MOSCOW, June 19 (RAPSI) - The Russian Supreme Court has refused to reconsider a lawsuit that would require restoring the reputation of three men who were loyal to Lavrentiy Beria, one of the organizers of the Stalinist political repressions.

Thursday, the Supreme Court said it would not reconsider a petition that was filed by the families of Rafael Sarkisov, chief of Beria’s personal guard, Mikhail Ryumin, deputy minister of state security, and Mark Michurin-Raver, chief of the Georgian Socialist Republic’s People’s Commissariat for State Security.

Sarkisov, who worked as Beria’s personal driver in 1935, was promoted to chief of his personal guard and was later arrested in 1953. Six years after that, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for treason. In 1964, he was released.

Ryumin, who worked as an investigator starting in 1941 and was involved in the inquiries into the activities of top officials, was arrested in 1953.

According to historians, he initiated the “doctor’s plot” case. All the defendants in this case were later exonerated. Ryumin is also believed to have collected evidence for the arrest of Marshall Georgy Zhukov who was supposedly involved in the Mingrelian Case against Beria. In 1954, Ryumin was executed on court order.

A state security officer since 1936, Michurin-Raver was sentenced to ten years for his part in an armed uprising. He was released in 1960.

Public opinion polls indicate that Russians are still polarized over the rule of Joseph Stalin. In 2013, the National Center for Public Opinion Research reported that one in three respondents (36%) respected or even admired Stalin while about 25% feel revulsion and fear when thinking about this period of Russia’s history. Other Russians are indifferent about the “father of nations.”