"SMERSH" and the End of the NKVD

Part I

Patriotic Hysteria and the Blind Spot it Created in History

A wartime Soviet propaganda poster depicting heroic battles between Russians and Germans/Prussians/Hessians (including the German divisions who aided the White Russians during the Russian Civil War - 1918 reference). The main text in the poster says: "We Won, We Defeated and We Will [Again]!"* Of course, the soldiers depicted in the foreground are a Red Army "grunt" putting a bayonet into a German who was holding either a wine/liquor bottle or one of the famous "potato masher" grenades from the Nazi arsenal. It is also worth noting that the German's helmet is topped with two unusual outcroppings that suggest demonic horns rather than any useful battlefield attachments. 

Stalin was the delusional paranoid schizophrenic who turned the NKVD-MVD and the GPU-MGB into his personal army and the "iron fist" with which he maintained power during the "Great Purge" - both despite and because of the people who were coerced or in some cases willingly led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union according to the way Stalin envisioned it. His main internal enemy, both real and imagined, were the citizens who, for various reasons, simply did not roll over and accept the new circumstances. These people were labeled "counter-revolutionaries" and "enemies of the state" and in one way or another were hunted down and eliminated first by the Cheka and then by Stalin's forces. Of course there was another group of people who just shrugged their shoulders and carried on under a new system of government and laws, none of which had most of these "peasants" been able to read in the first place, nor had they really cared to so long as they had the proverbial "food on the table." When the Bolsheviks seized power, these formerly disconnected people were not fools who just rushed into the Bolshevik embrace; however, for the first time in any of their lives, they had the chance, at least in theory, to reach up beyond their means and become part of the ruling class.  

Other people who, for the most part, fought no battles with either gun or knife but rather led some Soviet citizens away from the dogma of Marxism-Leninism (and for a while "Stalinism") without threat or intimidation of any kind, were eventually called the "intelligentsia" by the Soviet leadership - many of whom were summarily dispossessed of all property including homes, locked away in asylums, gulags, or simply executed during Stalin's purges. The people who gladly joined the "counterrevolution" did so for either intellectual or political reasons. Granted, some did choose to take sides against the Soviets due to loyalty to the Romanov monarchy, but they were one of the smaller anti-Soviet groups - despite the romanticized notion sustained by "acceptable" or "tolerable" writers working under the Soviet regime that these aristocratic "Whites" continued to plot, mostly as exiles, to return to Russia one day and retake the seat of power and resume the oppressive imperial monarchy.

The intelligentsia were demonized by the Bolsheviks along the same lines as they had the kulaks (see: "Breadless Revolution") and the capitalists or merchant classes who could afford - in the first few years of Soviet rule - to speak out, albeit very quietly, about his or her discontent with the new government. This group was at first largely made up of professors and former aristocracy. However, by the 1930s anyone with the least link by blood or marriage to the Imperial Russian elite who for whatever reason remained in Russia learned to fade back into the masses, living incognito among the very people they had oppressed as "lower" or lesser humans than themselves simply because accidents of birth had made them seem so. These former people of power and influence were the targets of pro-revolutionaries of any status. Children were taught in schools that the aristocracy was one type of "enemy of the people" and were therefore not to be pitied or empathized with in any way.

There was one more type of remaining former "White Russian." They were far smaller in number than any other group of counter-revolutionaries. They were the people born into wealth who rebelled and either for honest belief in the new Soviet Marxist Communism or for the simple need of self-preservation wholeheartedly joined the revolutionary movement. Even "Iron" Felix Dzerzhinsky was born to a noble Polish family and later became the iconic leader of the security services of the Bolsheviks. Dzerzhinsky was never on the side of the "White Russians." He was one of a few who turned their backs on family to follow a path far different than their families would have envisioned or, under other circumstances, allowed. People like Dzerzhinsky were the de facto intelligentsia of the Bolsheviks.


