The leadership of Soviet Russia felt the need for its own special service soon after the October Revolution. The Bolsheviks feared acts of mass sabotage by their ideological opponents. On December 20, 1917, a decision of the Council of People's Commissars established the All-Russian Emergency Commission (VChK) under the CPC to combat counterrevolution and sabotage. Headed her Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Territorial subdivisions and military counterintelligence agencies soon appeared as part of the Cheka. In addition, the commission carried out reconnaissance missions abroad. On December 20, 1920, the Foreign Department, the first specialized foreign intelligence agency in Russian history, was established within the framework of the Cheka.

On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was reorganized into the Main Political Department (GPU) under the NKVD of the RSFSR, and on November 15, 1923, the United GPU was created at the All-Union level. In 1934, on the basis of the OGPU, the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD of the USSR was established. His duties included the fight against intelligence penetration of foreign intelligence services in the USSR, counter-revolution, terrorism and sabotage, as well as foreign intelligence and protection of state secrets.

  • Decree on the establishment of the KGB of the USSR
  • © Wikipedia

At the beginning of 1941, time management became a separate agency called the National Commissariat of State Security (NKGB), but soon after the start of the war, it returned to the NKVD. In April 1943, the NKGB was recreated again. In 1946, at its base, the Ministry of State Security was formed, to which the main power units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - the police, internal and border troops - were gradually transferred. On March 5, 1953, on the basis of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, a single USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs was established, headed by Lavrenty Beria, which resembled the pre-war NKVD in its structure.

The beginning of the way

After the arrest and execution of Beria, the new allied leadership decided not to concentrate too much power within the same department, therefore Chekist administrations were separated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. And on March 13, 1954, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, a new body was created - the State Security Committee under the USSR Council of Ministers. He was headed by Colonel-General Ivan Serov, Comrade Nikita Khrushchev, who participated in the overthrow of Beria. In the ranks of the state security organs began massive cleansing. In just a few years, the staff of the KGB was reduced by more than half. About 18 thousand employees were fired. Another several thousand officers were transferred to civil service positions.

After Serov became the head of the GRU General Staff in 1958, the former first secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee Alexander Shelepin became chairman of the KGB;

  • The book "Notes from a suitcase" with secret diaries of the first KGB chairman Ivan Serov, which were found 25 years after his death
  • © Ramil Sitdikov / RIA News

Shelepin came to the KGB with instructions from Khrushchev concerning the acceleration of “de-Stalinization”. He stated that he plans to reorient the committee to international issues, and will move the internal ones "to the tenth plan." Under him, the simplification of the structure of the KGB was continued and the provision regulating all the main points in the work of the committee until 1991 was approved.

In 1961, Khrushchev transferred Shelepin to the party work, and appointed another highly civilian Komsomol worker, Vladimir Semichastny, to the post of KGB chairman. He was a companion of Shelepin and continued his policy of reducing the structure of the committee.

Sevenfold became one of the active participants in the overthrow of Khrushchev in 1964 and took steps to ensure that everything was peaceful. However, soon he was waiting for disgrace. Formally, because of the flight abroad of the daughter of Joseph Stalin, Svetlana Alliluyeva. However, according to historians, in fact, it was more likely to be associated with Shelepin’s political ambitions, which Leonid Brezhnev tried to “disarm”. As a result, Semichastny in 1967 was transferred to the post of deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. His successor as chairman of the KGB was Yuri Andropov.

“The entire history of the USSR State Security Committee can be divided into two main stages. The first began in 1954 and ended with the arrival on the post of Yuri Andropov. The KGB has experienced significant reductions, but it still worked quite effectively. The committee enjoyed high prestige, but its work was relatively invisible and non-public, ”said Alexander Kolpakidi, a historian of the special services, in an interview with RT.

It was at that time that the groups of the OUN-UPA * and “Forest Brothers” were completely eliminated in the western regions of the USSR. KGB agent Bogdan Stashinsky eliminated in Munich the leader of the OUN and former informant of the Nazi intelligence services Stepan Bandera. With the active participation of the KGB, anti-government demonstrations in Hungary in 1956 were suppressed. Trials of Hitler's accomplices continued. The Chekists exposed one of the most famous traitors of the Soviet era — the GRU officer Oleg Penkovsky, who worked for the United States and Great Britain.

  • US P2V Neptune Patrol Plane Accompanying Soviet Freighter During the Caribbean Crisis in 1962
  • © Getty Images

The State Security Committee brilliantly showed itself during the Caribbean crisis. Its employees provided strict secrecy during the transfer of Soviet troops to Cuba, and then - in organizing negotiations on de-escalation between Moscow and Washington. A number of foreign spies were not allowed into the Soviet Union.

“After the creation of the KGB and the approval of documents regulating its activities, the work of the KGB sharply deteriorated because they were deprived of the opportunity to work on the party leadership,” said Igor Pykhalov, a historian and writer, in an interview with RT.

Golden age

“With the coming to the post of KGB chairman Yuri Andropov, a new stage has begun in the life of the committee,” says Kolpakidi.

