3 security department. Tsarist secret police: history, agents and provocateurs
The Tsarist Okhrana is the common name for the structural bodies of the police department of the Ministry of the Interior, operating on the territory of the Russian Empire. Full name - Department for the protection of public security 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 founded in 1866 and dissolved in March 1917. In this article we will talk about the history of this unit, its agents and provocateurs.
History of creation
The Tsarist Okhrana was created under the St. Petersburg mayor in 1866. The formal reason was the assassination attempt on Alexander II, organized by the terrorist and revolutionary Dmitry Karakozov. He fired 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 on Smolenskaya Square.
Initially, the royal 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 reporting to the capital's mayor. It included an extensive office, a spy detachment, a security team, and a registration office.
The emergence of the second and third divisions
The second security department was established in Moscow in 1880. The corresponding order was signed by Interior Minister Mikhail Loris-Melikov.
In some cases, the Moscow division of the tsarist secret police went beyond the borders of the province in search activities, performing the functions of an all-Russian center of political search. The direct executor was a special flying detachment of filers, created in 1894. It was headed by Yevstraty Mednikov, who is considered the founder of the national school of surveillance agents. The head of the security unit was listed as the immediate supervisor. The Flying Squad was abolished in 1902, it was replaced by permanent search points created under the gendarmerie provincial departments.
The third since 1900 operated on the territory of Warsaw. Two years later, in connection with the growth of the revolutionary mood in society, similar divisions were opened in Yekaterinoslav, Vilna, Kyiv, Kazan, Saratov, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. They were engaged in political investigation in the provinces, conducted surveillance, and developed a network of secret agents.
Investigation case
In 1902, the activities of the departments began to be regulated by new documents. The Tsarist Okhrana concentrates its work on the search business. Police and gendarmerie 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, the 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 not advisable to maintain a security unit in it.
Since 1913, the widespread liquidation of security departments began on the initiative of Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Dzhunkovsky. By the beginning of the February Revolution, they were preserved only in Moscow, Petrograd and Warsaw.
District security departments
The security departments were subordinated 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, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Pyotr Stolypin created regional security departments. They are charged with the duty to unite 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 in 1907, two more appeared.
abolition
The history of the tsarist secret police ended in March 1917, almost immediately after the February Revolution. It was liquidated by 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, two or three employees of the security department were in the service.
At the same time, in addition to the official staff, there was a special agency. The tsarist secret police had so-called fillers who conducted surveillance, as well as informers who were sent to political parties.
Special agency
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 fillers and about 70.5 thousand informers. In both capitals, from fifty to a hundred surveillance agents were sent to work every day.
To become an agent of the tsarist secret police, one had to pass 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 taken to this service. These were real bloodhounds of the tsarist secret police.
The informers accepted janitors, porters, passportists, clerks. They were required to report any suspicious individuals to the district warden to which they were attached. Unlike fillers, 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 perusal. Such a tradition has existed since the time of Benckendorff, agents became more active after the assassination of Alexander II.
The so-called black cabinets 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.
Network of internal agents
Efficiency of work was increased due to an extensive network of internal agents. Employees were introduced into various organizations and parties that controlled their activities.
There was even a special instruction for recruiting secret agents. It advised giving preference to those who had previously been involved in political affairs, as well as offended or disillusioned with the party, weak-willed revolutionaries. They received pay ranging from five to 500 rubles a month, depending on the benefits they brought and their status. Their career advancement in the party was strongly encouraged. Sometimes this was even helped by the arrest of higher-ranking party members.
At the same time, the police were wary of those who wished 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 Okhrana were not limited to the transfer of useful information to the police and espionage. Often they were tasked with instigating 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 it was not difficult for the police to detain the suspects.
It is known that the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, paid tribute to 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 Okhrana got on the trail of dissidents and revolutionaries. The sophistication of 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. He simultaneously led the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and was a secret police agent. Not without reason, he was considered directly involved in organizing the murder of the Minister of the Interior of the Russian Empire Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. At the same time, at the behest of Azef, many well-known members of the Socialist-Revolutionary militant organization were arrested, he was the highest paid agent of the empire, receiving about one thousand rubles a month.
A successful provocateur was also one of the Bolsheviks, who was in close contact with Vladimir Lenin, Roman Malinovsky. He periodically assisted the police, reporting on secret meetings and secret meetings of fellow party members, the location of underground printing houses. Until the very last moment, Lenin refused to believe in the betrayal of his comrade, he valued him so much.
As a result, with the assistance of the authorities, Malinovsky even achieved election to the State Duma, and from the Bolshevik faction.
Details about him and other agents who left their mark on history are described in Vladimir Zhukhrai's study "Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: 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 Okhrana" takes memoirs and archival documents as a basis, making an attempt to penetrate into the history of domestic political investigation.
high-profile murder
One of the most failed cases in the history of the security units of tsarist Russia is the assassination of Prime Minister Stolypin in 1911. The official was shot dead by anarchist Dmitry Bogrov, who was also a secret informant for the Okhrana. He fired two point-blank shots at Stolypin at the opera house in Kyiv.
