History UsefulNotes / MoscowCentre

During Stalin's time, the OGPU ("Joint State Political Directorate/''gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie''"), later merged into the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs/''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del''), which played a central role in the Purges. The Great Purge of 1936-38 was called the "Yezhovshchina" after the then-NKVD chief Nikolai [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast "The Bloody Dwarf"]] Yezhov. The organization was not exempt from the purges, with officers denouncing others then getting denounced themselves. Eventually, Yezhov ''himself'' was purged (for the crime of purging innocent people, ironically enough), and replaced with Lavrentiy Beria. Who was less trigger-happy, but, unfortunately, completely insane.

During Stalin's time, the OGPU ("Joint State Political Directorate/''gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie''"), later merged into the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs/''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del''), which played a central role in the Purges. The Great Purge of 1936-38 was called the "Yezhovshchina" after the then-NKVD chief Yezhov. The organization was not exempt from the purges, with officers denouncing others then getting denounced themselves. Eventually, Yezhov ''himself'' was purged (for the crime of purging innocent people, ironically enough), and replaced with Lavrentiy Beria. Who was less trigger-happy, but, unfortunately, completely insane.

Stalin [[EvenEvilHasStandards never trusted or liked Beria]], who had a well-deserved reputation as a [[RapeIsASpecialEvil depraved sexual predator]], even if he did consider him a useful attack dog. Stalin once went crazy with worry upon hearing that his own beloved daughter was alone in a house with the NKVD chief, and sent armed men to escort her away. Even as early as 1942, he told Beria's personal aide to "Send me everything this asshole writes down," just in case the need arose to have him purged like his predecessors.

Another take on Beria views him as a pragmatic man who was brought in specifically to do something with the unholy mess that Great Purges turned into. You see, original plan was reportedly to make a nice, neat clean-up of the house, removing the remains of the Lenin's Old Guard from power, and, maybe not even shooting, just exiling them. Unfortunately, the NKVD very soon lost control of the process, not helped by the hands-off attitude of its previous heads and utter craziness of two last ones before Beria, Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov.

By the way, the [[UsefulNotes/{{Belarus}} Belarussian]] branch of KGB wasn't dissolved. [[TheRemnant It still exists under this very name]]. Contrast with neighboring former Soviet nation, Lithuania which has turned their old KGB building into a museum of sorts against such forces (having been subject to [[TsaristRussia the Okhrana]], the [[NaziGermany Gestapo]], ''and'' the KGB will give you a healthy distaste for secret police).

** Included the still-existing Alfa Group, the KGB equivalent to Spetsnaz GRU, responsible for counter-terrorist operations and other stuff of that nature, including storming the Presidential Palace in Kabul in the opening attacks of the SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan.

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* Marvels Black Widow was an ex KGB agent.

** And then of course, there's his protégé, NKVDemon.

The KGB also engaged in some assassination operations, mainly of defectors, working with other allied organisations to do this. The most infamous in 1978 of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian living in London, involved an umbrella firing pellets filled with ricin. The statute of limitations recently expired on that case, with no one being brought to justice. ''May'' have been behind the attempted assassination of (Polish) Pope John Paul II in 1981. Allegations that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the KGB's employ have little to substantiate them.
* The service itself, however, vehemently denied these accusations, stating that they renounced such methods since just after the war. But then, they would say that wouldn't they.

* Getting five agents, the Cambridge Five, into pretty high positions in British intelligence,
** including almost getting one, Kim Philby, to the head of SIS itself, before he defected to the USSR
* Via mole John Anthony Walker, getting info on US naval technology that helped make the "Victor III" and "Akula" classes significantly quieter than their predecessors
** Who literally walked in and offered his services
* Finding and assassinating Leon Trotsky, one of the original leaders of the October Revolution, who just wouldn't shut up in his criticism of Stalin, who was convinced that Trotsky was an all-powerful leader with an army of revolutionaries who was going to kick his ass. When really, he was just an old man whose son's chief adviser was a (KGB) agent. Still he was noisy as hell and ''extremely'' politically inconvenient, just at the times that Stalin tried to improve the USSR's foreign relations.

