Soviet State Security Services 1917-46

Featuring specially commissioned artwork, this study breaks new ground in covering all the uniformed Soviet security organizations from the Russian Revolution through to World War II.

The Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Russia in late 1917 was swiftly followed by the establishment of the Cheka, the secret police of the new Soviet state. The Cheka was central to the Bolsheviks' elimination of political dissent during the Russian Civil War (1917–22). In 1922 the Soviet state-security organs be...