During the investigation, the head of the security department in Kyiv, 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 claims in his book that they were not only aware that Bogrov was planning to shoot Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. That is why they believed in his legend about an unknown Social Revolutionary who was going to kill the Prime Minister, they allowed him to enter the theater with a weapon to expose the imaginary terrorist.
Confrontation with the Bolsheviks
After the militant organization of the Social Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks were the main threat to the autocracy. Close attention was riveted to them 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 Okhrana".
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 study, 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. Information about this has been preserved in numerous documents. The book contains surveillance reports, party pseudonyms, and opened letters.
Activities abroad
Since 1883, the Okhrana acted abroad as well. In Paris, a unit was created 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 were civilians.
Until 1902, Peter Rachkovsky was the head of the foreign secret police. 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 Minister of the Interior Plehve became aware of 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 Silvestrov was found dead, and the agent who denounced Rachkovsky was also found dead. He was removed from service. He managed to continue his career in 1905 in the police department under the leadership of Trepov.
UDK 341.741
N. I. Svechnikov, A. S. Kadomtseva
SOME FEATURES OF THE ACTIVITY OF THE SECURITY DEPARTMENTS OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
Annotation. The article presents the results of research on the activities of security departments in Russia at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century. A brief analysis of the reasons that caused the need for bodies of political investigation, and legal acts regulating their organization and functioning is presented. An assessment of the validity and correctness of the abolition of security departments is given.
Key words: law and order, security department, political investigation, gendarmerie corps, police department, search department, filer, agent, informer, overseer, revolutionary community, covert 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 agencies, especially agencies designed 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 system of political investigation of the Russian Empire can be used in the formation of a modern law enforcement system and will help to avoid mistakes made in the past. To this end, it is necessary to analyze the ways in which the Russian state sought to legitimize the activities of security departments; to study not only the essence of normative acts, but also the effectiveness of their application. In order for the activities of law enforcement agencies in general and internal affairs agencies in particular to be of high quality and effective, it is necessary, based on historical experience, to identify what activities can be useful.
In the 19th century the revolutionary movement in Russia intensified, in connection with this there was a need to create a special body that would be engaged in the timely detection of "harmful" persons, collecting information about them and sending them to the gendarmerie corps. The existing gendarmerie departments were not sufficiently adapted to conducting political investigations among the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia. This was the reason for the establishment by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs of the first in Russia St. Petersburg (under the mayor) "Department for the preservation of order and tranquility in the capital" in 1867. Its staff consisted of only 21 employees - the head, 4 officials for assignments, 12 police officers, the clerk, his assistants and the secretary. In December 1883, the Regulations “On the Structure of the Secret Police in the Empire” were adopted, which determined the status and tasks of “special investigation departments” - 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 of May 23, 1887 “To the department for the protection of public security and order in the capital, which is under the control of the St. Petersburg mayor”. Later, search departments appeared in Moscow and Warsaw, but the sphere of activity of revolutionary organizations had already gone beyond the boundaries of these cities.
The Moscow security department was created in 1880. At first it was small, for example, in 1889 it had only six people. But the creature
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shaft and another unofficial staff, consisting of "protective outdoor service", i.e. spyers and agents-informers "working" in the ranks of revolutionary groups (internal agents). According to the estimate of the Moscow Security Department of 50 thousand rubles. 60% were the costs of surveillance, searches and the maintenance of agents. In 1897, “to monitor persons placed under police supervision for political unreliability ...” the position of a police supervisor was established at the Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order in Moscow and an Instruction was developed for police guards at the Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order in Moscow.
In the structure of the security departments, in addition to the office, as a rule, secret office work, there were two departments: external surveillance and undercover (internal surveillance department). The intelligence departments developed data obtained from informants and by perusal of letters in the so-called "black cabinets" at the post offices. Analysis of the information received was the essence of the work of each security department. All other units were auxiliary. All the efforts of the head of the department and his employees - gendarmerie officers were directed to the correct organization and functioning of the agents. Secret agents were the subject of constant concern and care of the entire Police Department. Agents were mentioned in the Department's circulars addressed to the heads of security departments and provincial gendarme departments.
In August 1902, the Regulations “On the Heads of Investigation Departments” were adopted for some areas of the empire: “... where a particularly intensified development of the revolutionary movement is noticed, investigative departments are established, the heads of which are entrusted with the management of political investigation, i.e. surveillance and secret agents, in a well-known certain area.
