| 100% | NKVD | 4 | Secret police organisation in the USSR from 1934-46 (inits) |
| 93% | NKVD | 4 | Secret police organisation in the USSR from 1934-46 |
| 36% | OGPU | 4 | Secret police org. formed in 1923 under the leadership of Felix Dzerzhinsky (abbr.) |
| 33% | THRUSH | 6 | Global crime organisation in 1960s US television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. |
| 33% | MAFIA | 5 | Secret criminal organisation originating in Sicily that spread to mainland Italy and the US |
| 32% | UNITE | 5 | — the Union, organisation formed in 2007 from a merger of Amicus and the TGWU |
| 32% | MIR | 3 | Peace in the USSR |
| 32% | OGPU | 4 | Organisation also called the Joint State Political Directorate that formed the Soviet secret police from 1923-34 (inits) |
| 32% | STALINERA | 9 | 1927-53, in the USSR |
| 32% | SOS | 3 | "Sending out an ___" (refrain from The Police's 1979 song "Message in a Bottle") |
| 31% | BERIA | 5 | Lavrentiy —, Soviet chief of secret police portrayed by Simon Russell Beale in 2017 film comedy The Death of Stalin |
| 31% | BOSS | 4 | Former South African secret police organisation |
| 31% | CLEAR | 5 | In the ___ (safe from danger) |
| 30% | ROCKYIV | 7 | Sequel with a climactic bout in the USSR |
| 30% | MEANTIME | 8 | In the __; from now until then |
| 30% | REDSQUARE | 9 | Where McCartney sang ''Back in the USSR'' in 2003 |
| 30% | OKHRANA | 7 | Secret police in period of Russian tsars |
| 29% | NIP | 3 | ___ in the bud (eliminate from the root) |
| 29% | STASI | 5 | Former secret police in East Germany |
| 29% | KGB | 3 | USSR secret police: Abbr. |
| 29% | CADET | 5 | Young trainee, eg in the police |
| 29% | TERM | 4 | Six years, in the 46-Across |
| 29% | OBOISTS | 7 | Group in the 46 Across pit |
| 29% | BASILISK | 8 | Serpent in the Chamber of Secrets |
| 29% | DEODORANT | 9 | Secret in the bathroom |
| 29% | GROMYKO | 7 | Andrei —, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR from 1957-85 |
| 29% | DOBBY | 5 | Loyal house-elf from the early 2000s "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" who always speaks in third person |
| 29% | USA | 3 | The USSR's foe in the Cold War: Abbr. |
| 28% | ASHEN | 5 | Pale in the face, as from fear |
| 28% | SOVIET | 6 | The first S in USSR |