If you'd like to print out this page, click the Print button above. Alternatively, you may click the printer icon on your browser's toolbar, or choose File>Print from the menu.     Lavrenti Beria Lavrenti Beria executed: December 23rd, 1953. (Months Past)(Biography) Richard Cavendish. History Today Dec 2003 v53 i12 p54(1) (715 words) 1. How did Beria rise up the power hierarchy in the Soviet Union? 2. What important positions did he hold? 3. Why was he feared by many high-ranking party officials? 4. How did Khruschev and Malenkov handle his removal, trial, and execution? 5. How does Beria’s career and fate illustrate the nature and distribution of political power in the Soviet Union through the mid-1950s?