The Soviet Country. Forgotten Leaders

In 1944, during the war, Lavrenty Beria was appointed curator of the Soviet "atomic project". In working on the project, he showed unique organizational skills, thanks to which the USSR had an atomic bomb much earlier than opponents expected in the Cold War that had begun by that time. On December 23, 1953, Lavrenty Beria was sentenced to death and shot in the bunker of the Moscow Military District headquarters, but the circumstances of his arrest and death are still a matter of debate.

Over the past decades, Lavrenty Beria has been represented in official historiography as one of the darkest figures in the entire history of Russia. In the minds of generations, a vengeful tyrant is drawn, drowning in the blood of his enemies. He is known only as the head of the NKVD and the organizer of repressions, although the scope of repressions under him has significantly decreased. As a business executive, economist and even a builder, Beria is practically unknown, although these were the main areas of his activity.

Commander of the 1st Cavalry Army, whose blows were decisive for the Reds victory in 1919 against the White movement in southern Russia. It was his support that was important to Stalin in order to strengthen his power in the early 1920s. Budyonny advocated the preservation of cavalry as a kind of troops, and the cavalry made a significant contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Budyonny was very fond of horses, he carried this hobby throughout his life and until a ripe old age was an excellent rider.

The creator of the legendary SMERSH, the hero of the Great Patriotic War, who managed to defeat the powerful intelligence of those years - the German Abwehr. In 1951 he was arrested. Three years later, he was charged with treason and sentenced to capital punishment. In 1994, the charges against Abakumov were dropped, but his personal file remains classified to this day.

His activities were evaluated in different ways even during his lifetime. He created the industry of the Soviet Union, while closing monasteries and blowing up churches. Thanks to his efforts, the besieged Leningrad survived, and Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko were stigmatized by his decrees. Throughout the war, the state leadership in the North-West of Russia and in Leningrad was carried out by Andrei Alexandrovich. The most severe blockade drained Zhdanov's health and, in fact, predetermined his early death.

Vyacheslav Molotov is one of the leaders of the revolutionary movement in Russia, a supporter of accelerated industrialization. In 1939, Molotov took the post of People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR. Thanks to his efforts, a peace treaty was concluded with Germany, later called the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. This treaty postponed the German attack on the USSR and made it possible to push the borders of the Soviet Union hundreds of kilometers to the west, which in 1941 made it difficult for the German troops to advance and led to the collapse of the German "blitzkrieg".

One of the heroes of the Civil War, Stalin's ally during the construction of the new armed forces of the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. People's Commissar for Defense until 1940. People's hero, marshal, legend of the Red Army. His name, along with Budyonny, was actively used for propaganda purposes.

Since 1917, Felix Dzerzhinsky was not only the creator and head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission. After the Civil War, he was engaged in the restoration of the national economy. Dzerzhinsky was responsible for the work of transport, the organization of the NEP and much more, without which Soviet Russia would probably have crumbled under the weight of the post-war devastation.