45

The Cheka was the secret police of the USSR. Wikipedia maintains a list of the Cheka and its subsequent renamings:

  • 1917: Cheka
  • 1922: GPU
  • 1923: OGPU
  • 1934: NKVD
  • 1941: NKGB
  • 1941: NKVD (again)
  • 1943: NKGB (again)
  • 1946: MGB
  • 1954: KGB

It stops at KGB in 1954. This is roughly when Khrushchev came to power. The renamings start in 1922. Though Lenin had not died yet, 1922 - 1954 is roughly the era of Stalin. So I wonder, does this have anything to do with Stalin's rise to power or control via the Chekists? If so, how? How could renaming accomplish this or serve some other purpose? Were there really significant re-organizations each time it was renamed?

Rodrigo de Azevedo
  • 1
  • 1
  • 12
  • 25
DrZ214
  • 17,319
  • 15
  • 70
  • 158
  • 8
    Don't forget the FSB! – Astor Florida Oct 26 '17 at 13:52
  • @axsvl77 the FSB is not an organ of the USSR. – SPavel Oct 26 '17 at 13:53
  • 3
    Meant it as a Tongue in Cheek – Astor Florida Oct 26 '17 at 13:55
  • 45
    But the table clearly shows that the Cheka was only renamed once! ;-) – David Richerby Oct 26 '17 at 15:31
  • 1
    I'd always thought it was, consciously or otherwise, a rebranding exercise - that when the organisation was at risk of becoming particularly notorious, it renamed itself. – rjpond Oct 26 '17 at 17:15
  • 15
    @DavidRicherby Technically correct, the best kind of correct. – pipe Oct 26 '17 at 17:23
  • Because if people knew what they were called then how secret could they be?? >D No seriously I have no idea, I'm just fooling around. – mathreadler Oct 26 '17 at 20:09
  • @axsvl77 And don't forget the Okhrana of Imperial Russia, but like others said, only USSR. I was actually afraid the question might be considered too broad as it is, since 1917-1954 covers a lot of stuff. – DrZ214 Oct 27 '17 at 00:34
  • I'm surprised that there's a factually-based answer to this. I would have merely speculated that a loathsome organisation may constantly change its name to marginally decrease the taint associated its name. – Golden Cuy Oct 27 '17 at 01:15
  • 1
    They tried to find out, but the prisoner died without revealing the reason. :-) – StephenG - Help Ukraine Oct 27 '17 at 01:20
  • 3
    Cheka is actually an acronym ChK. – Anixx Oct 27 '17 at 16:25
  • 1
    The secret police have always been called the KGB. Also, we have always been at war with Eastasia. – Michael Seifert Oct 27 '17 at 20:13
  • @axsvl77 You might as well go all the way back to the the Oprichnina. – Spencer Apr 23 '20 at 16:56
  • as everyone is telling jokes: the soviet version of 'who watches the watchmen?' is 'who purges the purgers?' if you did not get the joke, it means that the next acronym are the ones who purged the last one. On a more serious note, really the different secret services watched each other. – Luiz Apr 23 '20 at 17:37
  • It didn't really stop at KGB: modern Russia, which after two decades or relative transparency is returning to the old way of thinking and old ambitions, renamed KGB into FSB. The same men that used to be KGB are now FSB, and the organization's role is basically the same. – Michael Apr 24 '20 at 16:34

2 Answers2

52

The secret police was key to the Soviet government (so-called Chekism), so its structure changed frequently in response to state political needs.

  • CheKa: The "Emergency Commission" was formed in 1917, at the start of the Civil War, and was structured as appropriate for such a time - most notably, it was empowered to act extrajudicially. After the Civil War ended, The Ninth All-Russian Soviet Congress dissolved the CheKa and created the GPU, an organization more appropriate for a real country that was, in theory, more restrained by laws and rules.
  • GPU/OGPU: The "O" stands for Joint, and was added after the various Soviet republics joined together to form the USSR in 1922, and the Russian agency had to become a Union one. While the original GPU reported to the NKVD of the Russian Republic, the OGPU reported to the SovNarKom (the executive government branch of the USSR).
  • NKVD: The NKVD of the Russian Republic was transformed into an All-Union organization, and so they got their secret police back. This change also coincides with the beginning of the Great Purge, so it was likely that Stalin found it advantageous to arrange the state apparatus this way.
  • NKGB: The NKVD soon became a target of the purges themselves. The secret police component was pulled out to make this more effective, then rolled back in during the war as an intelligence/counterintelligence arm, then taken out again to police occupied Eastern Europe.
  • MGB: The "people's komissariat" was changed to the "ministry"; this was a change that affected all agencies as the USSR was rebuilding and reorganizing after the war. Nothing changed except the agency name.
  • KGB: Stalin died in 1953, and the de-Stalinization process touched all parts of the government, including the MGB. The KGB resulted from a merger of the MGB and the MVD (the non-secret police); however, the MVD broke off again in 1954.

Note that the renaming and restructuring was fairly transparent to the population, and there was no "rebranding" effort - security officers were informally called "Chekists" up until the dissolution of the USSR.

Anixx
  • 32,728
  • 13
  • 90
  • 183
SPavel
  • 10,433
  • 3
  • 47
  • 70
  • 1
    Almost perfect answer. You got just one thing wrong: latter-day MVD and KGB were independent (and to an extent, rival) bodies. – Felix Goldberg Oct 26 '17 at 13:26
  • 3
    @FelixGoldberg Ah, sorry - missed that the MVD broke off again in 1954. The history of the secret police is such a whirlwind. – SPavel Oct 26 '17 at 13:30
  • 13
    I'd feel better about my upvote with a reference or two added as well. – T.E.D. Oct 26 '17 at 13:39
  • I am speculating: name changes were related to purges. The GPU liquidated the Cheka, the NKVD liquidated the GPU, etc. – emory Oct 26 '17 at 14:48
  • 1
    Are you listing these bullet points from memory? If so, what books or articles give these explanations? – DrZ214 Oct 27 '17 at 04:50
  • 7
    Added sources - please note that primary sources are not just in Russian, but in dense bureaucratic Russian. – SPavel Oct 27 '17 at 14:12
  • I think it is important to note that Stalin died in March 1953, and immediately Lavrentiy Beria - earlier the People's Commissars of NKVD and one of the major contenders for the power - was appointed the chief of the newly merged MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs) = old MVD (police) + NKVD (secret police), but he quickly lost this struggle and was executed late in 1953 (as well as a few other secret police leaders). And then early in 1954 MVD was split back into independent MVD (police) and KGB (secret police). – SergGr Oct 28 '17 at 00:07
  • This answer has additional explanation, but note that this is also discussed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Soviet_secret_police_agencies – sondra.kinsey Oct 28 '17 at 14:52
  • @FelixGoldberg: It is fundamental to the nature of intelligence organizations (as well as other military orgs) that even if working for the same country they will tend to be rivals, sometimes bitterly so. Conflicts in the USA between local police and FBI were common. – releseabe Apr 23 '20 at 15:53
1

An "umbrella" organization such as the Cheka was literally made up of hundreds of sub organizations with different purposes.

These suborganizations were recombined at various times under different chiefs to constitute new organizations with slightly different (mostly) internal mandates, and new umbrella organizations, with new names were created most of these times. For instance, the secret and non-secret police merged and de-merged from time to time.

The only thing that was constant was the ever-presence of the "organs." The forms often changed but the substance, seldom.

Tom Au
  • 104,554
  • 17
  • 253
  • 530