Harrison, Mark, 1949- (2009) Counter-terrorism in a police state : the KGB and codename Blaster, 1977. Working Paper. University of Warwick, Economics Department, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

The paper provides a rare case study of terrorism and counter-terrorism within a closed society, carried out under a blanket of official secrecy. This case is unexpectedly revealing in what it tells us about terrorism, counterterrorism, and the relative strengths of open and closed societies. Documents from the archive of the Lithuania KGB show how the Soviet authorities managed the hunt for the perpetrators of bombing attacks carried out in Moscow in January 1977. Lithuania, a sensitive border region with a troubled history, was far distant from the epicenter of the conspiracy in Soviet Armenia, but the authorities did not know this beforehand, and made considerable efforts to establish or rule out a Lithuanian connection. It was a problem that the KGB, like other Soviet organizations, was vulnerable to boxchecking and other kinds of perfunctory working to the plan. The career concerns of regional KGB leaders appear to have countered this tendency. The paper evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a counter-terrorist operation carried out under conditions of the intense secrecy that was normal in the Soviet police state.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Terrorism -- Soviet Union, Terrorism -- Prevention, Soviet Union. Komitet gosudarstvennoĭ bezopasnosti, Official secrets -- Soviet Union, Moscow (Russia) -- History -- 20th century, Terrorism investigation -- Lithuania
Series Name:	The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS)
Publisher:	University of Warwick
Place of Publication:	Economics Department, University of Warwick
Date:	2009
Volume:	Vol.2009
Number:	No.918
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	University of Warwick
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/3520

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