On December 20, employees of the Russian special services (FSB, SVR and FSO) traditionally celebrate their professional holiday - the Day of the worker of the security agencies of the Russian Federation. Moreover, this year they are celebrating their centennial anniversary - on December 20, 1917, at the initiative of Lenin, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR issued a Decree on the formation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK), which became the predecessor of the KGB and the FSB. In honor of the solemn date, the current head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, gave a long interview to the editor-in-chief of Rossiyskaya Gazeta, telling how he relates to the historical past of his department and how it lives today.

According to Bortnikov, he is not embarrassed by the fact that today's FSB officers are often called Chekists, as employees of the Cheka, known for their extremely harsh methods of "fighting counter-revolution." The head of the FSB stressed that the activities of the current security agencies have nothing to do with the "emergency" of the first years of Soviet power, but at the same time, in his opinion, "to deny the word" Chekist "is the same as consigning generations of our predecessors to oblivion."

Answering the question of whether the Chekists themselves in the 1930s did not understand that they were participating in mass repressions of innocent citizens, Bortnikov emphasized that although "among the Chekists there were opportunists who adhered to the principle" the end justifies the means ", but at the same time there were and those who were driven by disinterested ideological motives. "The latter, even when they themselves fell under repression, for the most part did not lose faith in the party and Stalin personally," Bortnikov noted, recalling that in 1933-1939, 22,618 Chekists were repressed.

Although many people associate this period of history with mass fabrication of charges, Bortnikov noted that "archival materials testify to the presence of an objective side in a significant part of criminal cases, including those that formed the basis of well-known open trials." Here they cited as an example "the plans of Trotsky's supporters to remove or even liquidate Stalin and his associates in the leadership of the CPSU (b)". As Bortnikov emphasized, this "is by no means an invention, just like the connections of the conspirators with foreign special services." “In addition, a large number of defendants in those cases are representatives of the party nomenclature and the leadership of law enforcement agencies, mired in corruption, committing arbitrariness and lynching,” recalled the interlocutor of RG.

Today, the Russian security agencies, which are changing along with society, have completely different methods, Bortnikov assured. "The domestic security agencies, having traveled a difficult path, have learned important lessons from history. Now the FSB of Russia is free from political influence and does not serve any party or group interests. It builds its work on the basis of the Russian Constitution and federal legislation. It acts in the interests of ensuring the security of the individual , society and the state," summed up the head of the FSB. And the results of such work of the Russian special services every year find more and more support from citizens, he expressed confidence.

About 140 foreign spies and their agents have been convicted in Russia in five years

The day before, in an interview with the same Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, said that over the past five years in Russia, people have been convicted for intelligence activities 137 staff members and agents foreign intelligence services. "Foreign special services are still striving to infiltrate all spheres of activity of our state. Naturally, this is met with a resolute rebuff by counterintelligence officers. So, from 2012 to the present, 137 foreign special services personnel and their agents have been convicted," the head of the FSB said.

According to him, in cooperation with other Russian authorities, the work of 120 foreign and international non-governmental organizations, "which are an instrument of the foreign intelligence community," was terminated. 140 people were convicted as a result of measures to protect information constituting a state secret.

According to him, Russia has repeatedly become the object of hostile encroachments by foreign states, and for some, its destruction remains an obsession.

"The enemy tried to defeat us either in open battle, or relying on traitors inside the country, with their help to sow confusion, divide the people, paralyze the state's ability to timely and effectively respond to emerging threats," he said.

According to the head of the FSB, the security agencies must promptly identify the enemy's plans, preempt his actions and adequately respond to any attacks.

The history of one structure: the Cheka, the GPU, the NKVD, the MGB, the KGB, the FSB, as well as the SVR, the GRU and the FSO

December 20 marks the professional holiday of employees of the Russian special services responsible for the security of the individual, society and the state - the Day of the Security Bodies Worker. It was established on the basis of a decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 20, 1995. Previously, for many decades, December 20 was celebrated unofficially as Chekist Day.

