Beria wasn't Stalin's first pick for the Job Beria would later assume
In the fall of 1938, when the question arose of removing Yezhov from his position at NKVD, Stalin proposed the candidacy of Malenkov as the new Commissar of Internal Affairs. But the majority of the Politburo recommended Beria for the post.
Getty and Manning. Stalinist Terror. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 38
The Russian historian Boris Starkov has recently written that in Politburo meetings during August 1938 Zhdanov and Andreev stressed the poor quality of party cadres promoted during the mass repressions. Soon Kaganovich and Mikoyan joined them “against Yezhov.” Then in the fall, according to Starkov, Stalin proposed replacing Yezhov with Malenkov. But the rest of the Politburo blocked the Gensec and insisted on Beria, though why is not clear.
Thurston, Robert. Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934-1941. New Haven: Yale University Press, c1996, p. 131
One of Stalin's last living bodyguards liked Beria as much as he liked Kruschev
How can anyone now allow himself the stupidity of criticizing Stalin for repression and crimes? This was a psychosis that was cleverly instituted by Yezhov and other enemies of the State… this psychosis took over the minds of millions of people. Practically all were involved in looking for “enemies.” The Central Committee ACP[B] was against this, fought this tooth and nail—Stalin in particular. People got involved in this, and friends were “drowning” friends in the name of getting rid of “enemies.” Of course, this cannot all be explained as a mass psychosis! In all the examinations that were conducted into this period, we had 30-40 people going over the same documents, but NOWHERE did we EVER find the name of Stalin, or the command of Stalin, or the resolution to do these things which were undertaken by the REAL ENEMIES of the Soviet people. No directives either of Stalin, Molotov, or Voroshilov were to be found in all of these documents.
According to my way of thinking, Stalin also bears some blame because he was the Head of the Motherland. His fault was that he was always favoring “collective decisions” and thus was fooled by his “comrades-in-arms.” Yagoda, Malenkov, Khrushchev, Beria, and others. Yezhov, Stalin spotted from the start and took steps to stop him and get rid of him.
Rybin, Aleksei. Next to Stalin: Notes of a Bodyguard. Toronto: Northstar Compass Journal, 1996, p. 80
It was likely that Beria played a key role in stopping the greatest excesses of the Ezhovshchina
Beria boldly told Stalin that Yezhov, who had succeeded Yagoda the year before as Chief of the Commissariat of the Interior…had passed all bounds of reason and discrimination in his conduct of the Purge;…
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 229
Early in 1938, however, Stalin became disturbed by the mounting fury of the Ezhovshchina. His purpose of liquidating the old Bolsheviks and the veterans of the Revolution and the Civil War, and other sources of opposition, had been achieved. But under Yezhov the purge had spread like a malignant plague. Everywhere people were spying and informing against each other and everywhere arrests were on the increase. Terror was raging out of control. Stalin saw the need to call a halt. He showed the same sense of timing and the same authority, which he had displayed nearly eight years earlier with his article “Dizziness From Success.”
In January 1938 a central committee passed a resolution which heralded what was to be called the “Great Change.” The title of the resolution was “Concerning the Mistakes of Party Organizations in Excluding Communists from the Party, Concerning Formal-Bureaucratic Attitudes Towards the Appeals of Excluded Members of the Bolshevik Party, and Concerning Measures to Eliminate These Deficiencies.” The new orders were passed quickly to the party secretaries at every level and to the command points of the NKVD, and emanating from the Kremlin in Moscow. They were promptly obeyed. The new enemy was identified now as the Communist-careerist. He had taken advantage of the purge to denounce his superiors and to gain promotion. He was guilty of spreading suspicion and of undermining the party. A purge of careerists was launched. At the same time mass repressions diminished and the rehabilitation of victimized party members began.
The real halt to the great purge came, however, in July 1938, when Beria was appointed Yezhov’s deputy. He took charge of the NKVD at once, although Yezhov was not removed until December 1938, when he was made Commissar for Inland Water Transport. Soon afterwards he was shot.
Many NKVD officers were tried and executed for extracting confessions from innocent people, while others were relegated to labor camps. Loyal party members, emerging from the long nightmare, were relieved by the purging of the NKVD. It confirmed their belief that fascists had insinuated themselves into the security forces and the government and that they were responsible for the cruel persecutions and injustices of the Ezhovshchina. This explanation was encouraged officially, and it absolved Stalin and the Politburo of responsibility.
Directly controlling every branch of Soviet society and deeply involved in the buildup of the armed forces and conduct of foreign policy, Stalin could not maintain detailed control over the purge. He was aware that the NKVD had arrested many who were not guilty and that of the 7 to 14 million people serving sentences of forced labor in the GULAG camps many were innocent of any taint of disloyalty…. He resented this waste of human material. The aircraft designer Yakovlev recorded a conversation with him in 1940, in which Stalin exclaimed: “Yezhov was a rat; in 1938 he killed many innocent people. We shot him for that!”
