Lavrenty Beria rose from obscurity in Abkhazia to become the second most powerful man in the Soviet state and the architect of its secret police at its most efficient. Joining the Cheka in 1920, he survived the chaotic Caucasus through ruthless adaptability, making himself indispensable to a deeply paranoid Joseph Stalin by managing his security and rewriting Bolshevik history to flatter him.

This deep dive traces the anatomy of unchecked power, following Beria from intimate acts of terror to running the Gulag system and the Soviet atomic bomb project, before he was devoured by the very machine he built. It examines how bureaucratic competence and absolute ruthlessness intersect.

• The poisoning of Nestor Lakoba and the systematic erasure of his entire family
• His 1938 takeover of the NKVD and the deceptive thaw that removed ...