KGB

:For other meanings, see KGB (disambiguation).

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KGB is the Russian-language acronym for the Committee for State Security,( ), and was the umbrella organisation name for (i) the principal Soviet internal Security Agency, (ii) the principal intelligence agency, and (iii) the principal secret police agency, from March 13, 1954 to November 6, 1991.

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Roughly, the KGB's operational domain encompassed functions and powers like those exercised by the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the counterintelligence (internal security) division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal Protective Service, and the US Secret Service.

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In March 1953, Lavrenty Beria consolidated the MVD and the MGB into one body--the MVD; within a year, Beria was executed and MVD was split. The re-formed MVD retained its police and law enforcement powers, while the second, new agency, KGB, assumed internal and external security functions, and was subordinate to the Council of Ministers. On July 5, 1978 the KGB was re-christened as the "KGB of the USSR", with its chairman holding a ministerial council seat.

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The KGB was dissolved when its chief, Colonel-General Vladimir Kryuchkov, used the KGB's resources in aid of the August 1991 coup attempt to overthrow USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev. On August 23, 1991 Colonel-General Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim Bakatin was appointed KGB Chairman--and mandated to dissolve the KGB of the USSR. On November 6, 1991, the KGB officially ceased existing, though its successor national state security organisation, the Russian Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (FSB), is functionally much like the soviet KGB.

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Belarus is the only post-Soviet Union era country where the successor state security organization continues being known as KGB. Belarus also is the birthplace of Felix Dzerzhinsky, one of the founders of the KGB; there, he remains a national hero.

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Soviet: REDIRECT Soviet Union...

Security Agency: Security agency is an organization which conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation, state or organization. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies....

Intelligence agency: An intelligence agency is a governmental organization devoted to gathering of information by means of espionage (spying), communication interception, cryptoanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources....

KGB related Images and Photos (experimental)

KGB Disappearing Ink Pen