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 288
Beginning in the summer of 1938 a coalition of Politburo members, reportedly consisting of Zhdanov, Andreev, Kaganovich, Mikoyan, and Molotov, worked to limit Yezhov’s and the NKVD’s powers. In August, Beria was appointed Deputy People’s Commissar of the NKVD without Yezhov’s consent. During the fall, the Politburo restricted the NKVD’s power somewhat and appointed a series of commissions to investigate NKVD operations, arrest procedures, and Yezhov’s performance. The most dramatic move came on 17 November 1938, when it criticized aspects of the NKVD’s work, abolished its troikas that had summarily sentenced so many to death or hard labor, and condemned its excesses. On 23 November 1938, Yezhov submitted his resignation as NKVD chief to Stalin. The Politburo accepted it and replaced him with Beria. Yezhov retained his other party and state positions until he was arrested in April 1939. He was executed on 4 February 1940.
Chase, William J., Enemies Within the Gates?, translated by Vadim A. Staklo, New Haven: Yale University Press, c2001, p. 306.
It was Beria’s diagnosis of the danger of Yezhov’s excesses that had induced Stalin to trust him and brought him to power. Throughout the country these excesses had cast their shadow. At one sitting alone, the Central Committee of the Azerbaizhan Party had expelled 279 members, the Ukrainian Stalinsk Provincial Committee 72, the Ordjonikidze Regional Committee 101–it was the same everywhere…. The fear of being suspected of lack of vigilance drove local fanatics to denounce not only Bukharinists, but also Malenkovists, Yezhovists, even Stalinists. It is of course not impossible that they were also egged on to do so by concealed oppositionists! Hence Beria’s task when he was summoned from Georgia by Stalin was to head a secret commission of inquiry into Yezhov’s work.
To give Beria his due, he pulled no punches. At a closed joint session of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Party, held in the autumn of 1938, he declared that if Yezhov were not a deliberate Nazi agent he was certainly an involuntary one. He had turned the central offices of the NKVD into a breeding ground for fascist agents. He had scorned citizens’ constitutional rights and used illegal methods of extorting information, to such an extent that he had set quite non-political people against the Government. For a rank-and-file member of the Central Committee to say this was the height of courage.
The impression produced on Stalin and Molotov was tremendous. The Central Committee resolutions dismissing Yezhov (Member of the Politburo, the Orgburo, and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, Secretary of the Central Committee, and People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs; were written in Beria’s hand. Beria’s first acts as head of the NKVD, were the arrest of Yezhov and the issue of orders quashing an enormous number of sentences and recently-started proceedings. People who had been unjustly repressed were even indemnified by the State. Special commissions inquired into the past of convicted persons.
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 119
Evgeniia Ginsburg, who was in Yaroslavl Prison and who saw no newspapers, said that the prisoners could tell when Yezhov fell: The draconian regime in the prisons (frequent solitary confinement and deprivation of all privileges) was relaxed one day. The timing was confirmed a few days later when Beria’s name began to appear on official prison notices.
Getty, A. Origins of the Great Purges. Cambridge, N. Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 189
… the replacement of Yezhov by Beria was received as a hopeful sign. And in fact, right after Yezhov’s replacement mass repression was discontinued for a while. Hundreds of thousands of cases then being prepared by the NKVD were temporarily put aside.
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 465
KGB Deputy Chairman Vladimir Pirozhkov (I think) makes a public comment including Beria as one of the officials sentenced for violations of Soviet Law.
When asked about the fate of the perpetrators of the repressions and about the statute of limitations, Solomontsev answered:
“With regard to those instances of violations of socialist legality in the ’30s, ’40s, and early ’50s that have been revealed, the culprits have already been punished through criminal, legal, and party channels. It is obviously not a secret to everyone that Avakumov, Ryutin, Leonov, Komarov, Likhachev, Shvartsman, and other former leaders and personnel of the USSR Ministry of State Security were sentenced to death for fabricating investigation materials….”
Even more amazing was an interview given by Pirozhkov, deputy head of the KGB. When asked how many hangmen had been brought to trial, he answered that 1,342 NKVD officials had been sentenced for severe violations of socialist legality, including Beria, Yezhov, Kobulov, Frinovsky, Agranov, Avakumov and others.
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 266
Okay I hope you like reading.
Beria wasn't Stalin's first pick for the Job Beria would later assume
Getty and Manning. Stalinist Terror. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 38
Thurston, Robert. Life and Terror in Stalin’s Russia, 1934-1941. New Haven: Yale University Press, c1996, p. 131
One of Stalin's last living bodyguards liked Beria as much as he liked Kruschev
Rybin, Aleksei. Next to Stalin: Notes of a Bodyguard. Toronto: Northstar Compass Journal, 1996, p. 80
It was likely that Beria played a key role in stopping the greatest excesses of the Ezhovshchina
Duranty, Walter. Story of Soviet Russia. Philadelphia, N. Y.: JB Lippincott Co. 1944, p. 229
Grey, Ian. Stalin, Man of History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, p. 288
Chase, William J., Enemies Within the Gates?, translated by Vadim A. Staklo, New Haven: Yale University Press, c2001, p. 306.
Tokaev, Grigori. Comrade X. London: Harvill Press,1956, p. 119
Getty, A. Origins of the Great Purges. Cambridge, N. Y.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985, p. 189
Medvedev, Roy. Let History Judge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 465
KGB Deputy Chairman Vladimir Pirozhkov (I think) makes a public comment including Beria as one of the officials sentenced for violations of Soviet Law.
Laqueur, Walter. Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations. New York: Scribner’s, c1990, p. 266