In October 1902, for the detectives of the detective and security departments, 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, paragraph 21 recommends: “When carrying out observation, you must always act in such a way as not to draw attention to yourself, not to walk noticeably quietly and not to remain 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 county institutions and among themselves - are demolished directly. If the gendarme departments established the need for investigative actions in cases of a political nature, it was necessary to obtain the consent of the head of the security department. This consent has been fixed since the establishment of security departments. So, in § 19 of the Provisional Regulations on Security Departments of June 27, 1904, it was stated that “no searches and arrests can be carried out by the ranks of the gendarme corps in the area of his observation without prior notice to the head of the security department.” Thus, it is clear that the security departments are gradually beginning to perform some of the functions that were characteristic of the gendarme departments, 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 has been reformed. To unite and direct the activities of local organizations
Ghans in charge of political search in the Empire, district security departments were established. On December 14, 1906, the Regulations on regional security departments were approved. They were created in such large cities as St. Petersburg, Moscow, Samara, Kharkov, Kyiv, Odessa, Vilna, Riga. Eight security districts were formed to bring management closer to the lower bodies. The security district included district security departments of several provinces. The regulation stated that “§ 7. One of the main tasks of the heads of the district security departments is the establishment of a central internal agent capable of covering the activities of the revolutionary communities entrusted to his supervision of the region ...” .
The regulation on the security departments of February 9, 1907 clarified the activities of the security departments, for example, in § 24: “In the activities of the security departments, the following should be distinguished: a) investigations in the form of preventing and detecting state criminal acts. 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 planned or committed crime of a political nature is carried out in the ways indicated in 251 Art. Set Corner. Judgment, that is, through searches (secret agents), verbal interrogations and covert surveillance (through secret agents and fillers) ".
The main purpose and essence of the activities carried out by employees of the security departments were presented in the Instruction to the heads of the security departments on organizing outdoor observations in 1907. Thus, in Art. 2 it was explained that "... the greatest benefit from external surveillance can be obtained only if it is strictly conformed to the instructions of internal agents on the significance of the observed persons and the events outlined by the filers." In addition, Art. 10 defined one of the functions of the chiefs: “By the 5th day of each month, the heads of the security departments submit to the District security departments and the Police Department lists of persons who have been under observation, for each organization separately, with a complete identification of acquaintances, last name, first name, patronymic, rank, occupation, nickname for observation and organization, and a brief indication of the reasons for observation.
An analysis of the materials of the conducted studies 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 gendarmerie departments also carried out arrests, inquests and investigated cases of state crimes. Thus, the security departments and gendarmerie departments carried out a political search, collected the necessary information.
The main goal of the political search was "... to identify and identify both individuals and entire organizations seeking to change the existing political system in the country, and to suppress their activities." The entire political investigation in Russia, as the researchers note, was based on the "three pillars": on internal agents, external surveillance and perusal of correspondence.
As already noted, the security department was headed by a chief reporting to the Police Department or the head of the district security department. The Regulations on the security departments of February 9, 1907 stated: “§ 5 Intervention of other institutions and persons, except for the Police Department and the heads of the 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 (directly conducting the investigation, including the implementation of investigative actions) was assigned to the gendarme departments. The right to independently conduct a search or arrest by the security departments of the first
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Initially, it was granted only in an exceptional situation, when it was impossible to obtain the consent of the head of the gendarme department and ensure the participation of his ranks. As a general rule, when the time and the situation made it possible to more thoroughly understand and report the proposed measures to the head of the provincial gendarme department, 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 department. Gradually (in particular, since 1907 in connection with the adoption of the Regulations on the security departments), the powers of the security departments are expanding. Now, without interaction with the security departments, not a single investigative action is carried out by the provincial gendarmerie departments on cases of a politically significant nature. With the adoption of the Regulations 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 case in his hands. The ranks of the corps of gendarmes and the general police, receiving from an unspoken source of information related to the political search, were obliged to report them to the head of the security department. Evaluating the information received on cases of political investigation, he made a decision on the production of searches, seizures and arrests.
In addition, there was a rule that information on political affairs should be concentrated in security departments. The ranks of the corps of gendarmes 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 were to take all possible measures to establish "correct" relations with the heads of the gendarme departments, officers of the gendarme corps, as well as with prosecutorial supervision and judicial investigators. It should be especially noted that if information of significance beyond the limits of 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 gendarmerie departments when providing information for issuing certificates of political loyalty of persons. These certificates were requested from the local provincial authorities by various government and public institutions regarding the political reliability of persons applying for admission to the state or public service.
Thus, in the system of authorities of the early 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 bodies of the Russian state. A wide list of powers granted to the security departments, due to the necessity and importance of political investigation, the possibility of interaction on this basis with almost any authority or official, the duplication of some functions of other state bodies (gendarme departments) characterize the security departments as state security bodies that had 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, always leave several Narodnaya Volya at large: “If there are no revolutionaries in the country, then the gendarmes will not be needed, that is, we are with you, Mr. Rachkovsky1, because there is no one
1 Petr Ivanovich Rachkovsky (1851-1910) - Russian police administrator. Active state councilor, head of the foreign agents of the Police Department in Paris, vice-director of the Police Department in 1905-1906.
Bulletin of the Penza State University No. 2 (10), 2015
will hunt down, imprison, execute ... We must organize the work of the security departments in such a way as to create the impression in the sovereign emperor that the danger from terrorists is exceptionally great for him and only our selfless work saves him and his loved ones from death. And, believe me, we will be showered with all sorts of favors.
