From the destruction of the KGB need to learn a few important lessons.
Exactly 25 years ago, the law “On the reorganization of state security agencies” was passed, which legally eliminated the remnants of the USSR KGB. But two questions still remain - how did the destruction of the supposedly all-powerful structure become possible in general, and why did the committee “oversleep” the disintegration of the country whose security it was intended to protect?The Council of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, which adopted the law “On the reorganization of state security organs”, was itself illegitimate - it was not mentioned in the Constitution of the USSR as an authority. However, in an atmosphere of general chaos, nobody paid attention to this anymore. According to Article 113 of the Constitution, only both chambers of the Supreme Council could abolish the KGB. And the Supreme Soviet right up until the collapse of the Union did not withdraw the mention of the KGB from the USSR Law of 16.05.1991 “On State Security Bodies”.
Disassemble for parts
It is now clear that the main blow to the capacity of the central KGB office was dealt long before December 1991. The point of no return is 5 of May 1991, when Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev and then-chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Kryuchkov informally agreed to create an independent KGB of the RSFSR. The RSFSR was the only subject of the Union that did not have a republican administration of the KGB — from 1965, its local bodies directly subordinated to the central office. The next day, the declaration was made public, according to which the KGB of the RSFSR was included in the structure of the KGB of the USSR as a union-republican, and not as a body of central subordination. And the law “On State Security Bodies”, already mentioned above, legally enshrines the subordination of the Union KGB to the legislative branch. That is, management and control over state security organs passed from the government to the Supreme Soviets of the republics, and in the RSFSR specifically to Yeltsin. At this point, the notorious 6-i article about the “leading and guiding role of the party” was already canceled and the KGB was departized quite successfully.
Initially, the KGB staff of the RSFSR consisted of 14 people who were huddled in a couple of rooms in the White House and had no contact with local authorities. At the same time, the agreement on 5 in May specifically stipulated that the Office for Moscow and the region remains under federal control. He headed the republican KGB Viktor Ivanenko - an unremarkable 44-year-old opera from Tyumen, who worked at that time as deputy head of the inspectorate department of the KGB of the USSR. In August, he will head up the operations groups for the arrest of Vladimir Kryuchkov and Boris Pugo, and before that he led the defense of the White House from the office of Gennady Burbulis. The transition to the service of Yeltsin, career employees who had no prospects in the Allied departments, the normal phenomenon of that time. An example of this is Andrei Kozyrev, who flew up to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR from a post in the administration of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs for international organizations.
The further life and fate of Ivanenko is rather revealing. In November 1991, Yeltsin renamed the RSFSR KGB as the RSFSR Federal Security Agency, to stylistically disown the KGB abbreviation itself. Major General Ivanenko headed the new structure already at the rank of minister, but after three months he was dismissed “on staff reductions” - after being at a meeting of the Constitutional Court of the RSFSR opposed the merger of the AMF and the Ministry of Internal Affairs . Then Ivanenko moved to Gazprom, is considered the creator of his security service, but flourished in his native Tyumen region, having worked all 90s as vice president, first vice president and deputy chairman of the YUKOS company. His official powers have not been fully clarified, the versions vary from the management of the security service to lobbying in government agencies. But after the disclosure of the Yukos structure, it turned out that Ivanenko’s assets are approximately equal to 110 million dollars and that he became the richest KGB native, which earned him the nickname “General and Businessman” by analogy with the character of Emir Kusturica’s “Black Cat, White Cat” movie - “patriot and a businessman. " In 2008, he had to testify at the trial of Nevzlin, but in the case of Pichugin, the de facto head of the Yukos security service convicted for contract killings, Ivanenko was not questioned, although he was the direct leader of the convict.
