not take into account Soviet laws, they believed that they (I mean the former secretaries of the Central Committee Charkviani and Mgeladze) were not subject to control, and they committed lawlessness, arrested people left and right. Ordinary communists rightly criticized them. Communists appealed to the Central Committee of the party, wrote that the Charter of collective farm life was grossly violated in Georgia , in many collective farms the collective farmers received nothing, everything was taken away, and they asked to intervene in this matter. These letters were forwarded to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia. Taking advantage of his position, Mgeladze gave incorrect information to the Central Committee, deceived the Central Committee, and arrested and imprisoned people who complained . We examined many applications sent from the Central Committee, dealt with them for a long time, and then made a decision. A number of leading officials were punished, and those who had been wrongly arrested were released and rehabilitated. We set out all of this in detail in an explanatory note and sent it to Comrade Khrushchev in the Central Committee.
Among those expelled was the former secretary of the Abkhaz regional party committee, Getia, who did not recognize Soviet laws and violated party and government decrees in his personal interests. He filed a complaint with Beria, as if he had been expelled incorrectly. Beria called me and said: why was Getia expelled? I said: because he is a non-party person, a criminal , an anti-state element. He asks: where is the material? I say: we have the material, we checked it and discussed it at the Central Committee bureau.
Why don't we have it? I say that I reported this issue in detail to the Central Committee of our party, reported it to Comrade Khrushchev. Then he tells me: send me this material. I didn't have to send it, because Comrade Khrushchev, it turns out, sent it to all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee.
Comrade Bagirov here at the Plenum spoke about the establishment of republican orders. On Beria's instructions, the head of the secretariat called me, I have forgotten his name now, he said that...
Malenkov: Did the head of the secretariat speak with you ?
Mirtskhulava: Yes, the head of the secretariat spoke to me, that's how he introduced himself.
From the Presidium. Ordyntsev.
Mirtskhulava: Yes, Ordyntsev called. He said that Beria wants to submit to the government a project on establishing cultural orders in the union republics, and in Georgia he proposes to establish the Shota Rustaveli Order and asks my opinion. Perhaps you have another candidate? (Laughter, animation in the hall.)
I said that there could be no other way. Apparently, such a call was made in other republics as well.
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich mentioned Shariy in his speech , that he was incorrectly reinstated. Yes, comrades, we reinstated Shariy, he was not expelled in 1948, when he was accused of mysticism, but was expelled due to the fact that he was arrested as a Mingrelian nationalist. Since he was rehabilitated in political charges , he was also reinstated in the party, among others . We did not understand when he ended up in the apparatus of the Council of Ministers, but we could not say anything. We saw that he was working for Beria.
Comrades! I will not speak about other Transcaucasian party organizations, Comrade Bagirov did not speak about this , but Beria had influence on the Georgian party organization. It must be said that he obtained this influence by deception, systematically deceived the Georgian party organization, and thereby created cheap authority for himself.
But I can assure the Plenum of the Central Committee that our Georgian Party organization will implement the present decision of our Plenum with the same success as the Moscow Party organization, the Leningrad Party organization and other advanced Party organizations of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
I am very glad about Comrade Bulganin's statement that they will help us. We need help to sort out all the issues, since Beria has done us a lot of harm for several decades.
And to sort out these matters correctly, we must say frankly, we will not be able to do so without the help of the Central Committee of our party, we will not be able to do so because this Ketskhoveli signed a piece of paper, and here he denies it. He has no party affiliation , and that is why he does this (laughter), and tomorrow, when I present the material to the Central Committee, I do not know what he will say.
Comrades, the Georgian party organization, created on the basis of Lenin’s teaching on the Marxist party of the proletariat and nurtured on Lenin’s traditions by the great Stalin, has always been, is and will be a reliable support for the Central Committee of our Leninist-Stalinist party.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia will always unswervingly implement all the instructions and directives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and with the help and under the direct leadership of the Central Committee of our party, the Georgian party organization will soon become one of the leading organizations of the Soviet Union.
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. Comrade Zavenyagin has the floor. Comrade Andrianov (Leningrad) should prepare.
