Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Joseph Stalin died on March 5 at 21:50. From 6 to 9 March, the country was plunged into mourning. The coffin with the body of the leader was exhibited in Moscow in the Hall of Columns. About one and a half million people took part in the mourning events.

Troops were sent to the capital to maintain public order. However, the authorities did not expect such an incredible influx of people wishing to see Stalin on his last journey. The victims of the stampede on the day of the funeral, March 9, according to various sources, were from 300 to 3 thousand people.

“Stalin entered Russian history as a symbol of greatness. The main achievements of the Stalin era were industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War and the creation of a nuclear bomb. The foundation that the leader left allowed the country to achieve nuclear parity with the United States and launch rockets into space, ”said Dmitry Zhuravlev, doctor of historical sciences, political scientist, in an interview with RT.

At the same time, according to the expert, the Soviet people paid a huge price for the great achievements in the Stalin era (1924-1953). The most negative phenomena, according to Zhuravlev, were collectivization, political repressions, labor camps (the Gulag system) and the grossest neglect of elementary human needs.

The riddle of the death of the leader

Stalin was distinguished by a pathological distrust of doctors and neglected their recommendations. Serious degradation of the health of the leader began in 1948. The last public speech of the Soviet leader took place on October 14, 1952, at which he summed up the results of the XIX Congress of the CPSU.

• Joseph Stalin speaks at the closing session of the 19th Congress of the CPSU
• RIA News

The last years of his life, Stalin spent a lot of time at the "near dacha" in Kuntsevo. On March 1, 1953, state guards found the leader motionless. They reported this to Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov and Nikita Khrushchev.

Prompt medical assistance to Stalin was not provided. Doctors came to examine him only on March 2. What happened in the first days of March at the "near dacha" is a mystery to historians. The question of whether it was possible to save the leader's life still remains unanswered.

The son of Nikita Khrushchev is sure that Stalin became a "victim of his own system." His associates and doctors were afraid to do anything, although it was obvious that the leader was in critical condition. According to official information, Stalin was diagnosed with a stroke. The disease was not announced, but on March 4, the party elite, apparently anticipating the imminent death of the leader, decided to break the silence.

• A line of people wishing to say goodbye to Joseph Stalin at the House of the Unions, Moscow
• RIA News

“On the night of March 2, 1953, I.V. Stalin, there was a sudden cerebral hemorrhage that captured vital areas of the brain, resulting in paralysis of the right leg and right arm with loss of consciousness and speech, ”the article in the Pravda newspaper said.

"Similarity of a palace coup"

Retired KGB colonel, counterintelligence officer Igor Prelin believes that the leader's entourage understood the inevitability of his imminent death and was not interested in Stalin's recovery.

“These people were interested in him (Stalin. — RT) rather left, for two reasons. They feared for their position and well-being that he would remove them, remove them and repress them. And secondly, of course, they themselves rushed to power. They understood that Stalin's days were numbered. It was clear that this was the final, ”Prelin said in an interview.

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The main contenders for the role of the leader of the Soviet state were the former head of the NKVD Lavrenty Beria, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers Georgy Malenkov, first secretary of the Moscow regional committee Nikita Khrushchev and member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU Marshal Nikolai Bulganin.

During Stalin's illness, the party elite redistributed the highest government posts. It was decided that Malenkov would take the post of chairman of the Council of Ministers, which belonged to the leader, Khrushchev would become the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (the highest position in the party hierarchy), Beria would receive the portfolio of the minister of internal affairs, and Bulganin the minister of defense.

The unwillingness of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin to save the life of the leader in every possible way and the redistribution of government posts gave rise to a widespread version of the existence of an anti-Stalinist conspiracy. The conspiracy against the leader was objectively beneficial to the party elite, Zhuravlev believes.

• Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Lavrenty Beria, Matvey Shkiryatov (front row from right to left), Georgy Malenkov and Andrey Zhdanov (second row from right to left)
• RIA News

“Hypothetically, some semblance of a palace coup was possible, since open opposition to the leader was completely excluded. Nevertheless, the conspiracy theory and the violent death of Stalin did not receive concrete evidence. Any versions on this subject are private opinions that are not based on documentary evidence, ”Zhuravlev stated in an interview with RT.

The collapse of the main contender

The post-Stalin regime in 1953-1954 is often referred to as "collegiate administration". Powers in the state were distributed among several party bosses. However, historians agree that under the beautiful veneer of “collegiate management” there was a fierce struggle for absolute leadership.

Malenkov, being the curator of the most important defense projects of the USSR, had close ties with the country's military elite (Marshal Georgy Zhukov is considered one of Malenkov's supporters). Beria wielded enormous influence over the security agencies, the key institutions of power in the Stalin era. Khrushchev enjoyed the sympathy of the party apparatus and was perceived as a compromise figure. Bulganin had the weakest positions.

At the funeral, the first to carry the coffin with the leader from the House of Trade Unions was Beria (left) and Malenkov (right). On the podium of the mausoleum in which Stalin was buried (in 1961 the leader was reburied near the Kremlin wall), Beria stood in the center, between Malenkov and Khrushchev. This symbolized his dominant position at that time.

Beria united under his authority the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security. On March 19, he replaced almost all the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Union republics and regions of the RSFSR.

However, Beria did not abuse power. It is noteworthy that his political program coincided with the democratic initiatives expressed by Malenkov and Khrushchev. Oddly enough, it was Lavrenty Pavlovich who began reviewing the criminal cases of those citizens who were accused of anti-Soviet conspiracies.

On March 27, 1953, the Minister of the Interior signed the Decree "On Amnesty". The document allowed the release of citizens convicted of malfeasance and economic crimes from places of detention. In total, more than 1.3 million people were released from prisons, and criminal proceedings were terminated against 401,000 citizens.

Despite these moves, Beria was strongly associated with the repressions that were carried out during the Stalin era. On June 26, 1953, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was summoned to a meeting of the Council of Ministers and detained, accused of espionage, falsification of criminal cases and abuse of power.

His closest associates were convicted of wrecking activities. On December 24, 1953, the Special Judicial Presence of the Supreme Court of the USSR sentenced Beria and his supporters to death. The ex-minister of internal affairs was shot in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow military district. After the death of the main contender for power, about ten functionaries who were part of the "Beria gang" were arrested and convicted.

Khrushchev's triumph

The removal of Beria became possible thanks to the alliance between Malenkov and Khrushchev. In 1954, a struggle broke out between the head of the Council of Ministers and the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

• Georgy Malenkov
• RIA News

Malenkov advocated the elimination of the excesses of the Stalinist system both in politics and in the economy. He called for leaving the leader's personality cult in the past, improving the situation of collective farmers and focusing on the production of consumer goods.

The fatal mistake of Malenkov was an indifferent attitude towards the party and state apparatus. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers reduced the salaries of officials and repeatedly accused the bureaucracy of "complete disregard for the needs of the people."

“The main problem of Stalinism for the leaders of the CPSU was that anyone could fall under the rink of repression. The party apparatus is tired of this unpredictability. He needed guarantees of a stable existence. This is exactly what Nikita Khrushchev promised. In my opinion, it was this approach that became the key to his victory, ”said Zhuravlev.

In January 1955, the head of the USSR government was criticized by Khrushchev and his party comrades for failures in economic policy. On February 8, 1955, Malenkov left the post of head of the Council of Ministers and received the portfolio of the Minister of Power Plants, retaining his membership in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. The post of Malenkov was taken by Nikolai Bulganin, and Georgy Zhukov became the Minister of Defense.

