The KGB constant: 20 years as deputy chairman under four chiefs
As Yeltsin recalled, when the Sverdlovsk KGB chief said 'we work amicably with the party,' Pirozhkov barked: 'General Kornilov, stand up! You are obliged to work under the leadership of party organs.'
A member of the war generation who volunteered at 18 in 1942 and fought through the liberation of Minsk and Warsaw to the Battle of Berlin, ending the war as a participant in the Berlin Victory Parade. After rising through Komsomol and party ranks to become Second Secretary of the Altai Kraikom, he was assigned by Politburo decision to the KGB in 1968, heading the Personnel Directorate and then the Party Committee before serving as Deputy Chairman from 1971 to 1991. His nearly twenty-year tenure under four successive chairmen (Andropov, Fedorchuk, Chebrikov, and Kryuchkov) is unmatched in KGB history; he oversaw personnel policy, structural reorganization, and counterterrorism operations including supervision of the newly formed Alpha Group, and after retirement led the FSB Veterans Council.
Career Timeline
- 1942–1945Volunteered; 316th Guards Mortar Regiment through Minsk, Warsaw, Berlin; Victory Parade participant
- 1946–1968Komsomol and party cadre in Altai, rising to Second Secretary of the Altai Kraikom
- 1968–1970Head of the KGB Personnel Directorate
- 1970–1971Secretary of the KGB Party Committee
- 1971–1991Deputy Chairman of the KGB — personnel, structure, counterterrorism including Alpha Group
- 1991–2009Chairman of the FSB Veterans Council