The KGB

WHAT WAS THE KGB?

The KGB was the security agency of the Soviet Union government which was involved in nearly all aspects of life in the Soviet Union since March 1954. Yet its roots stretch back to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 when the newly-formed Communist government organized Cheka, a Russian acronym for "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage." After many alterations, the Soviet Union arranged its security agency as the Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Committee of State Security), more simply known as the KGB.

Headquarted at dom dva (House Number Two) on Dzerzhinsky Street in Moscow, the KGB had numerous tasks and goals, from suppressing religion to infiltrating the highest levels of government in the United States. They had five main directorates into which their operations were divided:

* Intelligence in other nations
* Counterintelligence and the secret police
* The KGB military corps and the Border Guards
* Suppression of internal resistance
* Electronic espionage

These are only the main directorates. Overall, the KGB had eleven primary tasks to fulfill, as follows:

* Assistance in governing the Soviet Union - The KGB had considerable power in government affairs, particularly foreign affairs.
* Suppression of internal resistance - The KGB was responsible for silencing or eliminating dissidence.
* Protecting leaders - National leaders were physically protected and the information about them was screened by the KGB.
* Ensuring economic efficiency - The KGB disciplined workers and quelled strikes.
* Criminal investigations - The KGB investigated many crimes, especially those by foreigners and those which were against the government.
* Enforcing morals - Dealing with those who had deviated from Soviet ideology was another KGB task.
* Punishment - The KGB oversaw the punishment of political criminals.
* Informing leaders - Soviet leaders were kept up to date about all types of information because of KGB reports.
* Diminishing foreign threat - The KGB sought to decrease opposition from abroad and foreign influence within the Soviet Union. Foreigners in the Soviet Union, including diplomats and tourists, were individually monitored by a KGB agent who employed a number of techniques to spy. These foreigners were often the target of recruitment for espionage, made possible by the agency's adept abilities of persuasion. Threats, bribery, and seduction could all be used.
* Secret operations - Exceptionally secret work was handled by the KGB, including the building of an underground complex beneath Moscow for their own protection, which necessitated the establishment of the Directorate of Tunnel Diggers.
* Propaganda - The KGB had strict control over what information was made public.

When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union and he began to make reforms, KGB offices were opened to the media and interviews of KGB officials were allowed. The activities of the secret police and the suppression of dissidents were decreased while industrial espionage increased.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the KGB was incorporated into the Russian government and the domestic operations of the agency were spun off into a separate agency. The KGB continued to handle foreign intelligence, and was later renamed the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

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THE KGB WHEN THE SOVIET UNION COLLAPSED

KGB spetsnaz forces were assigned to storm the Russian Parliament building early on 21 August 1991 and seize key leadership personnel, including Boris Yeltsin. Units assigned this mission included the Al'fa (Alpha) counterterrorist group subordinate to the KGB's Seventh Main Directorate (Surveillance), and commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union, General Major Viktor Karpukhin. Another KGB unit was under the KGB's First Chief Directorate (Foreign Operations) and intended principally for operations abroad. It was commanded by an officer identified only as Col. Boris B. However, the commanders on the scene decided not to execute thes plan, and some Alpha subgroup commanders and personnel refused to take part in the action, which contributed to the failure of the coup against Gorbachev, and ultimately the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On 21 August 1991 Vladimir Kryuchkov, KGB head and one of the leaders of the coup, was arrested. The next day, a reformer, Vadim Bakatin, was appointed in Kryuchkov's place. On 24 October 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev signed a decree abolishing the KGB.

The Soviet Union's Committee for State Security dissolved along with the USSR in late 1991. However, most of its assets and activities have continued through several separate organizations.

* The Foreign Intelligence Service [SVR] was the first element of the KGB to establish a separate identity [in October 1991] incorporating most of the foreign operations, intelligence-gathering and intelligence analysis activities of the KGB First Chief Directorate.

* The Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information [FAPSI], the Russian counterpart to the US National Security Agency. Formed in February 1994, FAPSI replaced the Administration of Information Resources (AIR) at the Presidential Office, which was formed from the KGB Eighth Chief Directorate and the Sixteenth Directorate, and like the NSA is responsible for communications security and signals intelligence.

* Some 8,000-10,000 troops that formerly constituted the KGB Ninth Directorate, which guarded the Kremlin and key offices of the CPSU, joined the Federal Protective Service [FSO - Federal'naya Sluzhba Okhrani - formerly known as the Main Administration for the Protection of the Russian Federation (GUO - Glavnoye Upravlenie Okhrani)] and the 1,000 man Presidential Security Service [PSB] with responsibilities similar to the American Secret Service.

Internal security functions previously performed by the Second, Third and Fifth Chief Directorates and the Seventh Directorate were initially assigned to a new Ministry of Security. But agency was disbanded December 1993 and replaced by the Federal Counterintelligence Service. This 75,000-person agency was subsequently redisgnated the Federal Security Service (FSB).

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