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...
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It is significant to understand what the KGB was and what it did, since this book is centered around the actions of this organization. The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its collapse in 1991. The KGB was also considered to have been a military service and was governed by army laws and regulations. Its main focuses included foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, operative-investigatory activities, guarding the State Boarder of the USSR and the leadership of the Soviet Government, organization and ensuring of government communications as well as fighting off nationalism and anti-Soviet activities. The KGB failed to rebuild most of its U.S. illegal resident networks, and the last major illegal resident was betrayed by his own assistant in 1957. Recruitment then put emphasis on mercenary agents. This approach was successful in espionage that was specifically scientific...
Crowley, Robert. "The Cold War Museum." Cold War Museum. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2014.
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