Lavrentiy Beria

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; 29 March 1899 – 23 December 1953) was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus.

Beria was most influential during and after World War II and immediately after Stalin's death, when he carried out a brief campaign of liberalization as First Deputy Prime Minister. However, in June 1953 he was arrested and then charged with various crimes. He is widely suspected to be responsible for the death of Stalin: the political memoirs of Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claimed that Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin: "I took him out." In December 1953, he was tried, sentenced to death and executed by firing squad.