Tengliz Simashvili
This article was published by Police Academy
Publisher the Archival Bulletin, #14 (2013)
This one and other interesting articles about Stalin
are here - pages 72-99; 123-129
The Secret (Political) Police and Espionage
in the Russian Empire
From 1902-1903 the
Okhrana, the Tsarist secret (political) police force, was tasked with carrying
out “political inquiries”, or “combating political terrorism”, in large Russian
cities, including Tiflis (Tbilisi). Political crimes that were “exposed” were to
be transferred to the governorate gendarme (civilian police) administration for
further investigation.
The Okhrana departments
performed operative tasks throughout the Russian Empire by various means,
including using undercover agents. Their activities were governed by
instruction №120 “On the Management
and Organization of Secret-Service Agents”. The instructions consisted of five
chapters: 1. agents; 2. Recruiting agents; 3.a Managing agents; 4. The use of
safe house apartments; 5. The protection of recruited agents from exposure. [Central
Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), Fund.153, Description.1, Case.65,
Page.19]
The methods of
using agents were thoroughly described in these instructions, according to
which agents were tasked with infiltrating the revolutionary society in order
to get the evidence necessary for bringing cases against, judging, and sentencing
revolutionaries. In secret police circulars and other documents, agents were
referred to as “secret employees” and received a monthly salary.
The officials of
the police department of Tsarist Russia ordered the officers of the regional
Okhrana departments to draw the activists of revolutionary organizations and
political parties to their side. However, an agent could be not only the member
of political party, or revolutionary and terrorist organizations, but also any
person who was in a close relation with the members of such organization. Names
of every agent figured in the files of an appropriate party which were
preserved in the card-file of the Okhrana department.
When it is
written that anyone is an agent of the, e.g. about Dmitri Jashi, the gendarme
or Okhrana must provide concrete forms of: when he became an agent, and which force
organ he belonged to. According to the files of the Tbilisi Okhrana, between
1909 and 1911, Dmitri Jashi was an agent. He provided the department with
information about the Social-Federalist Party under the nickname of “Sluchaini”
(“Random”). [Central Historical Archive
of Georgia (CHAG), F.95, DES.1, C.19, P.1-16] Further, there is not any document in
the archives testifying that in 1907-1908 Dmitri Jashi was an agent of another
structure.
From 1905-1907,
the agents of the Okhrana department were mainly former revolutionaries. Secret
Service officers labeled the procedure of drawing employees from other
organizations to the Okhrana as an agent as “recruiting agent”. The political
police thought that the following persons corresponded to “recruiting agent”:
those weak persons who were under investigation and those against whom
incriminating materials had been found at the moment of their detention. Material
condition of every arrestee was carefully examined in order to attract the poor
with money and to recruit them.
The procedure of
“recruiting agent” was as follows: The representatives of prosecutor’s office
and court investigators questioned every person who was suspected of a
political crime, and prosecutors had incriminating evidences against the
suspects. Although he had already been mentally depressed, he was under even more
pressure due to the abuse he received until he confessed. After the confession
was received, the head of the regional Okhrana department was informed. The
latter who had already studied the target’s personal particulars, got into
contact with him. If necessary, further mental and physical abuse was used
against the arrestee until he was offered the following choice: he could go to
prison, jail, into exile and be hanged or he could be free and get a monthly
salary for his espionage activities.
The officers of
the Okhrana departments made every recruited person write a testimony wherein
he admitted everything that was relevant to the Okhrana. In the testimony he
denounced his co-party members, described their anti-state activities, and
expressed regret for his crime. After the agent had written repentance letter, he
was free from every accusation for the letter was a guarantee for the Okhrana that
could be used against the agent in case of need.
As for the
officers of the Okhrana departments, they took appropriate measures to
negotiate with a representative of the prosecutor’s office and court
investigator about having access to the witnesses’ examination protocols or
other materials of the investigation. Those materials could be used against the
agent at the trial, and he could be imprisoned for his espionage activities.
The accomplices of the agent were not arrested, and those who had been arrested
had been assisted in escaping prison. Sometimes the other prisoners were also
released along with the agent to ensure that the revolutionaries would not to
suspect a released agent. [Pavlov, P. “Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners’’
Petrograd 1922, ะป. 35(on Russian)]
After the
officers of the Okhrana received confirmation that information about the
agent’s activities was not exposed and that he was not suspected by the
revolutionaries, the agent was listed among the Okhrana’s party agents. Gradually,
the agent started to provide Okhrana with relevant information.
