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 private problems...

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 effective system surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included spies - “surveillance agents” 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 every day in both capitals from 50 to 100 surveillance agents went to work.

There was a fairly strict selection process for the filler position. The candidate had to be “honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, enduring, patient, persistent, careful.” They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.

Informers were hired mostly from among doormen, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious persons to the local supervisor working with them.

Unlike spies, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that turned out to be “substantial and useful” upon verification, 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 failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. That’s what the galoshes did,” 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 Benckendorf 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 offices”, created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The secrecy 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 " Russian word"for April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in illustrating letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made. Such labor productivity is amazing, considering that the staff of clarifiers was only 50 people, joined by 30 postal workers.

It was quite a long and labor-intensive job. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, or exposed to acids or alkalis to reveal the hidden text. And only then were the suspicious letters forwarded to the investigative authorities.

Friends among strangers

For more efficient work security department The Police Department has created an extensive network of “internal agents” that penetrate into various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities.

According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to “those suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disappointed or offended by the party.”

Payment for secret agents varied from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on their status and the benefits they brought. The Okhrana encouraged the advancement of its agents up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting party members of higher ranks.

Okhrana (until 1903 it was called the “Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order”), a local body of political investigation in pre-revolutionary Russia, subordinate to the Police Department. The main task of the security departments was to search for revolutionary organizations and individual revolutionaries. Security departments had an extensive special agency of both “external surveillance” - spies, and secret agents (passive informants and active participants in the activities of revolutionary organizations - provocateurs).

The police treated with great caution those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve in protecting public order, since there were many random people in their midst. As a Police Department circular shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people “as untrustworthy.”

For example, 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 support and committed perjury for the sake of reward.

Provocateurs

The activities of recruited agents were not limited to espionage and transmitting 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 CIA founder 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.” Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs to the characters of Dostoevsky.

Yevno Fishelevich Azef is a Russian revolutionary provocateur, one of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and, at the same time, a Secret Officer of the Police Department.

The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef, who is 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 Internal Affairs Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1000 rubles. per month.

Lenin’s “comrade-in-arms” Roman Malinovsky became a very successful provocateur. An secret police agent regularly helped the police identify the location of underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade’s betrayal.

In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to State Duma, and as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inaction

There were events associated with the activities of the secret police that left an ambiguous judgment about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin.

September 1, 1911 in Kiev opera house anarchist and secret informant for the secret police Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots at point-blank range. Moreover, at that moment neither Nicholas II nor the members were nearby. royal family, who, according to the action plan, were supposed to be with the minister.

In connection with the murder, the head of the Palace Guard, Alexander Spiridovich, and the head of the Kyiv security department, Nikolai Kulyabko, were brought into the investigation. However, on instructions from 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. There are many facts that indicate this. First of all, it was suspiciously easy for experienced secret police officers to believe 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 for the imaginary exposure of the alleged murderer.

The case of Stolypin's killer - secret agent of the Kyiv security department Dmitry Bogrov.

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: “I will be killed and killed by members of the security.”

Security abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigrant revolutionaries. And there was someone to keep an eye on: 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 were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large People's Will printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky is a Russian police administrator, head of foreign intelligence, organizer of political investigation in Russia.

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 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 circle of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.

Secret police Russian Empire

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 private problems...

Special agents

One of the most important roles in the tsarist secret police was played by the so-called special agents, whose discreet work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included spies - “surveillance agents” 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 every day in both capitals from 50 to 100 surveillance agents went to work.

There was a fairly strict selection process for the filler position. The candidate had to be “honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, enduring, patient, persistent, careful.” They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.

Informers were hired mostly from among doormen, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious persons to the local supervisor working with them.

Unlike spies, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that turned out to be “substantial and useful” upon verification, 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 failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. That’s what the galoshes did,” 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 Benckendorf 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 offices”, created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The secrecy 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 illustrating letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made. Such labor productivity is amazing, considering that the staff of clarifiers was only 50 people, joined by 30 postal workers.

Friends among strangers

To make the security department work more efficiently, the Police Department created an extensive network of “internal agents” that penetrate into various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities.

