The First Main Directorate () of the Committee for State Security under the USSR council of ministers (PGU KGB) was the organization responsible for foreign operations and intelligence activities by providing for the training and management of covert agents, intelligence collection administration, and the acquisition of foreign and domestic political, scientific and technical intelligence for the Soviet Union. The First Chief Directorate was formed within the KGB directorate in 1954, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union became the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR RF). The primary foreign intelligence service in Russia and the Soviet Union has been the GRU, a military intelligence organization and special operations force. History of foreign intelligence in the Soviet Union From the beginning, foreign intelligence played an important role in Soviet foreign policy. In the Soviet Union, foreign intelligence was formally formed in 1920 as a foreign department of Cheka (Inostrannyj Otdiel—INO), during the Russian Civil War of 1918–1920. On December 19, 1918, the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) Central Committee Bureau decided to combine Cheka front formations and the Military Control Units, which were controlled by the Military Revolutionary Committee, and responsible for counter-intelligence activities, into one organ that was named Cheka Special Section (department). The head of the Special Section was Mikhail Sergeyevich Kedrov. The Special Section's task was to run human intelligence: to gather political and military intelligence behind enemy lines, and expose and neutralize counter-revolutionary elements in the Red Army. At the beginning of 1920, the Cheka Special Section had a War Information Bureau (WIB), which conducted political, military, scientific and technical intelligence in surrounding countries. WIB headquarters was located in Kharkiv and was divided in two sections: Western and Southern. Each section had six groups: registration, personal, technical, finance, law, and organization. WIB had its own internal stations, in Kiev and Odessa. The first had the so-called national section—Polish, Jewish, German, and Czech Republic. On December 20, 1920, Felix Dzerzhinsky created the Foreign Department (Innostranny Otdel—INO), made up of the Management office (INO chief and two deputies), chancellery, agents department, visas bureau and foreign sections. In 1922, after the creation of the State Political Directorate (GPU) and connecting it with People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) of the Russian SFSR, foreign intelligence was conducted by the GPU Foreign Department, and between December 1923 and July 1934 by the Foreign Department of Joint State Political Directorate or OGPU. In July 1934,