The KGB had the following departments: Foreign Intelligence, Domestic Counterintelligence, Army Administration, Border Guard Administration, General Affairs, and the KGB's Foreign Stations Group, which included Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB. At one time, the KGB system staff amounted to more than 500,000 people, including 10,000 in the headquarters authorities, 200,000 in the departments of espionage, counter-espionage and technical support, and 300,000 in the border guards. In addition, there were 1.5 million informants throughout the country, 250,000 spies abroad, and an annual budget of $10 billion. The KGB has always been the main department responsible for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence work, counter-intelligence work, domestic security work and border defense, and is a "super-agency" above the party, government and military departments, which is responsible only to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the USSR***. The KGB was described by British intelligence as "the world's largest spy agency for collecting secret information". Along with the U.S. CIA, Israel's Mossad and Britain's MI6, it is known as the world's four largest spy organizations.
December 1917 All-Russian Lustration Committee (Cheka)
February 1922 State Political Defense Bureau
July 1923 General Directorate of State Political Defense
July 1934 General Directorate of State Security
February 1941 Department of People's Commissars for State Security
July 1941 State Security General Directorate
April 1943 Ministry of the People's Commissariat for State Security
March 1946 Ministry of State Security
October 1947-November 1951 Ministry of State Security (Foreign Intelligence Agency under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committee)
March 1953 Ministry of the Interior
March 1954 State Security Committee ( KGB)
After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)
Presidium of the Council of the State Security Committee of the USSR
Located in the former KGB headquarters building in Lubyanka
The Council's Presidium consisted of a chairman and ten vice-chairmen, including the two first vice-chairmen. The Chairman and Vice-Chairmen also direct the activities of the local state security organs - the State Security Committees of the franchises*** and states and the district and oblast state security services.
The Plenum of the State Security Committee of the USSR
The Plenum of the State Committee of the USSR, consisting of fifteen to seventeen members, is responsible for the study of the most important issues and the adoption of the corresponding resolutions on them, which enter into force by decree of the Chairman of the State Security Committee. Once the resolutions come into force, they become mandatory for all State security organs. The membership of the Plenum consists of the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen of the State Security Committee, the heads of the main departments and the heads of several local State security bodies. They are appointed and dismissed by decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. By convention, the Chairman of the State Security Committee of Ukraine and the two heads of the State Security Service of the city and region of Moscow and the city and region of Leningrad are traditionally members of the Plenum. According to the regulations, the Whole Committee holds regular meetings once a month, but sometimes more, depending on the urgency and importance of the issue to be discussed. The full committee confirms appointments and removals of cadres on the basis of a list of orders from the National Security Council. Sometimes it hears reports on the most important extraordinary events that have occurred in the country, in the organs and forces of the National Security Council, discusses important resolutions of higher authorities and takes decisions accordingly. As a rule, a wide range of invitees, sometimes as many as 100 or more, are invited to participate in the discussion of issues. The Plenum is the leading organ of the National Security Council, a sort of command school, a form of review and study of the most important issues. The main decisions adopted by the National Committee are valid for a long time, and only the National Committee can cancel the decisions that have already entered into force by its resolutions. The Plenum is an opportunity for an exchange of views among a fairly wide range of heads of the Security Council, and is a useful way and means of making decisions and, above all, of determining the follow-up and monitoring the implementation of resolutions. The resolution will reach all levels of State Security Committee bodies and forces and will serve as a basis for their practical activities in the corresponding areas.
The First Main Directorate
The First Main Directorate is the foreign intelligence and reconnaissance department, which directs the spy agencies abroad and conducts intelligence reconnaissance from the Soviet Union itself, guiding the work of the first-line (intelligence and reconnaissance) detachments of the State Security organs in the regions where they are located. The fact that these departments are known as the First General Directorate also emphasizes the paramount importance of the struggle against the enemy abroad.
The Second General Directorate
The Second General Directorate is engaged in counter-espionage intelligence reconnaissance. Since the sixties and the eighties, foreign intelligence reconnaissance work has waxed and waned, all depending on which Soviet line was dominant at the time in terms of its attitude to state organs. Since the end of the 1980s, a practice has evolved whereby not all counterintelligence investigations are centralized in one department. Rather, they were decentralized into several departments according to specific lines of work. However, the Second Main Directorate has always been the main protagonist of the counter-intelligence intelligence reconnaissance sector, which carries out the counter-intelligence struggle and is engaged in work related to foreign representative offices and the tourist system, as well as in certain reconnaissance activities on the territory of the USSR.
