Over the course of the 20th century, the Russia’s leaders created a legacy of fear and repression under the Soviet regime. Beginning with the Decembrist Uprising in 1825, and continuing on to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Russia’s leaders consistently employed heinous methods for suppressing their suspicions of opposition. Both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, two key leaders under the Soviet Union, developed intense fears of any form of resistance, and attempted to alleviate these fears by directing secret police agencies to destroy hints of opposition, no matter how brutally. Over time, these secret police agencies became weapons of the state, and their methods were used to inspire fear and submission in the Soviet citizenry. Starting
