During the reign of Stalin there were many that were for Stalin and many that were against him. To weed out these bad people, police came to the doors of the people demanding names of citizens who were not for Stalin. If you could not come up with at least five people, then you were arrested and taken to the gulags to be beaten and tortured. To be Stalin's friend and not his enemy would benefit you more in society. For one, it would put you off the hook for being arrested, and two it would show how loyal you were to Stalin, and the Bolshevik Regime. If you were against Stalin ultimately you would be found and persecuted. Stalin himself once said: "Death solves all problems. No man, no problem." This belief led to the hundreds and thousands of men, women, and children dead. Stalin's secret police, the KGB, were the ones that interrogated innocent people, and charged them with false crimes, and were later executed, without andy proof at all that these crimes had been committed. To live in a Stalinist society it would be better to be a coward and give off names of innocent people instead of being heroic and a rebel, and fight the system. One night during Stalin's reign a child over heard his parents talking about how bad Stalin was as a leader and how he did more bad than good. The theory that Stalin was good and not bad was beaten into the children of the Stalinist society. So the young boy called the KGB and turned his parents in. He was worshipped and idolized for showing so much respect and loyalty to Stalin and his regime, even if that meant tearing his family apart. The modern day KGB has similiarities and differences from what it was back then. For instance, KGB will not send anyone to a gulag, but instead does what they should have done during Stalin's reign. The enforce currency violations, overseas borders, and are also guards for the Soviet Leaders. The way informants worked during the reign of Stalin was sneaky and malicious. To have been an informant during that time it meant sometimes you would have to throw your own family under the bus to protect yourself. Todays informants would not do any of that. It is still mostly kept in secret, but unlike the KGB, The CIA and FBI does not drag in innocent citizens to their problems. The KGB relied solely on what the citizens or in this case the informants could tell them. It did not matter that most of the time these people were wrong and were just trying to get themselves out of trouble. Stalin and his KGB members did not care as long as there so called traitors were gotten rid of. So, the question is still there, is it better to be an ally of Stalin of an enemy? Most people would say it is better to be on Stalin's side, because you would not get hurt and get gifts in return for your loyalty. The answer is to be for Stalin, and then you would live happier. 531