I read about Lavrentiy Beria's crimes and violence against women today...

Also, could someone tell me if there is an equivalent to Beria (in terms of sexual violence) in NutSac, fascist, or monarchical regimes?

Inb4 grover furr

Do you not know what evidence looks like? Are you that dense? Take this for instance:
"Evidence suggests that not only did Beria abduct and rape women, but that some were also murdered. His villa in Moscow is now the Tunisian Embassy (at 55°45′34″N 37°35′10″E). In the mid 1990s, routine work in the grounds turned up the bone remains of several young women buried in the gardens.[30] According to Martin Sixsmith, in a BBC documentary, "Beria spent his nights having teenagers abducted from the streets and brought here for him to rape. Those who resisted were strangled and buried in his wife's rose garden."[31]"
I can't find any photo evidence that these bones actually exist! Moreover, in The Court of the Red Tzar, the author actually admits there's no evidence that the bones (assuming they exist) were put there by Beria. The building was very old. If there were skeletons there, they could have been buried before Beria was even born. You'd think that this would be of some historical interest! The skeletons should be in an archive or something, and could easily be carbon dated, even possibly identified. Yet they seemingly just disappeared after being the subject of a Yeltsin-era news story (when you could publish literally any bullshit and not get called out on it). That's just one example. There are heaps of anecdotes and hearsay stories about Beria in these books, but no actual proof of anything.

This kind of talk reminds me of Holocaust denialism, lmao.

This.

I think Sheila Fitzpatrick was dead on when she said that a revolution is a pathological state, where true, radical change seems momentarily possible and you don't count the cost of that.

It's what happened in France, where a democratic, enlightenment revolution managed in overthrowing the old system right in its heart, became under attack and by necessity of survival turned into a state of terror, and ultimately led to a dictatorship under Napoleon.

The Bolshevik revolution was even more radical in nature, overthrowing a monarchy for socialism. The revolution immidiately came under attack, and the revolutionary period while the new order was trying to solidify itself was very long. Stalin was the one man who checked every bluff and never wavered from the path of seeing the revolution through. Socialism had enemies everywhere from which it needed to be protected, the situation bred paranoia, and the paranoia bred murder. We don't need to excuse these aspects, nor do we need to deny that these situations are bound to bring out the darkest sides of people.

But we do need to understand that these are inseperable aspects of revolution, especially when the revolution is besieged and the situation gets prolonged. My biggest constructive criticism for the Bolshevik revolution is, that in the future we need to take this "pathological" nature of revolutions into account, so that in the case of a perpetual siege we could at least mitigate the paranoia and persecution (and for this I get called a liberal humanist, kek).

Stalin did some bad stuff, but he also did what needed to be done when no one else could. Maybe Beria was a monster. But people like him are bound to rise in these situations. Understanding the individual is not so important, but the larger context in which they operated.

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back to >>>/liberalpol/. I guess we're supposed to just believe that Stalin killed 60 million innocent people too, right? To argue otherwise is denialism!

Here's Ismail investigation in the case:

He had a lengthy career as a Chekist, and also headed the Communist Party of Georgia. There were numerous figures in the 1920s-30s who disliked him, regarding him as a careerist, but he was nonetheless able to gain Stalin's confidence. He replaced Yezhov, ensuring that whatever repressive acts were carried out were done in an orderly manner without the "excesses" of the Yezhovschina.

He was regarded as a good administrator. On the other hand, in Stalin's last years it is probable that Beria was among those he wanted to remove from power. Molotov claimed decades later that Beria had boasted to him of having poisoned Stalin.

After Stalin's death Beria was allied with Malenkov. Gromyko recalled in his Glasnost-era memoirs that Beria had denigrated the GDR during a meeting and considered it not worth maintaining, which drew criticism from Malenkov and everyone else present. Beria was also seen as the most "liberal-minded" among the leadership when it came to economic matters.

Thus, with even Malenkov moving away from Beria, and with everyone concerned about Beria's politics as well as his command of the security apparatus, he was arrested and executed.

Beria also had the reputation of a rapist. Whether true or not, it was very widespread, e.g.

(Source for Stakhanov bit: bbc.com/news/magazine-35161610)

There are pictures of concentration camps, gas chambers, Holocaust survivors, etc. Where is the evidence that Beria was a serial rapist?

And the evidence of said crimes is basically non-existent. This entire "Beria abused/murdered/kidnapped women' thing comes from 1990s Russian media back when Solzhenitsyn and his ilk were popular and the steaming shit-piles of made up 'atrocities' were being published faster than you could say "liar, liar pants on fire"

I appreciate the realism. However, let me ask you a question: if the revolution itself had real excesses and caused real harm, then what was the point? It didn't achieve lasting socialism.

I'm not a professional historian, how could I possibly answer that?

BERIA DID NOTHING WRONG

MADE BY BESPECTACLED BABYSITTER GANG

it was a good experiment, we shall learn from its mistakes

Just because I believe historians, how does that make me a liberal? Liberalism is a political ideology, not a position on the factual accuracy of historical events.

Stalin was in the process of purging Beria before his death.

