The Soviet State Security’s Political and Power Resources. KGB Structures, Practices and Methods in the Last Decade of the Soviet Union

• Applicant: Evgenia Lezina, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 403506742

The renewal proposal intends to pursue the initial project’s concept and thereby explore the strategies, tactics and techniques employed by the Soviet secret police in exercising control over society as a whole and its particularly important public institutions during the last decades of the USSR’s existence. The study will be based on sources that proved their validity under the ongoing project, including the state security archives in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Lithuania, as well as interviews with former employees of Soviet institutions, who by virtue of their position were aware of the specifics of KGB activities within those bodies. Additionally, persons who were persecuted by the secret police under Soviet rule will be interviewed. The project intends to examine the distribution of state security resources within particular institutional fields as well as universal and specific practices and methods, which the KGB resorted to in maintaining and developing control in these distinctive areas of operational activity. In order to gain an insight into the state security structures of everyday surveillance in Soviet society, the project will investigate the penetration of and control over the Soviet armed forces and religious institutions by the secret police. In addition, it will focus on KGB cadre policies and their implementation, as well as the educational and training structures of the state security bodies, exposing their strengths and weaknesses as repressive tools.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants