Ministry of State Security (Soviet Union)

Main Soviet secret police agency from 1946 to 1953

The Ministry of State Security (Russian: Министерство государственной безопасности, romanized: Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, IPA: [mʲɪnʲɪˈsʲtʲerstvə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ]), abbreviated as MGB (Russian: МГБ), was a ministry of the Soviet Union from 1946 to 1953 which functioned as the country's secret police. The ministry inherited the intelligence and state security responsibilities of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB). The MGB was led by Viktor Abakumov from 1946 to 1951, then by Semyon Ignatiev until Stalin's death in 1953, upon which it was merged into an enlarged Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD).

## Origins of the MGB

[edit]

Chronology of Soviet
security agencies

1917–22 | Cheka of the Sovnarkom of the RSFSR
(All-Russian Extraordinary Commission)
1922–23 | GPU of the NKVD of the RSFSR
(State Political Directorate)
1923–34 | OGPU of the Sovnarkom of the USSR
(Joint State Political Directorate)
1934–41
1941–43 | NKVD of the USSR
(People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)

* GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR
(Main Directorate of State Security)

1941
1943–46 | NKGB of the USSR
(People's Commissariat for State Security)
1946–53 | MGB of the USSR
(Ministry of State Security)
1953–54 | MVD of the USSR
(Ministry of Internal Affairs)
1954–91 | KGB of the Council of Ministers of the USSR
(Committee for State Security)

* v
* t
* e

The MGB was just one of many incarnations of the Soviet State Security apparatus. After the revolution, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong political police or security force to support and control their regime. During the Russian Civil War, the Cheka were in power, relinquishing it to State Political Directorate (GPU) in 1922 after the fighting was over.

The GPU was then renamed The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in 1934. From the mid-1930s and until the creation of the KGB, this "Organ of State Security" was re-organized and renamed multiple times. In 1941, the state-security function was separated from the NKVD and became the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB), only to be reintegrated a few months later during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

In 1943, the NKGB was once again made into an independent organization in response to the Soviet occupation of parts of Eastern Europe. SMERSH—anecdotally derived from a phrase translated as "Death to Spies"—was designed to be a counter-intelligence unit within the Red Army to ensure the loyalty of the army personnel.

Following the end of the war, both the NKVD and the NKGB were converted to ministries and redubbed the Ministry for Internal Affairs (MVD) and the Ministry for State Security (MGB). The MGB and MVD merged again in 1953, orchestrated by Lavrenty Beria, who was then arrested and executed. The KGB took on the mantle of the NKGB/ MGB and, in 1954, broke off from the reformed MVD.

## Functions of the MGB

[edit]

The MGB essentially inherited the "secret police" function of the old NKVD, conducting espionage and counterespionage, as well as enacting a policy of supervision and surveillance to keep control and to prevent disloyalty. After World War II, the MGB was used to bring the newly acquired Eastern Bloc under Soviet control. It enforced rigid conformity in the satellite states of Eastern Europe and infiltrated and destroyed anticommunist, anti-Soviet, or independent groups.[1]

The protection, policing, and supervision of the Soviet Union fell to this new agency, as it was the main agency responsible for the security of the Union. The MGB directed espionage networks at home and abroad, and also organized both domestic and foreign counterintelligence. They were also responsible for enforcing security regulations, monitoring and censoring information leaving or coming into the country; and supervising the vast majority of Soviet life, including the planting and organizing of agents to track and monitor public opinion and loyalty; as well as ensuring the safety of important government and party officials.[2]

The MGB, above all else, was a security organization, and as such, was designed for covert and clandestine surveillance and supervision. The intelligence apparatus was able to permeate every level and branch of state administration, with agents planted in collective farms, factories, and local governments, as well as throughout the upper level and rank and file of Soviet bureaucracy. Each department within the government also had their own official supervisor, a "Special Section" staffed by the MGB to keep tabs on and regulate the employees, and to ensure the absence of disloyalty.[3]

The Ministry retained a high level of autonomy and a remarkable amount of freedom of operation within the Soviet system, as the agency was only responsible to the Central Committee. MGB agents had the power to arrest and sentence opponents upon receiving approval from a higher authority, a clause oft ignored. The OSO (the Special Council of the State Security Ministry) convicted arrestees charged with committing political crimes, including espionage, and could banish them from certain areas, or from the USSR entirely.[4]

