KGB, the cold war era, Stalin through Gorbachev sounds familiar. But, did you know that the KGB had predecessors going all the way back to the first world war and the days of ‘Cheka’ ? That’s right.

KGB was, no doubt, the most successful and durable of all its predecessors but was no more operationally agressive than the previous ones. KGB’s expanded form in russian stood for “the committee of State security” and, like all things of the Soviet era, had a very formal name to a series of ultra-smart covert operations of intelligence gathering, counter-intelligence, protection for heads of the soviet and their military secrets, border security protection and “duty enforcements” (you probably heard the Stalin era) and even maintaining a list of people who travelled into and out of the soviet republic.

The KGB itself was formed in 1954 to combat an increasing threat to the state’s political system during the second world war. One of KGB’s earliest predecessors was the ‘Cheka’, known as ‘Vecheka’, a sleek and smart organization that ran covert operations in a post-revolution Russia and took upon itself, the responsibility of cleansing up “enemies of the state”. It mostly protected the interests of the “Bolshevick revolution”. It is also rumored that Cheka’s might was so strong that its wings expanded gradually into the war-striken Europe and witnessed the fall of the mighty Austrian monarchy with great attention. At this point, the Cheka was dismissed honorably and amicably so that it would not become a threat to the state.

Then came the days of the GPU, an organization to study counter-revolution and espionage. When the USSR was formed in 1923, the GPU was renamed as OGPU and the power and reach of Feliks, head of the new OGPU and the previous Cheka, grew so much that it was rumored to be second only to the army general of that time! By 1930s, the OGPU quickly grew into a unit of espionage, army control & domestic intelligence. It is criticized for running the corrective labor camps in harsh terms and for driving out the wealthy people out of the country.

In 1934, Stalin thought it fit to replace the OGPU with another KGB predecessor, the NKVD. He gave this KGB predecessor a whole new range of investigative and judicial powers. This KGB predecessor executed millions of arrests and is criticized for intensifying the forced-labor camps more than any of the previous ones. The power of this KGB predecessor was so overwhelming that it took the lives of its own first two generals, former heads of OGPU.

In 1941, Stalin split the NKVD into two units - one of which was called the NKGB, the committee for state security. In 1946, this NKGB became a ministry with its own state office, called the MGB, and a new general replaced the former head of OGPU. This MGB in its 1940s form is sometimes regarded as the birthplace of the KGB. This KGB predecessor ran some of the most important soviet espionage activities of the second world war and is credited with gathering some of the intimate pieces of intelligence on Hitler’s weaponry. It even ran the infamous Siberian POW (prisoner of war) camps and was “closely” monitoring its own soldiers retreating from battlelines. It was a reflection of Stalin’s persistence to win the second world war at all costs.

The MGB’s power grew in the waning years of Stalin to a point that it controlled not only internal affairs but also was responsible for the satellite states in eastern europe and controlling espionage activities throughout the post-war europe. The head of MGB even tried to take control of a chaotic state in the wake of Stalin’s death but the leadership of the state eventually won the “diplomatic” battle and got him executed.

Finally, the MGB (state security ministry) and the MVD (internal affairs ministry) were merged back, thereby eliminating one of the most powerful predecessors of the KGB.

The KGB itself was formed in 1954. The communist leaders learnt their lessons with the predecessors of KGB, especially MGB and its former head of state, and decided to retain control of the KGB as much as possible. Most of the former MGB spies were rehabilitated under the new KGB face and the former official policy of foreign espionage was finally abandoned. Heroes and grand fathers of espionage such as Richard Sorge and Rudolf Abel belonged this era.

The KGB’s influence finally waned under the reforms introduced by Michael Gorbachev era when it continued to operate through its police and foreign spy wings but relinquished most of its earlier charm.