The KGB
Throughout the years most country's governments have established some sort of secret police. No matter what the government called it, whether it is the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or her Majesty's secret service (MI6), whatever name the government used, the international term of "secret police" could always be applied. Many agencies of secret police have had their success and failures, some more than others. The KGB, which in English means "the Committee of Public Safety," has had their share of both successes and failures. Most secret police agencies have been used primarily to obtain information from other countries. This was also a primary goal for the KGB, but one of their other goals, which was just as important, was to keep unwanted outside information from the Russian people. This was only one out of many the KGB's objectives. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to prove that the actions of the KGB were, all in all, a success.
The currently named KGB was founded by Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in 1917 under the name of the "Cheka." This Cheka was the name of Russia's first secret police after the rule of the Tsar's. The full name of these secret police was "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation" (Deriabin, KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union XI). The Cheka would eventually evolve into the KGB in 1954. However, between the years of 1917 and 1954 the KGB was given a variety of different names. Next in line, after the Cheka, was the OGPU. This lasted from 1926 to 1934 and was headed by Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky. In 1934 it became the NKVD which lasted until 1941 when it was named the NKGB. The NKGB only lasted seven months until it was renamed has the NKVD and it kept that name for another two years. Through the years of 1943 and 1954 it was called the MGB until it finally adopted its final name, the KGB, which has laster to this day since 1954. No matter what the name given to it, or the year the name was given, the KGB was still the same thing once one got down to the hardcore facts.
The Cheka came to be in 1917 after the "Glorious October Revolution." In April of 1918 it was positive made certain that the power seized...
... middle of paper ...
...li. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York, NY. Basic Books. 1999.
Bledowska, Celina and Bloch, Jonathan. KGB/CIA. New York, NY. Bison Books Corp. 1987.
Channon, John. Historical Atlas of Russia. London, United Kingdom. Penguin Publishing. 1995.
Donnelly, Christopher and Erickson, John. Russian Military Power. New York, NY. Salamander Books. 1980.
Deriabin, Peter. KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union. New York, NY. Hippocrene Books. 1990.
Harkavy, Michael D. Websters International Encyclopedia. Richmond Hill, Ontario. Trident Press International. 1991.
Knight, Amy W. The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union. Winchester, MA. Unwin Hyman Inc. 1988.
Pincus, Walter. Russian Spies On Rise. [online] available at http://www.matn.uvt.ro/be/archive/newspapers/wp200999.html. September 21, 1999
Works Cited
Andrew Christopher and Mitrokhin, Vasali. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York, NY. Basic Books. 1999.
Deriabin, Peter. KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union. New York, NY. Hippocrene Books. 1990.
Moss, W., 2014. A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. 1st ed. London, England: Anthem Press London, pp.112-113.
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
Sulick, Michael J.. Spying in America espionage from the Revolutionary War to the dawn of the Cold War., Georgetown University Press, 2012
SoRelle, Larry Madaras and James. Unit 3 The Cold War and Beyond. McGraw-Hill, 2012. Book.
"Stalin, Joseph." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Ed. William A. Darity, Jr. 2nd ed. Vol. 8. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. 86-87. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
Hall, Claire M. An Army of Spies? The Gestapo Spy Network 1933-45, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 2009)
Fiehn, Terry, and Chris Corin. Communist Russia under Lenin and Stalin. London: John Murray, 2002. Print.
John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev deciphered KGB documents in order to present ideas about Soviet espionage in the U.S. during the time of the Cold War. This book covered the basic tactics and drive behind Americans who spied for the Soviet Union. This source concentrated on uncovering the unexpected U.S. spies on the Soviet’s side and the rise and fall of the KGB due to the penetration of America’s government during the Cold War.
Crowley, Robert. "The Cold War Museum." Cold War Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
During the Cold War Soviet Union had a secret police called Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopanosit or KGB for short. The KGB was established in March of 1954. They were designed to be a state security committee and was attached to the Council of Ministers. The KGB was the world’s largest spy and state-security machine. They were involved in all aspects of life of everyone in the Soviet Union.
Kallen, Stuart A. Primary Sources: The Cold War. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2003. Print. American War Library.
The Central Intelligence Agency The CIA is one of the U.S. foreign intelligence agencies, responsible for getting and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. government. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Department's Defense Intelligence Agency comprise the other two. Its headquarters is in Langley, Virginia, across the Potomac River from D.C. The Agency, created in 1947 by President Harry S. Trueman, is a descendant of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War 2. The OSS was dissolved in October 1945 but William J. Jonavan, the creator of the OSS, had submitted a proposal to President Roosevelt in 1944.
The Great Terror, an outbreak of organised bloodshed that infected the Communist Party and Soviet society in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), took place in the years 1934 to 1940. The Terror was created by the hegemonic figure, Joseph Stalin, one of the most powerful and lethal dictators in history. His paranoia and yearning to be a complete autocrat was enforced by the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the communist police. Stalin’s ambition saw his determination to eliminate rivals such as followers of Leon Trotsky, a political enemy. The overall concept and practices of the Terror impacted on the communist party, government officials and the peasants. The NKVD, Stalin’s instrument for carrying out the Terror, the show trials and the purges, particularly affected the intelligentsia.
Naranjo, Robert . "eHistory.com: Historical analysis of the Cold War." eHistory.com. N.p., 6 May 2003. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
The. Platt, Kevin M. F. and David Brandenberger, eds., pp. 113-117. Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda. Madison: U of Wisconsin Press, 2006.