On the Issue of Assessing the Personality of Lavrentiy Beria in Historiography and Journalism

The inconsistency in the assessment of the activities of L.P. Beria as one of the representatives of the Stalinist elite is a fact not only in historical journalism, but also in modern historiography. In the article, this problem is revealed through an analysis of the positions of researchers who assessed Beria’s professional qualities as Stalin’s deputy in the government. The thesis about his persistent desire to limit repression, which is found in historical journalism, has been refuted. The authors have come to the conclusion that in foreign and domestic studies devoted to the “Stalinist people’s commissar”, judgments coincide not only on his suffi ciently high managerial skills as an economic leader, but also on the ability to build and strengthen a network of clients that provided strong positions in the Soviet political system of the 1930s and 1950s.