On April 25, 1913, V. F. Dzhunkovsky1 assumed the post of Deputy Minister of the Interior and began work to eliminate the 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 were preserved 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 have moved away from work “on the live leadership of the search in the field and, delving mainly into clerical work, only slow down the flow of information about the revolutionary movement. lowering awareness. about the situation at every next moment of the search case. In addition, by 1913-1914. the system of gendarmerie departments was strengthened and their methods of work were sufficiently debugged. According to some researchers, 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. The effective counteraction of the security departments of the political opposition (revolutionary forces) led to a decrease in revolutionary tension, as a result, to the functional lack of demand and the economic inexpediency of their maintenance. One of the reasons for the abolition of security departments is the specific leadership of the Police Department, which had a negative attitude towards “upstarts from the Okhrana”, to the situation in which the provincial gendarme departments faded into the background.
The abolition of security departments at a time when they were one of the key law enforcement agencies on guard of the state raises many questions that require further study.
Bibliography
1. Police of Russia: Documents and materials. 1718-1917 / compiled by: A. Ya. Malygin, R. S. Mulukaev, B. V. Chernyshev, A. V. Lobanov. - Saratov: SUI of the 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. Koshel, P. A. History of detective work in Russia / P. A. Koshel. - URL: http://www.Gumer.info/bibliotek_Buks/History/koshel/15.php
4. Kalinin, N. V. Activities of security departments (late XIX - early XX century) / N. V. Kalinin // Izvestiya vuzov. Jurisprudence. - 2008. - No. 2. - S. 203-210.
5. Instructions to the officers of the Flying Squad and officers of the search and security departments, 10/31/1902. - 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, deputy minister of the interior and commander of the Separate Gendarme Corps (1913-1915).
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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 surveillance, 1907 - URL: http://www.regiment.rU/Doc/B/I/15.htm
10. Kolpakidi, A. Special services of the Russian Empire / A. Kolpakidi, A. Sever. - 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. The general and political police of Russia (1900-1917): monograph. / Yu. A. Reent. - Ryazan: Pattern, 2001.
13. Zernov, I. V. The fight against terrorism in the Russian Empire in the late XX - early XX century: Historical and legal aspects of domestic policy / I. V. Zernov, V. Yu. Karnishin // Bulletin of PSU. - 2014. - No. 4. - S. 2-7.
14. Kolemasov, V. N. Activities of the organs of the united state political administration of the Middle Volga region in the fight against crime in the first half of the 1930s. / V. N. 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 Law Enforcement Department,
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 / N. I. Svechnikov, A. S. Kadomtseva // Bulletin of the Penza State University. - 2015. - No. 2 (10). - C. 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. Program "Not so".
The broadcast is hosted by Sergey Buntman.
S. BUNMAN: Today we will talk about archival documents relating to the activities of the tsarist secret police, these are foreign archives. So, the transfer is joint with the magazine "Knowledge is power".
S.BUDNITSKY: We are talking about the archive of foreign agents of the Police Department. Let's say a few words, what is it, and where did this institution come from
S. BUNTMAN: But first, a question of questions: Was Stalin an agent of the Okhrana?
S.BUDNITSKY: Most of the well-known archivists, including Z. Peregudova, who wrote a book on political investigation, think not. And the arguments are quite convincing. From the point of view of the historian - in my opinion, this does not really matter 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 Okhrana in the revolutionary environment. And when they acted as revolutionaries, and when as agents of the Okhrana, it was sometimes difficult to understand, I don’t know if they themselves understood it. There were especially many of them among the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the period between the two revolutions.
S. BUNTMAN: And why were there the most among the Socialist-Revolutionaries? Most afraid?
S.BUDNITSKY: Yes, because they were considered terrorists, and therefore they were developed quite actively. But among the Social Democrats, there were also enough of them.
