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Soviet Union [USSR] Party Control
Although the security police was always a government rather
than a party institution, the party considered this agency to be
its own vital arm and sought to maintain the closest supervision
and control over its activities. The KGB was nominally subordinate
to the Council of Ministers. But the CPSU, not the government,
exercised control and direction. Aside from the Politburo, which
probably issued general policy directives, another vehicle for such
party control was, according to Western specialists, the State and
Legal Department of the Central Committee Secretariat
(see Soviet Union USSR - Secretariat
, ch. 7). This department supervised all government
agencies concerned with legal affairs, security, and defense,
including the Ministry of Defense. It implemented party control by
approving personnel appointments and exercising general oversight
to ensure that these agencies were following party directives. From
1968 to 1988, the chief of this department, which probably had a
staff of fifty to sixty employees, was Nikolai Savinkin. From the
available evidence, it appears that the department did not involve
itself as deeply in KGB affairs as it did in the activities of
other state agencies, such as the MVD. Given the sensitive nature
of KGB functions, the party leadership may have been reluctant to
allocate to the State and Legal Department the most important
decisions about KGB personnel and policy. Rather, the Central
Committee secretaries charged with oversight responsibilities for
the State and Legal Department probably made the key decisions.
Such a portfolio was an important source of political power for a
Central Committee secretary and was therefore a highly coveted
responsibility. In January 1987, Anatolii Lukianov was brought into
the Secretariat to supervise the State and Legal Department. He
was, however, only a junior secretary, so Gorbachev or another
senior secretary may have had the ultimate responsibility.
Lukianov, an apparent ally of Gorbachev, had attended Moscow
University's Law Faculty when Gorbachev was there in the early
1950s.
Data as of May 1989
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