Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies to operate as well. Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies <br> There was a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the October Revolution, created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka" (ЧК). Officers were referred to as "chekists", a name that is still informally applied to people under the Federal Security Service of Russia, the KGB's successor in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For most agencies listed here secret policing operations were only part of their function; for instance, the KGB was both the secret police
Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia) the under-secretary, who remained only at the head of the corps of gendarmes; but by a law of 24 September 1904 this was again reversed, and the under-secretary was again placed at the head of all the police with the title of under-secretary for the administration of the police. By World War I, the Department had spawned a counter-intelligence section. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Gendarmes and the Okhrana were disbanded as anti-revolutionary. Having won the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks disbanded the "tsarist" police forces and formed an all-proletarian "Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya" under the NKVD of the