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Beria was not only a bolshevik mass murderer and torturer of the common kind. According to the memoirs of Khrushchev, Beria was also a serial killer. He would h

Beria was not only a bolshevik mass murderer and torturer of the common kind. According to the memoirs of Khrushchev, Beria was also a serial killer. He would haunt the Moscow streets in his car at night, having his body guard pick up any girl he fancied. Those women would be taken to his house, where he'd drug them, rape them and sometimes kill them. Many times very young girls. The body guards would then be tasked with burying the corpses in his yard. Afterwards the bodyguard gave a list of more than a hundred women who had been raped by Beria. This man almost became the Soviet leader after Stalin's death, but was outmanoeuvred and later executed. According to Khrushchev, even Stalin feared Beria at times. From Khrushchev: "When Rudenko began the interrogation of Beria, a monstrous person was revealed before our eyes, a dreadful beast for whom nothing was sacred."

NiteOwl066 3y ago
While it might be true I think it's worth pointing out that Khrushchev and Beria were in rivalry for power. And I would be surprised if in his memoirs he wouldn't have painted Beria as the bad guy. So I think we should take all those memories with a grain of salt at best and understand that all those stories might be twisted or even completely false.
- mc32 3y ago
  It's pretty clear that despite the color or bias, Beria was unequivocally a bad person. Bad in all ways.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  It does have a big QAnon "baby-eating" feel about it yes. Especially considering that even Soviet state leaders lived in pretty small houses by Western standards, it's pretty unlikely that they had the space to bury hundreds of corpses. The Soviets were really big on rewriting history and they spent a lot of time editing photos of stalin with people that later fell out of grace. But I'm sure he was a bad person indeed. I don't think you could rise to such a position without being one until the lighter age appeared that led to Gorbachev.
  - BurningFrog 3y ago
    I think it's uncontroversial that Beria's day job was overseeing the murder of millions of citizens. And that getting your coworkers killed was a standard part of office politics in that job.
    - Phiwise_ 3y ago
      Indeed. It's always frustrating to encounter these "Well if your arguments are right then how come they sound false to me?" discussion of Soviet history, even on what are supposed to be more measured and thoughtful platforms like HN. Doubly so when the argument is just that the Stalin-era secret police committed an atrocity.
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      Yes but I'm talking more about the creepiness of the stalking of women, mass rape, personally torturing and killing for pleasure etc. It sounds a bit far-fetched. It may well be true but there was just so much history rewriting going on. I know all the soviet leaders of that era were mass murderers but usually by delegation only. Edit: I read up on it and it does indeed seem true. Wow..
      - lazide 3y ago
        Some people correct the opposite direction from ‘the office’ (say, spending time in nature after working at a computer all day). Some go whole hog - spending all their extra time working on hobby projects, for instance. I guess the same thing applies if your job is being a manipulator, murderer, and genocidal maniac?
      - exceptione 3y ago
        Props for reading up on it and coming back!
  - tivert 3y ago
    > It does have a big QAnon "baby-eating" feel about it yes. Especially considering that even Soviet state leaders lived in pretty small houses by Western standards, it's pretty unlikely that they had the space to bury hundreds of corpses. Didn't they all have second homes aka dachas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacha)? It looks like they have pretty big yards, at least in this random Wikipedia picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E7159-Kstovo-industrial-right.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E7159-Kstovo-industrial-r....
- Duwensatzaj 3y ago
  Please do some research first next time. From the Beria wikipedia article: In 1993, construction workers installing streetlights unearthed human bones near Beria's Moscow villa (now the Tunisian embassy). Skulls, pelvises and leg bones were found.[90] In 1998, the skeletal remains of five young women were discovered during work carried out on the water pipes in the garden of the same villa.[91] In 2011, building workers digging a ditch in Moscow city centre unearthed a common grave near the same residence containing a pile of human bones, including two children's skulls covered with lime or chlorine. The lack of articles of clothing and the condition of the remains indicate that these bodies were buried naked.
MichaelMoser123 3y ago
On the other side of the story: Beria was promoting the reunification of Germany, during his short rule in 1953. His plan was to pull the Soviet army out of East Germany/German Democratic Republic. The motive was to get the Soviet Union out of the cold war with the west. Some months later the uprising of the 17th of June 1953 happened in East Berlin, and the politburo got scared that something similar could happen with Russia. https://www.cato.org/commentary/christmas-1953-lost-liberal-opportunities-soviet-union# https://www.cato.org/commentary/christmas-1953-lost-liberal-...
southernplaces7 3y ago
>When Rudenko began the interrogation of Beria, a monstrous person was revealed before our eyes, a dreadful beast for whom nothing was sacred. It's amusingly self-serving how Krushcev should imply that he and others in the top leadership only discovered this about Beria after the death of Stalin and Beria's arrest. Krushcev himself, while not personally sadistic and cruel in the way Beria was, had rivers of blood pass over his hands while he worked for Stalin organizing vast purges and famine conditions.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  He doesn't imply that, he knew before that how Beria was conducting his job as the secret police chief, but probably not about Beria's past time activities. Khrushchev was far from a saint, and he is surprisingly quiet in his memoirs about his role as a judge in the troikas, and participation in purging innocent people. He was a murderer. According to himself, he was hypnotised like everyone else in the Stalin cult, unable to see anything wrong with what Stalin said or did.
- medo-bear 3y ago
  Khrushchev also gifted Crimea to Ukraine under somewhat questionable circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_Crimea_in_the_Soviet_Union#Question_of_constitutionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_Crimea_in_the_Sovi...

