Secret Police - Need communist nations have them?

[CubanFox]

Is a secret police, a KGB type organization, neccessary to keep order and root out cappies in a communist nation?

Redstar, you seem to be good at this sort of thing. I'd like to see what you think.

[redstar2000]

Thank you for the kind words, CF. :biggrin:

Judging by the experiences of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., a "secret police" is probably a bad idea.

If a communist revolution has and keeps massive popular support, a "special" security agency to combat counter-revolutionaries and spies is unnecessary; popular vigilence will be sufficient to halt such activities in their tracks.

And if you've lost your popular mandate, the best "secret police" in the world (Russia had it) can only delay the inevitable counter-revolution...it can't prevent it.

In addition, once you have a group of "professionals" who've made careers out of hunting down and capturing counter-revolutionaries, it won't be long before they'll start finding them under every bed...causing much unnecessary distress and alienating people from the revolution they made.

"Embattled" revolutions, that is, revolutions under severe attack from strong enemies both domestic and foreign, may well establish such "secret police" and find them extremely useful for a while...but they seem to have a marked tendency to "get out of hand" and launch "witch-hunts" that objectively serve the cause of counter-revolution.

It may seem "risky" not to have a "secret police"...but I think experience has taught us that it is even riskier to have one.

redstar2000's advice: don't do it.

:cool:

[Sandanista]

I dont think it would be a good idea, infact it would un-communistic, the communist state has no need for armies of police.

[Sabocat]

It's my honest opinion that anytime you have a "police force" either secret or not, that means someone is going to be in control of that force.

Once there is an authoritarian control of that force, I think you're just asking for trouble.

Then all you've accomplished is to have a force blindly following orders. Controlled by the whim of the superior. That force would be very dangerous then to a true revolution and to the proleteriat.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Quote: from redstar2000 on 3:50 pm on June 2, 2003
Thank you for the kind words, CF. :biggrin:

Judging by the experiences of the USSR, China, Eastern Europe, etc., a "secret police" is probably a bad idea.

If a communist revolution has and keeps massive popular support, a "special" security agency to combat counter-revolutionaries and spies is unnecessary; popular vigilence will be sufficient to halt such activities in their tracks.

And if you've lost your popular mandate, the best "secret police" in the world (Russia had it) can only delay the inevitable counter-revolution...it can't prevent it.

In addition, once you have a group of "professionals" who've made careers out of hunting down and capturing counter-revolutionaries, it won't be long before they'll start finding them under every bed...causing much unnecessary distress and alienating people from the revolution they made.

"Embattled" revolutions, that is, revolutions under severe attack from strong enemies both domestic and foreign, may well establish such "secret police" and find them extremely useful for a while...but they seem to have a marked tendency to "get out of hand" and launch "witch-hunts" that objectively serve the cause of counter-revolution.

It may seem "risky" not to have a "secret police"...but I think experience has taught us that it is even riskier to have one.

redstar2000's advice: don't do it.

:cool:


As nice as it sounds, it's not praticle.

Imagine....

After a long effort communists seize power in a state, by seizing power they automaticly make enemies. Abroad and internal.

I'm sure our good friends "the Americans" and the Brittish Imperialists will have no problem funding anti-communistic millitants.

It really doesn't matter how small those counter revolutionaries are, even if it's just a few thousand people.

They can cause serieus problems for your state, infrastructure, people.

Geurilla warfare and false information can be very efficiënt to create chaos, a few thousand people with abroad support is perfect for the job.

I'm sure that a.o the CIA, MI6, Mossad would be very willing to organise and lead such groups. Answer --> Own secret service.

So far about internal problems.

Your abroad enemies will also cause serieus problems, espionage, embargo's and internal problems by par example propagandizing.

In your early days you will be very funerable for abroad propaganda.

And as we both will agree we don't want to have a Poll Pot like state.

We do want to have a state which is up to date, so we can offer our civilians all their necessaries and luxeries, without disadvantaging other people.

That means we will have technology and a hugh information flow, information and techonoly which is very funerable for sabotage and is very valuable for an enemy to collect. Answer --> Secret Service

A secret service would come in handy in such situations, afteral we want the voice of the people to be heard and don't want it to be silenced by a secret service, we must give our citizens the full oppurtunities of life.

But you musn't think more of it than it's, I do know the disadvantages and the vunerability of a secret service, yet I think the advantages are worth more.

Altough just my modest opinion :biggrin:

[Nobody]

You could follow HALF the Cuban model. Encourage everyone to join a local defense militia, so in the case of an uprising every person can aid in the counter-attack. Another plus would be the feelings of pride that YOU are helping defend communism.

[kylie]

In addition, once you have a group of "professionals" who've made careers out of hunting down and capturing counter-revolutionaries, it won't be long before they'll start finding them under every bed...causing much unnecessary distress and alienating people from the revolution they made.