The Third Main Directorate
The Third Main Directorate was responsible for stopping the sabotage of the Soviet armed forces by foreign secret services, and led the work of the special service divisions of the military departments and units concerned. It became a General Directorate in the 1970s on the grounds that the work it did in concert with the Ministry of Defense was not only voluminous but also of great significance.
Fourth Directorate
The Fourth Directorate is responsible for the implementation of counter-intelligence intelligence reconnaissance activities in all transportation sectors.
The Fifth Directorate
The Fifth Directorate, which was responsible for the fight against ideological sabotage, was reorganized in 1989 as the "З Directorate". This was far from being a formal initiative. It is no longer engaged in the work of the Fifth Directorate, that is, in countering ideological sabotage, but concentrates all its efforts on investigating and suppressing terrorist and sabotage activities carried out by foreign secret services, which use all available foreign organizations and centers engaged in activities that do not comply with the laws of the Soviet Union for these activities.
Sixth Directorate
The Sixth Directorate is responsible for counter-espionage intelligence reconnaissance of various defense industry targets and certain scientific research centers.
Seventh Directorate
The Seventh Directorate is tasked with conducting out-of-house surveillance on targets of interest to the committee. This is the critical reconnaissance division that is so needed in all directions of National Security Council operations. In terms of numbers, the Bureau is quite large, and its main characteristic is its constant combat readiness so that it can carry out its tasks day and night. It is thanks to the activity of this department that it is possible to regularly detect and stop the espionage activities of foreign secret services, to determine their criminal connections, and to ascertain their intentions to penetrate into the vital departments of the USSR, to communicate with Soviet citizens, to carry out covert operations, and to obtain information by visual means.
General Directorate VIII
General Directorate VIII is responsible for the preparation of secret code sets for communications between headquarters organs and local organs, as well as for communications between intelligence and reconnaissance organs and intelligence agencies stationed abroad. The Directorate has modern technical and scientific equipment for the development of a coded communications system that effectively guarantees the coded communications of the National Security Council and absolutely guarantees that such communications will work around the clock at any distance from the headquarters offices. There is only one way of obtaining secret code sets, and that is through spies. The labor intensity of the radio operators and code interpreters is extremely heavy, and one, two, or at the most three persons have to ensure at all times and in all places the liaison between the intelligence agencies stationed abroad and the headquarters organs. The working conditions are not easy, and life is made very arduous and boring by the necessity of complying with a strict regime, which is also inconvenient, because, the enemy secret services have a great interest in the radio operators and code interpreters.
The Ninth Bureau
The Ninth Bureau was entrusted with defense functions. It was responsible for guaranteeing the security of the country's senior leaders, ceremonial occasions of the highest national profile, visits of foreign delegations and trips of Soviet delegations. Guarding the Kremlin government offices, the Council of Ministers building, and a number of other targets, including local targets far from Moscow, such as the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and several targets in other areas, fall under their mandate. In 1990, the Ninth Directorate was reorganized into the Protection Directorate, and the structure was changed to divide it precisely into two types of services: one engaged in management and the other in operational activities. The labor of the staff of the Defense Bureau is intense: always vigilant, always attentive, always ready, and thoroughly dedicated to everything they do, because at any moment there are unpleasant contingencies. Of course. They also have to adapt to the characteristics of their work and the personalities of the people they are defending, and to the circumstances surrounding the targets whose security needs to be guaranteed. In general, the security of a visiting delegation is a particularly difficult task. , because we are not the hosts there, but no one will relieve us of our responsibility. We simply cannot count entirely on the guards of our hosts, because in the event of an unforeseen incident, it is we who are ultimately primarily responsible, and not only for official duties, but also for moral duties. The exercise of the function of guarding is a complex occupation which requires instinct, ability and good physical training. The staff of the Directorate, as a rule, do not perform this work for a long time, but after a certain period of time are transferred to other directions of operational activity, where the work requires less mental and physical strain.