Such an attitude towards a political rival was intended to emphasize the beginning of a new era, where a sparing attitude towards the Soviet nomenklatura reigns. Nikita Khrushchev became her symbol.

"Hostage of the system"

In 1956, at the XX Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev delivered a famous speech about debunking the cult of personality. The period of his reign is called the thaw. From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were released, the system of labor camps (Gulag) was completely dismantled.

• Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev greet the participants of the May Day demonstration on the podium of the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin
• RIA News

“Khrushchev was able to become his own for the apparatus. Debunking Stalinism, he said that the leaders of the Bolshevik party should not have been subjected to repression. However, in the end, Khrushchev became a hostage of the control system he created himself, ”Zhuravlev stated.

As the expert explained, Khrushchev, in dealing with his subordinates, was distinguished by excessive harshness. He traveled a lot around the country and in personal meetings with the first secretaries of the regional committees subjected them to the most severe criticism, making, in fact, the same mistakes as Malenkov. In October 1964, the party nomenklatura removed Khrushchev from the post of first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and chairman of the Council of Ministers.

“Khrushchev took competent steps to become the leader of the USSR for some time. However, he was not going to radically change the Stalinist system. Nikita Sergeevich limited himself to correcting the most obvious shortcomings of his predecessor, ”said Zhuravlev.

• First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev
• RIA News

According to the expert, the key problem of the Stalinist system was the demand for constant labor and military exploits from the Soviet people. Most of the projects of Stalin and Khrushchev benefited the USSR, but catastrophically little attention was paid to the personal needs of citizens.

“Yes, under Khrushchev, the elite and society breathed more freely. However, man still remained a means to achieve grandiose goals. People are tired of the endless pursuit of records, they are tired of calls for self-sacrifice and the expectation of the onset of a communist paradise. This problem was one of the key reasons for the subsequent collapse of the Soviet statehood,” Zhuravlev summed up.

Synopsis on the history of Russia

In October 1952, the 19th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks took place, at which it was renamed CPSU. The report was made by Malenkov, Khrushchev spoke with a report on changes in the Charter. After the congress, Stalin proposed to elect a narrow Bureau of the Presidium, which included neither Molotov nor Mikoyan. Then a non-statutory five was created within the Bureau - Stalin, Malenkov, Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev. A new round of repressions was being prepared. Molotov, Voroshilov, and even Beria felt disgrace. However, in January 1953, Stalin's health deteriorated. He died March 5, 1953.

Difficulties in the economic sphere, ideologization of social and political life, increased international tension - these were the results of the development of society in the first post-war years. During this period, the regime of Stalin's personal power became even stronger, and the administrative-command system became tougher. In the same years, the idea of ​​the need for changes in society was increasingly clearly formed in the public mind. Stalin's death facilitated the search for a way out of the contradictions that entangled all spheres of public life.

Where could the country go after Stalin's death? Was it possible either a temporary continuation of Stalinism, which posed a serious threat to the lives and well-being of millions of people and entire nations, or some mitigation of it while maintaining the general political course, or a turn towards de-Stalinization? De-Stalinization did not mean the elimination of the totalitarian regime. It could only be about the initial cleansing of the legacy of Stalinism: the release of the repressed, a turn towards solving the most acute agrarian problems, and the weakening of the dogmatic pressure in culture. The first option was associated with the prospect of Beria coming to power, Molotov and Bulganin would probably take part in the implementation of the second, but in practice the third option began to be implemented. And N.S. Khrushchev connected himself with him.

The most influential political figures in the leadership were Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev. The balance was extremely unstable.

New leadership policy in the spring of 1953 was controversial. Each of the contenders for power sought to seize it in their own way. Beria - through control over the bodies and troops of state security. Malenkov - declaring his desire to pursue a popular policy of improving the well-being of the people, "to take care of the maximum satisfaction of his material needs", calling for the creation in our country of an abundance of food for the population and raw materials for light industry in 2-3 years. At a closed meeting in the Kremlin, Malenkov was elected Chairman of the Council of Ministers, the MGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs were united under the leadership of Beria. The main thing in the mood of the ruling elite was that it wanted to preserve the regime, but without repression against the apparatus. Objectively, the situation turned out favorably for Khrushchev, who showed unusual activity these days. Khrushchev, as the only secretary of the Central Committee who is a member of the Presidium, took control of the party cadres. Since he had good connections with the high military command, the situation was in his favor. Zhukov and Khrushchev prepared an action against Beria and in July 1953 he was arrested. The court sentenced Beria and his assistants to be shot. In September 1953, Khrushchev was elected First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. The process of de-Stalinization began.

The first steps towards restoring the rule of law in the country were taken in April 1953. The investigation into the "doctors' case" was terminated. Participants of the "Mingrelian case" were released from prison. The Leningrad case was reviewed.

One of the central places in the activities of the new leadership was occupied by the work to free society from the most ugly forms of the command and administrative system, in particular, overcoming Stalin's personality cult. The reorganization of the structure and renewal of personnel in the bodies of internal affairs and state security was carried out. Work was carried out to rehabilitate the innocent victims of repression, for which a special commission was created under the chairmanship of Pospelov (by the beginning of 1956, about 16 thousand people had been rehabilitated).

In the second half of the 50s. continued policies aimed at restoration of legality in the socio-political sphere. The justice system was reformed to strengthen the rule of law. New criminal legislation was developed and approved. At the end of the 50s. unfounded accusations against the deported peoples were dropped. The Chechens, Kalmyks, Ingush, Karachays and Balkars evicted from their homes were given the right to return to their homeland. The autonomy of these peoples was restored. The charges of complicity with the German occupiers were dropped from the Soviet Germans. The repatriation of citizens of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and other countries located in special settlements has begun.

However, the policy pursued was inconsistent. Rehabilitation did not affect many major Soviet and statesmen of the 30s, in particular Rykov, Bukharin - the leaders of the opposition to Stalin. It was refused to return to their former places of residence to the deported Volga Germans. Rehabilitation did not touch the repressed in the 30s. Soviet Koreans and the Tatar population evicted from Crimea during World War II.

The policy of de-Stalinization pursued by Khrushchev, numerous restructurings in the political and economic spheres caused growing dissatisfaction with part of the party and state apparatus. In 1957, a group of party leaders led by Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich tried to remove Khrushchev from the post of First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU. They accused Khrushchev of violating the principles of "collective leadership" and establishing his own cult, of unauthorized and thoughtless foreign policy actions, and of economic voluntarism. However, the open resistance of some party and state leaders to the reform policy ended in failure. A significant part of the party and Soviet leaders at that moment supported Khrushchev. The June (1957) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU found the group of Malenkov, Molotov and Kaganovich guilty of speaking out against the political course of the party. The members of the group were expelled from the highest party bodies and removed from their posts.

5. What changes have occurred in the country after death and. Stalin?

The death of Stalin on March 5, 1953 ended a whole era in the life of the country: the death of the leader opened the way for reforms. N. Khrushchev became the head of the party. Khrushchev's name is associated with a policy called the "thaw". At the 20th Party Congress (1956), N. Khrushchev delivered a report on the exposure of Stalin's personality cult and Stalin's repressions. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the process of de-Stalinization began in society. The system of repression and total fear was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of people arrested for political reasons were returned from prisons and camps.

