The Russian secret police set up in 1917 to serve the Bolshevik party; one of the many predecessors of the KGB.
Description based on the International Spy Museum glossary. It was created in the year the tsarist secret police, the Okhrana (1881–1917), ceased to exist. Its later successor was the KGB – according to the CIA glossary, the intelligence and state security service of the USSR during the Cold War.1,2
Heirs to this tradition are still active today: after the break-up of the USSR, foreign intelligence was taken over by the SVR, established, according to the International Spy Museum, on 18 December 1991. In its 2010 criminal complaint the US Department of Justice calls the SVR Russia’s foreign intelligence service and its headquarters “Moscow Center”.1,3
Sources
- International Spy Museum (Washington, DC), Language of Espionage (glossary)
- CIA, Spy Speak Glossary
- US Department of Justice, Criminal complaint against ten people accused of acting on behalf of the SVR, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, 27.06.2010
Checked: 4 November 2026