Fear became a tool of government for millions of ordinary people. From the Tsarist Okhrana to the Cheka, NKVD, and KGB, secret police agencies shaped everyday life through surveillance and repression.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's highest court on Thursday refused to legally rehabilitate Genrikh Yagoda, the head of the Soviet-era NKVD secret police who oversaw Stalinist purges in the 1930s and set up ...