Zavenyagin: Comrades, yesterday Comrade Malenkov said in his report
about Beria's practice of ignoring the Central Committee and the government on important issues, including the issue of using atomic energy. Comrade Malenkov said that the decision to test the hydrogen bomb was not reported to the government, was not reported to the Central Committee, and was taken by Beria alone. I was a witness to this story.
We prepared a draft government resolution. It lay with Beria for some time, then he took it with him to read. We had an idea that maybe he wanted to talk to comrade Malenkov. About two weeks later, he invites us and starts looking at the document. He reads it, makes a number of amendments . He gets to the end. Signature - Chairman of the Council of Ministers G. Malenkov. He crosses it out. He says - this is not required. And puts his signature.
What is a hydrogen bomb, comrades? This is now the most important question not only of technology, not only of the work of the former First Main Directorate (now the new Ministry of Medium Machine Building), this is a question of global significance.
At one time, the Americans created an atomic bomb and blew it up. After some time, with the help of our scientists, our industry, and under the leadership of our government, we eliminated this monopoly of the atomic bomb by the United States. The Americans saw that their advantages had been lost, and by Truman's order, they began work on the hydrogen bomb. Our people and our country are no pushovers, we also took on this task, and as far as we can judge, we think that we are not behind the Americans. The hydrogen bomb is dozens of times more powerful than a conventional atomic bomb , and its explosion will mean the elimination of the second monopoly that the Americans were preparing , that is, it will be the most important event in world politics. And the scoundrel Beria allowed himself to decide such a question outside the Central Committee.
I worked with Beria for quite a long time and had the opportunity to observe this man. From the very beginning, Beria's main quality was striking - his contempt for people. He despised the entire Soviet people, despised the party, despised the leaders of the party. And in this contempt he turned out to be blind. He considered the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee to be simpletons whom he could take in his fist and isolate at any moment. But he himself turned out to be a simpleton, a blind sheep. Our Central Committee showed foresight and isolated this scoundrel, this adventurer in time.
Much has been said here about Beria's negative qualities, I will not repeat it: about his arrogance, unceremoniousness, offensive rudeness towards employees. Beria's non-governmental approach to many issues was often striking . If the issue was related to his personal authority, his personal reputation, he showed interest in it. If the issue had no relation to him personally, he failed it. Many examples can be given.
After the war, Comrade Mikoyan raised the issue of restoring Severonikel, the largest enterprise on the Kola Peninsula, which supplies nickel to our country. It was built and operated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Germans were driven out, and it would seem that the Ministry of Internal Affairs should have restored it, since it had powerful construction organizations. Comrade Stalin apparently did not entrust this to Beria, and the latter decisively refused Comrade Mikoyan in this matter.
I remember Comrade Kosygin asking many times: give us Comrade Orlov to nominate for the post of People's Commissar of the Paper Industry. Comrade Orlov was at that time the head of the main department in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he was a very prominent engineer and specialist in the paper industry. But things were not going well in the paper industry. And, of course, the head of the main department could have been released to be appointed to the post of People's Commissar. Beria replied: "No way, we need people ourselves." When Beria was then entrusted with the paper industry, Comrade Orlov was immediately released from his job at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and appointed People's Commissar of the Pulp and Paper Industry.
In his attitude towards people, Beria had nothing party-like, nothing sacred. Anyone who had to deal with him could always run into rudeness and insults, he never spoke of anyone with respect. More than once, the famous Gogol's Sobakevich came to mind , who did not have a single decent person in the whole city, there was one decent person - the prosecutor, and he was a pig.
Beria's very negative quality was the suppression of initiative in subordinate workers. If you come up with some kind of initiative proposal, you will be immediately cut short and put in your place. Beria's favorite expression was: here is an inventor! In order for any of our proposals to receive support, it was necessary to pose the question in such a way that it was introduced on Beria's instructions. Naturally, the interests of the state suffered seriously from the suppression of initiative.