The process of political liberalization contributed to the emancipation of the individual and the awakening of public consciousness. For the first time, criticism of the first persons in the state became possible, in connection with which faith in the infallibility of the supreme power was shaken. Under the influence of Khrushchev's "thaw", a whole generation of "sixties" was formed - people who accepted the fight against the cult of personality as the beginning of a social revival. A new impetus was given to the creative work of the scientific and artistic intelligentsia, new literature, art, and theater were born.

The process of spiritual purification also affected the party. At party congresses and plenums, issues such as increasing the role of the Soviets, the observance of the rule of law, and the restoration of democratic norms of inner-party life were discussed. An important provision appeared in the Party Charter, according to which no one could hold an elected position in the party for more than three consecutive terms, and the composition of the governing bodies must be renewed by at least one third.

However, the process of democratization proceeded unevenly and inconsistently. The open expression of public opinion was a new and unusual phenomenon. Neither Khrushchev nor the Soviet leadership as a whole were ready for deep liberal democratic reforms.

At the XXII Congress of the CPSU in 1961, it was decided to remove the sarcophagus with the body of Stalin from the mausoleum and bury it near the Kremlin wall. The congress adopted a 20-year program for building communism. She became another great utopia of the Land of the Soviets.

Khrushchev's reforms affected not only the political but also the economic sphere (the introduction of economic councils, the "corn epic", the elimination of unpromising villages, etc.). Conceived for good purposes, reforms often backfired. Khrushchev's actions led to the disorganization of the economy and political life. Khrushchev's organizational reforms finally set the nomenklatura against him. The party apparatus rallied against the leader, which eventually ended in his resignation. Khrushchev's activity after his removal began to be characterized as "voluntarism and subjectivism."

6. What was the era of "stagnation" characterized by?

After the removal of Khrushchev, a new leadership came to power, headed by L.I. Brezhnev. The period of the "thaw" has ended, and a new, Brezhnev's, period has begun, which historians call the period of stagnation (stagnation), although this definition is rather arbitrary.

Brezhnev was in power for 18 years. Under him, the role of the party-state nomenklatura, the real ruling stratum in the USSR, grew significantly. Therefore, the political regime of that time can be characterized as totalitarian-bureaucratic.

The process of de-Stalinization has stopped, and, to a certain extent, the process of re-Stalinization has begun. Articles, books, films appeared in which Stalin was exalted. In parallel, a ban was imposed on the publication of "camp topics". In this regard, this period was characterized by neo-Stalinism. And yet, as a result of the protests of prominent representatives of the scientific and artistic intelligentsia, it was not possible to completely rehabilitate Stalin.

In 1967, due to the obvious failure of Khrushchev's course to build communism in the USSR by 1980, a conclusion was made about "developed or mature socialism", supposedly already created in the USSR. The Constitution of the USSR, adopted in 1977, fixed in Article 6 the leading and guiding role of the CPSU in the life of the Soviet state.

Initially, the economic reform of 1965 (“Kosygin”) had a positive impact on the development of the economy. The Eighth Five-Year Plan (1966–1970) was one of the most successful in Soviet history. However, in the 70s. began a continuous process of reducing the rate of economic growth. The USSR lagged far behind the developed Western countries, which made a powerful technological breakthrough. The Soviet economy, on the other hand, was still extensive in nature and was kept afloat by "petrodollars" (the currency from oil and gas exports).

Gradually, the exaltation of Brezhnev himself began, which was reflected in the huge number of awards that he received (during the years in power he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union four times, he was awarded the Lenin Prize in Literature for memoirs that he himself did not write, etc. ). Praise, servility, toadying, lack of control, corruption, bribery, embezzlement flourished. The authorities grew decrepit (“gerontocracy”), lost the ability to adequately respond to changes, led the country to a crisis situation.

After the death of Brezhnev in 1982, the new General Secretary Yu.V. Andropov tried to revive the decrepit system. He headed the KGB (1967-1982) and better than others represented the real situation in Soviet society. Andropov took measures to strengthen loose discipline, declared a fight against pervasive corruption, but history gave him too short a time - only 15 months. Andropov died in 1984. He was replaced by 72-year-old K.U. Chernenko. Being a sick man, he remained in power for only 13 months. he didn't want to change at all. under him there was a return to the Brezhnev traditions of government. In March 1985, Chernenko died. The era of "stagnation" is over.

Stalin's death deprived Russia (USSR) of security guarantees. To preserve the security of the peoples of the country, a leader in terms of intelligence, scale of thinking, knowledge and will equal to Stalin was needed. The country in the period from 1917 to 1953, which became a dynamically developing superpower, in the presence of such a leader, would guarantee all the peoples of the USSR security, greatness, prosperity and the highest standard of living - higher than any country in the world. But a man who did not have a state mind at all, who did not understand and did not love Russia, came to power - Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. He got to manage a flourishing country restored after the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Not a single head of the Russian state in its entire thousand-year history has received such a powerful and beautiful country as N. S. Khrushchev got.

On March 5, 1953, on the day of the death of I. V. Stalin, G. M. Malenkov was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. But this was a temporary appointment, since it was necessary to appoint someone to replace the deceased I.V. Stalin, until the winner in the struggle for power was determined. G. M. Malenkov appointed L. P. Beria, V. M. Molotov, N. A. Bulganin and L. M. Kaganovich as his deputies. N. S. Khrushchev headed the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU.

In fact, two contenders fought for power: N. S. Khrushchev and L. P. Beria. In this struggle, N. S. Khrushchev won. Why? After all, L.P. Beria had a large-scale state thinking, huge organizational skills, and comprehensive knowledge. How could a man of great mind and strong will lose to Nikita Khrushchev?

In my opinion, there was a third force that, on the day of the death of I.V. Stalin, came out of the underground and brought N.S. Khrushchev to power. Contemporaries and previously was incomprehensible to the rapid rise of N. S. Khrushchev to the highest echelons of power, which did not at all correspond to his personal abilities.

“In January 1932, Khrushchev was elected second secretary of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Career, frankly, dizzying, which even then many gossiped about. Here are entries from the diary of party functionary A. G. Solovyov dated January 28, 1932: “I and some are surprised by Khrushchev’s rapid leap. He studied very poorly at the Industrial Academy ... Now the second secretary, together with Kaganovich. But surprisingly narrow-minded and a big sycophant.

In January 1934, Khrushchev became the first secretary of the Moscow City Committee, and already in March 1935 he replaced Lazar Kaganovich himself as the first secretary of the party's MK, writes I. V. Pykhalov.

In February 1938, Khrushchev was appointed First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, and then a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Some researchers attribute the rapid rise through the ranks to cruelty, as there is evidence that Khrushchev turned to the government in the 1930s and asked for permission to sentence more criminals to death than was allowed by the government.

By the way, from this information, both liberals and many communists came to the conclusion about the existence of "execution lists", which supposedly determined the number of people to be shot.

Those who deliberately disseminate hasty conclusions can be understood, as they are ill-wishers or haters of Russia, the Russian people, Soviet power, Stalin. Some of them have no opinion at all, but slander our past, because the West pays them money for this.

Surprise our honest citizens. How can they not understand that in the 1930s the country was sorely lacking people to work in factories and factories under construction and built, in agriculture, in scientific and cultural institutions, in the service sector, to serve in the police and the army. Each person was "worth its weight in gold" and suddenly allegations of the existence of "hit lists". Doubts must sink into the soul, how can a country, confident that the enemy may attack it in the near future, launch a plan to shoot people?

