Okhranka
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, was a secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
force of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and part of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes
Special Corps of Gendarmes
The Special Corps of Gendarmes was the uniformed security police of the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main responsibilities were law enforcement and state security....
. It was created in 1880 to replace the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
The Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery was a secret department set up in Imperial Russia, inherited from Tayny Prikaz, Privy Chancellery and Specialty Chancellery, effectively serving as the Imperial regime's secret police for much of its existence. The organization was...
.
Overview
It was formed to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary activity. The Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire and in a number of foreign satellite agencies primarily concerned with monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, most notably in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where Pyotr Rachkovsky
Pyotr Rachkovsky
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky was chief of Okhrana, the secret service in Imperial Russia. He was based in Paris from March 1885 to November 1902.-Activities in 1880s-1890s:...
was based (1884–1902).
The task was performed by any means, including covert operations, undercover agents, and "perlustration" — reading of private correspondence. Even the Foreign Agency served this purpose. The Okhrana is notoriously known for its agents provocateur
Agent provocateur
Traditionally, an agent provocateur is a person employed by the police or other entity to act undercover to entice or provoke another person to commit an illegal act...
s, including Dr. Jacob Zhitomirsky
Jacob Zhitomirsky
Dr. Jacob Zhitomirsky was prominent Bolshevik best known for being a secret agent of the Okhrana.- Biography :...
(a leading Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
and close associate of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
), Yevno Azef, Roman Malinovsky
Roman Malinovsky
Roman Vaslavovich Malinovsky was a prominent Russian Bolshevik politician before the revolution, while at the same time working as the best paid agent for the Okhrana. They codenamed him 'Portnoi' ....
and Dmitry Bogrov
Dmitry Bogrov
Dmitry Grigoriyevich Bogrov was the assassin of the Russian Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin.Born Mordekhai Gershkovich Bogrov...
.
The Okhrana tried to compromise labour movement by creating police-run trade unions, the practice known as zubatovshchina
Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov
Sergei Vasilyevich Zubatov was a famous Russian police administrator. Despite rumors, he was never a Colonel in the Special Corps of Gendarmes...
. Of note is the Bloody Sunday event, when imperial guards killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during a demonstration organized by Father Gapon, who collaborated with the Okhrana, and Pyotr Rutenberg
Pinhas Rutenberg
Pinhas Rutenberg was a prominent engineer and a businessman, a Russian socialist and a Zionist leader. He played an active role in two Russian revolutions, in 1905 and 1917. During World War I, he was among the founders of the Jewish Legion and of the American Jewish Congress...
.
Other controversial activities included fabrication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fraudulent, antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination. It was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the twentieth century...
hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
(many historians maintain that Matvei Golovinski
Matvei Golovinski
Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying the Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work...
, a writer and Okhrana agent, compiled the first edition on the instructions of Pyotr Rachkovsky
Pyotr Rachkovsky
Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky was chief of Okhrana, the secret service in Imperial Russia. He was based in Paris from March 1885 to November 1902.-Activities in 1880s-1890s:...
) and fabrication of the antisemitic
History of anti-Semitism
The history of antisemitism – defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group – goes back many centuries; antisemitism has been called "the longest hatred." Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of...
Beilis trial
Menahem Mendel Beilis
Menahem Mendel Beilis, 1874 – July 7, 1934, was a Ukrainian Jew accused of ritual murder in Kiev in the Russian Empire in a notorious 1913 trial, known as the "Beilis trial" or "Beilis affair". The process sparked international criticism of the antisemitic policies of the Russian Empire...
.
Suspects captured by the Okhrana were passed to the Russian judicial system.
The Okhrana never got more than 10% of the police budget, the most it ever got was five million rubles in 1914.
History
The first special security department was Department on Protecting the Order and Public Peace under the Head of St. PetersburgSaint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, created in 1866 after a failed assassination attempt on Alexander II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
, with a staff of 12 investigators. Its street address, Fontanka, 16, was known in the Russian Empire. After another failed attempt, on August 6, 1880 the Emperor, under proposals of Count Loris-Melikov, created the Department of State Police under Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and transferred both Special Corps of Gendarmes
Special Corps of Gendarmes
The Special Corps of Gendarmes was the uniformed security police of the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Its main responsibilities were law enforcement and state security....
and Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery or H.I.M. Own Chancery began as personal chancery of Pavel I and grew into a kind of regent's office, run by Count Arakcheyev from 1815 and until the death of Alexander I of Russia....
to the new body; the Chief of Gendarmes was merged with the Minister and Commander of the Corps was assigned Deputy of the Minister. Still, these measures did not prevent the assassination of Alexander II.
