Opening statement: The content of this article is written with authoritative sources combined with personal opinions, and the source and screenshot of the literature have been marked at the end of the article, please be aware.
Preface:
On June 26, 1953, such a thrilling scene took place in the Kremlin of the Soviet Union.
Khrushchev, the second-in-command of the Soviet Union at the time, suddenly accused Beria, the current ruler of the Soviet Union, of various crimes in public at a meeting, and then Malenkov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, also participated in it and issued an order for Beria's arrest.
Before Beria could refute, Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov walked in angrily with a pistol outside the conference room, and detained the Minister of Internal Affairs Beria in public.
At that time, the whole process was smooth, as if it had been rehearsed several times before, and it was not until Beria was taken away that anyone reacted and exclaimed.
Then on the day of the meeting, why did Khrushchev set up a public bureau to arrest Beria? Why was Beria willing to be captured?
On March 5, 1953, the great leader of the Soviet people, Stalin, died. And 1 hour before his death, Beria, Khrushchev and others had already begun the distribution of power.
After some deliberations Beria was appointed Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR, Molotov was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bulganin was Minister of Armed Forces, and Voroshilov was Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. As for Malenkov himself, long before Stalin's death, he had firmly held the party and government apparatus in his own hands
In this way, after Stalin's death, Malenkov should have succeeded him, but why did the power of the Soviet Union fall into the hands of Beria in the end?
In fact, this is due to Malenkov's personal inability, although he has great power in his hands, he does not have Stalin's otherworldly eloquence and ability to monopolize power.
But this quality was not lacking in Beria, which led to Beria gradually surpassing Malenkov as the real ruler of the Soviet Union.
Immediately after Beria officially became the number two man in the Soviet Union, he carried out a series of drastic reforms.
On March 13, 1953, Beria issued an order requiring the Ministry of Internal Affairs to re-examine a series of unjust, false and wrongful convictions before Stalin's death, and thanks to her efforts, more than 1 million people were released in the Soviet Union at that time, and the cases of more than 400,000 people were stopped from investigation. It was the first major event that shook Soviet society after Stalin's death.
Beria then advocated that the leading organs of the Party and the government at all levels must be supervised, and that this department responsible for supervision was the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which he was responsible for.
At that time, the Ministry of the Interior was extremely powerful, and it was not only able to manage the leading organs of the member states, but also had no fear of redressing unjust, false and wrongful convictions involving the central leaders, and even made them public.
These measures quickly caused panic among Khrushchev and others, who had been more or less involved in the purge in the past, and had even personally issued instructions for the arrest, trial, and execution of party and Soviet cadres.
Now that the Ministry of Internal Affairs under Beria is re-investigating unjust, false and wrongly decided cases, then the crimes of Khrushchev and others will inevitably be made public by the other side, causing public indignation among the Soviet people.
If Beria chooses to hide it, the situation will only get worse, which means that he has firmly grasped the lifeblood of Khrushchev and others, and can use this as a threat at any time. When the time comes, they will all become pawns under Beria.
Khrushchev's son Sergei once recalled that during that time, his father could not sleep at night for several days in a row.
Of course, Khrushchev's insomnia was not only due to fear, but more to the fact that he was thinking about how to get rid of Beria, in fact, he had this idea as early as the beginning of Stalin's death.
At that time, they even discussed a specific plan with Bulganin, but they did not implement it because of Malenkov, and now after making up their minds to get rid of Beria, the first thing Khrushchev found was Malenkov.
At that time, Malenkov was holding a grudge against Beria for seizing power, and now when he heard that Khrushchev wanted him to deal with the other party, he immediately happily agreed.
Soon after, in line with the principle of unanimity with foreign affairs, several high-ranking Soviet figures, including Khrushchev, Malenkov, and Mikoyan, formed a coalition.
And in order for their plans to go smoothly, Khrushchev also brought in Defense Minister Bulganin and Deputy Defense Minister Zhukov.
As a veteran of the Soviet army, it stands to reason that Zhukov was unwilling to participate in these things at that time, but he couldn't stand Beria offending too many people.
As early as the time when Stalin was in power, Beria had fabricated evidence to include Zhukov in a "military cabal", although Stalin was suspicious at that time, but he did not believe Beria's side of the word, thus saving Zhukov, but since then Zhukov and Beria have formed a feud.
So after hearing that he was going to deal with Beria, Zhukov immediately agreed.
On June 26, 1953, Malenkov presided over a joint meeting of the presidium of the Central Committee, which was attended by Khrushchev and Beria.
At first, Beria thought that this was an ordinary daily meeting, and it would be over by listening to Malenkov's speech, but who would have thought that Khrushchev would take the stage to criticize him at the beginning of the meeting.
He was by no means a member of the Communist Party, but an opportunistic careerist who had infiltrated the party. After Khrushchev's speech, Bulganin, Molotov, and others also exposed Beria's crimes one after another.
According to the original plan, Malenkov should have made a concluding remark to give Beria the final blow, but who would have thought that because he was too nervous, Malenkov directly rang the electric bell at hand.
In the original plan, this was to ask Zhukov and the others to do something, and then Zhukov broke into the venue with a pistol, and without saying a word, he detained Beria and the others, who were still thinking about countermeasures, to a room on the side.
Since Malenkov did not speak, until after he was arrested, Beria thought that this was an ordinary political struggle, and when he was still thinking about how to use his chips to make a deal with Khrushchev and others, Zhukov had already led people to surround the building of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Soon after, several of Beria's cronies were killed, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which he had single-handedly formed, fell apart. During this time, Beria insisted that he was innocent in the face of various inquiries, and said that he would soon be released.
However, this was obviously impossible, and soon after the patience of Khrushchev and others was finally exhausted, and after seeing that Beria refused to let go, Beria was sentenced to death on December 23, 1953, and immediately executed.
Soon after, with the sound of a gunshot, this generation of heroes who once dominated the political arena fell.
After his death, all his information about him was quickly destroyed, because the top leaders were afraid that these documents contained their own black history.
As a result, Beria became the least documented political official in the history of the Soviet Union, and later became known as a person without status.
Reference: "Soviet God of War" Zhukov was ousted by Khrushchev [1]- Chinese International