Museum of Genocide Victims

KGB Inner Prison | Collections | Armed Resistance | Unarmed Resistance | Repressive Institutions | Deportation

All totalitarian regimes are based on a repressive apparatus. The Soviet Union was not an exception. The subdivisions of the repressive institutions of the USSR were formed in all countries annexed by the USSR, including Lithuania.  When the Soviet Union occupied Lithuania on June 15, 1940, the occupants did not proceeded with establishing of new authorities but made use of the "signboards" of the state institutions, which already existed.

Since 1947, the repressive power of MGB grew higher. Internal and border troops, section of fight against partisans, detachments of destroyers, governmental HF communications, as well as militia, were handed over into its disposition. For suppression of the armed resistance, which lasted for almost 10 years, the internal troops, detachments of destroyers, shock troops, wide network of agents and informers of various categories was used.

Approximately in 1953, the armed anti-Soviet resistance was broken down. From 1944 to 1953, the said structures executing terror murdered more than 20 thousand people, sent every third adult to prisons, camps or deportation. The repressive institutions, however, did not terminate their activity, just modified their structure and the ways of activity, matching to the new conditions. 

Upon establishing of KGB, its main functions were the following: foreign intelligence, prevention of intelligence and subversive activities of secret services (counter-espionage), as well as fight with the so-called nationalism and anti-Soviet activity. 

The movement of dissidents had became more active in 1967, so KGB intended to prevent the "ideological diversions" within the Soviet Union and in foreign countries, or to say more explicitly - to persecute people having different views. These were the directions in which agency, repressive and "educational" work was organized. All KGB sections were equipped with the advanced equipment; funds were not grudged for their work. For example, only over the period of 1975-1976, the agents of the 7th section in secret made more than 5 thousand photos, assembled television cameras at the hotel "Neringa" and filmed secretly. Every foreign tourist was monitored, their apartments searched. In order it were easier to control foreigners they were lodged at the hotels "Lietuva", "Neringa" in which the secret listening systems were installed, and the hotels were controlled by the regular KGB officers or the KGB officers from the so-called active reserve. The reserve officers carried counter-espionage tasks working in the shelter of other institutions. In Lithuania, they fortified themselves first of all in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (especially the Department of Visas), Ministries of Internal Affairs and Culture, "Teviskė" union, enterprises related with the military industry and the institutes of scientific research. Thus, the establishments mentioned were controlled from the inside.

The constituent part of the KGB organization was the agent network which was made of the collaborators of five categories: agent (a person secretly performing the tasks of the KGB), resident (a person managing several agents or dependable persons), the owner of the flat for meetings (a person giving the premises for work with agents and residents), holder of the secret address (a person creating conditions in a flat owned by the secret services for agency and other operative work) and simply "dependable person" (a person co-operating with the KGB for his ideas or pursuing the career). Though the agents were widely used in the activity of the predecessors of the KGB, their number considerably decreased over the fifties-seventies: there were 6537 acting agents in 1959 and 4860 in 1977. The number of agents decreased, but their quality constitution changed as well - the number of agents with the higher education increased.

The main object for monitoring in Lithuania were people convicted for so called state offences, people who came back from deportation, catholic priests, as well as people who corresponded with relatives or friends from foreign countries (so-called capitalist countries). With the help of the supernumerary KGB workers and agents working in communications department, the letters and parcels were examined, invitations to symposia and exhibitions, as well as the books, were withdrawn, i.e. everything arousing any suspicions or, in the opinion of the examiners, possessing any anti-Soviet content was taken out. The agents acted among the foreign tourists, lecturers and students of the higher educational institutions, technical and vocational schools, workers of sports organizations and sportsmen going to foreign countries. Every operative employee of the KGB supervised the higher educational institutions or secondary schools assigned to him. This was the way for knowing the moods of the academic part of the society and the students.

Upon the restoration of the independence of Lithuania on March 11, 1990, the status of the KGB in Lithuania changed too. The Council of Ministers of the Republic of Lithuania by the resolution of March 23, 1990 obligated the LSSR KGB to terminate its activity. The officers of the official institutions were forbidden to give information to the KGB, KGB's employees could not check correspondence, listen to telephone conversations, etc. The subdivision of the KGB in Lithuania, however, was ultimately liquidated only after the downfall of the Putsch of August, 1991 in Moscow.