S. BUNTMAN: One of the famous Malinovsky?
S.BUDNITSKY: Of course, Malinovsky and Yakov Zhitomirsky. So they created a foreign Okhrana in 1883 to monitor Russian revolutionary emigrants, and there were already quite a few of them at that time, and the then leaders of the Narodnaya Volya, Lev Tikhomirov, Marina Polonskaya, aka Oshanina, they lived in Paris, Pyotr Lavrov lived there, in France there was an anarchist Kropotkin, 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 - foreign agents. It reached its heyday under Peter Rachkovsky, who headed this agency from 1884 to 1902. It was worthy to continue the work of his teacher, G. Sudeikin was such a famous police figure who introduced a system of provocations in the fight against revolutionaries, and who eventually got his agent into the executive committee of the People's Will. There was a period when an agent of the Police Department headed Narodnaya Volya, it was Sergey Degaev, who, after being exposed by the revolutionaries, in order to save his own skin, organized the murder of his boss Sudeikin, fled abroad, reached America, and became a professor of mathematics there. Rachkovsky was at one time Sudeikin's secretary and took from him one of the principles of work - active actions, the active development of revolutionaries. Not just surveillance, but provoking some actions. And one of the most famous provocations of the Rachkovsky case of the Paris bombers in 1890 is a very curious story. At that time, a diplomatic rapprochement between Russia and France, which had a common potential enemy, Germany, was already becoming clear. But try to get closer, when in the eyes of the French, Russia was an evil empire, to use the later expression of Reagan, and in Russia even the French "La Marseillaise" was banned for this, they could be imprisoned and sent into exile. And we had to get closer. They became close on the basis of a police provocation. One of Rachkovsky's agents, a certain Abram Geikelman, who came abroad under the name of Landesen, 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 the Russian emigrants bought some equipment, and there was something to take them with, then at that moment, in fact, the French police were informed, there were mass arrests, and this very case of the Paris 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 Geikelman-Landesen himself to prison along with real revolutionaries so that his reputation would grow and he would become one of the central figures. But Landesen did not want to go to prison, he fled from France, converted to Orthodoxy, and took the name Arkady Harting so as not to change marks on linen. 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. Such were the passions. On the one hand, Rachkovsky achieved success, but on the other hand, there was a scandal, since Landesen disappeared, his provocative role became clear, there were many indignant articles in the press. And all this led to the fact that the foreign guard, which previously operated from the embassy building, where it remained until the 17th year, decided to create an effective private bureau to spy on the revolutionaries. And not only people who came from Russia worked for the foreign secret police, but also the French, civilians. And a private detective bureau was created, both were agents of foreign agents, and served faithfully until 1917, until 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 the Headquarters was also kept there 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 17 years they tried to identify all the secret employees. Not because Maklakov, a liberal Cadet, who himself was under surveillance, was very sympathetic to the secret collaborators, but he believed that people served the state, and giving them to the Bolsheviks, that is, to certain death, is not very good. He sealed the archive and sent it to the Hoover Institute for the Military Revolution of the World at Stanford University, where this archive lay for 30 years, which no one suspected. After the death of Maklakov, in 1957, a huge archival sensation followed: it was announced that the archive of the Foreign Guard, classified and sorted into boxes with a total of 216 pieces, was in the archive of the Hoover Institution. There I looked at the archive.
S.BUNTMAN: Do you now know the names of the agents?
S.BUDNITSKY: Not only I know. In fact, many cards, almost all of them, have been preserved 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, memos, an amazing collection of photographs, hundreds of photographs of people who were monitored. Very curious pocket filler books with up to 100 photographs each. There, by the way, I found an unknown photograph of Fanny Kaplan - also an interesting point, why was her photograph there, after all, she had already been in hard labor in Russia. And she ended up 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 the young Kaplan.
S. BUNTMAN: Was she really nearsighted?
S.BUDNITSKY: She had night blindness. But as soon as 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 she lost her sight. But the royal satraps treated her for two years, and her sight returned. And then it appeared and then disappeared, so the statement that she was blind and could not shoot at Lenin does not correspond to reality. And in the dispute whether Kaplan shot or not shot at Lenin, I adhere to the orthodox point of view that she shot. The contradictions in the investigative file 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 wonderful details in the case, for example, newspapers were found in her bots, and the investigators carefully searched for encrypted records on them, asking what it meant. And that meant only one thing - she had holes in her boots. You don't think of it on purpose.
S. BUNTMAN: Alexander from St. Petersburg asks if Lenin's activities were monitored?
S.BUDNITSKY: It was monitored. And if the question was asked whether Stalin was an agent of the Okhrana, then there should be a question whether Lenin was a German agent. There is such a report, by Henri Bint, that in December 16 Lenin visited the German consulate in Bern. Most professional historians believe that this is a fake, but here the question 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 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 that Lenin was a revolutionary, this was enough to cause confusion in a warring power. And for Lenin it was important to find sources of funds for the deployment of agitation. Where it came from was completely irrelevant. If it was money from a bank robbery or from some other source, the only thing that mattered was that it was for the benefit 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, from receiving through third parties from foreign representatives, does not matter from the point of view of the historian. It matters from the moral point of view of assessing Bolshevism, but not from the point of view of how events unfolded 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 have been a revolution in England in the 17th year?
S. BUNTMAN: Hardly.
S.BUDNITSKY: Hardly. That's what I'm talking about, it didn't matter where the money came from, it mattered whether these people, in this case the Bolsheviks, were listened to by the soldiers who played a decisive role in October 17.
S.BUNTMAN: Does Parvus play any role in this scenario?
S.BUDNITSKY: The fact that he undoubtedly played a big role in financing those people who were called "defeatists" in Russia, that is, supporters of the defeat of their government, Lenin wrote about this, is beyond doubt. Undoubtedly, Parvus had some kind of enterprise, and for sure, he received initial capital, as well as circulating capital, from the relevant German special services. Parvus serves as such a connecting, transmitting link of funds for not only Russian revolutionaries, but also Polish, Ukrainian and some others. One of the ideas in Germany was to provoke a nationalist movement in Russia with the clear aim of taking Russia out of the war and winning the war. But, undoubtedly, Parvus was not the organizer of the revolution in Russia. For that matter, the revolution had no organizers at all, I mean February, when the revolution started. And everything else is the consequences that follow from here.