NiteOwl066 3y ago

While it might be true I think it's worth pointing out that Khrushchev and Beria were in rivalry for power. And I would be surprised if in his memoirs he wouldn't have painted Beria as the bad guy. So I think we should take all those memories with a grain of salt at best and understand that all those stories might be twisted or even completely false.

mc32 3y ago
It's pretty clear that despite the color or bias, Beria was unequivocally a bad person. Bad in all ways.
wkat4242 3y ago
It does have a big QAnon "baby-eating" feel about it yes. Especially considering that even Soviet state leaders lived in pretty small houses by Western standards, it's pretty unlikely that they had the space to bury hundreds of corpses. The Soviets were really big on rewriting history and they spent a lot of time editing photos of stalin with people that later fell out of grace. But I'm sure he was a bad person indeed. I don't think you could rise to such a position without being one until the lighter age appeared that led to Gorbachev.
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  I think it's uncontroversial that Beria's day job was overseeing the murder of millions of citizens. And that getting your coworkers killed was a standard part of office politics in that job.
  - Phiwise_ 3y ago
    Indeed. It's always frustrating to encounter these "Well if your arguments are right then how come they sound false to me?" discussion of Soviet history, even on what are supposed to be more measured and thoughtful platforms like HN. Doubly so when the argument is just that the Stalin-era secret police committed an atrocity.
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    Yes but I'm talking more about the creepiness of the stalking of women, mass rape, personally torturing and killing for pleasure etc. It sounds a bit far-fetched. It may well be true but there was just so much history rewriting going on. I know all the soviet leaders of that era were mass murderers but usually by delegation only. Edit: I read up on it and it does indeed seem true. Wow..
    - lazide 3y ago
      Some people correct the opposite direction from ‘the office’ (say, spending time in nature after working at a computer all day). Some go whole hog - spending all their extra time working on hobby projects, for instance. I guess the same thing applies if your job is being a manipulator, murderer, and genocidal maniac?
    - exceptione 3y ago
      Props for reading up on it and coming back!
- tivert 3y ago
  > It does have a big QAnon "baby-eating" feel about it yes. Especially considering that even Soviet state leaders lived in pretty small houses by Western standards, it's pretty unlikely that they had the space to bury hundreds of corpses. Didn't they all have second homes aka dachas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacha)? It looks like they have pretty big yards, at least in this random Wikipedia picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E7159-Kstovo-industrial-right.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:E7159-Kstovo-industrial-r....
Duwensatzaj 3y ago
Please do some research first next time. From the Beria wikipedia article: In 1993, construction workers installing streetlights unearthed human bones near Beria's Moscow villa (now the Tunisian embassy). Skulls, pelvises and leg bones were found.[90] In 1998, the skeletal remains of five young women were discovered during work carried out on the water pipes in the garden of the same villa.[91] In 2011, building workers digging a ditch in Moscow city centre unearthed a common grave near the same residence containing a pile of human bones, including two children's skulls covered with lime or chlorine. The lack of articles of clothing and the condition of the remains indicate that these bodies were buried naked.

MichaelMoser123 3y ago

On the other side of the story: Beria was promoting the reunification of Germany, during his short rule in 1953. His plan was to pull the Soviet army out of East Germany/German Democratic Republic. The motive was to get the Soviet Union out of the cold war with the west. Some months later the uprising of the 17th of June 1953 happened in East Berlin, and the politburo got scared that something similar could happen with Russia. https://www.cato.org/commentary/christmas-1953-lost-liberal-opportunities-soviet-union# https://www.cato.org/commentary/christmas-1953-lost-liberal-...

southernplaces7 3y ago

>When Rudenko began the interrogation of Beria, a monstrous person was revealed before our eyes, a dreadful beast for whom nothing was sacred. It's amusingly self-serving how Krushcev should imply that he and others in the top leadership only discovered this about Beria after the death of Stalin and Beria's arrest. Krushcev himself, while not personally sadistic and cruel in the way Beria was, had rivers of blood pass over his hands while he worked for Stalin organizing vast purges and famine conditions.

carlosjobim 3y ago
He doesn't imply that, he knew before that how Beria was conducting his job as the secret police chief, but probably not about Beria's past time activities. Khrushchev was far from a saint, and he is surprisingly quiet in his memoirs about his role as a judge in the troikas, and participation in purging innocent people. He was a murderer. According to himself, he was hypnotised like everyone else in the Stalin cult, unable to see anything wrong with what Stalin said or did.
medo-bear 3y ago
Khrushchev also gifted Crimea to Ukraine under somewhat questionable circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_Crimea_in_the_Soviet_Union#Question_of_constitutionality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfer_of_Crimea_in_the_Sovi...