One of the most secret special services: could the KGB save the USSR from collapse?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

March 13 marks the 65th anniversary of the formation of the structure, which since that moment and, probably forever, has become one of the main "brands" of the USSR - the State Security Committee. The affairs, people and secrets of this structure, which played a huge role in both domestic and world history, still excite the minds not only in the “post-Soviet space” - KGB museums exist in many countries and continue to open.

At the same time, almost everything connected with the Committee, as a rule, today is distorted to the point of disgrace, shrouded in such a heap of exaggerations, falsifications and outright inventions that it is not an easy task to find out the truth in this “unscientific fantasy”. But we will still try to give answers to at least basic questions about this formidable, mysterious and powerful special service.

The questions discussed below may seem to some to be too naive, to some too common. However, believe it or not, these are precisely the moments that most often interest people today, especially those for whom the abbreviation "KGB" is already exclusively history, and those about which the most heated discussions most often erupt. So, let's begin.

1. Why the Committee and not the Ministry?

Well, here, in fact, everything is quite simple. The answer, in fact, lies in two words: "Beria's shadow." In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev and a flock of his accomplices saw their main task as the maximum destruction of the Stalinist legacy in all areas of the life of the Soviet state. Let us recall that a separate structure, whose competence included exclusively issues of state security, was already created in the USSR - in 1941, first in the form of the People's Commissariat, and then (since 1946) the Ministry of State Security. However, literally on the day of Stalin's death, everything returned to normal - the Soviet special services were again merged into a single Ministry of Internal Affairs, headed by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria again.

What I think about the nonsense about "Beria's plan to seize power" has already been written in an article on Stalin's death. In fact, the coup d'état was planned and was completely, alas, successfully carried out by completely different persons, and not only the head of the special services of the Soviet Union, but also the special services themselves, fell victim to it. The "militia" part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was "spread rot" until it was turned into the Ministry of Public Order in 1966 and almost completely insignificant. The militia was saved from complete degradation only by the arrival of Shchelokov … However, this is a completely separate topic. State security was no sweeter. The Khrushchev party members accumulated such fear and hatred of the "organs" that they made every effort to weaken them.

That is why on March 13, 1954, the State Security Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR was formed, and not a ministry. A certain "body under the government" and an independent body of government - the difference, you see, is huge. First of all, they began to reduce the structure, throwing thousands of yesterday's Chekists out into the street, and entire divisions were liquidated and "enlarged". These processes were combined with total "cleansing", as a result of which, at best, the "Beria cadres", who were the most trained and dedicated professionals, were sent to retirement from the "bodies" (much more often to jail). How this affected the quality of the structure's work is easy to guess.

The Committee acquired the status of a government body only in 1978, when it was headed by Yuri Andropov. However, for this Andropov himself first had to become a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee (in 1973). It was during the period of his leadership of the KGB department that he became the very structure, at the mention of which the veins of some people in the West are shaking even today …

2. Who was more important - the KGB or the Communist Party?

It is due to the subsequent career of Yuri Vladimirovich, after the post of the chairman of the KGB, who occupied the highest post in the Soviet hierarchy - the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, some of whom have "turbulence" about the fact that "in fact, everything in the Union was ruled by the Committee." Nothing of the kind, gentlemen! The Regulations, adopted back in 1959 and in effect until the dissolution of the State Security Committee in 1991, regulating "from" and "to" all aspects of its existence and activities, clearly stated: "The KGB works under the direct supervision of the Central Committee of the CPSU." And under his own vigilant control. Well, it was said there, it is true, about the government, but you understand … Under Khrushchev, professionals were not allowed to the leadership of this special service at all - would you not order Shelepin and Semichastny from the Komsomol Central Committee to be considered as such?

The first of them, by the way, when appointed, utterly openly voiced the "directive" received from Khrushchev - to completely "switch" the KGB exclusively to work abroad, to resolve the purely external problems of the USSR. Any activity of the structure within the country was almost under an absolute ban. The Communist Party, whose leaders still, for sure, had nightmares in nightmares of tough guys in cornflower-blue caps, capable of bringing anyone to account, regardless of titles, ranks and party experience, wanted one hundred percent to protect themselves from their return - in one or another hypostasis … This was possible - right up to Andropov's coming to the supreme power, who began to "stir up" such cases that it was already breathtaking.

It was the complete inviolability of the party nomenclature of the USSR for the state security agencies that played an extremely negative role in the development of the country. The absence of various ranks of responsibility among the leading employees of the CPSU, and, calling things by their proper names, fear of punishment for the most unsightly and even criminal acts, led the country first into a rotten swamp called "stagnation", and then threw it into the hell of "perestroika" ended with the death of the Soviet Union. So there could be no question of any "KGB supremacy over everyone and everything in the USSR". Perhaps - unfortunately …