So was is the lesson learned as far as how to achieve lasting socialism?

He was just using the biggest psycho around to do a genuine psycho work that was demanded by the constant infiltration and sabotage of foreign countries in Soviet territory. And no, contrary to popular myth, this wasn't Stalinist "paranoia", there are tons of documents proving this.

I also like, always think most of the evil shit done by Soviet figures is just propaganda. There's too much people interested in promoting those narratives about individual figures. Beria for example was an enemy of the post-Stalin regime, so if both them and western anti-communists could profit by slandering him, it pretty much becomes the established narrative. Every time you hear about evil shit commited by any Communist regime other than Pol Pot's, just assume it's at least exaggeration.

*So what is

What do you mean? Nobody at the time knew it was going to fail. If you are asking what was the point in hindsight because it failed, it seems you'd be suggesting that every time there is a circumstance in which authentic action towards a goal can be taken, it should be avoided because it may fail.

What WE can do with the soviet experience is learn. This is revolutionary theory. It often seems antiquated to many and funny to call Marxism "scientific", but as a theory of revolution and history it is based on practice and evaluation of the results.

So what do we learn from the Soviet experience?

Why do you make an exception for Pol Pot?

I'll be honest, that is a broad question and it seems especially tiresome to even try to make a focused or succinct answer to it. Maybe someone else will be willing to write a couple paragraphs for it.

Yes, believing liberal/fascist """historians""" makes you a liberal at best. The history of the USSR, especially Stalin era, has been wildly falsified, to the point that the falsifiers have had to backtrack (see Timothy Snyder, Conquest, etc admitting that Stalin didn't kill muh 40 million).
Due to the falsification of the history of the USSR and Stalin, we have to demand real evidence that would hold up in a court of law! The "evidence" about Beria being a rapist is ridiculously thin, and aside from the anecdotes, there is blatant and open speculation, such as the skeletons I mentioned.

I asked *how* that makes me a liberal. You just repeated the claim without answering the question.

Also, why shouldn't I believe the testimony of his body guards and the many women that he raped, such as Tatiana Okunevskaya?

I'm not a professional historian but I could link you to proof of lots of other historical crimes (such as the Holocaust).

So how do we treat anecdotal evidence?

Isn't it obvious that there would be much more physical evidence for the murder of 10 million people than for the depraved sex acts of one man? And isn't it obvious that it would be trivial to post evidence of the Holocaust to an internet forum because Americans are literally taught about the holocaust in school, whereas we are not taught about Beria and the primary sources are in Russian, so the task is much more difficult by comparison?

So what about Beria's collection of skeletons of women he raped and murdered? Where's the evidence for it?

The point for us living today is that it proved socialism works, and works beutifully. The first experiment took a run-down (what would now be considered third world) shithole and turned it into a super power in less than a generation. It improved the living standards, literacy and life expectancy more than any capitalist experiment in comperable time and starting condition.

The failure of the system to last was not in retrospect surprising. It was fighting against a superpower that had had hundreds of years to develop its industry and emerged from WW2 without a scratch due to committing late and letting the USSR take the brunt of the fighting. And still the USSR gave them a run for their money.

I really don't try to justify the attrocities commited under Stalin or the SU in general. What I'm saying is 1. it was well worth the shot and 2. we can learn from their experience both in terms of defending the revolution and making sure the revolution doesn't eat so many of its children the next time.

Who exactly? Montefiore, the anti-communist who himself admits that there is little evidence at all?
You are a liberal because you're actually buying into this dumb 100 gorillion level shit.

No, no he wasn't.

Also the "History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" aka the "Short Course."

Look: Lavrenty Beria is one of the most prominent figures in one of the most important governments of the last century, and the accusations against him are very widespread. I don't expect conclusive proof of anything but if you can't provide ANY evidence beyond stories told by his political enemies I can't take these accusations seriously.

Anecdotal "evidence" is not evidence.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Too much evidence to argue against the common accusations, but I admit I haven't looked at it closely.

Well, I'm not too sure about that tbh. Stalin was all about doing what he saw was absolutely necessary to see the USSR, and by extension socialism, through. This isn't a bad quality in the slightest, and one of the defining features of some of the greatest revolutionaries throughout history, but you could see how such an outlook may lead someone to overlook the actions of a valuable asset. The times he lived in were some of the most darkest, critical, and most importantly vulnerable times of the USSR's existence. And say whatever you want about Beria, he did the job assigned to him exceptionally well. Lets look at this pragmatically, would you sacrifice the well being and security of USSR for the sake of punishing a single man during the Unions most trying period? Morally and idealistically you may say yes, but wars and revolutions are not fought in moral or ideal conditions. The enemies of the USSR were more than willing to get in bed with the devil, and while you may personally be disgusted by such things, not at the very least dancing with the devil is a good way to subject and sacrifice everything you are responsible for to the heinous things you are disgusted by. The individual actions and people can be covered up, explained, or removed at a later date, but till then you deal with the cards dealt to you. And to use a somewhat crass quote, "When you get in bed with the devil, you shouldn't be surprised when you have sex".

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