not according to Sobchak:
“Russian ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is a former KGB officer and created his Liberal Democratic Party in 1990 at the urging of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, the mayor of St. Petersburg has said.
The St. Petersburg mayor said that the inception of Zhirinovsky's party was in March 1990 just after the old Congress of People's Deputies had abolished the monopoly of the Communist Party.
Gorbachev, as then head of the Soviet Communist Party, told a party Politburo meeting that “we must stay ahead of events by ourselves creating the first alternative party, but one that we can control,” according to Sobchak.
The KGB was told to choose the leader of the new party and “as always the KGB succeeded in its mission: it dug into its ‘active reserves’ and found a man with the rank of captain whose name has today become well known,” Sobchak said.
Several Russian papers and politicians have charged that the old Soviet security police was behind the creation of Zhirinovsky's party, but Zhirinovsky has consistently denied this.
(Note that this page is deleted from their website, but Internet never forgets)
The KGB official said to be responsible for the project was the infamous Filipp Bobkov, who is still alive today in his 80s, who was at one time head of the Fifth Directorate of the KGB, which was responsible for monitoring and trying to co-opt or get arrested the various Soviet dissidents.
@NorseViking: He hasn’t been arrested because he abides the law.
You mean likes this: http://www.rosbalt.ru/main/2014/04/18/1258904.html
I am familiar with the theory of Zhirinovsky being a troll serving every government since 1990s with major function to distract marginals from Communism. If true he is doing a good job.
It doesn’t change the fact that his policies are generally contrary to the government. If you pay attention you can find numerous examples of him throwing f-bombs at Putin and his party.
Also your link is somehow factually incorrect because he was never a KGB. Although in 1980s he served as a ‘special propaganda’ officer for the Soviet Army intelligence in ZakVO, which was unrelated to KGB and a rival Soviet spy organization.
Being a Turkic language expert he specialized in FUD type disinformation against Turkish military.
He was even captured, tried and jailed by Turkey as a PKK agent at the time.
Only a western neo-liberal fascist would think insulting a reporter was a crime.