Active reserve (KGB)

[2][3] Active reserve KGB officers typically occupied such positions as deputy directors of scientific research or deans responsible for foreign relations in academic institutions of the Soviet Union, although these people were not scientists.

[5] Undercover staff of the KGB included three major categories: (a) the active reserve; (b) the "trusted contacts" (or "reliable people"), and (c) "civilian informers" (or "secret helpers").

"Trusted contacts" were high placed civilians who collaborated with the KGB without signing any official working agreements, such as directors of personnel departments at various institutions, academics, deans, or writers and actors.

[10][11] Olga Kryshtanovskaya, director of the Moscow-based Center for the Study of Elites, has found in the beginning of the 2000s (decade) that up to 78% of 1,016 leading political figures in post-Soviet Russia have served previously in organizations affiliated with the KGB or FSB.

[13] In 1991 businessman Vladimir Gusinsky hired General Philipp Bobkov who supervised the entire system of active reserve in the Soviet Union.