The Early Post-Stalin Succession Struggle and Upheavals in East-Central Europe: Inernal-External Linkages in Soviet Policy Making (Part 2)

Part 2 of this three-part article discusses the aftermath of the June 1953 East German uprising, particularly the arrest on 26 June of Lavrentii Beria, who until then had been one of the most powerful figures in Moscow. Beria's arrest came not because of any high-level disagreements about policy, but simply because Beria's rivals wanted to remove him from the post-Stalin succession struggle. Newly released documents shed valuable light on the plot against Beria, which was intricate and extremely risky, yet ultimately successful.