3 security department. Tsar's secret police: history, agents and provocateurs
The Tsar's secret police is the common name for the structural bodies of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that operated on the territory of the Russian Empire. The full name is the Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order. The structure was engaged in the system of public administration in the late XIX - early XX century played a crucial role. It was created in 1866 and disbanded in March 1917. In this article, we will tell you about the history of this unit, its agents and provocateurs.
History of creation
The Tsar's secret police was created under the St. Petersburg mayor in 1866. The formal reason was the attempt on the life of Alexander II, organized by the terrorist and revolutionary Dmitry Karakozov. He shot at the emperor near the gates of the Summer Garden, but missed. He was immediately arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. A few months later he was hanged in Smolenskaya Square.
Initially, the tsarist secret police was located on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, later it was transferred to Gorokhovaya. The security department was part of the structure of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, directly subordinate to the mayor of the capital. It consisted of an extensive office, a spy squad, a security team, and a registration bureau.
The appearance of the Second and Third branches
The second security department was created in Moscow in 1880. The corresponding order was signed by the Minister of Internal Affairs Mikhail Loris-Melikov.
In some cases, the Moscow subdivision of the tsarist secret police went out in search activities outside the province, performing the functions of an all-Russian center of political investigation. The direct executor was a special flying squad of filers, created in 1894. It was headed by Evstratiy Mednikov, who is considered the creator of the domestic school of surveillance agents. The immediate leader was the head of the security unit. The Flying Detachment was abolished in 1902, it was replaced by permanent search points created at the gendarme provincial directorates.
The third, from 1900, operated on the territory of Warsaw. Two years later, in connection with the growth of revolutionary sentiment in society, similar subdivisions were opened in Yekaterinoslavl, Vilno, Kiev, Kazan, Saratov, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. They were engaged in political investigations in the provinces, conducted external surveillance, and developed a network of secret agents.
Detective case
In 1902, the activities of the branches began to be regulated by new documents. The tsarist secret police is concentrating its work on the search business. The police and gendarme authorities, having information that may be useful in its activities, must report them for subsequent development, arrests and searches.
The number of security departments is increasing literally every year. By the end of 1907, there were already 27 of them. In some areas, branches of the tsarist secret police began to be liquidated after the suppression of the 1905 revolution. If there is a lull in the opposition movement in the province, it is considered that it is inappropriate to keep a security unit in it.
Since 1913, the widespread liquidation of security departments began on the initiative of the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Dzhunkovsky. By the beginning of the February Revolution, they survived only in Moscow, Petrograd and Warsaw.
District security departments
The security departments were subordinate directly to the police department under the Ministry of the Interior. It was here that the general direction of the search activity was given, the issues of disposing of personnel were resolved.
In December 1906, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, Pyotr Stolypin, created regional security departments. They are charged with uniting all the institutions of political investigation that functioned in that area.
Initially, there were eight of them, but due to the growth of the revolutionary movement in Turkestan and Siberia, two more appeared in 1907.
Abolition
The history of the tsarist secret police ended in March 1917, almost immediately after the February Revolution. It was liquidated by the decision of the Provisional Government. At the same time, part of the archive was destroyed in February.
The total number of agents of the tsarist secret police was about one thousand people. At the same time, at least two hundred of them worked in St. Petersburg. In most provinces, there were two or three employees of the security department in the service.
Moreover, in addition to the official staff, there was a special agent. The tsarist secret police had so-called spies who conducted external surveillance, as well as informants who were sent to political parties.
Special agents
Special agents played an important role. Their work, imperceptible at first glance, made it possible to create an effective system for the prevention of opposition movements and surveillance.
Before the First World War, there were about one thousand spies and about 70.5 thousand informers. In both capitals, from fifty to one hundred surveillance agents were sent to the service every day.
To become an agent of the tsarist secret police, one had to go through a tough selection. The candidate was tested for sobriety, honesty, dexterity, courage, ingenuity, patience, endurance, caution, and perseverance. Mostly young people of inconspicuous appearance no older than 30 years old were hired for this service. These were the real bloodhounds of the tsarist secret police.
In the informers took janitors, doormen, passport officers, clerks. They were required to report any suspicious individuals to the district overseer to whom they were assigned. Unlike spies, informers were not considered full-time employees, so they were not entitled to a permanent salary. They were paid for useful information from one to fifteen rubles.
Perlustrators
Special people were engaged in reading private correspondence. This was called perlustration. This tradition has existed since the time of Benckendorff, agents became more active after the assassination of Alexander II.
The so-called black offices existed in all major cities of the country. At the same time, the conspiracy was so thorough that the employees themselves did not know about the existence of such units in other places.
Internal agent network
The efficiency of the work was increased due to the extensive network of internal agents. Employees were introduced to various organizations and parties, which monitored their activities.
There was even a special instruction for recruiting secret agents. It was advised to give preference to those who were previously involved in political affairs, as well as offended or disillusioned with the party, weak-willed revolutionaries. They received payments ranging from five to 500 rubles a month, depending on the benefits they brought and their status. Their career advancement in the party was encouraged in every possible way. Sometimes this was even helped by the arrest of the party members who stood above.
At the same time, the police were wary of those wishing to voluntarily engage in the protection of public order, since many random people fell into this category.
Provocateurs
The activities of the agents who were recruited by the secret police were not limited to the transfer of useful information to the police and espionage. Often they were instructed to provoke actions for which members of an illegal organization could be arrested. For example, the agents reported in detail about the time and place of the action, after which the police did not have any difficulty in arresting the suspects.
It is known that the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, paid tribute to the Russian provocateurs, noting that they raised this craft to the level of art. Dulles emphasized that this was one of the main ways in which the secret police got on the trail of dissidents and revolutionaries. The sophistication of the Russian provocateurs admired the American intelligence officer, he compared them with the characters in the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Azef and Malinovsky
The most famous provocateur in history is Yevno Azef. In parallel, he led the Socialist Revolutionary Party and was a secret police agent. Not without reason he was considered directly involved in organizing the assassination of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. At the same time, on the orders of Azef, many well-known members of the combat organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries were arrested, he was the highest paid agent of the empire, receiving about one thousand rubles a month.
One of the Bolsheviks who had close contact with Vladimir Lenin, Roman Malinovsky, was also a successful provocateur. He periodically provided assistance to the police, reporting on conspiratorial meetings and secret meetings of party members, the location of underground printing houses. Until the very last moment, Lenin refused to believe in the betrayal of his comrade, so much he appreciated him.
As a result, with the assistance of the authorities, Malinovsky even achieved election to the State Duma, moreover, from the Bolshevik faction.
