Political (Secret) Police and Revolutionaries in Georgia, 1894–1908

 

 

Tengiz Simashvili

 

Political (Secret) Police and Revolutionaries in Georgia, 1894–1908

 

Methods and Techniques of Using Agents to Counter Terrorism

 

Tbilisi

2003

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CHAPTER I

The Origins of Political Police Institutions in the Russian Empire — 4

CHAPTER II

LOCAL BODIES OF THE POLITICAL POLICE IN GEORGIA, 1894–1900

§ 1. Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administrations in Georgia, 1894–1901 — 10

§ 2. Local Bodies of the Police Department, 1894–1901 — 17

§ 3. The Political Police against the Revolutionary and National Liberation Movements in Georgia, 1890–1901 — 20

CHAPTER III

The Political Situation in the Empire and the Political Police, 1902–1908

§ 1. Revolutionary Terror and the Establishment of Political Surveillance Agencies in the Russian Empire — 24

§ 2. The Establishment of the Okhrana Department in Georgia

Methods and Techniques of Using Secret Agents — 30

§ 3. Auxiliary Agents — 38

§ 4. Surveillance Agents — Fillery — 44

§ 5. Additional Methods of Obtaining Information — 50

§ 6. The Work of the Okhrana’s General Section — 55

CHAPTER IV

The General Police alongside the Local Authorities Responsible for Political Surveillance and Investigation — 58

CHAPTER V

The Local Administration and the Agencies Responsible for Political Surveillance and Investigation, 1894–1908 — 63

CHAPTER VI

The Tactics of the Political Police against the Revolutionary Movement, 1902–1908

§ 1. The Tactical Line of the Political Police, 1902–1905 — 66

§ 2. The Tactical Line of the Political Police in 1906 — 69

§ 3. Methods and Techniques of Carrying Out the “Red Terror” — 72

§ 4. The Tactical Line of the Political Police in 1907–1908 — 79

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

The Origins of Political Police Institutions in the Russian Empire

The history of the political (secret) police under tsarism dates back to 1826, when the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery was established. As an institution responsible for investigating and dealing with state and political crimes, it was divided into five expeditions (departments). Over time, their responsibilities were redistributed. By the 1870s, the First Expedition handled cases involving insults directed at the Tsar and members of his family. The Second Expedition was responsible for recruitment to the staff of the Third Section and collected information on religious sects, cultural and educational societies, economic associations, and, in general, organizations and cases that were not political in nature.

The Third Expedition directed punitive measures against the growing opposition and national liberation movements, as well as against anti-government peasant uprisings. It issued orders for the punishment of political offenders and determined the appropriate forms of punishment. It also collected information from the provinces about ongoing social and political developments and used this material to prepare reports on the political situation in the Empire for submission to the Emperor.

The Fourth Expedition collected information about the economic conditions of the population and recorded economic crimes in cities, including theft, murder, and arson. It also gathered compromising information about unlawful activities by local administrative officials. Until 1865, the Fifth Expedition was responsible for censorship. In that year, its functions were transferred to the Main Administration for Press Affairs within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Nevertheless, a so-called Newspaper Section was soon established within the Third Section. In addition to monitoring the press, it engaged in the publication of so-called “patriotic” literature.

Thus, the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery brought together a relatively comprehensive body of information about the Empire’s social and political conditions. It should be noted that officials of the Third Section were frequently sent secretly to the provinces to conduct inspections. Information concerning the misconduct of provincial officials and the economic and political conditions of the provinces was supplemented by reports received from provincial gendarmerie administrations. These reports were subsequently submitted to the highest authority—the Emperor.

In 1827, a Separate Corps of Gendarmes was established as the executive body of the Third Section. It was a military formation composed of commissioned officers and other military ranks and had its own administration, known as the Corps Headquarters.

By 1866, the entire territory of the Empire had been divided into eight gendarmerie districts: St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Vilna, Odessa, the Caucasus, Kazan, and Siberia. The Corps of Gendarmes also included a half-squadron of Life Guards Gendarmes, a half-squadron attached to the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District, and three gendarmerie detachments attached to the headquarters of military districts. These units performed military police functions within the Guards and the Army in both peacetime and wartime.

From 1866, responsibility for policing the principal railway lines was also transferred to the Corps of Gendarmes. Two gendarmerie districts—the Warsaw and Caucasian districts—occupied a special position. Until 1867, their commanding generals were subordinate to the local imperial viceroys.

In the early 1860s, the abolition of serfdom was accompanied by the breakdown of the old system and the growth of political and social movements throughout the Empire. The existing gendarmerie network, organized across large territorial districts, proved insufficiently flexible and effective. On 9 September 1867, a new Statute of the Corps of Gendarmes was adopted (1).

Under the new statute, provincial gendarmerie administrations were established. Each administration covered one or several provinces. The district system was retained in the Empire’s peripheral regions, particularly in the Caucasus. The Caucasian Gendarmerie District was removed from the authority of the imperial viceroy and placed under the jurisdiction of the Corps of Gendarmes.

By the 1870s, the administrative system operating in the Caucasus had gradually begun to resemble that established in the central territories of the Russian Empire. Transcaucasia was divided into five provinces, which were in turn subdivided into districts. As a result, the Caucasian Gendarmerie District was abolished, and provincial gendarmerie administrations were established in 1870, including those in Tiflis and Kutaisi.

The name of the Corps of Gendarmes also underwent a change. From 1874, it was known as the Separate Corps of Gendarmes.

Military personnel were recruited as officers in most cases, while civilians were accepted only in exceptional circumstances. The principal criterion for entering service in the Separate Corps of Gendarmes was political reliability. Junior military ranks were admitted on a probationary basis lasting between two and four months. During this period, their knowledge, intellectual abilities, moral qualities, and suitability for gendarmerie service were assessed. Physical characteristics were also taken into account: candidates were expected to be presentable in appearance and physically strong.

Men under the age of twenty-five were not accepted. Recruitment was also prohibited for members of certain social groups and nationalities, including Jews, as well as Catholics and men married to Catholic women.

The provincial gendarmerie administration was headed by an officer holding the rank of general or colonel. Its staff was divided into several territorial departments. Each department, headed by a staff officer, administered one or more districts within the province.

The provincial administration also had a chancery, which was divided into several sections responsible for general administration, investigation, political surveillance and intelligence gathering, political reliability assessments, and financial and economic affairs.

Under the command of generals and staff officers, junior-ranking gendarmerie officers, including non-commissioned officers, carried out the practical duties of the service. They enforced laws and judicial sentences; pursued thieves and bandits; dispersed prohibited gatherings; and escorted particularly dangerous offenders and prisoners during transfers between places of detention.

They also guarded political prisoners in jails and supervised public gatherings and places of assembly, including religious festivals, markets, public promenades, theatrical performances, and similar events.

The year 1867, which brought fundamental changes to the organizational structure of the Corps of Gendarmes, was also significant because two new instructions regulating the activities of gendarmerie officers were adopted: one public and one secret (2). With minor modifications, both remained in force until 1917.

According to the public instruction, the Separate Corps of Gendarmes had been established to protect the peace and welfare of all inhabitants of the state, regardless of their property status, origin, or nationality. Gendarmerie officers were required to ensure that disturbances and other unlawful acts did not occur. They were expected to prevent various political and criminal offenses through their personal influence.

The instruction strictly prohibited officers from interfering in the activities of legislative and executive bodies, public organizations, and private individuals.

The secret instruction, however, required them, under strict conditions of secrecy, to monitor the entire population of the Empire and its individual social groups; the spread of different religious movements and political ideas; and the activities of judicial and other state institutions. They were also instructed to arrest participants in anti-government demonstrations.

In short, the two instructions were mutually contradictory documents.

At the time, Baron A. P. Nikolai, head of the Chancellery of the Viceroy of the Caucasus, wrote indignantly:

“The instruction intended for gendarmerie officers turns them into judges and administrators over everyone, granting them the right to interfere in everything. When one reads in the public instruction that gendarmes have no right to interfere in judicial affairs, while the secret instruction states that they do have such a right, and both instructions have been approved by the highest authority, one might conclude that Russia is in the hands of a fortunate adventurer.” (3)

The “fortunate adventurer” referred to the head of the gendarmerie and chief of the Third Section at that time, Mezentsov.

Until the 1870s, the gendarmerie had, in effect, primarily performed the role of an informant or an authority notified of criminal incidents. On 19 May 1871, a law entitled “On the Procedure for the Actions of Officers of the Corps of Gendarmes in the Investigation of Crimes” was adopted.

On the one hand, the law authorized judicial bodies to supervise investigations into “state crimes” initiated directly by gendarmerie officers. In practice, however, supervision by the judicial authorities, particularly the prosecutor’s office, was reduced to a merely formal control over the gendarmerie. The prosecutor’s office was entitled only to submit complaints concerning improper actions by gendarmes to the gendarmerie leadership itself.

Consequently, gendarmerie officers were, in practice, largely free from supervision when detecting and investigating political crimes.

During this period, the gendarmerie employed secret surveillance of individuals considered politically “unreliable” in order to detect political offenses. Local branches of the regular police also carried out such surveillance. They periodically sent reports to the Third Section concerning the lifestyles and activities of the individuals under observation.

This method was used to monitor people against whom criminal activity had not been proven but who were nevertheless suspected of wrongdoing.

