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Article: Introduction.(Editorial)
- Article from:
- Demokratizatsiya
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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When a totalitarian group seizes power, whether by parliamentary maneuver or by force, one of the first institutions created is a secret political police. Since the birth of modern totalitarianism, in country after country, these secret political police organizations became one of the predominant instruments of one-party rule. In every totalitarian government, secret police were an indispensable device for the consolidation of power, neutralization of the opposition, and construction of a single-party state. More recent history shows that when totalitarian regimes liberalize or collapse, the secret political police nonetheless tend to survive. This issue of ...