Details about him and other agents who have left their mark on history are described in the study by Vladimir Zhukhrai "Secrets of the Tsarist Secret Service: Adventurers and Provocateurs". The book was first published in 1991. It describes in detail the intrigues and behind-the-scenes struggle in the highest ranks of the gendarmerie, the ruling circles of tsarist Russia, the secret police and the police. The author of "Secrets of the Tsarist Secret Service" takes memoirs and archival documents as a basis, making an attempt to penetrate the history of Russian political investigation.
Loud murder
One of the most disastrous cases in the history of the security forces of tsarist Russia is the assassination of Prime Minister Stolypin in 1911. The official was shot by anarchist Dmitry Bogrov, who was also a secret informant for the secret police. He shot twice at point-blank at Stolypin at the opera house in Kiev.
During the investigation, the head of the security department in Kiev, Nikolai Kulyabko, and the head of the palace guard, Alexander Spiridovich, were among the suspects. But on behalf of Nicholas II, the investigation was suddenly terminated.
Many researchers believe that both Spiridovich and Kulyabko were themselves involved in the murder of Stolypin. For example, Zhukhrai in his book claims that they were not only aware of the fact that Bogrov was planning to shoot at Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. That is why they believed in his legend about an unknown Socialist-Revolutionary who was going to kill the prime minister, they allowed him to enter the theater with weapons to expose the alleged terrorist.
Confrontation with the Bolsheviks
After the militant organization of the SRs, the Bolsheviks were the main threat to the autocracy. They received close attention from agents of various levels. Nikolai Starikov writes in detail about this in his book "The History of the Bolsheviks in the Documents of the Tsarist Secret Service".
Among the huge number of parties in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, it was the Bolshevik party that stood out for its purposefulness and integrity.
In his research, the author describes in detail how the tsarist secret police and the revolutionaries interacted. As it turns out, there were many traitors, provocateurs and double agents among the Bolsheviks. This information has been preserved in numerous documents. The book contains reports from external surveillance, party pseudonyms, opened letters.
Activities abroad
Since 1883, the secret police functioned abroad as well. A unit was created in Paris to monitor emigrants with revolutionary views. Among them were Peter Lavrov, Maria Polonskaya, Lev Tikhomirov, Peter Kropotkin. It is interesting that the number of agents included not only Russians, but also local Frenchmen, who went as civilians.
Until 1902, the head of the foreign secret police was Pyotr Rachkovsky. These years are considered the heyday of her activities. It was then that the Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland was destroyed. However, then Rachkovsky himself fell out of favor, who was suspected of collaborating with the French government.
When the Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve learned about the dubious connections of the head of the foreign secret police, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check the validity of this information. Soon Sylvestrov was found killed, and the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was also found dead. He was removed from the service. He managed to continue his career in 1905 in the police department under the leadership of Trepov.
UDC 341.741
N. I. Svechnikov, A. S. Kadomtseva
SOME FEATURES OF THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SECURITY DEPARTMENTS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Annotation. The article presents the results of studies of the activities of security departments in Russia at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. A brief analysis of the reasons that caused the need for the bodies of political investigation, and the legal acts regulating their organization and functioning are presented. The assessment of the validity and correctness of the abolition of security departments is given.
Key words: law and order, security department, political investigation, gendarme corps, police department, search department, spy, agent, informant, warden, revolutionary community, secret surveillance.
Maintaining law and order and security in the country is one of the most important functions of the state. The problem of legal regulation of the activities of law enforcement bodies, especially bodies called upon to carry out operational-search activities, has always been relevant. Knowledge of the historical roots and traditions of legal regulation of the activities of the political investigation system of the Russian Empire can be used in the formation of a modern law enforcement system and will allow avoiding mistakes made in the past. To this end, it is necessary to analyze the ways by which the Russian state sought to legitimize the activities of security departments; study not only the essence of regulations, but also the effectiveness of their application. In order for the activities of law enforcement agencies in general and the internal affairs bodies in particular to be of high quality and effective, it is necessary, based on historical experience, to identify what measures can be useful.
In the XIX century. the revolutionary movement in Russia intensified, in connection with this, the need arose for the creation of a special body that would be engaged in the timely detection of "harmful" persons, collecting information about them and sending them to the gendarme corps. The existing Gendarme Administrations were not sufficiently adapted to conduct political investigations among the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia. This was the reason for the establishment by the order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the first in Russia St. Petersburg (under the mayor) "Department for the maintenance of order and peace in the capital" in 1867. Its staff consisted of only 21 employees-chiefs, 4 officials for assignments, 12 police overseers, clerk, his assistants and secretary. In December 1883, the Regulation “On the organization of the secret police in the Empire” was adopted, which determined the status and tasks of “special search divisions” - secret police bodies in charge of “maintaining public order and peace”. The security department was directly subordinate to the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was guided by the Instruction dated May 23, 1887, "The department for the protection of public security and order in the capital, which is in the management of the St. Petersburg mayor." Later, search offices appeared in Moscow and Warsaw, but the sphere of activity of the revolutionary organizations had already gone beyond the boundaries of these cities.
The Moscow security department was created in 1880. At first it was small in number, its staff, for example, in 1889 was only six people. But being-
Economics, sociology, law
shaft and other unofficial staff, which consisted of "security outside service", i.e. spies and informant agents "working" in the ranks of revolutionary groups (internal agents). According to the estimate of the Moscow security department, 50 thousand rubles. 60% were expenses for surveillance, search and maintenance of agents. In 1897, "to monitor persons who were given over to the police for political unreliability ..." the post of a police overseer was established at the Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order in Moscow, and an Instruction was developed for police overseers at Moscow.
In the structure of security departments, in addition to the office, as a rule, secret office work, there were two departments: external surveillance and intelligence (internal surveillance department). In the intelligence departments, the data obtained from informants and by means of perlustration of letters in the so-called "black offices" at the post offices were developed. The analysis of the information received was the essence of the work of each security department. All other units were auxiliary. All efforts of the head of the department and his employees - gendarme officers - were directed to the correct organization and functioning of the agents. Secret agents were the subject of constant concern and concern of the entire Police Department. The agents were mentioned in the Department's circulars addressed to the chiefs of security departments and provincial gendarme offices.
In August 1902, the Regulation "On the heads of the search departments" was adopted for some localities of the empire: ". Where the especially intensified development of the revolutionary movement is noticed, search departments are established, the chiefs of which are entrusted with the management of the political search, that is, external surveillance and secret agents, in a known specific area. "
For the detectives of the search and security departments in October 1902, an Instruction was issued to the detectives of the Flying Detachment and the detectives of the search and security departments with clear instructions for their actions. For example, in paragraph 21 it is recommended: "When observing, you must always act so as not to draw attention to yourself, not walk noticeably quietly and not stay in one place for a long time."
