the Union. The MGB directed espionage networks at home and abroad, and also organized both domestic and foreign counterintelligence. They were also responsible for enforcing security regulations, monitoring and censoring information leaving or coming into the country; and supervising the vast majority of Soviet life, including the planting and organizing of agents to track and monitor public opinion and loyalty; as well as ensuring the safety of important government and party officials. The MGB, above all else, was a security organization, and as such, was designed for covert and clandestine surveillance and supervision. The intelligence apparatus was able to permeate every level and branch of state administration, with agents planted in collective farms, factories, and local governments, as well as throughout the upper level and rank and file of Soviet bureaucracy. Each department within the government also had their own official supervisor, a "Special Section" staffed by the MGB to keep tabs on and regulate the employees, and to ensure the absence of disloyalty. The Ministry retained a high level of autonomy and a remarkable amount of freedom of operation within the Soviet system, as the agency was only responsible to the Central Committee. MGB agents had the power to arrest and sentence opponents upon receiving approval from a higher authority, a clause oft ignored. The OSO (the Special Council of the State Security Ministry) convicted arrestees charged with committing political crimes, including espionage, and could banish them from certain areas, or from the USSR entirely. In Stalin’s last years, between 1945 and 1953, more than 750,000 Soviet citizens were arrested and punished. Many of the arrests made by the MGB were founded on flimsy or fabricated evidence, most notably on the "suspicion of espionage" (podozreniye shpionazha, or PSh). Since in many cases it is impossible to prove any espionage activities or even an intention to spy, the case is built on the "suspicion of espionage", making acquittal impossible. Structure The general structure of the MGB is much the same as both the organization it came from, the NKGB, and the organization that followed, the KGB The MGB was composed of several departments or directorates with a specific purpose within the organization. Major Departments First Main Directorate First Main Directorate was responsible for foreign intelligence. The First Main Directorate maintained surveillance over the "Soviet colony" (SK—Sovetskaya koloniya), i.e., the personnel of Soviet diplomatic, trade, technical, cultural, and other agencies functioning