KGB
The Committee for State Security (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности) was the "Sword and Shield" of the Communist party of the Soviet Union. While its primary function was internal repression of people's basic rights, an external reconnaissance division as it is called, or intelligence organization, also handled spreading the gospel of Marxist international workers revolution to overthrow exiting legitimate governments worldwide, or "the bourgeois order" as Marxists refer to it.
During its existence the Committee had many names, finally adopting KGB in 1954 which was used until the dissolution of the Soviet Empire in 1992. Historians and writers have often in retrospect used the name KGB to refer to all its predecessor organizations going back to the founding of the Soviet Union.
At the July 1920 Second Congress of the Communist International Comintern, General Secretary of the Communist Party V.I. Lenin told delegates "we must everywhere build up a parallel illegal organisation".[1]
KGB in the US 1921-1943
While as a purely technical matter, the KGB was not the only organization seeking subversion and overthrow of legitimate government from the early days of the Workers Revolution. Alger Hiss for example, was an agent of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) and not strictly speaking the KGB. This has led to some confusion even today because technically Alger Hiss was not a KGB Agent, but rather a GRU Agent. Below is a table listing eight different Soviet intelligence entities operating in the United States between the period of 1921 and 1943.
- Comintern
- CPUSA; (although CPUSA membership was legal among certain people at certain times, membership among government employees and employees of government contractors involved in the war effort, or "defense contractors relating to National Security", to use post-1947 terminology, was clearly illegal.
- CPUSA secret apparatus
- KGB "legals", i.e. KGB agents registered in the United States on valid visas, operating under a Rezident and illegally engaged in espionage. {For the purpose of discussion on this page, KGB is used to encompass all pre-1954 predecessor names conducting foreign intelligence, Cheka or VChK (1917-22), the GPU (1922-23), the OGPU (1923-34), the NKVD (1934-41, 1941-43), the NKGB (1941, 1943-46), the MGB (1946-47, 1952-53), the KI (1947-52), the MVD (1953-54), and the KGB (1954-91)}
- KGB "Illegals"; agents operating under "deep cover", maybe native born maybe immigrant, and operating under their own separate Rezident, (or "Station Chief", to use an analogous CIA term).
- GRU, Soviet Military Intelligence (under its own Rezident).
- Soviet Naval GRU, had a very small operation in the U.S. during World War II
- GRU "Illegals", again, like KBG illegals, with its own Rezident.
Illegals
Illegals are parallel organizations set up independently from the two main intelligence organizations (KGB & GRU), under their own separate station chief, or Rezident, for the contingent purpose should a break in diplomatic relations occur, and all legal operatives with valid passports are expelled, a parallel espionage organization remains in place. Also, they still may be engaged in highly secret ongoing activities, and their absolute highest concern is to avoid detection. They are "sleeper cells", to use a term recently popularized by American news organizations.
References
See also
External links
- V.I. Lenin, Terms of Admission into Communist International (July, 1921) "must everywhere build up a parallel illegal organisation"[2]
- [3] for the interfacing of KGB, Soviet Defense Ministry, and Soviet General Secretary in the matter of Korean Airlines Flight 007 Black Box
- Historians Put Once-Secret KGB Files Online, Moscow Times, September 6, 2007, Issue 3737, Page 3.
- Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania
- John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America