According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to “those suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disappointed or offended by the party.”

Payment for secret agents varied from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on their status and the benefits they brought. The Okhrana encouraged the advancement of its agents up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting party members of higher ranks.

Okhrana (until 1903 it was called the “Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order”), a local body of political investigation in pre-revolutionary Russia, subordinate to the Police Department. The main task of the security departments was to search for revolutionary organizations and individual revolutionaries. The security departments had an extensive special agency of both “external surveillance” - spies, and secret agents (passive informants and active participants in the activities of revolutionary organizations - provocateurs).

The police treated with great caution those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve in protecting public order, since there were many random people in their midst. As a Police Department circular shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people “as untrustworthy.”

For example, 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 support and committed perjury for the sake of reward.

Provocateurs

The activities of recruited agents were not limited to espionage and transmitting 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 CIA founder 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”. Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs to the characters of Dostoevsky.

Yevno Fishelevich Azef is a Russian revolutionary provocateur, one of the leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party and, at the same time, a Secret Officer of the Police Department.

The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef, who is 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 Internal Affairs Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1000 rubles. per month.

Lenin’s “comrade-in-arms” Roman Malinovsky became a very successful provocateur. An secret police agent regularly helped the police identify the location of underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade’s betrayal.

In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, and as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inaction

There were events associated with the activities of the secret police 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, the anarchist and secret informant of the secret police Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, fatally wounded Stolypin with two shots at point-blank range. 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.

In connection with the murder, the head of the Palace Guard, Alexander Spiridovich, and the head of the Kyiv security department, Nikolai Kulyabko, were brought into the investigation. However, on instructions from 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. There are many facts that indicate this. First of all, it was suspiciously easy for experienced secret police officers to believe 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 for the imaginary exposure of the alleged murderer.

The case of Stolypin's killer - secret agent of the Kyiv security department Dmitry Bogrov.

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: “I will be killed and killed by members of the security.”

Security abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigrant revolutionaries. And there was someone 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 were the heydays of its activities. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large People's Will printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky is a Russian police administrator, head of foreign intelligence, organizer of political investigation in Russia.

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 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 circle of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.

Taras Repin

In 2017, the history of the police exchanged its second century. November 10, 1917 People's Commissariat Internal Affairs of the RSFSR, under the leadership of Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, adopted the resolution “On the Workers’ Militia.” This decree served as the legal basis for the creation of the police as a law enforcement agency. Subsequently, November 10 became an official holiday - Police Day.

In fact, the history of the police goes deep into the past. The first predecessors of modern law enforcement agencies appeared back in the days Ancient Rus'. The creation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was still a long way off, but criminals undoubtedly always existed, as did those who fought them.

Alfia Alkinskaya, deputy head of the Central Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, gave us an excursion into the history of law enforcement agencies, including the police and criminal investigation. Read below about what the first Russian detectives were called, why they were executed with molten metal in Rus', which of the kings invented the peasant police, and what the word “militia” means.

“Murder “in robbery” was considered more serious than “at a feast””

The very terms “police”, “detective” and everything associated with them seem to us to be something relatively modern. But the history of law enforcement agencies in our country goes back hundreds of years! Alfiya Aminovna, tell us, when did we have the first semblance of a modern criminal investigation?

The emergence of detective service as a police service actually occurred in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century its legislative and legal registration began. But before this, domestic detective work had come a long way, almost a millennium long. The very first Russian code of laws was called “Russian Truth”. It appeared during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise and operated until the end of the 15th century. This was the first system of laws of the Rurik dynasty.

- What were the people who caught criminals called in those days? And what exactly were they caught for?

At that time, crimes directed against private individuals were mainly known, so in written documents they were designated by the word “offense.” And the word “search” itself obviously comes from the Old Russian verb “iskat” (“to search”). After a crime was committed somewhere, it was publicly announced in some public place, for example, in a market square (“at the auction”). And this procedure itself was called “zaklich” - in fact, it was the first stage of the ancient Russian judicial process. Later, the term “massive search” will appear in legislative documents - interviewing all witnesses to establish involvement in a crime. Torture in those days was called experience, and thieves and other criminals - tatami. In that era, the head of justice was the prince, and everyone was tried at the princely court.