The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR was created on December 20, 1917, headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, and abolished on February 6, 1922, with the transfer of powers to the GPU under the NKVD of the RSFSR.

The Cheka was the leading body of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" for the protection of the state security of the RSFSR, "the leading body in the fight against counter-revolution throughout the country." This structure was the main tool for the implementation of the Red Terror - a set of punitive measures carried out by the Bolsheviks during the Civil War in Russia against various social groups proclaimed class enemies, as well as against persons accused of counter-revolutionary activities. From the abbreviation "ChK" came the word "chekist".

According to various estimates, in 1917-1922, tens of thousands of people were shot by the verdicts of revolutionary tribunals and extrajudicial meetings of the Cheka (according to other sources, up to 140 thousand).

In February 1922, at the suggestion of Vladimir Lenin, the Cheka was abolished with the transfer of powers to the GPU under the NKVD of the RSFSR. In 1923, the GPU was transformed into the OGPU under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR at the union level. In 1934, the OGPU became part of the NKVD of the USSR as the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB).

In February 1941, the NKVD of the USSR was divided into two independent bodies: the NKVD of the USSR and the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) of the USSR. In July 1941, the NKGB and the NKVD of the USSR were again merged into a single people's commissariat - the NKVD of the USSR. In April 1943, the People's Commissariat for State Security of the USSR was re-established. On March 15, 1946, the NKGB was transformed into the Ministry of State Security.

Later, the name and structural location of the department changed several more times, until the USSR State Security Committee (KGB) was created in 1954, which worked until 1991. All this time - from 1919 to 1991, the main building of the state security bodies of the RSFSR and the USSR was the famous house on Lubyanka, built at the end of the 19th century by the Rossiya insurance company, whose property was nationalized in 1918.

Since the 1920s, the building on Lubyanka has housed an internal state security prison since 1920, expanded in the 1930s. In this regard, in Moscow in those years they joked that this was the tallest building in the country - Siberia and Kolyma were visible from its basements.

On December 3, 1991, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev signed the law "On the reorganization of state security bodies", on the basis of which the KGB of the USSR was abolished, and for the transitional period, the Inter-Republican Security Service and the Central Intelligence Service of the USSR (Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation) were created on its basis.

In January 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree on the formation of the Ministry of Security of the Russian Federation on the basis of the abolished Inter-Republican Security Service and the Federal Security Agency of the RSFSR, which was transformed in November 1991 from the State Security Committee of the RSFSR, created in May of the same year.

On December 21, 1993, the President of the Russian Federation signed a decree on the abolition of the Ministry of Security and the creation of the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), which, on the basis of the Russian law of April 3, 1995 "On Federal Security Service Bodies in the Russian Federation", was transformed into the FSB.

On May 27, 1996, the Law of the Russian Federation "On State Protection" was adopted, in accordance with which the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation was created, which was merged with the Security Service of the President of the Russian Federation in the same year.

In 2003, the functions of the abolished Federal Border Service of the Russian Federation (FBS RF) and (partly) the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI) under the President of the Russian Federation were transferred to the FSB of the Russian Federation. The FSB reports directly to the President of the Russian Federation.

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation includes departments - counterintelligence, counter-terrorism, economic security, analysis, forecast and strategic planning, organizational and personnel work; management - military counterintelligence, constitutional security, investigative, own security, etc. Creates territorial security agencies and security agencies in the troops (special departments), together with which it forms a single centralized system of FSB agencies.

Special services also include state security bodies and their modern structure - the Federal Security Service (FSO) of the Russian Federation.

The first written information about the existence of subdivisions of the grand-ducal and royal guards refers to the reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible). In the 17th century, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (Romanov), the boyar Artamon Matveev substantiated the need for separate military, police and security (palace) functions of archery regiments in the Streltsy order. At the same time, "concerns" for the protection of the royal person and family, the royal palace and the diplomatic corps were named in official documents as separate tasks separated from other archery affairs. Some of the tasks and functions of the state guard at the initiative of Matveev were reflected in the first Russian constitutional code - the "Cathedral Code" (1649).