S.BUNTMAN: But October is still a coup.
S.BUDNITSKY: Yes, this is a coup. It's part of a process that started in February from my point of view. No one else in history has managed to prepare, plan, and carry out a revolution. Revolution always happens spontaneously. February - it was a soldier's revolt, which was very quickly saddled by politicians. And, in general, this rebellion was supposed to take more extreme forms, which finally happened in October 17. But back to the topic of our conversation - it was supposed to be a bank robbery. So in the Hoover archive, in another collection, the Nikolaevsky collection, there are wonderful memories of Tatyana Vulikh, which are called "Meetings with the Bolshevik-exists" - these were the same exists who robbed the Tiflis Treasury under the leadership of Kamo and Stalin, this is the famous ex on Erevan square on June 25, 1907. Wonderful story. She is quite famous, but some details are of considerable interest, and some of the moral side of the issue. It is curious that at that time, by decision of the party congress, exes 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 the memoirs of Vulikh, 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 nursed Zinoviev's child in Paris, eventually ended up in exile, where, by order of B .Nikolaevsky wrote wonderful memoirs. And she describes the young revolutionary fanatics Kote Tsinsadze, Annette Sulomlidze, Vano Kolondadze and some others, these are the same people who committed this famous ex, risking their lives. They all lived in the same apartment, 7 people, in terrible 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 fell into complete disrepair, and they simply had nothing to go out in. And imagine that these people, having stolen, according to various sources, from 250 to 341 thousand rubles, a lot of money at that time, stole them with the sole purpose of delivering them to Lenin. And the famous Kamo-Ter-Petrosyan did it. 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, they are known. In fact, 500 rubles was 100 thousand. The amount is rather big. How to exchange them? And a plan was ripened so that representatives of the Bolshevik center would come in different cities of Europe on the same day - it was a party within the party, there was a single RSDLP, which had its own cash desk and its own single policy. And as we see, they didn't give a damn about the decrees that it was impossible to rob banks, not to mention private individuals, and discredit the revolution. Money was needed, and it was more important. And then one day in different cities of Europe, indeed, representatives of the Bolshevik center 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 always remembered as a person who was arrested at one time for trying to exchange stolen banknotes. But the story is a little strange - the police in different countries worked painfully synchronously, there was clearly not without internal illumination, speaking in the language of the Okhrana. And indeed, very close to the Bolshevik center was a man known to the world under the name of Dr. Yakov Zhitomirsky, by the party nickname Fathers, and for some reason by the security nickname Dode, perhaps in honor of the French writer. This same Zhytomyrsky regularly covered the situation among the Social Democrats. And, probably, not without his information happened what happened. It is curious that Zhytomyrsky-Otsov-Dode himself managed to exchange one 500-ruble note. He was engaged in medical practice in one 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 bank branch. 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 Fathers returned the money received to the bank, but the most unpleasant thing for him was that he handed over some of the banknotes that he had to the Police Department and returned them. And then the party comrades had some suspicions, they considered that the matter was unclean, and he somehow appropriated the money. Panic set in as to what to do. And as the fact that Fathers destroyed these banknotes, he presented to his party comrades the corners of banknotes sent to him from St. Petersburg, which they cut off and sent him again by mail such a detective story.
S. BUNTMAN: A wonderful story.
S.BUDNITSKY: Wonderful. And the Bolsheviks were sharply criticized by their more moderate Menshevik comrades, and there was even talk of a party trial of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who, despite the party ban, do not disdain exes and looted money.
S.BUNTMAN: Many people ask about Kamo, about Kamo's death. Have you ever studied this issue?
S.BUDNITSKY: He was riding a bicycle, a car crashed into him and threw him onto a lamppost, and he died from his injuries. Naturally, there were versions of the murder. But, as far as I know, these versions have not been confirmed. In general, in the era of perestroika and the perestroika period, there was such a tendency that one of my sons calls "everyone was killed." As if a person could not commit suicide of his own free will, like Mayakovsky and Yesenin, for example. They were bound to be killed. The same goes for Camo.
S.BUNTMAN: But the fact that Kamo was killed was said before. People who knew Kamo well talked about it a lot. I know that Ter-Petrosyan was known in our family, and I know this story since childhood, my grandmother told about it.
S.BUDNITSKY: There were and are a lot of 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 robbery past. By the way, Lenin called Kamo the "Caucasian robber." You know, in the 20s this was not considered a negative thing, it was valor. And in the 1920s, if we read literature, people quite calmly wrote about participation in terrorist attacks, about participation in exes. There was a struggle for the right to be a regicide, how many people claimed that it was they who shot the emperor or the heir. It then became a shame to be so. And Stalin's phrase - "If we educate people on the example of Narodnaya Volya, then we will educate terrorists" - was caused by the fact that on the table of Leonid Nikolaev, the murderer of Kirov, they found a portrait of Andrei Zhelyabov, the leader of Narodnaya Volya. And organizational conclusions followed, the society of "Former convicts and exiled settlers" was closed. The journal Katorga and Exile was closed, populism was declared the worst enemy of Marxism, and terrorism, naturally, was condemned in every possible way. From a method of revolutionary struggle, a legitimate one, it became taboo, it was condemned, and the Bolsheviks, as it were, were considered to have nothing to do with either terrorism or exes. And then it disappears from literature.
