Beria Case

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Lavrenty Beria Case

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Comrade Bagirov has the floor, comrade Malyshev must prepare.

Bagirov: Comrades, working far from Moscow, recently after the party and the country lost comrade Stalin, and not being aware of what was happening here, what was being done, especially after the death of comrade Stalin. And receiving a number of documents recently , I must tell the Plenum of the Central Committee directly, I felt a kind of heaviness in my soul, that something was wrong.

What happened, what was the matter? Were all those serious measures necessary, all that was said here by comrades , about Ukraine, Belarus, Tbilisi? About Belarus there was a decision regarding the removal of the leadership, there was a decision about Lithuania, about Latvia , a decision on the doctors' cases in the form in which it was sent to the regions, that is, what documents were there? Personally, honestly , I must say frankly - I do not know . It was hard for me, and it is especially impossible to share with comrades who do not receive documents from the Central Committee, you do not have the opportunity and the right to do so . And yesterday, when I first learned from Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev about the Presidium's decision, about what had happened, that it is simply unbelievable, some kind of burden was lifted from my soul, and I immediately felt some kind of relief. I think that not only I felt this relief, but also other comrades, if not all . It is difficult, comrades, to overestimate this. And without exaggeration, I must say frankly, a big thank you 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, the 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 before his exposure by the Presidium of the Central Committee, could not figure him out, could not reveal his true enemy innards. 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, that it was said about this adventurer in this hall at the Plenum of the Central Committee that he worked in the Musavat intelligence service, 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. I participated in the units of our Red Army throughout the civil war . But I know very well that, apart from Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, no one can say that anyone else was the leader of the Baku underground organization and the Azerbaijani underground organization . Under the counter-revolutionary Musavat regime, all the underground work, all the personnel, everything that was done in our party , 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. 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 spoke about it. Consequently, what Nikita Sergeyevich said yesterday, that Beria still has not presented any justification, and for this you need to have grounds, he cannot present these justifications - this is all correct.

As for the archive in Baku, there are no traces in the archive in Baku indicating that it was sent by the party organization.

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

This is in relation to what was touched upon here. Now in relation to his attempts, his aspirations to always jump forward, to show himself everywhere and anywhere. I have seen this more than once. Every time I was in Moscow, the members of the Presidium knew that we had to visit Comrade Stalin together. I saw, watched, felt how the other members of the Presidium, then members of the Politburo, behaved 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 58 . 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 and made a decision 59 . Suddenly, out of the blue, Beria called Baku: I am preparing material to reconsider this issue . It turns out that it is not the party that is preparing it, not the Council of Ministers, not the party leadership, but he is preparing it. 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 is happening in the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, passes off as his own, puts forward his own ego.

I haven't talked to anyone about the second question. The thing is that there were conversations about creating new cultural orders of union and republican significance . Beria calls me and says: you know, I'm preparing the issue of orders. I say to him: how do you do that? He corrects himself and says: we want to establish new orders. I think the issue of orders is a complicated issue. It's not an organizational issue. It's the function of the Central Committee of the Party, the government, it's 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, to issues of intra-party work, that the first person who doesn't call is the apparatus of the Central Committee of the Party or the apparatus of the Council of Ministers. As a rule, they always say: I'm 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 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 to 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 had been brought up differently. I said that we needed to think about it.

Bagirov: Our opinion was that it would be better to decide 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 he talked to the republics. We found out for the first time 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 that he did not only raise this question .

I will say more. He contacted us about what happened in Lithuania, what he wanted to do with Ukraine. Lithuania. He apparently tried to spread this further, not only to those regions and districts that had not had such a long period of Soviet power. He could not and did not contact me, the Central Committee, and the Council of Ministers on this issue. On his instructions, they called the Minister of State Security of the Republic, Yemelyanov, to provide information on the national composition of the Ministry of Internal Affairs employees. For now, he was apparently starting with this. 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 replied to the man who called him at Beria’s request that since the minister requires information on the national composition, I can inform him through you, but regarding who can replace me, I ask you to contact the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers, because I myself did not sit here, I was nominated for this job.

This attempt failed. Here comrades can say why I did not call the Central Committee and inquire . It must be said that we receive dozens of calls every day. Until yesterday Nikita Sergeyevich called me and told me, I did not know, and when he told me, I was not shocked. After all, Beria was sitting in the Presidium of the Central Committee and calling us.