Then, other departments known from history were in charge of ensuring the security of the Russian state, for example, the Preobrazhensky Prikaz and the Secret Office of Peter I, the Secret Expedition under the Senate, the Third Branch of the Own Office of Nicholas I and Alexander II.

After the terrorist attack on March 13 (March 1, old style) 1881, when Emperor Alexander II died, the state security system in Russia was radically reformed. As a result of the transformations, in September 1881, for the first time in the history of Russia, a special department was created to protect the first persons of the state. Over the next decades, the security service improved.

Cheka (1917-1922)

The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was established on December 7, 1917 as an organ of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". The main task of the commission was the fight against counter-revolution and sabotage. The body also performed the functions of intelligence, counterintelligence and political search. Since 1921, the tasks of the Cheka included the elimination of homelessness and neglect among children.

The people called the commission "extraordinary", and its employees - "chekists". Headed the first Soviet state security agency Felix Dzerzhinsky. The building of the former mayor of Petrograd, located at Gorokhovaya, 2, was assigned to the new structure.

In February 1918, employees of the Cheka received the right to shoot criminals on the spot without trial or investigation in accordance with the decree "The Fatherland is in danger!".

The death penalty was allowed to apply to "enemy agents, speculators, thugs, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, German spies", and later "all persons involved in White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions."

The end of the civil war and the decline of the wave of peasant uprisings made the continued existence of the expanded repressive apparatus, whose activities had practically no legal restrictions, meaningless. Therefore, by 1921, the party faced the question of reforming the organization.

OGPU (1923-1934)

On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was finally abolished, and its powers were transferred to the State Political Administration, which later became known as the United (OGPU). As Lenin emphasized: "... the abolition of the Cheka and the creation of the GPU does not simply mean a change in the name of the bodies, but consists in changing the nature of all the activities of the body during the period of peaceful state building in a new situation ...".

The main task of the new body was still the same fight against counter-revolution in all its manifestations. Subordinate to the OGPU were special units of the troops necessary to suppress public unrest and combat banditry.

In addition, the following functions were assigned to the department:

• protection of railway and waterways;


• combating smuggling and border crossing by Soviet citizens);


• fulfillment of special instructions of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars.

On May 9, 1924, the powers of the OGPU were significantly expanded. The department began to obey the police and the criminal investigation department. Thus began the process of merging the state security agencies with the internal affairs agencies.

NKVD (1934-1943)

On July 10, 1934, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR (NKVD) was formed. The People's Commissariat was all-Union, and the OGPU was included in it as a structural unit called the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB). The fundamental innovation was that the judicial board of the OGPU was abolished: the new department was not supposed to have judicial functions. The new People's Commissariat headed Heinrich Yagoda.

On March 28, 1937, Yagoda was arrested by the NKVD, during a search of his house, according to the protocol, pornographic photographs, Trotskyist literature and a rubber dildo were found. In view of the "anti-state" activities, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks expelled Yagoda from the party. The new head of the NKVD was appointed Nikolay Yezhov.

In 1937, the "troikas" of the NKVD appeared. A commission of three people delivered thousands of sentences in absentia to "enemies of the people", based on the materials of the authorities, and sometimes simply according to the lists. A feature of this process was the absence of protocols and the minimum number of documents on the basis of which a decision was made on the guilt of the defendant. The verdict of the Troika was not subject to appeal.

During the year of work by the "troikas" 767,397 people were convicted, of which 386,798 people were sentenced to death. The victims most often became kulaks - wealthy peasants who did not want to voluntarily give their property to the collective farm.

April 10, 1939 Yezhov was arrested in the office George Malenkov. Subsequently, the former head of the NKVD confessed to being homosexual and preparing a coup d'état. The third people's commissar of internal affairs was Lavrenty Beria.

NKGB - MGB (1943-1954)

On February 3, 1941, the NKVD was divided into two people's commissariats - the People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB) and the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

This was done in order to improve the intelligence and operational work of the state security agencies and the distribution of the increased workload of the NKVD of the USSR.

