This book explores the mythology woven around the Soviet secret police and the Russian cult of state security that has emerged from it.

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.

Introduction Part 1: Soviet Chekism 1. Dzerzhinsky's Commandments 2. Late Soviet Chekism: The Changing Face of Repression under Khrushchev and Beyond 3. Screening the Historical Chekist 4. Screening the Contemporary Chekist Part 2: Post-Soviet Chekism Introduction 5. Re-Inventing Chekist Traditions 6. The Cult of Andropov 7. Securitizing the Russian Soul. Conclusion