Since May 1991, the systematic destruction of the structure of the Allied KGB began, and after the August putsch this turned into a beating. First, 8-e Head Office (government communications and cryptography) and 16 administration (electronic intelligence and its cryptography) were removed from the committee - they were combined into the Government Communications Committee. In August-September, almost all units of the KGB troops, including special forces and closed sabotage units of foreign intelligence, were transferred to the Ministry of Defense, which led to their actual disbandment and leakage of unique personnel. In September, the 9 General Directorate (“nine”, protection of state leaders) was transformed into an independent protection department under the president of the USSR (in fact, Gorbachev was no longer obeyed, but the continuity of the names was observed). At about the same time, the 4 department of management “Z” (“protection of the constitutional system”), which was occupied by religious (but not sectarian) organizations, was abolished. The Directorate for the Protection of the Constitutional System, the former 5 (ideological administration), was abolished entirely, which the then head of the USSR KGB, Bakatin, declared the main victory of democratic reforms. September 9 banned the use of operational and technical means to obtain information that is not within the competence of state security agencies. Finally, 22 of October was abolished by the decision of the State Council (a situational, “revolutionary” authority that did not exist in the Constitution), and the Central Intelligence Service of the USSR, the Interrepublican Security Service and the State Border Protection Committee were created on its basis. maintain the appearance of continuity. The law from 3 December became the cherry on the winners cake, and the last signature.
Even on September 5, the state security bodies in the majority of the subjects of the RSFSR were transferred to the RSFSR KGB (Chechnya, of course, sagged). At the beginning of November, the 7 control (operative search, outdoor), the 12 division (interception), the Lefortovo detention facility and the technical services were officially transferred to the same place. Actually, already at this office it was possible to close, since the central allied apparatus lost the technical ability to carry out not only counterintelligence work, but the fight against corruption, catching maniacs and the organized crime confrontation. It only remained to protect the corn and the remnants of the archives.
The motives for action by Yeltsin and his entourage (primarily Gennady Burbulis, who conducted the whole process) were clear - he consistently reassigned the state security structures to himself, starting with the 14 man and ending with the defeat of the central apparatus. There are no complaints about Gorbachev at all, because he didn’t actually manage anything at that time and only one person remained faithful to him - his personal bodyguard, Colonel Dmitry Fonarev, who now heads the National Association of Bodyguards of Russia (NAST). But the motives of behavior of Vladimir Kryuchkov and many other senior officers of the KGB of the USSR who voluntarily went to the above described organizational and ideological guillotine are really interesting.
Time of Troubles
By the spring of 1991, almost all pro-Moscow governments in Eastern Europe were over. In the central apparatus of the KGB, they kept a close eye on what was happening west of Brest, letting the situation inside the country take their course. Meanwhile, in Moscow for more than a year large-scale meetings and processions are held, to which up to a million people spontaneously gather. These meetings are poorly organized, virtually out of control, and paralyze the entire city center. From sin away, the center is simply closed for transport and given to the crowd upon request. The technical organization - transport, loudspeakers, stands - is assumed by the Moscow City Council, dominated by liberals. And it should be borne in mind that the city was then built differently than it is now: Manezhnaya Square was an open space with two-way traffic along Alexander Garden - and millions of people freely moved along it. Angry, hungry and demanding change.
The KGB has actually withdrawn from what is happening. Head of the KGB office in Moscow and the region, Vitaly Prilukov, did not control the situation. Most of the personnel, including intelligence, were immersed in internal problems that had begun since the moment of the departization. These problems split off the First Chief Directorate (foreign intelligence) from the main body of the KGB, since intelligence pointedly supported the abolition of party control, which was a natural reaction to the lack of professionalism and unprincipled party leadership in this particular area. Intelligence officers massively quit the party or resorted to tricks to get out of the control of the system. For example, the author of these lines, moving from the International Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU and not being a member of the party, simply “lost” the Komsomol ticket, which was perceived by the personnel department and the Komsomol organization itself with understanding. And to touch a person who, from April 1991, was “on field work” in a hot spot - South Ossetia, with whom there was not even a connection, and no avalanches blocked the only route in the spring, no one had a hand up.
