KGB (Komitet Gosdarstvennoi Bezopasnotsi/Committee on State
Security).The political and security police of the former Soviet
Union, the KGB was established in 1954 to guard Soviet borders,
conduct espionageand counterintelligence, protect Soviet officials,
suppress political dissidence, and maintain its own independent
armed forces. It evolved from the secret police of the early Stalinist
era into a highly autonomous and centralized organization that, by the
1960s, had become firmly established as the security watchdog of the
Community Party of the Soviet Union. At its peak, the KGB also was
the largest secret police and espionage organization in the world. It
became so influential in Soviet politics that several of its directors
moved on to become premiers of the Soviet Union. Russian president
Vladimir V. Putin is a former head of the KGB. Upon the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in 1991, KGB’s far-flung operations were con-
solidated into two separate agencies—the FSB, Russia’s domestic
federal security service and the SVRR, Russia’s external intelligence
agency. See alsoGRU.KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH (1894–1971). Nikita S.
Khrushchev was the Soviet Communist Party chairman from 1954
until 1964. He rose to prominence by unquestioningly supporting
Josef Stalin’s bloody purges in the 1930s that consolidated his polit-
ical power. Although a peasant by birth, Khrushchev rose quickly to
become Moscow Communist Party chief in 1935. During World
War II, he was head of the Ukrainian Communist Party, and after the
war, became a top advisor to Stalin.
Stalin died in 1953 and, after a power struggle, Khrushchev
emerged as the new leader of the Soviet Union. He immediately set
out to remake the Soviet system by undoing Stalin’s excesses. In a
1956 secret speech to the 20th congress of the Communist Party,
Khrushchev denounced Stalin for his crimes and proposed reforms,
which gave Soviet citizens hope for the future and emboldened East
Europeans to strive for independence. However, Khrushchev’s mod-
eration did not include toleration of dissent. Soviet forces brutally
crushed the Hungarian revolt in 1956, and Khrushchev made sure
that Soviet client states knew the limits of his benevolence.
In his relations with the West, Khrushchev advocated “peaceful co-
existence” but presided over a series of crises that marred East-WestKHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH• 11105-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 111