KGB
The
KGB, short for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
(Committee for State Security), was the name of the main Soviet Security
Agency and intelligence agency, as well as the main secret police
agency from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991. The KGB's domain was
roughly comparable to that of the American Central Intelligence Agency
combined with the counterintelligence and internal security divisions
of the FBI.
In
March of 1953, Lavrenty Beria united the MVD and MGB into one body,
the MVD. Within a year, Beria was executed and the MVD was split up.
The reformed MVD retained its internal security(police and law enforcement)
functions while the new KGB took on internal and external security
functions. The KGB was subordinated to the Council of Ministers. On
July 5, 1978 the KGB was renamed the "KGB of the USSR" with the KGB
Chairman given a seat on the council.
The
KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its chief, Colonel General
Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt designed to overthrow
Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's resources to aid the
coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim Bakatin was
appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a mandate to dismantle
the KGB. On November 6, 1991 the Russian KGB officially ceased to
exist, though its successor organization, the Federalnaya Sluzhba
Bezopasnosti, or FSB, is functionally extremely similar to the KGB.
Belarus is the only post-Soviet society where the successor organization
continues to be called the KGB. Belarus is also where one of the founders
of the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky—who was born in a town now within Belarusian
territory—remains a national hero.
Some
members of the KGB referred to it as "The committee" while other employees
called it the Kontora Grubykh Banditov, that is, the "association
of crude bandits."
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