KGB Museum in Prague
About KGB
Committee for State Security of the USSR (KGB) is national and republican body of state government in the sphere of safeguarding of state security under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, established on the 13th of March in 1954 by separation of the number of administrations, services and departments from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
The system of KGB included state security bodies, frontier troops, government communications troops, bodies of military counterintelligence, educational institutions and research institutions. In 1978 J.V. Andropov, while being the chairman, achieved the raising of GP status and their withdrawal from the direct subordination to the Council of Ministers. On the 20th of March in 1991 it received the status of the central body of government administration of the USSR, which was headed by the minister of the USSR.
It was abolished on the 3rd of December in 1991. In 1991 the number of KGB employees was about 480.000, of whom
- 220,000 people - servicemen of the KGB border troops of the USSR;
- 50,000 people - government communications troops;
- NSC subdivisions of KGB - about 1000 people.
180,000 of KGB employees were officers and 90,000 of employees worked in republican KGB. Operational staff was about 80,000 people. An agent of the KGB apparatus consisted of about 260 000 undercover members, andall the various cases operational accounting were 10,008 people. The unit consisted of agents from both Soviet citizens and foreigners (from a report on the activities of KGB of the USSR in 1968).