Another take on Beria views him as a [[PragmaticVillainy Pragmatic Villain]], who was brought in specifically to do something with the unholy mess that Great Purges turned into. You see, original plan was reportedly to make a nice, neat clean-up of the house, removing the remains of the Lenin's Old Guard from power, and, maybe not even shooting, just exiling them. Unfortunately, the NKVD very soon lost control of the process, not helped by the hands-off attitude of its previous heads and utter craziness of two last ones before Beria, Genrikh Yagoda and Nikolai Yezhov.

Luckily, Beria proved to be a [[PragmaticVillainy ruthless, but efficient administrator]], and quickly [[IDidWhatIHadToDo cleaned up the house]] and reined the purges in, even starting a judicial review on the cases tried during his predecessors. In fact, some people who suffered the Great Purges were rehabilitated during the Stalin's regime already. After that, Beria continued to serve as a Stalin's right hand man,[[note]]Including management of both Soviet nuclear and ICBM projects[[/note]] using his sinister reputation as a motivational tool. It proved [[HoistByHisOwnPetard to be his undoing later]], though.

* The service itself, however, vehemently denied these accusations, stating that they renounced such methods since just after the war. There is probably some truth in this, as the foreign diversions department was indeed disbanded after WWII, and USSR's (and its secret services) relations with its ostensible allies were in reality never easy — Soviet satellites were constantly scheming and wrangling to uphold their own interests and weren't above some tricks under their master's nose.

During Stalin's time, the OGPU ("Joint State Political Directorate/''gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie''"), later merged into the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs/''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del''), which played a central role in the Purges. The Great Purge of 1936-38 was called the "Yezhovshchina" after the then-NKVD chief Yezhov. The organization was not exempt from the purges, with officers denouncing others then getting denounced themselves. Eventually, Yezhov ''himself'' was purged (for the crime of purging innocent people, ironically enough), and replaced with Lavrentiy Beriya. Who was less trigger-happy, but, unfortunately, completely insane.

As for NKVD itself, after the war it became the MGB (Ministry for State Security) in 1946. It lost foreign intelligence for a while and in 1953 was merged into the Ministry for Internal Affairs for a year by Beriya. After Stalin's death Beriya, as well as many other Politburo members, took part in a fierce competition to get supreme power. The first part of this consisted of everyone joining forces against Beriya, who was considered too dangerous to live, let alone rule the USSR. After he was safely dead, the remaining Politburo members could have a nice, civilized power struggle in which the losers were merely disgraced and demoted, as opposed to being shot.

It's said that Beriya begged for his life before he was shot, something people considered a kind of poetic justice given that he sent so many others to their deaths without mercy. Another rumor is that during his arrest he, surprised and agitated, was personally shot by [[FourStarBadass Marshal Georgy Zhukov]], whom Khruschev reportedly brought specifically in case of him resisting, and his later public process was actually a sham. This rumor probably inspired the similar scene in DavidWeber's ''[[Literature/HonorHarrington Ashes of Victory]]'', with [[spoiler:Admiral Theisman shooting the Committee of Public Safety Chairman and StateSec's head Oscar Saint-Just, allegedly based in large part on Beria]].

During Stalin's time, the OGPU ("Joint State Political Directorate/''gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie''"), later merged into the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs/''Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del''), which played a central role in the Purges. The Great Purge of 1936-38 was called the "Yezhovshchina" after the then-NKVD chief Yezhov. The organization was not exempt from the purges, with officers denouncing others then getting denounced themselves. Eventualcly, Yezhov ''himself'' was purged (for the crime of purging innocent people, ironically enough), and replaced with Lavrentiy Beriya. Who was less trigger-happy, but, unfortunately, completely insane.

Soviet intelligence engaged in some very successful intelligence operations against the West before and during the ColdWar, including:

The current [[WhyDoYouKeepChangingJobs President]] of Russia, VladimirPutin, was a KGB officer; he has brought many of his ex-KGB colleagues into powerful positions in government. Ever since Putin took power, the joke about the SVR and FSB (and especially the FSB) has been "new name, same friendly service."

The KGB and its predecessors have featured in thousands of works of fiction, mostly set during the ColdWar. Naturally, they are [[VillainByDefault Villains by Default]]. The only time KGB agents aren't evil is when they're fighting a RenegadeRussian.

