The Komitet Gosudarstevennoi Bezopasnosti, the English translation of which is “State Security Committee,” was known worldwide as the “KGB” and functioned as the USSR’ security police from 1954 to 1991.
There were many KGB directorates, each of which had its own area of expertise and had responsibility for one of the organization’s major objectives.
These objectives fall into four general categories:
- Protection of the USSR’s internals security through preventing if possible, or suppressing, where prevention was impossible, political dissent and exposing economic crimes.
- Implementation of the USSR’s foreign policy
- Maintenance of security at the USSR’s borders
- Political surveillance of the USSR’s armed forces
On the years that followed, the Soviet security police under went several changes of name and structure but remained politically important.
In particularly, the security police played significant roles in the development and maintenance of power by Lenin and Stalin.
In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev became first Secretary of the USSR and established the KGB as part of his effort to de-Stalinize his country.
While Stalin’s regime was noted for its wholesale exercise of repression, Khrushchev’s aim was to switch to Party control and enforcement of Party policy.
Under Khrushchev’s 1955 to 1964 regime, there were legal reforms, including establishment of criminal codes and procedures that limited the KGB’s investigatory powers.
However, these codes were soon amended in a manner that expanded the KGB’s investigatory powers and functions.
The power of KGB increased further during the years when Brezhnev was the USSR’s political leader from 1964 to 1982, and his protégé Yuri Andropov was the KGB’s chairman.
The nature of the KGB changed again in 1986, when the USSR’s political leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, instituted numerous changes that reduced the KGB’s influence.
As part of the dissolution of the USSR, Gorbachev dismantled the KGB in 1991.
History of KGB
