Head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin, and architect of much of the terror; shot within months of Stalin’s death.
ShelfmarkVita CXCVI
1
title
1 film
3.9/5
average rating
across 1 rated title
1h 47m
on screen
across 1 title
1 year of a 54 year life depicted onscreen
1.9%
Distinct years the archive depicts, against Lavrentiy Beria’s lifetime (1899 – 1953) — 1.9% of it. One further depicted year falls outside it and is not counted.
A thread follows one event or historical theme across the archive, wherever and whenever it appears. Pulling a thread opens up a narrowed timeline view filtered to every year that thread touches.
The death of the Soviet Union's longtime General Secretary and dictator, Joseph Stalin, represented a major power vacuum in Soviet politics that would cause more than a few changes in the state's political scene, including, ultimately, a relative relaxation in political repression. With no clear heir or mechanism for selecting a successor, several parties vied for control, lead among them including Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, and Nikita Khrushchev.