The tasks assigned to the NKGB were:

• conducting intelligence work abroad;


• combating the subversive, espionage, and terrorist activities of foreign intelligence services within the USSR;


• operational development and liquidation of the remnants of anti-Soviet parties and counter-revolutionary formations among various sections of the population of the USSR, in the system of industry, transport, communications, and agriculture;


• protection of party and government leaders.

The tasks of ensuring state security were assigned to the NKVD. The military and prison units, the police, and the fire brigade remained under the jurisdiction of this department.

On July 4, 1941, in connection with the outbreak of war, it was decided to merge the NKGB and the NKVD into one department in order to reduce the bureaucracy.

In 1946, all people's commissariats were renamed into ministries, respectively, the NKGB became the Ministry of State Security of the USSR. At the same time, he became Minister of State Security Victor Abakumov. With his arrival, the transition of the functions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to the jurisdiction of the MGB began. In 1947-1952, internal troops, police, border troops and other units were transferred to the department (the camp and construction departments, fire protection, escort troops, courier communications remained in the Ministry of Internal Affairs).

After death Stalin in 1953 Nikita Khrushchev displaced Beria and organized a campaign against the illegal repressions of the NKVD. Subsequently, several thousand unjustly convicted were rehabilitated.

KGB (1954-1991)

On March 13, 1954, the State Security Committee (KGB) was created by separating from the MGB departments, services and departments that were related to issues of ensuring state security. Compared to its predecessors, the new body had a lower status: it was not a ministry within the government, but a committee under the government. The chairman of the KGB was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, but he was not a member of the highest authority - the Politburo. This was explained by the fact that the party elite wanted to protect themselves from the emergence of a new Beria - a man who could remove her from power for the sake of implementing their own political projects.

The area of ​​responsibility of the new body included: foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, operational-search activities, protection of the state border of the USSR, protection of the leaders of the CPSU and the government, organization and provision of government communications, as well as the fight against nationalism, dissent, crime and anti-Soviet activities.

In the 1970s, the KGB intensified its fight against dissent and the dissident movement. However, the department's actions have become more subtle and disguised. Such means of psychological pressure as surveillance, public condemnation, undermining a professional career, preventive talks, coercion to travel abroad, forced confinement to psychiatric clinics, political trials, slander, lies and compromising evidence, various provocations and intimidation were actively used. At the same time, there were also lists of "not allowed to travel abroad" - those who were denied permission to travel abroad.

A new "invention" of the special services was the so-called "exile beyond the 101st kilometer": politically unreliable citizens were evicted outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Under the close attention of the KGB during this period were, first of all, representatives of the creative intelligentsia - figures of literature, art and science - who, due to their social status and international authority, could cause the most extensive damage to the reputation of the Soviet state and the Communist Party.

In the 90s, changes in society and the system of state administration of the USSR, caused by the processes of perestroika and glasnost, led to the need to revise the foundations and principles of the activities of state security agencies.

From 1954 to 1958, the leadership of the KGB was carried out I. A. Serov.

From 1958 to 1961 - A. N. Shelepin.

From 1961 to 1967 - V. E. Semichastny.

From 1967 to 1982 - Yu. V. Andropov.

From May to December 1982 - V. V. Fedorchuk.

From 1982 to 1988 - V. M. Chebrikov.

From August to November 1991 - V.V. Bakatin.

December 3, 1991 President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev signed the law "On the reorganization of state security agencies". On the basis of the document, the KGB of the USSR was abolished and, for the transitional period, the Inter-Republican Security Service and the Central Intelligence Service of the USSR (currently the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation) were created on its basis.

FSB

After the abolition of the KGB, the process of creating new state security agencies took about three years. During this time, departments of the disbanded committee were transferred from one department to another.

December 21, 1993 Boris Yeltsin signed a decree establishing the Federal Counterintelligence Service of the Russian Federation (FSK). The director of the new body from December 1993 to March 1994 was Nikolay Golushko, and from March 1994 to June 1995 this post was held by Sergei Stepashin.

