Secret police facts for kids
The first page of Beria's notice (oversigned by Stalin and other high-ranking Politburo members), to kill approximately 25,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the Katyn Forest and other places in the Soviet Union
A secret police force is an agency most often used in dictatorships. It is used to scare people living under a dictatorship into agreeing with the dictator's policies. Not all dictatorships, however, use a secret police force. Fidel Castro's Cuba and Mao Zedong's China were able to maintain a dictatorship without using secret police.
Historical secret police agencies
| Secret police agency | Nation | Existed from | State leader |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheka / OGPU / NKVD | U.S.S.R. | 1917–1946 | Joseph Stalin |
| Gestapo | Third Reich | 1933–1945 | Adolf Hitler |
| Stasi | East Germany (DDR) | 1950–1990 | Walter Ulbricht / Erich Honecker (1971–89) |
| OVRA | Italy | 1927–1943 | Benito Mussolini |
| DINA / CNI | Chile | 1973–1990 | Augusto Pinochet |
| State Security Department | North Korea | 1948–present | Kim dynasty (North Korea) |
Images for kids
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A machine used by Stasi to re-glue envelopes after mail had been opened for examination.
See also
In Spanish: Policía secreta para niños
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Secret police Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.