I'm not talking about the fact that at that time the USSR was a people's state with a functioning constitution, a prosecutor's office that controlled the implementation of the law in the cities and villages of the country, in courts, prisons and other state institutions. We theoretically and currently have the opportunity to raise a case against any convicted person in the 1930s, precisely because at that time the requirements of the existing laws were observed. And if at present there are many citizens in the country who believe in the existence of the above lists, it means that our society is unhealthy and may perish.

The United States allocates money to its agents to distort the essence of the people's socialist state. For decades they have been financing anti-Soviet propaganda, including today, when the USSR has been gone for more than a quarter of a century. They finance and don't think that the money is wasted, because they know that by killing the greatness of our past, they are killing our future.

Russian truth begins with the definition of a socialist state. The socialist system is the only system in the world in which man is the highest value. In a liberal capitalist state, money is the highest value. And if in a socialist state a person is the highest value, then caring for a person, for the people was his main function. But at that time, not only in the Soviet Union, but also in other countries of the world, they were not ready to abolish the death penalty. The United States, China and many other countries still use capital punishment - the death penalty.

In the USSR in the 1930s, the abolition of the death penalty was also impossible, as this would lead to a sharp increase in serious criminal offenses and the activation of the fifth column. Confirmation of what has been said is today's Russia, in which the death penalty has actually been abolished and the number of murders is much higher than criminals would have to be executed to prevent such crimes. That is, in today's Russia, the state primarily cares about saving the lives of murderers, and not peaceful law-abiding citizens. Such a decision in a large non-Western European country cannot be called in line with the interests of its peoples.

The government of the USSR did not abolish the death penalty, but for the previously indicated number of reasons, it sought to limit the number of death sentences handed down by the courts. Regions, krais, republics were forbidden to pass the number of death sentences more than was determined by the government of the USSR. That is, the government of the Soviet Union sought to ensure that the death sentences were pronounced by the courts only as a last resort. By the way, the lists for dispossession were also restrictive, not prescriptive.

And the haters of the Soviet state represent this humane action as villainy. And it is always surprising not that they ultimately slander not only the Soviet government, but also the Soviet, Russian people, but it is surprising that they are believed. After all, if a person thinks that he loves his Motherland, he cannot believe in such slander. The truth should be prompted not only by the mind, but also by the heart. Only a morally unhealthy society can reach such a degree of disrespect for the history of their homeland and believe every talking nonentity.

And we must believe and know that the Russian state from the moment of its foundation many centuries ago until 1991 was the traditional, most humane state in the world. Even our tsar Ivan the Terrible, cursed in the West, allowed less than 4,000 death sentences (together with those who committed criminal offenses) in 30 years of ruling the state. The kings of the Western countries allowed such a number of sentences to be passed in one year. They hate Ivan the Terrible because under him Russia annexed Siberia, because he did not allow the West to interfere in the internal affairs of Russia, either by military or peaceful means, and raised the country to the level of a power inaccessible to the West.

But back to the question, what did N. S. Khrushchev ask the government of the USSR in the 1930s? Khrushchev asked the Soviet government to allow Ukraine's courts to hand down more death sentences than was allowed by the Soviet government, which sought to limit the number of death sentences handed down by courts. This fact characterizes him as a person who is ready to take the most extreme measures to achieve certain goals. Whatever they say about Khrushchev's opponents, but in the 1950s they lacked this quality.

In my opinion, this quality cannot give significant advantages in the fight against highly intelligent people. I believe that Khrushchev was supported and promoted to the top of power by all the opponents of Russian communism, that is, Soviet Russia. They expected that Khrushchev would not control them, but they would control Khrushchev and sought to put him in the place of the deceased I.V. Stalin.

The influence of the opposition immediately after Stalin's death on the path of the country's development indicates that in Soviet Russia everything was done the Russian way, without much bloodshed, and the opposition was only driven underground, not destroyed. This opposition, many of whose representatives were the fifth column of the West, was the third force that contributed to Khrushchev's coming to power over the country.

This arrival was preceded by a number of events. On March 27, 1953, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared an amnesty for prisoners whose term of imprisonment did not exceed five years. Liberals write that more than 1 million people have been released from places of detention. But these data are mistrustful, since throughout the USSR on January 1, 1953, 1,727,970 prisoners were kept in camps.

What was the purpose of the criminals being released? No doubt to intimidate the people. The fact that released criminals would rob, beat and even kill the working citizens of the country and their children did not bother the new government. These were the first government actions contrary to the traditions and essence of the Soviet state. And as they say, three people had real power in the country at that time: G. M. Malenkov, L. P. Beria and N. S. Khrushchev. They decided to use criminals in the political struggle. Stalin never allowed himself such a thing. His authority and power rested on the working people.

The above-mentioned 1,727,970 prisoners held in the camps as of January 1, 1953, in terms of the number of inhabitants of the country, was comparable to the number of prisoners in Western countries, and there was no objective need for their early release. S. G. Kara-Murza writes that as a result of the amnesty “at the beginning of the summer of 1953, criminals of all ages filled Moscow. It was an amnesty, which was later written about a lot and even made a movie. It can be seen that, in addition to the amnesty, there was some kind of sign, because the behavior of these people has changed dramatically.

They gave a fight to society - cautious, but open. Rumors, of course, exaggerated everything, but many terrible cases were told ... The slopes of the Lenin Mountains were filled with strange people. They sat in groups around the fires, cooked something, played cards, they had underage punks with them. They were those released under an amnesty who flooded into Moscow... In the fall, military patrols began to walk around Moscow - a pair of soldiers with bayonets on their belts. They examined the nooks and crannies carefully, were on their guard. Immediately the situation returned to normal, but the sediment remained with the people. Previously, it seemed that there could be no such failures in our state machine.

By the way, in 1990, when law enforcement agencies were dispersed by the democratic press in large cities and a rapid increase in crime began, the government tried to introduce patrolling of the streets by the military along with the police. A terrible cry arose, they were talking almost about a military dictatorship. And most importantly, this cry found a wide response from the townspeople. It made a very heavy impression - as if people had suddenly lost their common sense.

The second event was the appointment of G.K. Zhukov as First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. Under Stalin, Zhukov was dismissed from the highest echelons of power, as he violated the law on the export of valuables from Germany. I think that the departure of G.K. Zhukov from Moscow saved him from trial and allowed J.V. Stalin to declare that Zhukov had already been punished. Therefore, Zhukov was not tried, as, for example, under Stalin they were tried for the same illegal actions of the people's commissar of the aviation industry A. I. Shakhurin.

In my opinion, the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of defeated Germany, which appeared among these individuals after the end of the war, is to a certain extent explained by the behavior of their families, who were waiting for rich trophies. There was no point in "pushing" Zhukov for Stalin, since he himself contributed to the rise of the latter and, no matter what, after the war did not allow G.K. Zhukov's glory to be debunked.

But the biggest event that affected the entire further development of the country for the worse was the murder of L.P. Beria. I am writing a murder because I share the opinion of researchers who quite reasonably prove the absence of the fact of the arrest of L.P. Beria and his trial. When L.P. Beria was allegedly tried, he had long been dead. L.P. Beria was killed immediately, because he was the only leader in the country who had the level of intelligence, will and knowledge sufficient to protect the country from the fifth column that had come out of the underground and prisons.