S. BUNTMAN: And how much was Kirov's murder a lone murder, or was it organized?
S.BUDNITSKY: You ask me eternal questions. You know, I'm generally a skeptic about conspiracy theories. Kirov was a work of Stalin, he was a faithful comrade-in-arms, a man whom Stalin made what he became. Of course, it is difficult to get into Stalin's head, but I see no point in organizing the murder of the person who served him faithfully. What for? There must be some rational motive behind such actions. Stalin was not a madman, and such a version was also mad.
S. BUNTMAN: But not without obsessions.
S.BUDNITSKY: But in the medical sense, no. And in the actions of Stalin, a certain logic is usually traced; I don’t see the logic in the murder of Kirov. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know.
S. BUNTMAN: Maybe. Perhaps this was due to the need for another purge that followed to show the 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 Okhrana, what do you know?
S.BUDNITSKY: Gapon was undoubtedly an agent of the Okhrana, although at times he got out of its 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. canalize it so that the workers deal with economic problems, not political ones. By the way, it is curious that in 905 the commission created on the labor issue, the state one of its recommendations, was to allow strikes and strikes, since the government understood that strikes for economic reasons distract workers from the political struggle. When there is no other way to resolve the contradictions, they can contact the revolutionaries and succumb to this most revolutionary propaganda. Gapon was one of these characters, who was counted on to distract the workers from the political struggle and direct them to the right path. At some stage, it turned out that Gapon got out of control, and the elements of this labor movement of January 1905, apparently, captured him too. And when he walked at the head of the column to the Winter Palace, he, of course, walked not as an agent provocateur, but as a spokesman, as it seemed to him, of the interests of these same masses. After the execution, Gapon became the most popular person in Russia, in any case, in a revolutionary environment. Lenin, Plekhanov, and God knows who everyone wanted to have Gapon as a banner in their ranks sought and met with him. But it ended very quickly. Gapon turned out to be a person who was very poorly politically prepared, the huge money that flowed to him from different sides, donations quickly ran out, and Gapon again contacted the guards, in particular, met with Rachkovsky, who returned to the service again, with General Gerasimov, 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 same engineer, Socialist-Revolutionary, who pulled him out from under the bullets on January 9 and took him abroad, into these affairs, it ended with Gapon being hanged in a dacha in Ozerki near St. Petersburg, where he was discovered a month later .
S. BUNTMAN: Dmitry asks: “The secret police was behind the murder of Grand Duke Sergei, as well as behind the murder of Plehve?”
S.BUDNITSKY: Neither the murder of Plehve 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, at that time was an agent of the Okhrana, does not mean that he acted at the time of the organization of the murder as a representative of this very Okhrana. Azef wagged, and if all his assassination attempts ended unsuccessfully, then his life could end very quickly. That's why he played both sides. This, of course, is a very condensed answer, and Azef is a much more complex figure, but, nevertheless, there is no doubt that it was not the Okhrana 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?” Viktor asks
S.BUDNITSKY: There were the concepts of "stuffers" - those who from time to time gave information. There were the concepts of “informants” who covered from the outside, but there were employees. Collaborator and agent are essentially the same, these are people who were infiltrated into revolutionary organizations, or who were recruited already as revolutionaries, or, being collaborators, became part of revolutionary organizations. Azef, by the way, was such an initiative, who at one time offered his services to the police in writing. In general, the personality is fantastic, and he began his career by selling a barrel of oil, which he was given on a commission, and fled abroad, where he studied at the polytechnic school 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 dubious. He was calculated. There were some kind of professionals, they understood who it was, and answered him with his own name, and not with the pseudonym with which he offered his services, demonstrating that everyone knows and they will get him everywhere. At first he was offered 50 rubles a month, and Azef gradually rose to the ranks of considerable rank, at one time he was a member of the Central Committee, and was the head of a military organization, and received a salary at 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: Two more topics that open the door for us to the next program, apparently Elena asks us to talk about the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. I think we will do it next time. And a special request from Valery "Tell about the activities of the Okhrana agent Manusevich-Manuilov, who worked in Paris on counterintelligence 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 Not So program, jointly with the Knowledge-Power magazine, we will go to the archives again in a week. Thanks a lot.