- What were the names of those who were involved in the search for criminals?

The prince entrusted these powers tiunam. Those who investigated criminal cases were called virnikami.

- How was the punishment determined?

Punishments varied, even for the same crime. Historians argue that it depended on how great the role of the criminal's evil will was.

- That is, malicious intent?

Absolutely right. Thus, premeditated murder “in robbery” was considered more serious, more serious than, say, “at a feast”, where the participants, heated by drinks, used to get into a fight. It was believed that in this case it happened through negligence, without malicious intent and in a state of excitement. It took a long time before the attitude towards crime changed and it began to be perceived as a phenomenon that harms the whole society, and not just the victim.

“At every step you could meet a man with a cut off ear”

- Punishments, presumably, were much more severe and cruel than now?

During the reign of Ivan III, during which the first Sudebnik was created (1497), people were often branded, their limbs were cut off - this is how criminals were recorded. Therefore, in Muscovite Rus', at every step one could stumble upon a person with a cut off ear, nose, and no tongue. This way the offenders could be easily identified in the crowd. Branding was abolished only in the 19th century.

- Ordinary people believe that the most severe punishments were in the era. Is this true?

Ivan Vasilyevich, on the one hand, grew up on cruelty. On the other hand, he was a richly gifted man, well educated. He did not tolerate bribe-takers, drunkards and flatterers. But his desire to create the most fair legislative system was simply unbridled. It was often expressed in cruelty, including with the help. In 1550, Grozny adopted a new code of law, consisting of 100 articles. It contained new norms of criminal law. By the way, it was under Grozny that a state system for combating criminal crime began to take shape in our country. So-called orders appeared - central government bodies.

- And what crimes were considered the most terrible and were punished most severely?

First, crimes against the church, then against the state and the order of government, and only then - against the individual. Death penalty was provided in 30 cases. They executed in different ways: by hanging, beheading, burning, burying alive in the ground... They even practiced pouring metal into the throat - this is how counterfeiters were punished. Such was the age, and such, as they say, were the morals.

“The police were jokingly called “Arkharovites””

What has changed since you came to power? In history, he was known as an innovative king. Perhaps his reforms also affected the judicial system?

Of course, his reign brought many changes to Russian legislation. First of all, Peter I formed the administrative system. This was a special class of officials who controlled all spheres of life and activity of society. In 1718, the Office of the Chief of Police appeared in St. Petersburg. It was headed by the Tsar's personal orderly and favorite, former sea cabin boy Anton Devier. Police and military personnel were recruited to serve in the office. Later, since there were not enough personnel, on-duty assistants were assigned from each yard to help the police. It should be noted that under Peter the police were only in the capital. And already during the reign of Catherine II, law enforcement officers appeared in other Russian cities. In 1775, she created a rural police force consisting of peasants and rural residents. By the way, although Catherine was a supporter of European values, she did not cancel the branding.

- Today we are well aware of the names of great legislators, but have the names of famous detectives reached us?

Of course, since ancient times. For example, the names of some of the boyars who led the orders are known. Thus, in the Belozersk provincial charter the name of the head of the Robbery Prikaz “boyar Ivan Danilovich Penkov and his comrades” is mentioned. When the Time of Troubles ended, the people elected the “Council of the Whole Earth.” This provisional government also included the Robbery Order. After the end of the Time of Troubles, one of its leaders became the Russian national hero. In the era of Catherine II, there were also many wonderful detectives. Thanks to one of them, the famous term “Arkharovets” even appeared.

- This means “hooligan”, “fraudster”. What do detectives have to do with it?

In the old days, police agents were called this jokingly. The word arose thanks to the Chief of Police of Moscow Nikolai Petrovich Arkharov. He was a very clever detective: he had a living logical thinking and loved to unravel complex cases. His assistant is also known - the famous Moscow detective Maxim Ivanovich Schwartz.