The so-called democratic street would sooner or later suggest its own system of organizing state security, which would most likely be controlled from the US embassy. On the square, some leaders would emerge from nowhere, who would proactively come to Yeltsin (most likely, through the mediation of the Moscow City Council and the Americans) and impose themselves on him as an alternative system of state security. Oleg Kalugin, who was already in operational development on suspicion of espionage in favor of the CIA, could have been a candidate for the post of the head. Ultimately, this would have led to the forcible destruction of the KGB of the USSR to the ground, right up to lustration and physical persecution of employees, regardless of their rank, rank, and specialization of the activity. A “pocket” structure would be created on the ruins, and American advisers and consultants would lead it, as happened in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
The most radical, East German version was also considered seriously. And he envisioned storming the KGB buildings and organizing the looting of archives, which would mean the death of the new Russian state in the womb. The events of 1956 of the year in Hungary were mentioned as a “role model”, where the insurgent people first attacked the State Security building, hung up - in the literal sense of the word - protection and took out the archives. By the way, the lining of the lower floors of the complex of buildings on Lubyanka with a granite stone was made exactly after Hungary-56.
At the same time, many officers fully supported both perestroika and Yeltsin personally. There was no confrontation between the KGB and the people, which the liberal media like to “remember”. Another thing is that some of the employees were demoralized by a three-year ideological attack by the media, and even the deeply ideological communists, who had faithfully believed in this doctrine, were in a state close to prostration. Some, especially from the older generation, were scared to watch. And despite the fact that the republican KGB has already ceased cooperation with the center, at best distancing itself from what is happening, and at worst, as in Georgia, going over to the side of local nationalists. Somehow he resisted only the Lithuanian KGB, but only at the expense of the charisma of his then leadership. And at some point, Generals Eismundas and Marcinkus had to organize a special operation to export the archive from Vilnius by train.
Kryuchkov and parts of his entourage (Ageev, Ponomarev, Grushko) seemed to be a reasonable solution to the organizational and personnel compromise with Yeltsin. The 5 agreement of May 1991 of the year was to ensure that the leadership of the RSFSR, which had gained strength, would create its state security service not on the basis of a “democratic street”, but from the old cadres of the USSR KGB, ideologically prepared to work with Yeltsin and Burbulis (in the case of the latter it was extremely difficult) . But Kryuchkov, it seems, no longer understood that the situation had gotten out of control, so that the deeply thought-out intrigues and schemes to which he had been accustomed in earlier times no longer work. The transfer of authority to the new KGB of the RSFSR turned into a rout of the central apparatus, but at least without violence, lustration, “prohibitions on the profession” and other delights of Eastern Europe. Perhaps this can be considered an achievement.
Frames solve a lot
In any case, the destruction of the central apparatus led to an intellectual catastrophe. People who gave their whole life to the union state were thrown into the street, if they did not declare their commitment to new ideals, which were not fully articulated. A number of senior officers, who worked only in the Allied structures and did not come under national jurisdiction, despite their experience and training, simply had no means of subsistence.
At the same time, odious characters, connected, for example, with ideological repression in the Soviet period, perfectly got accustomed in 90-s. First of all, we are talking about the eternal chief of the 5 General Directorate (fighting “anti-Soviet”), General Philip Bobkov. All the 90s, he headed the so-called analytical department (in fact, the security service) of the Vladimir Gusinsky Group JSC, one of the most odious oligarchic and media structures of the time. Surprisingly, he regularly made a huge number of mistakes (for example, he hired the author of these lines), but continued to work in this position even after Gusinsky fled abroad. It was under Bobkov in the "Most" formed a pleiad of the current "opinion leaders" of the liberal persuasion. And the same Bobkov publicly supported the reduction of the residency of Russian intelligence in several regions of the world, although no one asked his opinion on this issue - he had absolutely nothing to do with it.