The purpose of creating security departments is clearly defined in the regulatory documents that regulated their activities. An important guarantee of efficiency in the activities of security departments and other detective agencies was the possibility of their direct interaction. The norms of the Regulations on Security Departments indicated that “14. Heads of departments with the Police Department, heads of district security departments, gendarme departments and their assistants, as well as provincial and district offices and among themselves - are demolished directly. " If the gendarme offices established the need for investigative actions in cases of a political nature, it was required to obtain the consent of the head of the security department. This consent has been secured since the establishment of the security departments. Thus, in § 19 of the Temporary Regulations on Security Departments of June 27, 1904, it was stated that "without prior notice to the head of the security department in the area of his observation, no searches and arrests can be carried out by the ranks of the gendarme corps." Thus, it can be seen that the security departments are gradually beginning to perform some of the functions that were characteristic of gendarme offices, which could not but cause certain contradictions in the work of these bodies in charge of political investigation.
Throughout the entire period of existence of security departments, their structure is being reformed. To unite and direct the activities of local organizations
Ghans in charge of the political search in the Empire, district security departments were established. On December 14, 1906, the Regulation on the regional security departments was approved. They were created in such large cities as Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Vilno, Riga. To bring management closer to the lower bodies, eight security districts were formed. The security district included district security departments of several provinces. The regulation established that "§ 7. One of the main tasks of the heads of district security departments is the establishment of a central internal agency capable of covering the activities of revolutionary communities entrusted to his supervision of the region ...".
The regulation on security departments of February 9, 1907 clarified the activities of security departments, for example, in § 24: “The activities of security departments should be distinguished: a) investigations in the types of prevention and detection of criminal acts by the state. and b) studies of the political reliability of individuals. ", and the ways of its implementation were specified, in § 25:" ... the collection of information about a contemplated or committed crime of a political nature is carried out in the ways specified in 251 Art. Const. Injection. Court., That is, through searches (secret agents), verbal inquiries and covert surveillance (through secret officers and spies). "
The main goal and essence of the activities carried out by the employees of the security departments were presented in the Instructions to the heads of security departments for the organization of external observations in 1907. So, in Art. 2 it was explained that ". The greatest benefit from external surveillance can be obtained only if it is strictly adhered to with the instructions of the internal agents on the meaning of the observed persons and the events planned by the fillers." In addition, Art. 10 defined one of the functions of the chiefs: “By the 5th day of each month, the chiefs of security departments submit to the District Security Departments and the Police Department the lists of persons under observation, for each organization separately, with a complete set of acquaintances, surname, name, patronymic, rank, occupation, nickname for supervision and organization and a brief indication of the reasons for observation. "
The analysis of the materials of the research carried out allows us to conclude that the security departments most actively interacted with the gendarme departments. This circumstance was due to the similarity of the functions assigned to them, since the gendarme offices also carried out arrests, inquests and investigated cases of state crimes. Thus, the security departments and gendarme departments carried out a political search, collected the necessary information.
The main purpose of the political search was ".determination and clarification of both individuals and entire organizations striving to change the existing political system in the country, and suppression of their activities." The entire political investigation in Russia, as the researchers note, was based on the "three pillars": on internal agents, external surveillance and correspondence.
As already noted, the head of the security department was a chief reporting to the Police Department or the head of the district security department. The Regulations on Security Departments of February 9, 1907 stated: "§ 5 Interference of other institutions and persons, except for the Police Department and the heads of district security departments, in the activities of local security departments cannot take place."
Initially, security departments were created as bodies whose main function was to monitor and prevent crimes based on the information received. The main role in the political search (direct investigation, including the implementation of investigative actions) was assigned to the gendarme departments. The right to independently conduct a search or seizure of security departments of the first
Economics, sociology, law
it was originally granted only in an exceptional situation when it was impossible to obtain the consent of the head of the gendarme department and to ensure the participation of his officials. As a general rule, when the time and the situation made it possible to understand more thoroughly and inform the head of the provincial gendarme department about the proposed measures, the independence of the security departments was limited by his consent. Moreover, after the announcement of the planned investigative actions, they were carried out by the gendarme office. Gradually (in particular, since 1907 in connection with the adoption of the Regulation on security departments), the powers of security departments are expanding. Now, without interaction with security departments, not a single investigative action on the part of the provincial gendarme departments for matters of a politically significant nature takes place. With the adoption of the Regulation on security departments of February 9, 1907, the consent of the head of the provincial gendarme department was not required. The head of the security department had to take all measures to concentrate the entire search business in his hands. The officers of the gendarme corps and the general police, receiving information related to the political search from an unofficial source, were obliged to report it to the head of the security department. Evaluating the information received on political investigations, he made a decision to conduct searches, seizures and arrests.
In addition, there was a rule that information on political cases should be concentrated in security departments. The officers of the gendarme corps and the general police were supposed to transmit all the information received on such cases to the security departments. To this end, the heads of the security departments had to take all possible measures to establish "correct" relations with the heads of gendarme departments, officers of the gendarme corps, as well as with the prosecutor's supervision and judicial investigators. It should be especially noted that if information of significance beyond the entrusted area was recorded in the security departments, then it was subject to reporting directly to the Police Department, as well as to the district security department.
Security departments interacted with local provincial authorities and provincial gendarme offices in providing information for the issuance of certificates of political reliability of individuals. These certificates were requested from the local provincial authorities by various government and public institutions regarding the political reliability of persons applying for government or public service.
Thus, in the system of government bodies at the beginning of the twentieth century. security departments occupied a special place. The authorities sought to completely hide their true purpose, which was due to the secret nature of their activities and the importance of the tasks performed. Security departments were an important link in the system of state security agencies of the Russian state. A wide list of powers granted to security departments, due to the need and importance of political investigation, the possibility of interaction on this basis with almost any authority or official, duplication of some functions of other state bodies (gendarme departments) characterize security departments as state security bodies with a special legal status ...
It is also interesting that among the employees of the security departments there was an unspoken rule when liquidating the identified revolutionary organizations, to always leave several Narodnaya Volya members at large: “If there are no revolutionaries in the country, then gendarmes will not be needed, that is, you and I, Mr. Rachkovsky1, because there is no one
1 Peter Ivanovich Rachkovsky (1851-1910) - Russian police administrator. Acting Councilor of State, head of foreign agents of the Police Department in Paris, Vice-Director of the Police Department in 1905-1906.
