When KGB Was in Charge.......

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When KGB Was in Charge, No Acts of Terrorism Happened
When KGB Was in Charge, No Acts of Terrorism Happened
05/27/2003 19:56
A former KGB officer talks about his past experience

Amir Gumanov was head of the KGB in the city of Naberezhniye Chelny from 1985-
1993. We
asked him to give us an interview about his experience of working in the secret services of the Soviet Union.

You started working in the State Security Committee (the KGB) when Yury Andropov chaired it. Was there
anything peculiar about his administrative style? Did you sense anything about it?

I was at several large official meetings and I listened to some of his speeches. All his words and actions were
permeated with lawfulness. Here is an example: it became known one day that KGB officials of the Rostov region of
Russia had used sponsors' help, as they would put it now, and repaired the building where the committee was
housed. As a result, Andropov stripped the general of the regional department of his rank, and strictly prohibited
such practices in the future.

The period when Mikhail Gorbachev was in power was rather revealing: the KGB was accused of pursuing
dissidents. Was there anything like that in your region?

Everyone who had another way of thinking was considered to be a dissident. The KGB was interested in the people
who practiced that other kind of thinking and had a wish to overthrow the regime. We had no such anti-Soviet
persons here. We had people who did not know which side they were on. We just warned them. Builders and
transport industry workers went on strikes sometimes in Naberezhniye Chelny, so our committee investigated such
incidents. However, we detected not instigators, but reasons why such things had happened. Most often, workers
went on strike because of salary delays or the deficit of petrol. There was an alcohol revolt at the end of the
1980s, when people blocked a highway because a police officer attempted to buy a bottle of alcohol without
standing in a long line. Such things occurred, but they could not be described as anti-Soviet actions. The activity
of foreign agents was a totally different issue: about 6,000 foreign agents worked at a major automobile enterprise,
KAMAZ. The KGB suppressed both ideological and economic subversive activities. There were fake foreign
companies that had just a name and nothing else. As a result, the company saved millions of rubles.

High-ranking officials often visited Naberezhniye Chelny back in those years. Who guarded them?

Soviet statesmen were not in the habit of traveling with a group of bodyguards. One person was usually
accompanied by three bodyguards, and regional divisions of the KGB were totally in charge of security issues. We
neutralized psychologically unbalanced people first or foremost - it would be a disaster if someone threw a stone at
an official car. It is pleasant for me to recollect - all the official visits were immaculate, there were no accidents at
all, although emergencies occurred at times. For example, a secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party was expected to arrive for a regional conference. His plane had to perform an emergency landing not far from
the center of the region. Roads were covered with ice, but I had to organize an escort very quickly and accompany
him on his visit.

Did acts of terrorism happen?

No, they never happened in the city. If they were being organized, the KGB would find out immediately. It was a
moral obligation for people to report violations or transgressions to the committee at that time. Obtaining the
information with people's help was considered to be demeaning later. Terrorists seized hundreds of hostages last
year in Moscow, but no one ventured to warn the authorities about it. By the way, two explosions took place in

Moscow in 1976. It took the KGB five years to find the organizers.