Question by mg: How might I show a relation between the KGB and Russian Imperialism?
What are some questions I might be able to ask or tackle in a paper. I wanted to do the KGB but my professor told me to think about how I would be able to relate that to Russian Imperialism.
Answers and Views:
Answer by poornakumar b
KGB apart, tell your professor that ‘USSR is (was) an Imperial Construct’, is his own opinion. It is true that USSR is the successor of the earlier Empire of Czar, on the map. If it was an Empire and an Empire’s tendency is to expand, what prevented the Empire to absorb Mongolia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland & East Germany ?
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Spellbound says
That is going to be a very hard paper to put together as there is no direct relationship between Russian Imperialism and the KGB. In order to produce a good paper you are going to have to define Imperialism in a way that meets the way that the Soviets took power and ruled across the USSR and Eastern Europe. And, as the countries of Eastern Europe were independent, although with close economic and political ties to the USSR, this model of imperialism could also be used to describe American involvement as US imperialism in Western Europe following WWII.
Assuming that you mean Soviet Imperialism, and not Imperial Russian Imperialism (you need to be clear about your terminology or you will get marked down), then the KGB was the intelligence agency of the Soviet Union. It's role was to collect data both on internal and external threats and potential threats, to guard border and sensitive areas to research and develop technical equipment, poisons and drugs,to listen in on foreign military and political communications and to ensure secure transport for high ranking individuals and sensitive information and products (mostly nuclear and top secret weapons).
True it had a role in securing the new communist countries after their liberation by the Soviet Army but soon after these countries were established they all set up similar organisations.
The real agencies involved with Soviet territorial expansion were (before 1943) the Communist International, known as Comintern, and, after 1947 the Communist Information Bureau, known as Cominform. These organisations actively funded, promoted and organised both overtly communist and front (cover) organisations in order to promote either Soviet national interests or to further the revolution in whatever countries they operated in. Both organisations would have used the expertise and personnel of the KGB in carrying out their missions.
A major flaw in your argument is that the Soviets were not an imperialistic power. True they wanted to expand communism to other countries, but not with an eye on turning them into colonies – they could have made the countries of Eastern Europe part of the Soviet Union, but they maintained the facade of independence, and each country developed different characteristics – some distinctly non-Soviet – over time.
The best example of the KGB and Soviet expansion would be, in my opinion, the actions taken in Afghanistan before the invasion. The Soviets possibly help to engineer the events of the Saur Revolution that put a communist government in power in Afghanistan.
Here is a link to the successor of the KGB, the FSB's website – you'll have to open it in firefox and use their translate function if you don't speak Russian. http://www.fsb.ru/fsb/history.htm