Beria. History and Legend

Children were frightened with the name of Beria—and this isn’t an exaggeration. Women feared walking alone in Moscow’s streets—what if Beria pulled up in his black car and took them to his place? And the fact that he had already been executed by firing squad for several years didn’t matter much. He became a legend—ever alive and insanely terrifying. So who was Lavrentiy Beria? A revolutionary, politician, a state and party figure, the curator of the atomic project, a respectable husband and father—or simply an all-powerful sadist who seized power?

What of what he was accused of is pure truth, with some basis—and what is absolute invention? Where do the legends end and the real person begins?