The KGB: A Historical Review

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Table of Contents

Abstract
Introduction
Origins of the KGB
The KGB
Demise of the KGB
Conclusion
Works Cited

Abstract

The KGB was a Russian secret police agency that played a significant role in the totalitarian Soviet Union. This paper engages in an informative discussion of the KGB to highlight the agency’s evolution and its role in Communist Russia. The paper begins by tracing the formation of the KGB to the establishment of the Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution in 1917.

It then traces the numerous evolutions of the organization; from the State Political Directorate (GPU) in 1922, the OGPU in 1923, the NKVD in 1934, and eventually the KGB in 1953. Efforts to decrease the power of the KGB after 1953 proved effective for only a short while. Under the leadership of Andropov, the agency was able to regain its previous prestige and autonomy.

The discussion provided clearly reveals that the KGB was a highly penetrative agency that had vast amounts of power over the state and the society. The paper concludes by discussing the activities that led to the collapse of the powerful KGB.

Introduction

The Russian Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti (KGB) was the Russian secret political police that gained worldwide repute for its efficiency in covert affairs. The KGB is regarded as the “most efficient political police system in modern history” (Waller 333). Historians record that the KGB system was so effective that other totalitarian states structured their own political police systems after it in order to enhance their grasp of power.

This security agency was able to survive for decades and play an instrumental part in reinforcing the position of Communism in Russia. White and Kryshtanovskaya assert that the KGB acted as a guarantor of a system of single-party dominance in Russia (170). Up until its dissolution, the KGB was used as a tool for countering internal and external threats to the state.

To effectively execute its directives, the KGB possessed exceptional powers, which were often abused leading to a repression of individual freedoms and violation of human rights both in Russia and abroad. Considering the huge significance that the KGB had in Russian life for over 8 decades, this paper will endeavor to provide an informative discussion on the KGB.

It will discuss the creation and evolution of these security apparatus and highlight the role that it played in Communist Russia. The paper will conclude by highlighting the downfall of this once mighty security apparatus.

Origins of the KGB

The birth of the KGB can be traced to December 1917 when the newly empowered Bolshevik regime in Russia created a police system that was to act as the party’s machine for destroying all opposition (Waller 334). A number of the prominent factors in Russia at the time made the formation of a secret political police necessary. To begin with, the Bolshevik party came to power following a coup against the Tsar.

During its reign, the Tsar made use of a security service that constantly infiltrated the Bolshevik Party. The Bolshevik party therefore took power in an atmosphere of conspiracy and mistrust with factions being formed and the leadership undermined by party members and non-members. A means for consolidating the Bolshevik’s supremacy was needed and the secret political police provided a solution.

Thus, the KGB was founded in 1917 as the Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution (Cheka) and the commission was required to fulfill a number of key responsibilities on behalf of the regime. The core responsibility was to stop all attempts and acts of counterrevolution in the motherland and execute judgment over any counterrevolutionary elements without involving the judicial system.

The agency was also to work out ways of stopping any rebellious elements and make investigations to help in their suppression. The organization was also mandated to set up surveillance over potential saboteurs and impose sanctions against these enemies of the people.

From the initial goal of suppressing the few counterrevolutionary elements in the state, the Cheka expanded its mandate and went into killing political and military opponents of the Bolshevik party.

The Cheka operated with total impunity and citizens were publicly executed for minor violations of the rigid laws set in place by the Party (Waller 335). Such atrocities were allowed to happen since they assisted the Bolshevik party in its power consolidation campaign.

These actions led to a popular opposition to the Bolshevik party and ordinary citizens expressed resistance to the authoritarian rule. This deep resentment to the Bolshevik party rule across the Russian society led to random attack on party officials by ordinary citizens and counterrevolutionaries.

In retaliation to such attacks, the political police apparatus engaged in mass executions and a myriad of terror tactics against innocent civilians. Under Lenin’s rule, the agency carried out executions of entire classes of the population. Population categories such as clergymen, ethnic groups, socialist rivals, and farmers were targeted and killed within a short duration (Waller 335).

At the end of the Civil War, the Cheka began to be viewed as a liability. The terrorization that the commission had engaged in during the Civil War made many Russians hate the commission. In addition to his, many Bolshevik leaders were horrified by the actions of the Cheka and they sought to bind its actions in any form of legality.

There was therefore an intention to reform the security police force and make it more agreeable to the public. The Cheka was therefore abolished and in its place, the State Political Directorate (GPU) was created. This new organization continued carrying out the work of the Cheka albeit under a different name.

Knight documents that while the GPU purported to have less power than the Cheka and was actually under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the organization still answered to the Party and maintained all the powers of its predecessor, the Cheka (14).

The GPU was separated from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1923 and renamed OGPU. A year later, Lenin died and the new leader Stalin started using the OGPU as a weapon against his political rivals. The status of the agency rose with Stalin giving it power above the party apparatus.

