The KGB’s Special Departments in the Soviet Armed Forces*

The Soviets themselves have begun to publish books and articles on the past and present activities of the Special Departments that strongly suggest that this apparatus plays a much more important role in the armed forces than Western experts have realized. The regime relies on Committee of State Security (KGB) troops rather than on its regular armed forces to perform such highly sensitive tasks as guarding the leadership and quelling domestic disturbances. Probably these special troops are recruited very selectively and are deemed more politically dependable than regular troops. The history of the Special Departments in the Soviet armed forces dates from 16 July 1918, when a resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars created under the Vecheka a Cheka on the Eastern front. According to official Soviet sources, the main function of the KGB’s Special Departments is military counterintelligence. Toward the close of the Brezhnev era the Soviet press began to devote increasing attention to the KGB’s military counterintelligence and political security functions.