The KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) or Committee for State Security, was the USSR's many layered institution consisting of various "directorates" that performed the combined functions carried out in other countries by the CIA, FBI, MI5, MI6, ASIO and other secret police, spying and intelligence agencies. The KGB's predecessors in the USSR were the NKVD, and the Cheka which was founded and headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky. The Cheka carried out torture and executions during the Russian Civil War and the Red Terror. The NKVD was instrumental in carrying out Stalin's purges of the 1930's. By whatever name it was known as at the time, the KGB was synonomous with terror, torture and death, and that was just within the USSR. KGB activities outside the USSR are legendary, and many a book has been written and movie made about their activities. The KGB headquarters were at Lubyanka Square in Moscow. The KGB was moderated and broken up after the collapse of the USSR and is now known as the FSB (Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti) or Federal Security Service.

The KGB is Russia's secret police organization created in 1917. In the beginning, the KGB was under control of the People's commission of the USSR. In 1991, the KGB was dissolved, and the foreign intelligence committee assumed duties.

The KGB was an intelligence organization of the USSR/Russia until 1995.

KGB is the Russian acronym for Committee for State Security. It was an intelligence organization and the primary secret police force in the old Soviet Union. The Communist Party used it as an instrument of terror. Anyone could be investigated, arrested, held without trial, tortured, imprisoned and executed.

Under the Communist rule (USSR), they were the KGB. Now that Russia has reverted back to a "republic", I think it has a new name.

• officially - 1949 when USSR tested their first atomic bomb
• actually - ~1944 when spies stole US atomic bomb plans and delivered them to the KGB