If the material collected during an investigation contained significant evidence of a citizen’s criminal activities, it was forwarded to the prosecutor, who, in turn, submitted a report to the Minister of Justice. After consultations with the head of the Corps of Gendarmes, the Minister issued an order either to discontinue or to continue the investigation.

The person concerned could then be administratively exiled to a distant province, where they would be placed under secret or official surveillance; alternatively, they could be arrested and sent to prison, penal servitude, or the gallows.

During the period identified in the original text as 1860–1870, elements of political intelligence and surveillance began to appear in gendarmerie operations. Once an individual or group had attracted the attention of the political police, so-called “internal surveillance” was initiated. This involved questioning and recruiting people close to those under observation. Such individuals might be induced to cooperate by being offered certain benefits or services, or by being intimidated.

If these informants themselves had participated in anti-government activities, they were not punished after the offense had been exposed.

During the same years, the authorities began employing so-called “external surveillance,” carried out by junior-ranking gendarmerie officers and non-commissioned officers. They monitored individuals who had come to the attention of the gendarmerie, followed them, and kept them under close observation.

Nevertheless, political intelligence in the Russian Empire was still at an embryonic stage during this period. The political police had only a very small number of “secret collaborators”—agents—and these were concentrated in the Third Section, the central institution of the Empire’s political police.

By the late 1870s, the inability of the Third Section and the gendarmerie to combat the growing revolutionary and public movements had become evident. This was particularly apparent in the imperial capital and central regions.

Confused and intimidated by the terrorist acts of Narodnaya Volya (“People’s Will”), the political police exerted every effort to counter the movement, but without visible success. A series of attacks was carried out against government officials and officers of the political police. Even Mezentsov, the head of the gendarmerie, was killed by the revolutionary Kravchinsky.

It should be noted that investigations into political cases were conducted not only by the political police but also by officers of the regular police.

Although the judiciary, the prosecutor’s office, the public education system, and the censorship authorities were also engaged in combating anti-government, social, and national movements, their activities tended to contribute to general confusion and chaos rather than resolve the situation.

According to the leadership of the political police, the “bacillus” poisoning the minds of the Russian people was spreading through travel abroad, the importation of foreign books, and education obtained in foreign countries.

On 12 and 26 November 1873, the Third Section issued special circulars instructing provincial gendarmerie administrations to exercise vigilant supervision over teaching in pedagogical institutions (4). They were required to collect information about teachers working in public educational institutions and rural schools and to determine their political reliability.

Information that could be collected through official channels was gathered. Nevertheless, despite the efforts of the entire political police apparatus, it proved almost impossible to gain a clear understanding of the activities of revolutionaries operating underground.

In an attempt to penetrate the secret activities of revolutionary organizations, the authorities of the Russian Empire sought to coordinate the work of individual institutions. Under the leadership of the Minister of State Domains, a body called the “Special Conference for the Investigation of Measures to Better Ensure Peace and Security in the Russian Empire” was established.

Its members included the head of the Corps of Gendarmes and the Ministers of Internal Affairs, Justice, and War.

The body developed an extensive program intended to strengthen the regular and political police apparatus and increase surveillance of the press, universities, and schools. However, these measures again failed to produce the desired results.

On 5 February 1880, an explosion occurred in the Winter Palace. The authorities responded urgently by establishing the so-called “Supreme Administrative Commission for the Preservation of State Order and Public Peace,” headed by General Loris-Melikov.

The Third Section and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes were temporarily subordinated to this commission. All political cases initiated in the imperial center, as well as investigations into political offenses conducted throughout the Empire, were placed under its authority.

On 6 August 1880, the Department of State Police was established within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The Supreme Administrative Commission was dissolved, and its functions, together with those of the Third Section, were transferred to the Police Department.

The regular police was also subordinated to the Police Department, effectively completing the establishment of the new institution.

The role of the Police Department in political investigations increased in 1882, when the deputy Minister of Internal Affairs who was simultaneously commander of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes was appointed to head it. The administrative apparatus of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes was also incorporated into the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Thus, the process of bringing the institutions responsible for political investigations closer to the regular police was completed.

Following a number of organizational changes, the Police Department had the following divisions by the beginning of the twentieth century:

·                  Division I: Personnel.

·                  Division II: Police protection (“strazha”), and the department’s regulations and orders.

·                  Division III: Financial affairs.

·                  Division IV: Social movements.

·                  Division V: Administrative exile.

·                  Division VI: Special (political) affairs.

·                  Division VII: Draft legislation.

·                  Division VIII: Criminal offenses.

·                  Division IX: War-related affairs, registration, and treasury matters (5).

Direct responsibility for political investigations and intelligence gathering lay with the Special Section of the Police Department, established in 1898 (6).

The Special Section was itself divided into several departments:

·                  Department I: General correspondence.

·                  Department II: Socialist-Revolutionaries.

·                  Department III: Social Democrats.

·                  Department IV: National revolutionary organizations operating in the territories of the Empire.

·                  Department V: Deciphering codes and ciphers.

·                  Department VI: Political intelligence and investigation; later merged with Department V.

·                  Department VII: Information concerning the political reliability of citizens, formerly Department VI.

In addition, there was a special unit known as the “Strictly Secret Section,” which collected information about secret collaborators received from the gendarmerie and the Okhrana (7).

The staff of the Special Section of the Police Department consisted of educated individuals experienced in political intelligence and investigation, including people who had previously worked in the judicial system. By recruiting former judicial personnel, the Police Department sought to improve the legal aspects of political investigations.

The directors of the Police Department, Plehve and Durnovo, brought together in the Special Section highly educated intellectuals and professors, as well as former employees of the prosecutor’s office. These specialists were used to decipher secret correspondence (8).

Alongside them, the Special Section employed individuals who lacked higher education but possessed practical experience in political investigations and intelligence gathering.

Former secret collaborators—agents—who had left the service because they had been exposed or for other reasons often continued working for the Police Department, drawing on their knowledge of operational methods and procedures. Some of them even attained senior positions.

For example, P. Rachkovsky, head of the Special Section of the Police Department in 1905–1906; I. Zubatov, head of the same section in 1902–1903; A. Gerasimov, head of the St. Petersburg Okhrana department in 1906–1909; and Gurovich, an official of the Special Section of the Police Department in 1902–1907, had belonged to revolutionary organizations in their youth. After being arrested and betraying their comrades, they transferred to the political police, where they became official employees.

By the second half of the 1890s, it had become evident that gendarmerie officers appointed primarily on the basis of their social origins and connections within the upper echelons of the authorities were unable to perform their duties effectively. Political intelligence and investigation required specific talents and professional skills. Moreover, these officers were generally unfamiliar with the revolutionary milieu and lacked the ability to analyze the processes unfolding within it.

The authorities came to realize that political intelligence operations could be conducted effectively by individuals with practical connections to revolutionary organizations. As noted above, they therefore opened the doors of the political police to such individuals, allowing them to enter its service on a broad scale.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the local provincial gendarmerie administrations continued to serve as the executive bodies of the Police Department.

 

CHAPTER II

LOCAL BODIES OF THE POLITICAL POLICE IN GEORGIA, 1894–1900

§ 1. Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administrations in Georgia, 1894–1901

At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were still two gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations in Georgia: those of Tiflis and Kutaisi. The leading role was assigned to the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration. It was located in Tiflis, on a street running alongside Kashveti Church, off what is now Rustaveli Avenue. The administration was headed by a chief holding the rank of colonel. Its staff included an adjutant to the chief of the administration, holding the rank of staff-rotmister, a translator, and clerks. By 1903, there were three clerks. The chief of the administration had assistants, each responsible for one or several uyezds (districts). The first assistant was responsible for Tiflis Uyezd; the second, for Telavi and Signagi uyezds; the third, for Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, and Gori uyezds; and the fourth, for Elizavetpol Governorate (9). The staff of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration also included the administration’s translator, translators in Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, and Gori uyezds, and a translator in Elizavetpol Governorate. By 1902, the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration had 31 non-commissioned officers and three wachtmeisters on its staff.

With the exception of the assistant assigned to Elizavetpol Governorate, the senior-ranking officers mentioned above were stationed in Tiflis. The lower-ranking gendarmerie personnel of the gubernatorial administration were distributed among various locations as follows: in Tiflis, two wachtmeisters and 20 non-commissioned officers; in Elizavetpol Governorate, one wachtmeister and three non-commissioned officers; one non-commissioned officer each in Telavi, Signagi, Akhaltsikhe, Zaqatala, Nukha, Gori, Akhalkalaki, and Surami; and two non-commissioned officers in Shusha (10).

At the beginning of the period 1902–1904, in response to the growth of the revolutionary movement, a new assistant was appointed to the chief of the administration in the city of Tiflis. Correspondence also took place concerning the appointment of an assistant in Akhaltsikhe in connection with anti-government demonstrations by Armenians settled there, but the appointment was never made. By 1907, the number of non-commissioned officers had risen to 45.

According to the established staffing schedule, the core staff of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration consisted of the chief of the administration, an adjutant, a clerk, one wachtmeister, eight non-commissioned officers, and two non-commissioned officers assigned to drill and formation duties. The additional staff comprised all five assistants to the chief of the administration, three wachtmeisters, and 31 non-commissioned officers (11).

As for the Kutaisi Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration, relatively little information about its activities has survived because its archives were gradually destroyed. Its staff was organized as follows: the administration was headed by a chief with the rank of colonel, and its staff included an adjutant, a translator, one wachtmeister, four non-commissioned officers, and two clerks (12).