The Tenth Division
The Tenth Division is a centralized repository of statistical documentation and archival information on the operations of the state security agencies accumulated during the Soviet period, as well as in the pre-Soviet period. For this reason, it is often referred to as the "archive" in the conversation of the staff. The archives of the State Security Committee are an organized system for the preservation of all kinds of materials, which are classified by subject and chronology according to the rules of the strict classification system, which ensures the unconditional storage of materials and the rapid retrieval of the required documents. Until August 1991, the staff of the department guaranteed the collection of State secrets thanks to the strict rules governing the use of archives in the USSR, and there were no problems. At the same time, unfortunately, in the archival policy, in the archival legislation, there are some major omissions and shortcomings: the absence of clear rules on the preservation of certain materials and their duration of publication and use in scholarly writings excludes the possibility of full permissible use, closes off the avenues for political speculation using archival materials that can be considered a state secret and their unverified transfer to the mass media, and the consequences of these two actions are often The consequences of these two actions are often irremediable. Since the end of the 1980s, the staff of the Tenth Branch has carried out a careful analysis of a number of events and fragments of the activities of certain subjects, State bodies and other organizations. Their analyses, summaries and conclusions were of great importance and were reported to the leaders of the country, who also took corresponding decisions on the basis of their reports in relation to certain real-life issues. The archival materials have helped to fill in many blanks, to bring a certain openness to rather delicate issues, and to make it possible to cite authentic materials for viewing and solving certain problems, either involving citizens of the Soviet Union or of other countries. The fact that the Security Council's archival service has organized the materials in numerical symbols and in numerical order, and that the reader notices that some of the serial numbers are missing, is not an effort to hide a particular department. Rather, this is what the Security Council has traditionally done, allowing for default entries in departmental numbering. Sometimes they were filled in, and sometimes they reappeared when organizational changes occurred in the Safety Board establishment. Eleventh Directorate (Division): the default department
Twelfth Division
The Twelfth Division, about whose work there are many incredible rumors and all kinds of rumors about its work as a state security agency carrying out "comprehensive surveillance" of Soviet citizens and foreigners. This refers to technical eavesdropping, which is the technical means by which the State security agencies carry out particularly important reconnaissance measures. Such methods have always been used by foreign secret services and were also employed in the Soviet Union. The examination of cases concerning the most important aspects of the life of the country and involving the interests of national security requires unusual methods and methods of reconnaissance, and wiretapping is one of them. It is carried out under strictly defined conditions on the basis of by-laws confirmed by the superiors and declared in force by order of the State Security Committee. On more than one occasion, wiretapping has assisted us in identifying the extremely dangerous actions of criminals, helping us to intercept contacts and communications of interest to the State security agencies and giving us access to information that would not otherwise be available. Prior to the end of the 1980s, this issue was not legally regulated in the necessary form, so that the information obtained through this channel was utilized in a non-disclosable manner and was not made available to the Public Prosecutor's Office and the courts. Such information was to be corroborated by other subsequent acts, of course, when it was possible to do so. Such information is particularly useful in the detection of cases such as homicide, embezzlement of large sums of State and public **** property, smuggling, speculation in foreign currencies, unlawful access to vital State secrets and their transfer to foreign representatives. The work of the Twelfth Branch requires specialized technical equipment, professional training, and the ability to determine what information is required and to organize it. The staff of this branch is sometimes expected to know more than the average investigator and to fill in gaps in the operational activities of detection. Often, the capabilities of this unit are the only means of obtaining certain information that would never be available to the national security agencies by other means. The subtlety of this work also lies in the fact that, in the course of their work on certain targets, investigators may, quite by accident, come across information that has nothing to do with the person requesting the investigation, or that relates to persons occupying high-level positions of responsibility in the country, whose conversations are prohibited by law from being listened to. What can be done at this point? On the one hand, there is a ban on listening to such persons, while on the other hand, we sometimes obtain clear evidence of illegal or even criminal activity on their part and cannot stop there. In such cases, we were obliged to report the information we had obtained to a higher level of authority within the USSR and to ask for permission to use it and to continue our work. This attitude, which stems from the demands of national interests, is not usually regarded as a violation of human rights, as just mentioned, and has not been and will not be regarded as a violation of human rights, because it is the interests of the State and of society that compel us to do so. 13. 13th Directorate (Division): default department 14. 14th Directorate (Division): default department
15th Directorate
The 15th Directorate was engaged in the design, construction and management of certain targets according to the required regimes, which were prepared for special periods, i.e. for the eventuality of the outbreak of military operations and the occurrence of other unforeseen circumstances. In Moscow and its suburbs and in certain other parts of the USSR, targets agreed upon in absolute secrecy for use during special periods were built. They included reserve command posts for the command of the State and the armed forces, indispensable stockpiles, government communications hubs and other facilities that supported the life of the State in a state of emergency, ensured that the State functioned more or less normally and, in short, maintained the viability of the State in a state of emergency. It is, of course, self-evident that the facilities of the targets, which require corresponding scientific and technical conclusions based on the principle of minimum indispensability, are designed to protect against nuclear attack, but that their survival rate would be highly questionable in the event of a direct hit by a large nuclear warhead. Nevertheless, a certain part of the target would be preserved, thus safeguarding the manageability of the country to some extent. It is impossible to safeguard the security of the country and its most important objectives without the above facilities. Starting from the capabilities of the Soviet Union, we do not strongly advocate catching up in all respects with the United States, which possesses enormous potential and strength. But the above facilities are the minimum that must be had.
