| Summary/Abstract |
At the beginning of the Gorbachev era the KGB's penetration of state and society in the Soviet Union was profoundly and extensively due to the history of the Soviet Communist dictatorship. From the beginning, the search for internal and external opponents was an essential characteristic of the Soviet regime and served as justification for the existence of an oversized state security apparatus, from the Cheka to the KGB. Using a complex system of political spying, from official cadres to informal employees, the apparatus seemed perfectly destructive to social relationship networks while generating the desired and required obedience of the Soviet people to the Communist Party.
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