...Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (or Beriya) (; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; 29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician, and chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Stalin. By the end of the Great Purge he had become deputy head and subsequently head of the NKVD and carried out a purge of the NKVD itself. Beria was most influential during and after World War II, and immediately after Stalin's death in 1953, when as First Deputy Prime Minister he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization. He was briefly a part of the ruling "troika" with Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. However, in that same year he was arrested and executed by his political rivals. He claimed to have poisoned Stalin, according to Molotov's memoirs. Read full entry

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