There was such a case, I want to tell the members of the Presidium about this here, how can one not talk about this as it should be, there was a case: during the liquidation of the railways, an additional mistake was made during the unification of the Azerbaijan 60 .

Malenkov: 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 if Beria called, you said no, and I said he was arrested . You know him better than others, that's why people say you should tell , you knew him better than I did, although I knew him very well too .

Voices. Correct.

Bagirov: Regarding the calls. I left here after Comrade Stalin's death on March 16. During that time, he called me once. During the 15 years of my stay 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 at home once, and then with Comrade Stalin, and the rest of the time I always met him like that, or he came to pick me up. But for some reason, especially in recent years, he avoided me.

Voice from the floor. Comrade Bagirov, when you start making excuses, don't do it out loud. You'll 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 if the comrades have any 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 went around the Central Committee. I will tell you more: whenever I was here , I went to the Central Committee, to all the ministries, to all the organizations, and if it comes down to it, it was very rare that I was alone with Beria.

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, in the Azerbaijani organizations , they were afraid that you had a boss.

Bagirov: I don’t know, maybe .

Malenkov: Comrade Bagirov, you are making excuses, there is no need for that . You were close to Beria, 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. You were seen more than anyone else, embracing Beria . That's not the point at all, there's no need to talk about it, he's been exposed .

Bagirov: I said this regarding the exposure, and I said this regarding what Nikita Sergeyevich said yesterday.

The exposure by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Party of this seasoned, cunning, and clever enemy, and the indecisive actions of the Presidium at the time are the best proof of the correctness of the line and the foresight of the Party leadership. 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 in the ranks of our party and all Soviet people as never before. 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 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 remain at 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, so to speak, it is no accident that the appearance and disappearance of such adventurers as Beria not only cannot have an effect, but 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, our people around the party and the government.

I, comrades, do not know, I believe that I was, am and will remain until the end of my life faithful to the great precepts of Lenin-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.

Khrushchev: Comrade Malyshev has the floor, comrade Snechkus (Lithuania) should get ready.

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 the Government. Their speeches opened our eyes to many of Beria's actions, to his behavior, which we have seen a lot over a long period of time. For example, as a minister, I worked under the leadership of several comrades - Comrade Molotov, Kaganovich, and Beria. I must say that every time you go to report on some issue to your comrades, you go with different feelings. With one feeling you go to comrade Molotov, 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, never, even if you made a big and serious mistake, will you be under the blow 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 always make the right decision. Beria is a different matter. We, the ministers, knew that you go into the office as a minister, and when you come back out - you don’t know, maybe you will become a minister, or maybe you will end up in prison. The method was like this: he will hit you on the head, you will come out, swaying. And we, the ministers, had the opinion that the man was hit hard, everything is clear . Roughly speaking, Beria’s leadership style is dictatorial, rude, non-partisan.

By the way, about party affiliation. I worked during the war, I was in charge of tank affairs, and after the war I worked for a year or a year and a half at Transmash , I never had party affiliation. He somehow set up or pushed, not directly, but indirectly, that the party organization should provide services, when there were orders to the secretaries of the regional party committees, they would say that there was a prodding - you do this, do that.

Voices. Correct.

Malyshev. There was no provision for him to teach us, to ask the party organization for help in organizing party work, and so on. He considered the secretaries of the regional party committees to be dispatchers. Whatever task he took on, the secretary of the regional committee was a dispatcher for that task. Of course, this depressed us. We thought that something was wrong here, we forgave him, we thought that the man was doing a great job, he was probably getting excited like that. In fact, now it is clear that this was not accidental, that this was his style of work. Beria's mistakes were not accidental. I must say that, of course, we took his authority into account, we considered him infallible, and sometimes we were afraid of him, despite our position as members of the Central Committee, we thought so , there's no point in hiding it.

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, silenced 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 do it anyway. 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 government he single-handedly carried out and signed the most important state decisions, decisions of great state importance, using his position as chairman of the Special Committee. Comrade Malenkov said that he signed a very important decision on experiments with a hydrogen bomb. We started digging through the archives and discovered that he had signed a whole series of major decisions without the knowledge of the Central Committee and the government, for example , about the work plan of a very important design bureau working on the atomic bomb 61 . 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 difficult for us to sometimes attend 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 and 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 had 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, and he cut it off . Kliment Efremovich recently headed culture, voluntary societies. I remember how Kliment Efremovich reported on the charter of the united voluntary society 62. Beria rudely cuts off, insults. Well. you just sit there, and it scrapes you all over. What right does he have to cut off a person who is respected by everyone, from children to old people.

