The Committee for State Security (Russian: Комитет государственной безопасности, romanised: Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, IPA: [kəmʲɪˈtʲed ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ]), abbreviated as KGB (Russian: КГБ, IPA: [ˌkɛɡɛˈbɛ]; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, OGPU, and NKVD. Attached to the Council of Ministers, it was the chief government agency of "union-republican jurisdiction", carrying out internal security, foreign intelligence, counter-intelligence and secret police functions. Similar agencies operated in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from the Russian SFSR, where the KGB was headquartered, with many associated ministries, state committees and state commissions.