Reorganization of The Security Services
Immediately following the August 23, 1944 events, communists began to infiltrate the Ministry of Internal Affairs on a large scale. The General Directorate of the Security of the People (Romanian initials: DGSP, but more commonly just called the Securitate) was officially founded on August 30, 1948 by Decree 221/30. The Securitate was set up by SMERSH, an NKVD unit charged with dismantling the existing intelligence agencies and replacing them with Soviet-style bodies in the Soviet-occupied countries of Eastern Europe. The SMERSH unit in Romania, called Brigada Mobilă, was led until 1948 by the NKVD colonel Boris Grünberg, also known in Romania as Alexandru Nicolschi. Its stated purpose was to "defend democratic conquests and guarantee the safety of the Romanian Peoples' Republic against both internal and external enemies." The first Director of the Securitate was NKVD general Panteleimon Bondarenko, who also went by the name Gheorghe Pintilie. Alexandru Nicolschi (by then a general) and another Soviet officer, Major General Vladimir Mazuru (born Mazurov), held the two deputy director positions.
Read more about this topic: Soviet Occupation Of Romania
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