In general, the activities of the FSB bodies are carried out in the following main areas:

• counterintelligence activities;


• fight against terrorism;


• protection of the constitutional order;


• combating particularly dangerous forms of crime;


• intelligence activities;


• border activities;


• ensuring information security; fight against corruption.

The FSB was headed by:

in 1995-1996 M. I. Barsukov;

in 1996-1998 N. D. Kovalev;

in 1998-1999 V. V. Putin;

in 1999- 2008 N. P. Patrushev;

since May 2008 - A. V. Bortnikov.

The FSB, or the Russian Federal Security Service, is one of the heirs of the Committee of the USSR (KGB), an organization known for its terror and intelligence activities that operated in the Soviet Union in the 20th century.

Okhrana - VChK - OGPU - KGB - FSB

The history of the FSB has a number of changes in its name and reorganizations after the revolution in Russia in 1917. Officially, it was called the KGB for 46 years, from 1954 to 1991. Repressive organizations have long been part of the political structure of Russia. The functions of these organizations were significantly expanded compared to the role of the political police, which was played by the Okhrana during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II.

In 1917, Vladimir Lenin created the Cheka from the remnants. This new organization, which eventually became the KGB, was engaged in a wide range of tasks, including espionage, counterintelligence, and isolating the Soviet Union from Western goods, news, and ideas. This led to the fragmentation of the Committee into many organizations, the largest of which is the FSB.

The history of the creation of the FSB of Russia

In 1880, Tsar Alexander II formed the Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order, known as the Okhrana. This organization in the late XIX - early XX century. engaged in various radical groups inside Russia - spying on their members, infiltrating them and neutralizing them. With members of the Okhrana in the leadership of the various revolutionary groups, the Tsar was constantly in the know and could easily prevent any potential attack. For example, between 1908 and 1909, 4 out of 5 members of the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party were members of the Security Department. Nicholas II was so confident in his power over these groups that in November 1916 he ignored warnings of an imminent revolution.

After the February Democratic Revolution, Lenin and his Bolshevik Party secretly organized forces and staged a coup d'état on the second attempt. Lenin was a staunch supporter of terror and admired the Jacobins, the most radical French revolutionaries of 1790. He appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky as chairman of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), whose main goal was to fight the enemies of the regime and prevent sabotage throughout the country. The history of the Cheka (FSB) began with its creation on December 20, 1917 to improve the efficiency of the NKVD. The Extraordinary Commission became the basis for the later KGB. Lenin appointed Dzerzhinsky, a Polish nobleman, who spent 11 years in prison for terrorist activities against the Tsar, as its chairman.

Red terror

Soon Iron Felix began to make changes to the Cheka. The history of the FSB in December 1920 was marked by the transfer of the headquarters of the organization from St. Petersburg to the former office of the All-Russian Insurance Company, where it remains to this day. The Cheka itself conducted the investigation, made the arrests itself, judged them, kept them in concentration camps and executed them.

The history of the FSB-ChK includes the murder of more than 500,000 people from its inception in 1917 to its renaming in 1922. The "Red Terror" became a common practice. From each village, the Chekists took 20-30 hostages and held them until the peasants gave up all their food supplies. If this did not happen, the hostages were shot. While such a system proved effective in maintaining Lenin's ideology, in order to improve economic relations with the West, the Cheka was disbanded and replaced by an equally brutal organization, the State Political Directorate (GPU).

Initially, the GPU was under the jurisdiction of the NKVD and had less authority than the Cheka. With the support of Lenin, Dzerzhinsky remained chairman and eventually returned to his former power. With the adoption of the Constitution of the USSR in July 1923, the GPU was renamed the OGPU, or United State Political Administration.

Holodomor

In 1924 Lenin died and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Dzerzhinsky, who supported him in the battle for power, retained his position. After the death of Iron Felix in 1926, Menzhinsky became the head of the OGPU. One of the main tasks of the organization at that time was to maintain order among Soviet citizens, when Stalin turned 14 million peasant farms into collective farms. The bloody history of the FSB includes the following fact. To meet their foreign exchange needs, the OGPU forcibly seized bread and grain to sell for export, creating a famine that killed more than five million people.

