KGB vs. CIA

[Revolution Hero]

In contrast to the CIA, which was formed only in 1947, KGB had a longer history. It starts right from the victory of the great october revolution of 1917. Back then, KGB was called VChK ( Vserosiyskaya Chrezvichaynaya Komissiya). It was specialized in fighting against counter -revolution and sabotage. And only later it has changed it's functions into the global scale activity and has become KGB ( Komitet Gosudarstvenoy Bezopasnosti- Committee of the State Defense) in it's popular meaning. The main aim of the KGB was to defend the interests of the USSR from the external influence of the capitalist world, at the same time spreading the influence of the Soviet Union in the different points of the globe.
CIA was created in 1947. It's main aims are : to organize espionage and demolition acts against the socialist countries, developing countries, revolutionary and national liberation movements.
Since 1947, the CIA has become the major force, which was able to oppose the KGB.That is how the rivalry between two intelligence organizations have started.
The history of the Cold War ahows us that KGB have played up the CIA in all the aspects. It is obvious ,that KGB was much stronger than CIA.
Generally, KGB used those people , who supported the communism and the USSR, but lived in a capitalist state. Usually , such kind of men served as a good foreign agents.
Unlike the situation in the capitalist states, there were not such people who would support capitalism in the socialist countries. So, CIA mainly used money in hiring their foreign agents.
My objective opinion is that KGB was stronger than CIA.
It would be interesting to know yours...

[Revolution Hero]

Hey , where are you fools from CIA?
I am sure that you have read my post. Probably you all just hidding your opinion. Well, you know the truth, don't you? The truth hurts.....

[Angie]

Revolutionary Hero, just a curious question - may I ask what your opinion of Vladimir Putin is, please? Thanks in advance. :)

[Revolution Hero]

Vladimir Putin was a good KGB agent. Moreover he was communist, as each KGB agent was the member of the communist party of the Soviet Union. It seems that he have become capitalist, that is why I have called him renegade , traitor and the enemy of the communism in my "Renegades and traitors of communism" thread.
But, I think that Putin just pretends to be capitalist, as he implements capitalist politic, but , definitely he has some communist ideas in his uncouncious part of the mind.
Who knows? Maybe he is communist. We will see it in the future.....

[tyronelad]

it was on the new a year or so ago that a old woman who lived in london admitted she was a soviet spy for 40 years or something- mi5/mi6 didn't have a clue!

[Erazer]

Both CIA and the KGB suck, they both work for fashist or at least stalinistic leaders, moreover the cia kind of killed Che, a thing which will not be forgotten.

[Revolution Hero]

erazer, how can you say that KGB suck? That was KGB who have saved Fidel Castro from the assasination so many times, ruining the plans of CIA.

Advise all of you to read the book " Philby. The life and views of the KGB masterspy." by Phillip Knightly. You will read about the great power of the KGB.

grandson of Yuri Andropov,
comrade RH.

[RedSovietCCCP]

Revolution hero, I completely agree with you on the KGB. They where very much stronger than the CIA. They where defenders of the communist state. It is obvious you are well educated in the issue of the CIA and KGB. Good post.

As for Erazer, I don't think you know what you are talking about.

[Gavin]

you are both stalinists. just an observation.

[Felicia]

There was a Czech spy who had infiltrated the CIA and was robbing them blind of secrets for 20 years! He was affiliated with the KGB, or was it the GRU? Either way, he was working for the commies. I can't think of his name at the moment but when I do I'll post it. The US swapped him to the soviets for a couple of American spies (one of them being Sharansky) So you can see how important he was. Plus he was some sort of sex perve or something, just thought I'd add that.
I think the KGB was stronger.
His name is coming to me.... dammit, where'd it go? I think it started with a K.

[Revolution Hero]

Quote: from Gavin on 7:41 pm on July 3, 2002
you are both stalinists. just an observation.


If we support KGB, doesn't mean we are stalinists. And if you gavin, say that we are, it means that you are fucking capitalist.

(Edited by Revolution Hero at 6:20 pm on July 5, 2002)

[Felicia]

Hey I found it. It was in the dark reccesses of my mind........ Karl Koecher (spelling ?).

[Revolution Hero]

"The KGB was a large and comprehensive organization performing a wide variety of duties that would fall under the jurisdiction of many different organizations in Western nations. Thus, if compared to American organizations, it performed all the functions of the CIA, NSA, and Secret Service and many of the functions of the FBI, Customs Service, Armed Forces counter- intelligence agencies, BATF, and DEA.

Administratively the KGB was divided into chief directorates (glavnie upravlenie), directorates (upravlenie) and technical departments (otdely) each responsible for certain functions. The organization of the KGB in the mid- to late-1980's was as follows:

1st Chief Directorate (Foreign Directorate): was the most famous and was responsible for espionage. It was responsible for the collection of all non-military, and much military, foreign intelligence, foreign counterintelligence, recruitment of foreigners, foreign propaganda and disinformation, support for international terrorism, etc. This directorate only existed at the USSR KGB level. The 1st Chief Directorate controlled the Vympel (Pennant) KGB Spetsnaz unit.

2nd Chief Directorate (Counterintelligence): was responsible for domestic counterintelligence and internal security, including hunting for foreign spies and domestic traitors in the USSR. It was also responsible for countering organized crime and narcotics trafficking in liaison with the militia.

