Tracing the history of the secret police agencies across communist Europe, this book examines their founding and how this repressive system began.

Communist Secret Police Agencies in Europe analyses the actions that were undertaken to combat dissidence and surveil the population.

José M. Faraldo looks in detail at the Soviet secret police (the Cheka, the NKVD and the KGB), as well as the Stasi in the German Democratic Republic, the Securitate in Romania, and the SB in Poland. He also studies the influence of police activities on transitions to democracy and 'memory conflicts' caused when names of informers and collaborators are released to the public. The book is not a history of structures or institutions, but one which takes an individual approach, retelling stories of victims and perpetrators, in addition to highlighting the global significance of what this type of surveillance and violence meant for the modern age.

Unpublished documents from the archives of all the aforementioned secret police bureaus are used to inform the book's arguments. Translated from the original Spanish, this is a book about what surveillance and repression mean and, although it refers specifically to the communist era, it is linked to current debates around Facebook, Wikileaks and surveillance by state agencies and social network companies.