Here is the sign of the KGB presenting the heritage of its ancestor, Cheka, with a shield to protect the bolshevik revolution and a sword to destroy its enemies.
Russia's first political police, the distant ancestor of KGB, was the Oprichnina founded in 1565 by Ivan the Terrible, the first Grand Duke of Muscovy to be crowned Tsar. The Oprichniki dressed in black, rode black horses and were famous in cruelty. Later, Stalin praised the role of Oprichnina in centralising state power and reducing the power of the boyar aristocracy. This first police did not survive its creator.
In 1880 during the reorganisation of Tsar Alexander II's political police the new Security Sections (Okhrannoye Otdelenie) were set up. Henceforth the political police system became collectively known as the Okhrana. The organisation failed, however, to save the Tsar who was assasinated in 1881 with a hand grenade.
Then came the October revolution. The Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage) was founded on 20 December 1917 and was originally intended only as a temporary expedient. The Bolsheviks confidently expected their own revolution to spark off an international revolutionary movement which would overthrow capitalism. In the post-revolutionary world there would be no place for conventional diplomats, let alone for spies. Felix Dzerzhinsky established Cheka for "the suppression of the minority of exploiters by the majority of the wage slaves of yesterday" (Lenin).
After its birth the Cheka changed name often. GPU (Political Directorate of the State) worked during 1922 and 1923. Then it transformed to OGPU (United...) for 1923-1934). The most famous and cruel was Stalin's NKVD (Comissariat of Interieor) which arranged show trials and sent about 10 million russians to concentration camps. From 1946 until 1954 MVD (Ministry of Interior) was headed by Lavrenti Beria.
Stalin died in 1953. Beria was then executed for "spying for Britain". The political elite began a quest for legitimacy as Khruschev announced amnesty to for many types of ordinary and political prisoners. A key reform that the new leadership introduced was the reorganisation of the police apparatus. On 13 March 1954 a decree of the presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet established a new Committee of State security attached to the USSR Council of Ministers (Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR), the KGB.
Source: Cristopher Andrew, Oleg Gordievsky, KGB - The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990.
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