The Soviet state counted people, resources – and secret papers. The need to account for secrets was a transaction cost of autocratic government. This paper finds archival evidence of significant costs, multiplied by secrecy’s recursive aspect: the system of accounting for secrets was also...

This paper is about the costs of doing business under a harsh, secretive dictator. In 1949 the Cold War was picking up momentum. The Soviet state had entered its most secretive phase. The official rationale of secrecy was defense against external enemies. One of the Gulag’s most important...