Even with all of these various groups of potential malcontents, during WWII Stalin focused his disapproving eyes upon the members of the Red Army (RKKA) itself who were doing all they could to stand up against Hitler and the Nazi assault upon Soviet territory. He had a specific problem with members of the military who were in any way considered prisoners of war or citizens of a town or region that had aided, in any form, the fascists, particularly along the southern regions of the Soviet Union. The border countries that later fell under the category of Soviet "Sphere of Influence" regions were, during the Cold War, targeted for long-term retribution. Bulgaria was so directly altered to mimic the USSR system of government (including the security services) that it was often referred to as the "ghost republic" of the Soviet Union, and even though the country leadership asked for membership in the USSR, their petition was rejected by the Supreme Soviet. Other regions like Eastern Poland, the Baltic States, Ukraine, Romania, Yugoslavia-Serbia, Hungary and of course East Germany itself were made to pay - each in their own way - for the viscous atrocities (on both sides) committed during WWII. There was a specific campaign in place by the KGB to disrupt the "Socialist" governments of Albania, Yugoslavia and Romania.*** As much as Hitler and the Nazis hated the Russians and the other Slavs as "inferiors," many of the Soviet Union's citizens of all ranks of the Party and levels of the social order hated Germans practically wholesale after the GPW. Since this sentiment persists with some people to this day, and it is an irrational feeling typically spawned by upbringing, it bears mentioning. Someone need not be a former Nazi, or even the descendant of one, to find contempt from Russians simply because they are from Germany - even those born after the war was long over: it seems to be something along the order of "the sins of the fatherland are the sins of its people." 

As a result of Stalin's and other CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union) ranking members' wishes, fears and other emotions, and a few practical military concerns, SMERSH (an acronym for СМЕРть Шпионам, in Russian* that means "Death to Spies") was formed on paper in 1943, but existed in some form from the troops of the NKVD and OGPU as early as the very beginning of the Soviet involvement in WWII. Granted, at this time in history lines were more than a bit blurred between the GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence), the OGPU** and the NKVD.

Newly recruited members of SMERSH photographed in 1944 as a unit. Which particular unit these men belonged to is not know to the author, but is it likely that they were soldiers who volunteered for service in SMERSH. By 1944, SMERSH had been at work for at least a year and members were some of the most feared forces off of the battlefield.

There are many good websites for information on Soviet security agencies and what they documented as their activities during and after WWII. Many books have been written on the subject of the functions of each of these various security organizations (military and "civilian") and the havoc they wreaked. SMERSH was created to close and seal the gap between military operations moving onward as planned and the aftermath of those operations - which often created or spurred on counterrevolutionary organizations, or at least those feelings. After the Red Army either "liberated" or simply retook a town or region that had been occupied by any of the fascist armies, a constant threat of post regime leadership changes left an unknown number of people behind who were potentially sympathetic to the Nazis or had some other non-Soviet view of the future of their region regardless of who claimed to have authority over it. Czech historian Vladimir Bystrov said SMERSH was "an open police operation aimed at searching for and arrests of people, on occupied territory, who represented relevant or potential obstacles to future sovietization of the territory." [trans. http://www.ustrcr.cz/data/pdf/konference/kgb-aktivity-katalog-en.pdf] An interesting fact that Bystrov points out is that - at least in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia - SMERSH "was in competition" with other security organizations, even those within the Red Army (GRU) or the MGB-KGB. He also said that the individual SMERSH units were also in competition with each other for total number of people arrested and would therefore not share information they had gathered, much like fishermen are reluctant to share the location of their favorite fishing spot. This odd competition between different SMERSH units was in part due to the demand by the Soviet Central Command for results from these special organizations and the fear of not producing results via arrests and intelligence. This attitude among members of SMERSH, or any other intelligence agency, resulted in an odd mixture of intelligence gathering and the coveting of said intelligence so that information was often not passed from one group to another in the same region and often exaggerated for purposes of reporting back to the main department, whichever agency the specific group answered to at the time. Thus, historians should avoid relying solely on information gathered from Soviet intelligence agencies.

As a counterintelligence move, the creation of SMERSH appeared to be a necessity since sympathizers and agitators were typically left behind by the previously occupying force to do what he/she could to disrupt the functions of the conquering occupier. These people were the obvious main target of the SMERSH units, but real counterintelligence agents were generally difficult to capture, which meant that officers under pressure to make arrests would seize and force a confession from people that might otherwise have been left alone.