N.P. Arkharov

- When did the Ministry of Internal Affairs appear in Russia?

Its founder was already Alexander I. The creation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was one of his innovations. The emperor entrusted the leadership of the new department to his close friend and ally in reform policy V.P. Kochubey. Subsequently, the ministry was led by many outstanding individuals, but the issue of creating an independent criminal investigation service within the ministry remained unresolved for a long time. This happened only after the peasant reform of 1861. It was a time of great reforms in Russia, within the framework of which educational, financial, military and judicial reforms successfully fit into the framework. In the context of judicial reform, the prosecutorial power was separated from the judicial power.

- How did this affect the police?

Investigative functions were removed from the competence of the police. This narrowing of its activities was due to the ineptitude of the police in investigative practice, the reason for which was the absence of an independent detective service in the operational structure.

“Dzerzhinsky brought rations and uniforms to the police”

The revolution turned life in the country upside down and, of course, had to affect the criminal investigation. What changed with the Bolsheviks coming to power?

The fate of police officers after 1917 was quite dramatic. Many had to emigrate. This is what, for example, the head of the detective service of Moscow and the Russian Empire, Arkady Frantsevich Koshko, did. He invested so much love, energy and strength into his profession, but in the end he became an exile of his homeland. And in general, an incredibly high wave of revolutionary terror affected many representatives of the department. Koshko's fate was still better than that of many others. Let us remember about Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was killed by terrorists, and the Ministers of Internal Affairs von Plehwe or Sipyagin. The fate of Sergei Alexandrovich’s adjutant, General Dzhunkovsky, who was appointed Moscow governor after the death of the Grand Duke, was also terrible. He was Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and during the First World War he commanded an army corps. After the October Revolution, he was transferred from one prison to another, and in 1937 he was shot.

- How was the fight against criminals carried out in Soviet Russia?

After the revolution, the new crime-fighting apparatus became known as the NKVD. It was led by such famous people as Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. He certainly made a significant contribution to the development of our department. With his direct participation, the most important regulations for that time were developed. For example, on April 3, 1919, the Council of People's Commissars decree “On the Soviet Workers' and Peasants' Militia” was adopted. However, it is worth noting that this document was developed even before Dzerzhinsky, but significant changes in the life of the police began to occur when he was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. Thus, the maintenance of the police was now carried out according to the estimates of the NKVD (that is, it was transferred to the state budget), which meant a new structure - the final subordination of the police to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Personnel was now provided with rear rations and uniforms. In addition, having headed the NKVD, Dzerzhinsky, with his iron will, managed to educate there the people he needed for the “cause of revolution”, on whom he wanted to rely in the NKVD.

""Police” - means “armed people”” »

- Where did this name “police” come from?

According to the decree “On the Workers' Militia,” which was adopted by the first People's Commissar Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, the police were not a regular body. In fact, these were armed formations of workers. Hence the name: the word “militia” means “armed people.” The resolution on the creation of the militia was adopted on November 10, 1917. This day subsequently began to be considered a professional holiday of the police - born of the revolution, as they began to talk about it. That's how it is, however. But the activities of these formations in conditions of class struggle, devastation, in the context of global and civil war and the aggravated criminal crisis very soon demonstrated its unviability. And the police became a professional body only on October 12, 1918, when the Instruction of the NKVD and the People’s Commissariat of Justice “On the organization of the Soviet workers’ and peasants’ militia” appeared.

You can approve or criticize the revolution in Russia indefinitely; everything here is very ambiguous. But if we talk specifically about law enforcement agencies, then what did this coup bring more - harm or good?

- Here, as you said, not everything is clear. An objective understanding of all facets of revolutionary events requires a sober and honest assessment. On the one hand, in the new country the new authorities did not need the previous personnel, including representatives of the law enforcement system. This was bitter by human standards and unwise and ineffective from an economic point of view. Indeed, in those years, in conditions of very high criminal tension, the issue of training new police and criminal investigation personnel urgently required immediate resolution. But modernization of personnel was impossible without trained specialists. However, along with the previous system of titles and awards, which were put under the knife immediately after the revolution, the entire previous composition of the police department was rejected. They got rid of the previous specialists in different ways, including by shooting representatives of security forces. On the other hand, the internal affairs bodies various reasons- often due to unemployment, often at the call of the heart - new people came. They learned the basics of fighting crime in a combat situation, during difficult events. They risked their lives and rejoiced at the successes of their comrades. They managed to defeat criminal banditry. They trained professionally together with the internal affairs bodies, helped create and form the main units and services of the police. They always had a hard time - a difficult financial situation always reigned in the NKVD and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But they survived, enduring all the troubles.

