had lost touch with its staff as it had lost touch with developments
within the country; crucial paramilitary KGB units refused to obey the
putschists’ orders, citing their lack of legal mandate.
Russia at present is developing in fits and starts toward a law-based
state. Neither Boris Yeltsin nor Vladimir Putin has been willing as pres-
ident of Russia to abandon the power the security services offer their
master. While critics believe that legal reform is dead, others see the
process as still continuing—albeit slowly and failingly. Putin, a KGB
veteran, has moved a number of friends and colleagues from the KGB
into sensitive positions in his office and the newly minted FSB (Federal
Security Service).
The security service of postcommunist Russia, the FSB, has lost
some of the authority of the internal counterintelligence components of
the KGB. Nevertheless, it is the largest security organization in Europe,
and the second largest in the world after the Chinese Ministry of State
Security. The FSB reports directly to the president of Russia, and there
is little parliamentary oversight. While laws have been passed restrict-
ing the service’s ability to conduct surveillance of the population, many
of its leaders are having trouble dealing with the concept of a law-based
society, and several military officers have been arrested on what appear
to be trumped up charges. To be fair, the service faces threats the KGB
never had to worry about: Russian organized crime, insurgency in
Chechnya, and terrorism.
The other successor states of the former Soviet Union have had
mixed success in subjugating the security services to the rule of law. In
the Baltic states, reform has gone the furthest, and the security services
remain under legal, parliamentary, and media oversight. In other states,
legal reform is far from complete. The behavior of the Ukrainian Secu-
rity Service (SBU) during the constitutional crisis in late 2003 suggests
to some that it sees its future as a servant of a democratic elite. In Cen-
tral Asia, the security services very much resemble Cheka. One measure
of the change in the former Soviet space is the death penalty: the last
executions took place in the Ukraine and Russia in 1996. Executions are
still taking place in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Belarus, according
to human rights organizations.
Foreign intelligence in the tsarist, communist, and postcommunist
periods was well organized and directed. Several foreign intelligence
missions of the tsarist period have continued through Russian history.INTRODUCTION• xxvii06-313 (00) FM.qxd 7/27/06 7:53 AM Page xxvii