For nearly a century, the KGB, the Committee for State Security within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, controlled the USSR. The members of the committee were trained assassins as well as accomplished spies. Through several well-placed spies and paid civilians, the KGB was able to control the Politburo, the Soviet parliament, and the rest of the union. The KGB was in charge of the Siberian labor camps – even today, Vladimir Putin’s secret service, the FSB, is charged with the upkeep of those camps. Several of the greatest and most terrible leaders of the Soviet Union were brought up through the ranks of the KGB and its predecessors: Beria, Andropov, and Yeltsin were all protégés of the KGB. The KGB infiltrated straight into the …show more content…

The NKVD was responsible for border guarding and propaganda, and the NKGB worked against western countries, fought sabotage, terrorism and counterespionage, and provided bodyguards for the Bolshevik officials. Again, this was more of a housekeeping issue, to make the world think better of the Soviet Secret Service and Moscow as a whole, not so much an actual change of duties, the government agencies at that time, world war two just ending and the cold war beginning. In 1946, Lavrenty Beria made the NKVD and the NKGB into ministries, making them the MGB and MVD. Although the agencies bore different names than before, they still had the same jobs but were represented in the Politburo with a minister apiece. In 1953, at the end of his term, Beria merged the two into the MGB. This was his last major act before being thrown out. In the same year the agency lost its government representation and became the Committee for State Security, or the infamous KGB. The KGB was the most famous Soviet secret service and many people still believe that it exists. The KGB was responsible for some of the worst attacks, from the 1950’s onward, against the United States, the United Kingdom, and eastern European/Middle East countries such as Afghanistan, Macedonia, and Pakistan. It was during the time of the KGB that the most agents attempted to defect to the West and only two survived for more than two years after defecting. The KGB effectively controlled the entirety of the USSR, the