[baybal2]

Yes, so they thought.

It was their desire to make the West to believe that is a "West vs East" conflict, not "the West vs them personally."

All Soviet leaders were quite paranoid when it came to assassination fears, and the West going after right/left hand person.

[madeuptempacct]

"The 9th division of the KGB (responsible for the safety of all the members of Politburo, including the leader of the USSR) had 3000 personnel."

"After the fall of the USSR, the president (Boris Yeltsin) had a private guard of 18,000 personnel. Far more government leaders were guarded than they were during the USSR."

Quotes above from "From the KGB to the FSB" by Eugene Michalevich

If you are interested, there is a biography by Victor Medvedev (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Medvedev) about his time guarding various leaders of the USSR. If the book is to be believed, security was very light.

[baybal2]

>If the book is to be believed, security was very light.

Light compared to what? Numerically, yes. It was making no sense to have more than a regiment of them in a country where the total number of 3 letter agencies staff was comparable to standing army. But the level of paranoia was not light whatsoever.

Yeltsin on the other hand had to live under a constant threat of armed uprising by the same three letter agencies. The internal threat had an entirely different nature.

[madeuptempacct]

Light compared to virtually any "important" person today.

"Yeltsin on the other hand had to live under a constant threat of armed uprising by the same three letter agencies. The internal threat had an entirely different nature."

Shouldn't have disbanded Vympel because they refused to storm the white house and risk a ton of casualties. Yeltsin was a drunk, useless coward.

Oh, and he also re-organized the KGB/MVD/FSB 3+ times.