The ruling State Council toppled a pillar of Communist power in voting Friday to eliminate the once-dreaded KGB secret police but followed Soviet tradition in creating a replacement.
The State Council formed three new services on the basis of the old KGB: an independent central intelligence service, an interrepublican counterintelligence service and a state committee to guard the country's borders, said an official statement reported by Tass.Another section of the KGB, foreign intelligence, had already been split from the agency by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who on Sept. 30 named longtime aide Yevgeny Primakov to head the service.
The council's decision intensified efforts to decentralize the KGB following the abortive August coup to oust Gorbachev by hard-liners, including former KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov.
The Soviet secret police has its roots in pre-revolutionary Russia, where the Czar's Okhrana was used to spy on imperial opponents, including Soviet founder Vladimir I. Lenin.