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The State Security General Ivan Alexandrovich Serov (13 August 1905 – 1 July 1990) was a head of the KGB between March 1954 and December 1958. He was also head of the GRU between 1958 and 1963. Under Lavrentiy Beria, he was Deputy Commissar of the NKVD , and played a major role in the power struggle after Joseph Stalin's death.
Serov helped establish a variety of secret police forces in Central and Eastern Europe after the lowering of the Iron Curtain, and played an important role in crushing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
He headed both the KGB and the GRU, making him a unique figure in Soviet/Russian history. Inside the Soviet security forces, he was well known for showing off to his colleagues that he could "break every bone in a man's body without killing him".