Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 14, Nr 2, 1984. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za The KGB (Russian Secret Police): Its composition, aims and methods Lt Cdr H.G. Graser* Introduction phants' careers to take a dive. Still, fear and greed make a formidable combination that keep Any discussion of the Russian Secret Police, or even the grossest of opportunists in line. As a KGB ('Committee for State Security') must of self-contained unit with its own schools, shops, necessity be preceded by a brief outline of the holiday resorts, agricultural production centres USSR's true political set-up. and training camps, the KGB has virtually no contact with the people outside of its official There are two primary governing bodies in the function which include surveillance, interroga- Soviet Union: one is the Supreme Soviet and its tion, prison administration (although nominally Presidium - the other the Communist Party and under the Minister of the Interior or the MVD, the its Central Committee and Politburo. Put into their Gulag - acronym for prison administration - is proper perspective, this emerges: the Supreme under KGB supervision), border control, pass- Soviet, which appoints Ministerial staff and runs port and emigration, political and economic as the USSR's 'government', is in fact no more than well as censorship investigations, in addition to a rubber stamping body of men who see to it that the guarding of the Kremlin and its bosses. Con- the decisions of the Communist Party are duly tact is strictly discouraged in order to maintain a ratified and implemented. closed-shop atmosphere among personnel. The KGB has a legal right to demand of anyone that To ensure that its directives are properly ad- he or she inform on suspected 'anti-Soviet' ele- hered to, and to prevent counter-revolutionary ments: Soviet statutory law makes it a criminal activity against the Party, the KGB controls the offence to refuse to do so. USSR security apparatus. Lenin What Lenin said sixty-five years ago, still applies: The KGB occupies a central position in the a good communist is at the same time also a USSR's organigram of executive, legislative and good Chekist (derived from 'Cheka', the first se- judicial dispensation. More to the point: it is the cret police organisation after the Russian Revo- coercive arm of the Communist Party's Politburo lution). To enable the modern descendants of - which happens to combine all three moments the Cheka to perform their function of total politi- of authority inside Russia, and a good deal out- cal control, roughly 500 000 people are em- side of it in Soviet satellite and client states. The ployed - of which a hard core of about 110 000 single authority to which the KGB is beholden permanent KGB officers form the 'Sword and the inside the Politburo and its Central Committee Shield' (their emblem). In addition to its own exercises command over it directly. Conse- internal troops, the KGB has at its disposal five quently, KGB officers of relatively low rank can divisions of security troops, as well as some ignore or overrule orders inside the military, mili- 2 000 Kremlin Guards. tia (normal police) or any other regulative body, given by senior officers or officials. A single attri- World's largest bute counts for everything: unquestioning loyalty For duty abroad, the KGB has at least five times and obedience. In return, KGB officers are re- as many agents as the CIA and all the Western warded lavishly with generous salaries, perks European countries can field. At least half of and goods in kind of which the ordinary Russian USSR ambassadorial staff, as well as members can only dream. of the Russian Aeroflot airline and trade-officials, military attaches, cultural commissars, technical This does not mean, however, that the KGB itself and agricultural advisers are KGB and occasion- is not under continuous and relentless scrutiny ally GRU (military intelligence) agents. Their itself. Members of this fraternity can never be never-ending task: to gather information about sure who is spying on whom, and how long their sensitive Western installations, to monitor and sinecure may last: the death of a Soviet supremo (where possible) to manipulate politicat trends, may precipitate massive upheavals, and the dis- to infiltrate trade-unions, teaching establish- missal of a commander may cause his syco- ments, churches and youth organisations and, of 9 Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 14, Nr 2, 1984. