From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shieldLavrenty Beria,Stalin's henchmanYuri Andropov's identity card as Director of the KGB
KGB[1] is the Russian-language abbreviation forState Security Committee.[2] It was the main internal security agency for theSoviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. It was formed in 1954 as a successor of earlier agencies, theCheka,NKVD, andMGB, after the deaths ofJoseph Stalin andLavrentiy Beria in 1953.
During theCold War, the KGB suppressed "ideological subversion". This meant suppressing unorthodox political and religious ideas, and the people who held those ideas. It was Soviet policy for the KGB (and the secret services of thesatellite states) to monitor public and private opinion, internalsubversion and possible counter-revolutionary plots in theSoviet Bloc.
In March 1953,Lavrenty Beria merged theMVD and theMGB into one agency—the MVD. In December of that year, Beria and six associates were executed and the MVD split. The re-formed MVD retained its police and law enforcement powers, while the second, new agency, the KGB, did the internal and external security functions, and reported to theCouncil of Ministers.
On 5 July 1978 the KGB was renamed as the "KGB of theSoviet Union", with its chairman holding a ministerial council seat. The KGB ended when its chief, Colonel-GeneralVladimir Kryuchkov, used the KGB's resources to help the August 1991coup attempt to overthrow Soviet PresidentMikhail Gorbachev. On 23 August 1991 Colonel-General Kryuchkov was arrested, and GeneralVadim Bakatin was appointed KGB Chairman—and mandated to dissolve the KGB of the Soviet Union. On 6 November 1991, the KGB officially ceased to exist, although Russia's new national security organisation, the RussianFederalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti (FSB), works in the same things that the Soviet KGB did.
Belarus is the only post-Soviet Union era country where the national security organization is still called "KGB". Belarus is whereFelix Dzerzhinsky started a group called theCheka, which was an organization in theSoviet Union before the MVD or the KGB was started.