In Stalin’s last years, between 1945 and 1953, more than 750,000 Soviet citizens were arrested and punished.[5] Many of the arrests made by the MGB were founded on flimsy or fabricated evidence, most notably on the "suspicion of espionage" (podozreniye shpionazha, or PSh). Since in many cases it is impossible to prove any espionage activities or even an intention to spy, the case is built on the "suspicion of espionage", making acquittal impossible.[6]

## Structure

[edit]

The general structure of the MGB is much the same as both the organization it came from, the NKGB, and the organization that followed, the KGB

The MGB was composed of several departments or directorates with a specific purpose within the organization.

### Major Departments

[edit]

#### First Main Directorate

[edit]

First Main Directorate was responsible for foreign intelligence. The First Main Directorate maintained surveillance over the "Soviet colony" (SK—Sovetskaya koloniya), i.e., the personnel of Soviet diplomatic, trade, technical, cultural, and other agencies functioning abroad. It also sought to infiltrate foreign governmental bodies, businesses, public organizations, sensitive industrial plants, cultural and educational institutions, etc., placing MGB agents in strategic posts for intelligence-gathering and possible covert action.[7]

In 1947 the GRU (military intelligence) and MGB's 1st Main Directorate were combined into the recently created foreign intelligence agency, the Committee of Information (KI), under the control of Vyacheslav Molotov, in an attempt to streamline the intelligence needs of the State. In 1948, the military personnel in KI were returned to the GRU. KI sections dealing with the new East Bloc and Soviet émigrés were returned to the MGB later that year. In 1951, the KI returned to the MGB, as a First Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security.[8]

#### Second and Third Main Directorates

[edit]

The Second Main Directorate focused on domestic counterintelligence and acted as an internal security and political police force. The goal of this department was to combat foreign intelligence operations within the USSR and its territories. The Second Directorate worked mainly inside the country to combat foreign espionage and to study the forms and methods used by foreign intelligence services on the territory of the U.S.S.R. The work it did abroad aimed to organize operational-technical intelligence, i.e., the investigation of the forms, working methods and regulations of the intelligence, counterintelligence, and police and administrative organs of foreign countries.[9]

The Third Main Directorate was concerned with military counterintelligence. It carried out many of the same tasks as SMERSH, which it absorbed, as it conducted political surveillance of armed forces.[10] It relied heavily on the Army Special Section to ensure the loyalties of the soldiers and officers.[4] The MGB operatives were used to supervise personnel and daily action, as well as to carry out counterintelligence operations.

#### Fifth Main Directorate

[edit]

The Fifth Main Directorate evolved out of the Main Secret Political Administration. It was responsible for regulating and repressing real or imagined dissent within the party apparatus and Soviet society. This involved supervising almost every aspect of Soviet life, including the intelligentsia, bureaucracy, general administrative agencies, cultural organizations, educational institutions, and even the party apparatus itself. They investigated the political reliability of the entire population of the Soviet Union, with particular attention to the Party and Soviet apparatus, up to the highest leaders of the Party and government.[11]

They secretly supervised the activity of the entire administrative and economic apparatus of the state and all scientific, public, church, and other organizations. The goal was to hunt down "deviations from the general line," "opposition leanings" within the party to ferret out and eliminate "bourgeois nationalism" in the Soviet satellites, i.e., anti-Soviet movements under the guise of nationalism.[11]

### Minor Departments

[edit]

#### Fourth Directorate

[edit]

At the beginning of the MGB, the Fourth Directorate was designed as a proto-terrorist force to combat the anti-Soviet underground, nationalist formations, and hostile elements.[12] Viktor Abakumov dissolved this department in 1946, but kept the main players in a Special Service group so that they could continue with the same pattern of violence that the Fourth Directorate was known for. The group was dissolved in 1949.[13]

Upon the destruction of the Fourth Directorate as a terrorist group, the department was transitioned into Transportation Security. It was responsible for the preparation and security of mobilization and transport. The department was responsible for counterintelligence and surveillance operations within their transport programs.[14]