There are no records of any special awards given to members of SMERSH as is the case with other security agencies (SEE "NOTE" BELOW). In fact, the mere existence of the organization was kept a secret and/or denied until many years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and when the Russian Federation government finally disclosed the fact that SMERSH did exist, they released the news carefully with lots of public relations forethought going into the well-planned "repatriation" of the former members as heroes for a cause. The current government's desire to do lip service for the countless victims of Stalin's madness and of those who were swept up into his true cult of personality, is worrisome at best because the fact remains, as with all history, those with sole access to the truth can control what we learn about the past. 

There are a few exceptions to this monopoly of information and they are the survivors of the original SMERSH organization who have "broken ranks" by speaking out on filmed recordings by non-Russian media organizations or individuals. These veterans freely, and sometimes proudly, admit to wholesale murder for no legitimate reason other than suspicion or hearsay from either an enemy or someone who yelled "witch!" before he or she was called one.


NOTE: In the last few years, researchers of Soviet military awards using serial numbers have been allowed access to records which state that recipients of some medals and orders were in fact members of SMERSH at the time they performed the "feat" for which they were being awarded, or were part of SMERSH at the time they received the award itself. For the most part, the only references to SMERSH are found in the service record data and not elaborated on. In many cases, members of SMERSH transitioned into the postwar MVD or MGB-KGB, though access to any additional information after that point remains restricted (12 July 2015).






* Emphasis on letters used to make the word are from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMERSH
** Additional information on the OGPU (or "All-Union State Political Directorate) can be found elsewhere on this site under entries tagged with "OGPU."
*** http://www.ustrcr.cz/data/pdf/konference/kgb-aktivity-katalog-en.pdf (Jordan Baev's "International History and MGB/KGB Cooperation with the Bulgarian Intelligence & Security Services 1944–1989")

Images of an Emerging New World II

Here are a few more propaganda posters that were used to keep the spirits and patriotism of the Soviet citizens high during WWII (Great Patriotic War), much like the US had plastered in areas of high foot traffic such as outside cinemas, concert halls and metro stations.

"Gossip[ers] - A great prize for the enemy"
One of many such posters warning the
public to watch what they say because
they never know who might be listening.
(Note the surreptitious eavesdropping
man behind the red-nosed, drunken speaker
on the phone.) Ironically, regularly listening
in on Sovietcitizens' - and especially foreign
tourists' and dignitaries' telephone
conversations would become standard practice
for the KGB during the Cold War years - a 
practice still used by the FSB today in the
Russian Federation where telephone operators
 are encouraged and rewarded for reporting
"suspicious" conversations they happen to be
listening in on during the course of their jobs.

Another propaganda poster designed to bolster the morale of the citizens and soldiers. In this case, the medal for "The Defense of Leningrad"
is shown. This medal, like other "campaign medals" produced to honor those who helped defend and/or defeat invading German armies was awarded to soldiers,naval personnel,
civilians and members of thearmed troops of the NKVD (internal security service during
The Great Patriotic War). 

Images of an Emerging New World

As the war drew to an end, Stalin had already decided what he wanted from the spoils of war, even though occupying some Eastern European countries and annexing the Baltic states is still a question of morality and the right to take over countries.

Before I venture into the end of WWII (to the Russians, "The Great Patriotic War"), and the "Cold War" - I thought a few posters and other pictures of propaganda from a War ravaged and politically untrusting government bent on "winning the hearts and minds" with promises for the stomach.

Intentional famines in the southern regions of the Soviet Union by Stalin to force compliance to his collectivisation laws and taxes among the Kulaks (or rather ex-Kulaks) of the agrarian lands well south of Moscow. These minor land-owners, or "wealthy peasants" were a significant problem for both Stalin and Lenin because these land-owning peasants became so because of Russian Imperial reform about 10 years before the October Revolution. They vehemently opposed the entire notion of Leninist-Marxist socialism-communism, especially since they had essentially bought their freedom and managed to create a profit through their work which allowed them to buy the land they worked.

The Kulaks and how they were systematically eradicated by Stalin (though Lenin began the killing with the Cheka) and his NKVD and Smersh troops, along with entire cultural and ethnic peoples will be discussed elsewhere.

The following are a few posters and other political art from the 1930s-1940s.

Please enjoy (those who are old enough - or watched enough old Warner Brothers' Bugs Bunny cartoons may recognize the Soviet Versions of some of our own WWII propaganda posters - like "Rosie the Riveter" and some of those old cartoons themselves).

