1. Cases

1.1. Soviet Union and Post-Soviet Russia

The Soviet secret police have been frequently described by historians as a "state within a state". According to Yevgenia Albats, most KGB leaders, including Lavrenty Beria, Yuri Andropov, and Vladimir Kryuchkov, always competed for power with the Communist Party and manipulated communist leaders.^[1]

According to Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov, "It is not true that the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party is a supreme power. The Political Bureau is only a shadow of the real supreme power that stands behind the chair of every Bureau member ... The real power thinks, acts and dictates for all of us. The name of the power is NKVD—MVD—MGB. The Stalin regime is based not on the Soviets, Party ideals, the power of the Political Bureau or Stalin's personality, but on the organization and the techniques of the Soviet political police where Stalin plays the role of the first policeman."^[2] However, he also noted that "To say that NKVD is ‘a state within the state’ means to belittle the importance of the NKVD because this question allows two forces – a normal state and a supernormal NKVD – whereas the only force is Chekism".

According to Ion Mihai Pacepa in 2006, "In the Soviet Union, the KGB was a state within a state. Now former KGB officers are running the state. They have custody of the country's 6,000 nuclear weapons, entrusted to the KGB in the 1950s, and they now also manage the strategic oil industry renationalized by Putin. The KGB successor, rechristened FSB, still has the right to electronically monitor the population, control political groups, search homes and businesses, infiltrate the federal government, create its own front enterprises, investigate cases, and run its own prison system. The Soviet Union had one KGB officer for every 428 citizens. Putin's Russia has one FSB-ist for every 297 citizens.^[3]

1.1.1. Chechnya

According to Julia Ioffe, under Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya has become a state within a state.^[4]

1.2. United Kingdom

The Civil Service has been called a 'deep state' by senior politicians in the United Kingdom. Tony Blair said of the Civil Service, "You cannot underestimate how much they believe it’s their job to actually run the country and to resist the changes put forward by people they dismiss as ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians. They genuinely see themselves as the true guardians of the national interest, and think that their job is simply to wear you down and wait you out."^[5] The efforts of the Civil Service to frustrate elected politicians is the subject of the popular satiric BBC TV comedy, Yes Minister.

1.3. United States

• The alleged deep state in the United States is composed of the FBI, CIA, government bureaucracies, and Media in the United States

1.4. Venezuela

The Cartel of the Suns, a group of high-ranking officials within the Bolivarian Government of Venezuela, has been described as "a series of often competing networks buried deep within the Chavista regime". Following the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the Bolivarian government initially embezzled until there were no more funds to embezzle, which required them to turn to drug trafficking. President Hugo Chávez made partnerships with the Colombian leftist militia Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and his successor Nicolás Maduro continued the process, promoting officials to high-ranking positions after they were accused of drug trafficking.^[6]

1.5. Other Alleged Cases

1.5.1. Africa

• Algeria's Department of Intelligence and Security
• Cameroon's Cameroon Development Corporation
• Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces

1.5.2. Central and South America

• Brazil 's Army between the 1940s and 1980s
• Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party which dominated politics in Mexico for much of the 20th Century
• British Guiana's Booker-McConnell
• Guatemala's United Fruit Company
• Honduras's United Fruit Company
• PDVSA in Venezuela

1.5.3. Germany

• Weimar Republic's Reichswehr
• Nazi Germany's Schutzstaffel
• Nazi Germany's Wehrmacht

1.5.4. Turkey and the Ottoman Empire

• Ottoman Empire's Committee of Union and Progress
• Ottoman Empire's Janissaries
• Ottoman Empire's Karakol society
• Ottoman Empire's Young Turks
• Deep state in Turkey – Ergenekon, Counter-Guerrilla, Grey Wolves

1.6. Other Places

• Imperial Japan's Army and the Kwantung Army
• Iran's IRGC
• Iran's SAVAK
• Italy's Propaganda Due^[7]
• Jordan's PLO
• Lebanon's PLO
• Pakistan 's Intelligence Community ISI, FIA, and/or IB^[8][9]
• United Kingdom 's City of London Corporation^[10]