Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Soviet politician and one of the longest-serving and most influential of Joseph Stalin's secret police chiefs, serving as head of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) from 1938 to 1946, during the country's involvement in the Second World War. Beria was also a prolific sexual predator, who serially raped scores of girls and young women, and murdered some of his victims.
1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1953rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 953rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 53rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1950s decade.
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov was a high-level Soviet security official who from 1943 to 1946 was the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 of the Minister of State Security or MGB (ex-NKGB). He was removed from office and arrested in 1951 on charges of failing to investigate the Doctors' Plot. After the death of Joseph Stalin, Abakumov was tried for fabricating the Leningrad Affair, sentenced to death and executed in 1954.
There were a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the October Revolution, created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka" (ЧК). Officers were referred to as "chekists", a name that is still informally applied to people under the Federal Security Service of Russia, the KGB's successor in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Ivan Alexandrovich Serov was a Soviet intelligence officer who served as Chairman of the KGB from March 1954 to December 1958 and Director of the GRU from December 1958 to February 1963. Serov was NKVD Commissar of the Ukrainian SSR from 1939 to 1941 and Deputy Commissar of the NKVD under Lavrentiy Beria from 1941 to 1954.
Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was a Soviet intelligence officer (INO–GUGB–NKVD–NKGB) who was the director of Soviet intelligence during World War II, identified in the Venona cables under the code name "Viktor."
Pavel Fyodorovich Batitsky was a Soviet military leader awarded the highest honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965 and promoted to Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1968. Batitsky served in the Red Army from 1924 and was commander-in-chief of the Air Defence Forces from 1966 to 1978. Following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, he was chosen to personally execute Lavrentiy Beria, the former head of the NKVD.
Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov was the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union from January 1946 to March 1953 and again from June 1953 until February 1956. He held the military rank of Colonel General. He was involved in several brutal actions of the Soviet security forces. These actions occurred in the 1940s and were carried out alongside his comrade-in-arms General Ivan Serov.
Nahum Isaakovich Eitingon, also known as Leonid Aleksandrovich Eitingon, was a Soviet intelligence officer, who gained prominence through his involvement in several NKVD operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky, the orchestration of partisan movements during World War II, and atomic espionage. He has been described by Yevgeny Kiselyov as one of the organisers and managers of the state terrorism system under Joseph Stalin and later a victim thereof. He may have been a great-cousin of Max Eitingon, though this has been disputed.
Evgeni Mikeladze was a leading Georgian orchestra conductor of the 1930s, executed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.
Between October 1940 and February 1942, in spite of the ongoing German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Red Army, in particular the Soviet Air Force, as well as Soviet military-related industries were subjected to purges by Joseph Stalin.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1991.
Solomon Rafailovich Milshtein was a Soviet state security official.
The Medvedev Forest massacre or Orel massacre was a mass execution in the Soviet Union carried out by the Soviet secret police NKVD on 11 September 1941. Barely three months after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, 157 political prisoners incarcerated at Oryol Prison were executed in Medvedev Forest, just outside the Russian city of Oryol, by personal order of Joseph Stalin. This execution was one of the many massacres of prisoners hastily committed by the NKVD in 1941 in the wake of German invasion.
Bogdan Zakharovich Kobulov served as a senior member of the Soviet security- and police-apparatus during the rule of Joseph Stalin. After Stalin's death he was arrested and executed along with his former chief and patron Lavrentiy Beria.
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, abbreviated as NKVD, was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) secret police organization, and thus had a monopoly on intelligence and state security functions. The NKVD is known for carrying out political repression and the Great Purge under Joseph Stalin, as well as counterintelligence and other operations on the Eastern Front of World War II. The head of the NKVD was Genrikh Yagoda from 1934 to 1936, Nikolai Yezhov from 1936 to 1938, Lavrentiy Beria from 1938 to 1946, and Sergei Kruglov in 1946.
The Death of Stalin is a 2017 political satire black comedy film written and directed by Armando Iannucci and co-written by David Schneider and Ian Martin with Peter Fellows. Based on the French graphic novel La Mort de Staline (2010–2012), the film depicts the internal social and political power struggle among the members of the Soviet Politburo following the death of leader Joseph Stalin in 1953. The French-British-Belgian co-production stars an ensemble cast that includes Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Dermot Crowley, Paul Chahidi, Adrian McLoughlin, Paul Whitehouse, and Jeffrey Tambor.
Lavrentiy Fomich Tsanava, born Lavrentiy Janjghava, was a Soviet politician and lieutenant general who served as the head of the Committee for State Security of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (NKVD) from 1941 until 1951. A close confidant of Lavrentiy Beria, and likewise an ethnic Mingrelian, he was arrested after the death of Joseph Stalin and died in prison awaiting a trial.
Pavlo Yakovych Meshyk was a Ukrainian Soviet security operative and NKVD officer.
La Mort de Staline is a series of French satirical-biographical graphic novels. The two volumes were created by artist Thierry Robin and writer Fabien Nury, and published in October 2010 and May 2012 by Dargaud.
