Committee for State Security

The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, translated in English as Committee for State Security, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. It was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", acting as internal security, intelligence and secret police. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia, and consisted of many ministries, state committees and state commissions.

After the dissolution of the Soviet state, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation.

KGB in literature
The KGB is mentioned several times in the Red Sparrow trilogy, first introduced in the Red Sparrow novel through characters such as Alexei Zyuganov and Sergey Matorin, former members of the KGB and later part of the SVR.