Defence Minister Nikolai Bulganin ordered the Kantemirovskaya Tank Division and Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division to move into Moscow to prevent security forces loyal to Beria from rescuing him.

Later realizing the security risk, Beria ordered Sarkisov to destroy the list, but the Colonel retained a secret handwritten copy.

Earlier in 1938, Yezhov had even ordered the arrest of Beria, who was party chief in Georgia.

Just before the execution, Yezhov was ordered to undress himself and then was brutally beaten by guards at the order of Beria, the new NKVD Chief, just as Yezhov had ordered the guards to beat and humiliate his predecessor Yagoda before his execution only two years before.

On 23 June 1940 Lavrenty Beria, head of the NKVD, ordered the Murmansk Oblast to be cleaned of " foreign nationals ", both Scandinavians and all other nationalities.

On 23 June 1940 Lavrenty Beria of the NKVD ordered the Murmansk Oblast, encompassing the entire Kola Peninsula, to be cleaned of " foreign nationals ".

Beria and Malenkov together with Abakumov organized massive executions of their rivals in the Leningrad Affair where all leaders of Leningrad and Zhdanov's allies were killed, and thousands more were locked up in Gulag labour camps upon Stalin's approval.

While internal party struggles would result in expulsions there were no executions of party members after the execution of Lavrentiy Beria in 1953.

In violation of the promise made by Beria to the arrested opposition leaders, mass arrests and executions continued.

Roy Medvedev reports a rumor that Ordzhonikidze's files and papers were later confiscated by Lavrentiy Beria, and that Ordzhonikidze's bodyguards and personal secretary, along with his brothers Ivan and Konstantin, were also arrested.

Bachkovo Monastery – Bacurios Hiberios – Bagapsh, Sergei – Bagrat I the Little – Bagrat III – Bagrat IV of Georgia – Bagration, Jorge de – Bagration, Pyotr – Bagrationi, Alexandre – Bagrationi, Teimuraz – Bagrationi, Vakhushti – Bagrationi – Bakuriani – Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline – Balanchine, George – Baramidze, Giorgi – Batonishvili – Bats language – Battle of Basian – Battle of Chalagani – Battle of Didgori – Battle of Digomi – Battle of Krtsanisi – Battle of Sasireti – Battle of Shamkor – Batumi – Beria, Lavrenty – Bolnisi – Borjomi – Borodin, Alexander – Burchuladze, Paata – Burjanadze, Nino-Byzeres

* Shalva Tsereteli ( 1894 – 1955 ), Soviet executioner of NKVD and Lavrentiy Beria ’ s associate

It was Beria, through an official pronouncement by the Ministry of Internal Affairs ( MVD ) and not by the Central Committee or the Council of Ministers, who renounced the Doctor's Plot as a fraud.

His demise certainly arrived at a convenient time for Lavrentiy Beria and others, who feared being swept away in yet another purge.

It was also alleged that Beria, who in 1942 helped organize the defense of the North Caucasus, tried to let the Germans occupy the Caucasus.

Once released, the full body of official evidence against Beria, in the words of Stalin biographer Simon Sebag-Montefiore, " reveals a sexual predator who used his power to indulge himself in obsessive depravity.

In one incident reported by Colonel Sarkisov, a woman who had been brought to Beria refused his advances and ran out of his office ; Sarkisov mistakenly handed her the flowers anyway, prompting the enraged Beria to declare " Now it's not a bouquet, it's a wreath!

As Beria's fall from power began, Sarkisov sent the list to the new NKVD chief ( and former wartime head of SMERSH ), Viktor Abakumov, who was already aggressively building a case against Beria.

Recent evidence suggests that Beria not only abducted and raped women but that he also murdered those who resisted.

Created under the supervision of Lavrentiy Beria, who sought to duplicate the American effort, this weapon was nearly identical to Fat Man, for its design was based on information provided by spies Klaus Fuchs, Theodore Hall, and David Greenglass.

Malenkov was forced to resign, in February 1955, after he came under attack for abuse of power and his close connection to Beria ( who was executed as a traitor in December 1953 ).

The organization was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who was a subordinate of Lavrenty Beria.

Soon Gamsakhurdia was arrested for an affair with Lida Gasviani, a young charming Trotskyite director of the State Publishing House, but interrogated and released by Beria who told him ironically that sexual relations with enemies of the people were permitted.

However, Georgian NKVD chief, Sergei Goglidze, warned Beria, who immediately flew to Moscow to see Stalin personally.

In an ironic twist of fate, it would be Yezhov who would eventually fall in the struggle for power, and Beria who would become the new NKVD chief.

At his own request, Yezhov was officially relieved of his post as the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs on November 25, succeeded by Beria, who had been in complete control of the NKVD since the departure of Yezhov ’ s deputy Frinovskii on 8 September ( Frinovskii was appointed People ’ s Commissar of the Navy ).

They are able to do this because they have access to bacteriological research by Russian scientist Maxim Golokhov from the 1940s who was working for Beria and Stalin.

Abakumov returned to Moscow Hq on February 12, 1941 as a Senior Major of State Security and, after the reorganization and creation of the new NKGB, he became one of the deputies of Lavrentiy Beria who was the People's Commissar for Internal Affairs ( head of the NKVD ).

In 1939 it was transferred to the control of the NKVD, the secret police and the precursor organization to the KGB, under the order of Lavrentiy Beria, who was the head of the NKVD.

In 1953, Zhukov helped Khrushchev to eliminate Lavrenty Beria, then a First Vice-Premier, who was executed in Moscow, as well as several other figures of Stalin's circle.

After the death of Stalin, Serov, who was close to Beria, betrayed him, conspiring with the officers of GRU against him, thus avoiding his own downfall in the aftermath.

Georgia was at this time ruled by supporters of Lavrentiy Beria, who had been the First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party from 1931 to 1938.

As an element of the rollback of Yezhovshchina, the order ( signed by Lavrenty Beria on October 17, 1938 ) instructed to arrest only those wives who were informed about the counter-revolutionary activity of their husbands or there was information about their " political untrustworthy and socially dangerous attitudes or utterances ".

Afraid of the power Beria held, Khrushchev and Malenkov were prepared for a potential civil war.

On 5 March 1940, after the Gestapo – NKVD Third Conference was held in Zakopane, Beria sent a note ( no.

Although he had never held a traditional military command, Beria made a significant contribution to the victory of the Soviet Union in World War II through his organization of wartime production and his use of partisans.

On 26 June 1953, Beria was arrested and held in an undisclosed location near Moscow.

At the meeting of the Presidium's inner bureau held immediately after Stalin's death, Beria proposed Malenkov as Chairman of the Council of Ministers ( or Premier ).

In the following months, Abakumov started carrying out important operations without consulting Beria, often working in tandem with Zhdanov, and sometimes on Stalin's direct orders.

Stalin gave Malenkov the most important task-building nuclear missiles in collaboration with Lavrentiy Beria.

On March 5, 1953, MVD and MGB were merged into the MVD by Lavrenty Beria and his people took over all high positions.

In 1937 the positions were reversed but Spartak won both league and cup in 1938 and 1939, much to the annoyance of Lavrenty Beria, the head of the secret police, who was also the president of Dynamo.