An assistant to the chief of the administration, holding the rank of lieutenant colonel, was responsible for the Batumi District. The staff of this section included one wachtmeister, 12 non-commissioned officers, and a translator (13). A gendarmerie detachment was also stationed in Batumi at Mikhailovsky Fortress. It consisted of a commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel, one wachtmeister, and ten non-commissioned officers.

The chief of the Kutaisi Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration also had an assistant in the Sukhumi District, who held the rank of rotmister. This section had four non-commissioned officers and four wachtmeisters. Since Sukhumi was a port city, the gendarmerie personnel assigned to this section were additionally responsible for surveillance at the customs house.

The Transcaucasian Gendarmerie Railway Police Directorate was located in the city of Tiflis. It was headed by a chief holding the rank of colonel. Its staff included an adjutant with the rank of rotmister and two clerks. The directorate was divided into sections situated at major railway junctions.

The Batumi section was headed by an officer with the rank of colonel and had one wachtmeister and 33 non-commissioned officers on its staff. The Kutaisi section was also headed by a colonel and had one wachtmeister and 32 non-commissioned officers. The Gori section was headed by a lieutenant colonel and had one wachtmeister and 33 non-commissioned officers. Tiflis had a separate section headed by an officer with the rank of rotmister; its staff consisted of one wachtmeister and 46 non-commissioned officers. Other sections were located in Elizavetpol, Baku, Aleksandrovka, and Nakhichevan (14).

Thus, as we can see, the Gendarmerie Railway Police Directorate was considerably larger in personnel numbers than the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations in Tiflis and Kutaisi. The staffing levels of the latter remained almost unchanged between 1894 and 1910, apart from the appointment of an additional assistant in Tiflis and the addition of ten non-commissioned officers, as mentioned above. Despite their limited personnel, during the period of the growing revolutionary movement the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations managed, to a certain extent, to fulfil their assigned duties.

The duties and activities of senior-ranking officers in the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations were governed by a series of instructions and circulars. The most important of these was the Regulations of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, adopted in 1867. With minor amendments and additions, these regulations remained in force until 1917 (15).

Alarmed by the terrorist acts of Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will), the Russian authorities approved the Regulations on Measures for the Protection of State Order and Public Tranquillity on 14 August 1881. These regulations were introduced in areas where criminal activities directed against state order and public tranquillity had reached such proportions that the existing laws were considered insufficient to suppress them. The regulations provided for two levels of security measures: the first, “reinforced protection,” and the second, “extraordinary protection,” depending on the measures adopted (16). The Russian authorities renewed the regulations every three years until the final year of their existence.

According to Lopukhin, a former director of the Police Department, these regulations placed the entire population of Russia at the mercy of the personal judgments of political police officers, since gendarmerie officers were granted the right to arrest anyone considered “reasonably suspected” (17). In practice, this meant that gendarmerie officers could arrest anyone whom they believed to be connected with anti-government organizations or individuals involved in crimes against the state.

Lopukhin wrote that an arrest could be based on the subjective opinion of gendarmerie officers rather than on objective evidence, since the regulations allowed them to conduct searches at any time and in any premises (18).

The “protection of tranquillity and order in the state” meant combating crimes directed against the state. In the first instance, crimes against the state included attempts on the life, health, or liberty of the emperor, the supreme authority; any form of opposition to the existing political system; and attempts to separate any part of the Russian Empire—namely the Caucasus, Crimea, Poland, or Finland—from the Empire (19).

Consequently, the category of persons who could be accused of such crimes was extremely broad. Under the law, even accidentally coming into possession of a prohibited book or pamphlet, attending a gathering of an anti-government character, being present as a spectator at a public rally, or expressing an allegedly “anti-government” opinion in a letter to a friend could constitute a state crime.

When seeking to establish whether such a crime had been committed, the gendarmerie would begin an investigation by either placing the person under unofficial surveillance or initiating what was known as a formal inquiry—that is, gathering facts and information concerning the commission of a state crime.

Gendarmerie officers were required to notify the prosecutor’s office when they began an inquiry. However, under Article 1035 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Empire, in its 1904 version, the presence of a representative of the prosecutor’s office was no longer mandatory when the gendarmerie initiated an inquiry into a political crime, conducted a search, or made an arrest. In practice, this enabled gendarmerie officers not only to evade prosecutorial oversight at the beginning of a formal inquiry but also to disregard it entirely throughout the investigation (20).

It should be noted that, under Article 1035 of the Criminal Code, judicial investigators were also authorized to conduct formal inquiries into state crimes.

To improve the detection and investigation of state crimes, the Regulations on Secret Police Surveillance were adopted on 1 March 1881. These regulations, too, were renewed every three years. They constituted one of the means of detecting preparations for state crimes through the covert surveillance of persons considered politically unreliable.

In practice, secret surveillance was carried out by both the regular police and officers of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations. Under these regulations, the local Russian administration was entitled to place any person considered suspicious under secret surveillance. In January 1904, by order of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Plehve, responsibility for secret surveillance was assigned exclusively to representatives of the political police—the gendarmerie and the Okhrana—because, as the order stated, “the regular police were unable to cope with this task” (21).

The category of “state crime” gradually came to be classified as “political crime.” Investigations into such crimes were conducted by senior-ranking officers of the gendarmerie administrations. In their work, they followed the above-mentioned regulations, instructions, and circulars sent to them by the Police Department and the Headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes.

Under the 1867 regulations, gendarmerie officers were required to follow both the legally established procedures for judicial proceedings and the instructions and explanations issued by their superiors when investigating state crimes. In practice, this meant that the orders of superiors took precedence over the law.

Furthermore, the Police Department and the Headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes frequently issued instructions and circulars indicating ways to circumvent the law so that investigations into state crimes could proceed in accordance with the wishes of the political police leadership.

Although the Police Department was regarded as the body directing the activities of local gendarmerie authorities, the Headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes also intervened in the work of its local bodies—not only in matters of military organization and personnel, but also in the investigation of state crimes.

Lopukhin, who had ample practical experience to support his assessment from his time as head of the Police Department, wrote: “A single word from the commander of the Gendarmerie Corps or the chief of its headquarters to his subordinates was enough to leave any directive from the Police Department unfulfilled” (22).

As noted above, this situation was partly attributable to the dependence of gendarmerie officers on the Headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps in matters of military service, discipline, promotion, and awards. The Police Department, by contrast, had only the authority to issue demands. Consequently, local gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations were only minimally subordinate to governors and frequently ignored their instructions altogether.

After the introduction of the office of the Chief Administrator in the Caucasus in 1881, the chiefs of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations became dependent solely on the Headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps. The situation changed little even after the office of Viceroy of the Caucasus, whose powers exceeded those of the Chief Administrator, was introduced in 1905.

When preparing reports on the political and economic situation in their respective governorates for submission to the Headquarters of the Corps, the chiefs of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations continued, during the 1890s and 1900s, to include accounts of abuses of office by local officials and even by governors themselves (23). Moreover, the correspondence of individuals close to the Viceroy was systematically subjected to perliustration—the covert interception and examination of letters—and extracts were made from it.

The Police Department repeatedly requested that the heads of local gendarmerie bodies summon persons employed in the state service for questioning or as witnesses in investigations into state crimes only as a last resort, and that their social standing be taken into account. Nevertheless, the Headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps continued to demand information about abuses of office by local officials.

These demands were accompanied by frequent abuses of authority by the chiefs of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations. In 1903, the Police Department warned the chief of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration that he had no authority to issue certificates attesting to the reliability of particular individuals, since this was the governor’s prerogative. The department explained in detail that “the chief of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administration should provide governors only with the information available in the administration’s files, so that they could decide on that basis whether to issue a certificate” (24).

However, a circular issued by the Police Department in 1901 to the chiefs of gubernatorial and district gendarmerie administrations stated: “Although you must send the governor the requested material in response to his inquiry, any information that should not be included in the reply to the governor must nevertheless be sent to the Police Department” (25).

Such violations of the law and abuses of authority became particularly characteristic of gendarmerie officers’ activities between 1900 and 1908. Gendarmerie officers directed official inquiries and issued warrants for arrests and searches. The practical execution of much of this work, however, was carried out primarily by non-commissioned officers.

Their activities were governed by an instruction drafted by Shuvalov and adopted in 1868, which was subsequently amended. On 14 August 1881, the Instruction for Non-Commissioned Officers of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration was adopted (26). It is worth noting that the above-mentioned Regulations on Measures for the Protection of State Order and Public Tranquillity were adopted on precisely the same day (T. S.).

The instruction was a substantial, journal-like compilation organized in a question-and-answer format. Non-commissioned officers were required to know it by heart. During inspections of gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations, they were tested on how thoroughly they had memorized the individual provisions of the instruction.

The introductory section of the instruction set out the essential requirements to be observed when recruiting personnel for the Separate Corps of Gendarmes and staffing its gubernatorial administrations. It stated that the gubernatorial and district gendarmerie administrations, as well as the Gendarmerie Railway Police Directorates, were staffed by non-commissioned officers who had served in the army and subsequently retired from active service or otherwise left the military. As noted above, men under the age of 25 were not accepted into the service. The personal files of non-commissioned officers employed by the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration show that the personnel were predominantly between 35 and 50 years of age.

