Loyalty to the Party - Loyalty to the Motherland.
This is the motto of the the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy
Bezopasnosti, known to most of us as simply,
the KGB. With a fearsome reputation for ruthless
oppression, for calculated efficiency and
for striking at enemies of the Soviet Union
in order to defend it, the KGB was the Sword
and the Shield of Soviet communism. This state
security apparatus loomed large throughout
the Cold War, so today, we are going to talk
about the history of the organization and
its place in the Soviet Union. I’m your
host David and this is...The Cold War.
Although the KGB was only established in 1954,
the Soviet Union had a state security structure
as well as an intelligence service from its
very inception. Starting with the Cheka in
1917, these organizations went through a number
of transformations, mergers and divisions
before arriving at the KGB that those interested
in the Cold War are so familiar with. To help
understand the KGB, we need to look at the
most prominent of the forerunner organizations,
the NKVD.
The NKVD, as I’m sure most of you are aware,
was the state security organization formed
in 1934 which played such a key role in carrying
out the Stalinist purges and was responsible
for the persecution and death of millions.
It operated both inside and outside the Soviet
Union, infiltrating the COMINTERN to ensure
loyalty to Moscow, establishing and running
spy networks including the Cambridge Five,
and even conducted so-called wet work, including
the assassination of communist rivals, the
most notable being Leon Trotsky.
In early 1941, the NKGB was formed from the
branches of the NKVD dealing with “external
security”. This only lasted until July 1941
when it was quickly rolled back into the NKVD
to ensure quick and most importantly, unified
decision making in the face of the German
attack. In 1943 however, as it began to look
more likely that the Soviet Union could win
the war, the NKGB was reformed.
In 1946, the war now won, a new round of reorganizations
occurred, upgrading both organizations from
People’s Commissariats to full Ministries.
The NKVD was renamed the MVD, the Ministry
of Internal Affairs while the NKGB was renamed
the MGB, the Ministry of State Security. Although
the former was supposed to be focused exclusively
on domestic matters while the latter on external
threats, there was a fair amount of struggle
between the two Ministries as they each tried
to expand their own power and reach, often
by incorporating limited resources from other
ministries. It was at this time that the MVD
oversaw the mini-purges that took place in
the post-war era; notable among them were
the Leningrad Affair and the Doctor’s Plot.
Now, no talk of the Soviet security systems
would of course be complete without mentioning
Lavrenty Beria. In early 1946, Beria had actually
resigned as head of the NKVD but he retained
power and influence over both of the new Ministries
by ensuring the men in leadership positions
at each were “his” men. This did not last
long however, as the Byzantine politics of
Stalinist leadership structures saw new men
not necessarily loyal to Beria gain power
and influence, especially in the MVD. The
advancement of men NOT necessarily loyal to
Beria is now widely recognized as the result
of Stalin’s efforts to limit the power held
by Beria. This demonstrates the scope of influence
the state security apparatuses held in the
Soviet Union of the time; even the Vozhd recognized
the potential threat they could pose.
Ok, so that being said, what happened then
when Stalin died? Well, Beria took almost
immediate steps to recombine the MGB and the
MVD into one single organization. By doing
this, Beria was consolidating his own power,
keeping men loyal to himself in positions
of power. Of course, this is now the perfect
moment to mention that these so-called loyal
men actually led to his downfall, as they
helped betray him, assisting in his arrest
and eventual execution. Ivan Serov, we are
looking at you, but more on him in a minute!
So, as Khrushchev consolidated his own power,
the conclusion that everybody was coming to
was that a unified independent security service
held too much power and was dangerous. Of
course, some form of intelligence gathering
service was still needed, so Sergey Kruglov,
a former Beria deputy by the way, wrote a
letter to the Central Committee of the Communist
Party, arguing for just that, an independent
intelligence service named the Committee on
the Issues of State Security. Inherent to
Kruglov’s suggestion was that the size of
the service be limited in scope and manpower.
The Central Committee approved Kruglov’s
suggestion in February of 1954 and a month
later the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet
of the USSR adopted a directive establishing
the Committee on State Security, the KGB.
And the first head of the new organization?
None other than Colonel General Ivan Serov;
Beria’s former deputy and betrayer. He really
was a horrible human being in his own right.
OK, so let’s talk a little bit about how
the KGB was organized and what made it different
from its predecessors. To begin with, the
KGB had the authority to set up and maintain
its own separate facilities with its own personnel
inside the existing structures of the Soviet
Union, including the autonomous republics
and other territorial units. These facilities
reported independently, to the KGB. It could
also do this within units of the Soviet Armed
Forces, the railway maritime and air transportation
departments as well as Ministry of Internal
Affairs troop formations and border troop
formations.
In addition to this, a new intelligence gathering
group was formed as well as a security body.
These two bodies were tasked with fighting
foreign intelligence services, carrying out
their own intelligence gathering operations
and ensuring the loyalty of the people to
the Soviet state. All of the organization
was directly accountable to the Communist
Party. This was all designed to give senior
leadership independent information as to what
was happening in all areas of the Soviet Union
and beyond in order to maintain the security
of the state. It is much harder to plot insurrection
and dissent when you are always being watched!
Now, since the inception of the KGB, the head
of the organization was always a member of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party,
but they were not allowed into the Politburo
so as to prevent the security services from
gathering as much power around them as Beria
had. Further to this, part of the understanding
at the time the KGB was formed was that the
investigation of party leadership would be
off-limits. They would not be persecuted as
they had been in the years under Stalin.
