ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most noticeable feature of Soviet political propaganda is its continual reference to the Bolshevik foundations of the Soviet regime. In stressing their Leninist origins, Soviet leaders attempt to confer legitimacy on themselves, demonstrating that they are carrying on with the goals and purposes of a revolutionary leader who has been revered and sanctified in the minds of the population. The Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing years of civil war precluded any possibilities for Russia to evolve from a monarchical police state to a democracy. The end of the civil war, the demobilization of the Soviet Army, and the introduction of the New Economic Policy brought about a changed atmosphere in 1921 that seemed incompatible with the existence of a terrorist political police. The theoretical concepts used by Western historians to describe the Soviet state in the Stalin period have not fully elucidated the role of the political police.