As in the 1890s, during the following decade, candidates applying for positions were assessed on the basis of their presentable appearance, intellectual abilities, general education, and impeccable conduct. However, in the 1870s, according to the chief of the Kutaisi Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration, the majority of gendarmerie non-commissioned officers had difficulty reading and writing (27). The same problem was still being reported in 1913. An order issued by the deputy chief of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration for the uyezds of Akhaltsikhe, Akhalkalaki, and Gori explicitly stated that non-commissioned officers assigned to local posts were required to be literate and to spend their free time reading newspapers and books (28).

After completing their probationary period, non-commissioned officers signed a five-year contract undertaking to serve in the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. At the end of this term, they could request either discharge from service or permission to remain in it. The decision rested with their immediate superior. If they were retained, their contracts had to be renewed annually. This arrangement enabled the gendarmerie to dismiss unwanted employees without unnecessary complications.

As noted above, non-commissioned officers in the gubernatorial administrations belonged to either the regular or the supplementary staff. Some members of the regular staff served in the chancery; others were assigned to the chief of the administration or to his assistants. They also took turns receiving and delivering correspondence, escorted prisoners, accompanied police officers during searches and arrests carried out on the instructions of judicial investigators or gendarmerie officers, and were stationed at designated local posts.

By 1902, thirteen non-commissioned officers of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration were assigned to local posts. Three were permanently stationed in the administration’s chancery, while four non-commissioned officers performed surveillance and clandestine intelligence duties—that is, they monitored revolutionaries (29).

These non-commissioned officers could arrest an offender only if they personally witnessed the commission of a crime. They were permitted to conduct criminal investigations independently only when instructed to do so by the prosecutor’s office, or when no regular police officer was present at the scene and the offender might otherwise escape. They had no authority whatsoever to conduct independent investigations into political crimes (30).

Beginning in 1900, supplementary-staff non-commissioned officers were employed to meet new requirements as circumstances demanded. They monitored public sentiment and social life more generally; searched for persons accused of crimes against the state; carried out various measures to detect preparations for political crimes and facilitate subsequent investigations; kept politically unreliable individuals under surveillance; monitored political prisoners at their places of detention; and inspected passports and cargoes at ports, including Sukhumi and Batumi, and at border checkpoints.

The local Russian administration, particularly governors, was entitled to deploy non-commissioned officers from gubernatorial and district gendarmerie administrations as a military force to restore order during disturbances. The detachment of non-commissioned officers stationed at Mikhailovsky Fortress in Batumi also performed military police duties throughout the Batumi District.

The authorities of the Russian Empire wanted these men to constitute a loyal armed force that would obey orders unquestioningly. The instruction required non-commissioned officers to resist the influence of friends and family members. Their family members were therefore prohibited from engaging in private business or accepting gifts as bribes, known as “holiday gifts.” Vigilance, incorruptibility, respect for superiors, and truthfulness were among the principal requirements laid down in the instruction.

Offering advice, providing assistance in times of difficulty within the limits of the law, and maintaining appropriate conduct among the population were regarded as the foundations upon which non-commissioned officers were expected to build public trust. “Otherwise,” the instruction stated, “they would be unable to secure the population’s support in preventing political crimes such as revolutionary agitation and propaganda among the public, the clandestine organization of anti-government gatherings, and similar activities” (31).

In 1898, with the aim of bringing non-commissioned officers into closer contact with the local population, those assigned to local posts were instructed to learn the languages spoken by the inhabitants. In 1910, the chief of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration issued an order stating that officers at local posts were required to understand the sentiments of the local population. However, because they did not speak the local languages, they were unable to gather the necessary information. He therefore instructed them to obtain self-study materials for learning these languages (32).

By 1913, the requirement had become categorical: non-commissioned officers at local posts were ordered to learn, by 1 April 1914, the languages most widely spoken in their respective areas of service—Georgian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani. Failure to comply with this order could result in dismissal from service (33).

Non-commissioned officers stationed at local posts were required to collect information about all events and developments in public life. They were to obtain this information through covert intelligence gathering and surveillance of the population, which involved discreetly questioning local residents about matters of interest to the gendarmerie.

They were instructed to pay particular attention to the distribution of proclamations, pamphlets containing political agitation, and newspapers. They were also required to monitor itinerant petty traders selling books in both towns and villages. The instruction provided guidance on how to persuade individuals to supply information and how to treat them subsequently so that they would continue providing useful intelligence.

Non-commissioned officers were also required to patrol their assigned areas. For surveillance purposes, they were to attend markets, religious festivals, and other gatherings attracting large numbers of people.

The purpose of these activities was not merely to maintain public order but also to identify political offenders already known to the non-commissioned officers. They were expected to recognize by sight politically unreliable individuals registered with the local gendarmerie and placed under police surveillance. They were to monitor these individuals in order to establish whom they associated with.

At the end of the instruction was a list of persons whom non-commissioned officers were required to recognize by sight. These included representatives of the highest authorities, such as the governor, officials of the judicial chamber, district court and prosecutor’s office, postal officials, and heads of educational institutions.

The instruction also specified the methods to be employed when conducting surveillance. It provided detailed explanations, taking into account the officers’ intellectual abilities, of the types of crimes investigated by the gendarmerie; which judicial bodies dealt with civil, criminal, and political offences; the hierarchy of judicial institutions; the organizational structures of the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Justice; the administrative organization of the Caucasus region; and other related matters.

The compilation also contained a list of the illegal political parties operating in the Russian Empire at the time, together with their programmes, objectives, and the means they intended to use to achieve them.

From the beginning of the 1900s, the duties of non-commissioned officers changed substantially. Their sphere of activity expanded considerably, and elements of political intelligence and investigation became widely incorporated into their practical work.

Activities of the Transcaucasian Railway Gendarmerie Police Directorate

The duties of officers serving in the Transcaucasian Railway Gendarmerie Police Directorate, which formed part of the gendarmerie system, were defined by the Railway Statute of the Russian Empire, issued in 1885. Under this statute, railway gendarmerie police officers were stationed at railway stations and were required to prevent all types of crime committed on the railways.

From the beginning of the 1900s, they were also tasked with investigating preparations for criminal acts by taking preventive measures.

The activities of non-commissioned officers in this institution were governed by a document known as the Programme for Work with Non-Commissioned Officers of the Railway Gendarmerie Police Directorate (34). Under this programme, they were assigned duties largely similar to those of non-commissioned officers serving in the gubernatorial and district gendarmerie administrations, with additional provisions reflecting the specific characteristics of railway policing.

They were also responsible for protecting railway lines when the imperial train passed through the area. This task was regulated by a brochure published in 1903 by the printing establishment of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, which listed their duties in such exceptional circumstances.

Beginning in 1905, railway gendarmerie police directorates were tasked with conducting political investigations in addition to their general police duties. However, even before that date, circulars had been sent to these directorates instructing them to implement various measures related to political investigations.

In 1903, by order of the chief of staff of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, the chiefs of railway gendarmerie police directorates were authorized to assist officers of the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations without first obtaining a specific order from headquarters. This measure facilitated their work in combating political offenders (35).

 

§ 2. Local Bodies of the Police Department, 1894–1901

In the Russian Empire during the 1890s and the early 1900s, the investigation and inquiry into state crimes remained at a relatively low level of effectiveness. Against the backdrop of the weakening of revolutionary and public movements during the 1890s, the Police Department took no fundamental measures to improve the system of political surveillance and investigation within the Empire. It limited itself to temporary measures and attributed the shortcomings of the political police to other law-enforcement bodies.

In the opinion of officials of the Police Department, the regular police failed to provide adequate assistance to the gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations in locating and arresting individuals wanted for political crimes. Indeed, regular police officers had little incentive to apprehend political fugitives. Once arrested, such individuals had to be handed over to the local gendarmerie administrations, while the gendarmes received the rewards and recognition. Consequently, circulars containing information about political offenders were often simply sent to the archives.

Drawing attention to this situation, the Police Department accused regular police officers of inaction. In its communications to subordinate authorities, the department noted that individuals wanted for political crimes were sometimes even able to obtain positions in senior administrative offices under their real names, and it provided examples of such cases (36).

However, the regular police were not the only ones at fault. Inaction in the apprehension of political fugitives was also characteristic of officers serving in local gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations. This was attributable to their lack of the psychological and technical training required for political surveillance and investigation. Older officers, trained in military service and accustomed to carrying out orders issued by others, lacked the ability to act independently. Naturally, both senior- and junior-ranking gendarmerie officers were unfamiliar with the techniques of political investigation. As noted above, many of them also did not know the languages and traditions of the local population in the Caucasus, which inevitably had a negative impact on their ability to conduct political investigations.

During these years, the Police Department instructed police chiefs (politseimeisters) and district police chiefs to explain the techniques of political investigation personally to regular police officers and familiarize them with the relevant methods. The department’s officials apparently had little confidence that local police administrators possessed such skills. They therefore sent them rather elementary instructions, emphasizing the need to place the associates, relatives, and close acquaintances of political fugitives under surveillance, as well as to check the documents of unfamiliar individuals appearing in their jurisdictions. Particular attention was to be paid to students and young people arriving from abroad (37). Instructions of a similar nature were sent to gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations during the same period.

As the circulars indicate, the Police Department no longer considered the mere placement of politically unreliable individuals under police surveillance in the provinces sufficient. Until 1897, lists of persons under police surveillance were kept in the regular police administrations (38). Naturally, because of the inaction of regular police officers, local gendarmerie bodies were not kept informed of the activities of suspects in political crimes who were under surveillance.

