With its predecessors including the Tsarist intelligence agencies, the Bolsheivk’s shield and sword and Stalin’s NKVD, the KGB was no ordinary service to the Soviet Union’s Communist Party.

Imagine, two historians who have devoted their lives to the study of Soviet espionage—Haynes alone has written 10 books on the subject—not knowing the difference between the NKVD and the KGB.

During WWII the NKVD changed its name briefly to NKGB. At other times it was called or was part of the GPU, OGPU, GUGB, MVD, MGB. A post-Stalin reorganization created the KGB formula in 1954.

The history of the KGB began in 1954, when Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev sought to replace the NKVD — the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, which operated under Joseph ...

Work has begun to turn the former NKVD and KGB cells in the basement of Tallinn's 1 Pagari St. into a museum. During and after the Second World War the building was used by the authorities of both the ...

The building still stands. It has housed the NKVD's successors, first the KGB and now the FSB. Despite his proximity to home, his family's requests to visit him were turned down. They would never ...

During WWII the NKVD changed its name briefly to NKGB. At other times it was called or was part of the GPU, OGPU, GUGB, MVD, MGB. A post-Stalin reorganization created the KGB formula in 1954.