Government, State Security

In the Soviet era the KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti; Russian for "State Security Committee") and its predecessors were large and powerful organizations. The KGB’s role included intelligence work abroad, counterespionage, and the repression of domestic dissent. The KGB also provided the top Soviet leadership with information about public moods and international developments that could not be gained from the USSR’s censored press. KGB officers were members of the Soviet elite and were often very intelligent and well educated. In 1991 public outcry erupted after the agency participated in a failed coup, and President Yeltsin subsequently split the agency into five bodies. The main heirs to the KGB are the FSB (Federal Security Services), which concentrates on domestic affairs, and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), which inherited the KGB’s foreign agents and activities. Although the major successor agencies are still large bodies with pervasive influence, Russians are now far freer to express their opinions and engage in independent political activity than they were under the KGB in the Soviet Union.