The ex-soviet central Asian republics are packed full of secret police -- until 2006, Turkmenistan boasted one of the world's most famous totalitarian regimes under his Amazingself-for-life President Niyazov, and although his successor has made some reforms, things haven't gotten much better since Niyazov's death. The other republics share the same kind of government to a greater or lesser extent. IWPR at http://iwpr.net has amazing independent coverage of Central Asia, the Balkans, and Africa, and is a good place to keep abreast of what's going on in those regions.

You may be thinking of the former Eastern Bloc countries, which with a few notable exceptions have followed a much more democratic path after the fall of the Iron Curtain.