In the late Soviet era, the military consisted of five main “forces" under the Ministry of Defense, as well as forces under the Ministry of Interior and secret police (KGB from 1954). The Ministry of Defense services were the Strategic Rocket Forces, Ground Forces (Army), Troops of Air Defense,
Air Forces, and Navy. Other Ministry of Defense groups, such as the Rear Services of the Armed Forces, Civil Defense Troops, and {the least prestigious) Construction Troops, did not belong to any one service but were sent where needed, as were the Special Troops of support personnel— engineering, chemical, signal, road building, railroad building, and automotive.
The KGB and Ministry of Interior (MVD) each had their own elite, highly trained, and well-equipped uniformed forces known collectively as Security troops. During each semiannual draft call up. Security Troops agents from these government departments reviewed the new conscripts' files. Those assigned to one or another of the Security troops were vetted for intelligence, physical fitness, and political dependability, a quality demonstrated in part by membership and activity in the Party, Komsomol (the youth organization for prospective Party members), or both."
Internal Troops, which were Security Troops subordinate to the Ministry of Interior, maintained political security and calm within the country's borders and guarded prisons and prison camps. Internal Troops were stationed in every Soviet town over a certain size. Border Troops, a branch of the KGB Security Troops, included air and naval units as well as ground forces. They were the first military units encoiintered by visitors entering the USSR, and probably the last those leaving would see. A human "iron curtain," Border Troops did whatever it took to ensure that illegal, unwanted, or suspect foreigners were turned back or arrested and that no one left the country without official permission. To keep their land closed and isolated. Border Troops used
Hidden and open physical and electronic barriers...detection and alarm devices,
Explosives, trip wires, and observation posts____aircraft.. .foot, horse-mo unted
And vehicular pa trols... Specially trained... dogs... patrol boats... ambushes, trenches, ditches... searchlights, electronic and infrared devices, telescope. s, mines,...fences, wire, ploughed areas...The entire 60,000 kilometers of border [was] patrolled on the ground, by water, or through the air around the clock, day in and day out.®
Those entering or leaving the country were thoroughly checked by Border Troops, who looked for any kind of "subversive" literature, music, art, and so on. Border Troops also inspected ail means of transportation to make sure nothing was hidden inside. No one was allowed to live near or to stroll or drive around the immediate border area. Yet another branch of KGB Security Troops, Signal Troops, were responsible for installing, maintaining, monitoring, and overseeing security for communications facilities linking high government, Party, and military and secret service offices and bases throughout the USSR. There were also special KGB guard units for protecting the Kremlin and other important government office sites in
Moscow and elsewhere. The KGB, in another aspect of military security work, planted informers disguised as ordinary soldiers and sergeants within military units, the better to report on politically suspect behavior or conversation.
What follows concentrates mainly on the Red Army, since it was the largest, as well as the original, Soviet armed force, the military branch most draftees served in or tried to avoid serving in.
World History