The case of Bobkov is a special case of the KGB samopiara that still exists today. The degradation of those systems that were responsible for the situation inside the country did not even begin in the 1987 year, when the abolition of prior censorship brought all dogs to the government. Even now it is customary to idealize both the KGB itself as a phenomenon and individual employees of the older generation. In fact, many of them (including those who torpedo society with memoirs and “expert opinions”) are themselves to blame for the destruction of both the infrastructure of the KGB and the state as a whole. The controls from 2 to 6, since 70, have been affected by numerous human diseases. The selection of employees "on the questionnaire", multiplied by various forms of "Soviet political correctness" (national cadres, "Komsomol recruitment", "villagers"), led to a gradual decrease in the professional level. Special attention should be paid to the so-called KGB schools, which began to be formed in the 70's. The most famous of them — in Minsk, Kiev, Vilnius, Tbilisi, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, and Lvov — trained staff to work according to a national quota or Komsomol voucher. Not everything, of course, is so scary, there are a lot of excellent professionals and nice people, these schools have graduated, but many others received a set of specific skills then used mainly for personal purposes, and the quality of their training left much to be desired. This, however, is not about foreign intelligence - there were some difficulties there, but it almost didn’t get to the accelerated courses for people almost from the street.
As a result, a whole system was formed that rejected novelty, innovative thinking and independence of evaluation. Meshala and the militarization of the KGB - people from the army, with all due respect to them, are less prone to critical thinking. Civilian specialists are often more principled in upholding their point of view than personnel officers, in whom ordinance was originally incorporated. There was also a cult of command. That is, giving orders and developing plans was considered more important than making sure they were correct. And convulsive attempts in the Gorbachev era to create certain “analytical departments” led only to the emergence of senior generals in leadership positions, more inclined to search for universal conspiracies than to objective processing of incoming data.
Heroes of resistance
The traditional question of how it so happened that the giant structure that covered the whole of the USSR and everything that was supposedly controlling, overcame the disintegration of the state is not quite properly formulated. In reality, the KGB of the USSR sample 80-s did not control himself. The collapse began with the extinction of part of the national branches, with the polarization of opinions within the organization itself, with the presentation to the public of internal ideological discussions, and in the future it all grew like a snowball. Honor, careerism and a general decline in the intellectual level led to the inability to adequately evaluate the information received, and it came in huge quantities. In Lithuania, for example, nationalist sentiments were partly supported by the local party Central Committee, which unsuccessfully tried to lead them. The KGB could not go against the views of the party leadership, which dismissed operational reports, referring to Moscow and “perestroika”. And in the Caucasian republics, the levers of governance were generally lost, partly due to the pressure of party power.
The role of the KGB of the USSR in stories and in the events of 1988 – 1991 - partly a matter of faith. People who believe that this organization was an absolute evil can not be persuaded, but this is not necessary. For people who identify their contemporaries with the peasant call of the times of Yezhov, in principle, it is difficult to explain something. Even attempts to separate the activities of foreign intelligence from the odious events of the 5 th Andropov Central Board face rejection of the abbreviation itself.
Perhaps the main lesson of the events of twenty-five years ago does not concern the general role of state security bodies in the structure of power, but their intellectual and organizational niche in this system. The role of the KGB of the USSR at the end of 80-x - the beginning of 90-s was reduced to functions of supporting the authority of the government, which were not characteristic of state security, against the background of ideological changes in society. But the KGB itself (both the central apparatus and the republican organs) was torn from internal contradictions, so it would be naive to demand saving ideas from a structure that was decomposed simultaneously with the entire system of state power. Even the image of the KGB was decomposed under a massive media attack, although it still works to some extent. Inside the state security system, which, in theory, was supposed to absorb the best, there simply were not found the intellectual forces that could provide decent resistance to the policy of decay and decomposition.
And this is the main lesson. The system of state security bodies cannot be massive, it cannot be based on a “questionnaire” selection of personnel. It may not be perfect, but to strive for this ideal is necessary. And everyone who participated in the struggle for a single state — whether in the field, on the steps of the KGB building on Lukishki, on Lubyanka Square, on the parquet floors of the complex of government buildings from Rybny Lane and upstairs — is not worth mentioning the evil word. The inevitable happened. But it could be much worse.
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