
The Library
Counter-terrorism in a police state : the KGB and codename Blaster, 1977
Tools
Harrison, Mark (2009) Counter-terrorism in a police state : the KGB and codename Blaster, 1977. Working Paper. Economics Department, University of Warwick: University of Warwick. The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS), Vol.2009 (No.918).
![]() |
PDF
WRAP_Harrison_twerp_918.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (510Kb) |
Official URL: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear...
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 | ||||
Official Date: | 2009 | ||||
Dates: |
|
||||
Volume: | Vol.2009 | ||||
Number: | No.918 | ||||
Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||
Funder: | University of Warwick |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
![]() |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year