From Yagoda to Yezhov

In 1934, Menzhinsky died under mysterious circumstances and was replaced by Heinrich Yagoda, a pharmacist by training. Under his leadership, the OGPU began to conduct research in the field of biological and chemical weapons. Yagoda liked to conduct experiments on prisoners personally. He was shot under Stalin after confessing to the murder of Menzhinsky in order to head the OGPU.

The KGB had an umbrella structure that consisted of similar committees in each of the 14 republics of the USSR. In the RSFSR, however, there was no regional organization. State security committees throughout Russia reported directly to a central body in Moscow.

The leadership of the KGB was carried out by the chairman, approved by the Supreme Council on the proposal of the Politburo. He had 1-2 first and 4-6 just deputies. They, along with the heads of some departments, formed a collegium - a body that made important decisions regarding the actions of the organization.

The main tasks of the KGB covered 4 areas: protecting the state from foreign spies and agents, identifying and investigating political and economic crimes, protecting state borders and state secrets. To carry out these tasks, from 390 to 700 thousand people served in the six main departments.

Organizational structure

The 1st Main Directorate was responsible for all foreign operations and intelligence gathering. It consisted of several divisions, divided both by the operations performed (intelligence training, collection and analysis), and by geographical regions of the world. The specifics of the work required the selection of the most qualified personnel from all departments; the recruits had good academic records, knew one or more languages, and were also strong believers in communist ideology.

The 2nd GU exercised internal political control of Soviet citizens and foreigners living in the USSR. This administration prevented contacts of foreign diplomats with the inhabitants of the country; investigated political, economic crimes and maintained a network of informers; monitored tourists and foreign students.

The 3rd GU was engaged in military counterintelligence and political supervision of the armed forces. It consisted of 12 departments that oversaw various military and paramilitary formations.

The 5th GU, together with the 2nd, was engaged in internal security. Created in 1969 to combat political dissent, it was responsible for detecting and neutralizing opposition among religious organizations, national minorities, and the intellectual elite (including the literary and artistic community).

The 8th GU was responsible for government communications. In particular, it monitored foreign communications, created ciphers used by KGB units, transmitted messages to agents abroad, and developed secure communications equipment.

GU was engaged in the protection of borders on land and at sea. It was divided into 9 border regions, which covered 67 thousand km of the borders of the USSR. The main duties of the troops were to repulse a potential attack; stopping the illegal movement of people, weapons, explosives, smuggling and subversive literature across the border; monitoring of Soviet and foreign ships.

In addition to these six GIs, there were at least a few other directorates smaller in size and scope:

• The 7th was engaged in surveillance and provided personnel and technical equipment to monitor the activities of foreigners and suspicious Soviet citizens.
• The 9th provided protection for key party leaders and their families in the Kremlin and other government facilities throughout the country.
• The 16th provided the operation of telephone and radio communication lines used by government agencies.

As a vast and complex organization, the KGB, in addition to these departments, had a vast apparatus that ensured the day-to-day functioning of the organization. These are the personnel department, the secretariat, the technical support staff, the finance department, the archive department, the administration department, and the party organization.

Decline of the KGB

On August 18, 1991, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was visited at a government dacha on the Black Sea coast in Crimea by several conspirators, including Lieutenant General Yuri Plekhanov, head of the presidential security service, and Valery Boldin, head of the Gorbachev administration, who felt that the party is under threat. They suggested that he either resign or give up presidential powers in favor of Vice President Gennady Yanaev. After Gorbachev's refusal, guards surrounded his house, preventing him from leaving or contacting the outside world.

At the same time, in Moscow, the Alfa group of the 7th KGB department was ordered to attack the building of the Russian parliament and seize control of it. The unit was to conduct covert reconnaissance of the building on 19 August and then infiltrate and capture it on 20 and 21 August. Contrary to the expectations of the GKChP members, the group led by Mikhail Golovatov decided not to carry out the operation. They put it off until the opposition forces, led by Boris Yeltsin, gathered to defend the building.

