[lbo-talk] Beria question

[Lance Murdoch]

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 16:19:05 -0800 (PST), andie nachgeborenen
<andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
> My understanding is basically this: Beria was evil
> sadistic rapist and torturer who was also a consummate
> opportunist. With his master dead, he tried to make a
> play for personal and political survival by trying to
> recast himself as a reformer. As did all of Stalin's
> top lieutants. Khrushchev came out on top, despite a
> record that aws in many ways almost as wicked and
> bloody as Beria's because he really was a reformer --
> he's been an opportunistic tyrant's henchman, but
> wasn't a bad guy all the way through. On the contrary.
> Beria, hwoever, was only an opportunistic reformer,
> was thoroughly hated by the elite and the leadership
> as a  symbol of Stalinist tyranny (most dangerous,
> personally, to the Party elite), and was personally
> hated because of his serial rapes of everyone's wives,
> sisters, a nd daughters. If there ever was anyone for
> whom it was true that four walls are three too many,
> it was Beria.

The problem with dealing with Soviet history as personalities is -
well, there's a lot of problems with it.  But one is an idea that
Stalin was "bad", and Khrushchev was "good", so any policies of
Stalin's time that were changed on Khrushchev's watch must have been
good.  This is not necessarily the case, for example, China became an
enemy of the USSR instead of an ally due to changes that occurred when
Stalin-era policies changed during the Khrushchev era.  This was
probably a bad thing.

Neither Stalin nor Khrushchev could have carried out their policies
without support for them in the Politburo, the Central Committee, the
Party, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact.  Most of the communist leaders
seemed to look at this sort of thing in terms of classes, while on the
opposite end, the people who invaded them were at the opposite end of
that scale, with more of a Fuehrerprinzip mentality.  I think it is
better and more logical to view things through the former view than
the latter.

Lance