Russia and the Cult of State Security

This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it. Tracing the history of this mythology from the Soviet period through to its revival in contemporary post-Soviet Russia, the volume argues that successive Russian regimes have sponsored a ‘cult’ of state security, whereby security organs are held up as something to be worshipped. The book approaches the history of this cult as an ongoing struggle to legitimise and sacralise the Russian state security apparatus, and to negotiate its violent and dramatic past. It explores the ways in which, during the Soviet period, this mythology sought to make the existence of the most radically intrusive and powerful secret police in history appear ‘natural’. It also documents the contemporary post-Soviet re-emergence of the cult of state security, examining the ways in which elements of the old Soviet mythology have been revised and reclaimed as the cornerstone of a new state ideology.The Russian cult of state security is of ongoing contemporary relevance, and is crucial for understanding not only the tragedies of Russia’s twentieth-century history, but also the ambiguities of Russia’s post-Soviet transition, and the current struggle to define Russia’s national identity and future development. The book examines the ways in which contemporary Russian life continues to be shaped by the legacy of Soviet attitudes to state-society relations, as expressed in the reconstituted cult of state security. It investigates the shadow which the figure of the secret policeman continues to cast over Russia today. The book will be of great interest to students of modern Russian history and politics, intelligence studies and security studies, as well as readers with an interest in the KGB and its successors.

"Fedor’s study also makes inroads into the subject of historiography and Putin’s fierce desire to rewrite history. It demonstrates why an authoritarian regime needs to forge a past and a memory, and impose it on the narod, ‘the people’, kept under pressure to be Russian, orthodox and loyal to Putin. The motivations for the Pussy Riot singers’ trial and conviction in 2012 are all exposed in this book … written before the actual event." -Marie Mendras, Sciences Po, France; International Affairs 89: 1, 2013."Julie Fedor’s extremely informative and detailed analysis of the role and status of the security apparatus in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia is, of course, most timely since the election for a third presidential term of Vladimir Putin in March 2012... This is an excellent book, well researched, cogently argued, and articulately presented. The author explains, illustrates, and analyses the importance of the notion of “security” in Russia of the past hundred years or so, and with an intelligence and a wit that are constantly alive to the discrepancies and occasional inanities in the official narrative." - David Gillespie, University of Bath, UK; The Russian Review 72:1 (January 2013)'a unique and absorbing look into the history of Russia’s intelligence profession, with some disturbing conclusions about its future. A very valuable contribution’ - Hayden Peake, ‘Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf’, Studies in Intelligence 57:2 (2013)‘Fedor’s book has filled a historiographical gap… The author gives us the keys necessary for decoding these… discourses and, beyond that, the worldview of these men, an indispensable method for gaining knowledge of the Soviet past but also, in Putin’s Russia, for understanding the Russian present’ - Andrei Kozovoi, University of Lille 3, France; Cahiers du monde russe 52:4 (2012)‘attentive [and] thoughtful… Many of the themes touched upon in the book open up interesting research perspectives’ - Andriy Portnov, Neprikosnovennyi zapas, Russia, 81:1 (2012)

Julie Fedor is a Research Associate on the project 'Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine', in the Department of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. She has taught modern Russian history at the Universities of Birmingham, Cambridge, Melbourne and St Andrews, and has a PhD from King's College, Cambridge, where she was a Gates Scholar.