By giving the agency such great power, Stalin was able to perpetrate great terror on the citizens and an estimated 14.5 million peasants died between 1930 and 1933 (Dziak 38). Stalin continued to use the OGPU to eliminate prominent party figures and Army officials whom he perceived as threats.

The OGPU was further restructured by merging it with the interior ministry to create the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). The NKVD wielded enormous power and Stalin’s dominance of these police apparatus gave him near absolute power in Russia.

The KGB

The death of Stalin on March 1953 necessitated a change in the security organization. The new leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, embarked on a mission to de-Stalinize the country and one of his goals was to diminish the power of the security organs.

These reforms were backed by Party leaders who were keen to ensure that the security organization would never again be at the command of one man as it had been under Stalin. The political police system was therefore split and renamed the Committee for State Security (KGB) with loyal communists appointed to run it in order to bring the agency under strict party control (Sakwa 125).

The Russian secret political police maintained its new name from 1954 until its final disbanding by Boris Yeltsin in 1991. The KGB was veiled in secrecy and its protocols and budget were kept secret.

There was no oversight from the legislative arm of the government and control of the organization rested with top party officials. The deep relationship between the KGB and the Party can be seen from the fact that the heads of the KGB top organs were highly placed members of the Party.

A significant difference between the KGB and its predecessor the NKVD was that the surveillance abilities of the KGB were curtailed. Specifically, the KGB was forbidden from spying on Party officers or carrying out operations against them.

The Party officials enforced these restrictions since they wanted to remove the danger to themselves that the police system had presented under Stalin’s reign. The powers of the agency were also reduced and government officials such as judges and the State procurators were placed out of KGB reach.

During Khrushchev’s rule, the KGB was placed under strict party control. Even so, the agency was still used as a tool by Khrushchev to gain control within the party. Without support from the KGB, Khrushchev was successfully deposed in 1964 and Brezhnev took his post as Party Secretary.

After Brezhnev took over, KGB leadership was reshuffled with some of the agency’s responsibilities being given to the Party. The KGB was placed under even firmer Party control leading to a period of relative tranquility and stability for the party and the KGB.

The KGB was not only responsible for domestic security intelligence but also foreign intelligence. As such, this agency was involved in numerous intelligence and counterintelligence activities. Fleron and Hoffmann contend that the KGB operated the world’s largest and most far-reaching foreign intelligence apparatus with numerous intelligence officers being placed in most Western nations (467).

The KGB did not have trouble recruiting personnel for its foreign missions since the high salaries acted as adequate incentives for the vast pool of eligible Russian youths. The US was the target of most of the KGB’s intelligence gathering efforts and up to 40% of Soviet officials engage in intelligence gathering were placed in the US (Fleron and Hoffmann 467).

The Andropov Era

A new era for the KGB emerged under the leadership of Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov from 1964 to 1982. Dziak documents that the agency experienced a remarkable transformation during the leadership of Andropov (52). The KGB’s power had been significantly weakened in the years following the death of Stalin.

The agency no longer commanded the authority and influence that it had exerted from its formation in 1917. Albats and Fitzpatrick articulate the revolutionary nature of Andropov’s leadership by noting that “it was precisely with the coming of Andropov, that the KGB once again became the state within a state it had been in the pre-Khrushchev era” (176).

Steps were taken to professionalize the KGB by raising educational standards among recruits and establishing numerous scientific and research facilities. Andropov’s era in the KGB was marked by a greater orientation towards electronic espionage. Because of this, the KGB played a role in the technological advancement of Russia’s military during the 1980s.

Through its intelligence network, the agency collected significant Western military technology and this was passed on to the relevant military entities who used it to improve the soviet military. The success of these collection efforts lightened the burden on Soviet research and improved the technical performance of Soviet military equipment (Fleron and Hoffmann 469).

Because of these professionalization efforts, the KGB took on additional roles within the Communist party. In addition to the security roles fulfilled by the organization, it started to perform ideological, governance, and economic roles. Intensified crackdown on dissidents was also carried out through an expansive labor camp system and increased surveillance of Soviet society (Dziak 159).

The KGB developed a countrywide system of secret informants completely infiltrated the society. These informants reported incidents of even the slightest dissent and retaliatory action was taken against the offenders. To create an atmosphere of unease and apprehension, the KGB encouraged voluntary informers in every segment of Russian society.

The voluntary informers proved to be a valuable asset since they gave the impression that the organization possessed an all-seeing eye. In this way, the KGB was able to isolate the individual to the extent that people could not trust each other.

The KGB had been demoted in 1956 but through Andropov’s efforts, the KGB was once again elevated to ministry status in 1978 and this gave the agency jurisdiction all over the USSR. In addition to this, the Soviet Constitution was amended which made cooperation with the KGB a duty of all Soviet citizens.