The Battle of Stalingrad and Hitler's resounding,
and more importantly, humiliating defeat there started
a complete role reversal of battle tactics - namely the
Nazi War Machine had broken down and was loping
back to Berlin without a single significant win when
fighting the Red Army until the Soviets were standing
atop the Reichstag's making the famous replacement
of the Nazi headquarters flag for the USSR hammer
and sickle on that great red field. The rifle has the
word "Stalingrad" and the caption is basically -
"We beat the malicious Fuhrer here, we can beat
him anywhere." 

Propaganda poster for winning of the Battle of Moscow
and a likeness of the actual medal awarded to all those
who were responsible in some capacity for keeping the enemy at the gates out - whether they were bankers given
a rifle or a trained soldier or NKVD trooper.

"The sniper strikes from afar, but he always is certain [acurate - trans.]!"

This propaganda piece alludes to the Non-Agression Pact signed between Germany and the Soviet Union, which Hitler violated brought the full rath of not only the government, but of the public as well. This is reminiscent of the the
Warner Bros' cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny and several anti-Nazi nd pro US Army rediness and dominance cartoons. The newspaper Hitler is hiding behind has a headline about the Non-Agression Pact and the text at the top reads:
"Mercilessly smash and destroy the enemy!"

"Glory to the Partisan Heroes Who Destroy the Enemy's Rear Line [preventing them from leaving spies, mines

or having any other means of escape - trans.]" Partisans from countries with the former "Soviet Sphere of Influence" were greatly admired and given practically a hero status among both the public and the government. Countries like Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Poland as well as members of the Baltic States. The most obvious problem with the partisan movements is that some of them, particularly Ukrainians formed resistance groups which before WWII fought the Red Army and the Bolsheviks and many of them continued to refocus their attention on the Soviets, the most prominent was the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) which had arranged and trained itself to be a formidable enemy for the officers and armed troops of the  NKVD, NKGB, MGB and to an extent, the KGB.

The Road to Revolution

One of the greatest weapons in any fight to win over the masses in any country at any time is a well-worded speech, editorial or slogan. Human beings survive on the very notion of communicating some idea or individual concept that they find important and worth sharing. Playing upon this basic need has been the cornerstone of nearly every major political change throughout the history of civilization. The more radical a departure the new ideas are from the ones they are meant to displace, the more necessary it is to sell those ideas as better than the ones they are intended to replace. Without the modern means of information sharing and gathering of the Internet, television or even regular broadcast radio (which would later become the main Soviet means of disseminating propaganda), the only thing the new government officials had were newspapers, pamphlets and the clever use of political posters on the streets of cities, small towns and villages - anywhere "workers and peasants" could be found.

Russia and its constituent "co-countries" and later republics under the Soviet Union was one of the few remaining regions of the world that had crossed the boundary into the 20th century with a functioning monarchy that kept the society in a duality of wealth and power - one small group had both while hundreds of millions were disillusioned, starving and desperate for some kind of change, a hope that the next day would not be their last. There had never been a significant "middle class" in Russia, and for over 300 years only merchants, high-ranking "professional" military officers, members of the Russian Orthodox Church and others who profited in some small way by the grace or goodwill of the Romanov family ever knew anything but poverty and a life dependent upon the monarchy for survival. 

Who Is Against the Soviets? Down with the Soviets! "Proletariat of the World, unite!" In this poster issued by the state press, it is obvious who would be against the soviets: the officer, the banker, the priest and the merchant.

Source:

 Hoover Political Poster Database. 2007

Intellectual unrest had been spreading throughout Europe for much of the 19th century with Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx organizing workers into early unions in Germany during the 1840s under their theories of communism as a means for everyone to live together on an equal footing while still producing the necessary goods and services to maintain a functioning society. The now famous Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 and was one of the basic tenets of the founding of the Soviet Union. Looking back it is easy to see that such a Utopian existence is unobtainable at our current stage of human development; however, at the time, the have-nots of European society were at the point where they could at least entertain any notions that involved them being outside of the lives they were subjected to.