Bulletin of Penza State University № 2 (10), 2015
will hunt down, imprison, execute ... We must arrange the work of the security departments in such a way as to create the impression that the danger from terrorists for him is extremely great and only our selfless work saves him and his loved ones from death. And, believe me, we will be showered with all kinds of favors. "
On April 25, 1913, V.F. Dzhunkovsky1 took office as Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and began work to liquidate security departments and to combat the growing network of secret agents, which, in his opinion, no longer fit into the framework of expediency and legality. So, two months after his appointment, V.F. Dzhunkovsky ordered the abolition of all security departments, with the exception of the main ones (they survived in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw, and in some remote provinces their status was downgraded to search departments). The decision was motivated by the fact that the district security departments moved away from work “on the live leadership of the search in the field and, having delved mainly into clerical work, only slowed down the flow of information about the revolutionary movement. lowering awareness. on the situation at every next moment of the search case. " In addition, by 1913-1914. the system of gendarme offices was strengthened and the methods of their work were sufficiently fine-tuned. According to some researchers, the security departments were abolished "as an unnecessary intermediate link in the cumbersome apparatus of political investigation in Russia."
Analyzing the reasons for the liquidation of security departments, we can conclude that the emergence of new institutions of political investigation was justified solely by the growth of political activity of the population, dissatisfied with the autocracy. Effective counteraction of the security branches of the political opposition (revolutionary forces) led to a decrease in revolutionary tension, as a result, to the functional lack of demand and economic inexpediency of their content. One of the reasons for the abolition of the security departments is the specific leadership of the Police Department, which had a negative attitude to the "upstarts from the secret police", to the situation in which the provincial gendarme departments were relegated to the background.
The abolition of the security departments during the period when they were one of the key law enforcement agencies guarding the state raises many questions that require further study.
Bibliography
1. Police of Russia: Documents and materials. 1718-1917 / comp .: A. Ya.Malygin, R.S. Mulukaev, B.V. Chernyshev, A.V. Lobanov. - Saratov: SUI Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 2002 .-- 400 p.
2. Zavarzin, P. P. Gendarmes and revolutionaries / P. P. Zavarzin. - Paris: Ed. author, 1930.-256 p.
3. Purse, PA History of investigation in Russia / PA Koshel. - URL: http://www.Gumer.info/ bibliotek_Buks / History / koshel / 15.php
4. Kalinin, NV Activity of security departments (late XIX - early XX century) / NV Kalinin // Izvestiya vuzov. Jurisprudence. - 2008. - No. 2. - S. 203-210.
5. Instructions to the spies of the Flying Detachment and the spies of the search and security departments, 31.10.1902. - URL: http://www.regiment.ru/Doc/B/I/3.htm
6. Regulations on security departments of February 9, 1907 - URL: www.hrono.ru/dokum/190_dok/19070209polic.html
1 Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky (1865-1938) - Russian political, statesman and military leader, assistant minister of internal affairs and commander of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes (1913-1915).
Economics, sociology, law
http://www.regiment.ru/Doc/C/I/4.htm
http://www.regiment.ru/Doc/B/I/7.htm
9. Instructions to the heads of security departments on the organization of outdoor surveillance, 1907 - URL: http://www.regiment.rU/Doc/B/I/15.htm
10. Kolpakidi, A. Special services of the Russian Empire / A. Kolpakidi, A. North. - M.: Eksmo, 2010 .-- 768 p.
11. Zhukhrai, V. Secrets of the tsarist secret police: adventurers and provocateurs / V. Zhukhrai. - M.: Politizdat, 1991 .-- 337 p.
12. Reent, Yu. A. General and political police of Russia (1900-1917): monograph. / Yu. A. Reent. -Ryazan: Pattern, 2001.
13. Zernov, IV Fight against terrorism in the Russian empire in the late XX - early XX century: Historical and legal aspects of domestic policy / IV Zernov, V. Yu. Karnishin // Bulletin of PSU. - 2014. - No. 4. - S. 2-7.
14. Kolemasov, VN Activities of the bodies of the united state political administration of the Middle Volga region in the fight against crime in the first half of the 1930s. / VN Kolemasov // News of higher educational institutions. Volga region. Social Sciences. - 2012. - No. 4. - S. 34-40.
Svechnikov Nikolay Ivanovich
Candidate of Technical Sciences, Candidate of Legal Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Law Enforcement,
Penza State University E-mail: [email protected]
Kadomtseva Alina Sergeevna
student,
Penza State University E-mail: [email protected]
UDC 341.741 Svechnikov, N.I.
Some features of the activities of the security departments of the Russian Empire / NI Svechnikov, AS Kadomtseva // Bulletin of the Penza State University. - 2015. - No. 2 (10). - S. 64-69.
Svechnikov Nikolay Ivanovich
candidate of technical sciences, candidate of juridical sciences, associate professor, head of sub-department of law enforcement, Penza State University
Kadomtseva Alina Sergeevna
August 10, 2002.
Live “Echo of Moscow” Oleg Budnitsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences. Not so program.
The broadcast is hosted by Sergey Buntman.
S. BUNMAN: Today we will talk about archival documents concerning the activities of the tsarist secret police, these are foreign archives. So, the program is joint with the Znanie Sila magazine.
S. BUDNITSKY: This is the archive of the foreign agents of the Police Department. Let's say a few words what it is, and where did this institution come from
S.BUNTMAN: But first a question of questions: Was Stalin an agent of the Okhranka?
S. BUDNITSKY: Most of the well-known archivists, including Z. Peregudova, who wrote a book about political investigations, thinks not. And the arguments are convincing enough. From the point of view of a historian - in my opinion, this does not really have any meaning for the further course of events. There were quite a lot of provocateurs, agents, those people who, to one degree or another, came into contact with the Okhranka in the revolutionary environment. And when they acted as revolutionaries, and when as agents of the Okhranka, it was sometimes difficult to understand, I don't know if they understood it themselves. There were especially many of them among the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the period between the two revolutions.
S.BUNTMAN: Why were there the most among the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Most feared?
S. BUDNITSKY: Yes, because they were considered terrorists, and therefore they were actively developed. But there were enough of them among the Social Democrats too.