He was playing tricks on Shvernik. They talked about it here, he treated him disdainfully , pulled him up rudely. He made fun of Andrei Andreevich. Andrei Andreevich was sick, we all saw that the man could not work, and from Beria there were mockeries about the illness, statements: "He is sick there, in the apartment."

The disdainful attitude offended us. We were not used to old management comrades being treated like that.

Voroshilov: And to the young?

Malyshev: I don't count the young ones. We were used to him hitting us on the head. I must say frankly - we were afraid of him, he had authority, we thought it was forgivable for a big man to allow some rudeness, we tolerated it for the sake of our cause.

We see how recently our party and government leadership has been ousted by tried and tested comrades, known to the entire country and the entire people - these are comrades Molotov, Voroshilov, Mikoyan. This is a fact. We were very offended. We all know Comrade Molotov from our Komsomol years. Tried and tested comrades, and suddenly for some reason it turned out that they were not needed in the party leadership. It is incomprehensible. Now, of course, everything is clear, he was clearing his way to power. First, Voroshilov was ousted under the guise of old age, then Molotov, having been foisted upon by some far-fetched mistakes, as if he practically kissed the Americans and the English at every crossroads. It is clear that Comrade Stalin was not speaking from his own words, Beria presented him with these materials. He was ousting one tried and tested comrade after another, 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. He sought a dictatorial position, a leadership position, and became prime minister, no matter what.

Such a person in the leadership of the party, in the leadership of the state, represented a mortal danger to our party and the state. We, members of the Central Committee, see that the Presidium of the Central Committee of our party was equal to the situation, demonstrated Leninist-Stalinist foresight and promptly saw through this adventurer, provocateur and enemy and made a 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, the Leninist-Stalinist Presidium of the Central Committee, under whose leadership we will work, more than ever. (Applause.)

Khrushchev: The floor is given to comrade Snechkus, comrade Shatalin must prepare.

Sniečkus. Lithuania gained notoriety 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 of the bourgeois-nationalist underground in Lithuania. This was done in order to use our shortcomings in work, to inflate these shortcomings and to show himself as the savior of Soviet power in Lithuania, so that everyone, reading the provocative note, would think about what kind of order there is in Lithuania with such a large number of years of existence of Soviet power.

And what was it like for us, the Lithuanian communists? After all, it was said: if measures were not taken immediately in Lithuania, the cause of Soviet power in Lithuania would be jeopardized. I could not provide anything in my report to the 63rd Plenum to support this provocative thesis, and not a single member of the Plenum opposed this thesis.

Beria also incredibly inflated the reactionary influence of the Catholic Church, saying that 90 percent of the population of Lithuania were believers . Ninety percent! Meanwhile, the Catholic Church could have wished for such a percentage in the best of bourgeois times. There are no words, the struggle of the Lithuanian people against the Lithuanian bourgeois nationalists and their social support - the kulaks - was harsh and difficult. We won this struggle. But 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. We withstood this struggle. But it must be said, comrades, that in this struggle we lost more than 13 thousand poor people, farm laborers and partly party and Soviet activists. But this struggle, under the leadership of the Central Committee, was basically brought to an end. This year we have only 7 killed. This, of course, should not happen either. The bourgeois nationalists themselves admit that they lost the struggle. By the way, the note mentioned that the underground was led by the captain of the Lithuanian bourgeois army, Zemaitis, who was elected president of Lithuania. That's how they called him the president of Lithuania. That the captain of the Lithuanian bourgeois army, Zemaitis, was not caught until recently is our fault. What did Zemaitis talk about when we recently caught him 64 , and without Beria's help, but the Lithuanian security officers caught him.

Bulganin: And he took credit for it.

Snečkus. The same Zemaitis as his popularizer Beria. He showed that he never left the forest, that he has several points for connections, that he has no popularity. What does Beria do? He orders that Zemaitis be brought to Moscow for personal interrogation on Thursday.

Malenkov. Did he interrogate him?
Sniečkus: Yes. He was brought by the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Martavičius. He told me something last night, and I will quote some statements from the statement he told me last night. After interrogating Žemaitis, Beria makes the following proposal: to create an underground nationalist organization with the help of Žemaitis. First he inflated Žemaitis, and now he makes the same proposal to Martavičius to create a nationalist organization with the help of Žemaitis.

Is this not another provocation by Beria about a nationalist underground in Lithuania?