The Sixteenth Directorate
The work of the Sixteenth Directorate is quite close to that of the Eighth General Directorate, and it possesses the most outstanding intellectual potential for solving technical and scientific problems. It is responsible for collecting open and secret information and solving extremely complex tasks related to penetrating important targets in other countries of interest to the Soviet Union. The Directorate has many high-level inventions, which require profound knowledge, essential technical equipment and technical means. There is a group of high-level specialists working in this department who could well be the pride of the Soviet Union's scientific and technical community. The 18th Directorate is not confined to its own small circle, but has extensive contacts with the Soviet industrial sector and scientific research institutions, utilizing its potential to assist the latter in carrying out various scientific tasks. When working on specific tasks, they were demanding, hard-working, resourceful, ingenious, and full of a strong desire for eternal pursuit, and, above all, they worked out simply incredible solutions to tasks that, at first glance, seemed to be a figment of human ingenuity. There are departments of the National Security Council that relentlessly pursue and aspire to a higher level, and the 16th Directorate is one of them, and an extremely important link on the road to best practices in solving the riddles of scientific and technological puzzles, without which it would be impossible to guarantee the national security of the USSR at all in our time.
General Directorate of Border Troops
The General Directorate of Border Troops leads the border military districts, border troops and posts. The headquarters organ of the Border Troops was small, but the total number of border guards exceeded 220,000 men. For a large country with long borders like the Soviet Union, this was the minimum number allowed by realistic needs. At the end of the 1980s there was an urgent need to expand the border guard units, improve their material conditions, and give them additional financial inputs. The border guards already accounted for half of the total expenditures of the State Security Committee's budget, and a considerable part of it was spent on the technical equipment of the border: military technical arms, construction of targeting facilities, communications and liaison, and the salaries of the major units.
Reconnaissance Technical Directorate
The Reconnaissance Technical Directorate is the vanguard of the design, development, production and operation of specialized technological tools, and the department with the highest concentration of the results of scientific thought, the highest technological craftsmanship, and unique technical solutions. Relatively few of the Bureau's products are developed and produced in volume, and they tend to be individual products, which are designated to fulfill strictly defined reconnaissance missions. Drawing on the scientific and technological achievements of the Soviet scientific community and industry as a whole, the Reconnaissance Technology Directorate pays close attention to new foreign products in this field and strives to utilize the most valuable of all of them. The products of the Reconnaissance Technical Bureau are doubly secret. If information leaks out, it is possible for an adversary to quickly develop precautions that counteract the effectiveness of our technological capabilities. The Bureau is staffed by dedicated individuals with certain specialties. The NSC generously shared its new inventions with local industry, never offering any quid pro quo, and at the time there was no activity of a commercial nature. It is perfectly realistic to say that without the products of this Bureau, neither the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Agency, nor the Counterintelligence and Reconnaissance Agency, nor any other department of the National Security Council, and above all the Border Guard, would be able to fulfill the tasks facing this department. I believe that this directorate still has a great future ahead of it, but this can become a reality only under one condition: that is, if it absorbs domestic and foreign experience and constantly seeks higher levels of various scientific and technological discoveries.
