Cheka
The history of Moscow was one of extreme violence from the start
The Mongol massacres of 1238 were followed by reigns of terror, plague, fire, revolution and purges – as well as constant hostility to Kyiv
Everyone who was anyone in Russia was spied on – including Stalin
In 1972,Vasili Mitrokhin oversaw the transfer of thousands of documents in the KGB archives and secretly noted the atrocities they revealed - though Stalin’s file was mysteriously empty
