[Diocletian]

I need to find an article for you from a Russian dissident from the Soviet era who shocked the CIA when he told them (around 1980) that the KGB was actually the most non-ideological institution in the USSR, but that it wouldn’t strike against the regime because of the nationalist/patriotic stance of the KGB at the time. He ended his statement by saying that Andropov’s KGB was a complete 180 from that of Yagoda, Yezhov, and Beria. I too always automatically thought KGB=evil automatically until I read this dissident’s comments. Solzhenitsyn echoed the same sentiment some time later.

[RedStateRocker]

Perhaps part of the dichotomy is that for a LONG while the KGB was the only place for an intelligent and ambitious young person to go? Much like the Church in the middle ages- as nearly the only repository of power it attracted both idealistic and corrupt, ‘good’ and ‘bad. but on the whole the brighter and more competent who might or might not be idealistic.
Just a thought.