It seems to me that the assessment of Beria as an employee exaggerates some of his positive qualities. Everyone knows that he is an unceremonious, pushy person, he did not take anyone into account and could advance a matter. He had this quality. But from the point of view of understanding the issue, seriously delving into the essence of the matter, I would say that Beria was a bit dull. Without flattering the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, I can say: any member of the Presidium of the Central Committee can understand any issue much more quickly and deeply than Beria. When we tried to shed more light on some issue, he usually said - do not give lectures, you are not inventors, you are organizers. How can you organize work without understanding the essence of the matter? Beria was known as an organizer, but in reality he was a desperate bureaucrat. He fenced himself off from people, sometimes for weeks or months he did not receive workers who were directly subordinate to him. Issues were considered and resolved in an office manner. Beria had very large secretariats, documents were passed from one referent to another. The referents composed resolutions for him, which were often absurd, and the resolution of issues was delayed for weeks and months. For example, our proposals on the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, prepared on the instructions of Comrade Stalin, have not been reviewed for many months: the issues of using atomic energy in aviation and the navy have not been reviewed. The most important matters were not moved forward due to the bureaucratic practices in Beria's work. The correspondence between Beria's secretariats and the First Main Directorate acquired monstrous proportions. All the main employees of the main directorate were busy writing notes and draft resolutions, reworking them, piling up heaps of paper, and often there was absolutely no time left for the operational work of managing research institutions and enterprises. And this is called an organizer?! A very dangerous and harmful person.
Beria was extremely self-confident, he believed that he knew everything, that he would notice everything in time, raise the question in time, and make the decision in time. In reality, because of this self-confidence, the questions that were raised in time were not resolved. For example, Comrade Vannikov and I raised the question of using atomic energy in the Navy two years ago. It has not been resolved to this day, and we are wasting precious time.
After the death of Comrade Stalin, Beria began to play the game of economy demagogically. Money really needs to be saved, it is needed for the development of industry, the rise of culture, agriculture. But in the area of using atomic energy there are issues in which we could not afford excessive savings. We need to seriously develop our capacities in the area of atomic energy. The Americans are building large new factories for the production of explosive atomic substances. They are spending huge amounts of money on this. When we raised the issue of new construction, Beria told us : "To hell with it, you are spending a lot of money, fit into the five-year plan." When the five-year plan was being drawn up, we could more or less fully determine the volume of work only for the next three years, there was no data for the subsequent period, the construction projects that had been started were mostly completed in the first three years, in the fourth year there were carry-over works, and in the 4th and 5th years of the five-year plan it was necessary to start new construction projects. According to the five-year plan, the volume of work in the fourth year was cut in half compared to the third year, and in the fifth year, in half compared to the fourth year. We could not put up with this, the state could not put up with it. Beria kept telling us: "To hell with it, stick to the approved figures."
Malenkov: This matter will have to be monitored, because money was spent there without proper control .
Zavenyagin: Control is absolutely necessary.
Kaganovich: They built resorts, not cities.
Zavenyagin: I can't say that they built resorts, but they built good cities.
The question is, where were we, who worked with Beria, what did we see, what did we do? I must honestly say here, comrades, that Beria did not charm me when I had to work with him. I was struck by his anti-party qualities, rudeness, unceremoniousness, disrespect for people. A person who does not respect other people is himself unworthy of the respect and trust of the party.
At times I thought with great anxiety that when Comrade Stalin died, there would be a new leadership of the party, Beria would fight his way to the leadership. What a danger that would represent! Apparently, many comrades understood this.
What had to be done? Sometimes they snapped back. Perhaps Comrade Malenkov remembers one example. A telegram was received from Czechoslovakia, which reported that the uranium mining program planned by the Main Directorate would require large funds. Clearly incorrect astronomical figures were given . After reading the telegram, Beria began to get indignant and swear. I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I replied : stop fooling people, we are fulfilling the government’s decision, which instructed us to coordinate the mining program with the Czechs . The inflated, stupid figures that were being cited were incorrect, we will correct them. More swearing: “Here’s a hero.” I replied: neither a hero nor a fool, no need to fool people. “Get out.” I had to get out. Then Beria softened and tried to soften the conflict.
There were attempts on our part to convince Beria. For example, during the reorganization of the Ministry of Geology, the question of uranium exploration arose. It must be said that our state is well supplied with uranium raw materials. We think that it is supplied better than all our possible opponents. However, a significant share of this raw material is mined abroad. It is important to conduct accelerated exploration of the domestic raw material base. We believed that this would be provided better in the First Main Directorate. Beria decided : "No, you do not need to engage in uranium exploration, let Comrade Tevosyan do it." Comrade Tevosyan himself believed that uranium exploration should not have been transferred
The Ministry of Metallurgical Industry. Naturally, it has non-ferrous metallurgy, ferrous metallurgy. Why should it also be entrusted with prospecting for uranium raw materials? I tried to convince Beria, telling him that since we were entrusted with the entire matter of using atomic energy, we would be better off prospecting for uranium, since we were directly interested in it and were responsible for creating a domestic raw material base. Beria rudely rejected my insistence, declared that he would find other leaders for the First Chief Directorate, and added a number of insulting remarks to this.
