KGB

(Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopastnosti)

   The KGB was created on 7 March 1954 as one of Nikita Khrushchev’s major reforms of the Stalinist system. The complete title of the organization, Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopastnosti pri sovete ministrov, “Committee of State Security under the Council of Ministers,” suggested that the security police reported to the government, but in effect it remained under the tutelage of the Communist Party leadership. Under Khrushchev, the KGB chair was not a member of the Communist Party leadership; beginning with the appointment of Yuri Andropov in 1967, senior KGB officers moved into the party leadership at the national and local level.

   Data on KGB staffing are incomplete. In 1991 the KGB was reported to have 486,000 personnel. Of these, approximately one-half were in the Chief Directorate of the Border Guards. The KGB had more officers dedicated to internal security and counterintelligence functions than any other security service, save that of the People’s Republic of China. There is no reliable information on the number of informants employed by the KGB, but several former officials put the number slightly in excess of 10 million.

   While Khrushchev’s reforms sought to reduce the role of the security police in the surveillance of the Communist Party leadership, every party leader from Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev relied on the KGB for close surveillance of the population, as well as for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence. While never obtaining the reputation for ruthlessness of the Stalinist service, the KGB was a highly effective security service, with informants in every corner of Soviet society. Former KGB officers like Russian President Vladimir Putin believe the KGB was the least corrupt of all Soviet institutions. At the national level, this may have been true. In the provinces, however, the KGB often protected corrupt party officials.

   See also KGB organization.