This would not be the case if it was made clear to the public the goals of these police. Just because they dont reveal their identities to everyone, by wearing uniforms, etc, does not mean that the creation or existance of such a group needs also to be secret. In fact it would be much better if it was not, as then those who may be tempted to engage in counter-revolutionairy activities would know that there is this group embedded into the public, and so could be discouraged.
And yes they may find themselves spread out and getting into a lot of peoples lives, but how is this alienating? It isnt as if they have to reveal their identity to everyone, just those who work against the revolution, for who it really doesnt matter whether they are alienated or not.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

I completely agree with Redstar. I can tell you from personal experience that a secret police is an extremely bad idea, because it alienates the people from the government (making them fear it) and it causes widespread paranoia and distrust. Both of these things are exactly what the counter-revolutionaries want - the secret police is in fact doing their work for them.

[CubanFox]

Remember, the KGB wasn't all bad. It helped destroy organized crime in the USSR.

But many of their methods were awful.

(Edited by CubanFox at 10:42 am on June 3, 2003)

[redstar2000]

As nice as it sounds, it's not practical.

Well, CCCP, that's the crux of the argument, isn't it?

A "secret police" works...but for how long?

How long before they start beating "confessions" out of people? How long before they develop their own sub-culture, begin regarding themselves as the "supreme guardians of the revolution" entitled to do any damn thing they please? How long before they start doing a little plotting of their own?

There might be ways, I will concede, that some of the worst abuses could be minimized...for example, no one could work in the "secret police" for more than four years and once that period of service was over, they could never work in the "secret police" again. There could be a civilian oversight group, that would carefully review every case initiated by the "secret police", freeing the obviously innocent at once and with a hefty cash bonus for their inconvenience, and with the power to make life really unpleasant for "secret police" that abused their powers.

But I remain sceptical.

I know that for some it will always seem "impractical" to trust the fate of a working class revolution to the workers themselves. Leninists and capitalists both agree that the working class is "not competent" to handle "the really important stuff".

I disrespectfully disagree. In all of the important aspects of communism, if the working class "can't do it", then it won't get done and the counter-revolutionaries will inevitably win.

And if the working class won't defend effectively their own revolution, we can't do it for them.

More precisely, we could try, but we would fail.

:cool:

[Cassius Clay]

I think the term 'Secret police' is very misleading. I mean for sure the NKVD would of been the worse kept 'secret' in history. The NKVD included everything and everyone from foriegn espinoage agents to traffic cops, dare I say it took part in it's fair share of assasanaitions, sabotage and gosh even 'torture'. Does this make it a 'Secret police' type orginisation in the same league as the Gestapo or Saddam's various orginisations? Hardly, there's a line somewhere and at times that line becomes very thin. The line is crossed when people have no right to appeal or to a defence, when police officials receive 15 times the wages than the average joe on the steet and when torture becomes routine. Sometimes the Cheka crossed that line, as did it successor in the 30's, we must be careful to make sure a police orginastion under Socialism never becomes a Gestapo orginisation. The times when the NKVD for example did begin to cross that line it was held back and restrained and then rightly purged of elements who would be quite happy to torture under any regime.

But some form of police/law enforcement is going to be needed, like it or not. As one said above in Cuba they involve the people as much as possible, we must do the same. We do not want a rascist cop-system like the FBI and their various PD's and National Guards who shoot up Black kids simply because they are Black and neither do we want a Gestapo which employs brutal torture and acts outside the law. But at the same time are we going to become so blinded by liberalism that we wont arrest anyone unless we are 100% sure they are guilty?

Attacking authority because it is a corrupt, rascist and brutal oppressing machine is what Communists should do. Attacking authority because it is authority is Anarchy.

[Non-Sectarian Bastard!]

Well Redstar2000.

I admit, all the things you say about secret services are true. History has taught us a hard lesson about that.

But you must admit that having no secret service or a counter-espionage service would mean that this imagined socialist state has the same survival chance in our captalist world as a not proffesional spy aka common civlian to effectivly fight spies.

Furthermore I do count spies to the working class, but our main concern is that they stay in the working class and fight for the working class and don't establish their own higher class.

But I really don't know the answer, but I do know that having no secret service would mean the beginning of the end of a future socialist state.

(Edited by CCCP at 5:01 pm on June 3, 2003)

[Kwisatz Haderach]

There's a big difference between a secret service (a.k.a. spies; every nation has them) and a secret police, CCCP.

The purpose of a secret police is to "infiltrate" the general population of their own country and to find and arrest all persons who are opposed to the government.

If you've got to the stage where you need a secret police to keep your government up and prevent a counter-revolution, then your revolution has already failed.

[WUOrevolt]

Secret police are never needed especially in a socialist state.The purpose of a secret police is to "infiltrate" the general population of their own country and to find and arrest all persons who are opposed to the government. These things are horrible.