Of course, it is impossible to think that an individual worker could fight Beria, he would slide into the wrong positions. We could only hope that the party leadership would figure out this man and give him the right assessment. And our Central Committee passed this historical test.
I would like to touch upon several issues that do not pertain to the work of the 1st Main Directorate. Here is a question regarding Western Ukraine and Lithuania. When the members of the Central Committee received the minutes of the Presidium of the Central Committee, they thought about Beria's proposals and the decisions of the Central Committee . And I had the idea that it would be wrong to leave only national personnel in Western Ukraine and Lithuania , and to remove all Russian workers , that this would only lead to a split in our multinational state. This is clear to everyone now.
Beria's notes stated that the troubles in Western Ukraine and Lithuania were due to distortions in the national question. It seemed to us that this was not the only reason. Everyone remembers what a huge bandit movement there was in Ukraine in the 1920s. The issue was not resolved then and the bandit movement was put an end to by correcting the national policy . Western Ukraine was part of Austria, under Franz Joseph, Lithuania and Latvia were under the rule of Russian landowners and generals. However, there was no insurgent movement. There are some other reasons for the troubles in Western Ukraine and Lithuania - economic issues, administrative ones, which were ignored in Beria's proposals, not raised, not revealed.
Regarding the German Democratic Republic. Ordinary party members, ordinary workers could not understand how it was possible to agree to the unification of West Germany with East Germany. This meant handing over 18 million people and the German Democratic Republic to the clutches of the bourgeois bosses. This is absolutely obvious. The question of Germany could not be resolved in this way. In addition, there are also special considerations that cannot be ignored. A lot of uranium is mined in the GDR, perhaps no less than the Americans have at their disposal. Beria knew about this circumstance, and he should have told the Central Committee about it so that these considerations could be taken into account.
Comrades, with the removal of Beria from the Presidium of the Central Committee and the leadership of our party, the Central Committee of the party, the Presidium, without fear of intriguers, without fear of introducing discord into the ranks of the Central Committee, into the leadership of the party, will be able to calmly discuss all issues of governing the state, calmly discuss all the shortcomings that were in our work, and confidently eliminate them.
There is no doubt that the Central Committee of our party, the Presidium of the Central Committee, having freed themselves from this scoundrel, will lead our party and state forward to new successes.
Chairman Comrade Khrushchev. There is a proposal not to hold a daytime session of the Plenum tomorrow, July 4 , but to create a Commission for the development of proposals and resolutions of the Plenum now.
There will be no objections?
Voices. No.
Khrushchev: There is a proposal to create a Commission consisting of 13 people.
Any other suggestions?
Voices. No.
Khrushchev: I will name the comrades recommended for the Commission for the development of the resolution "On the criminal anti-party and anti-state actions of Beria":
Mr. Malenkov G.M.
Mr. Molotov V.M.
Mr. Khrushchev N.S.
T. Bulganin HA
Mr. Kaganovich L.M.
Mr. Kirichenko A.I.
T. Mikhailov HA
Mr. Patolichev N.S.
Mr. Bakradze V.M.
Mr. Yusupov U.Yu.
Mr. Pospelov P.N.
Mr. Suslov M.A.
Mr. Shepilov D.T.
Chairman, Comrade Khrushchev. Any other proposals?
Voices from the floor. Accept.
Presiding Comrade Khrushchev. Consider it adopted.
A request to the secretaries of the Central Committees of the Communist Parties of the Union Republics , to the chairmen of the Councils of Ministers, to the secretaries of the regional party committees, to the chairmen of the regional executive committees, to the agricultural workers who are present at the Plenum of the Central Committee, to stay here for a few minutes to agree on the use of daytime tomorrow.
I consider this Plenum meeting to be over. We will meet tomorrow at 8 o'clock in the evening.