The Committee for State Security (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности, romanized: Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, IPA: [kəmʲɪˈtʲed ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ]), abbreviated as KGB (Russian: КГБ, IPA: [ˌkɛɡɛˈbɛ]; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of...