Where is Beria ?
There is one rather important omission in the announce- ment 'from Moscow of an open break in the innermost circle of the Russian leadership, an announcement attended by a flood of invective by the Party publicity machine against one of the two most powerful men in the Soviet Union. We have been told of the dismissal of L. P. Beria, the " bandit," " bourgeois renegade " and "despicable traitor," from the ranks of a Communist party now grown " steel-like " in its unity. He has been "exposed " and " rendered harmless." The earlier announcements speak of his impending trial. But there is no mention either of the circumstances of Beria's arrest or of his whereabouts at the present time. The general trend of the events which reached their public climax on July 10th has been evident for some time past, and the present conflict is probably over-simplified if it is considered merely as being between the Party and Beria, but the very fact that the entire Russian publicity apparatus is at the disposal of one of these antagonists makes it important that we should not prejudge the fate of the other—or others. As yet there is desperately little on which any firm opinion can be based. Kruglov, a competent policeman—but no more than that—has reputedly succeeded Beria as Minister of Internal Affairs. In Georgia numerous arrests indicate that that potential centre of pro- Beria organisation and sentiment is being purged. Lorry loads of soldiers—a normal adjunct of political unrest anywhere— have been reported in the streets of the capital, but without the all-important amplifying information whether their caps were blue (MVD, or political security troops) or grey-green (Soviet Army). For the political authority of the Soviet leadership has rested for thirty-five years on the overwhelming forces of MVD security troops quartered in the capital, and for fifteen of these years these forces have been administered by Beria. Should physical strength ever be required to overawe them, this could only come from the Soviet Army, and that might well lead to a situation not far removed from civil war.
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