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| Chronology of Soviet security agencies | ||||||||||||||||
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There were a succession ofSoviet secret police agencies over time. TheOkhrana was abolished by theProvisional government after thefirst revolution of 1917, and the firstsecret police after theOctober Revolution, created byVladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka" (ЧК). Officers were referred to as "chekists", a name that is still informally applied to people under theFederal Security Service of Russia, theKGB's successor in Russia after thedissolution of the Soviet Union.
For most agencies listed here, secret policing operations were only part of their function; for instance, theKGB was both a secret police and anintelligence agency.
February 6, 1922: Cheka transforms into GPU, a department of the NKVD of the Russian SFSR.
November 15, 1923: GPU leaves the NKVD and becomes all-union OGPU under direct control of theCouncil of People's Commissars of the USSR.
July 10, 1934: NKVD of the Russian SFSR ceases to exist and transforms into the all-union NKVD of the USSR; OGPU becomesGUGB ("Main Directorate for State Security") in the all-union NKVD.
February 3, 1941: The GUGB of the NKVD was briefly separated out into the NKGB, then merged back in, and then on April 14, 1943, separated out again.
March 18, 1946: AllPeople's Commissariats were renamed toMinistries.
The East German secret police, theStasi, took their name from this iteration.
May 30, 1947: Official decision with the expressed purpose of "upgrading coordination of different intelligence services and concentrating their efforts on major directions". In the summer of 1948 the military personnel in KI were returned to theSoviet military to reconstitute foreign military intelligence service (GRU). KI sections dealing with the newEast Bloc and Soviet émigrés were returned to the MGB in late 1948. In 1951 the KI returned to the MGB.
March 5, 1953: MVD and MGB are merged into the MVD byLavrentiy Beria.
March 13, 1954: Newly independent force became theKGB, as Beria was purged and the MVD divested itself again of the functions of secret policing. After renamings and tumults, the KGB remained stable until 1991.
In the aftermath of the1991 Soviet coup attempt, when theState Emergency Committee failed to overthrowGorbachev andYeltsin took over, GeneralVadim Bakatin was given instructions to dissolve the KGB.
In Russia today, KGB functions are performed by theForeign Intelligence Service (SVR), theFederal Counterintelligence Service which later became theFederal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) in 1995, and theFederal Protective Service (FSO). TheGRU continues to operate as well.
| Organization | Chairman | Dates |
|---|---|---|
 ChekaЧека | Felix Dzerzhinsky | 1917–1918[2] |
| Jēkabs Peterss | July 7–August 22 1918 (act.) | |
| Felix Dzerzhinsky | 1918–1922 | |
.svg) GPUГПУ | Felix Dzerzhinsky | 1922–1923 |
| OGPU ОГПУ | Felix Dzerzhinsky | 1923–1926 |
| Vyacheslav Menzhinsky | 1926–1934 | |
| Genrikh Yagoda | May–Jul 1934 | |
 NKVDНКВД | Genrikh Yagoda | 1934–1936 |
| Nikolai Yezhov | 1936–1938 | |
| Lavrentiy Beria | 1938–1941 | |
.png) NKGBНкгб | Vsevolod Merkulov | Feb–Jul 1941 |
| NKVD НКВД | Lavrentiy Beria | 1941–1943 |
| NKGB Нкгб | Vsevolod Merkulov | 1943–1946 |
.svg) MGBМГБ | Vsevolod Merkulov | March 15–March 18 1946 |
| Viktor Abakumov | 1946–1951 | |
| Sergei Ogoltsov | July 14–August 9 1951 (act.) | |
| Semyon Ignatiev | 1951–1953 | |
.svg){kind=icon} MVDКГБ | Lavrentiy Beria | Mar–Jun 1953 |
| Sergei Kruglov | 1953–1954 | |
| KGB КГБ | Ivan Serov | 1954–1958 |
| Konstantin Lunev [ru] | December 8–25 1958 (act.) | |
| Alexander Shelepin | 1958–1961 | |
| Pyotr Ivashutin | November 5–November 13 1961 (act.) | |
| Vladimir Semichastny | 1961–1967 | |
| Yuri Andropov | 1967–1982 | |
| Vitaly Fedorchuk | May–Dec 1982 | |
| Viktor Chebrikov | 1982–1988 | |
| Vladimir Kryuchkov | 1988–1991 | |
| Leonid Shebarshin | August 22–23 1991 (act.) | |
| Vadim Bakatin | Aug–Dec 1991 |
| Cheka (1917–1922) |
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|---|---|---|
| GPU /OGPU (1922–1934) |
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| NKVD (1934–1941) |
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| NKGB (1941) | ||
| NKVD (1941–1943) | ||
| NKGB (1943–1946) | ||
| MGB (1946–1953) |
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| MVD (1953–1954) |
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| KGB (1954–1991) |
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*Acting | ||
