Word: beria
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...part of the Soble network in January 1940, the indictment charged. At times they dealt directly with Soble, an importer of bristles and animal hair who acted as a sometime boss of Russian espionage in the U.S. on the direct orders of the late Russian Secret Service boss, Lavrenty Beria. On other occasions they worked with Russian-born Musician and Hollywood Producer Boris (Carnegie Hall Morros, 62, an unwilling courier who was trying to protect members of his family behind the Iron Curtain, was put in touch with Soble by Elizabeth Zubilin, wife of a functionary in the Soviet embassy...
...institutions (NKVD, the army, etc.) to entrust their future to. Though he lasted 23 months as Premier of the Soviet Union. Malenkov lasted only 16 days as First Secretary of the party, the crucial job Stalin willed him. Next in line after Malenkov in the hierarchy was Beria (who was quickly liquidated, a sop to popular anti-Stalin feeling, as much as for the crimes he had committed). Then came Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan...
...before and during World War II, Zhdanov had placed a clique of up-and-coming young administrators in crucial posts. Scarcely had his body been lowered into a grave at the foot of the Kremlin wall when his chief rival, pudgy Georgy Malenkov, joined with Secret Police Boss Lavrenty Beria in persuading Stalin to liquidate the "Leningrad clique" and replace it with a Malenkov clique...
Ready Evidence. By the spring of 1949, Beria and Malenkov had the doctored evidence ready. Some of Zhdanov's lieutenants were charged with engaging in corrupt practices, others were accused of pursuing "their own economic policies." One after another, the Zhdanovites disappeared. Virtually the entire Leningrad party apparat led by Peter Popkov, Zhdanov's successor as city secretary, was silently liquidated. In Moscow the purge carried away a clutch of notables, including the youngest member of the Politburo, State Planning Boss Nikolai Voznesensky. Dozens were executed...
Pinning tke Rap. So long as Stalin lived, the Leningrad Case was a "quiet purge": nothing was said of it in print. It was first used as a weapon after Stalin's death, in the overthrow and execution of Secret Police Boss Lavrenty Beria. Even then, mention of the case was confined to a secret memorandum foreshadowing the later declaration in Khrushchev's famed 20th Party Congress speech on Feb. 24, 1956 that it was "precisely Beria" who "fabricated" the charges against the Zhdanovites. Within a year after Beria's death, Malenkov's power...