Okhranka, Okhrana, women. (colloquial). The colloquial name of the Security Department; see guard. Royal guard. Security agent. Security officer. || trans. Similar institution in other countries. Berlin guard. Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov. D.N.… … Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
Iosif Iremashvili (Georgian იოსებ ირემაშვილი, German Iosseb Iremaschwili; 1878 (1878) 1944) Georgian politician and memoirist, famous for his book of memoirs about the childhood and youth of I. V. Stalin. Contents 1 Biography ... Wikipedia
And, well. unfold Security department. Royal guard. □ 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 various forms in the course of history from religious and psychological prejudice and segregation (See Segregation), ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Noy Nikolaevich (pseudo-Kostrov, George, A.N.) (1870 1953) social democrat, leader of the cargo. Mensheviks. From 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 dashi group. Being arrested... Soviet historical encyclopedia
provocateur, provocateur, husband. (lat. provocator, caller, motivator). 1. A secret agent of a political investigation or, in general, of some kind of enemy organization, using provocation. “The tsarist government used the defeat of the revolution to ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
SPY, spy, spy, incompetent. Engage in espionage, detective, surveillance, tracking. "The vile Judas provocateurs, whom the tsarist secret police sent into workers' and party organizations, spied from within and betrayed the revolutionaries." History of the CPSU (b) ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov
Perhaps this article or section needs to be shortened. Reduce the amount of text in accordance with the recommendations of the rules on the balance of presentation and the size of articles. More information may be on the talk page ... Wikipedia
This term has other meanings, see Rosa Luxembourg. Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg ... Wikipedia
Sympathetic (invisible) ink is an ink whose writings are initially invisible and become visible only under certain conditions (heat, lighting, chemical developer, etc.). One of the most ... ... Wikipedia
Books
- Great Stolypin. Not Great Upheavals, But Great Russia (Deluxe Edition), Sergey Stepanov. A deluxe edition bound in leather with gold embossing, three-sided dyed trim and silk lace. The book contains a certificate certifying that this book is…
- Revolution 2. Book 2. Beginning, A Salnikov. 1916 The Russian Empire, exhausted by the war, is on the verge of new upheavals. English Guardians and Petrograd Freemasons, British intelligence and the royal secret police - the outcome of the war depends on these forces ...
The security department appeared in Russia in the 1860s, when a wave of political terror swept the country. Gradually, the tsarist secret police turned into a secret organization, whose employees, in addition to fighting the revolutionaries, solved their own private tasks.
Special agency
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 filers - "surveillance agents" and informers - "auxiliary agents".
On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 fillers. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were deployed daily in both capitals.
There was a rather strict selection in place of the filler. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persevering, cautious." 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 porters, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district warden who worked with them.
Unlike fillers, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be “substantial and useful,” they were given a reward from 1 to 15 rubles.
Sometimes they were paid with things. So, Major General Alexander Spiridovich recalled how he bought new galoshes for one of the informants. “And then he failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. This is what the galoshes did,” the officer wrote.
Perlustrators
There were people in the detective police who did a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perusal. Baron Alexander Benckendorff introduced this tradition even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful thing." 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, Kyiv, 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 cabinets" had their own specifics. According to the Russkoye Slovo newspaper of April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in reading letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.
According to data for 1913, 372,000 letters were opened and 35,000 extracts were made. Such labor productivity is astonishing, considering that the staff of illustrators was only 50 people, who were joined by 30 postal workers.
It was quite a long and laborious work. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.
Yours among strangers
For more effective work of the security department, the Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents" that infiltrate various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities. According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to "suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disillusioned or offended by the party."
Payments for secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on the status and benefits. The Okhrana encouraged their agents to move up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.
With great caution, the police treated those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve as the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As a circular from the Police Department shows, during 1912 the Okhrana refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy." For example, the exiled settler Feldman recruited by the secret police, when asked about the reason for giving false information, answered that he was without any means of subsistence and went on perjury for the sake of reward.
Provocateurs
The activities of the 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 reported the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to detain the suspects. According to the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised 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." The sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs Dulles compared with the characters of Dostoevsky.
The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef - both 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 Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Minister of the Interior Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1,000 rubles. per month.
A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "comrade-in-arms" Roman Malinovsky. The Okhrana agent regularly helped the police to locate underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and conspiratorial meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in the betrayal of his comrade. In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, moreover, as a member of the Bolshevik faction.
Strange inactivity
The activities of the secret police were connected with events that left an ambiguous judgment 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 a secret informer of the Okhrana, Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots point-blank. Moreover, at that moment, neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family were nearby, who, according to the plan of events, were supposed to be with the minister
.
On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kyiv security department Nikolai Kulyabko were involved in 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. Many facts point to this. First of all, the suspiciously easily experienced Okhrana officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Social Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to get into the theater building with a weapon in order to allegedly expose the alleged killer.
Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot 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: "They will kill me and the members of the guard will kill me."
Okhrana abroad
In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigre revolutionaries. And there was someone to follow: these were the leaders of the People's Will, 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 French civilians.
From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents defeated 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 Police Department, Plehve, received a report about Rachkovsky's dubious contacts, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check on the activities of the head of the foreign secret police. Silvestrov was killed, and soon the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was also found dead.
Moreover, Rachkovsky was suspected of involvement in the murder of Plehve himself. Despite compromising materials, high patrons from the environment of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.
