"Most people do not know that in the USSR, the best and brightest went into KGB. The Communist Party was more subject to KGB than otherwise. The decision to fold the USSR and give up their empire without a shot being fired was an inhouse decision by the KGB leaders, as they were the only ones with the real information and numbers that showed them collapse was only months away. A surrender of epic scale, never repeated in history went off without a shot, only the KGB and other security organs of the USSR had power to end the communist rule and the empire."
The KGB is probably learning much from our NSA.
The Complete Interactive Guide To How The NSA Spies On Everything You Do http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-05/complete-interactive-guide-how-nsa-spies-everything-you-do
“an inhouse decision by the KGB leaders, as they were the only ones with the real information and numbers that showed them collapse was only months away.”
After Brezhnev’s death, The Soviet Party started to fracture along two lines, the hard-liners who wanted to still compete with the west militarily, and those who understood that economic implosion was nearing, and wanted to move to stop it.
Andropov, as Chairman of the KGB, knew exactly what was coming, and tried to take steps to stop it. He traveled extensively, and knew the west. He asked that Mikhail Gorbachev (then known as a competent economist and administrator, as well as a reformer) be appointed as his successor, but that was ignored by the Supreme Soviet, especially the hard-liners.
Had this advice been followed, instead of appointing another hard-line red, Chernenko, it is likely that the eventual breakup wouldn’t have been as harsh, and likely earlier, but that is just conjecture.
It was certainly an “interesting” time to be involved in intelligence, that’s for sure.