What is the KGB and Why is it so Feared?

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. Knocking on doors, boots hammering down hallways, the omnipresent organisation did everything in its power to serve and protect the Soviet single party state. With sixteen directorates at its height, and widely known for its surveillance, espionage and interrogations, watch how the agency began, operated, and influenced our world not so long ago.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)

Narrator:

Chris Kane
Script Writer: Natasha Martell

Andrew, Christopher. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York. Basic Books, 2001.

Andrew, Christopher, and Oleg Gordievsky. KGB: The Inside Story. New York. HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World. New York. Basic Books, 2005.

Shebarshin, Leonid. “Reflections on the KGB in Russia.” Economic and Political Weekly 28, no. 51 (1993): 2829–32.

White, Stephen, and Ol’Ga Kryshtanovskaya. “Public Attitudes to the KGB: A Research Note.” Europe-Asia Studies 45, no. 1 (1993): 169–75.

[modelermark]

There is a story about an Egyptian Tomb being discovered when Nasser was President of Egypt. The Egyptian Archaeologists were unsure of the age of the tomb, and the visiting Soviet KGB offered to take a look at it. The next day, the KGB informed the Egyptians that the mummy was 3, 247 years old. When asked how they knew, the KGB simply said, "The mummy confessed."

[kevd]

In the late 80's as the cold war was winding down, a western Economist was sent to the Soviet Union to report on the situation of the market. Gorbachev allowed this, but only with an English-speaking KGB agent to escort the economist around.

The first stop was a shoe store where the shelves were bare.
the economist spoke allowed as he wrote, which was his habit "Shoe shortage."
The agent is annoyed and raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.

The next stop is a bakery and once again, most of the shelves have nothing but a dusting of flour and stale crumbs.
"Bread shortage" the economist says as he writes. Once again the agent is quite irritated but merely huffs a bit.

Then the pair visit a butcher and behind the glass there is little more than a few pitiful looking cuts of mostly sinew and bone.
"Meat shortage" the economist says. Finally the KGB agent has had enough. He bellows strongly:

"Leeson here Amerikanski! In the old days, ve vould have shot you for you eensolence! "

The economist opens his note pad:
"Bullet shortage."

[justbattlefield]

A CIA spy, an MI6 spy and a KGB spy were bragging about how secret their work is, the CIA spy says "my work is so secret only me, my boss and my co-worker know what I'm doing, after that, the MI6 spy says "My work is so secret, only me and my boss know what I'm doing", after that the KGB spy says "My work is so secret, I don't even know what I'm doing!"

[Griggs]

I had a Russian math professor who grew up in a small hunting village near the USSR/Mongolian border. When she was a girl, she would hunt but was only allowed to go a few miles out in the forest but never past the lake. Her father and all the other adults in the village had stories about there was a ghost who haunted the lake, and if the ghost caught you that you would never be seen again. When the USSR fell and she revisited the village she found out there was an outpost used by the KGB to monitor transmissions coming out of China after the SIno-Soviet split.

[Redslayer]

My great grandpa, returning from the Polish II corps under British command. Came back to Poland and because he had been in the II corps, he got spied on by the kgb, had to bury anything that showed his past life as a Polish Soldier. He fought in 3 wars and died in 1972. He fought in WW1, Polish-Soviet war and, WW2

[michaelvillarama]

Can we take the time to applaud the narrator for actually taking the time to name all 15 Soviet Republics.

[radjadawamindra]

"The flags may be different, but the methods are all the same."

*Viktor Reznov, Vorkuta, USSR, 1963*

[lindanib]

Here's my favourite joke about the KGB;
The CIA, FBI, and the KGB are tasked with finding a rabbit in a forest.

The CIA show up after a few days and release a 6000 word article on the fact that rabbits don't exist.

The FBI show up with a dead rabbit and say in a press release "The rabbit had it coming."

The KGB show up with a bruised and beaten bear. The bear is forced to make a statement "I am a rabbit, my father was a rabbit, and my mother is a rabbit. My whole family are rabbits!"

[giannb]

KGB chief Yuri Andropov was the Soviet Deng Xiaoping, but he died early. And Xi Jinping today, is the Chinese Yuri Andropov

[jamesbanish]

History is always interesting to me. Sometimes it can be painful. However, it should never be hidden or censored.

[snickerson]

Shortly after the end of WWII, my great grandma used to work is a shoe factory near Riga (It was Latvian SSR then). Her work was to glue the pre-made parts together. Decades later someone bought the building and and found a room with a large device used to listen to phone calls that was later confirmed to have been used by the KGB.

[princessmarlena]

Citizen: “I feel like I’m being watched…”
🖼 🔈“Nyet, Comrade! Go back to sleep!”

[Haanicz]

Small correction - at 4:07, you say that the Prague Spring began in 1969. It actually started much earlier and ended in August 1968 when the Warsaw pact armies invaded Czechoslovakia, which marked the beginning of the period we now call "normalisation"

[UrvineSpiegel]

I really like the simple animations. Just enough to paint the picture without pulling you away from the narration.

[charlessaint]

Simple History, "Why was the the KGB so feared?"
KGB bursts in, "WE WILL ASK THE QUESTIONS!"

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

"Knock knock."
"Who's the-?" *slap*
"We will ask the questions!"

[jastin]

the reason they are feared is that you never knew you're on their list, for reasons unknown, it can be as ridiculous as someone turned you in to the authorities because your neighbor's cousin Vadim secretly sold half pack of opened western cigarette to a random person, which the cigarette allegedly came from your rubbish bin as the neighbor claimed.

[rdsyafriyar]

"I was not extremely patriotic about Mother Russia. I played their game, pretending. You have to deal with, you know, party people, KGB. Horrifying." - Mikhail Baryshnikov

[connorwright]

The KGB (short for Killing Gloves of Boxing) is an unlockable melee weapon for the Heavy in Team Fortress 2, taking the appearance of a pair of boxing gloves colored either red or blue according to the team you're on. Upon killing an enemy with the KGB, all your attacks for the next five seconds are guaranteed to be critical hits. This ability is offset by a 20% slower attack speed.

An effective strategy with this weapon is to kill an enemy with a melee and then switch to your primary or shotgun to deal massively increased damage for 5 seconds.

[izebdeh]

As a Bangladeshi I knew the Soviets aided in the Liberation which was just another proxy war for them. But I had no idea they had their fingers so deep in the Political Leadership. Fascinating stuff.