THE RED TERROR
VISHNIAK, MARK
The Red Terror Conclusion — Beria, MGB and MVD By Mark Vishniak Felix Dsershinsky. Vyeeheetav HmMmkr. Henry Y»9od*. NlkoUi Y*«h©T— 1M BBBMW Ol thee* IsaJSri lani echoes from a not to distent...
...In November 1931, Beria was appointed First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party and Second Secretary of the Transcaucasian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party...
...The energy of the entire police and terror apparatus was concentrated upon getting the most out of the state-controlled forced labor, until death itself mercifully released the tortured slaves, everf though the death penalty had been "abolished" /or the third time on May 26, 1847...
...Everything he says is dull and monotonously repetitious, full of the usual Soviet cliches and the rehashing of the thoughts and the very words spoken by Stalin and his comrades, to wit: "Fascism has net keen killed yet, nor has it been unwonted, she dark pawnee of Faerie m end reaction are wttl never spate myself Vn the future in she service of my SntlaHat Parkerland end tar the ftilfiUmaht of Stalin's ^CAaWal e • • When, under Yerhov's rule, the mass annihilation of Soviet intelligentsia began to have deleterious eJfetge upon Soviet technology, economics and culture, Stalin realized that a halt had to be called and the terror somehow SOftdWrtl, H© ftttlelMOfMrd...
...BERIA Id A HEAVT-gET MASf, with a dark eemnleetten, round face and square chin...
...Their political duties axe combined with ail sorts of otherx tasks...
...In 1938, Beria was appointed Commissar of the USSR for Internal Affairs in Yeahov'» place...
...Under Beria, the terror continued to mushroom on the commercial basis previously developed...
...For this he was arrested...
...He is nearer to him than the Great-Russian, Voroshilov, with whom Stalin has many Civil War memories in common...
...aa4 aa Matta Man his sarenMath birthday amid rumor* of heart attacks, iha free aa wall ai hia milliaaa ef staves watch the Isaiah* Qsassfiaa wish tha pince-nes...
...With the victory of the Russian Revolution in March 1911...
...But in 1939, when the Political Dictionary was compiled, Beria was already all-powerful and was given almost as much space and attention as Zhdanov...
...In the autumn of 1922, he was transferred to his native Georgia as the head of the Secret Operations Department, but retained bis job as chief of the special intelligence service of the Army...
...In 1927, when volume 5 of the Big Soviet Encyclopedia was printed, Beria was not even mentioned by name...
...He was the one who directed the mass expulsion of the Caucasian population, i. e., the Chechens, the Ingush and Karachayevians for their lack of "loyalty" towards the Soviets...
...One must sense the depth of Stalin's hatred for Trotsky to appreciate the debt of gratitude the former feels toward his fellow-countryman, Beria...
...In 1943, in the midst of the Ge.man offensive in the Caucasus, Beria was charged with the mission to secure and to keep order in Russia...
...A Social-Democratic magazine published in 1800-03 by Lenin, Plekhanov, Martov, etc...
...and in June 1B4T...
...a ' WITH THE END OF HOSTILITIES, Beria's sphere of activity increased in scope...
...In the minds of its innumerable agents, those who defend it ideologically and physically carry out its horrendous orders, there has never been any doubf of its moral justification...
...When Beria in his pamphlet reminisces that Stalin used to call Lenin "the mountain eagle", and insists that Lenin, in turn, called Stalin "the fiery Colchidian", it is pure balm for Stalin...
...This has been done methodically, for many years, in a thoroughly pro/esjioiial spirit...
...Among Stalinists, Beria is the first and the nearest to Stalin...
...He started his political career by aiding Stalin's cause, by glorifying him in all possible ways, and by closely imitating him...
...j LAVREWTY PAVLOVICH BERIA was bora on March 20, 1880, in -•the village of Merkhouly of the Sukhurn region of Georgia...
...nearer than his brother-in-law, Kaganovich, and even than the Caucasian-born Armenian, Mlkoyan...
...Since June 1841, he has been a member of the State Defense Committee watching over oil and coal resources...
