Flagpole Magazine, p. 7 (January 9, 2008)

Abstract

The illustrated cover of the Mar. 22, 1948 issue of Time magazine, entitled “COMMUNISM’S BERIA–The Cop at the Keyhole is King,” depicts the chief of Stalinist Russia’s secret police, Lavrenti Beria, with his steely expressionless eyes, spying on us through a keyhole. The cover article, “Communists,” discusses the “police state mentality” which pervades in Communist regimes, “police states” where they have “developed the sinister side of the policeman’s role much further than any democracy has.” In Communist countries, the article explains, there are “policemen of the soul” whose “preventive policing is more concerned with thoughts, attitudes, feelings, than it is with overt acts.” This “new kind of policeman” necessarily “has to be everywhere”–including at the keyhole.

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