S. BUNTMAN: One of the famous Malinovsky?
S. BUDNITSKY: Of course, Malinovsky and Yakov Zhitomirsky. So they created a foreign Okhranka in 1883 to monitor Russian emigrant revolutionaries, and there were already quite a few of them at that time, and the then leaders of Narodnaya Volya, Lev Tikhomirov, Marina Polonskaya, aka Oshanina - they lived in Paris, Pyotr Lavrov lived there, there was an anarchist Kropotkin in France, that is, there was someone to follow. And after the assassination of Alexander II on March 1, 1881, they were very afraid of terrorists and tried in every possible way to prevent further assassination attempts. And they created such a special unit for foreign agents. It reached its peak under Peter Rachkovsky, who headed this agency from 1884 to 1902. He was worthy to continue the work of his teacher, G. Sudeikina was such a famous police figure who introduced a system of provocations in the fight against revolutionaries, and who eventually led his agent to the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya. There was a period when an agent of the Police Department headed Narodnaya Volya, it was Sergei Degaev, who, after being exposed by the revolutionaries, in order to save his own skin, organized the assassination of his boss Sudeikin, fled abroad, got to America, and became a professor of mathematics there. Rachkovsky was at one time Sudeikin's secretary and adopted from him one of the principles of work - active actions, the active development of revolutionaries. Not just spying, but provoking them to do something. And one of the most famous provocations of Rachkovsky was the case of the Paris bombers of 1890. A very curious story then a diplomatic rapprochement between Russia and France, which had a common potential enemy, Germany, was outlined, this was already becoming clear. But try to get closer, when, in the eyes of the French, Russia was an empire of evil, using Reagan's later expression, and in Russia even the French Marseillaise was banned for this, and could be sent into exile. And it was necessary to get closer. They approached on the basis of a police provocation. One of Rachkovsky's agents, a certain Abram Geykelman, who came abroad under the name of Landesen, was a shirt-guy who had a rich uncle who gave money to his nephew, and his nephew generously distributed it to Russian revolutionaries. Including, for the purchase of explosives, the creation of dynamite workshops, laboratories, etc. That is, the scheme is clear. When Russian émigrés bought some equipment and had something to take with them, then at that moment, in fact, the French police were informed, mass arrests took place, and this very case of the Parisian bombers arose. Those. France rendered a service to Tsarist Russia and demonstrated its loyalty to a new potential ally. By the way, Rachkovsky wanted to send Heikelman-Landesen himself to prison along with real revolutionaries so that his reputation would grow, and he became one of the central figures. But Landesen did not want to go to prison, fled France, converted to Orthodoxy, and took the name Arkady Garting for himself so as not to change the labels on his underwear. Subsequently, this same Harting became the head of the agents in Berlin, and then, in a later history, in 905 he became the head of the foreign agents of the Police Department in Paris. These were the passions. On the one hand, Rachkovsky achieved success, and on the other, there was a scandal, since Landesen disappeared, his provocative role became clear, there were many outraged articles in the press. And all this led to the fact that the overseas guard, previously operating from the embassy building, where it remained until 1917, decided to create an effective private bureau to spy on the revolutionaries. And worked for the foreign secret police not only people who came from Russia, but also the French, civilians. And a private detective bureau was created, both were agents of foreign agents, and served faithfully until 1917, before the liquidation of the foreign secret police. What is interesting for us here is that the archive of foreign agents was kept in the embassy building, and there the Headquarters was kept at 79 Grinel Street, where the residence of the Russian embassy is now located. And Ambassador Vasily Maklakov, he sealed the archive, and was very afraid that it would fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks - after the age of 17 they tried to identify all secret employees. Not because Maklakov, a liberal cadet, who was himself under surveillance, was very sympathetic to secret collaborators, but he believed that people served the state, and to give them up to be devoured by the Bolsheviks, that is, to certain death it is not very good. He sealed the archive and sent it to the Hoover Institute for the Military Peace Revolution at Stanford University, where this archive lay for 30 years, which no one suspected. After Maklakov's death, a huge archival sensation followed in 1957, it was announced that the archive of the foreign guard, classified and disassembled into boxes in total 216 pieces, was in the archives of the Hoover Institute. There I looked at this archive.
S.BUNTMAN: Now you know the names of the agents?
S. BUDNITSKY: I'm not the only one who knows. In fact, many cards, almost all, have survived in the Russian archives, although the agents themselves tried to destroy them immediately after the February revolution. So the vast majority of agents were known. Of course, there are very interesting materials and outdoor surveillance, and information, memoranda, an amazing collection of photographs, hundreds of photographs of people being watched. Very curious pocket filial books with photographs up to 100 pieces each. There, by the way, I found an unknown photograph of Fanny Kaplan - also a curious moment, why there was a photograph of her, she had already been in hard labor in Russia. And she was there as a model - she was photographed very well, and it was a model of how to photograph. By the way, she is quite pretty there, still young, and her later images have nothing to do with young Kaplan.
S.BUNTMAN: Was she really myopic?
S. BUDNITSKY: She had night blindness. But how she got to hard labor, she worked in a dynamite workshop, and there a bomb exploded during the manufacture. She was shell-shocked, and after some time in hard labor, her eyesight was lost. But she was treated by the royal satraps for two years, and her eyesight returned. And then it appeared and disappeared; therefore, the assertion that she was blind and could not shoot at Lenin does not correspond to reality. And in the dispute whether Kaplan shot or did not shoot at Lenin, I adhere to the orthodox point of view that she shot. Contradictions in the investigative case speak only in favor of its authenticity, from my point of view. If there were no contradictions, then obviously the case would have been fabricated. There are remarkable details in the case, for example, newspapers were found in her bots, and investigators were carefully looking for encrypted records on them, asking what it meant. And that meant only one thing - she had holes in the bots. You can't make it up on purpose.
S. BUNTMAN: Alexander from St. Petersburg asks if Lenin's activities were monitored?
S. BUDNITSKY: Tracked. And if the question was asked whether Stalin was an agent of the secret police, then there must also be a question whether Lenin was a German agent. There is a report from Henri Binta that Lenin in December 16 in Bern visited the German consulate. Most professional historians believe that this is a fake, but the question here is not as simple as it seems. I think that Lenin hardly personally visited the German consulate, although I fully admit that the Bolsheviks received some kind of German money through third parties.
S.BUNTMAN: Was Lenin a German spy important?
S. BUDNITSKY: It doesn't matter at all. Moreover, Lenin, of course, was not a spy. The Germans were satisfied with the fact that Lenin was a revolutionary, that was enough to cause a turmoil in the belligerent power. And for Lenin it was important to find sources of funds for the deployment of agitation. And from where it was completely irrelevant to him. If it was money from a bank robbery or from some other source, it was only important that it was in favor of the revolution. And therefore, from this point of view, whether Lenin received money from expropriation, donations, or, I repeat, he was still very careful, received through third parties from foreign representatives, does not matter from the point of view of a historian. It matters from a moral point of view the assessment of Bolshevism, but not from the point of view of how events developed in 1917. I always give students such a conditional example, for example, the same German agents began to transfer money to some English revolutionary, would there be a revolution in England in 1917?
