Putin Calls On KGB Heirs to Aid Democracy

Russia’s most visible KGB veteran, President Vladimir V. Putin, on Wednesday urged former colleagues to learn from the repressive past of Soviet-era secret services and to apply their skills toward defending democracy.

Putin’s speech in the Kremlin, followed by a concert and dinner, was timed to mark Chekist’s Day, a Soviet-era holiday commemorating the Dec. 20, 1917, establishment of the secret police, the Cheka.

The Cheka later developed into the Soviet-era KGB, the dreaded repression machine that executed or imprisoned millions.

Putin served for 16 years as a KGB agent before the giant agency broke up into several successor services after the 1991 Soviet collapse.

“Fundamental changes in the country have given a new meaning to your work,” he told agents. “The state significance of your work is in the defense of the constitutional rights of Russia’s citizens.”

In an interview published to mark the secret agents’ professional holiday, the head of the KGB’s main successor agency said that Western spy services have turned former Soviet allies in Eastern Europe into a platform for operations against Russia.

Nikolai P. Patrushev, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, also promised to continue efforts to block foreign espionage activities, according to the interview in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Patrushev’s deputy, Vladimir Shults, told the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets on Wednesday that the FSB had tracked down 11 foreign spies this year.

Putin has put many of his former colleagues into senior government positions. Critics have voiced fears that the former KGB officials might try to reestablish elements of the repressive Soviet system and crack down on democratic freedoms.

Patrushev denied the allegations, and Putin said Wednesday that the security service would be used to reinforce the democratic government.