L.P. Beria brought a lot of benefits to the Soviet state and people. Before the war, he ensured the triumph of the law over clan interests, began to bring false informers to justice, which sharply reduced the number of denunciations received by the NKVD. He contributed to the formation of our intelligence during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the organization of the dismantling and removal of industrial enterprises to the East of the country, the provision of a quiet life for home front workers, the return to the army in 1941 of more than a million soldiers and officers who fell behind during the retreat from their units, released from the encirclement, fled from German captivity. Moreover, less than 4% of these categories of military were detained, and 96% were sent to the ranks of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (RKKA) to continue military service.

In the troops of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) during the war, as in the army, there were people from the people who deserve to be erected monuments, like the heroes of our army. And the image of the military personnel of the NKVD structures, which K. Simonov was one of the first writers to create in the novel The Living and the Dead, largely does not correspond to reality. Employees of the NKVD fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, laid their lives on the altar of victory, obtaining intelligence, counteracted the German special services with the help of military counterintelligence officers, ensured order in the cities swarming with German agents, liberated by Soviet troops, fought in our rear with German agents, saboteurs and with unrestrained in during the war as criminals, and also committed thousands of other cases very important for the security of the country. In my opinion, without the activities of the NKVD, victory in the war would have cost us significantly more losses or would have been impossible at all.

L.P. Beria contributed to the Victory over Germany and its allies no less than our illustrious military leaders and leaders of industries. During the war, L.P. Beria joined the State Defense Committee (GKO). As Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief for Operations, he was involved in a host of various complex affairs needed by the country, including transport and the production of certain types of weapons.

Since 1946, L.P. Beria worked as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and organized the creation of new types of weapons. Yu. I. Mukhin wrote: “And the thought involuntarily arises: if Beria had not strived to be creators, if he had continued to remain at the head of the special services, then, probably, the USSR would have had an atomic and hydrogen bomb 5 years later, probably Yu. Gagarin would have flown into space 5-10 years later, but the USSR would have survived, and, most importantly, his movement towards communism would have survived.

From 1946 to 1953, L.P. Beria did not lead the state security and internal affairs services, and it would be wrong to talk about his omnipotence in the struggle for power. Beria is credited with many negative initiatives from the point of view of the national interests of the USSR. For example, the unification of Germany. In fact, on the contrary, Beria was well aware that the unification of Germany, or rather the transfer of the Eastern part of Germany to the West, reduced the security of the Soviet Union by an order of magnitude. The statesman L.P. Beria, who devoted his whole life to ensuring the security of the Soviet Union, could not come up with such initiatives.

The presence in Eastern Europe allowed the USSR, when attacking our country, to shoot down enemy planes and missiles over foreign territory, to engage in a fight with the enemy, preventing him from entering his own land, thereby ensuring the security of the peoples of the Soviet Union. Hundreds of myths have been written about Beria, and all of them are aimed at discrediting him. They write that he freed Jews from prisons, because he himself was a Jew by nationality. They don’t write about Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other fiery revolutionaries who fought Russian communism that they were Jews by nationality, but they write about Beria, thereby hinting at the alienation of Russia’s national interests for him.

By nationality, Beria was not a Jew. But this is not important, but the fact that he has established himself as a patriot-statesman and is sure that under his rule the well-being of the people and the power of the country would have grown much faster than under N. S. Khrushchev. The main thing is that the connection between generations would not be interrupted and the greatest and fateful time in the history of the Russian state called the USSR would not be slandered.

Yu. Mukhin proves that L.P. Beria was killed long before the trial at that time by Major General P.F. Batitsky and his accomplice, in those years a friend of N.S. Khrushchev, Colonel General K.S. Moskalenko. Under the rule of I.V. Stalin, the leadership of the country did not allow and did not commit such reprisals against members of the government. In particular, this is why L.P. Beria was defeated in the fight against N.S. Khrushchev. He did not expect a treacherous murder from around the corner. Unfortunately, with the help of the media, most of the citizens of the country were inspired about Beria and the events of those days with a completely different opinion that did not correspond to reality. But most of the facts indicate that at the time of the July 1953 plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, L.P. Beria had already been killed. It should be noted that if the Trotskyists were held back by I. V. Stalin, then the semi-Trotskyist N. S. Khrushchev was not held back by anyone for a long time.

Lavrenty Pylych Beria
Didn't justify the trust.
Remained from Beria
Only down and feathers.

(folk ditty 1953)

How the country said goodbye to Stalin.

Stalin, during his lifetime, appeared in the Soviet state, where atheism denied any religion - an "earthly god." Hence, his “sudden” death was perceived by millions of people as a tragedy of universal proportions. Or, in any case, the collapse of all life until this Judgment Day - March 5, 1953.

“I wanted to think: what will happen to all of us now?” the front-line writer I. Ehrenburg recalled his feelings of that day. “But I could not think. I experienced what many of my compatriots probably experienced then: numbness. Then there was a nationwide funeral, a nationwide mourning for millions of Soviet citizens, unprecedented in its scale in world history. How did the country deal with this death? This was best told in poetry by the poetess O. Bergholz, who lost her husband during the repressions, who served time on false charges:

"Heart bleeds...
Our beloved, our dear!
Grabbing your head
The Motherland is crying over You.

A 4-day mourning was declared in the country. The coffin with the body of Stalin was brought into the Mausoleum, above the entrance to which two names were inscribed: LENIN and STALIN. The end of Stalin's funeral was heralded by lingering beeps at factories across the country, from Brest to Vladivostok and Chukotka. Later, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko said about this: “They say that this many-pipe howl, from which the blood ran cold, resembled the hellish cry of a dying mythical monster ...”. The atmosphere of general shock, the expectation that life could suddenly change for the worse, hovered in the public atmosphere.

However, there were other moods caused by the death of the seemingly immortal Leader. “Well, this one is dead ... - the legless disabled order-bearer Uncle Vanya turned to a 13-year-old neighbor who brought her felt boots to be repaired and then seriously pondered for two days: should she go to the police or not” (Quoted by Alekseevich. S. Charmed by death .).

Millions of prisoners and exiles, languishing in camps and living in settlements, took this news with joy. “Oh joy and triumph!” the exiled Oleg Volkov later described his then feelings. “Finally, the long night will dissipate over Russia. Only God forbid! To reveal one's feelings: who knows how else it will turn around?... When the exiles meet, they do not dare to express their hopes, but they no longer conceal a cheerful look. Thrice cheers!"

The palette of public sentiments in the country frozen by the Stalinist dictatorship was diverse, but on the whole, an atmosphere of general shock prevailed, the expectation that life could suddenly change for the worse. However, it became clear that with the death of the one who was considered a superman and an "earthly god", power was henceforth deprived of its divine halo. Since all the successors of Stalin were at the top, they looked like “mere mortals” (according to E.Yu. Zubkova).

New collective leadership headed by G. Malenkov

Stalin had not yet died, lying in an unconscious position, when his closest associates began an open and behind-the-scenes struggle for power at the very top. To some extent, the situation of the beginning of the 1920s was repeated in the party elite, when Lenin was hopelessly ill. But this time the bill was for days and hours.

When on the morning of March 4, 1953, “a government message about the illness of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR ... Comrade Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin” was transmitted on Moscow radio, it was, in particular, reported that “... the serious illness of Comrade Stalin will entail more or less prolonged non-participation in leadership activities ... ". And as it was further reported that the government circles (the party and the government) "... seriously take into account all the circumstances related to the temporary departure of Comrade Stalin from the leading state and party activities." So the party-state elite explained to the population the convening of an urgent Plenum of the Central Committee, on the distribution of power in the country and the party at the time of the incapacity of the leader who was in a coma.

