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Soviet Union [USSR] Chapter 19. Internal Security
IN THE LATE 1980s, the Soviet Union continued to place great
emphasis on ensuring security and internal order. Because it was
governed by a monopolistic party, whose leaders were not
democratically elected, the Soviet system had no legitimacy based
on popular support and therefore protected itself from internal and
external threats by means of a strong security system. The system
included the regular police, judicial bodies, prosecuting organs,
and the security police, as well as an external security and
foreign intelligence apparatus. Even in the era of
perestroika (see Glossary) and
glasnost' (see Glossary) ushered in by General
Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the
organs of internal security still had a key role to play, despite
the party leadership's apparent tolerance of criticism of the
political system.
The Soviet security, or political, police had a long history,
dating back to the prerevolutionary, tsarist period. Although the
tsarist political police was ruthless and unscrupulous, the police
organs established by Vladimir I. Lenin and the
Bolsheviks (see Glossary) in 1917, known as the
Vecheka (see Glossary), far
surpassed their predecessors in terms of terror and violence. The
Bolsheviks allowed the Vecheka almost unrestricted powers to
persecute those who were perceived as "class enemies." This set the
stage for the development of the brutal Stalinist police state, in
which millions of innocent victims perished at the hands of the
political police, controlled by Joseph V. Stalin.
After Stalin died, Nikita S. Khrushchev initiated legal reforms
and reorganized the police apparatus. The terror ended abruptly,
and the political police were brought under the control of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). The Committee for State
Security (Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti--KGB), established
in March 1954, was tasked with security functions, and the Ministry
of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del--MVD) was charged
with combating ordinary crime and maintaining the extensive network
of labor camps. A new legal code was established to replace the
Stalinist laws, and both the security police and the regular police
were subjected to procedural norms and regulations in carrying out
their functions. Nevertheless, the party leadership did not
eliminate all the legal loopholes and allowed the KGB to circumvent
the law when combating political dissent. The KGB also played an
important role in implementing the anticorruption campaign, which
resulted in the ouster of many state and party officials after
General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev died. Among its other tasks
were guarding the leadership and important government buildings;
protecting Soviet state borders; and carrying out intelligence,
counterintelligence, and
active measures (see Glossary) abroad.
The MVD was restricted to combating ordinary crime and, unlike
the KGB, was subjected to constant criticism in the Soviet press,
which attacked its inefficiency and corruption. In addition to the
MVD, the Procuracy (Prokuratura) and the Ministry of Justice played
important roles in implementing the laws and administering justice.
The Ministry of Defense's Main Military Procuracy, along with the
system of military tribunals, handled crimes within the armed
forces.
Both the KGB and the MVD played important roles in the
succession crises that followed Brezhnev's death. The KGB, however,
was more politically significant than the MVD and, after the early
1970s, had an increasing impact on Soviet domestic and foreign
policy making. To reinforce their coercive role, the KGB and the
MVD had special troops at their disposal, including the Border
Troops, the Security Troops, and the Internal Troops.
Data as of May 1989
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