The influence and powers of the committee began to expand. In 1978, Andropov managed to achieve a sharp increase in the formal status of the KGB. From its name the words "under the Council of Ministers" disappeared. He became the USSR State Security Committee - the central government body.

"Andropov took up the" PR "committee. We began to produce films in large quantities, publish books about security officers, ”said the expert.

The emphasis shifted in the work of the special service itself. Despite the fact that the committee continued to actively engage in intelligence and counterintelligence, much more attention than in Khrushchev times was given to domestic issues. Friction arose with the dissident movement. In 1967, the KGB of the USSR created the Fifth Directorate, which was designed to combat ideological sabotage. It controlled cultural and scientific international exchange, the student community, religious organizations, sporting events, fought the right-wing radicals. It was with his staff that many Soviet citizens associated in principle the entire KGB.

  • The certificate of the main driver GON
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“The KGB created the most powerful foreign intelligence in the world, the most powerful counterintelligence. There was a successful struggle with internal threats, but the position of the committee in the economy was extremely weak. And this he differed from his predecessors, such as the Cheka or the NKVD. With what it is connected, it is not clear. However, when it comes to state control over the economy and the fight against financial irregularities, we immediately recall the Obkhss Ministry of Internal Affairs, but not the relevant KGB subdivisions, ”Alexander Kolpakidi emphasized.

In general, according to him, in the 1970-1980s, KGB officers were present in almost all of the more or less prominent departments, institutions and enterprises.

“However, there is very little public information about this period in the activities of the committee. If the history of the Cheka or the NKVD is well researched, then, starting from the epoch of Andropov, we are confronted with silence, ”Kolpakidi said.

At the same time, the expert evaluates the personality of the KGB chairman ambiguously. The historian notes that it has long been customary to speak about Andropov only in a positive way. However, according to Alexander Kolpakidi, he was focused on the restructuring of society and unwittingly contributed to what happened in 1991.

“Andropov held mysterious conspiracy meetings. Disappeared and talked to someone in the evenings. With whom and why, we still don’t know, ”noted the specialist.

In addition to activities on the "internal front", KGB officers were active in the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. They played an important role in the events on the territory of Afghanistan. With the active participation of the KGB, the troops of the Warsaw Pact were introduced into Czechoslovakia in 1968. Successfully went the extraction of information about the nuclear weapons of Western states and the prospects for their use against the USSR.

  • Limited contingent of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. In the course of the military operation of the scouts, a group of special forces destroyed a caravan of military opposition and captured a copy of the American Stinger MANPADS
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  • © Andrey Solomonov

After Andropov left for party work, he was replaced by the former Chairman of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Vitaly Fedorchuk. However, six months later, he lost the chair to the long-term KGB Deputy Chairman Viktor Chebrikov, in which the domestic foreign intelligence service achieved great success.

Resident staff in the United States recruited Aldrich Ames, head of the Soviet department of foreign counterintelligence of the CIA. He handed over to the KGB data on approximately 25 main agents of Western special services from among Soviet citizens. Thanks to this, the Soviet counterintelligence was able to virtually block the CIA’s intelligence work in the USSR for several years.

Chebrikov in 1988 was replaced by another ally of Andropov - Vladimir Kryuchkov. During his time in the USSR, key events occurred that led to the collapse of the country. In August 1991, Kryuchkov participated in the Emergency Committee, for which he was dismissed. Instead, the committee was headed by Vadim Bakatin, who became the last chairman of the KGB of the USSR.

"In the interests of the people"

“The main mystery of the Soviet era is how the collapse of the Soviet Union could happen with the highest efficiency of the KGB. And also - how were the so-called velvet revolutions allowed in the Warsaw Pact countries. Some experts today argue that this was due to the socio-economic crisis. But at the same time, they omit the fact that the Western countries were embraced by the equally cruel crisis in the 1980s. Perhaps as the disclosure of documents from the 1970s and 1990s we will still understand what really happened, ”suggested Alexander Kolpakidi.

From his point of view, what is known today about the collapse of the Soviet Union is only "the surface of a huge iceberg."

  • KGB building
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  • © Vladimir Fedorenko

According to Igor Pykhalov, the need to create a KGB was dictated by the realities of the time, and attempts to blacken it, taken by ill-wishers, are largely unfounded.

“Let's look at the countries that call themselves democratic today. They have much more intelligence services, and they sometimes behave much tougher than the KGB of the USSR, ”emphasizes Pyhalov.

Alexander Kolpakidi noted that, on the whole, the State Security Committee was a structure that “acted in the interests of the people and was recruited from the people.”

“There were selected the most reliable young people. At the same time, the KGB became one of the most powerful and effective special services in the history of mankind, engaged in virtually all spheres of society’s life - from intelligence and counterintelligence itself to science, ”concluded the historian.

* “Ukrainian Insurgent Army” (UPA) is a Ukrainian organization recognized as extremist and banned in Russia (decision of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 11/17/2014).