It is interesting that even after the police were renamed back to the police, many in our country continue to use the previous name. Apparently, it has become somehow familiar...

Yes, after all, the Soviet police marched along with people are not easy a path associated with all stages of the construction and development of a socialist state. The police have given our society many wonderful heroes and good specialists, which during the war and in peacetime demonstrated their best qualities, laid down, among other things, by their distant ancestors. And police veterans continue to do a lot of good today. Believe me, these are amazing examples of kindness and decency: they conduct scientific research, take part in military excavations to find the graves of soldiers of the Great Patriotic War who remained nameless in the land, establish the names of those buried, restore monuments, patronize orphanages and schools... In a word, they provide real help. Their knowledge and experience should fall on fertile ground. Where there is no place for ideology that turns them into unnecessary “former” people, as was the case 100 years ago. I think this time has a lot to teach us.

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 private problems.

Special agents

One of the most important roles in the tsarist secret police was played by the so-called special agents, whose discreet work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included spies - “surveillance agents” 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 every day in both capitals from 50 to 100 surveillance agents went to work.

There was a fairly strict selection process for the filler position. The candidate had to be “honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, enduring, patient, persistent, careful.” They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.

Informers were hired mostly from among doormen, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious persons to the local supervisor working with them.
Unlike spies, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that turned out to be “substantial and useful” upon verification, 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 failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. That’s what the galoshes did,” the officer wrote.

Perlustrators

There were people in the detective police who performed a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perlustration. This tradition, even before the creation of the security department, was introduced by Baron Alexander Benkendorf, who called it “a very useful thing.” The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.

“Black offices”, created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The secrecy 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 “Russkoye Slovo” for April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in illustrating letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made. Such labor productivity is amazing, considering that the staff of clarifiers was only 50 people, joined by 30 postal workers.
It was quite a long and labor-intensive job. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, or exposed to acids or alkalis to reveal the hidden text. And only then were the suspicious letters forwarded to the investigative authorities.

Friends among strangers

To make the security department work more efficiently, the Police Department created an extensive network of “internal agents” that penetrate into various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities. According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to “those suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disappointed or offended by the party.”
Payment for secret agents varied from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on their status and the benefits they brought. The Okhrana encouraged the advancement of its agents up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting party members of higher ranks.

The police treated with great caution those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve in protecting public order, since there were many random people in their midst. As a Police Department circular shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people “as untrustworthy.” For example, 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 support and committed perjury for the sake of reward.

Provocateurs

The activities of recruited agents were not limited to espionage and transmitting 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 CIA founder 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.” Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs to the characters of Dostoevsky.

The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef, who is 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 Internal Affairs Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1000 rubles. per month.

Lenin’s “comrade-in-arms” Roman Malinovsky became a very successful provocateur. An secret police agent regularly helped the police identify the location of underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade’s betrayal. In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, and as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inaction

There were events associated with the activities of the secret police 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, the anarchist and secret informant of the secret police Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, fatally wounded Stolypin with two shots at point-blank range. 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
.
In connection with the murder, the head of the Palace Guard, Alexander Spiridovich, and the head of the Kyiv security department, Nikolai Kulyabko, were brought into the investigation. However, on instructions from 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. There are many facts that indicate this. First of all, it was suspiciously easy for experienced secret police officers to believe 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 for the imaginary exposure of the alleged murderer.

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: “I will be killed and killed by members of the security.”

Security abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigrant revolutionaries. And there was someone to keep an eye on: 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 were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large People's Will 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 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 circle of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.

Taras Repin

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