[1] Berman was born in Andiranovka, Chita, Transbaikal Oblast, the son of a Jewish brickyard owner.

From 1923 to 1924, he was the People's Commissar for State Security in the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

On August 17, 1937, he lost his position as head of the Gulag and was appointed People's Commissar of Posts and Telecommunications (Russian: Наркомпочтель).

On December 23, 1938, he was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, arrested the next day in the office of Georgi Malenkov, and sent to prison at Lubyanka.

He was found guilty by the Military Collegiate of the Supreme Court of the USSR of belonging to a "terrorist and sabotage organization" and shot on March 7, 1939, at Kommunarka.