#### Sixth Directorate

[edit]

This department was a short-lived organization designed to collect and process Signals Intelligence, or SIGINT. The department was initially composed of the NKGB's 5th Directorate (responsible for wartime communications) and an independent cryptography department, the 2nd Special Department. However, this Directorate was competing with another better-funded communications organization, Department ‘R’, which specialized in radio counterintelligence. The 6th Directorate was dissolved in 1949, and its resources and personnel absorbed into the Special Services Department (GUSS), a cryptanalysis and information security branch of the Central Committee.[15]

#### Economic Administration

[edit]

Known as the ‘K’ Division, this organization supervised the economy and ran economic counterintelligence and industrial security. They were concerned with the implementation of security programs and requirements, as well as the supervision and monitoring of the workers, leading them to make extensive use of the Special Sections within the state and local organizations.[16]

#### Second Special Administration

[edit]

Sometimes called the Seventh Directorate, this section was responsible for providing the tools, techniques, and manpower to accommodate the physical surveillance needs of the MGB. They offered facilities, devices, and methodology to help with the demands of the intelligence departments. They were able to do both outdoor (tailing) and photographic surveillance, as well as being able to tap phone lines, monitor conversations in other rooms through hidden microphones and covertly examining mail. They also had sections devoted to codes, cryptography, and ciphers.[17]

#### Division for the Protection of Leaders

[edit]

Otherwise known as the Guards Directorate, they were charged with the personal security of the top party officials. The Division provided personal security to members and alternates of the Presidium of the Central Committee, ministers of the U.S.S.R. and their deputies, secretaries of the Central Committee, and a number of high officeholders specifically listed. The Division was also responsible for guarding important agencies and installations of the secret police themselves.[18]

A number of the top officials from this department were implicated in the Doctors' Plot, showing the inherent mistrust and suspicion within the Soviet security apparatus.[19]

## List of ministers

[edit]

* Viktor Abakumov (18 October 1946 – 14 July 1951)
* Sergei Ogoltsov (14 July 1951 – 9 August 1951) (acting)
* Semyon Ignatiev (9 August 1951 – 5 March 1953)

## Major campaigns

[edit]

* Doctors' plot
* Leningrad affair
* Mingrelian affair
* Night of the Murdered Poets
* Operation North

## Intelligence operations

[edit]

* Red Orchestra
* Cambridge Five

## In popular culture

[edit]

* In Tom Rob Smith's novel Child 44, the first in the Leo Demidov trilogy, Demidov is an MGB agent

## See also

[edit]

* Eastern Bloc politics
* Stasi

## External links

[edit]

* Media related to NKGB at Wikimedia Commons

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Encyclopedia :: K :: KGB". www.rusnet.nl. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2011.
2. ^ Fainsod, Merle (1949). "Recent Developments in Soviet Public Administration". The Journal of Politics. 11 (4): 679–714. doi:10.2307/2126230. JSTOR 2126230. S2CID 153394501 - via JSTOR.
3. ^ Fainsod, p. 710.
4. ^ a b Fainsod, p. 711.
5. ^ "KGB | Origins, Functions, Significance, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 12 January 2024.
6. ^ Wolin, Simon; Slusser, Robert M. (1974). The Soviet Secret Police. Westport, CT: Greenwood. p. 133.
7. ^ Wolin and Slusser, pp. 138-139.
8. ^ "KGB." Universitat De València. Web. 19 May 2011. [permanent dead link‍].
9. ^ Wolin and Slusser, p. 168.
10. ^ Mitrokhin, Vasiliĭ Ivanovich (18 June 2002). KGB Lexicon: The Soviet Intelligence Officer's Handbook. Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714652573 - via Google Books.
11. ^ a b Wolin and Slusser, p. 166.
12. ^ "History of the MGB: The Fourth Directorate." TELUS Internet Services - Member Services. Web. 19 May 2011. Archived 14 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine>.
13. ^ Parrish, Michael. The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939-1953. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, pp. 174, 314-318.
14. ^ Wolin and Slusser, p. 136.
15. ^ Leeuw, Karl De., and Jan Bergstra. The History of Information Security: a Comprehensive Handbook. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007, pp. 505-506.
16. ^ Wolin and Slusser, pp. 115-117.
17. ^ Wolin and Slusser, p. 110-111.
18. ^ Wolin and Slusser, p.114.
19. ^ Knight, Amy W. Beria, Stalin's First Lieutenant. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 169-171.

