The Role of Beria Flashcards
Quotations,
(from Rupert Bulter’s book STALIN’S INSTRUMENTS OF TERROR, 2006)
That show Beria’s unsavoury characteristics
“heartily disliked by all”
“sexual proclivities were both perverted and insatiable”— would roam streets in car, find a girl, put her in car, take her to a discreet place and [“raped”] her.
Positive qualities of Beria that, along with his unsavoury characteristics, brought him to the attention of Stalin?
Energetic
Good organiser
Why did Beria annoy Stalin?
Excessive flattering
Beria briefed Stalin with criticisms of ____________
Yezhov’s work
What was the general population’s reaction to the appointment of Beria?
Relief
Seen as uncle like
Could reform excesses (partly true)
What was Beria’s opinion on indiscriminate arrests?
That they were inefficient, a waste of man power
To make arrests more productive, Beria reintroduced more conventional methods of police procedure:
Public trials were only held IF
There was solid evidence
To make arrests more productive, Beria reintroduced more conventional methods of police procedure:
Surveillance continued BUT it only led to Arrests when
SOLID EVIDENCE was found
The arm of the secret police under Beria had a long reach.
It even reached Trotsky— when, where
Mexico
1940
What did Beria want to do to the gulag?
How?
Make it a more profitable part of the economy
Make it more productive
When and why were food rations improved for gulag inmates?
1939
Ensure maximum work (not humanitarian reasons)
To increase productivity, Beria used the _________ of inmates of the gulag for _________.
Technical skills
Specialist tasks
As part of Beria’s specialist tasks as part of gulag, how many scientists were put to work on projects that, according to Beria, created __________________?
1,000
Many new pieces of military hardware
Despite being a dubious claim, which two key figures were among the 1,000 scientists in Beria’s-military hardware-task?
Andrei Tupolev - aviation engineer
Sergei Korolev
^^
Played an ESSENTIAL part in the Soviet space programme
What did Beria to to keep expertise in the gulag?
Cancelled early releases