S. BUNTMAN: Hardly.
S. BUDNITSKY: Hardly. I’m talking about this, it didn’t matter where the money came from, it didn’t matter if these people, in this case the Bolsheviks, were listened to by the soldiers who played a decisive role in October 1917.
S. BUNTMAN: Does Parvus play any role in this scenario?
S. BUDNITSKY: The fact that he undoubtedly played a large role in financing those people who in Russia were called "defeatists", that is, supporters of the defeat of his government, Lenin wrote about this, is undoubtedly. Undoubtedly, Parvus had some kind of enterprise, and most certainly, the initial capital, as well as circulating capital, he received from the relevant German special services. Parvus serves as such a connecting link, a means of transmission for revolutionaries not only Russian, but also Polish, Ukrainian and some others. One of the ideas in Germany was to provoke a national movement in Russia with the understandable goal of getting Russia out of the war and winning the war. But, undoubtedly, Parvus was not the organizer of the revolution in Russia. If it comes to that, the revolution had no organizers at all, I mean February, when the revolution began. And everything else is already ensuing consequences
S.BUNTMAN: But October is still a coup.
S. BUDNITSKY: Yes, this is a coup. This is part of the process that started in February from my point of view. No one else in history has succeeded in preparing, planning, and implementing a revolution. Revolution always happens spontaneously. February was a soldier's riot, which was quickly saddled by politicians. And, in general, this riot was supposed to take more extreme forms, which happened in the end in October 17 of the year. But back to the topic of our conversation - it was supposed to be about robbing banks. So in the Hoover Archive, in another collection, the Nikolayevsky collection, there are wonderful memories of Tatiana Vulikh, which are called "Meetings with the Bolsheviks-exists" - these were the same exists who robbed the Tiflis Treasury under the leadership of Kamo and Stalin, this is the famous ex-ex on Erevan square on June 25, 1907. A wonderful story. It is quite well-known, but some details are of considerable interest, and some moral side of the issue. It is curious that at this time, by the decision of the party congress, exs were banned. How was it to get around this corner? Those who took part in the expropriation were bypassed in the following way, they simply left the party. Although they kept in touch with her. Moreover, in Vulikh's memoirs, she is from Tiflis, at one time she was promoted by Lev Rosenfeld, the future Kamenev, then she was a Bolshevik, a Menshevik - whoever she was, at one time she nursed Zinoviev's child in Paris, eventually ended up in emigration, where, by order of B . Nikolayevsky wrote wonderful memoirs. And she describes the young revolutionary fanatics Kote Tsinsadze, Annette Sulomlidze, Vano Kolondadze and some others, these are the very people who committed this famous ex, risking their lives. They all lived in one apartment, 7 people, in dire poverty. She describes one curious scene she went into the apartment, and found two young people in bed. A modern person may have different thoughts, but in fact they spent their time like that, because their trousers were completely unusable, and they simply had nothing to wear. And imagine that these people, having stolen, according to various sources, from 250 to 341 thousand rubles a huge amount of money at that time, stole them with the sole purpose of delivering it to Lenin. And the famous Kamo-Ter-Petrosyan did it. The money got to Lenin, and then big problems began. Since part of the money was in 500 rubles. Sometimes in the literature there are statements that all the money was in 500 rubles, and their numbers were rewritten, are known. In fact, there were 100 thousand rubles for 500 rubles. The amount is rather big. How to exchange them? And the plan was ripe for representatives of the Bolshevik center to come to different cities of Europe on the same day - it was a party within a party, there was a single RSDLP, which had their own cash desk and their own single policy. And as we can see, they wanted to spit on the decree that one should not rob banks, let alone private individuals, and discredit the revolution. Money was needed, and it was more important. And then one day in different cities of Europe, representatives of the Bolshevik center, indeed, came to exchange 500 rubles. And almost everyone was arrested. Including the future People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, Maxim Litvinov. Then, starting from the age of 17 and later, he was remembered all the time as a person arrested at one time for trying to change stolen bills. But the story is a little strange - the police in different countries worked very synchronously, there was clearly not without internal lighting, in the language of the secret police. And indeed, very close to the Bolshevik center was a man known in the world under the name of Doctor Yakov Zhitomirsky, by the party nickname of Fathers, and by the security nickname for some reason Daudet, perhaps in honor of the French writer. This same Zhitomirsky regularly covered the situation among the Social Democrats. And, probably, it was not without his information that what happened happened. It is curious that Zhytomyr-Otsov-Doda himself managed to exchange one 500 rubles. He was engaged in medical practice in a German resort town, they got used to him, a respected person, a doctor is a well-deserved profession, and this bill was exchanged for him at the local branch of the bank. But then, after some time, they realized it, and although he had already left this town, they sent it to him by mail with an explanatory letter. But Ottsov returned the money he had received to the bank, but the most unpleasant thing for him was that he handed over some of the bills he had to the Police Department and returned it. And then the party comrades had some suspicions, they considered that the matter was unclean, and he somehow appropriated the money. Panic began what to do. And as the fact that Fathers destroyed these bills, he showed his party comrades the corners of bills sent to him from St. Petersburg, which they cut off there and sent him again by mail such a detective story.
S. BUNTMAN: A wonderful story.
S. BUDNITSKY: Wonderful. And the Bolsheviks were harshly criticized by their more moderate fellow Mensheviks, and even it was about the party trial over Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who, despite the party ban, do not disdain exs and plundered money.
S.BUNTMAN: Many people ask a question about Kamo, about Kamo's death have you ever studied this question?
S. BUDNITSKY: He was riding a bicycle, a car hit him and threw him onto a lamppost, and he died from his injuries. Naturally, versions of the murder arose. But, as far as I know, these versions have not received confirmation. In general, in the era of perestroika and the perestroika period, there was a tendency that one of my sons calls "everyone was killed." As if a person could not willingly commit suicide like Mayakovsky and Yesenin, for example. They were bound to be killed. It's the same with Kamo.
S.BUNTMAN: But the fact that Kamo was killed was said before. People who knew Kamo well talked about this a lot. I know that in our family they knew Ter-Petrosyan, and this story I know from childhood was told by my grandmother.
