Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies to operate as well. Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies <br> There was a succession of Soviet secret police agencies over time. The first secret police after the October Revolution, created by Vladimir Lenin's decree on December 20, 1917, was called "Cheka" (ЧК). Officers were referred to as "chekists", a name that is still informally applied to people under the Federal Security Service of Russia, the KGB's successor in Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For most agencies listed here secret policing operations were only part of their function; for instance, the KGB was both the secret police
Secret police NKVD, NKGB, MVD, and KGB. In Nazi Germany, the "Geheimstaatspolizei" (Secret State Police, Gestapo) (1933-1945) was used to eliminate opposition; as part of the Reich Main Security Office, it also was a vital organizer of the Holocaust. Although the Gestapo had a relatively small number membership (32,000 in 1944), "it maximized these small resources through informants and a large number of denunciations from the local population." After the defeat of the Nazis, the East German secret police, the Stasi, likewise made extensive use of an extensive network of civilian informers. Ilan Berman and J. Michael Waller describe the secret police