KGB Caper

It is an ancient problem for all societies: Who will watch over those who have been given the power to watch over others? In the Soviet Union, where the Committee for State Security--the KGB--has from Lenin’s time on been the primary force for maintaining control, the secret police have been virtually immune from anything approaching public criticism or accountability. Now, in an extraordinary departure, the agency whose name has become synonymous with internal repression is publicly accused of wrongdoing. The charge comes from no less a source than Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, with an admission of misconduct coming from no less an official than the KGB’s own chairman.

The immediate case involves a KGB officer in the Ukraine who has been fired for instigating the arrest of a local journalist on a trumped-up and typically nebulous charge of hooliganism. The persecution of the journalist, described by KGB Chairman Viktor M. Chebrikov as constituting “violations of socialist legality,” apparently stemmed from his efforts to expose official corruption. Such efforts have been advocated by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev as part of his campaign to reduce public cynicism about authority and to make the Soviet Union a more efficient if not necessarily a more notably free society.

As with so many other changes from past practice that have occurred under Gorbachev, the significance of this development for now remains uncertain. The criticism of official abuse may be only a one-time thing, intended to imply credibility for Gorbachev’s announced policy of glasnost , or openness. Or it could prove to be part of a greater scheme to reduce the powers of the KGB and bring it more firmly under the control of the party. Possibly it portends the fall of Chebrikov. Equally possibly it is meant to signal his support for Gorbachev’s attempt to impose greater discipline on major state organs. As with other recent things, it is not so much the single event that matters, but what might happen next. Everyone in the Soviet Union knows that the KGB’s “violations of socialist legality” in the Ukraine were hardly a unique occurrence. If other KGB abuses are similarly exposed it would be a clear sign that something fundamentally important may be under way.