Beria: Stalin's First Lieutenant

by Amy Knight

Overview

This is the first comprehensive biography of Lavrentii Beria, Stalin's notorious police chief and for many years his most powerful lieutenant. Beria has long symbolized all the evils of Stalinism, haunting the public imagination both in the West and in the former Soviet Union. Yet because his political opponents expunged his name from public memory after his dramatic arrest and execution in 1953, little has been previously published about his long and tumultuous career.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691214245
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/16/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Amy Knight is a Senior Research Analyst at the Library of Congress and a former Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She is also the author of The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union.

What People are Saying About This

Robert Tucker

This first full-scale scholarly biography of the clever, cruel, domineering security chief whom Stalin once called 'my Himmler' casts valuable new light on various events of the Stalin period and its early aftermath.
— Robert Tucker, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

John le Carre

A milestone, an invaluable achievement, the natural heir to Leggett's history of the Cheka.

From the Publisher

"A milestone, an invaluable achievement, the natural heir to Leggett's history of the Cheka."—John le Carré

"This first full-scale scholarly biography of the clever, cruel, domineering security chief whom Stalin once called 'my Himmler' casts valuable new light on various events of the Stalin period and its early aftermath."—Robert Tucker, Professor Emeritus, Princeton University

Editorial Reviews

Like many of Stalin's executors, Lavrentii Beria was no neophyte at wreaking terror. He liquidated thousands in the Bolshevik takeover of Georgia in 1922-24, which service brought the ambitious man to the notice of the boss. More crafty than Stalin's other police chiefs, Beria survived until his own execution as an enemy of the people in 1953. Stalin's successors were anxious to deflect their own complicity in the regime's criminality, and so the archives were locked. No historically verifiable account of Beria's career as Stalin's "Himmler" has been possible--until now. Beria apparently had no life to speak of, aside from raping young girls outside his office, which, on occasion, doubled as a torture chamber. These sick details--and dramatic ones surrounding Khrushchev's coup--underwrite the deadly character of the author's main import: Kremlin politics following Beria's takeover of the NKVD in 1938. Knight has ably examined and coherently reassembled the slivers and shards of evidence, and future biographers (with strong stomachs) will surely build on her pioneering work.

Gilbert Taylor

"This smoothly written book is laudable, not just for its speculation on the Beria that might have been, but also for its naked portrait of the Beria that was."—-David Gordon, Newsweek, International Edition

"The first serious book-length study of Beria's public career. . . . Knight's staidness and deliberation bring a refreshing change of approach. . . . A major contribution to our knowledge of Soviet politics."—-Robert Service, The Times Literary Supplement

"Beria is ripe for revisionism. The danger is that too much can be made of Beria's relative liberalism. . . . Amy Knight does not fall into this trap. Hers is a strictly political biography and a very good one."—-Simon Sebag Montefiore, The [London] Times

From the Publisher

Beria is ripe for revisionism. The danger is that too much can be made of Beria's relative liberalism. . . . Amy Knight does not fall into this trap. Hers is a strictly political biography and a very good one.

The [London] Times - Simon Sebag Montefiore

The first serious book-length study of Beria's public career. . . . Knight's staidness and deliberation bring a refreshing change of approach. . . . A major contribution to our knowledge of Soviet politics.

The Times Literary Supplement - Robert Service

This smoothly written book is laudable, not just for its speculation on the Beria that might have been, but also for its naked portrait of the Beria that was.

Newsweek, International Edition - David Gordon

Beria is ripe for revisionism. The danger is that too much can be made of Beria's relative liberalism. . . . Amy Knight does not fall into this trap. Hers is a strictly political biography and a very good one.
— Simon Sebag Montefiore

The [London] Times

The first serious book-length study of Beria's public career. . . . Knight's staidness and deliberation bring a refreshing change of approach. . . . A major contribution to our knowledge of Soviet politics.
— Robert Service

The Times Literary Supplement

This smoothly written book is laudable, not just for its speculation on the Beria that might have been, but also for its naked portrait of the Beria that was.
— David Gordon

Newsweek (International Edition)