WHEN British intelligence operative Sidney Reilly tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks he didn’t count on their secret police being so effective. One early conspiracy was a British Secret Intelligence ...

Russia celebrated a grim centenary this week. On December 20, 1917, the newborn Bolshevik dictatorship established its secret police force to crush opposition. It received the wordy title of the ...

President, an ex-KGB agent, observes security agency workers’ day each year, marking the date dreaded Cheka secret police was formed by Bolsheviks Vladimir Putin, himself a former KGB agent, has ...

The Soviet Union's initial secret-police force, the Cheka, unleashed a wave of executions and torture in the years right after the revolution of 1917 that became ...

On Dec. 20, the Russian government proudly celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police. In his official message of congratulations to "officers and veterans ...

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Dr Dominic Selwood is a historian and barrister. He is the author of Spies, Sadists and Sorcerers: The History You Weren’t Taught at School (2015), and the crypto-thrillers The Sword of Moses (2013) ...

One early conspiracy was a British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) plot to kill Russian leader Vladimir Lenin and stage a coup using disaffected elite Red Guard troops and counter-revolutionary ...