The KGB Over the years, the governments of most countries have established some sort of secret police. No matter what the government calls it, whether it is the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or Her Majesty's Secret Service (MI6), whatever name the government uses, the international term "secret police" could always apply . Many secret police agencies have had successes and failures, some more than others. The KGB, which means "the Committee of Public Safety" in English, has had its share of successes and failures. Most secret police agencies were used primarily to obtain information from other countries. This was also a primary objective for the KGB, but one of the other, equally important objectives was to keep unwanted external information hidden from the Russian people. This was just one of the KGB's many objectives. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the KGB's actions were, all things considered, a success. The current KGB was founded by Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in 1917 under the name "Cheka". This Cheka was the name of the first Russian secret police after the reign of the Tsar. The full name of this secret police was "All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution, Sabotage and Speculation" (Deriabin, KGB: Gentlemen of the Soviet Union XI). The Cheka would later evolve into the KGB in 1954. However, between the years 1917 and 1954 the KGB was given a variety of different names. Next in line, after the Cheka, was the OGPU. This lasted from 1926 to 1934 and was headed by Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky. In 1934 it became the NKVD which lasted until 1941 when it took the name NKGB. The NKGB lasted only seven months until it was renamed the NKVD and retained that name for another two years. Over the years from 1943 to 1954 it was called MGB until it finally adopted its final name, KGB, which has endured to this day since 1954. No matter what name it was given, or the year it was given given the name, the KGB was still the same thing once you got down to the basic facts. The Cheka was founded in 1917 after the "Glorious October Revolution". In April 1918 it was ascertained that power took...... middle of paper......them. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York, New York. Basic books. 1999. Bledowska, Celina and Bloch, Jonathan. KGB/CIA. New York, New York. Bison Books Corp. 1987. Channon, John. Historical Atlas of Russia. London, United Kingdom. Penguin Publishing. 1995. Donnelly, Christopher and Erickson, John. Russian military power. New York, New York. Salamander books. 1980.Deriabin, Peter. KGB: masters of the Soviet Union. New York, New York. Hippocrene books. 1990.Harkavy, Michael D. Websters International Encyclopedia. Richmond Hill, Ontario. Trident Press International. 1991.Knight, Amy W. The KGB: Policing and Politics in the Soviet Union. Winchester, MA. Unwin Hyman Inc. 1988.Pincus, Walter. Russian spies on the rise. [online] available at http://www.matn.uvt.ro/be/archive/newspapers/wp200999.html. September 21, 1999 Works Cited Andrew Christopher and Mitrokhin, Vasali. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. New York, New York. Basic books. 1999.Deriabin, Peter. KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union. New York, New York. Hippocrene books. 1990.