KGB

Magnus and Jack

The KGB The KGB, or Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), was the agency charged with protecting the security of the Soviet Union during the years 1954 to 1991 . At its peak the KGB was the largest secret police force and foreign intelligence agency in the world. Containing nearly 500 000 members which included 200 000 soldiers in the border guards. The KGB’s advanced technology allowed them to compete in the arms race and keep par with the United States in Nuclear weapon knowledge. 





History Prior to the KGB

The KGB or originally known as the ‘Cheka’ has had many name changes and functions over the course of time. It was reshaped and developed as different leaders took power, such as Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. The Checka was established in 1917 during the October revolution to defend the Bolshevik party from its enemies, the White Army. The Cheka ensured the suppression of anti Bolsheviks and was responsible for arrests, imprisoning and executing them. They succeeded at this using terror and deception; many knew them as the ‘secret police’. In 1922, when Lenin's took power, his regime renamed the Cheka as the State Political Directorate (OGPU). The OGPU expanded Soviet espionage nationally and internationally, and provided Joseph Stalin with his personal bodyguard, Nikolai Vlasik. Stalin’s paranoia had a vast influence on the OGPU's performance in the 1930s. Stalin believed everyone, including all political enemies and even his military generals were plotting against him. Eventually, the OPGU now changed to the NKVD eliminated virtually all of these supposed enemies during the Great Purge (1936–1938). This Purge lasted almost 2 years and involved the brutal killings of civil, military, and government people deemed politically unreliable. By 1938 approximately 750 000 people had been executed by Stalin’s secret police. Among the victims were over fifty percent of the members of the ruling central committee as well as the NKVD’s top 2 chiefs. Laventry Beria served as the head after the Great Purges until 1953. In 1941 the NKVD transferred its security responsibility to the NKGB. By 1946 both agencies were re-organised and made central by Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. The agencies were transformed into the MVD, Ministry of internal affairs, and the MGB, ministry of State Security. Laventry, The ambitious leader of the MVD, merged the two Ministries upon Stalin’s Death in 1953. He was immediately discharged from his position and charged with “criminal anti-party and anti-state activities”. After these treasonous charges were laid he was executed and the KGB was born. The MVD was removed from cabinet level and the MGB was renamed to KGB. During this Transformation in the after war years between 1945-1953 over 750 000 more citizens of eastern Europe and the soviet union were arrested and punished for political crimes against the state. These were all the events leading up to the Creation of the KGB.  

The KGB

In 1954 the KGB was established. The communist Party of Russia used this secret police force as “sword and shield” of its party. The new security service was to be carefully monitored by senior communist officials, there first role was the purge of Beria’s supporters. The ministry was divided among 20 sectors; these included the responsibility of foreign intelligence, domestic counterintelligence, technical intelligence, protection of Politian’s and security of frontiers. Over the next 20 years the KGB became known for its enthusiastic pursuit of enemies. They would hassle, detain and occasionally exile Christian and Jewish citizens as they were viewed as un-loyal to the regime. The KGB began to expand its foreign intelligence and gradually became the largest of its kind in the world. Because of this the Soviet Union and KGB was viewed as a counterpart to the US as the cold war became more intense. They used more domesticated techniques than the CIA did as they spent most of their work posing as Soviet businessmen attempting to discover information. This procedure proved to be extremely successful as they were able to infiltrate nearly every major western nation and find the placement of secret agents. Because of these diverse tactics the KGB were able to help increase the strength of military technology and help the soviets compete in the arms race with the USA.  In 1982 Yury Andropov was appointed head of state and he made it his duty to recruit the best and brightest soviets into the KGB to make them even more powerful. By 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev was now the leader of the USSR, his reformist views made the KGB less useful. He still respected the ability of the KGB but its authority was diminished without the communist leadership. In the summer of 1991, the leaders of the KGB planned a coup against the Government designed to return the soviet system to bureaucratic and ideological purity. Resulting from this overthrow was dissolution to the soviet government. The KGB lost all its military powers and was divided into several smaller services across the vast nation. The efforts to reform Russian intelligence and security services were left incomplete by the broken KGB agency. When all said and done, none of the KGB leaders were ever held accountable for the terrible crime they committed against the people of the USSR. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">