...In 1838, after the 18th Party Congress, he was elected a nominee to the Pollburo, He is a deputy hrt' nsjenral Supreme Soviets of the USSR, of Georgia, and of Azerbaijan...
...munist terrorists represent an acute political problem...
...AFTER "HEROIC" FEATS in the imaginative reconstruction of past history, Beria rose rapidly to the top of the Soviet social pyramid...
...For outstanding service in the field of Socialist Construction he received two Red Labor Banners of the Georgian Soviet Republic, one from the Azerbaijan SSR, and two Badges of Honorable Chekist...
...Apparently it included those who had been jailed for a short time as well as those millions whom Yezhov inherited from his predecessor Yagoda...
...He was eVportedy under guard to Soviet Azerbaijan, whew, in 1921 in Baku, he was appointed chief erf the Secret Operations Department and deputy of the Azerbaijan Cheka...
...BERIA BEGAN by reorganizing the Kremlin garhtea and Stalin's personal guard, fitting these strategic posrfiear with hand-picked Caucasian stalwarts...
...B*ftf lit...
...NlkoUi Y*«h©T— 1M BBBMW Ol thee* IsaJSri lani echoes from a not to distent past* Bat Lavrtmrr Beria U very much •live...
...He directs the mining of uranium in the Soviet Zone of Germany and in Caechoslovakia...
...toward the end of 1946...
...When in 1918-1820 the Social Democrats (Menshevfk*) In Georgia and the Moslem Muatavatists in Azerbaijan were in power...
...Beria belongs to that exclusive group in the Politburo which includes Mikoyan, VoroshSov, sometimes Kaganovich, but seldom Molotov...
...Beria joined the Bolshevik Paste in Baku...
...Beria was actively engaged in underground work...
...Beria attempts to prove that Stalin was a Bolshevik even before Bolshevism was created, before the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Party and the formation of the Bolshevik Party, As early as 1887-88, ansaeAing to this report, "the revolutionary Leninist-Iakialike*-social-demoeratic organisation in Transcaucasia was born, developed and grew...
...Each of the terror bosses has condemned his fellow-men to death after the innumerable victims had traversed the path of physical and moral tortures...
...There are some 18 of these latter i» the Soviet Zone of Germany, containing, it has been estimated, from J50,000 to 300,000 prisoners...
...This was the beginning of Beria's Cheka career...
...Along with all kinds of home and foreign espionage and counter-espionage, Beria is entrusted with supreme control over Russia's atomic research as well as research on other scientific means to wage, ¦ new war...
...1946, the Commissariats were changed into Ministries, Beria was given the post of Vice-Chairman of the Soviet of Ministries...
...As a lecturer and author he is far below average...
...They represent at the same time a political riddle...
...But for She Old Bolsheviks who went through the difficulties of the underground period, the petty quarrels of that remote past remain vitally alive even today...
...For his revolutionary services >as a faithful Lenlnist.Stalinist, Beria was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in 1935...
...At present, Beria controls the whole police apparatus of the Soviet Union, which is a State within a State...
...1946, a* post he held since 1941, Beria continues to supervise the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Ministry of State Security (MGB...
...He has at his disposal an army of half a million well-chosen, well-equipped, intensely-trained fighters and agents, both open and secret...
...The atorr of Laertoutf Beria areas one answer...
...It may seem strange that what Stalin did or did not do fifty years ago should have such an interest and significance...
...he is baldish, and wears a pince-nez A la Molotov...
...BERIA REPRESENTS the second,, younger, generation of Bolsheviks...
...He drives a long black Packard with bulietfnoof windows...
...There was muchtalk about the "wrecking acts" of the purge time and particularly about the fact that "the number of arrested people reached 19 millions (this was printed in bold type...
...When Beria came to the head of NKVD he decided to unmask his precursor Yezhov and obviously exaggerated according to the usual Bolshevik manner...
...THE SOVIET TERROR and the Com...
...An Beria's writings ere directed against Trotsky and Trotsky's repudiation of Stalin as an original, creative and constructive follower of Bolshevism...