After the conspirators realized that the coup was poorly planned and would be unsuccessful, they tried to negotiate with Gorbachev, who was in their captivity. The President refused to meet with members of the State Emergency Committee. Some of the putschists were arrested and the coup was put down.

The Gang of Eight included the Vice President, the Chairman of the KGB, a member of the Defense Council, a member of the Supreme Council, the Chairman of the Association of State Enterprises and the Minister of Internal Affairs. Seven of them were arrested and convicted. Eight had shot himself in the head before he was arrested.

After the coup attempt, Vladimir Kryuchkov, chairman of the KGB for three years, was replaced by Vadim Bakatin, previously minister of the interior from 1988 to 1990, who then called for the dismantling of the State Security Committee. This position then became the reason for his dismissal and the appointment of Boris Pugo instead, who later supported the putsch.

rebirth

Although formally the KGB ceased to exist, in 1991 it was divided into parts, which together performed the same functions as the Committee.

The Foreign Intelligence Service, established in October 1991, took over the tasks of the 1st Main Directorate for conducting foreign operations, collecting and analyzing intelligence.

The Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information was formed on the basis of the 8th Main Directorate and the 16th Directorate and is responsible for the security of communications and the transmission of intelligence data.

The 8,000-9,000 servicemen who once made up the 9th Directorate were attached to the Federal Security Service and the Presidential Security Service. These organizations are responsible for the protection of the Kremlin and all important departments of the Russian Federation.

The history of the FSB of Russia under its current name began after the Ministry of Security was disbanded in 1993. It included 75,000 people from the second, third and fifth GUs. Responsible for internal security in the Russian Federation.

Forward to the past...

After years of terror by Soviet citizens who constantly feared brutal interrogation by the KGB or sentenced to work in the harsh conditions of labor camps, the State Security Committee ceased to exist under its former name. However, many still live in fear of this cruel and repressive organization. The history of the FSB of Russia is full of egregious facts. Writers whose works were recognized as anti-Soviet and who had never seen their books in print became victims of the 5th Main Directorate of the KGB. Families were shattered as Committee agents arrested, tried, and sentenced millions of people to labor camps in Siberia or to death. Most of the convicts did not commit any crimes - they became victims of circumstances, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because of a careless remark made at home. Some of them were killed simply because the KGB agents had to fulfill quotas, and if there were not enough spies within their jurisdiction, they would simply take innocent people and torture them until they confessed to crimes they did not commit.

The nightmare seemed to be gone forever. But the history of the Cheka-KGB-FSB does not end there. The recently announced plans to create the Ministry of State Security on the basis of the SVR and the FSB make us recall the Stalinist structure of the same name, which was designed to protect the interests of the ruling party.

03/12/1991

USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev signs law No. 124-N "On the reorganization of state security bodies": the KGB of the USSR is liquidated as a single state body, and all territorial divisions are transferred to the exclusive jurisdiction of the republican authorities.

18/12/1991

Russian President Boris Yeltsin signs a decree establishing the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. Later, the Presidential Security Service and FAPSI were allocated to separate departments. Many of their mandates overlap: competition is supposed to be an incentive for quality work.

19/12/1991

from the Ministry of Security, renamed the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), the Border Service is separated into a separate structure. The Investigation Department is dissolved, the security officers are actually deprived of the opportunity to conduct operational activities. Prisons, including Lefortovo, are transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The lowest point of the fall of the influence of the Chekists.

05/01/1994

From the Ministry of Security, renamed the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), the Border Service is separated into a separate structure. The Investigation Department is dissolved, the security officers are actually deprived of the opportunity to conduct operational activities. Prisons, including Lefortovo, are transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The lowest point of the fall of the influence of the Chekists.

12/04/1995

The FSK is renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Investigation Department returns to its composition, which dramatically expands the operational capabilities of the Chekists. Lefortovo prison returns to the FSB.

