Talk:Secret police

What is meant by "Communist Russia and later Soviet Union"? Communist Russia was USSR. --Lick your mom&#39;s pussy (talk) 02:29, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No it wasn't. 02:44, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I believe it was a few years after the revolution before they officially established the USSR. 02:51, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You forgot the Securitate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitate

Not at all sure about the introduction
I think that the initial definition is a bit weak.

It seems to be say that any undercover police force working for a totalitarian state should be described as "secret police". It then goes on mention various totalitarian governmental activities and maintain that, where they have undercover police forces, they responsible for these activities.

But surely all governments - whether totalitarian or not - have undercover or secret police forces. In the UK there is at least the Special Branch, and MI5 - both of which may have been responsible for some dubious activities. (There may be other units which I can't think of or don't know about because they are secret.)

Secondly, in a totalitarian state, not only the secret police but also the regular police would usually be responsible for the activities mentioned.

Thirdly, one of the activities mentioned is propaganda. I guess that all the police forces in general in a totalitarian state would need to follow and support the government line. But I'm not sure that propaganda is one of their main functions. I would have thought that state-controlled news agencies would be the main people involved in that.Hubert (talk) 11:17, 17 September 2019 (UTC)