* Appear in various roles in Martin Cruz-Smith's ''Literature/GorkyPark'' series of books, particularly the earlier ones that took place during the ColdWar. Notably, in the second book, ''Polar Star'', Renko discovers that a suspect in his investigation works for the GRU, and once he gets him alone, is able to get him to spill everything he knows simply by implying that he is with the KGB by using what is implied to be their catchphrase [[note]] "If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear."[[/note]]

* ''Roleplay/{{Covert-81}}'' features a fictional black ops section of the KGB called Chameleon[[note]]The word is almost identical in Russian and English, except in Russian it's [[XtremeKoolLetterz Khameleon]][[/note]]. It is placed under the Fifteen Directorate (Security of Government Installations) for concealment reasons.

The name of this title is the way Soviet intelligence is referred to in the works of Creator/JohnLeCarre, but was also an internal name used by the KGB.

The difference is similar to the difference between the CIA and the NIS (Naval Intelligence Service) or USAMI (US Army Military Intelligence). The two services also notoriously [[InterserviceRivalry don't get along]], largely because GRU considers itself the heir to the old Tsarist military intelligence (given how large a percentage of the former Tsarist officers joined the Red Army, bringing there their institutional experience, it isn't much of a stretch), while KGB/FSB were/are "those Bolshevik upstarts". On their part, During the early Soviet period Cheka/NKVD regarded GRU as "those bourgeois remnants", and so the mutual hostility was born.

* ''SpirouAndFantasio In Moscow'' has the duo "recruited" to help KGB track down Fantasio's cousin Santafio, who is posing as the rightful Heir to the Czar.

* In HarryTurtledove's ''{{Worldwar}}'', several of the Soviet characters have to deal with NKVD interference DuringTheWar. As this is an AlternateHistory, the butterfly effect means that the service is still called the NKVD by the 1960s, at which point its leader Lavrenti Beria launches an unsuccessful coup.
* Appear in various roles in Martin Cruz-Smith's ''GorkyPark'' series of books, particularly the earlier ones that took place during the ColdWar. Notably, in the second book, ''Polar Star'', Renko discovers that a suspect in his investigation works for the GRU, and once he gets him alone, is able to get him to spill everything he knows simply by implying that he is with the KGB by using what is implied to be their catchphrase [[note]] "If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear."[[/note]]

* Finding and assassinating Leon Trotsky, one of the original leaders of the October Revolution, who just wouldn't shut up in his criticism of Stalin, whom was convinced that Trotsky was an all-powerful leader with an army of revolutionaries who was going to kick his ass. When really, he was just an old man whose son's chief adviser was a (KGB) agent. Still he was noisy as hell and ''extremely'' politically inconvenient, just at the times that Stalin tried to improve the USSR's foreign relations.

Luckily, Beria proved to be a [[PragmaticVillainy ruthless, but efficient administrator]], and quickly [[IDidWhatIHadToDo cleaned up the house]] and reined the purges in, even starting a judicial review on the cases tried during his predecessors. In fact, some people who suffered the Great Purges were rehabilitated during the Stalin's regime already. After that, Beria continued to serve as a Stalin's right hand man,[[hottip:*:Including management of both Soviet nuclear and ICBM projects]] using his sinister reputation as a motivational tool. It proved [[HoistByHisOwnPetard to be his undoing later]], though.

* Appear in various roles in Martin Cruz-Smith's ''GorkyPark'' series of books, particularly the earlier ones that took place during the ColdWar. Notably, in the second book, ''Polar Star'', Renko discovers that a suspect in his investigation works for the GRU, and once he gets him alone, is able to get him to spill everything he knows simply by implying that he is with the KGB by using what is implied to be their catchphrase [[hottip:*: "If you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear."]]

* ''Roleplay/{{Covert-81}}'' features a fictional black ops section of the KGB called Chameleon[[hottip:*:The word is almost identical in Russian and English, except in Russian it's [[XtremeKoolLetterz Khameleon]]. It is placed under the Fifteen Directorate (Security of Government Installations) for concealment reasons.