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

Pervukhin. Did he call you?

Snechkus: No, I called him myself and said that I would like to talk to him. He said: what do you want? I answered him that I would like to talk. Comrade Gedvilas, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, 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: Those whom he summoned cannot say either.
Sniečkus. I raised the question at this personal conversation about the need to block all transmissions of enemy stations 65 that are broadcast in Lithuanian, and at least six transmissions are broadcast in Lithuanian, and the population in Lithuania can listen, radio transmitters receive this . What did he answer to this - that he, you see, is preparing proposals to completely eliminate the blocking that now exists. Bad blocking, he wants to eliminate that too. So what kind of help is this in the liquidation of the bourgeois-nationalist underground? And the American imperialists transmit via radio and installations to the still existing bourgeois nationalist tail.

How was Beria's note compiled? That I knew a little earlier, and last night Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Martavičius told me, I may have broken the rules here, but I said - tell me everything you know. (Laughter.) There was a ban on talking. How was this note compiled? It was not compiled by Sharia, who was mentioned, it was compiled mainly by another wizard in a general's uniform - Sazykin. This Sazykin was snooping around Lithuania, he was in Lithuania twice, but he did not go to the Central Committee, and the Central Committee did not even know that he was incognito in Lithuania. To give it more weight, they spread a rumor that he was also an atomic scientist. (Laughter.) The 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 some rudeness with Mother . Comrade Martavičius, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of the Lithuanian SSR, writes as follows: “The report compiled by us – Kondakov, Martavičius, a communist with underground experience, Gali... 66 , a Lithuanian communist, was a very self-critical report, but it did not satisfy Beria. 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 and forced us to remake it in the spirit pleasing to him, that is, to inflate the state of the active underground and 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 reflect such an underground , as Beria wanted. When Beria objected to this biased assessment of the situation, he attacked me with abuse and threats. That is how this note was composed."

As for the nationalist underground, here too everything is confirmed by the document that I have already outlined and I will not repeat myself on this issue any more.

Yes, by the way, about the number. There is a big number given there - 270 thousand of all repressed, but it was compiled dishonestly. For example, take the fact that there, in the note, it is indicated from 1944, and meanwhile, those repressed before the war of 1941 are included. That is one thing, and then, apparently, the same person appears several times. And this number has now started to circulate in our republic, 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 67 , when he said that the Americans were determined to liberate their blood brothers. Remember, there was an editorial in Pravda. Apparently, it was necessary to blow up this existence of a bourgeois-nationalist underground, then bring it to the attention of the population, and it got into print.

Of course, politically this is a big loss. What is the situation now?

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

What is the nature of these rumors? 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. All the Russians are already being fired, in general, they are fleeing Lithuania. Only Lithuanians and some Russians will remain in the police and other institutions, but let them not hope that they will have freedom there. We will catch them all like rabbits. The Russian communists are leaving Lithuania, and the Lithuanian communists will be hanged when the Americans and the English arrive . The Russian communists will leave, and we will kill all the Lithuanians. This is how the bourgeois-nationalist elements are unleashed.

But it must be said, comrades, that we did not allow mass dismissals. In view of the abolition of the regions 68, some of the comrades must apparently be recalled, and the Central Committee is now reviewing this contingent. As for the districts, we are now reviewing the personnel, and in general we are not yet dismissing anyone. Moreover, in the Council of Ministers we have a Russian comrade as Deputy Chairman 69 , and some ministers are Russian comrades. We have paid more attention to the rural areas. There, in some places, it is indeed necessary to increase the national composition, to strengthen it. Of course, we have this shortcoming .

The day before yesterday, before flying to Moscow, we, and the inspector of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Comrade Sheblikin, who is helping us in Lithuania, were told by a comrade who was at the plenum of the Sholginik District Committee. Moskvinov, the former secretary of the Vilnius Regional Committee, said that at the plenum of the Sholginik District Committee , a retired colonel, a participant in the Great Patriotic War, a disabled person, 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 we heard here. I could only say not to punish this comrade, I could not give an explanation. (Laughter in the hall.) What could I say before the flight?

As for the Russian workers before the note, after the changes in the Ministry of Internal Affairs began, they began to be interested in how and what with the Russian comrades. We thought that if there were changes , we would leave some of the Russian comrades, use them, but when we heard the report, we decided that we would not leave them. And the best workers really want to leave Lithuania, those whom we would like to leave, who could help us. One cannot help but think that Beria, with his provocative antics, was turning the Lithuanian people against Soviet power. I must say, the bourgeois-nationalist riff-raff enjoyed all sorts of support, but look at the facts for yourself. During the spring campaign, all sorts of rumors were spread. We sowed well.

