Lavrentiy Beria

Lavrentiy Beria
ლავრენტი ბერია (Georgian)
Beria in 1920.
First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union
In office 5 March 1953 – 26 June 1953
Premier	Georgy Malenkov
Preceded by	Vyacheslav Molotov
Succeeded by	Lazar Kaganovich
Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union
In office 5 March 1953 – 26 June 1953
Preceded by	Semyon Ignatyev
Succeeded by	Sergei Kruglov
In office 25 November 1938 – 29 December 1945
Preceded by	Nikolai Yezhov
Succeeded by	Sergei Kruglov
First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party
In office 15 January 1934 – 31 August 1938
Preceded by	Petre Agniashvili
Succeeded by	Candide Charkviani
In office 14 November 1931 – 18 October 1932
Preceded by	Lavrenty Kartvelishvili
Succeeded by	Petre Agniashvili
Full member of the 18th, 19th Politburo
In office 18 March 1946 – 7 July 1953
Candidate member of the 18th Politburo
In office 22 March 1939 – 18 March 1946
Personal details
Born	Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (1899-03-29)29 March 1899 Merkheuli, Kutaisi Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	23 December 1953(1953-12-23) (aged 54) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Spouse(s)	Nina Gegechkori
Awards	Hero of the Soviet Union
Signature
Military service
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union
Battles/wars	World War II

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (English /ˈbɛriə/; Georgian: ლავრენტი პავლეს ძე ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лавре́нтий Па́влович Бе́рия; 29 March [O.S. 17 March] 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician of Georgian ethnicity, Marshal of the Soviet Union and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus (NKVD) under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years (1946–53).

Beria was the longest-lived and most influential of Stalin's secret police chiefs, wielding his most substantial influence during and after World War II. He simultaneously administered vast sections of the Soviet state and served as de facto Marshal of the Soviet Union in command of the NKVD field units responsible for anti-Nazi partisan operations on the Eastern Front during World War II, as well as for acting as barrier troops and the apprehension of thousands of "turncoats, deserters, cowards and suspected malingerers." Beria administered the vast expansion of the Gulag labor camps and was primarily responsible for overseeing the secret defense institutions known as sharashkas, critical to the war effort. He also played the decisive role in coordinating the Soviet partisans, developing an impressive intelligence and sabotage network behind German lines. He attended the Yalta Conference with Stalin, who introduced him to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as "our Himmler". After the war, he organized the communist takeover of the state institutions of Central and Eastern Europe. Beria's uncompromising ruthlessness in his duties and skill at producing results culminated in his success in overseeing the Soviet atomic bomb project. Stalin gave it absolute priority and the project was completed in under five years in no small part due to Soviet espionage against the West organized by Beria's NKVD.