According to a great specialist in this matter, historian Yuri Zhukov, already on the evening of March 3, some agreement was reached among Stalin's associates regarding the occupation of key posts in the party and government of the country. Moreover, Stalin's comrades-in-arms began to divide power among themselves, then when Stalin himself was still alive, but could not stop them in any way. Having received news from the doctors about the hopelessness of the sick leader, the comrades-in-arms began to divide the portfolios as if he were no longer alive.

The joint session of the plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet began its work on the evening of March 5, again when Stalin was still alive. In the same place, the power roles were redistributed as follows: the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which Stalin had previously held, was transferred to G. M. Malenkov, who, in fact, from now on acted as the No. 1 figure in the country and represented it abroad.

Malenkov's first deputies were L.P. Beria, V.M. Molotov, N.I. Bulganin, L.M. Kaganovich. However, Malenkov, for a number of reasons, did not become the new sole leader of the party and state. The politically "dexterous" and most educated Malenkov, due to his personal qualities, was not able to become a new dictator, which cannot be said about his political "ally" - Beria.

But the power pyramid itself, which developed under Stalin, has now undergone decisive changes by his associates, who no longer considered the will of the leader who had departed to another world late in the evening (at 21.50 Moscow time) on March 5. The distribution of key roles in power structures was carried out in private, with Beria and Malenkov playing the main role in this. According to the historian R. Pikhoi (who worked well with archival documents), on March 4, Beria sent Malenkov a note in which the most important government posts were distributed in advance, which were approved at a meeting the next day on March 5.

The Stalinist secretariat, elected at the 19th Congress, was abolished. The Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, consisting of 25 members and 10 candidates, was reduced to 10 members (consisting of Malenkov, Beria, Voroshilov, Khrushchev, Bulganin, Kaganovich, Saburov, Pervukhin, Molotov and Mikoyan) and 4 candidates; most of them entered the government.

The younger Stalinist nominees were immediately relegated to the background. This, like the very fact of the return of Molotov, previously disgraced, to the political Olympus under Stalin (he was returned to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR) was a kind of sign of the beginning of the rejection of Stalin's latest political reshuffles. According to Yuri Zhukov, the inclusion of Molotov required the growth of a new narrow leadership to the "five" - ​​Malenkov, Beria, Molotov, Bulganin, Kaganovich. Such an organization of power was subsequently presented as a "collective leadership", which was largely temporary in nature, formed on the basis of a balance of conflicting views and interests of the top leadership of that time.

L. Beria received enormous power, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs, united after the merger of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security, which became a kind of super-ministry that also carried out a number of national economic tasks. The well-known political figure of the Soviet era O. Troyanovsky in his memoirs gives the following characterization: “Although immediately after the death of Stalin, Malenkov was considered the number one figure as chairman of the Council of Ministers, in fact, Beria played the leading role. I never came across him directly, but I knew from eyewitness accounts that he was an immoral man who did not disdain any means to achieve his goals, but possessed an extraordinary mind and great organizational skills. Relying on Malenkov, and sometimes on some other members of the Presidium of the Central Committee, he consistently led the matter to consolidate his leadership.

N.S. began to play the third key figure in the collective leadership, after Malenkov and Beria. Khrushchev, who already in the last years of Stalin's rule had great political influence.

In fact, already in March 1953, 3 main centers were formed in the highest echelons of the party, headed by Stalin's associates - Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev. In this struggle, each one relied on and exploited his own nomenklatura possibilities, connected with the peculiarities of the situation in the party-state system. The base of Malenkov was the government of the country, the support of Beria was the law enforcement agencies, Khrushchev was the party apparatus (Pyzhikov A.V.).

In the established triumvirate (Malenkov, Beria and Khrushchev), Beria became the second person in the state. From now on, Beria, heading all the all-powerful punitive bodies in the country, possessed at the same time all the necessary information - a dossier on all his associates, which could be used in the fight against his political competitors (Zhilenkov M.). The triumvirators from the very beginning began to cautiously revise Stalin's policy, starting with the refusal to single-handedly make key decisions. Moreover, Malenkov and Beria played a key role in this, and not Khrushchev, as is commonly believed.

Already in Malenkov’s mourning speech at Stalin’s funeral on March 9, 1953, where foreign policy problems were discussed, an “unconventional” idea for the Stalin era appeared about “the possibility of long-term coexistence and peaceful competition of two different systems - capitalist and socialist.” In domestic policy, the main task was seen by Malenkov as “steady to achieve further improvement in the material well-being of workers, collective farmers, the intelligentsia, and all Soviet people” (cited by Aksyutin Yu.V.).

The day after Stalin's funeral (March 10), Malenkov invited the ideological secretaries of the Central Committee M. A. Suslov and P. N. Pospelov, as well as the editor-in-chief of Pravda D.T. Shepilova. Malenkov at this meeting declared to all those present about the need to “stop the policy of the cult of personality and move on to the collective leadership of the country”, reminding the members of the Central Committee how Stalin himself strongly criticized them for the cult planted around him (quoted by Openkin L.A.). This was the very first stone thrown by Malenkov to debunk Stalin's personality cult, followed by others. As early as March 20, 1953, the name of Stalin ceased to be mentioned in the headlines of newspaper articles, and his citation was sharply reduced.

Malenkov himself voluntarily withdrew some of his powers when, on March 14, 1953, he resigned from the post of secretary of the Central Committee, transferring this post to Khrushchev. This to some extent divided the party and state authorities, and, of course, strengthened the position of Khrushchev, who gained control over the party apparatus. However, at that time the center of gravity was more in the government apparatus of the Council of Ministers than in the party Central Committee, which of course did not please Khrushchev.

The socio-economic program of the triumvirate was received in the first official report by G.M. Malenkov at a meeting of the fourth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 15, 1953. From Malenkov’s speech: “The law for our government is the obligation to unremittingly care for the welfare of the people, to maximize the satisfaction of their material and cultural needs ...” (“Izvestia”, 1953).

This was so far the first test of strength in the further correction of the Stalinist model of economic development, with its traditional priority in favor of heavy and military industry. In 1953, the obligatory minimum for the production of workdays on collective farms, introduced in May 1939, was abolished.

Beria is a mysterious reformer

Even greater reformist fervor began to show Lavrenty Beria. He, being a power-hungry and cynical person, at the same time, of course, had a great organizational talent, probably one of the best in the post-war USSR. On March 27 of this year, on his initiative (Beria wrote a note on amnesty to the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU on March 26), an amnesty was announced for prisoners whose term did not exceed 5 years, as well as minors, women with children and pregnant women. In total, 1.2 million prisoners were released (except for political prisoners convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes"), although this immediately had a negative impact on the level of crime, which literally jumped in the cities.

Due to the increasing crimes, units of the internal troops were brought into Moscow, horse patrols appeared (Geller M.Ya. Nekrich A.M.). faked, and he himself was killed. In the note, in fact, Stalin, Abakumov, Abakumov's deputy Ogoltsov and the former minister of the Ministry of State Security of Belarus Tsanava were called the organizers of his murder. This was the first serious accusation against the divine idol Stalin.

