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RUNNING HEAD RECTO 2 Integrity and Efficiency The KGB’s Anticorruption War ■ Andropov’s role as longtime KGB chief is an important aspect of the agency’s fight against corruption, and a brief review of the KGB’s development highlights his ascent. The KGB and Its Past The KGB was shaped by the nature of the Soviet regime, which gave it an increasingly important role after 1917, as well as by the character of its leaders. During the first years of the Soviet Union, it constituted a powerful force because the regime had weak support and was in danger of collapse, thus making recourse to repression very appealing. In 1917, Lenin appointed Dzerzhinski the first leader of the Cheka (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution and Sabotage). The man had no legal background or qualifications , but Lenin appreciated the fact that he had been hardened by a long jail term and was ready to do anything for the Soviet system. Dzerzhinski tended to see the world in Manichaean terms—as a war between the forces of good (communism ) and evil (capitalism), where all means were justified to defeat those who did not adhere to Soviet ideals. Such fanaticism led Dzerzhinski to summarily execute opponents of the regime; he was a zealot whose excesses were denounced even by Lenin. With civil war, economic reconstruction, and other urgent issues demanding attention, the Cheka was viewed as the most reliable ally of the Communist Party, especially in the countryside. It was at the forefront of the battles against the adversaries of communism and addressed the biggest problems facing the regime. Dzerzhinski was appointed president of the com-   mittee combating bribery, considered one of the major scourges afflicting the Soviet Union during this period.1 The Kremlin also looked to him in emergencies such as natural disasters and to resolve problems such as homeless children and working conditions in the mines. In desperate situations, citizens would make direct appeals to him. Dzerzhinski’s multiple fields of activity made him the obvious person to perform the most important function of the security service: to collect information for the leaders of the country, who ostensibly needed this information to implement efficient policies. Since the Communist Party needed as much information as possible to consolidate its power and rule the country, political leaders were, to a certain extent, dependent on the security service. The Cheka was thus in a position to exert influence on the Kremlin and Communist Party policy by selecting the information that would be divulged to Party leaders. Such information included negative data, that is, details that exposed the Soviet system’s weaknesses. To uncover such details, security agents made it their business to know what preoccupied people, who opposed the regime, and what plans those opponents might be hatching. Agents collected information on the private lives of not only the regime’s opponents but also the nomenklatura, documenting behavior that may not have been illegal but was considered morally reprehensible. Political leaders found this information useful for eliminating their opponents, but the security force could also store it for future use against the same officials. The security service’s power was accentuated because information did not circulate freely in the regime, which made it all the harder for politicians to defend themselves against compromising information coming from the security service. It is probable that some Cheka agents, even the leaders, were influenced by the viewpoints and proposals of opponents of the regime. Having a good picture of their society’s main problems and possible solutions, agents believed that the Soviet system was in need of reform and that they possessed the abilities to become its leaders and address the issues facing the country. In times of weak leadership at the Kremlin, the temptation to become directly involved in politics was difficult to resist. Although he was an unconditional Leninist, Dzerzhinski took a position in favor of economic reform. He was opposed to total state control of the economy; his solution was the market, a concept most of the Party leaders, including Lenin, rejected outright. Dzerzhinski had political ambitions and would have preferred to be a leader of the Communist Party instead of chief of the security service. Thus, like some other Cheka leaders, Dzerzhinski shared an attraction to reformism and a more political role. One characteristic of the security force that endured throughout its evolution was a low level of involvement in corruption. Its members had to meet stringent standards regarding their...

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