Since the start of the 20th century the Russian people were in the throes of an economic depression that was only worsened by expansionist policies of the tsar's government. As a result of attempts to gain dominion over regions in the Far East in 1904, Nicholas II went to war with Japan over contested areas in China (Manchuria) and Korea since both empires were trying to dominate the same territories. The Russo-Japanese War did not end until September 1905 but was years in the making. The political unrest among the people was only aggravated by this war that had no bearing on their lives as ordinary citizens. In January of 1905, workers from a factory in St. Petersburg which minted many of the military orders awarded to officers fighting the war, went on strike over working conditions. Other workers throughout the city joined the strike until over 80,000 people were not at their jobs which eventually resulted in the capital city going without electricity in the middle of winter. Finally, a peaceful protest march was organized by a Russian Orthodox priest on behalf of the striking workers in St. Petersburg. He had drawn up a petition of fair labor demands and was leading the march of about 300,000 protesters to the Winter Palace to present this petition to the tsar (though ironically he was not in the palace at the time) when the protesters were met by a cordon of armed soldiers lined up in front of the palace. According to most reports of the event, the soldiers first fired a warning volley into the air, then took aim on the protesters. Official estimates by the government at the time state that 96 people were killed and 333 were wounded, but more likely estimates put the number of killed or wounded after the day's events at about 1000.

Russian Imperial soldiers lined up outside the Winter Palace ready to shoot at protesters on "Bloody Sunday"
From Wikimedia Commons

For more on the events of the "Bloody Sunday" Revolution, see the brief synopsis at: http://www.cusd.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/projects/russia/Nick_II/BloodySunday.htm

A Brief History of the Soviet State Security Services

Part I

Shortly after the revolution that spawned the creation of the Soviet Union a state security service was created to maintain power for the new regime and combat its enemies, real and perceived. Since the newly formed Soviet Union had no legitimacy as a governing body based on popular support of the people it purported to lead, the self-declared leadership realized the essential necessity of a powerful, politically based state security system. The entire system of self-preservation of Bolshevik authority included several elements such as a standard internal police force, judicial and prosecutorial bodies and an overall state security structure which included political/secret police as well as a foreign intelligence and external security organizations. The first such state security organization was the Cheka and was initially created by Vladimir Lenin as a temporary necessity which he believed would become obsolete as soon as the Soviet citizenry were fully organized under the new government.

The simple facts were the following: 

• Lenin and the other Bolsheviks seized power from the provisional government, and were not elected by a popular vote, or in fact any vote at all;
• Because the Bolsheviks had no means of maintaining power in a period of political flux and bitter disgust with the Imperial Russian leadership when many liberal political parties and other groups were competing for leadership of Russia and its many republics and vast territories, staying in power was perhaps more difficult than achieving it; 
• Despite Lenin's alleged initial hesitation regarding the need for a secret political police, he agreed rather readily to its creation at the behest of advisers and others close to him;
• The Cheka was created as a temporary organization and was touted as an unpleasant necessity by the Bolshevik leadership who announced that the Cheka would be disbanded as soon as the political and social situation had settled down and the "enemies of the state and its people" had been routed from the country;
• The number of these so-called enemies of the people grew as the Russian Civil War drew to a close in 1922 and Lenin's New Economic Policy (NEP) had been in effect for about a year, which in itself created many new groups of "class enemies" for Stalin to "purge" when he had assumed power and abandoned an otherwise successful policy as contrary to communist principles in favor of the disastrous collectivisation;
• In the years few years before his death at 53 on 21 January 1924, Lenin used the power of the Cheka more than a few times to crush rebellions, particularly among groups of farmers and communities opposed to the NEP, writing out a number of orders by hand calling for the execution of these rebels;
• Shortly after Lenin's death, Joseph Stalin used (abused) the Cheka's offspring, the NKVD as his personal tool to forcibly relocate, imprison, torture and execute tens of millions of Soviet citizens (an exact number has never been objectively determined) mostly for imagined charges dreamed up by Stalin's deranged imagination and reinforced by his paranoid delusions;
• 
  

  
  

  Though tempered by future Soviet leaders and finally divided up under new names beginning in 1991, the "temporary" Cheka exists to this day.