During this period, the importation of illegal revolutionary literature from abroad gradually increased throughout the Russian Empire. Books, pamphlets, and proclamations printed in clandestine printing houses abroad began entering the Empire in large quantities through various channels. One of the routes used to bring in illegal literature passed through the Caucasus.

To help gendarmes detect and confiscate such publications, the Police Department frequently informed them of the methods and channels of importation known to it (39). Illegal literature was also printed within the Empire itself. Revolutionaries sometimes disguised their publications as officially issued books by placing revolutionary texts inside the covers of legitimate books produced by printing houses.

The department repeatedly demanded particular attention to cases in which printing type disappeared from printing establishments. It pointed out that revolutionaries often purchased printing equipment through officially registered commercial companies and called for closer scrutiny of such transactions (40).

Although the department was well aware of the extensive agitation conducted among workers through Sunday schools, it did not demand measures beyond checking the reliability of individuals invited to teach and establishing oversight by the local Russian administration (41).

It is noteworthy that the Police Department did not call for any measures to counter the extensive propaganda conducted by Social Democrats in the Caucasus and Central Russia, even in the official press. We shall return to the reasons for this conduct later. For now, it is sufficient to note that during these years the Police Department sought to ensure that gendarmerie officers observed at least the basic principles of legality when conducting political investigations (42).

For example, in October 1900, the department reprimanded the chief of the Tiflis Gubernatorial Gendarmerie Administration. It stated: “Although you acted in strict accordance with the law in relation to gymnasium pupils and students, you demonstrated insufficient caution and attention during the investigation. Under the law, gymnasium pupils were not to be questioned at the gubernatorial gendarmerie administration. Instead, a gendarmerie officer was required to visit the educational institution personally and question them there” (43).

Apparently, this instruction to the chief of the gubernatorial administration prompted the circular sent to local gendarmerie bodies on 2 November 1900. The circular cited cases in which gymnasium pupils had been detained without sufficient grounds and female gymnasium pupils had been summoned to gendarmerie offices. It noted that the girls had been summoned during school hours and escorted to the offices by police officers. The department advised the chiefs of gubernatorial gendarmerie administrations to exercise considerable caution and prudence when conducting searches in educational institutions and detaining pupils.

In general, the years 1895–1901 were characterized by relatively normal treatment of political offenders by gendarmerie and police officers. In the memoirs of G. Chkheidze, a representative of the revolutionary movement, published in 1901, he recalled that on the first day of his arrest he refused to eat. The district police supervisor assumed that he had gone on hunger strike and “first asked him to eat, then brought the bailiff and complained to him that the man was refusing to eat anything.” In Chkheidze’s own words, “this is characteristic of how political prisoners were treated at that time” (44).

A special circular sent by the Headquarters of the Gendarmerie Corps to local gendarmerie bodies during this period instructed them not to use coercive measures against political prisoners who refused food. Food was to be brought to their cells at the usual times and left there. Only in cases of prolonged hunger strikes were officers to offer prisoners specially prepared, particularly appetizing meals. Their national background and religion were also to be taken into account, so that “hunger might awaken in the fasting person a desire to eat” (45).

During this period, the Police Department instructed the authorities, in cases of factory disturbances and unrest, to arrest the “principal instigators,” thereby preventing the offence at its outset. At the same time, individuals who had crossed the border illegally, or those who had been drawn into disturbances by others, could be allowed to leave freely (46).

It was therefore extremely difficult to determine precisely whom it was necessary to arrest and whom it was not. Moreover, this circular gave gendarmerie officers an opportunity to classify almost any person suspected of committing a state crime as posing a relatively low level of danger—provided, of course, that there was no tangible evidence, such as possession of illegal literature or weapons—and to release that person in exchange for an appropriate payment, that is, a bribe.

After Lopukhin was appointed director of the Police Department in 1902–1903, the number of instructions addressed to local bodies of the Gendarmerie Corps emphasizing the need to observe the law and refrain from exceeding their authority increased considerably. Lopukhin sought to reform the political police and improve the work of the department’s local bodies.

At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, police forces in Transcaucasia were strengthened through the establishment of so-called strazhniki (guard detachments). The regulations defining the activities and duties of the Transcaucasian police strazhniki were approved in 1899.

The strazhniki constituted a substantial armed force, as they were equipped with relatively advanced weapons for the period, including rifles, and used horses for transportation. The authorities sought to create a force that would defend the interests of the tsarist regime. The regulations explicitly stated that ethnic Russians were to receive preference when candidates were recruited, while representatives of other nationalities were to be accepted in smaller numbers.

The regulations also prohibited the recruitment of local inhabitants to serve in the areas where they themselves lived. As it turned out, this was one of the more effective measures taken by the Russian authorities in their efforts to pursue representatives of the revolutionary movement (47).

In the large cities of Tiflis and Kutaisi, the lower-ranking police officers known as gorodovye, who were stationed in various districts of the cities, were assigned during this period not only to maintain public order and tranquillity in the streets, but also to keep watch on persons suspected of engaging in political activity.

During the same years, a service of house porters (dvorniki) and night watchmen was introduced in Tiflis. Naturally, people performing these occupations had existed before, but from the late nineteenth century onward they were formally registered with the regular police. They were paid wages and were required to keep an eye on those posting unauthorized notices, posters, or other printed materials. They were also obliged to comply with any police officer’s request when pursuing or apprehending an offender.

A house porter (dvornik) was expected to recognize every resident of the building by sight. In addition, he was required to monitor the occupants to ensure that they did not shelter persons wanted for political offenses or hold clandestine meetings. The police had to be informed of all incidents occurring in the building, gatherings not authorized by the police, demonstrations taking place in the streets, and other unlawful activities by citizens.\\

 

 

§ 3. The Political Police against the Revolutionary and National Liberation Movements in Georgia, 1890–1901

In the early 1880s, the Police Department, the principal agency of political surveillance and investigation in the Russian Empire, succeeded in destroying Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will). By the late 1880s, the weakness of the existing Narodnik organizations had convinced the authorities that the revolutionary movement in the Empire had been almost completely eradicated. At the same time, Alexander III’s government, which at the beginning of his reign had even attempted to negotiate with Narodnaya Volya, by then already defeated, was intensifying its oppression of the conquered populations on the imperial periphery (48). In Georgia, in particular, a campaign against Georgian culture began. The teaching of the Georgian language was removed from school curricula. In parallel, with the aim of implementing the principle of “divide and rule,” efforts were initiated to create so-called “Mingrelian” and “Svan” alphabets. The Caucasian administration chose the wealthy Armenian upper class as its principal support base in the region and granted it a number of privileges. In addition, several thousand Russian colonists were resettled in Georgia in an effort to reduce the proportion of the indigenous population in the territory.

As is well known, leading representatives of the Georgian intelligentsia waged a determined struggle to preserve the nation’s identity. However, in the early 1890s, a split occurred within their ranks. To the authorities’ surprise, they received an unexpected gift in the form of the so-called “Banking Affair” (Bankobiada). Much of the intelligentsia became preoccupied with rivalry between the “Machabelists” and supporters of Ilia Chavchavadze. Perhaps this was why the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, the principal local agency responsible for political investigation in Georgia, wrote to the Police Department:

“Just as the preceding years had done, 1889 passed without leaving any trace in Georgia. There was no event that might attract the attention of the local population or alter the apathetic course of life. In general, the mass of the local population has no interest whatsoever in politics and has no understanding of it” (49).

Indeed, at that time, Georgia had no powerful revolutionary organizations of the Narodnik type. Nevertheless, the authorities continued to fear the growth of the national movement. In reports to the Tsar concerning the situation in the Caucasus in 1889–1890, the Viceroy of the Caucasus stated:

“Among certain circles in Georgia, a separatist spirit still prevails. It is therefore necessary to introduce special measures and exile offenders not to Siberia, from which they frequently escape, but to the island of Sakhalin.”

Above all, he called for “strengthening the Russian element in the administration and, in particular, in the police, since the local elements cannot be relied upon” (50).

In subsequent years, the Police Department began instructing its local agencies to pay greater attention to the national movement. In March 1894, the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration reported to his superiors:

“With reference to your letter, I have the honour to inform the Police Department that I have no facts or documentary evidence on the basis of which the Georgian people could be accused of a tendency toward separatism. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that such a tendency exists. I am convinced of this by reports that deserve to be trusted.”

As an example, he cited the following statement: “The Georgians say, ‘Georgia for the Georgians.’ This is not merely my personal opinion; it is based on the views of all the Russians living in Tiflis” (51).

In a report sent in May of the same year, this official unequivocally confirmed the existence of a national movement in Georgia (52). This radical change in the authorities’ assessment of the Georgian national movement was prompted by the political police’s discovery, in Warsaw in May 1893, of the organization known as the “League for the Freedom of Georgia.”

The League had been founded by Georgian students attending higher educational institutions in St Petersburg, Warsaw, Odessa, Kharkov, Kyiv, and other cities. In 1892–1893, its members held two congresses, first in Kutaisi and then in Tiflis (53).

At various times, those associated with the organization, including its actual members, were M. Kheltuplishvili, G. Dekanozishvili, T. Sakhokia, I. Fan-Tskhava, A. Jorjadze, Sh. Dedabrishvili, F. Makharadze, N. Zhordania, and others. After the organization was dismantled, a large proportion of its members became founding members and leading figures in the Socialist-Federalist and National Democratic parties that subsequently emerged in Georgia and were imbued with a national spirit. A smaller number adopted Marxism.

