| Комитет государственной безопасности КГБ СССР Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti KGB SSSR | |
 | |
 Lubyanka Building in 1985 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 13 March 1954 |
| Preceding agencies | |
| Superseding agency |
|
| Type | State committee of union-republican jurisdiction |
| Jurisdiction | Central Committee & Sovnarkom (1954–1990) Supreme Council & President (1990–91) |
| Headquarters | Lubyanka Square, 2 Moscow, Russian SFSR |
| Motto | Loyalty to the party – Loyalty to the motherland Верность партии — Верность Родине |
| Annual budget | $∞ |
| Agency executives |
|
| Child agencies |
|
The KGB (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), tr. Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, IPA: [kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪnːəj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ] (
listen)), translated in English as the Committee for State Security, was the secret police force that was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), tr. Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, IPA: [kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪnːəj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ] (listen)), translated in English as the Committee for State Security, was the secret police force that was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. As a direct successor of preceding agencies such as the Cheka, NKGB, NKVD and MGB, it was attached to the Council of Ministers. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", carrying out internal security, intelligence and secret police functions. Similar agencies operated in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from the Russian SFSR, with many associated ministries, state committees and state commissions.
The agency was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or the MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available.[1][2] Its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigatory activities, guarding the State border of the USSR, guarding the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, organization and security of government communications as well as combating nationalism, dissent, and anti-Soviet activities.
In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the KGB split into the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation.
After breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB (keeping this unreformed name).[3] In addition, the Republic of Belarus has also established its own national security agency, the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the name and acronym of which are identical to those of the former Soviet KGB.
Contents
- 1 Mode of operation
- 2 History
- 3 In the US
- 4 In the Soviet Bloc
- 5 Suppressing internal dissent
- 6 Notable operations
- 7 August 1991 coup
- 8 Organization
- 9 List of chairmen
- 10 Commemorative and Award Badges
- The agency was a military service governed by army laws and regulations, in the same fashion as the Soviet Army or the MVD Internal Troops. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two online documentary sources are available.[1][2] Its main functions were foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence, operative-investigatory activities, guarding the State border of the USSR, guarding the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government, organization and security of government communications as well as combating nationalism, dissent, and anti-Soviet activities.
In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the KGB split into the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation.
After breaking away from Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB (keeping this unreformed name).[3] In addition, the Republic of Belarus has also established its own national security agency, the State Security Committee of the Republic of Belarus, the name and acronym of which are identical to those of the former Soviet KGB.
A Time magazine article in 1983 reported that the KGB was the world's most effective information-gathering organization.[4] It operated legal and illegal espionage residencies in target countries where a legal resident gathered intelligence while based at the Soviet embassy or consulate, and, if caught, was protected from prosecution by diplomatic immunity. At best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country. The illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, and worked independently of Soviet diplomatic and trade missions, (cf. the non-official cover CIA officer). In its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease. The KGB residency executed four types of espionage: (i) political, (ii) economic, (iii) military-strategic, and (iv) disinformation, effected with "active measures" (PR Line), counter-intelligence and security (KR Line), and scientific–technological intelligence (X Line); quotidian duties included SIGINT (RP Line) and illegal support (N Line).[5]
The KGB classified its spies as agents (intelligence providers) and controllers (intelligence relayers). The false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a "live double" (participant to the fabrications) or a "dead double" (whose identity is tailored to the spy). The agent then substantiated his or her legend by living it in a foreign country, before emigrating to the target country, thus the sending of US-bound illegal residents via the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada. Tradecraft included stealing and photographing documents, code-names, contacts, targets, and dead letter boxes, and working as a "friend of the cause" or as agents provocateurs, who would infiltrate the target group to sow dissension, influence policy, and arrange kidnappings and assassinations.[6]
History
KGB Regulation seen in the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights in VilniusMindful of ambitious spy chiefs—and after deposing Premier Nikita Khrushchev—Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and the CPSU knew to manage the next over-ambitious KGB Chairman, Aleksandr Shelepin (1958–61), who facilitated Brezhnev's palace coup d'état against Khrushchev in 1964 (despite Shelepin not then being in the KGB). With political reassignments, Shelepin protégé Vladimir Semichastny (1961–67) was sacked as KGB Chairman, and Shelepin himself was demoted from chairman of the Committee of Party and State Control to Trade Union Council chairman.
In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov (1988–91) to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. The thwarted coup d'état ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGB's main successors are the FSB (legend by living it in a foreign country, before emigrating to the target country, thus the sending of US-bound illegal residents via the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada. Tradecraft included stealing and photographing documents, code-names, contacts, targets, and dead letter boxes, and working as a "friend of the cause" or as agents provocateurs, who would infiltrate the target group to sow dissension, influence policy, and arrange kidnappings and assassinations.[6]
Mindful of ambitious spy chiefs—and after deposing Premier Nikita Khrushchev—Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and the CPSU knew to manage the next over-ambitious KGB Chairman, Aleksandr Shelepin (1958–61), who facilitated Brezhnev's palace coup d'état against Khrushchev in 1964 (despite Shelepin not then being in the KGB). With political reassignments, Shelepin protégé Vladimir Semichastny (1961–67) was sacked as KGB Chairman, and Shelepin himself was demoted from chairman of the Committee of Party and State Control to Trade Union Council chairman.
In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov (1988–91) to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. The thwarted coup d'état ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGB's main successors are the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service).
In the US
Between the World Wars
The GRU (military intelligence) recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936. The NKVD's first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934.[7] Throughout, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA
In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov (1988–91) to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev. The thwarted coup d'état ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGB's main successors are the FSB (Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service).
The GRU (military intelligence) recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936. The NKVD's first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934.[7] Throughout, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government, business, and industry.[citation needed]
Other important, low-level and high-level ideological agents were the diplomats Laurence Duggan and Michael Whitney Straight in the State Department, the statistician Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department, the economist Lauchlin Cu
Other important, low-level and high-level ideological agents were the diplomats Laurence Duggan and Michael Whitney Straight in the State Department, the statistician Harry Dexter White in the Treasury Department, the economist Lauchlin Currie (an FDR advisor), and the "Silvermaster Group", headed by statistician Greg Silvermaster, in the Farm Security Administration and the Board of Economic Warfare.[8] Moreover, when Whittaker Chambers, formerly Alger Hiss's courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan, White, and others—he was ignored. Hence, during the Second World War (1939–45)—at the Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945) conferences—Big Three Ally Joseph Stalin of the USSR, was better informed about the war affairs of his US and UK allies than they were about his.[9]
Soviet espionage was at its most successful in collecting scientific and technological intelligence about advances in jet propulsion, radar and encryption, which impressed Moscow, but stealing atomic secrets was the capstone of NKVD espionage against Anglo–American science and technology. To wit, British Manhattan Project team physicist Klaus Fuchs (GRU 1941) was the main agent of the Rosenberg spy ring.[10] In 1944, the New York City residency infiltrated top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico by recruiting Theodore Hall, a 19-year-old Harvard physicist.[11][12]
The KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare (1947–57) and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment. The last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel (Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher/"Willie" Vilyam Fisher), was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957.[13]
Komsomol