## Further reading

[edit]

See also: Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union § Terror, famine and the Gulag

* "Structure of the KGB USSR". Aventura. ru. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011.

* v
* t
* e

Secret police agencies in the Eastern Bloc

* Gulag
* Iron Curtain
* Telephone tapping in the Eastern Bloc
* Berlin Wall
* Inner German border

Soviet Union|

* Extraordinary Commission (Cheka)
* State Political Directorate (GPU)
* Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU)
* People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD)
* Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB)
* People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB)
* Ministry of State Security (MGB)
* Committee for State Security (KGB)

Albania|

* Directorate of State Security (Sigurimi)

Bulgaria|

* Committee for State Security (DS)

Czechoslovakia|

* State Security (StB)

East Germany|

* Ministry for State Security (Stasi)

Hungary|

* State Protection Authority (ÁVH)
* Ministry of Internal Affairs III

Poland|

* Ministry of Public Security (UB/MBP)
* Security Service (SB)

Romania|

* Department of State Security (Securitate)

Yugoslavia|

* Department of National Security (OZNA)
* Directorate for State Security (UDBA)
* Counterintelligence Service (KOS)

* v
* t
* e

All-Union Government of the Soviet Union

All-Union|

* President and Vice President of the Soviet Union
* list
* Presidential Council
* Federation Council
* State Council
* Security Council
* Premiers

Ministries
(list)|

* Agricultural Products Procurement
* Agriculture and Food
* Installation and Special Construction
* Armament
* Automobile and Agricultural Machine Building
* Aviation Industry
* Building Materials Industry
* Chemical Industry
* Chemical and Oil Machinery Building
* Cellulose and Paper Industry
* Civil Aviation
* Coal Industry
* Commerce
* Communications
* Communication Equipment Industry
* Construction
* Construction of Fuel Industry
* Construction of Heavy Industry
* Construction of Oil and Gas Industry
* Construction of Petrochemical Machinery
* Construction of Power Plants
* Construction of Road Building and Communal Machines
* Construction of Tool-Machines
* Cotton
* Culture
* Defense
* Defense Industry
* Economy
* Education
* Electrical Engineering
* Electrical Power and Electrification
* Electronics Industry
* Electrotechnical Industry
* Environmental Protection
* Foreign Affairs
* Ferrous Metallurgy
* Finance
* Fishing Industry
* Foreign Economic Relations
* Forestry
* Forestry Industry
* Fruits and Vegetables
* Gas Industry
* General Machine-Building
* Geology
* Grain Products
* Health
* Housing and Architecture
* Heavy Machine Building
* Heavy and Transport Machines Construction
* Higher Education
* Industrial Construction
* Installation and Special Construction Work
* Instrument-Making, Automation and Control Systems
* Internal Affairs
* Iron and Steel
* Justice
* Light Industry
* Land Reclamation and Water Resources
* Machine Building
* Machine Building for Animal Husbandry and Fodder Products
* Machine Building for Light and Food Industry
* Machine Tool and Tool Building Industry
* Machinery for Stock Raising and Feeding
* Manufacture of Communication Media
* Meat and Dairy Industry
* Medical Industry
* Medical and Microbiologiacal Industry
* Medium Machine-Building
* Merchant Marine
* Mineral Fertilizer Production
* Metallurgy
* Non-Ferrous Metallurgy
* Nuclear Power Industry
* Oil Industry
* Oil and Gas Industry
* Oil Processing and Petrochemical Industry
* Power and Electrification
* Pulp and Paper Industry
* Radio Industry
* Railways
* Rubber Industry
* Shipbuilding
* State Farms
* State Security
* Technical Cultivation
* Textile Industry
* Timber Industry
* Timber, Paper and Wood Processing Industry
* Tool and Tool Building Industry
* Internal Trade
* Tractors and Agricultural Machines
* Transport Construction
* Urban Construction