On April 4, the “case of poisoning doctors” was terminated, and a week later the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution “On Violation of Laws by State Security Agencies”, thereby opening up the possibility of reviewing many cases. On April 10, 1953, again at the initiative of Beria, the Central Committee of the CPSU cancels earlier decisions to justify the repressed and completely closes the so-called "Mingrelian case" (Decrees of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of November 9, 1951, and March 27, 1952). It was on the initiative of Beria that the dismantling of the Stalinist Gulag began. The largest “great construction projects” erected by the hands of prisoners, such as the Salekhard-Igarka railway in the tundra, the Karakum Canal and an underwater tunnel (13 km) to Sakhalin, were abandoned. The Special Conference under the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor's Office of the troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were liquidated, the Supreme Court received the right to review decisions on cases of special jurisdiction ("troikas", the Special Conference and collegiums of the OGPU).

On April 4, Beria signed an order prohibiting the use, as it was written in this document, “savage “interrogation methods” - brutal beatings of those arrested, around-the-clock use of handcuffs on hands turned behind their backs, prolonged sleep deprivation, confinement of those arrested in a naked state in a cold punishment cell” . As a result of these tortures, the defendants were brought to moral depression, and "sometimes even to the loss of human appearance." “Using such a state of the arrested,” the order said, “the falsifying investigators slipped them fabricated “confessions” in advance about anti-Soviet and espionage-terrorist activities” (cited by R. Pikhoy).

Another part of Beria's mass amnesty policy was a decree of May 20, 1953, which removed passport restrictions for citizens released from prison, which allowed them to find work in large cities. These restrictions, according to various estimates, concerned three million people (Zhilenkov M.).

The April revelations of illegal methods of state security, multiplied by the death of the chief architect of repression, Stalin, caused a lively protest response in the camps and exiles, as well as among the relatives of the prisoners. The editorial offices of the newspapers, the prosecutor's office and party organs literally rained down from all over the country complaints and petitions for a review of cases. It was restless in the camps themselves. On May 26, 1953, an uprising broke out in the Norilsk Gorlag, which was brutally suppressed by the troops, and the number of those killed was estimated at several hundred people.

Beria knew firsthand about the nationalist underground in the western republics of the USSR, as he mercilessly suppressed it for many years. Now he proposed more flexible methods in national policy, such as indigenization, partial decentralization of the union republics, some assumption of national and cultural characteristics. Here his innovation was expressed in proposals for a wider replacement of Russians in leading positions in the Union republics by national cadres; the establishment of national orders and even the ability to create national military formations. In the context of an acute political struggle for power in the Kremlin, Beria, thus, also expected to receive support and support from the national elites in the union republics of the USSR. Subsequently, such Beria's undertakings in the national question were regarded as "bourgeois-nationalist", as inciting "enmity and discord" between the peoples of the USSR.

The ubiquitous Beria tried to carry out transformations in foreign policy. He was clearly trying to end the Cold War that had begun with the West, the fault of which, in his opinion, lay with the inflexible Stalin. His most daring proposal was to unite Germany from its two parts - the eastern (under the control of Soviet troops) and the western - controlled by the Anglo-Americans, allowing a single German state to be non-socialist! Such a radical proposal by Beria met with an objection only from Molotov. Beria also believed that in other countries of Eastern Europe, socialism should not be accelerated along the Soviet model.

He also tried to restore relations with Yugoslavia spoiled under Stalin. Beria believed that the break with Tito was a mistake, and planned to correct it. “Let the Yugoslavs build what they want” (according to S. Kremlev).

The fact that the partial dismantling of the punitive system began to be actively carried out by Beria with the support of Malenkov and other high-ranking members of the party and Soviet leadership, today no one doubts. Disputes are based on Beria's "liberal" reformism. Why was it the main "punisher of the country" of recent decades that turned out to be the most "liberal" of all Stalin's associates? Traditionally, many authors and biographers (mostly of the liberal camp) Beria were inclined to consider his reform undertakings solely as a desire from the outset "vicious villain and intriguer" to wash off the image of the main "Stalinist executioner".

Such motives in the real, and not the "mythological-demonic" Beria (as he was represented in the 90s), of course, were present. However, it would be wrong to explain all of Beria's reformism in the short period of 1953 with these motives. Even during the life of Stalin, he repeatedly expressed the great danger to the country in continuing the course of "tightening the screws" and especially the super-exploitation of the collective farm peasantry. However, being a cautious and executive person, Beria carried out all Stalin's orders as energetically and efficiently as possible, which earned him the respect of the "master".

But with the death of the charismatic Stalin, Beria, being the person most aware of the moods of Soviet citizens, well understood the need to abandon many of the most odious repressive features of the Stalinist system. The country, compressed like a spring, living for a long time according to the laws of war, was in dire need of a respite and, finally, to make life easier.

At the same time, as a strong power-hungry personality, he certainly claimed the role of Stalin's main successor. But to do this, he had to get around his many rivals in the collective leadership, especially such political heavyweights as Malenkov (to whom he was formally subordinate). And it was possible to circumvent them only by intercepting the initiative of reform reforms in the country. And Beria did it well at first.

In fact, under the weak-willed Malenkov, Beria became the shadow ruler of the country, which, of course, could not but cause deaf discontent among many of his “comrades-in-arms”. The very logic of the struggle, unfolding in the highest echelons of power, spoke of the need to eliminate a dangerous rival who could turn into a “new Stalin”. It is not surprising that even yesterday's political comrades-in-arms of Beria (especially Malenkov) are joining forces to topple the most dangerous political figure, Beria, with the help of a conspiracy.

Neither ideological disputes, nor possibly different opinions on the further development of the USSR or its foreign policy were the motive for this game, the fear of Beria and his secret police played a decisive role here (Prudnikova E.A.). The leaders from the collective leadership were very worried about Beria's plans to curtail the influence of the party and subordinate the party structures to government bodies, and those, in turn, to the all-powerful Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

As documents of that time testify, Khrushchev and Malenkov played a leading role in the conspiracy against Beria, relying on party activists and all members of the Presidium of the Central Committee. It was they who brought into action the most significant political component - the army, or rather the military leadership, and, above all, marshals N.A. Bulganin and G.K. Zhukov (Pozharov Alexey). June 26, 1953 during a meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which then turned into a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, as all its members were present.

At this meeting, Khrushchev voiced accusations against Beria: revisionism, an "anti-socialist approach" to the situation in the GDR, and even spying for Great Britain in the 20s. When Beria tried to protest the accusations, he was arrested by a group of generals led by Marshal Zhukov.

In hot pursuit, the investigation and trial of the all-powerful marshal from Lubyanka began. Along with the real crimes of Beria in organizing “illegal repressions” (which, by the way, were organized by all his “accusers”), Beria was charged with a whole set of standard charges for that time: espionage in favor of foreign states, his enemy activities aimed at eliminating the Soviet worker the peasant system, the desire for the restoration of capitalism and the restoration of the rule of the bourgeoisie, as well as in moral decay, in the abuse of power (the Politburo and the Beria case. Collection of documents).

His closest associates from the security agencies got into the “Beria gang”: Merkulov V.N., Kobulov B.Z. Goglidze S.A., Meshik P.Ya., Dekanozov V.G., Vlodzimirsky L.E. They were also repressed.