S. BUDNITSKY: There have been many rumors. But I try to operate with documents. The version that Kamo was killed and not killed in an accident is nothing more than a version based on speculation. Sometimes they say that Stalin wanted to remove those people who knew him from the Transcaucasian period, about his brigand past. By the way, Lenin called Kamo "Caucasian robber". You know, in the 20s it was not considered a negative moment, it was valor. And in the 20s, if we read literature, people quite calmly wrote about participation in terrorist acts, about participation in exs. There was a struggle for the right to be a regicide, how many people claimed that it was they who shot the emperor or heir. It then became ashamed to be like that. And Stalin's phrase - "If we educate people on the example of Narodnaya Volya, we will educate terrorists" - was caused by the fact that on the table of Leonid Nikolayev, Kirov's killer, they found a portrait of Andrei Zhelyabov, the leader of Narodnaya Volya. And the organizational conclusions followed, the society of "Former convicts and exiled settlers" was closed. The journal "Hard labor and exile" was closed, populism was declared the worst enemy of Marxism, and terrorism, of course, was condemned in every possible way. From a method of revolutionary struggle, legitimate, it became a taboo, it was condemned, and the Bolsheviks, as it were, were considered to have nothing to do with either terrorism or ex-men. And then it disappears from literature.
S.BUNTMAN: And how was Kirov's murder a single murder, or was it organized?
S. BUDNITSKY: You are asking me eternal questions. You know, I'm generally a skeptic about conspiracy theories. Kirov was the work of Stalin, he was a loyal ally, a man whom Stalin made what he became. Of course, it’s hard to get into Stalin’s head, but I don’t see any point in organizing the murder of the man who served him faithfully. What for? There must be some rational motives in such actions. Stalin was not a madman, and this version was also mad.
S.BUNTMAN: But not without obsessions.
S. BUDNITSKY: But in a medical sense, no. And in the actions of Stalin there is usually a certain logic of logic in the assassination of Kirov, I do not see. Maybe I’m mistaken, I don’t know.
S. BUNTMAN: Maybe. Perhaps this was due to the need for another purge that followed to show the entire horror of what the enemies and terrorists are doing. And at the same time, the removal of a highly popular figure is also explained by the fact that the 17th Congress showed Kirov's strong popularity. But we listened to your opinion. And the question from Nikolai was Gapon an agent of the secret police, what do you know?
S. BUDNITSKY: Gapon was undoubtedly an agent of the secret police, although at times he got out of her control. This is a rather long conversation, but at the beginning of the 20th century, the theory of "police socialism" arose, its creator was S.V. Zubatov, the head of the Moscow security department, a man undoubtedly talented, he believed that it was necessary to forestall the revolutionaries and organize the labor movement by ourselves, channel it so that workers are engaged in solving economic problems, not political ones. By the way, it is curious that in 905 the commission created on the labor issue was state-owned - one of its recommendations was to allow strikes and strikes, since the government understood that strikes for economic reasons distract workers from political struggle. When there is no other way to resolve contradictions, they can contact the revolutionaries and succumb to this very revolutionary propaganda. Gapon was one such personage who was relied upon to distract the workers from the political struggle in the direction of their true path. At some stage, it turned out that Gapon got out of control, and the elements of this labor movement in January 1905, apparently, seized him too. And when he marched at the head of the column to the Winter Palace, he, of course, walked not as an agent provocateur, but as an exponent, as it seemed to him, of the interests of these very masses. After the execution, Gapon became the most popular person in Russia, at least in the revolutionary milieu. Lenin and Plekhanov sought and met with him, and God knows who everyone wanted to have Gapon as a banner in their ranks. But it ended very quickly. Gapon turned out to be a person who was politically prepared very poorly, the huge money that flocked to him from different sides, donations quickly ran out, and Gapon again contacted the guards, in particular, met with Rachkovsky, who had returned to the service, with General Gerasimov, the head of the Security Department Petersburg, the most capable detective in Russia, but it all ended badly. When Gapon tried to involve Pyotr Rotenberg, the very engineer, the Socialist-Revolutionary, who pulled him out of the bullets on January 9 and took him abroad, in these cases, it ended with Gapon being hanged at his dacha in Ozerki near St. Petersburg, where he was discovered a month later. ...
S. BUNTMAN: Dmitry asks: "Was the secret police behind the murder of Grand Duke Sergei, as well as behind the murder of Plehve?"
S. BUDNITSKY: Neither the murder of Pleve, nor the murder of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was behind the secret police, behind them was the militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries party. The fact that the head of the militant organization, Azef, was an agent of the secret police at that time does not mean that he acted at the time of organizing the murder as a representative of that same secret police. Azef wagged, and if all his assassination attempts ended unsuccessfully, then his life could end very quickly. Therefore, he played on two sides. This, of course, is a very succinct answer, and Azef is a much more complex figure, but, nevertheless, it is undoubtedly not the secret police who organized the murder of Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei.
S. BUNTMAN: "Is it possible to separate the concepts of an employee and an agent?", - asks Victor
S. BUDNITSKY: There were notions of "shtuchniki" - those who from time to time provided information. There were the concepts of "informers" that were illuminated from the outside, and there were employees. An employee and an agent, in essence, are the same people who were introduced into revolutionary organizations, or were recruited, being already revolutionaries, or, being employees, became part of revolutionary organizations. Azef, by the way, was such an initiator who at one time offered his services to the police in writing. In general, he is a fantastic personality, and he began his career by selling a barrel of oil, which was given to him on a commission, and fled abroad, where he studied at the Polytechnic for some time with the proceeds. Then the money ran out, and he wrote a letter to the department, and offered his services to cover various student groups, revolutionary or semi-revolutionary and simply questionable. They figured him out. There were some kind of professionals, they understood who it was, and they answered him in his own name, and not on the pseudonym to which he offered his services, demonstrating that everyone knows and will get him everywhere. He was offered at first 50 rubles a month, and Azef gradually rose to the ranks of considerable ranks; at one time he was a member of the Central Committee, and was the head of a military organization, and received a salary by the end of his service at the level of a minister. And I think that he was probably more valuable to the government than many ministers.
S. BUNTMAN: There are two more topics that open us up to the next program, apparently Elena asks us to tell us about the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion." I think we will do it next time. And a special request from Valery "Tell us about the activities of the secret police agent Manusevich-Manuilov, who worked in Paris on a counterintelligence line against the Roman Catholic clergy."
S. BUDNITSKY: He worked not only against the clergy, he also worked with the Japanese, and did many other things.
S.BUNTMAN: So let's just continue our conversation.
S. BUDNITSKY: Good.
S. BUNTMAN: So, Oleg Budnitsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences, was on the air today, we will continue our conversation in the program "Not so", jointly with the magazine "Knowledge-Power", again we will go to the archives in a week. Thanks a lot.
