The Origins of the Cheka

[Taz]

Was born on April, 27th 1923 in Dnepropetrovsk.

1944 - Member VKP.
1950 - finished the Dnepropetrovsk metallurgical institute.
1967 - KGB.
1968 - Vice-president of the KGB of the USSR.
In January - December 1982 - First vice-president of KGB of the USSR.
From December 1982 - Chairman of KGB of the USSR.
with the rank of General.
1988 - 1989 - Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
Died in 1999.

[Taz]

Was born on February, 29th 1924. in Volgograd.

1944 - Member VKP.
1949 - Finished the All-Union correspondence legal institute.
1954 - Finished the Maximum diplomatic school the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR.
1954-1959 - Diplomatic work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR and embassy of the USSR in VNR.
1967 - in the state security.
1978 - Vice-president of KGB of the USSR.
1988 till August 1991 - Chairman of KGB of the USSR with the rank of Colonel General.
Now on pension

The KGB was dissolved due to the participation of its chief, Colonel General Vladimir Kryuchkov, in the August 1991 coup attempt designed to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev. He used many of the KGB's resources to aid the coup attempt. Kryuchkov was arrested, and General Vadim Bakatin was appointed Chairman on August 23, 1991 with a mandate to dismantle the KGB.

[Taz]

Was(Acting) head of the KGB for just one day August 22, 1991 - August 23, 1991 to show that it was still under control of the Government.
As a result of KGB reorganization after the August putsch Leonid Shebarshin was appointed a chief of KGB USSR, previously he was a leader of PGU. E.M. Primakov came to his place on September 30, 1991.

He and KGB chairman Bakatin (Shebarshin sent in his papers a day after his own appointment) presented their proposals concerning elimination of intelligence bodies from KGB compound. On November, 6 Primakov was appointed the Director of Central service of intelligence (CSR), USSR.

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Hanssen was also allegedly employed by the head of Soviet counter-intelligence, Leonid Shebarshin, the last director of the Soviet KGB.

"If you look carefully at the background of...our traitors, you'll find that they were betraying their fellows even when they were in kindergarten," says Shebarshin, who in the 1980s led the elite branch that oversaw double agents, including Hanssen, Ron Pelton of the National Security Agency and CIA turncoat Rick Ames.

"Traitors are not made, says Shebarshin, who lives in Moscow. "They are born. But it depends upon the circumstances and surroundings, whether the seeds of treason produce bloom or they just stay repressed."
Money often helped, but "not only money, sympathy," Shebarshin adds.

For example, Ames liked the people that he worked with at the KGB, according to Shebarshin. "For me, he was not a traitor. He was my comrade. He was my colleague. He was a person who was trying to help my country. And to hell with your country."
Gennadiy Vasilenko, a KGB recruiter who worked in the Soviet embassy in Washington in the '70s and '80s, thought of himself as a patriot, he notes. "The United States of America was the enemy No. 1."

Most of Americans who became double agents and worked for the Soviets were motivated "just for the money and the dissatisfaction with their bosses, with their lives, with their wives," Vasilenko observes.

[Taz]

Was born in 1937 in Kiselevsk, Kemerovo area.

A member of the CPSU since 1964.
He finished Novosibirsk construction institute and Academy of social sciences at the Central Committee of the CPSU.
1973 - on party work.
1988 - He is appointed to the post of Minister of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
From August 1991 till January 1992 - Chairman of KGB of the USSR.

Note: On November 6, 1991 the KGB officially ceased to exist

[Taz]

On Nov 25, 1991 the USSR President issued the order which approved the Temporary condition on CSR USSR.

On Dec 4, 1991 KGB USSR was divided into Inter-republic service of security, Central service of intelligence and Committee on guard of state USSR boarder which was approved by the last USSR Law - «On reorganization of state security bodies». On Dec 2, 1991 a first deputy director of CSR was appointed - V.I. Trubnikov, on Dec 5 - deputies: V.I. Gurgenov, Y.A. Zubakov, V.M. Roghkov and A.A. Scherbakov.

SVR was formed by RSFSR President decree, Dec 18, 1991 on the basis of Central service of intelligence, USSR.

On Dec 26, Primakov became SVR director and he was assigned to present a project of Condition on SVR, its structure and personnel.

On Jul 8, 1992 it was enacted a Law of RF on external intelligence.

On Sep 30, 1992 a decree on Government reorganization provided its rename into Federal service of external intelligence of Russia, but its rename was canceled by a decree, Oct 7, 1992.

The Federal Security Service (Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiiskoy Federacij or FSB is a state security organisation in Russia, the successor to the KGB by way of the FSK (Federalnaya Sluzhba Kontrrazvedki, Federal Counterintelligence Service).
Following the coup of 1991, the KGB was dismantled and ceased to exist after November 1991. It successor the FSK was reorganized into the FSB in April 1995.
Federal Law of April 3, 1995 "On the Organs of the Federal Security Service in the Russian Federation" changed the FSK into the Federal Security Service (FSB) and made the new service a much powerful organization.

The law described the FSB role in the regions:

-Clarified the FSB role in the Armed Forces
-Gave the FSB director ministerial status and the rank of army general
-Allowed it to conduct intelligence work and to protect Russian citizens and enterprises abroad
-Obliged the FSB to inform the president and the prime minister about national threats
-Gave the FSB powers of detention and the right to enter any premises or property "if there is sufficient evidence to suppose that a crime is being been perpetrated there" without a warrant
-Permitted the FSB to set up special units, carrying firearms, and to train security personnel in private companies
-Established the control structures over the FSB

The FSB reforms were rounded out by Edict 633, signed by Boris Yeltsin on June 23, 1995. The edict made the tasks of the FSB more specific, giving the FSB substantial rights to conduct cryptographic work, and described the powers of the FSB director. The number of deputy directors was increased to 8: 2 first deputies, 5 deputies responsible for departments and directorates and 1 deputy director heading the Moscow City and Moscow regional directorate. Yeltsin appointed Colonel-General Mikhail Ivanovich Barsukov as the new director of the FSB.

The FSB played a major and ineffectual role in Chechnya but it also had to fight organized crime, terrorism, drug smuggling and corruption across the whole Federation as well.

On June 20, 1996, Yeltsin fired Barsukov and appointed Nikolay Dmitrevich Kovalev, to Acting Director and later to Director of the FSB.

In May 1997, the FSB was reorganized again following a political power struggle. The FSB structure was changed into five departments and six directorates:

-Counterintelligence Department
-Anti terrorist Department
-Analysis, Forecasts and Strategic Planning Department
-Personnel and Management Department
-Operational Support Department
-Directorate of Analysis and Suppression of the Activity of Criminal Organizations
-Investigation Directorate
-Operational-Search Directorate
-Operational-Technical Measures Directorate
-Internal Security Directorate
-Administration Directorate:
--Prison
--Scientific-Technical centre

The FSB was not to recruit civilian personnel and the number of places offered by the FSB Academy was cut back.

In September 1998, the FSB staff had received only half of their salaries and the distribution of meal allowances had stopped at the beginning of the year. The total number of FSB employees at the end of 1997 was 80,000.

[deValcourt]

Fantastic information!! Really. Any news of the latest developments?
Phillip