Secret police are used by certain governments and by dictators to control, terrorize, and spy on people. Although the existence of such police forces is rarely a secret, some of their activities are.
Joseph Fouche, minister of police under Napoleon I, established the modern secret-police system. During the 1930’s, German dictator Adolf Hitler developed a secret-police force called the Gestapo to eliminate opposition. The political police of the Russian czars was called the Okhrana. The Communist leaders of the Soviet Union used the secret police as an important tool for keeping power. The Soviet secret-police force was reorganized several times and existed under a number of names. One of the most familiar of these names was the KGB.