SECURITY, secret police, women. (colloquial). Colloquial name of the Security Department; see burglar. Tsarist secret police. Secret agent. An employee of the secret police. || transfer A similar institution in other countries. Berlin secret police. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. ... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
Iosif Iremashvili (Georgian იოსებ ირემაშვილი, German Iosseb Iremaschwili; 1878 (1878) 1944) is a Georgian politician and memoirist, known for his book of memoirs about the childhood and youth of I. V. Stalin. Contents 1 Biography ... Wikipedia
And, well. colloquial Security department. Tsarist secret police. □ The Okhrana tried to crush and disperse the Bolshevik organizations before the war. Sun. Ivanov, Parkhomenko ... Small academic dictionary
One of the forms of national and religious intolerance, expressed in a hostile attitude towards Jews (See Jews). A. took in the course of history various forms from religious and psychological prejudice and segregation (See Segregation), ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Noy Nikolaevich (pseud. Kostrov, George, AN) (1870 1953) social democrat, leader of the cargo. Mensheviks. Of the nobles. He graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary, then studied at the Warsaw Vet. in those. In the 90s. was a member of the Mesame dasi group. Being arrested ... Soviet Historical Encyclopedia
PROVOCATOR, provocateur, husband. (lat. provocator, caller, stimulus). 1. A secret agent of a political investigation or, in general, of some enemy organization, using a provocation. “The tsarist government used the defeat of the revolution to ... ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
SPY, spy, spy, unsover. Engage in espionage, search, surveillance, tracking. "The vile Judas provocateurs, whom the tsarist secret police sent to workers and party organizations, spied from within and betrayed the revolutionaries." History of the CPSU (b) ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
This article or section may need to be shortened. Reduce the length of the text in accordance with the recommendations of the rules on the balance of presentation and the size of the articles. More information may be on the talk page ... Wikipedia
This term has other meanings, see Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa Luxemburg ... Wikipedia
Sympathetic (invisible) ink is ink, the records of which are initially invisible and become visible only under certain conditions (heating, lighting, chemical developer, etc.). One of the most ... ... Wikipedia
Books
- Great Stolypin. Not Great Upheavals, but Great Russia (deluxe edition), Sergei Stepanov. Gift edition in leather bound with gold stamping, three-sided dyed edging and silk webbing. The book contains a certificate attesting that this book is ...
- Revolution 2. Book 2. Beginning, And Salnikov. 1916 year. The Russian Empire, exhausted by the war, is on the verge of new upheavals. The British Guardians and Petrograd Masons, British intelligence and the tsarist secret police - the outcome of the war depends on these forces. ...
The security department appeared in Russia in the 1860s, when the country was swept by a wave of political terror. Gradually, the tsarist secret police turned into a secret organization, whose employees, in addition to fighting the revolutionaries, solved their own specific tasks.
Special agents
One of the most important roles in the tsarist secret police was played by the so-called special agents, whose inconspicuous work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included spies - "agents of external surveillance" and informers - "auxiliary agents".
On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 spies. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were on duty every day in both capitals.
There was a rather strict selection in place of the spy. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persistent, careful." They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.
The informers were hired for the most part from among the doormen, janitors, clerks, passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district superintendent who worked with them.
Unlike the spies, the informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be "solid and useful", they were given a reward from 1 to 15 rubles.
Sometimes they were paid with things. Thus, Major General Alexander Spiridovich recalled how he bought new galoshes for one of the informants. “And then he thrashed his comrades, he threw himself out with a kind of frenzy. This is what the galoshes have done, ”the officer wrote.
Perlustrators
There were people in the detective police who performed a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perlustration. This tradition was introduced by Baron Alexander Benckendorff even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful business." The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.
"Black cabinets", created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The conspiracy was such that the employees of these offices did not know about the existence of offices in other cities.
Some of the "black offices" had their own specifics. According to the newspaper "Russkoe slovo" for April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in rewriting the letters of dignitaries, then in Kiev they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.
According to the data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made. This productivity is astounding, given that there were only 50 perusalists, joined by 30 postal workers.
It was a rather lengthy and laborious job. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then the suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.
Our among strangers
For more effective work of the security department, the Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents", infiltrating various parties and organizations and exercising control over their activities. According to the instructions for the recruitment of secret agents, preference was given to "weak-willed revolutionaries who were suspected or already involved in political affairs, disenchanted or offended by the party."
The payment for secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles a month, depending on the status and benefits. The secret police encouraged their agents to advance up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.
The police were very wary of those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As the circular from the Police Department shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy." For example, the exiled settler recruited by the secret police, Feldman, when asked about the reason for giving false information, replied that he was without any means of subsistence and went on perjury for a reward.
Provocateurs
The activities of recruited agents were not limited to espionage and the transfer of information to the police; they often provoked actions for which members of an illegal organization could be arrested. The agents announced the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to detain the suspects. According to the founder of the CIA, Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised the provocation to the level of art. According to him, "this was the main means by which the tsarist secret police attacked the trail of revolutionaries and dissidents." Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents-provocateurs with the characters of Dostoevsky.
The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef - at the same time a police agent and the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. It is not without reason that he is considered the organizer of the murders of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and the Minister of Internal Affairs of Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1,000 rubles. per month.
A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "ally" Roman Malinovsky. The secret police agent regularly helped the police find the whereabouts of clandestine printing houses, reported secret meetings and conspiratorial meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade's betrayal. In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky won his election to the State Duma, moreover, as a member of the Bolshevik faction.
Strange inaction
Events were associated with the activities of the secret police, which left an ambiguous opinion about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, an anarchist and secret informant of the secret police, Dmitry Bogrov, mortally wounded Stolypin with two point-blank shots without any hindrance. Moreover, at that moment there was neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family, who, according to the plan of events, were to be with the minister.
.
On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard, Alexander Spiridovich, and the head of the Kiev security department, Nikolai Kulyabko, were brought to the investigation. However, on behalf of Nicholas II, the investigation was unexpectedly terminated.
Some researchers, in particular Vladimir Zhukhrai, believe that Spiridovich and Kulyabko were directly involved in the murder of Stolypin. A lot of facts indicate this. First of all, the suspiciously easily experienced secret police officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Socialist-Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to enter the theater building with a weapon to allegedly expose the alleged killer.
Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot at Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. Stolypin, apparently, guessed that a conspiracy was brewing against him. Shortly before the murder, he dropped the following phrase: "I will be killed and the members of the guard will kill me."
Security service abroad
In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian émigré revolutionaries. And there was who to keep an eye on: these were the leaders of Narodnaya Volya, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and the publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and the anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. It is interesting that the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also civilian Frenchmen.
From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these are the years of the heyday of its activities. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.
When the director of the Plehve Police Department received a report about Rachkovsky's dubious contacts, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check the activities of the head of the foreign secret police. Silvestrov was killed, and soon the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was found dead.
Moreover, Rachkovsky was suspected of involvement in the murder of Plehve himself. Despite the compromising materials, high patrons from the entourage of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.