...la huMeats gSnhnanhaa aoexdudee has seakwaf fine authceiUitra artJclas on lWtseU'i seUst police...
...That pamphlet was a secret intended for the NKVD personnel only...
...The arrested are subjected to brutal interrogations and beatings with the Gumrmknupfel (rubber truncheon), to the cold water treatment, and to consignment to the "bunker" where the prisoner is fprced to stand in his own filth...
...In the thirty years of its existence, the Red Terror has been enormously improved, technically...
...Of these almost half are polHkel prisoners accused of making anti-Soviet statements, of espionage, and of belonging to such forbidden organizations at the Social-Democratic Party...
...The American corespondents Germany unanimously commented on the curious fact that soon after these visits, certain melancholy aspects of the "Soviet Way of Life" seemed to burgeon en German soil—concentration camps, for instance...
...BERIA'S OPERATIONS in smashing and routing the Anti-Bolshevist "counter-revolutionary" parties of the Transcaucasian Republics such as the Georgian Mensheviks, the Azerbaijan MusaayaUts, the Armenian Dashnaks, were so high-handed that even the proSoviet British Trade Union Delegation visiting the Caucasus at the time, recommended the abolition of the Caucasian GPU...
...In 1932 he became First Secretary of the latter...
...he follows closely Communist political "achievements" in the occupied countries...
...Supervision and control start with an inventory of the trend of thought of all sections of the Soviet population...
...Almost his entire conscious life was spent under the Bolshevik regime...
...At the.same time it became increasingly mechanized...
...Relieved of his duties as Commissar General for National Security on Jan...
...Beria and his minions "attend" to not only the open resistance to Soviet policies that occasionally crops up, but" more often the hidden dis, content with any phase of the regime or with any representative of the Government For this reason, Beria prosecutes not only those who did or said something, hut also those who didn't say or do something that the regime wanted them to say or do...
...Beria is not a good speaker, nor is he quick-witted...
...He'received his primary education in the Sukhurn elementary school and was graduated to 1£ft from the Polytechnic school in Baku with the diploma* of an engineering-architect craftsman...
...He wears a Russian-made suit, baggy around the shoulders, and with wide, baggy trousers...
...No explanation of this figure has ever been given...
...East than the West...
...Since the 17th Party Congress in February 1834 he has always been elected to the Central Committee of the AlLUnion Communist Party...
...He licpsidated all Yeahov people,, as Yezhov had liquidated those of Yagede.He published a pamphlet about rors" committed in 1*38- 1*38...
...During his last visit to Germany, Beria impressed upon the Communist leaders there that they should have made greater headway in winning Germany for Communism because "the German people are easy to lead and have a mentality more akin to th...
...Up to 1931, Beria held a responsible position in the Secret Service, as chief of the Georgian and Transcaucasian Regional GPU, nnd also war representative of the AllRuasian GPU in the Soviet Transcaucaaian Republic...
...Beria's report to the Active Committee of the Communist Party at its July conference, 19S5, in Tiflis was later1 published under the title, "On the History of the Bolshevik Organization in Transcaucasia...
...They meet daily with Stalin, not only for political and business purposes but socially as well He is interested in painting, music, and architecture...
...Alter the war, Beria was often seen In the new countries occupied by the Soviets: in Germany, Austria, and in the Balkans...
...He is married and has children...
...Beria visited Berlin in April-May, 1945...
...For extraordinary services rendered during the war, Beria was made Hero of Socialist Labor (1843), got the Suvarov Order 1st Claw (1844), and was appointed Marshall of the Soviet Union on July 11, 1945...
...This melancholy fact gives its own, but alas, negative answer to the question which worried the educators and encyclopedists of the 18th century so much: Is humanity progressing morally...
...When on March 19...
...The Soviet ambassador to Georgia) Sergei Kirov, pressed the Georgian Meenhevik government to set BeHa free and,to deport him...
...Stalin, Who does not trust many people, trusts Beria...
...He succeeded in that task, using his trusted method of the stick and the carrot: smiling to some, threatening others, crushing still others...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 22