An agent was subordinated
to one of the officers of the Okhrana department who was labeled as the agent’s
chief. The chief was responsible for giving the agent a nickname which must not
have been associated with the agent’s name, surname, appearance or his father’s
name. In 1908 the local secret police organs were warned that nicknames should
not provide any information about the agent’s gender. The nickname could be any
word and number as follows: “Ivan-Priezzhi”, “Sluchaini”, “Ulichni”, “Dvarianini”,
“Vazhni”, “225” and others. [Central
Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), F.95, DES.1, C.18, P.97] The officers
of the Okhrana department mentioned the agents’ nicknames in their
correspondence. In 1908-1910 Dmitri Jashi’s chief officer was head of the
Tbilisi Okhrana A. V. Karaulov who ruled about fifteen agents from regional
organizations of revolutionary parties in a month. [Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), F.153, DES.1, C.98,
P.44]
The agents gave
secret information only to their chief officers. They met each other only in
crypto-apartments. The chief officers wrote down the information, and later,
wrote a summary of the in a special journal entitled “Extracts from espionage
information”.
The officers of
the Okhrana made footnotes to the “Espionage extracts”. It seems as though the
officers processed the information provided by the agents, collected different
information, compared different facts and checked them with the help of “Fileurs”
(police agents). [Central Historical Archive of
Georgia(CHAG), F.153, DES.1, C.37, P.477] The analysis of the agents’ reports show that
some of them knew methods of operative quest in order to gather information.
The agents of
the Tbilisi Okhrana had different salaries. There was following information on
the payroll: nickname of the agent, the name of the party the agent provided
the information about, the date when the agent started to work in the Okhrana
and the amount of monthly salary. (salary ranged between 30 and 100 rubles) [Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), F.153, DES.1,
C.37, P.478]
Vladimer Beridze, and agent in the Social Democrat party, also known as
“Ulichni” took the highest salary of 105 rubles a month.
It is important
to know that in 1908, the Bolshevik Vladimir Beridze was drawn to the Okhrana’s
side as an agent by the head of the Tbilisi Okhrana – A. Karaulov.
I examined many
interesting documents concerning that person in the Security Archive of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. According to the materials, in 1928,
Vladimir Beridze lived in the region of Dusheti. According to the head of
Dusheti regional militia,since 1921 he held different posts including, from 1924-1925
he was secretary of Dusheti militia administration and “he showed devotion and
love to Soviet authority”.
However, in 1928
based on an anonymous message, V. Beridze was arrested for being a former agent
of the Okhrana. [The Archive of the
Ministry of Internal Affairs (Security Archive), fond 6, op. 1, case 2873, box
17] According to the archive
documents, V. Beridze had been an activist of the Social Democratic Party (Bolsheviks)
since 1904. Several times he was elected a committee member of one of the
Tbilisi districts, and he was a head of party group of 24 members. At the
beginning of 1908, V. Beridze was ordered to keep an eye on the head of the
Tbilisi Okhrana department, A. Karaulov, in order to find out which the
crypto-apartments he had used. The revolutionaries wanted to expose those
agents of the Okhrana who had contacts with A. Karaulov. The employees of the
Okhrana paid attention to the activity of V. Beridze and arrested him. For a
while, he was in prison where he was drawn to the head of the Tbilisi Okhrana
department A. Karaulov. Based on the information that had been provided by V. Beridze
(who had been promoted hierarchically in revolutionary organization), many
leading members of the regional committee of the Social Democratic Party were
arrested by the Okhrana.
Having analyzed
practices of agents of the regional tsarist secret police, the following fact
became clear: during the revolution of 1905-1907, regional departments of the
Okhrana used several methods of administering the agents.
It is noteworthy
that from 1905-1906 the officers of the Okhrana were demanded to be satisfied
with a passive activity of agents in the revolutionary organizations. Their
obligation was to provide the officers solely with information. Only in 1907,
when the revolutionary movement started to slow down, the secret police changed
the tactic of using agents. The police department tried to handle the
revolutionary organizations through the help of agents. According to a special
circular, which was passed around by the police department, the head of the
Okhrana departments were to “make use of this transitional period and push the
secret employees (agents) toward the center of the organization”.
The initiator of
this new method was the head of the St. Petersburg Okhrana department, General
Ivan Gerasimov. He thought that the detention of the revolutionaries, based on
the information provided by the agents, was not profitable enough for them, and
used the agents to study and analyze the activities of the revolutionary
organization. Afterwards, he waited for a convenient time to arrest the leaders
of these organizations; thus, liquidating the whole organization.
The head of the
Tbilisi Okhrana, Lieutenant Colonel A. Karaulov used the same method in order
to hinder the activities of the revolutionary parties in Georgia. Aforementioned
is testified by the analysis of Vladimir Beridze’s nickname, Ulichni, and agent
Sluchaini’s activities. Further, the information provided by D. Jashi testifies
that he was very well trained for espionage activities. [The Central Historical Archive of Georgia, fond 95, op. 1, case
42]
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