Khrushchev. Time to end.

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 started haymaking. There is not a single case of individual harvesting, while last year there were cases of individual harvesting in the young collective farms. There are none this year. This means that our collective farms are not inflated, not like Beria wanted to present them as. We have some good collective farms and even some good ones, but we have our own shortcomings in the collective farms and general shortcomings, which Comrade Khrushchev spoke about here. We have prepared proposals very carefully. Allow me to enter the Presidium of the Central Committee with these proposals. Among these proposals will be the question of assistance to those resettled in villages. Up to 90 percent of our people live on farmsteads. This question has been raised for the last two years, the Central Committee has been actively supported, and Comrade Malenkov personally, and Beria has failed to pass this question in the Council of Ministers. Of course, we have shortcomings, and Comrade Kaganovich spoke about them here - both in terms of national cadres and promotion, especially to the party apparatus. Over the last year, only 0.5 percent have been promoted. This, of course, is not enough. We are aware of these shortcomings and will correct them. But Beria did everything to distance Lithuanians from the Soviet organs, where we have about 70 percent of them. He did not cite these figures. We asked for cadres from the Central Committee, we asked ourselves, and now we are trying to retain those comrades. 13 thousand Lithuanian communists, it is very difficult to manage when you have two and a half thousand collective farms, when there are only 5 thousand communists in the collective farms . In some places, we allowed the incorrect placement of Russian comrades who came from the army. Here we really have our shortcomings, but again Beria raised this issue in every decision of the Central Committee, noting this task before us, in particular last year, according to the report of the Vilnius City Committee , such a task was set by Comrade Malenkov , but we still really have not worked well, and here at the Presidium we were rightly criticized, and this data was presented here.

But it must be said here that at the same time there are shortcomings in the party work. It must be said that some of our comments regarding individual comrades who were at the head of the party-organizational work 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 this issue with the secretaries, but I do not want to bypass the party apparatus, and meanwhile the opinions of Lithuanian communists were not always heard there. There were such facts.

One more question . There are quite a few Lithuanians abroad, 600 or 800 thousand people in total, and the total population of Lithuania is 2,700 thousand people. You see what a kinship, especially in America. Some were in the occupied territory, worked as agronomists, teachers, even engineers, some families have repressed people. And it was really a difficult situation to put forward new people. Last year, at a meeting of the Secretariat, we raised the issue that, according to the instructions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we cannot put forward Lithuanian communists, because grandmothers and aunts play a decisive role, and not the person himself. Comrade Malenkov said then that bandits trust each other more than our workers. Ignatiev stood up , listened, but did not implement this instruction. Beria appears, who, using this situation, acts as an amnesty. Now it is clear, and we have exposed this maneuver of Beria.

We have quite a few shifts in the mood of the intelligentsia. We still have some disputes about our national affairs, about our history. I will not name 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; it is precisely in this area of the history and culture of the Lithuanian people, where the nationalist vestiges are most tenacious, that we have had many successes. I will cite an example of Union significance. We recently held a conference of the Academy of Sciences of the Baltic countries and Belarus, at which Marxist concepts were supported by the best representatives of the Lithuanian intelligentsia. Comrade Pankratova could have told us about this, she gave a high assessment of the increased awareness of the Lithuanian intelligentsia in matters of the national and historical development of the people.

We will continue to learn to fight in principle against all nationalist remnants. Comrade Malenkov spoke about these remnants. 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 any Titoite communists among the Lithuanian communists.
We must be vigilant, we must put an end to the remnants of the bourgeois-nationalist ruff. 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 administration. We admit this guilt. But we do not admit, and no one accuses us of fighting against people who made it difficult to carry out land reform, who made it difficult to carry out collectivization.

Of course , in Lithuania we have many shortcomings in the implementation of the Leninist-Stalinist national policy, and in the passion of the party and soviet organs for administration, which I have already spoken about, and in the insufficient 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 meet the forthcoming decision of the Plenum and will be faithful to the Central Committee of our Party. (Applause.)

Khrushchev: Comrade Shatalin asked to speak later. The floor is given to Comrade Kruglov, Minister of Internal Affairs.

