FSB=KGB. These guys just kept doing their respective jobs under a new acronym. "New boss same as the old boss" if you know what I mean.
Secrets of the Central Committee
Vladimir Bukovsky
BEFORE ME on my desk is an enormous pile of papers, some 3,000 pages marked "top secret," "special file," "exceptional importance," and "personal." At first glance, they all look the same. In the top right-hand corner is the slogan, "Workers of the world, unite!" On the left side-a severe warning: "To be returned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (General Department, Section I) within 24 hours." On some, the restrictions are less stringent-the document may be retained for three days or seven, or, not quite so frequently, for two months.
Lower down, in large letters across the page, are the words: "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Central Committee" (CC CPSU). Farther below are codes, reference numbers, a date, a list of those who have initialed the document, those who voted for the decision it contains, and those charged with its implementation. The implementers are not, in all cases, entitled to see the entire thing. Instead, they receive an "abstract from the minutes," the contents of which they are forbidden to publicize; a reminder of this appears in fine print in the left margin of the page.* And the rules governing the use of top-secret documents from the Politburo, the Central Committee’s executive committee and the most powerful decision-making body of the Soviet Union, are even stricter:
ATTENTION
A comrade in receipt of top-secret documents of the CC CPSU may not pass them into other hands nor acquaint anyone with their contents without special permission from the CC. Photocopying or making extracts from the documents in question is categorically forbidden. The comrade to whom the document is addressed must sign and date it after he has studied the contents.
This was how the Soviet Communist party ruled: secretly, leaving no traces, and at times even no witnesses.