3. Did the KGB keep all citizens of the USSR under control?

The answer to this question, I think, quite organically follows from what was written a little above. There can be no talk of "all" citizens, if only due to the fact that the Party was not under the control of the Committee. The rest … "Black" myths about the "all-pervading bloody gebna", about the "omniscient, all-seeing and all-hearing Fifth Directorate of the KGB" are approximately equally the creation of the Western propaganda machine and the fruit of a completely sick fantasy of the dissidents' gentlemen. The very ones who wore foil hats on their heads (the KGB irradiates us!) And said that they heard in the telephone receiver “like a tape rustling on a KGB tape recorder”. I had a chance to encounter one such fruit at the dawn of journalistic activity - he seriously demanded to expose the "organs" that had installed the microphones in his toilet …

Let's be objective - the State Security Committee could not “control” or, moreover, “persecute” almost every second inhabitant of the USSR for the simple reason that it was physically impossible. And why ?! Under the control were actually persons who were secret carriers, types potentially dangerous for the state (like the same Solzhenitsyn), and other categories of citizens who could bring real trouble to the country in one way or another. Alas, at the same time, from time to time, there were extremely annoying blunders and "punctures" - athletes and artists became "defectors", and even pilots on the latest fighters fell over the cordon. There were defectors, alas, in the KGB itself. What does this mean? About the poor performance of the Committee? I don't know - it's definitely not for me to judge. Rather, all these cases testified to the fact that the Committee could not assign one employee to each, even if he had such a desire. What kind of "total surveillance" is there?

In a state where a "total KGB dictatorship" really reigned, tales about which both the newly-minted Goebbels of the West and the mournful little Russian liberals continue to tell today, it would simply be impossible for "samizdat", or dissidents, as such, or hundreds of thousands people who every night without any harm to their health listened to "voices of the enemy", nor many other things inherent in the late USSR.

4. Who was "cooler" - the CIA or the KGB?

This question is perhaps more interesting than the others. Let's start with the fact that it would be completely incorrect to directly compare these two "offices". The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, after all, was engaged, in practice, exclusively with foreign intelligence and special operations abroad - in the United States itself, its agents acted, unlike KGB officers, as a rule, only against foreigners. In addition, the tsereushniki never had the responsibility to provide, for example, government communications or the protection of high-ranking officials of the state. In short, there are more differences than similarities. Nevertheless, in some areas it is still possible to compare the work of the two departments. Many books have been written on this topic, so we'll limit ourselves to the most basic points.

It has long been recognized by serious researchers of the issue (including those who wore very specific shoulder straps) that the State Security Committee was by many "heads" superior to its American colleagues in the "deep penetration" of its agents, the development of not just multi-pass, but decades-long special operations. In its work, the CIA, in comparison with the KGB, acted rudely, straightforwardly, trying to "take it in impulse", using blackmail and threats when recruiting agents, which, generally speaking, is a "marriage" in work for the special services. It has also been said more than once that the “committee members” in the absolute overwhelming majority of cases were distinguished by a much greater motivation, which is extremely important in the work of an intelligence officer or counterintelligence officer. Until the last day of its existence, many of those remained in the KGB who served not for money or privileges, but for the Idea - and not so much a communist one as a patriotic one. Believe it or not…

Incidentally, the CIA did not have its own "security" units. Of course, his agents could “stir up” a coup in some “banana republic”, but for the practical implementation of the plan, either the US army or mercenaries were required. The KGB special forces were able to "deal" with anyone both in the USSR and far beyond its borders - Amin's sad example is proof of this. And the Americans could not even cope with Fidel Castro - just as they have not been struggling for decades! And, by the way, here's another point that is quite suitable for comparison - albeit not with the CIA, but with other US special services. During the time, while the leaders of the USSR were guarded by the 9th KGB Directorate, not a single successful assassination attempt took place on them. Hair from the head of our General Secretary did not fall. American presidents were shot like bunnies - someone to death … So who is cooler?

5. Could the KGB save the USSR from collapse?

As a matter of fact, everything that can be said here automatically follows from the answers to questions 3 and, in part, 4. I could not, alas … I did not have such capabilities - despite the available divisions and special-purpose brigades, "Alpha" and "Vympel", departments in all cities and towns of the Union and a powerful operational apparatus. The State Security Committee is periodically reproached for having "overslept", "overlooked", "did not prevent" the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some people agree to the point that the KGB, they say, directly "contributed" to this process. Tell me, how do you think the Chekists should have acted in those fateful months, weeks, days? Signaling up? Write reports and analytical notes? I don't doubt for a second - it was all done. Only these documents got to the table of those against whom, in fact, they were directed.

What else was left? Arrange a coup? How the Committee's attempt to directly take power in the dying country would have ended is perfectly demonstrated by the miserable and sad experience of the State Emergency Committee, in which, in addition to the KGB, other "siloviki" also participated. But in a different way … How could one act differently in the current situation - when the state was pushed onto the path of destruction not by saboteurs thrown by parachutes, but by its “top officials”. And if among those there were direct foreign agents (and they were for sure!), Then they were completely beyond the reach of the "organs". If the decayed top of the "leading and guiding" managed to devour Beria, who seemed to be all-powerful in 1954, then Kryuchkov, with all due respect, was definitely not a rival to her. We must pay tribute - everyone who had to serve in the USSR State Security Committee, from its chairmen to the last border guard soldier, did everything they could to ensure that the country they were entrusted with protecting would exist as long as possible.