Failing to comply with the KGB was a crime against the state and severe penalties were served to offenders. These new powers allowed Andropov to instigate a highly sophisticated system of control within the USSR.

Andropov was able to reinvent the KGB as an uncorrupt institution that was necessary for the stability of the state. By the late 1970s, the KGB began an intensive crackdown on corruption in the country. Many investigations were carried out and party officials were implicated in scandals.

Deriabin and Bagley report that these ambitious crackdowns against corrupt party officials signaled the height of the KGB’s power with its leader, Andropov, being seen as a likely candidate for Party leadership (85). Andropov’s death in 1984 marked an end to the recreation of the counterintelligence state that Andropov had successfully achieved in less than two decades.

The KGB during Gorbachev’s Leadership

Following Andropov’s death, the KGB remained instrumental in Party affairs and it played a role in the appointment of Chernenko as the new General Secretary. When Chernenko died in 1985, the KGB backed Gorbachev who took the position of General Secretary.

Ebon documents that Gorbachev came to power with KGB backing and in his first years in power, his policies were but fresh implementations of Andropov’s blueprint (39). Considering the relationship between Gorbachev and the KGB, Gorbachev tried to make use of the secret police while avoiding the danger of being used by it.

Gorbachev and the KGB chief Chebriko fell out in 1988 owing to a difference in opinion between the two. Gorbachev wanted to reform the state and the KGB to adhere to liberal principles. Chebriko considered liberal principles an attack on the state and felt that authoritarian control from the top was necessary to stabilize the country (Ebon 40).

Chebriko disapproved of some of Gorbachev’s actions including the freeing of the distinguished dissident Andrei Sakharov who had been under KGB house arrest. These differences led to the replacement of Chebriko by Kryuchkov who would remain hold the position of KGB chief until 1991. Kryuchkov did not hinder the political and legal reforms that Gorbachev embarked on.

Demise of the KGB

The KGB’s demise was initiated by the series of changes initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev to reform the USSR. Before the creation of a standing parliament by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989, few people dared to challenge the KGB. Individuals who called for change in the KGB were mostly dissidents and the international human rights community.

White and Kryshtanovskaya observe that these changes saw the KGB placed under the scrutiny of a parliamentary committee. The agency’s finances were placed under the control of the state auditor with an official budget of the KGB being made public (169). The KGB began to adopt a more public oriented approach and it even opened a public relations office in 1991.

By late 1991, the surveillance capabilities of the KGB were curtailed and the agency made a public announcement that it would no longer engage in the invasive practice of monitoring conversations of private citizens. In spite of these changes to fit in with the times, the KGB was heavily implicated in the attempted coup of August 1991.

The Chairman of the agency, Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov, was a prominent member of the abortive coup and he was accused of organizing a crime against the state (White and Kryshtanovskaya 170). Because of this, the KGB was placed under the jurisdiction of the Russian presidency and by October, the agency had altogether disappeared. It was replaced by a group of new security agencies that were headed by reformers.

Conclusion

This paper set out to provide an in-depth discussion of the infamous political enforcement system, the KGB. The paper began by providing a historical overview of the agency. It traced the agency’s history with a detailed review of the KGB’s predecessors.

The paper has outlined how KGB officials on orders from party leadership engaged in the murder of innocent people, deprived citizens of basic freedoms and created a society of spies and informers. Through these activities, the KGB was able to play the role of guarantor of single-party dominance in Russia. In addition to the intelligence services in the country, the KGB was also reputed for its espionage abroad.

The paper has also discussed how the KGB was able to engage in internal and external changes to remain important in Russian leadership. It concluded by highlighting the events that led to the eventual demise of the once powerful secret political police organization.

From the discussions presented in the paper, it is clear that the KGB did not serve society; rather it served the ruling party and its leaders. The Russian leaders were able to successfully keep the KGB powerful and effective while at the same time maintaining its loyalty and subservience.

Works Cited

Albats, Yevgenia and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. The state within a state: The KGB and its hold on Russia – Past, Present, and Future. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. Print.

Deriabin, Peter, and Bagley Tahid. The KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1990. Print.

Dziak, John. Chekistry: A history of the KGB. Lexington: Lexington Books, 1988. Print.

Ebon, Martin. KGB: Death and Rebirth. NY: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994. Print.

Fleron, Fredric and Erik Hoffmann. Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917-1991: Classic and Contemporary Issues. Boston: Transaction Publishers, 1991. Print.

Knight, Amy. The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Print.

Sakwa, Richard. Soviet Politics: In Perspective. NY: Routledge, 1998. Print.

Waller, Michael. “Russia: Death and Resurrection of the KGB”. Demokratizatsiya 12.3 (2004): 333-355. EBSCOHost.com. Web.

White, Stephen and Ol’ga Kryshtanovskaya. “Public attitudes to the KGB: A research note”. Europe-Asia Studies 45.1 (1993): 169-176. Print.

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