The last chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vadim Bakatin died

The last chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vadim Bakatin died in Moscow at 85 years of life. He led a special service for less than six months, trying to reform it in a liberal manner. Many divisions and management were withdrawn from the control of the committee, including intelligence, special communications and protection of state-owned persons. However, he was not completely dissolved, as proponents of more radical reforms suggested.

Bakatin, the grandson of the repressed, by education, the engineer-builder, worked in the construction industry of the Kemerovo region for more than 10 years, after which he went to party work. He was the secretary of the Kemerovo regional committee of the CPSU, inspector of the Central Committee, the first secretary of the Kirov Regional Committee, then - the first secretary in Kemerovo.

He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. In 1988 he headed the Ministry of the Interior, having no experience in this area. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was planned to be radically reformed. With it, decentralization of the department began, the institution of paid informants was canceled, and rubber batons were adopted into service with the police. For the first time in the history of the USSR, those who were investigated in jail began to feed with hot food.

It was resigned, included in the Security Council. He nominated his candidacy for the presidency of the RSFSR, took the last place, gaining less than 3.5 percent of the vote. After the coup attempt in 1991, the KGB was appointed to lead. In the decree on the appointment, the head of the country Mikhail Gorbachev ordered him to prepare proposals on the reform of the department.

Only a complete idiot can say that I ruined the KGB. KGB - he himself is to ruin

On behalf of the Bakatin from the KGB, the foreign intelligence service, the troops of special forces, the border guard and the security department were allocated. The department tried, according to the chairman, “from the ideology of Chekism,” and redirect work to combat organized crime and financial crimes.

“Then, in the transition period, persisting in a single fist, the KGB was dangerous for the process of democratization of the country, and it had to somehow be dismembered, this was the point,” the former general general Oleg Kalugin explained the reforms of Bakatin Radio Radio Radio. As a symbolic gesture, the head of the KGB handed over to the United States to eavesdropping a new building of the American embassy in Moscow, which caused a sharp criticism from other special services.

Despite the reforms, the KGB was not completely disbanded with the dismissal of all employees. Dissa Sergey Grigoryants on the air of the RS said that Bakatin complained that special services had never allowed him to any materials and did not know what was being done on Lubyanka. “Only a complete idiot can say that I ruined the KGB,” Bakatin said in an interview with Russian Life magazine. “KGB - he himself ruined.

After the collapse of the USSR, Vadim Bakatin worked at the Reform Foundation Academician Shatalina, was engaged in lobbying, and was an employee of the largest investment fund Baring Vostok. He was a guest of the broadcast of Radio Liberty.