[cmdkeen]

Yes both in terms of degree and scale. In my mind the CIA's actions are morally indefensible but still pale in comparison to what those organisations got up to. Even if you throw in the FBI in its darkest days under Hoover you don't get close to the tyranny the KGB inflicted.

It is going to take Western history a long time to get over its Communist apologists like Hobsbawm and be willing to fully accept the horrors that system spawned.