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za course, to promote communist revolutionary cli- A KGB manual titled 'Organisation of KGB mates. counter-espionage work' states that 'the deter- mining factor in the espionage activity of the Before detailing some of the principal functions KGB is the foreign po/icy of the Soviet Govern- of the KGB, a look at the Soviet Union's political ment (emphasis supplied). Any doubt about the structure: origin and purpose of Soviet subversion is put to I I 'GOVERNMENT OFTHE USSR COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE USSR President of Chairman of the the USSR & Presidium Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR Supreme Soviets International Dept. Internal Affairs (MVD) Political Corps GRU of the Armed Forces (Military of the USSR Intel!. KGB (State Security) ___________ actual and direct __ - - - - - - Nominal and indirect Subversion as policy rest for good (Myagkov p. 31). Other specific As can be seen from the above, the KGB is Soviet Secret Police tasks include these: 'To set responsible to the General Secretary of the up secret control over both international and CPSU - whose ultimate sanction it requires for internal postal and telegraphic communications foreign operations involving governments or in- (and) to fabricate cover documents.' This direc- ternationally sensitive issues. The 'Statute of the tive is of importance to South Africa on at least Committee of State Security' attached to the two major counts: the recently founded PANA Council of Ministers of the USSR' explicitly en- (Pan-African News Agency) and NWIO (New joins the KGB to 'carry out espionage work in World Information Order) are obviously either capitalist countries' ... and that its agents shall 'useful idiots' or active fronts for the communists. 'penetrate the state, political, scientific, technical Secondly, when French police uncovered a and espionage centres of imperialist states ... massive Soviet forging operation in the northern with the aim of aggravating contradictions and Paris suburb of Ivry (Sunday Times 29.6.80) it difficulties occurring in their activities ... to give became evident that Henri Curiel, founder of the the enemy misinformation for political and opera- communist organisation 'Solidarite', had long tional purposes ... ' Another directive: 'KGB or- produced fake passports and documents that gans are to carry out individual tasks entrusted discredited South Africa. Not only had he trained to them by the Central Committee and the Soviet Breyten Breytenbach in the use of secret codes Government. ' and provided travel documents for him under the 10 Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 14, Nr 2, 1984. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za name of 'Christian Galewska'; he also churned mation and Executive Action' of Chief Directorate out great numbers of fake pass books for South Number 1. African Blacks, maintained contact with Barend Schuitema, founder of the Dutch anti-apartheid It is well-nigh impossible to enumerate detailed movement and (just by the way) also counted KGB actions here. However, some indication of Carlos the Jackal among his clients. The arrest of the massive scope of their subversive KGB oper- Curiel and his 6 'cobblers' (spy jargon for pro- ations can be gained by an analysis of the prime ducers of fake documents) was, moreover, a functions of the various Chief- and Sub Sections heavy blow for the ANC, who had depended on and Departments of the KGB, whose former them for defamatory and disinformationary boss was none other than Yuri Andropov, former 'documents' with which to discredit South Africa. General Secretary of the CPSU as well as Presi- All these underhanded shenannigans were ini- dent of the USSR and Chairman of the Presidium tiated by SA Kondratchev, head of the KGB's - and whose present head is V. Chebrikov: department of disinformation - Dezinformatsiya - which was founded in 1959 as part of 'Disinfor- KGB Organigram: I COUNCIL OF MINISTERS I CENTRAL COMMITIEE OF THE POUTB. I I I L KGB. headed by V. Chebrikov Collegium Secretariat Chief Directorates Two Border guards 11 Scientia Militaria, South African Journal of Military Studies, Vol 14, Nr 2, 1984. http://scientiamilitaria.journals.ac.za The above chart is neither complete nor static: compiled largely from Western intelligence sources and information received from KGB de- fectors, it is nevertheless a generally accurate reflection of status and structure of the various components. Changes occur regularly inside the apparatus itself (since the days of the Cheka, the Russian secret police has been known as GPU, OGPU, NKVD, etc.) but its ultimate aims remain the same: the subversion, by any and all means, of the West and the world-wide communist dictatorship. Some of the principal tasks assigned to: Chief Directorate NO.1: This directorate is sub-divided into 6 sections: (i) Section'S' ('Sleepers') Here selected, capable and intelligent officers are chosen to undergo rigorous and specialised training which may last as long as 10 years. About 300-400 kilometres south-east of Mos- Yuri Loginov, a Soviet KGB agent captured in South cow the KGB has fenced off several thousand Africa in 1967. He was later exchanged for 10 West hectares of isolated countryside. No one, not German agents in East Germany even top government officials, is permitted ac- cess to the area - unless specifically authorised profession.