Does institutional continuity make the secret police comparable to a civil service?

Is the Russian secret police comparable to the British civil service as a long-lived institution whose personnel and traditions shape government?

The comparison has merit as an account of institutional continuity, while a separate criticism concerns the British civil service's difficulty adapting to modern media and information.

The comparison concerns the persistence of institutions and their traditions across successive governments. A related criticism is that modern media and the information age changed the conditions under which the British civil service performs its traditional role, leaving it struggling to adapt. Political communication creates a similar problem for politicians who dismiss opponents as populists. The proposed response is to communicate more effectively and treat voters as intelligent, rather than expect the label itself to weaken an opponent's appeal.