3rd Chief Directorate (Military Counterintelligence): was responsible for ensuring the security and loyalty of personnel in the armed forces (including military intelligence [the GRU] and spetsnaz), the MVD troops and the militia, and even among the KGB's own Border and Guard troops. It was also responsible for security of all Soviet ships and aircraft abroad and the physical security of nuclear warheads. Their units in the armed forces were known as the OO (osobye otdely or special sections).

(UPDATED INFORMATION!!) 4th Directorate (Transportation): was responsible for all state security matters concerning transportation. They supervised the railways, air transportation, and river and sea ports and lines. (Not for providing transportation to the other branches of the KGB as was previosuly reported here!). It is a direct descendant of the NKVD Railways Administration. Though little is known of it, it continued to exist until 1991.

5th Chief Directorate (Ideological): was responsible for monitoring and repressing all real, or imagined, dissidents in the USSR including activists involved in political, religious, environmental, human rights, and other causes. In the late 1980's this directorate was supposedly dismantled but was actually only retitled the Directorate to Defend the Constitution. It was later named Directorate Z.

6th Directorate (Economic Security): was responsible for guarding against "speculation" (illegal trading), illicit financial transactions, and theft from state enterprises. It was also responsible for securing the nation's financial and economic information from foreign spies.

7th Directorate (Surveillance): was a pool of "watchers" who were used by many other directorates (mostly the 2nd and 5th) to conduct physical surveillance. The 7th Directorate controlled Spestgruppa "A", the famour Alfa Group anti-terrorist team.

8th Chief Directorate (Communication): was a massive organization taking up 1/4 of the KGB's budget. It was responsible for intercepting and analyzing foreign radio signals and telecommunications, designing codes and safeguards to secure Soviet communications, and running the special "V-Ch" high frequency telephone system used by the upper echelons of the Party and government and the KGB itself. Some of these responsibilities may be divided among a 16th Directorate (communications security, which would then leave the 8th to handle interception and code breaking) and an unnumbered Communications Troops Directorate with approximately 16,000 troops.

9th Directorate (Guards): was responsible for guarding the top Party and government leadership of the USSR and its Republics. It consisted of uniformed security guards at Lenin's Tomb, the Kremlin, and other key posts (for more on the KGB's Special Kremlin Regiment and Lenin's Tomb see Don Creamer's article "Post Number 1" in Border Post volume 1, number 2, summer 1997). There were also uniformed and plain clothes personnel who performed close protection duties (bodyguards) for key leaders in the USSR and during trips abroad. It was also responsible for security at events attended by key leaders such as military parades.

10th Directorate (Archives): was responsible for maintaining the KGB's archives and performing some analysis and research.

12th Directorate (Electronic Surveillance): was responsible for electronic eavesdropping (bugging) and telephone wire taps in the USSR and for developing all such devices.

15th Directorate (Bunkers): was responsible for providing security at government installations and administering Soviet underground command and nuclear weapons storage bunkers. It worked closely with the 9th (Guards) Directorate.

16th Directorate (Communications Security): See the 8th Chief Directorate above.

There were also several unnumbered directorates.

Information Analysis Directorate: was responsible for providing key analysis on domestic security and the international situation to the KGB leadership.

Communications Troops Directorate: see the 8th Chief Directorate above.

Border Guards Chief Directorate: was responsible for ensuring the security of the USSR's land, sea, and air borders. It contained over 240,000 troops, including a small air arm (70 fixed-wing aircraft and over 200 helicopters) and a fair sized fresh- and salt-water naval component. The border guard chief directorate was divided into 8 or 9 Border Districts:

- Northwest

- Baltic

- Western

- Transcaucasus

- Central Asian

- Transbaikal (may have been abolished in the 1970's)

- Eastern

- Far East

- Pacific

Border Districts are usually headed by a Major-General or Lieutenant-General. Border Districts are sub-divided into Detchments (otriady), Commands (komendatury), and Outposts (zastavy). It is important to note that the KGB Border Guards did not include the Soviet customs service (the GTK, Glavnoe Tamozhennoe Kommission or "State Custom's Commission") which has always been a seperate organization charged with monitoring the import and export of goods and the application of duties and tarrifs. The GTK was part of the Ministry of Foreign Trade (MVT), until 18 July 1986 when it became a seperate Commission within the Soviet Council of Ministers.

Estimates of the total size of the KGB vary. Official figures given in 1990-1991 were around 500,000. This does not include the 240,000 Border Guard personnel. Totals for all branches were thus approximately 3/4 of a million regular paid employees. Estimates for uniformed KGB personnel vary from 15,000 to 40,000 with the lower figure likely representing only the 9th (Guards) Directorate and the later including uniformed personnel of the 15th (Bunker) and 8th (Communication) Directorates. In addition, during the late 1980's several military units from the Ministry of Defence and the MVD were temporarily placed under the direct control of the KGB (in most cases the Border Guard Chief Directorate). These included the 103rd Airborne Division at Vitebsk, the 117th Narosomensk Motor Rifle Regiment, and units from Pskov, Ryazan, and Tula totalling at least 20,000 troops. However, these troops did not wear KGB uniforms. (Though there are reports that some began to use green shoulder boards and green collar tabs with airborne devices on airborne uniforms before the end of the USSR.) "