Regional ministries|

* Construction in the Eastern Regions
* Construction in the Far East and Transbaikal Regions
* Construction in the Northern and Western Regions
* Construction in the Southern Regions
* Construction in the Urals and West Siberian Regions

State Committees
and commissions|

* Building Materials
* Cinematography
* Construction
* Defense
* Defense Technology
* Flight Safety
* Fuel Industry
* Labour and Social Issues
* Logistics
* People's Control
* Prices
* Publishing
* Metallurgy
* State of Emergency
* Science and Technology
* Standards and Product Quality Management
* State Planning
* State Security
* Chairmen
* Statistics
* Television and Radio
* Timber and Paper Industry
* Transport Construction

* v
* t
* e

Soviet Union topics

History|

* Index of Soviet Union–related articles
* Russian Revolution
* February
* October
* Russian Civil War
* Russian SFSR
* Creation treaty
* New Economic Policy
* Stalinism
* Great Purge
* Great Patriotic War (World War II)
* Evacuation
* The Holocaust
* Cold War
* Khrushchev Thaw
* Sino-Soviet split
* Soviet space program
* 1965 economic reform
* Stagnation
* Soviet–Afghan War
* Perestroika
* Glasnost
* Revolutions of 1989
* Dissolution
* Post-Soviet states
* Nostalgia

Geography|

| Subdivisions|

* Republics
* Autonomous
* Krais
* Oblasts
* Autonomous
* Autonomous okrugs
* Closed city

|

Regions|

* Caspian Sea
* Caucasus Mountains
* European Russia
* North Caucasus
* Siberia
* Ural Mountains
* West Siberian Plain

Politics|

| General|

* Constitution
* 1936
* 1977
* Elections
* Foreign relations
* Brezhnev Doctrine
* Gun control
* Government
* List
* Human rights
* LGBT
* Law
* Capital punishment
* Leaders
* Collective leadership
* National delimitation
* Passport system
* Propiska
* Political parties
* State ideology
* Marxism–Leninism
* Leninism
* Stalinism
* Soviet anti-Zionism

|

Bodies|

* Communist Party
* organisation
* Congress
* Central Committee
* Presidium/Politburo
* Secretariat
* General Secretary
* Congress of Soviets (1922–1936)
* Supreme Soviet (1938–1991)
* Congress of People's Deputies (1989–1991)
* Supreme Court
* Military Collegium

Offices|

* Heads of state
* President
* Premier
* Deputy Premier
* First Deputy Premier

Security services|

* Cheka
* GPU
* NKVD
* Destruction battalions
* MVD
* Militsiya
* MGB
* KGB
* Chairmen
* Soviet Border Troops
* Soviet Armed Forces
* Soviet Army/Spetsnaz GRU • Soviet Navy • Soviet Air Forces/Soviet Airborne Forces

Political repression|

* Red Terror
* Collectivization
* Great Purge
* Population transfer
* Forced labor
* Gulag
* List
* Holodomor
* Political abuse of psychiatry

Ideological repression|

* Religion
* Science
* Censorship
* Censorship of images

Economy|

* Agriculture
* Central Bank
* Economic planning
* Energy policy
* Five-year plans
* Internet domain
* Inventions
* Net material product
* OGAS
* Science and technology
* Rouble (currency)
* Transport
* Railway system
* Rail transport
* List of metro systems

Science|

* Communist Academy
* Cybernetics
* Academy of Sciences
* Academy of Medical Sciences
* Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences
* Sharashkas
* Naukograds
* List

Society|

* Antisemitism
* Crime
* Demographics
* Soviet people
* Working class
* 1989 census
* Drug policy
* Family
* Languages
* Linguistics
* Cyrillisation
* Prohibition
* Racism

Culture|

* Ballet
* Cinema
* Fashion
* Literature
* Music
* Opera
* Phraseology
* Printed media
* Propaganda
* Radio
* Sports
* Stalinist architecture
* Television

Opposition|

* Soviet dissidents and their groups
* List

Symbols|

* Anthem
* Republics
* Emblem
* Republics
* Flag
* Republics
* Hammer and sickle

* Soviet Union portal
* Category

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF

National|

* United States
* Israel

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template