The KGB during Khrushchev’s tenure as leader
of the USSR saw the Soviet security services
undergo a great deal of reform. The number
of security agents employed was decreased
by more than half and more than 3,500 local
offices were closed. In 1958, Ivan Serov was
removed as head of the organization, replaced
by Aleksandr Shelepin who was notable for
not being a security service man but rather
a party official. He set about redirecting
the energies of the KGB to be more outward
focused rather than internal. He famously
stated that “I want to reorient the KGB
to international affairs, internal affairs
shall be on the 10th Plan (less important)”.
In 1959, in a secret decision by the Central
Committee, the KGB was recognized as a political
organ whose aim was to defend the Socialst
state from external and internal enemies.
It was at this point that the KGB was made
accountable to the Presidium of the Central
Committee. It also adopted its motto, Loyalty
to the Party - Loyalty to the Motherland.
At this time, the Communist Party also became
responsible for organizational and personnel
decisions for the KGB. The Party was to decide
on what operations were to be conducted. Senior
positions in the KGB were regularly filled
by men from the Party and not from the security
service itself. These actions, like others
taken prior, were taken to ensure that the
KGB could not recreate the same level of power
that the NKVD had held but would still be
an effective force for fighting foreign intelligence
service and suppressing internal dissent.
So, this is the establishment of the KGB and
its general structure and position in the
Soviet Union for the majority of the Cold
War period. Before we get into a little bit
of the operational history of the KGB, maybe
just a quick outline of the responsibilities
held by the organization. The KGB, in its
lifetime had departments, called Directorates
that were responsible for foreign intelligence,
internal security and counter intelligence,
ciphering and government communication, protection
of state borders, military counter-intelligence,
transport security, the struggle against anti-Soviet
elements, economic security, the security
of government and Party leaders, the protection
of “special objects”, electronic and radio
surveillance, post surveillance, and the liaison
with the security services of other socialist
states. In addition to that litany of responsibilities,
the KGB had its own armed military units including
naval units, armoured units, air units and
its own special forces troops or spetsnaz.
Given that long list of areas that the KGB
was responsible for, it becomes clear why
Soviet leadership was keen to keep the security
services under control. But, that of course
doesn’t’ mean that the KGB didn’t involve
itself in the power politics of the Soviet
Union. A key example of this is shown by the
removal of Khrushchev from power. Without
giving away too much from a future episode,
although Shelepin had been removed as head
of the KGB in 1961, replaced by a young and
inexperienced Party cadre member by the name
of Vladimir Semichastny, Shelepin remained
as deputy premier in the Soviet government.
Although they were both appointed by Khrushchev,
they ended up supporting Brezhnev in his 1964
ouster of The King of Corn. As I said, you’ll
need to subscribe to the channel to make sure
you don’t miss the episode where we cover
those details! Just know for now that Brezhnev
would not have come to power without the support
of the KGB.
Ok, last little bit before we get to an operational
outline: 1967 saw one major change of focus
for the KGB. Semichastny was replaced by...Yuri
Andropov. Andropov is probably the most influential
KGB chief in the organization's history for
a few reasons. Likely the result of his experiences
as Soviet Ambassador in Budapest in 1956,
Andropov increased the amount of focus the
KGB spent on the suppression of dissidents
inside the Soviet Union and thereby generally
increased the internal focus of the organization.
Andropov is also notable as he became the
first KGB chief to become a Politburo member
in 1973, eventually going on to become the
General Secretary of the Soviet Union in 1982.
Briefly, anyway. So much for the KGB being
non-political.
OK, now the operational stuff. I’m going
to disappoint many of you now and tell you
up front that this won't be talking about
spycraft, or wet work, or any such James Bond
or Stierlitz type actions. We are going to
do future episodes on some individual KGB
operations and operatives but today really
is just about giving an outline so everybody
understands the structure and role of the
KGB. Besides, that way we can do a better
treatment of those topics instead of glossing
over them quickly!
So quickly, a list of significant events and
practices the KGB had a role in. The suppression
of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, being responsible
for the arrest of Hungarian Minister of Defence
Malater Pal, throwing Hungarian Army into
disarray. The 1958 killing in Munich of Ukranian
Nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. The punishment
of the organizers and participants in a 1962
worker strike in Novocherkassk. The 1962 exposure
of Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU officer working for
British Intelligence. The 1968 use of force
to suppress the Prague Spring was largely
backed by Yuri Andropov. The widespread support
of armed leftist movements around the world
was heavily backed by the KGB, resulting in
leftwing governments coming to power or extended
proxy wars in developing nations fighting
US-backed forces. The suppression and persecution
of dissidents inside the Soviet Union, such
as Andrei Sakharov and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
The mixed use of propaganda and enforcement
to block the spread and influence of Western
pop culture in the Soviet Union. Disinformation
and propaganda campaigns in the West to help
influence western political agendas, notably
the anti-Pinochet propaganda campaign, Operation
Toucan. And of course, the recruitment of
Western security officers, government officials,
and technical experts as spies.
So as I said, each of these deserves an episode
on their own, some of them several episodes!
Let us know in the comments which you’d
like to know about the most and we can take
that into consideration for future episodes!
To summarize all this though, the KGB certainly
had a ferocious reputation but it is often
conflated with the reputation of its predecessor,
the NKVD. Don’t get me wrong, the KGB was
still an organization that executed political
repression, just not on the scale of the NKVD.
It was an organization that acted out the
political consensus of the senior leadership
of the USSR. It was a powerful organization
that extended its influence through all facets
of Soviet life. The KGB will become a regular
player in our stories as the channel continues
to move forward so we hope that this has given
you some context in which to view its role.
We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s topic and
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