KGB (Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti in Russian)

Committee for State Security. The predominant Soviet security police organization since its establishment in 1954 as the successor to the MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs; Ministerstvo vnutrennykh del, in Russian). In October 1991, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev decreed that the KGB be disbanded because of its involvement in the August coup d’état (q.v.), the assets and willing personnel of the KGB in Moldova were transferred to the new republic’s government, to the Ministry of National Security. In Belarus the new government took control of the KGB but did not change its name.

Source: Library of Congress