The investigation into the League began in Warsaw, where the political police seized the organization’s archive. According to F. Makharadze, “translators were specially summoned, and Professor N. Marr was brought from St Petersburg to Warsaw. They translated all the materials” (54). To facilitate a more thorough investigation of the League’s activities, Colonel Debil was transferred from the Warsaw Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration to Kutaisi to head the local Gendarmerie Administration (55).

The authorities’ intense interest in the organization stemmed from its declared objective, which the League’s founding congress in Kutaisi had defined as follows: “The ultimate goal of the youth is to serve the homeland, which must find expression in the liberation of Georgia from Russian rule” (56).

It is noteworthy that, when discussing various means of liberating Georgia at the League’s congresses, its members rejected cooperation with Russian revolutionaries, arguing that “the Russians do not love people of other nationalities, including Georgians; therefore, we have nothing in common with them, nor can we have anything in common.”

According to Professor Aleksandre Bendianishvili, “an analysis of the programme of this clandestine organization and an examination of the nature of its members’ activities lead to the conclusion that the ‘League for the Freedom of Georgia’ was an embryonic national revolutionary party” (57).

One of its members, F. Makharadze, regarded the League as an organization of a purely “patriotic-nationalist” character. Yet neither he nor N. Zhordania publicized their participation in it in later years. It appears that they considered membership in an organization of a “nationalist” character incompatible with their identities as Social Democrats.

The close attention paid by the local agencies of the political police in Georgia to the national movement at the end of the nineteenth century is evident from the materials compiled at the very beginning of the League investigation. The first page contains a letter sent by the Governor of Tiflis to the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration. In it, the governor reports on “an attempt by a Georgian in Constantinople to obtain permission to publish a journal that would prepare the way for the liberation of the Caucasus.” The League’s case file also contains information concerning the existence of a clandestine national organization among Georgian nobles known as the “Society of Independents” (58).

In 1893, in connection with the League’s members, Colonel Debil reopened the investigation into the 1886 murder of Chudetsky, rector of the Tiflis Theological Seminary, by I. Laghiashvili. He noted that Sh. Dedabrishvili and other members of the organization corresponded with Laghiashvili, who was then living in America. What particularly interested Debil, however, was not the content of their correspondence, but the question of “whether the murder of the seminary rector was an expression of the Georgian nation’s hatred of the Russian nation.”

In the late 1890s, Colonel Debil was transferred to the post of head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration. Although, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Police Department was instructing the gubernial gendarmerie administrations to pay greater attention to the gradually increasing Narodnik agitation in rural areas, Debil continued to send it reports concerning the national movement. For example, in early 1900, he informed the Department that “nationalist agitation is taking place in the village of Terzhmisi in Gori Uyezd. It consists of several peasants telling their fellow villagers that they are Georgians and should not want a Russian Tsar” (59).

Surveillance of the League’s former members continued long after the investigation into the organization had ended. In 1901, Debil instructed his assistant to keep a closer watch on the life of N. Jakeli, one of the League’s members, “because Jakeli is one of the Georgian patriots” (60).

Because of his connection with the League, S. Ghambashidze was placed under covert surveillance in 1896, which continued until 1903. The information collected about him emphasized his close acquaintance with Akaki Tsereteli (61).

At the end of the nineteenth century, the local agencies responsible for political investigation were headed by elderly generals and colonels, like Debil, who had rendered distinguished service to the Tsarist regime and had been trained in the old traditions of the Corps of Gendarmes (62). They continued to view political developments through memories of conspiratorial organizations such as Narodnaya Volya and failed to recognize the changing political situation. Revolutionaries influenced by Narodnik ideology and the newly emerging Social Democrats were expanding their agitation and propaganda activities.

The famine that began in twenty Russian gubernias in 1891–1892, together with the cholera epidemic that followed, prompted large numbers of young people to travel to rural areas to assist the starving population. Witnessing people’s hardship at first hand strengthened their desire to improve living conditions. This, in turn, contributed to the intensification of revolutionary agitation and the renewed spread of revolutionary ideas among students and young people (63).

Although the revolutionary organizations that had survived the repression were very weak at this time, and their members devoted more effort to theoretical discussions than to practical work, the Russian authorities acted unwisely. Through their ill-considered treatment of students and young people who had come under the influence of revolutionary ideology, they effectively subjected them to a process that could be described as a form of natural selection. Even those merely suspected of political offenses were expelled from higher and secondary educational institutions, arrested, and exiled to remote parts of the Empire. The weaker individuals withdrew from the revolutionary movement. Those who were more resilient, however, gained experience in confronting the political police and continued their revolutionary activities with renewed energy.

On 14 January 1902, the Police Department informed the gubernial gendarmerie administrations:

“Persons who participated in disturbances in university towns and students expelled from higher educational institutions frequently establish contact with local students and young people after being expelled from the cities. They introduce them to anti-government ideas and, more generally, exert a harmful influence on them, preparing them for future revolutionary activity” (64).

It was precisely the young people expelled from higher educational institutions between 1890 and 1899, having been “disrupted from the normal rhythm of life,” who became a leading force in the Revolution of 1905–1907.

Young people who went abroad to study also quickly came under the influence of political émigrés who had escaped repression. These émigrés included adherents of Narodnik ideology as well as leaders of the newly emerging Social Democratic movement. As early as the beginning of 1894, the Police Department was instructing all law-enforcement and security bodies in the gubernias of the Empire to keep students returning home from higher educational institutions abroad during their holidays under observation (65).

Between 1895 and 1898, the pessimism prevailing among revolutionaries in exile gave way to a desire for active work. They intensified the dispatch of their emissaries and clandestine literature into the Russian Empire, while efforts began to restore old contacts with like-minded individuals and fragmented revolutionary organizations. Liberal officials also became more active, and members of the zemstvos began attempting to unite in order to advance new demands and wrest greater rights from the authorities.

In these circumstances, gendarmerie officers confined themselves to monitoring the population, collecting reports and rumours, recording events of local significance, and investigating political offenses after they had already occurred. Owing to their lack of appropriate experience and resources, the gendarmerie was unable to conduct political surveillance in the sense of detecting political offenses before they took place.

The gubernial gendarmerie administrations had neither secret agents nor surveillance agents known as fillery. These agents were concentrated in the imperial centre, within the Police Department and the Moscow Okhrana. In the gubernias, covert surveillance was undertaken only in exceptional circumstances by gendarmerie non-commissioned officers in civilian clothing. According to the recollections of a contemporary, they “sometimes forgot to remove the spurs from their boots” (66).

In these circumstances, the first Marxist organization to emerge in Georgia in 1893 rapidly expanded its activities. By 1895–1896, there were already five Social Democratic circles among railway workers alone; by the beginning of 1898, their number had risen to twenty-five (67).

Between 1894 and 1901, Georgian Social Democrats conducted agitation and propaganda in Tiflis, Kutaisi, and throughout Georgia with virtually no obstruction (68). N. Zhordania wrote: “At that time, we freely published all our ideas in Kvali, except for direct calls [to action].” He attributed this situation to two reasons. First, the censorship committee had received a special circular from St Petersburg instructing it to pay particular attention to propaganda of a national character. The committee, he observed, “was more alarmed by patriotic poems than by economic issues.” Second, “the censor was a young man, G. Zhuruli, of decent character and liberal views. He knew nothing about Marxism and confined himself to the provisions of the circular” (69).

The censor’s lack of knowledge of Marxism was not, however, the reason why the gendarmerie and the censorship authorities effectively gave the Social Democrats a free hand. In this case, the decisive role was played by the instructions issued by the Police Department to the local agencies responsible for political surveillance and investigation.

 

 

Chapter III

The Political Situation in the Empire and the Political Police, 1902–1908

§ 1. Revolutionary Terror and the Establishment of Political Surveillance Agencies in the Russian Empire

The words of Nechaev, the founder of the revolutionary organization Narodnaya Rasprava (People’s Reprisal), which existed in the 1860s, became a guiding principle for revolutionaries of the following period:

“If you wish to turn our students into genuine revolutionaries, make sure that things develop in such a way that the government sends as many of them as possible to prison, expels them from educational institutions, sends them into exile, and disrupts their normal rhythm of life. Only then will they be hardened in their hatred of the existing authorities” (70).

In her memoirs, V. Figner notes that, by the late 1880s, the Narodniks had in practice implemented a provision of the Zemlya i Volya (Land and Liberty) programme requiring members of the organization to penetrate the army, the administration, and the zemstvos, with the aim of “inflaming” these people and encouraging them to participate in all kinds of protests against the authorities. She writes:

“The Kazan demonstration was organized precisely for this purpose. It achieved its objective, but certain circles in St Petersburg were dissatisfied that the participants in the demonstration had used the spectators as their instrument. Such a policy and such demonstrations were intended to provoke discontent in society and keep it in a state of agitation, while also instilling apprehension in the authorities” (71).

Thus, in the Narodniks’ view, strikes and demonstrations played a major role in the process of “revolutionizing” society. However, they came to recognize that terrorist acts directed against representatives of the political police frightened the authorities most of all and provoked a broad response across every stratum of society. The assassination of Emperor Alexander II temporarily paralysed the government.

