[lbo-talk] Beria question

Lance Murdoch lancemurdoch at gmail.com
Sun Feb 20 14:48:41 PST 2005


On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 07:24:57 -0800 (PST), Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I'm reading of bio of Beria, and the author makes a
> lot of ado about "Beria's perestroika," as Lavrentii
> Pavlovich's economic and political reforms after the
> death of Stalin are known in Russia. Does anybody
> (Justin?) know of any good sources on that period?
>
> BTW anybody read Beria Jr's book on his dad?

"Sto sorok besed s Molotovym" goes over this period, from Molotov's perspective. I read a version of it edited and translated to English by a conservative publisher called "Molotov Remembers". I have a feeling there was a heavy hand in editing and chosen word translations, but Molotov's perspective still comes through somewhat (although some passages in this English translation I'm suspicious of - Chuev asks him what happened to Lenin's "All Power to the Soviets" promise and Molotov supposedly responds "it's best for power to rest in one pair of hands").


>From what I recall, Molotov talks about the circumstances of Stalin's
death, talks about how Beria started kissing up to members of the Politburo and tried to ingratiate himself with them. Then Molotov went to Khrushchev and said he thought Beria should be executed, and Khrushchev agreed, so Zhukov arrested him and that was that.



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