The destroyer of the state security system of the USSR
The last head of the KGB of the USSR, Vadim Bakatin, passed on a number of our secrets to the United States and carried out such a “reform” of the once omnipotent department, after which the State Security Committee was divided into several independent special services, completely disorganized and could not resist the collapse of the Union.
Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR
The last head of the KGB of the USSR Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin was born on November 6, 1937 in the city of Kiselevsk, Novosibirsk Region (now Kemerovo). His father was a mining engineer, his mother was a surgeon. Vadim in 1960 graduated from the hydrotechnical faculty of the Novosibirsk Civil Engineering Institute. V. V. Kuibyshev, specialty "civil engineer". In 1985 he studied at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU).
Bakatin began his career in Kuzbass. Here he worked in the construction department and "Kemerovokhimstroy" (foreman, foreman, head of the construction site, chief engineer), was the secretary of the Kemerovo city committee and the regional committee of the CPSU. In 1983, Vadim Bakatin came to the attention of the head of the Department of Organizational and Party Work of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the future member of the Politburo Yegor Ligachev (one of the initiators and organizers of "perestroika"), after which Bakatin's career took off. He was transferred to Moscow.
Until 1985, Bakatin was an inspector of the department of organizational and party work of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Then he was sent to the post of First Secretary of the Kirov Regional Committee of the CPSU, which he held until May 1987. In 1986-1991 he was a member of the CPSU Central Committee, since 1986 he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From March 1990 to September 1991, Bakatin was a member of the Presidential Council of the USSR. From March 1991 he was a member of the Security Council under the President of the USSR.
From October 21, 1988 to December 1, 1990, he headed the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. He was awarded the rank of lieutenant general of the internal service. He was Gorbachev's man in the power structures (first the Ministry of Internal Affairs, then the KGB), as opposed to the possible opposition of the generals. Bakatin pursued Gorbachev's course towards decentralization and democratization. The Union Ministry of Internal Affairs transferred great powers to the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Union republics.
Under Bakatin, crime statistics were declassified for the first time. The agent network of informants was destroyed, which worsened the ability of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to combat the growing organized crime. In September 1990, the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs became a member of Interpol. Under Bakatin, the creation of special police units (OMON) continued, and the police were armed with rubber batons, which the people gained the nickname "democratizers."
Interestingly, Bakatin lost his post as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs due to being too democratic. He rejected attempts to use the Ministry of Internal Affairs and OMON to suppress unrest in the Baltics. When in November 1990 Bakatin refused to disperse a demonstration of Democrats on Red Square in Moscow, Gorbachev called him a coward. However, he retained his position in Gorbachev's team.
On June 12, 1991, Bakatin was nominated for the post of President of the RSFSR and received 6 million votes. In his election program, he advocated the preservation of the USSR, considering the RSFSR as the main system-forming component of the Union, was in favor of the transition to the market, but without "shock therapy".
Dismantling the KGB
During the GKChP, Bakatin spoke out against the state of emergency. After the failure of the State Emergency Committee and the arrest of the former head of the KGB Kryuchkov, at the suggestion of Yeltsin and Gorbachev, Bakatin was instructed to head the KGB of the USSR, to reorganize and reform it. From August 23 to October 22, 1991, Vadim Bakatin served as chairman of the USSR State Security Committee. He carried out a purge of the KGB from supporters of the State Emergency Committee, many professionals left on their own, helped others. A “reform” was also carried out with the division of the department into a number of independent structures created on the basis of the KGB departments. First of all, the KGB was deprived of its military component - the special forces were transferred to the subordination of the Soviet army.
The First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR (foreign intelligence - SVR) became an independent department. It is worth noting that foreign intelligence is still lucky. It was headed by Yevgeny Primakov, who saved the best personnel from the defeat. The 9th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, which was responsible for the protection of the first persons of the state, was transferred directly to the President of the USSR and became the Security Directorate under the Office of the President of the USSR (the future FSO). The complex of departments responsible for government communications, encryption and electronic intelligence was withdrawn from the KGB. On their basis, the Government Communications Committee under the President of the USSR (the future FAPSI) was created. The Border Troops, which became an independent structure, were withdrawn from the subordination of the Committee.
This "reform" finally undermined the KGB's potential to counter the collapse of the USSR. The state security system was finished off.
After the liquidation of the all-Union KGB, Bakatin headed the Inter-Republican Security Service (MSB) created on its basis, and was its chairman from November 6, 1991. On December 19, 1991, shortly after the liquidation of the USSR, by decree of the President of the RSFSR Boris Yeltsin, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, the Federal Security Agency of the RSFSR and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR were merged into the Ministry of Security and Internal Affairs, headed by Viktor Barannikov. On December 23, Yeltsin, at a meeting with Bakatin, informed him of his removal from office. He was officially released from his post as head of the SME on January 15, 1992.
In 1992, he published a book with the loud title "Getting rid of the KGB." But over time, Vadim Viktorovich began to evaluate his activities in 1991 much more modestly, blaming everything on the higher authorities. In particular, he noted that Yeltsin was pushing through the option of the complete liquidation of the KGB, the dismissal of all employees and the recruitment of new personnel into a completely new structure. And his version of the reorganization of the KGB "was a variant of reform, not destruction." That is, the KGB was defeated, "reformed" and "optimized", but the basis was preserved, albeit in different special services.
Further, Bakatin worked in various near-political and business structures. Died July 31, 2022.
Surrender of Soviet secrets
Bakatin rendered a huge service to America by handing over to US Ambassador to the USSR James Collins in December 1991, as a goodwill gesture from Moscow, wiretapping schemes for the new complex of buildings of the American embassy in the capital. Bakatin never made excuses when he was accused of betrayal for passing secrets to the Americans. In fact, it was the will of the country's top leadership.
The head of the Federal Security Agency of the RSFSR, V.V. Ivanenko, recalled this in 2011:
“He passed the system without consulting with professionals ... Bakatin later said that he coordinated this step with both presidents (USSR and RSFSR), he had a letter with their visas ... for the KGB officers it was a blow. To hand over the holy of holies - the technique of eavesdropping in the embassy, if not an enemy, then a competitor! Bakatin justified himself: they say, the Americans knew about it anyway. Nothing like this! There was applied a completely new technology. The elements of the sound-conducting system were walled up in bricks. We received them from foreign suppliers. It was know-how. They were built by foreign contractors whom the Americans trusted. The KGB recruited contractors.”
Thus, Bakatin was one of the members of Gorbachev's team, engaged in rapprochement with the West, "perestroika" and "reform" of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB, which eventually turned into their destruction and geopolitical catastrophe. The destruction of big Russia - the USSR, the Soviet project and civilization, which were an alternative to the Western project, the slave model, which now completely dominates the planet.
Instead of modernization, improvement and development, getting rid of weaknesses and mistakes, the people received destruction and degradation, which resulted in the death of millions of people, losses comparable to several invasions of Hitler. And the prospect of a new civilizational catastrophe, when the Russian world was made the periphery of the “market” model, in essence, a semi-colony of the West.
Information