The 1870s through the 1890s were a period of rapid technological development in Europe, a pace of change that human understanding struggled to keep up with. The primacy of technology was increasingly evident. Accordingly, revolutionaries in European countries believed that technological advances could be used to change political regimes. At a congress held in London in 1881, anarchists declared terrorist tactics to be a priority. This decision ushered in a period of terrorist campaigns lasting twenty years and, in some European countries, thirty years. In 1892 alone, more than 1,000 terrorist acts involving dynamite bombs were carried out across Europe. Most of the terrorists were active in Italy, France, and Germany. In 1896, they even assassinated the French President, Carnot (72).

Russian revolutionaries living abroad clearly recognized the power of dynamite as a means of disorganizing the authorities. Whereas the terrorist acts committed by the Narodniks in the 1870s and 1880s had been defensive in character and served as an instrument of “revenge,” by the late 1890s a new conception of terror had emerged. Drawing on an analysis of the “experience” of European revolutionaries, particularly French anarchists, V. Chernov, one of the future leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, developed the concept of the so-called “threefold function” of terror. According to this conception, terror served three purposes: first, to disorganize the authorities; second, to “inflame” the people; and third, to serve as a means of agitation (73).

It was precisely bombs that members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, founded in 1901, chose as their principal instrument of terror. In the view of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, “political changes in Russia depended on the replacement of ministers.” Such changes, they believed, could be “hastened by bombs.” Although the use of bombs increased the risk of innocent people being killed, these weapons were distinguished not only by their tremendous destructive power but also by the loud public impact of their explosions. They therefore constituted a powerful means of “agitation” intended to “revolutionize” the population.

In 1901, before the process of establishing the party had even been completed, the Socialist-Revolutionaries created a “Combat Organization” to carry out “central terror” against high-ranking government officials. The seventh issue of Revolutionary Russia, the party’s publication, announced:

“In accordance with the decision of the party, a special ‘Combat Organization’ has been established. On the basis of strict secrecy and a division of labour, it assumes responsibility exclusively for terrorist and disorganizing activities. It is connected only with the party centre and is entirely separate from the local committees” (74).

Its first operation took place on 2 April 1902, when Balmashev, a member of the organization, assassinated Sipyagin, the Minister of Internal Affairs. This terrorist act came as a surprise to the imperial authorities. In the words of General of the Gendarmerie Spiridonovich, “No one knew where such a terrible blow had come from, how it had been carried out, why it had happened, or for what purpose.”

The problem was that, as noted above, political surveillance agencies were not operating in the provinces. In the gubernias, the only bodies responsible for preliminary inquiries into political offenses—that is, political investigation—were the gubernial gendarmerie administrations. Their heads, lacking the necessary experience and resources, failed during this period to recognize the extensive expansion of agitation and propaganda by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats (75).

During the period under consideration, from 1894 to 1901, political surveillance agencies existed only in St Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw, in the form of Okhrana departments. The history of these departments—or, more precisely, the Departments for the Protection of Public Order and Tranquillity—began in 1866 with the establishment of the Security Detachment in St Petersburg (76).

Initially, its task was to protect the Tsar and members of his family. In 1880, a department of this kind was established in Moscow to detect preparations for terrorist acts by Narodnaya Volya. A short time later, another was established in Warsaw in response to the strengthening of the national movement in Poland. These departments were charged with detecting preparations for political offenses directed against the existing regime—in other words, conducting political surveillance. They carried out this work primarily through surveillance agents. Whenever possible, they also employed internal agents: secret collaborators, or informants. The imperial authorities had already reached a conclusion about the importance of using such collaborators in 1878: “The struggle against revolution is impossible without the assistance of entirely independent private individuals who move within social circles” (77).

In the mid-1890s, I. Zubatov was appointed head of the Moscow Okhrana. The years during which he led the Moscow Okhrana effectively constituted a period of reform of the principal political surveillance agency. Zubatov introduced the photographing of every arrested person and was the first to introduce and employ fingerprinting. He also developed methods for using internal agents—secret collaborators. For the first time in the Russian Empire, he established a well-organized corps of surveillance agents, known as fillery (78).

A thirty-member “flying squad” of surveillance agents was formed under the Moscow Okhrana. Its members were dispatched to parts of the Empire where the revolutionary movement was beginning to gain momentum. It was the Moscow Okhrana that supplied the Police Department with extensive information about the revolutionary and national movements developing throughout the Empire. As a result, it became the Police Department’s central agency for political surveillance (79).

Zubatov’s name is also associated with the tactical approach pursued by the Police Department between 1895 and 1902. In his view, the principal task of the political police was to create divisions within the ranks of its opponents, particularly between the revolutionary intelligentsia and the workers. To prevent the gradually growing workers’ movement of the late 1890s from developing into a revolutionary movement, workers had to be allowed to establish legal organizations (80).

Under Zubatov’s influence, the leaders of the political police believed that the newly emerging Social Democrats were, at that time, occupied with propaganda among workers that focused exclusively on economic issues and with addressing their cultural and educational needs.

As the revolutionary historian V. Burtsev wrote: “The Police Department not only refrained from arresting Social Democratic propagandists among the workers, but also allowed them to carry out such propaganda.” Moreover, the Department assisted revolutionaries who had escaped from exile and wished to leave the country, believing that they would participate in the development of the legal workers’ movement abroad (81).

Zubatov personally secured the release of Gershuni, who would later become the organizer of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s “Combat Organization,” because he believed that Gershuni would participate in the legal workers’ movement. The Police Department also believed that this tactic would make it possible to create a specialized, professional workers’ movement to counter the professional terrorist movement and thereby detach workers from the influence of revolutionaries (82).

On the other hand, Zubatov wanted the Socialist-Revolutionaries, whose influence was steadily growing, to embark on active operations and resort to terror. In his view, terror and the extensive bloodshed associated with it would morally corrupt the revolutionaries and create a rift between them and society (83). Moreover, by resorting to the most extreme forms of struggle, the revolutionaries would give the authorities an opportunity to bring them to justice through the courts. The problem was that, owing to deficiencies in the legal framework, exposed Socialist-Revolutionaries often escaped punishment.

According to the recollections of a contemporary:

“At that time, the inactivity of the gendarmerie and police in Georgia was almost unbelievable. Revolutionary circles were springing up like mushrooms, one agitation campaign followed another, and there was no distinction between day and night. Wherever workers were concentrated, intensive study and preparations were under way. It was only the strike that took place in the summer of 1900 that finally brought the government to its senses” (84).

By contrast, the authorities destroyed the groups of Russian Marxists in Tiflis and Batumi in 1897–1898 before they had even been given an opportunity to begin their work (85). The particularly harsh persecution of Russian Social Democrats in Georgia stemmed from the government’s desire to use Russian workers as a pillar of support for its rule in the Caucasus. One Social Democrat active during this period wrote in his memoirs:

“At that time, the overwhelming majority of Russian workers were imbued with nationalist ideas. They regarded themselves here as representatives of the dominant nation, and it was therefore difficult to establish close relations with them, both politically and in terms of clandestine organizational work” (86).

As is well known, between 1890 and 1901 there were no powerful Narodnik-type organizations in the Caucasus, nor was there a large-scale workers’ movement. The working class in Georgia was relatively small. Consequently, the reasons why the political police allowed Georgian Social Democrats considerable freedom to conduct propaganda and agitation differed from those that applied in the imperial centre.

The first reason was that the authorities were more alarmed by “patriotic poems.” The second was that, as soon as the young Marxists entered the political arena, they chose as their opponent the very force that enjoyed the support of a large proportion of Georgian society. In the view of the political police, this force was the broad national movement that existed in Georgia at the end of the nineteenth century.

The police’s position coincided with that of the Georgian Social Democrats. The latter launched an extensive campaign against representatives of the national movement. Alongside articles on economic issues, their party newspaper Kvali frequently published pieces containing harsh attacks on figures associated with the national movement. “Our” Social Democrats maintained that “the national principle had by then become not worth a straw” (87).

Like their Russian ideological associates, who naturally had little interest in the national question, the Georgian Marxists sought to place social rather than national issues at the forefront of public attention. They openly declared themselves enemies of “our present-day intellectual leaders.” They regarded the latter’s activities as harmful because they placed the national question at the forefront. This confrontation, in turn, served the interests of the political police in Georgia.

Regarding G. Zhuruli, the censor praised by N. Zhordania, the Georgian patriot S. Pirtskhalava wrote:

“It did not help the situation in the slightest that the Georgian publication was censored by a Georgian. During G. Zhuruli’s tenure, we were subjected to severe restrictions and were unable to put our ideas across. We could breathe freely only when G. Zhuruli occasionally went on leave” (88).

Although the political police sometimes resorted to repression against individual Social Democrats, short-term imprisonment or exile often enhanced their standing by giving them the aura of martyrs who had suffered for “the cause of the people.” According to L. Rataev, head of the Special Section of the Police Department at the time, “Until 1901, exile existed only on paper. A revolutionary subjected to the prison regime of that period could continue his activities without hindrance” (89).

In 1902, Nicholas II appointed Viacheslav Plehve as the new Minister of Internal Affairs, replacing Sipyagin, who had been assassinated by a terrorist. Plehve had headed the Police Department between 1881 and 1884. His name was associated with the destruction of the remnants of Narodnaya Volya. He believed that the social movement unfolding in the country was the result of the activities of individual energetic revolutionaries and that police measures alone would therefore suffice to suppress it.

Plehve considered that the Police Department and its local political investigation agencies—the gubernial gendarmerie administrations—had fallen behind developments and were still operating according to outdated methods and techniques. Surveillance at railway stations and public gathering places, questioning house porters about suspicious residents, and conducting mass searches and arrests were no longer effective against newly established terrorist organizations that maintained strict secrecy.