Kruglov: Comrades, the decision taken by the Presidium of the Central Committee of our party to arrest the enemy of our state, the bourgeois rogue and adventurer Beria, is the only correct decision. Comrade Malenkov's report and the speeches of the members of the Presidium show the entire vile role and hostile face of this enemy of our state. The removal of this enemy and rogue will strengthen our party, strengthen its unity and cohesion 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 skillful enemy has penetrated into the heart of our party, into the leadership of our country, and the neutralization of this enemy, the exposure of his counter-revolutionary activities is a great merit of our Central Committee of the party and its Leninist-Stalinist Presidium.

The Party has won a major victory in the fight for communism by exposing this adventurer and enemy in good time. Our Party and our state have neutralized a dangerous vermin that could have caused a lot of 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 a lot of harm and took away a lot of health. Boorishness, impudence, rudeness, humiliation 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, this answer was very much liked by everyone, - you even appear in my dreams. I thought then how cleverly Kliment Efremovich answered this impudent fellow.

Timoshenko. Then he was probably happy and smiling.

Malenkov. The Central Committee knows him, he grew up in the Central Committee apparatus. He was forced to do a lot, but when the Central Committee needed him, he served faithfully.

Kruglov: There is no doubt that if he had not been put in prison, he would have gone against our party for his hostile purposes and could have used the apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But this rogue 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, when you now critically consider all of Beria's behavior over the last 3 months in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, because a number of employees who are currently working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, such as Kruglov, Serov, Maslennikov, have had nothing to do with the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the last 10 years. After all, the Ministry of Internal Affairs is called that, but in essence, intelligence, counterintelligence, and other issues are resolved there .

The ministry where we worked until Comrade Stalin's death had nothing to do with it and did not know what was going on there, and when you think about the behavior of this Beria in the new Ministry of Internal Affairs for three months, many things appear in a different sense and his anti-party and hostile face becomes clear. It becomes clear that he wanted to use the Ministry of Internal Affairs system in his vile plans. For this purpose, under the sign of special secrecy that intelligence and counterintelligence issues were decided by him and Kobulov, we, 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. We also did not know about the German Democratic Republic. There is also a so-called special folder in the minutes of the decision on the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but we do not know what these issues are, they are unknown to us. We were not aware of the cases in the investigative department for especially important cases, because they were decided by Kobulov and Beria. We did not know what case was being conducted regarding some other comrades, which is now known. We were assigned police issues, fire protection issues, and as for the former Ministry of Internal Affairs, a ban was imposed on us.

Why did we put up with this matter? We bear responsibility for it. We failed to expose this enemy for some time. The Presidium of the Central Committee helped us, as did many of those present here, and I express my deep gratitude and satisfaction at the firmness and correctness of the decision of the Central Committee of the Party on the Beria issue.

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

The investigation will reveal all of Beria's hostility , but some measures are , in our opinion, 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 residency workers to Moscow. Many of those summoned have been in Moscow for more than 2 months.

Molotov. Where from?

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

Malenkov. 600 people.

Kruglov. There are currently about 200 people in Moscow for two or three months, about whom the issue is not being resolved. During this time, the work of the residency has weakened. Contacts with many valuable agents have been lost. The residency of Soviet intelligence in capitalist countries has been exposed and has been left without leadership for a long time.

Voice: This was done deliberately.

Kruglov. The commissioner 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 apparatus of the commissioner of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the GDR by seven times 70 . They decided to abolish the instructor apparatus of the commissioner , leaving only the advisory one . Thus, the Chekist apparatus 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, while now something else has become known. He 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 with 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 have such people as Rai... 71 , Etingof 72 , Sudoplatov, Meshik, and many others, who absolutely do not enjoy the political trust of the collective and were expelled from the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs before his arrival.

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 Personnel Department. This department includes Etingof 73 , 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.

Recently, the newly appointed resident in Finland Kotov reported that during his time at a reception with Beria, the latter suggested visiting the former Minister of Internal Affairs of Finland, the renegade Leino, who was allegedly improperly dismissed by the Finnish communists. Beria made it clear to Comrade Kotov that he should 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, a grave situation has developed in the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or rather the former MGB. Over the last three years, there has been an incessant breakdown 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.)

Khrushchev: Comrades, there is a proposal to take a lunch break now. No objections?

Voices. No.

Khrushchev: So that we can take a break until eight o'clock. There will be no objections?

Voices. No.

Khrushchev: A break is declared until eight o'clock.

next- MEETING JULY 3