secret police
secret police
secret police
se′cret police′
n.
| Noun | 1. | secret police - a police force that operates in secrecy (usually against persons suspected of treason or sedition) |
| 单词 | secret police | |||
| 释义 | secret policesecret policesecret policese′cret police′n.
secret(ˈsiːkrit) adjectivesecret policesecret police,policing organization operating in secrecy for the political purposes of its government, often with terroristic procedures.The Nature of a Secret PoliceEnforcement of the law has required, in nearly all societies, a certain amount of secrecy, particularly in the investigation of crime and the identification of what are often considered conspiracies. The emergence of a uniformed, clearly recognizable police force is of much more recent origin than secret bodies formed by governments for their protection from internal and external attack. In its wider meaning, the term secret police embraces all those members of any police force that operate, often out of uniform, without giving warning to the suspected criminal. Some countries have laws limiting the role of such secret police to investigation only, giving the indicted offender the right to an open trial and complete access to the evidence. Wherever these interrelated conditions are not fulfilled, a secret police in the narrower sense of the term either exists or is in process of developing. This secret police is a body officially or in fact endowed with authority superior to other law-enforcing agencies. It investigates, apprehends, and sometimes even judges the suspect in secrecy, and is often accountable only to the executive branch of the government. In extreme cases such a secret police force may even have its own courts and prisons, and its activities are kept secret not only from the mass of the population but also from the legislative, judiciary, and executive authorities of the state, except at the topmost level. The Evolution of Secret Police ForcesSome argue that secret police forces have always been primarily concerned with the security of the state and that they are invariably created by governmental action, but this is not the case. Thus the formidable VehmgerichtVehmgericht The institution of a secret police has existed in most societies where a minority has exercised an uneasy rule over a majority. In ancient Sparta, a well-organized secret police controlled the helots and ruthlessly suppressed any sign of rebellion. In Rome, particularly under the Julian emperors, a professional class of informers who received a share of their victims' confiscated fortunes, was employed by the state. Among the earliest secret police forces organized along modern lines were the Venetian Inquisition (see Ten, Council ofTen, Council of, Russia and the Soviet UnionAfter the abortive Decembrist coup of 1825, a powerful secret police was organized in Russia at the order of the repressive Nicholas I. This notorious Third Section (thus named because it was the third department of the czar's chancery), established a rigid and complicated system of censorship and sought to suppress not only subversive activity but even subversive thought. (The culmination of this trend, typical of police states, was symbolized by the name of the Japanese secret police before 1945—Thought Police.) The use of agents provocateurs by the czarist police led to such extremes that secret police, posing as revolutionists, actually helped to assassinate government officials. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the Soviet government instituted its own secret police, the Cheka (the Russian acronym for All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Suppression of Counterrevolution and Sabotage), under Feliks DzerzhinskyDzerzhinsky, Feliks Edmundovich Under Beria's long tenure the vast apparatus of the Soviet security organs became the most powerful and the most feared section of society. The NKVD was split (1943) into the NKVD and the NKGB (People's Commissariat for State Security), the former retaining responsibility for internal security; in 1946 the NKVD became the MVD (Ministry of Interior), and the NKGB became the MGB (Ministry of State Security). After Stalin's death in 1953 the two ministries were fused into a new MVD under Beria. Later in the year Beria was arrested on charges of conspiracy and was killed; the charges illustrated the inherent danger of a strong secret police and its potential for overthrowing the very state that it is supposed to protect. After Beria's fall the Soviet security service was placed under the KGB (Committee of State Security). Although the KGB's functions resembled those of its predecessors, it employed terror to a far lesser degree. Subordinated to party control, its main duties were concerned with internal intelligence. Much of what is now known about the secret police in the Soviet Union was made public in reports by Khrushchev. Under GorbachevGorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia absorbed the KGB's remnants, combining most of them under the Security and Internal Affairs Ministry. President Boris YeltsinYeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich Nazi GermanyAlthough the secret police in Italy during Mussolini's rule were notorious, probably the most extreme and terrible example was that in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Under National SocialismNational Socialism The German secret police had its genesis in the SS, or Schutzstaffel [defense echelon], created as Hitler's bodyguard under the SA (the military arm of the Nazi party), and in the SD, or Sicherheitsdienst [security service], organized in 1931 as the intelligence branch of the SS. From 1929, Heinrich HimmlerHimmler, Heinrich The powers of the Gestapo, the SS, and the SD were vast; virtually any person suspected of disloyalty to the regime or of social aberration could be summarily arrested, executed, or interred in a concentration camp. The SS, literally a separate army, was responsible to Himmler alone; thus, probably for the first time in history, a secret police wielded virtually absolute power. The crimes and atrocities of the Nazi authorities in Germany itself and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II were largely carried out by the SS and the Gestapo, who controlled the concentration and extermination camps, and who set up their subsidiary agencies in every conquered country. Other Modern NationsMany states, including Chile, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Romania, and South Africa, have used secret police to control internal dissent; the former East Germany's much feared Stasi (State Security Ministry) controlled every aspect of life, including the postal service and communications industry. Before 20,000 Germans stormed its headquarters, it included an extremely loyal 10,000-man army alongside 86,000 regulars, and owned its own prisons, hospitals, and construction firms. In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been accused of operating as a secret police force. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal a history of domestic political spying on famous authors such as Ernest Hemingway, on civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and on a wide variety of legitimate organizations. These domestic counterintelligence programs (COINTELPROs) used infiltration, eavesdropping, and disinformation campaigns to harass and destroy such groups as the Black PanthersBlack Panthers, BibliographySee B. Chapman, Police State (1970); P. S. Deriabin, Watchdogs of Terror (1972); B. Levytski, The Uses of Terror (tr. 1972); C. Perkus, ed., Cointelpro (1976); F. Taylor and M. Van Houten, Counterintelligence: A Documentary Look at America's Secret Police (1978); W. Churchill and J. Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars (1990); Y. Albats, The State within a State (1994); A. Knight, Spies without Cloaks (1996); C. Andrew and V. Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield (1999). secret policesecret police
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