Stalin

[Beryl]

What is the name of Stalin's notoriously brutal secret police chief

[Grunty]

Laventy Beria

[waimarie]

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria

[sissimarissa]

By 1935 Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria (1899 - 1953) was one of Stalin's most trusted subordinates. He cemented his place in Stalin's entourage both by saving Stalin's life and with his book "On the History of the Bolshevik Organisations in Transcaucasia". Despite Lavrenti Pavlovich's (perhaps unfair) reputation as one of Stalin's most ruthless henchmen, he was in fact at the forefront of liberalisation after Stalin's death. Lavrenti Pavlovich personally released over a million political prisoners from labour camps and signed a most important decree
banning the use of torture in Soviet prisons. He also signalled a more liberal policy towards the non-Russian nationalities in the Soviet Union. He persuaded the Presidium (as the Politburo was renamed after Stalin's death) and the Council of Ministers to urge the Communist regime in East Germany to allow liberal personal, economic and political reforms. Lavrenty Pavlovich risked (and ultimately lost) his life in dangerous manoeuvres to marginalize the role of the Presidium and the party apparatus generally in the
decision-making process in policy and economic matters and matters that affected the individual.

[Tatty Rollox]

....... and here is "The Poison Dwarf" ........

[Skids]

Ooh! Was it Ernst Stavros Blofeld?