my impression is that it's real but haven't looked that deep into it. there's accounts of Stalin being freaked out that his daughter was alone with him iirc? also being real it's understandable that a guy suited for that position would have those kinds of tendencies. im sure it gets exaggerated and dramatised and stuff but it's pretty believable to me.

[–] CrookedSerpent@hexbear.net 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I thought he just was a sex criminal. But idk I could be wrong

[–] REgon@hexbear.net 13 points 3 days ago

Yeah I did too, but apparently that's red scare propaganda. Or allegedly, since I don't have the sources anymore, but I know someone here does

[–] real@hexbear.net 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Robert Fedvans had an episode on him a while back that didn’t seem too bullshit. My brainworms may just be libbing me up though.

[–] Babs@hexbear.net 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I have not heard anything exculpatory about Beria, he seems like a real bad dude, but Fedvans has a real big hateboner for the USSR and will happily take fictional events from movies as historical fact if they fit his biases.

[–] real@hexbear.net 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, that seems about right

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 7 points 3 days ago

i trawled r/askhistorians, i can't account for beria's #1 fan living in a georgian bunker and printing defenses on a far right russian forum but:

cw:sv

spoiler

Many other people, both associates and victims, gave testimony as well, and the scenario that emerged, as in the Zhemchuzhina case back in 1949, came to focus on his sex life, with lurid allegations of multipleremoveds, forcible abduction of young women from the street, and so on. Although this subsequently entered into Soviet folklore, the story of Beria as a sexual predator seems, though not wholly unfounded, to have been wildly exaggerated. His own account under interrogation of how he conducted his relations with the women he had affairs with, including a young one picked out on the street for him by a subordinate, is basically supported by that of a singer claiming to have been his mistress, after catching his eye during a performance, who described seduction (admittedly under intimidating circumstances) rather thanremoved

from Sheila Fitzpatrick's On Stalin’s Team, seems to be the most cited and accepted take. he was a cop so it's very easy to believe, and the charges have some credibility from being unneeded to secure the death sentence, but it's also easy to see why exaggeration/fabrication could be in the interest of his detractors.