About the book: 1999 / After the death of Stalin, the struggle for power in the top leadership sharply intensified. His closest associates declared “unbreakable unity,” but they were all afraid of each other and carefully monitored all the actions of each of the “celestials.” Beria turned out to be the most active. He was the first to criticize the mistakes and distortions made during Stalin's time and made a number of proposals for correcting them. This activity was based on the fact that Beria headed the punitive authorities, and therefore knew too much about other contenders for power. Beria's old friends and comrades in leadership, frightened to death by his actions, had no choice but to remove Beria from the political arena, which was done at the July (1953) Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee. Beria, according to the practice of falsification of that time, was accused of fictitious crimes, but not a word was said about his actual atrocities - organizing mass repressions.