F310 Fall 2024 “Once a Cheka, Always a Cheka”: Vladimir Putin’s Rise from KGB Officer to Ruler

F310 “Once a Cheka, Always a Cheka”: Vladimir Putin’s Rise from KGB Officer to Ruler of Russia
Friday, 11:00—12:25, Oct. 25
One session
Note time and location
Instructor: Elva Card
Location: The Landing, 2620 Main Line Boulevard, Alexandria, 22301
Russian rulers routinely used a secret police force to maintain control of their people. Following the overthrow of the czar and his secret police in 1917, Vladimir Lenin established the Cheka, his own secret police. Lenin used the Cheka to instill terror and subdue all opponents, including suspected counter-revolutionaries, Whites, Tsarists, liberals, clergy, wealthy peasants resisting 8 History Communist rule, and anyone who might oppose him. While the tactics remained brutal, the Cheka went through several name changes, to GPU, NKVD, KGB. In 1985, Vladimir Putin was a low-level KGB officer, stationed in Dresden, Germany. Under a cover identity as a translator, he was a mid-level liaison to the Stasi, the East German intelligence agency. Fifteen years later, in 2000, he was elected president of Russia. He has remained in power ever since. In this session, the class will study his career and the ways in which his KGB training facilitated that rise.
Elva Card taught World History in Fairfax County schools for 31 years. She has a BA in History from George Washington Unive