Editorial Auxiliary Departments
Military Construction Bureau
The Military Construction Bureau (MCD) helps to solve the most complex engineering projects urgently needed by the operational bureaus. Soviet KGB insignia
General Services Directorate
The General Services Directorate serves the operational activities of the National Security Council. In the implementation of extremely complex reconnaissance measures, its fruitful work is inconceivable without material management guarantees, especially in unforeseen circumstances.
Medical Care Directorate
The Medical Care Directorate takes preventive measures for the health of the NSC staff, especially some of those working abroad, due to the environment of the place where they are stationed, and carries out frequent examinations and timely treatment. The Directorate has even developed a set of recommendations for staff going to countries with unfavorable climatic conditions to take physical exercises before leaving the country.
The Dzerzhinsky Higher School
The Dzerzhinsky Higher School provides advanced language training in nearly fifty foreign languages and specialized subject knowledge to its students, as well as training specialists in advanced mathematics, physics, and other disciplines. The State Security Committee has an excellent educational and training network, with higher education available for trainees and specialized training courses for staff to receive specialized knowledge and preparatory training. The National Security Council trains border and communications cadres, code translators, certain technical specialists, and guarantees the preparation and defense of associate and doctoral theses.
Personnel Directorate
The Personnel Directorate manages the cadres in the State Security Committee and has corresponding personnel departments in its units at all levels. It selects and transfers staff, accepts them for work and places them in jobs, promotes them, solves many problems relating to material security, handles vacations and incentives, selects and sends cadres for training and further training, etc., but these are far from being all that the personnel departments of the state security organs do. The most difficult stage of personnel work is the selection and study of candidates for work in the State security organs, because, if a mistake is made at this point, it may be costly at any stage of the person's activity. The Personnel Directorate provides the necessary assistance to the departments of the National Security Council in the analysis of files relating to unforeseen events, including defections of individual staff members, breaches of military discipline, and negligence of duty.
Editing past leaders
The most influential leaders in the history of the KGB were Andropov and Beria, with Andropov ending up as the supreme leader of the USSR and Beria losing a power struggle and being executed by Nikita Khrushchev on charges of treason. Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinski 1917-1926 Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinski (Belarusian language Фел?ск Эдмундав?ч Дзяржынск?, Polish: Feliks Dzier Дзяржынск?, Polish: Feliks Dzierński, Russian: Феликс Эдмундович Дзержинский ) Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Mański 1926-1934 Henrich Grigorievich Jagoda 1934-1936 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1936-1938 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1936-1938 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1936-1938 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1936-1938 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1938-1939 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria 1938-1941 Vsevolod Nikolayevich Melkurov 1941 (February-July) Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria 1941-1943 Beria's relationship with the Sverdlovskis -1943 Beria with Stalin (behind left) and Stalin's daughter
Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkurov 1943-1946 Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov 1946-1951 Sergei Ivanovich Ogoltsov 1951 (August-December) Semyon Denisovich Ignatiev 1951-1953 Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria 1953 (March-June) Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov 1953 -1954 Ivan Alexandrovich Serov 1954-1958 Alexander Nikolayevich Selepin 1958-1961 Vladimir Efimovich Semichasne 1961-1967 Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov 1967-1982 Vitaly Vasilyevich Fedorchuk 1982 (May-December) Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov 1982-1988 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov 1988-1991 Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin August-November 1991 3 Past Heads of the KGB's First Main Directorate (General Directorate of Foreign Intelligence) Mikhail Abramovich Trilisser 1921-1929 Artur Khristianovich Artuzov 1929-1934 Abram Aronovich Slutsky 1934-1938 Mikhail Spiegelgrass 1938 (February-July) Vladimir Georgievich Dekhanozov 1938- 1940 Pavel Mikhailovich Feigin 1940-1946 Peter Vasilyevich Fedotov 1946-1949 Sergei Romanovich Savchenko 1949-1953 Vasily Stepanovich Riassnoy 1953 (March-June) Aristotle Semyonovich Panushkin 1953-1956 Aristotle Mikhailovich Sakharovsky 1956-1971 Fyodor Konstantinovich Molgin 1971 -1971-1974 Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov 1974-1988 Leonid Vladimirovich Shcherbatsyn 1988-1991