02/07/1996

The presidential security service is included in the Federal Security Service (FSO). The failure of the first attempt in modern Russian history to create a service over services, which was undertaken by Boris Yeltsin's bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov.

06/07/1998

In the structure of the FSB, a department of constitutional security is being created, the purpose of which its leader Gennady Zotov called the fight against "political sedition" within the country. Later it will be merged with the department for combating terrorism.

03/04/1999

The functions of the economic security department of the FSB have been sharply expanded: within its framework, a department for counterintelligence support of industrial enterprises (department "P"), transport (department "T"), the credit and financial system (department "K"), a department for combating smuggling and drug trafficking (management "N").

11/03/2003

FAPSI and the Border Service lose their independence. The border guards are included in the FSB, the powers and material and technical base of the FAPSI are divided between the FSB and the FSO. In fact, the Soviet KGB has been recreated. Only foreign intelligence remained independent, as well as a number of highly specialized departments - for the protection of top officials of the state, drug control and the construction of special facilities.

06/03/2006

Vladimir Putin signs the law "On Combating Terrorism": the FSB officially leads the fight against terrorism, its director coordinates the actions of all departments in this direction as chairman of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee. Thus, the fight against terrorism is officially recognized as the main priority of the activities of the special services.

) Russia celebrates its 20th anniversary. On April 3, 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the law "On Federal Security Service Bodies in the Russian Federation". In accordance with the document, the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) was transformed into the Federal Security Service.
In 2014, terrorist crimes were committed 2.6 times less than in 2013. Last year, the Service stopped the activities of 52 cadres and 290 agents of foreign intelligence services, in the same period it was possible to prevent damage to the state from corruption in the amount of about 142 billion rubles

Cheka(1917–1922) The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) was established on 7 December 1917 as an organ of the "dictatorship of the proletariat". The main task of the commission was the fight against counter-revolution and sabotage. The body also performed the functions of intelligence, counterintelligence and political search. Since 1921, the tasks of the Cheka included the elimination of homelessness and neglect among children.

Chairman Council of People's Commissars The USSR Vladimir Lenin called the Cheka "a striking weapon against countless conspiracies, countless attempts on Soviet power by people who were infinitely stronger than us."

The people called the commission "emergency", and its employees - " Chekists". Felix Dzerzhinsky headed the first Soviet state security agency. The building of the former mayor of Petrograd, located at Gorokhovaya, 2, was assigned to the new structure.
In February 1918, employees of the Cheka received the right to shoot criminals on the spot without trial or investigation in accordance with the decree "The Fatherland is in danger!".
The death penalty was allowed to apply to "enemy agents, speculators, thugs, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, German spies", and later "all persons involved in White Guard organizations, conspiracies and rebellions."
The end of the civil war and the decline of the wave of peasant uprisings made the continued existence of the expanded repressive apparatus, whose activities had practically no legal restrictions, meaningless. Therefore, by 1921, the party faced the question of reforming the organization.
OGPU (1923-1934) On February 6, 1922, the Cheka was finally abolished, and its powers were transferred to the State Political Administration, which later became known as the United (OGPU). As Lenin emphasized: "... the abolition of the Cheka and the creation of the GPU does not simply mean a change in the name of the bodies, but consists in changing the nature of all the activities of the body during the period of peaceful state building in a new situation ...".
Until July 20, 1926, Felix Dzerzhinsky was the chairman of the department, after his death this post was taken by the former People's Commissar for Finance Vyacheslav Menzhinsky.
The main task of the new body was still the same fight against counter-revolution in all its manifestations. Subordinate to the OGPU were special units of the troops necessary to suppress public unrest and combat banditry.
In addition, the following functions were assigned to the department:
◦protection of railway and waterways; ◦fighting smuggling and border crossing by Soviet citizens); ◦Fulfillment of special instructions of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars.

May 9, 1924 powers OGPU have been significantly expanded. The department began to obey the police and the criminal investigation department. Thus began the process of merging the state security agencies with the internal affairs agencies.