Felix Dzerzhinsky in 1919

On December 20, 1917, barely two months after the first days of the October Revolution, the Cheka – an acronym for “the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage” – was established by Lenin and the rest of the new leadership under the rule of the intractable Polish Bolshevik Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Born to Polish nobility, Dzerzhinsky was a highly educated individual who became a devout, if not fanatical, Marxist in his youth and joined the Bolsheviks in their earliest endeavors to overthrow the increasingly unpopular Russian Tsarist Imperial regime. With the newly nicknamed “Iron Felix” at its head, the Cheka became the most feared institution in the whole course of the Russian Civil War which continued from 1917 to 1922, and in some respects long after that. In fact, the Cheka (and its subsequent incarnations including the NKVD) became so widely revered throughout Europe for its effectiveness that it eventually had its imitators, the most infamous of which was the Nazi’s Gestapo. Though, as with all imitations, the Gestapo fell far short of the original in terms of achievable goals and success in reaching them.

Political police in Russia has a long history dating back to Tsar Ivan IV, more commonly known as “Ivan the Terrible,” and his creation of the Oprichnika in 1565. Ivan’s 6000 member political police got their name because they were formed to enforce Ivan’s will on a portion of Russian territory ruled by the Tsar at the time known as Oprichnina from the now archaic Russian word meaning “exempt” or “except.” Though the Oprichnika are historically responsible for the torture and murder of thousands of Russians that included peasants and other nobles alike who opposed Ivan’s will, they were disbanded after only eight years because they were ineffective in achieving political success for Ivan. However, the same name was used by later tsars when they had need of a secret political police. The origin of the name Oprichnika is significant because of the foreboding coincidence that the security/political police of the Soviet Union was “exempt” or operated separately from the rest of the government and to some degree outside of the socio-political structure itself. Although the tsarist political police was ruthless and unscrupulous, the Cheka greatly surpassed its predecessors in terms of terror and violence. At the same time, however, it also succeeded where the Oprichnika failed. The Bolsheviks allowed the Cheka almost unrestricted powers to persecute those who were perceived as “class enemies” or “enemies of the revolution.” As the powers of the Cheka grew and expanded unchecked, for the most part, seemingly more with each new name change, it is relatively easy to see how such a powerful organization could and would eventually be abused under the brutal Stalinist police state. Millions of people were executed or exiled under the purges of the “Great Terror” of the 1930s and 40s by another leader who sought to impose his personal will upon the people he ruled.

In 1922, the Cheka was reorganized under the title of the State Political Directorate - Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie - or GPU. The name was soon changed again to the OGPU -  or All-Union State Political Directorate, emphasizing its significant role as the security service for the entire Soviet Union.




Dzerzhinsky and Chekist Shield in 1938 Moscow parade*
CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK FOR YouTube VIDEO FOOTAGE OF
 DZERZHINSKY'S FUNERAL IN MOSCOW:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aAxgrFz6r8 OR CLICK ON
YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QtILBeOMYI
for footage of the full "Blooming Youth Sports Parade"

Dzerzhinsky died in 1926 officially of natural causes, though some historians have questioned this conclusion. Though admired by many and feared by many more while living, Dzerzhinsky achieved a cult-hero status among a significant number of Soviet citizens after his death. This was due in large part to propaganda disseminated by the Soviet state security bodies that continued to evolve and change names until the most renown, the KGB, was officially formed on 1 January 1954 – though this was not the last name change. His statue was a common sight in Red Square until 1991 and even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dzerzhinsky is still a symbol of current security organizations in the Russian Federation from the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) to the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service) and the FSB (Federal Security Service). The last two agencies were originally united under the KGB. The SVR is essentially the former First Chief Directorate (FCD) of the KGB whereas the FSB encompasses the remaining directorates responsible for state security on Russian soil. The FCD is perhaps the most well known aspect of the KGB by anyone who lived outside of the Soviet Union during the Cold War because this is the department under which Soviet spies operated across the rest of the world with a special emphasis on the “Main Adversary” – the code name given to the United States by the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (the uppermost body of government and the one to which the KGB answered) even before the US had a non-military foreign intelligence service of its own.

This is of course a simplified version of an extremely complex series of dismantling and reassembling of various structures within the KGB after the organization was officially dissolved in 1991 by then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. It is possible that the KGB would still exist basically in its original form had not some of its highest ranking members participated in the attempted coup in August 19-21, 1991.

Note: The link to the SVR official Russian Federation website is under the list of "Links" in the margin.
* Photo of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky from Wikimedia Commons public domain images.