From the last word of Beria at the trial on December 23, 1953: “I have already shown the court that I plead guilty. For a long time I hid my service in the Musavatist counter-revolutionary intelligence service. However, I declare that, even while serving there, I did nothing harmful. I fully acknowledge my moral decay. Numerous connections with women, which have been mentioned here, are a disgrace to me as a citizen and a former member of the party. ... Recognizing that I am responsible for the excesses and perversions of socialist legality in 1937-1938, I ask the court to take into account that I did not have selfish and hostile goals. The reason for my crimes is the situation of that time. ... I do not consider myself guilty of trying to disorganize the defense of the Caucasus during the Great Patriotic War. When sentencing me, I ask you to carefully analyze my actions, not to consider me as a counter-revolutionary, but to apply to me only those articles of the Criminal Code that I really deserve. (Quoted by Dzhanibekyan V.G.).

Beria was shot on the same day, December 23, in the bunker of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District in the presence of the USSR Prosecutor General R. A. Rudenko. The first shot, on his own initiative, was fired from a personal weapon by Colonel-General (later Marshal of the Soviet Union) P.F. Batitsky (according to the memoirs of the prosecutor A. Antonov-Ovseenko). As in the recent past, the massive demonization of the image of Beria in the Soviet press caused outrage among Soviet citizens, who literally began to compete with each other in sophistication to brand the "fierce enemy" more strongly. Here's how gr. Alekseev (Dnepropetrovsk region) poetically expressed his righteous anger at Beria:

"I do not ask, I demand by right
Wipe you snake off the face of the earth.
You raised a sword for my honor and glory,
Let it fall on your head." (TsKhSD. F.5. Op. 30. D.4.).

Beria turned out to be a convenient "scapegoat" for everyone, especially for his associates, who also had their hands "elbow-deep in blood." It was on Beria that almost all the crimes of the Stalin era were hanged. Especially the destruction of the leading cadres of the party. Like, it was he who, having rubbed himself into the confidence of Stalin, deceived the “great leader”. Acting through Stalin, Beria killed many innocent people.

It is significant that at that moment Stalin was beyond criticism. According to A. Mikoyan, who commented on the time before the XX Congress of the CPSU (1956): “We did not immediately give a correct assessment of Stalin. Stalin died, we did not criticize him for two years ... We psychologically did not reach such criticism then.

Khrushchev vs. Malenkov

The fall of Beria was the end of the first triumvirate. The prestige and influence of Khrushchev, the main organizer of the anti-Beria plot, increased significantly. Malenkov lost his support in party circles and was now increasingly dependent on Khrushchev, who relied on the party apparatus. Khrushchev could not yet dictate his decisions, but Malenkov could no longer act without Khrushchev's consent. Both still needed each other (Geller M.Ya., Nekrich A.M.).

The struggle between the two political heavyweights took place over socio-economic programs. The initiator of the new course was initially G. Malenkov. In August 1953, Malenkov formulated a new course that provided for the social reorientation of the economy and the priority development of light industry (Group B).

On August 8, 1953, Malenkov delivered a speech at the 6th session of the USSR Supreme Council, in which he noted the unfavorable situation in agriculture and urged: “The urgent task is to sharply increase the provision of the population with food and industrial fish, oil, sugar, confectionery, clothes, shoes, dishes, furniture. In his speech, Malenkov proposed to halve the agricultural tax for collective farmers, to write off the arrears of previous years, and also to change the principle of taxation of the villagers.

The new premier also called for a change in the attitude towards the personal farming of collective farmers, to expand housing construction, to develop trade and retail trade. In addition, to significantly increase investment in the development of the light, food, and fishing industries.

Malenkov's proposals, fateful for millions of the masses, were accepted. The plan of the fifth five-year plan, which began in 1951, was as a result revised in favor of light industry. In the course of the reforms, the size of household plots of collective farmers increased by 5 times, and the tax on them was halved. All old debts from collective farmers were written off. As a result, in 5 years the village began to produce 1.5 times more food. This made Malenkov among the people the most popular politician of that time. And the peasants even had such a tale that Malenkov is “Lenin's nephew” (Yuri Borisenok). At the same time, the economic course of Malenkov was perceived with caution by the party and economic elite, brought up on the Stalinist approach of "heavy industry at any cost." Malenkov's opponent was Khrushchev, who at that time defended the slightly corrected old Stalinist policy, but in favor of the predominant development of the "A" group. "Narodnik" Khrushchev (as Stalin once called him) was at that time much more conservative in his political programs than Beria and Malenkov.

But Malenkov, finally, called for a fight against the privileges and bureaucracy of the party and state apparatus, noting the "complete disregard for the needs of the people", "bribery and the decay of the moral character of the communist" (Zhukov Yu. N.). Back in May 1953, on the initiative of Malenkov, a government decree was adopted that halved the remuneration of party officials and eliminated the so-called. "envelopes" - additional remuneration that is not subject to accounting (Zhukov Yu.N.).

It was a serious challenge to the main owner of the country - the party apparatus. Malenkov literally played "with fire", it is not surprising that he immediately turned against himself the mass of the party elite, who were accustomed to considering themselves the main manager of state property. And this, in turn, gave N. S. Khrushchev a chance, acting as a defender of the interests of this party and economic elite and relying on it, to neutralize another competitor in the struggle for power.

Historian Yuri Zhukov cites evidence that party apparatchiks literally bombarded Khrushchev with requests for the return of surcharges for them in envelopes and an increase in their amounts. As in the 1920s, the rivalry between the leaders was only masked by political programs, but most of all it took place between the leaders headed by two political forces: the government and economic apparatus represented by Malenkov and the party represented by Khrushchev. Obviously, the second force was more powerful and more consolidated.

Already in August 1953, Khrushchev made a "knight's move", he was able to return the previously canceled "envelopes" to the party workers and returned the unpaid amounts to the party apparatchiks for 3 months. The support of bureaucrats from the Central Committee, regional committees and city committees elevated Khrushchev to the pinnacle of power. As a result, the September Plenum of the Central Committee, having restored the post of first secretary of the Central Committee, immediately gave it to Khrushchev, his "defender". As Khrushchev's son-in-law Adjubey pointed out, "he only seemed to be a simple-minded person and even wanted to look like that" (Boris Sokolov).

From that time on, Khrushchev, relying on the powerful support of the party apparatus, began to confidently bypass his main rival, Malenkov. Khrushchev was now catching up, trying to win the approval of the masses as well. That is why at the September (1953) Plenum of the Central Committee, Khrushchev spoke, in essence, with a repetition of Malenkov's proposals - to support the development of the countryside and stimulate the development of light industry, but on his own behalf.

The fact that the party bureaucracy was on the side of Khrushchev and fully supported him is evidenced by this fact. In November 1953, a meeting was held in the Central Committee, in which G. Malenkov once again delivered a speech condemning bribery among the workers of the apparatus. According to the memoirs of F. Burlatsky, there was a painful silence in the hall, "bewilderment was mixed with fear." It was broken only by Khrushchev's voice: “All this, of course, is true, Georgy Maximilianovich. But the apparatus is our backbone.” The hall responded to this remark with stormy and enthusiastic applause.

By the end of 1953, the situation in party and government circles had developed in such a way that there was no longer a triumvirate, but not even a duumvirate (Malenkov and Khrushchev). Khrushchev outplayed Malenkov on the very “main field”, becoming the head of the party, the backbone of Soviet statehood. However, Khrushchev's leadership throughout the country was not yet so obvious. The form of collective leadership was preserved, and Malenkov, as prime minister, had even more weight in government circles. But his power and influence in the state was much inferior to the authority of Khrushchev, a more ambitious and powerful man. Khrushchev became the new leader of the entire country, in which the processes of de-Stalinization were gaining momentum.