On December 20th, special services are celebrated in the Russian Federation. Their activities are aimed at ensuring the security of our state. Simply put, December 20 is FSB Day.
It is worth noting in advance that this is not quite the right name. The fact is that the Day of the FSB worker is considered a professional holiday for other units of special services, for example, FSO and SVR.
Also it should be noted that this holiday was introduced not so long ago. This happened in 1995, when Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin issued an appropriate decree. However, the prehistory of such a holiday as the Day of the FSB, originates in 1917. Then, in 1917, on December 20, the Council of People's Commissars issued the next Decree on the creation of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission). The main duty of this body was to fight counter-revolutionary and sabotage forces in the young USSR. The first chairman of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. It is worth recalling that the Cheka workers were called chekists. Accordingly, until 1995, the FSB Day in Russia was the Day of the Chekist.
Naturally, at that time the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission was needed only in order to properly distribute the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here there were a large number of departments, the name of each of which speaks for itself: the counter-intelligence department (it included the out-of-town, organizational and military sub-departments). Next comes the anti-speculation department, which again consisted of several sub-departments: fighting smuggling, misconduct and counter-revolution. Deeper into history, it should also be noted that the number of employees of the Cheka has tripled in just the first year of the Commission's existence.
Over time, the Cheka changed itself, underwent all sorts of reorganization, even changed its name (NKVD, and after the KGB). But until December 1995, December 20 was the Day of the Chekist. And only after the decree of Yeltsin this holiday was officially renamed the Day of the FSB.
At the moment, the special service of the FSB is a unified, integrated system of bodies whose main task is to ensure state security. There are several main lines of activity of the FSB: border control, intelligence and counterintelligence, crime prevention and terrorism, information security.
By the way, it is worth noting that the FSB Day in most official documents is registered as the Day of the State Security Officer. It is this name that fully reflects its entire essence. As already mentioned above, the twentieth of December is a holiday for some other special services of the Russian Federation. It is also worth mentioning that this was the name of the document signed by Yeltsin in 1995: "On the Establishment of the Day of the Worker of the Security Authorities of the Russian Federation". Nevertheless, the people were told to call this holiday only as the Day of the FSB, which, in principle, does not in any way change its main essence.