In an attempt to implement preventive security measures, Emperor Alexander III
Alexander III of Russia
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...
immediately created two more Security and Investigation (охранно-розыскные) secret police stations, supervised by Gendarme officers, in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
; they became the basis of the later Okhrana. The Gendarmes still operated as security police in the rest of the country through their Gubernial
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
and Uyezd
Uyezd
Uyezd or uezd was an administrative subdivision of Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire, and the early Russian SFSR which was in use from the 13th century. Uyezds for most of the history in Russia were a secondary-level of administrative division...
Directorates. The Tsar also created Special Conference under the MVD (1881), which had the right to declare a State of Emergency Security in various parts of the Empire (which was actively used in the time of 1905's Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
), and subordinated all of the imperial police forces to the Commander of the Gendarmes (1882).
The rise of the socialist movements called for integration of security forces. Since 1898, the Special Section (Особый отдел) of the Department of Police succeeded the Gendarmes in gaining information from domestic and foreign agents and "perlustration". Following the Socialist-Revolutionary Party
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
's assassination of MVD Minister Dmitry Sipyagin on April 2, 1902, the new Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve
Vyacheslav von Plehve
Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve , also Pléhve, or Pleve was the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior.- Biography :...
gradually relieved Directorates of Gendarmes of investigation power in favor of Security and Investigation Stations (Охранно-розыскное отделение) under respective Mayors and Governors (who as a matter of fact were subordinate to the MVD Minister).
Following the outbreak of the 1905 Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
and assassination of Plehve
Vyacheslav von Plehve
Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve , also Pléhve, or Pleve was the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior.- Biography :...
, Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin served as the leader of the 3rd DUMA—from 1906 to 1911. His tenure was marked by efforts to repress revolutionary groups, as well as for the institution of noteworthy agrarian reforms. Stolypin hoped, through his reforms, to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of...
, as the new MVD Minister and Chairman of the Council of Ministers, created of nation-wide net of Security Stations. By 1908, there were 31 Stations and more than 60 by 1911. Two more Special Sections of the Department of Police were organized in 1906. The centralized Security Section of the Department of Police was created on February 9, 1907; it was located on 16, Fontanka, St. Petersburg.
The exposure of Yevno Azef (who had organized many assassinations, including that of Plehve
Vyacheslav von Plehve
Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve , also Pléhve, or Pleve was the director of Imperial Russia's police and later Minister of the Interior.- Biography :...
) and Dmitri Bogrov (who assassinated Stolypin
Pyotr Stolypin
Pyotr Arkadyevich Stolypin served as the leader of the 3rd DUMA—from 1906 to 1911. His tenure was marked by efforts to repress revolutionary groups, as well as for the institution of noteworthy agrarian reforms. Stolypin hoped, through his reforms, to stem peasant unrest by creating a class of...
in 1911) as Okhrana double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
s put the agency's methods under great suspicion; they were further compromised by the discovery of many similar double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
s-provocateur. In Autumn 1913, all of the Security Stations but original Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw were dismissed. The start of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
marked a shift from anti-revolutionary activities of the Department of Police to counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
; however, the efforts of the Department were poorly synchronised with counter-intelligence units of the General Staff and the Army.
The organization was officially dissolved after the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
of 1917.
Use of torture
Some historians have claimed that despite the reforms in the early 19th century, the practice of tortureTorture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
was never truly abolished. It has been argued that the creation of Okhrana led to increasing use of torture, due to the Okhrana using methods such as arbitrary arrest, detention and torture to gain information. Following the revolution, communists claimed the Okhrana had operated torture chambers in places like Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
, Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
and in a majority of the urban centres.
See also
- Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own ChancelleryThird Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own ChancelleryThe Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery was a secret department set up in Imperial Russia, inherited from Tayny Prikaz, Privy Chancellery and Specialty Chancellery, effectively serving as the Imperial regime's secret police for much of its existence. The organization was...
- Ministry of Police of Imperial RussiaMinistry of Police of Imperial RussiaMinistry of Police of Imperial Russia was created in the course of Government reform of Alexander I in 1810 and existed till 1819.-Ministry objectives and credentials:* Carrying out recruitment in the Army;* Protection of the state stocks of the foodstuffs;...
- OprichnikOprichnikAn oprichnik was a member of an organization established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern the division of Russia known as the Oprichnina ....
s, a force invested with special policing privileges that spread terror under tsar Ivan the Terrible and might be seen as a forerunner of secret services in Russia.
External links
- Paris Operations of the Russian Imperial Police
- Official history of the MVD of Russia: 1857–1879 1880–1904 1905–1916 (in Russian)
- Okhrana in Spartacus Educational Encyclopedia
- Okhrana: The Paris Operations of the Russian Imperial Police