Secret Police

It's said that there were three sources of power in Chile: God, Pinochet, and DINA. The DINA was Chile's secret police from 1973 to 1977 in the early years of the Pinochet dictatorship. They were often compared to the Gestapo or the KGB by American intelligence. 

La Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) was the regime’s iron fist that kidnapped, brutalized, butchered, and disappeared thousands of people inside Chile. Under the ...

If greed were a person he would be Belgian monarch, King Leopold II. In this episode, we will explore the incredibly dark history of the Congo region in Central Africa. Congo has a history of exploitation by European colonizers and extractive industries. The worst of these predators was King Leopold II whose need to secure a colony for Belgium drove the him to deceive the international community for decades.

His deception was a co...

In 1921, Reza Khan rose to power with the help of the British government. He led a modernization of Persia, insisting the international community refer to his country as Iran. His son, Mohammad Reza Shah, inherited the throne in 1941.

The Shah expanded his authority using a violent secret police force called SAVAK. They terrorized the Iranian people and preyed on Iranians abroad. They helped enforced the Shah's rule, even as his Wh...

We’ve heard about a lot of evil on Secret Police, but the actions of the Kempeitai and the wider Imperial Japanese Army are particularly poignant for their brutality and the extent to which violence prevails if you believe your enemy is inhuman.

Who were the Kempeitai?

How did the Kempeitai develop out of Japan’s long military history?

What were the Kempeitai’s connections to both German and Russian secret police?

What was the leve...

V for Vendetta is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Llyod.

The story shows a bleak future where the United Kingdom is run by a totalitarian government run by a political party called Norsefire. A masked vigilante known simply as "V" is bent on sparking a revolution, driven by a vendetta against those in the government that subjected him and his country to repression and terror. V orchestrates a series o...

The Tonton Macoute was a secret police force established by Haitian physician and dictator, Francois Duvalier, better known as Papa Doc. The Macoute brutalized the Haitian people and hijacked the country’s Vodou traditions to invoke fear of a mythical bogeyman. We’re going to go through the history of Haiti: how it was found by Europeans, the slave trade, the types of crops cultivated in Haiti, slave rebellion, and of course the se...

A conversation with Latvian journalist, and host of the Eastern Border podcast, Kristaps Andrejsons. We recap the Russian secret police series while Kristaps provides his unique perspective on my show, Soviet times, and the future of Russian security services.  Please check out Kristaps' show: https://theeasternborder.lv

Aquarius by Viktor Suvorov: https://www.amazon.com/Aquarium-career-defection-Soviet-military/dp/0241115450  Se...

Almost 2 years ago, I was inspired by The Dictator's Handbook to start a podcast on secret police. It was a grueling task, much of it self-inflicted because I'm a sucker for detail, but this episode will be light. 

This episode starts with a brief summary of each episode part I - XI: the leaders, the secret police, and the history. 

Next, I'll share my thoughts and what I've learned on this journey. 

We'll end with some behind the ...

Just when you thought that Soviet security forces were a thing of the past, the double headed eagle rises from the ashes. The Federal Security Services or FSB are the Russian Federation’s modern day Chekists. Vladimir Putin and the security services have carefully crafted the image they want you to see, and Western journalists are very good at exaggerating the impact and the mystique of Putin. Both these elements have been at play ...

In this 10th edition of Russian secret police, we’ll dive into the KGB’s downfall, the unraveling of the Soviet Union, and the atypical leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev.

We’ll see how Gorbachev rose from life as a farm boy to the Kremlin’s Communist throne. We’ll discover how the KGB reacted to losing power and the final gasps of this security state in the face of Chernobyl, Glasnost, and Perestroika.

Who was Mikhail Gorbachev?

How ...

The downing of Korean Air Flight 007 demonstrates the level of stupidity and paranoia the Cold War reached. More astounding is this was the second passenger jet the Soviet Union shot down. 

The first instance was in 1978 when Korean Air flight 902 was on route from Paris to Seoul with a stop over in Anchorage. This flight took the plane over the North Pole and due to the navigation technology they had at the time and how compasses ...

Do you know somebody who was alive during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Do they remember how it felt thinking that the world may end in a literal flash? At least one could duck and cover their way into a false sense of safety. In this 8th episode of our Russia series, we are going to wrap up the early years of the KGB and explore some of the cold war tension in Berlin; uprising in Hungary, KGB activities in the US Civil Rights Movement...

In this 7th episode of our Russia series, we will take a deep dive into the KGB itself. We’ll examine its structure, leadership, and most of all, its methods with particular interest in the KGB’s infiltration of governments across the globe. Who were some of the KGB’s most prominent agents? How did one become a KGB agent? All that and more on Secret Police!

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Many if not most people have heard of the KGB. Their spy craft is legendary and their presence was menacing. To Americans, they were the illusive boogeymen in the shadows of Cold War events. They're probably the most recognizable Russian spy agency and I’d bet money they’re the most infamous spy agency in history, ever.

In Part 6, we are covering Nikita Khrushchev's steady rise to power and ultimate succession of Joseph Stalin, but...

George Orwell's famous novel, 1984, can be interpreted in multiple ways by people of varying political identities. They can offer the story as a warning as to why the other side, in their view is dangerous. When the book was published, some viewed it as a warning of what England would turn into if a Stalinist regime took power; others interpreted it as a condemnation of Stalin's Soviet Union; and in recent years, the novel is seen ...

Imagine a state apparatus of terror; they monitor citizens, they kidnap people in the middle of the night, they torture people to extract false confessions. Now imagine that same state apparatus of terror is run by a murderous pedophile. That was the Soviet people's reality with appointment of Lavrenti Beria to the dreaded People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs or the NKVD, the Soviet secret police.

Please leave us a rating, or...

The early USSR owes many of its achievements to Stalin's secret police, called the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, or the NKVD. These guys really took Russian espionage to a new level. Their reach was global in scale; nearly anybody Stalin wanted dead, the NKVD could get it done. They administered the infamous Gulags and repressed their own people. They blurred the lines between internal police and military force by sup...

From 1917 to 1922, the Cheka terrorized the Russian people into dedicating their lives to the Soviet State. Old institutions were destroyed, people were targeted on the basis of their socio-economic status, and farmers were forced into collectives. Those who disobeyed were likely shot, the most unfortunate were subjected to sadistic torture not seen since the time of Ivan the Terrible. 

Under the leadership of Vladimir Ilych Lenin,...