He dismissed a large proportion of the personnel serving in the political police, particularly the senior officials of the gubernial gendarmerie administrations. He also assembled a new team within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (90). He appointed A. Lopukhin, a former prosecutor, as director of the Police Department, placing his hopes in him as the person who would carry out a comprehensive reorganization of the police. Lopukhin, in turn, transferred Zubatov, the former head of the Moscow Okhrana from 1894 to 1902, to head the Special Section of the Police Department, which was responsible for directing political surveillance and investigation. Zubatov brought with him his closest associates (91).

Revolutionary activity increased sharply in many Russian gubernias in 1902, including Transcaucasia. The Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration wrote to the Police Department:

“In Transcaucasia, and specifically in Tiflis, the revolutionary movement has assumed such a dangerous character that it is impossible to combat it by ordinary means; measures of an exceptional nature are required” (92).

By 1902, agitation and propaganda among students and young people had expanded so widely, and their demonstrations had become so frequent—not to mention the activities of workers and peasants—that repressive measures were no longer proving effective. In 1903, the Minister of Internal Affairs therefore issued a special circular instructing teachers in secondary schools to use their moral influence to pacify the students (93).

Terrorism also began to spread and intensify. In 1902–1903, the Socialist-Revolutionary Party devoted the greatest material resources to terrorism and advocated its extensive use among the population. From this period onward, however, terror in Georgia was employed primarily by the Social Democrats.

In response to the wave of terror and other forms of revolutionary activity that had spread throughout the Empire, the Tsarist regime turned to the widespread use of secret collaborators. The use of police agents operating within revolutionary organizations to combat terrorists had long been an established practice among the secret police of European countries, particularly France, with which Russia maintained close relations during this period.

The leadership of the Police Department in the Russian Empire likewise came to the conclusion that “if a regime wishes to preserve its existence, it cannot do so without the use of secret collaborators.” France was cited as an example:

“At that time, as in Russia, a dilemma existed: either we must give terror free rein, allowing murders to be committed indiscriminately, or we must fight it by means of methods established over centuries. If there is an opponent who seeks to overthrow the existing order from underground, secretly and clandestinely, direct confrontation with that opponent is ineffective. If the direct route is unavailable, we must employ methods suited to the nature of revolutionary activity. Can an anti-state movement or current be confronted openly?”

The leaders of the Police Department posed these questions and gave an unequivocal answer: the struggle could be conducted only through secret collaborators—that is, agents (94).

Zubatov’s arrival at the Police Department was followed by the establishment of political surveillance agencies throughout the Empire. In 1902, on Plehve’s orders, “surveillance departments” (rozysknye otdeleniya) were created in the provinces. Under the regulations governing these departments, they were charged with conducting political surveillance (95).

Since political surveillance began not with the discovery of a crime but with efforts to detect its preparation before the crime occurred, the regulations defined it as a combination of “external surveillance” and the activities of “secret collaborators” (96).

In 1903, these departments were renamed “Security Departments”—the Okhrana departments by which they are commonly known in historical literature. Under the new regulations of 1903 and 1907, as well as the instructions approved by Stolypin in 1907—Instruction No. 120 on “Secret Collaborators” and Instruction No. 140 on “Surveillance Agents”—the sole authorized basis for political surveillance was declared to be the conduct of “internal surveillance” through “internal, strictly secret agents—that is, secret collaborators.” The departments were also required to select and “train” surveillance agents, known as fillery (97).

The establishment of these departments was also intended to bring the activities of the local agencies of the political police under a unified system. Heads of the Okhrana departments were required to inform the heads of the gubernial gendarmerie administrations orally of the results of surveillance and political investigations. In turn, Okhrana officers were entitled to consult all case materials held by the gubernial gendarmerie administrations. Nevertheless, they were also obliged to send those administrations information relating to political surveillance.

Alongside the unification of the activities of local political police agencies, the Okhrana departments were instructed to forward immediately to the Police Department all intelligence they received, including information supplied by secret collaborators and data obtained through external surveillance. Wherever possible, they were to coordinate in advance searches or arrests involving particular individuals and specify the reasons prompting such searches or arrests (98).

On the basis of this information, the Police Department issued the relevant instructions to the local gubernial gendarmerie administrations. The latter carried out searches and, where necessary, made arrests under the direct participation and instructions of the head of the relevant Okhrana department.

The regulations also stipulated that, if an Okhrana department needed to take such urgent measures, it was to request assistance from the heads of the gubernial gendarmerie administrations in conducting investigative operations. Such requests were binding on the heads of those administrations.

After a search had been completed, the seized evidentiary materials were handed over to the head of the gubernial gendarmerie administration, who initiated a formal inquiry into the case and began the investigation (99).

Thus, the Okhrana departments were responsible only for political surveillance—that is, detecting the preparation of political offenses. The investigation and establishment of the facts of a political offense remained the responsibility of the gubernial gendarmerie administrations.

The gubernial gendarmerie administrations consequently retained a secondary role within the political police system. Significantly, through the Okhrana departments, the Police Department acquired its own local agencies, bypassing the headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. Through these agencies, it gained direct insight into the political and private lives of the local population throughout the Empire and established, as far as possible, centralized control over political surveillance across the country.

Officers of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes were appointed heads of the Okhrana departments at the discretion of the director of the Police Department. They were considered seconded to the local Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations and remained subordinate to their heads in matters of service hierarchy. In practice, however, an unusual situation arose: the heads of the Okhrana departments could—and did—request assistance and various kinds of information from the gendarmerie, while the gendarmerie conducted searches on their instructions. In effect, an officer of lower rank, a rotmister, was issuing orders to a colonel or even a general.

In these circumstances, the gendarmerie had been relegated to a secondary role in the handling of political cases. Officers of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations acted as judicial investigators, while the headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes retained only the authority to impose military and disciplinary requirements on its local agencies. This situation prompted the Corps’ headquarters to seek once again to remain informed about the political and private lives of local communities.

A circular sent to the heads of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations in mid-1904 stipulated that annual written reports on major crimes, various incidents, significant events in public life, and the criminal activities of officials were to be addressed exclusively to the Chief of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes—that is, to the Minister of Internal Affairs. No copies were to be sent either to the Police Department or to the Corps’ headquarters (100). The envelopes were to be addressed to the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. Given that, at the time, all letters and parcels arriving at the Corps’ headquarters underwent perliustration—covert examination by censors—it is clear that the Corps’ leadership was kept well informed. Moreover, the censors examined every document addressed to the Police Department as well. Lopukhin learned only later that, during his tenure as director of the Police Department, even his personal correspondence had been read and copied on the orders of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Plehve. Lopukhin himself maintained that Article 671 of the Regulations of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, which required the head of the Corps’ headquarters to possess all information necessary for the Corps’ commander, compelled local gendarmerie officers to continue supplying the Corps’ leadership with information in which it was interested.

As for the Police Department, political surveillance had come entirely under the control of its Special Section. From 1902 onward, this section had effectively become a department within the department (101), and its staff had expanded. A top-secret unit was established within the Special Section to direct its activities. The officials working in this unit exercised overall control of political surveillance. They developed instructions on its methods and techniques and sent them to the Okhrana departments (102). The unit also maintained the clandestine organization and directed the activities of the central agent network—that is, particularly important secret collaborators who occupied leading positions within political parties. These included E. Azef, Z. Zuchenko, M. Malinovsky, and others.

During these years, a counterintelligence section was also established within the Police Department. Until 1904, surveillance of foreign agents had been sporadic and limited in scope. From that year onward, a special secret bureau was established within the Police Department and tasked with monitoring foreign embassies and obtaining and processing confidential correspondence, documents, and ciphers (103). Thus, the Police Department ultimately became the central body coordinating the general police, political police, and counterintelligence agencies.

 

§ 2. The Establishment of the Okhrana Department in Georgia

Methods and Techniques of Using Secret Agents

 

Under the Regulations on Search Departments of 12 August 1902, search departments were established in all major cities, including Tiflis, attached to the offices of the police chiefs (politsmeisters). In 1903, a new Temporary Regulations on Security (Okhrana) Departments was issued. In practice, the “search departments” underwent little more than a change of name, together with the refinement of certain provisions of the regulations (104).

A search department existed in Tiflis in 1902–1903. However, among the files preserved in the National Archives of Georgia, only one file within the Okhrana records is dated 1902. We have located a circular issued by the Police Department in 1903 and addressed to the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, as well as a document concerning agents. The circular stipulated that a secret collaborator of the Okhrana was not to be interrogated at the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration. The other document mentions a certain Abuladze among the agents exposed by revolutionaries. According to later Okhrana records, Abuladze had been an agent of the Okhrana department since 1903. It is worth noting that, according to other sources, Lavrov was the head of the Tiflis search department in 1902–1903. His biography indicates that, at the end of 1903, he was transferred to St Petersburg to head the newly established counterintelligence section.

A document dated 1 January 1904 concerns the activities of the Tiflis Okhrana department. It reveals that Okhrana departments operated in Tiflis, while in Batumi and Baku there were Okhrana posts functioning as subordinate units of the Tiflis department.

At the beginning of 1904, the staff of the Tiflis Okhrana department comprised officers of the following ranks and positions: the head of the department, a rotmister, who personally directed the agent network; a deputy, also a rotmister, who supervised the external surveillance agents known as fillery; one clerk responsible for case administration; and one copyist. Police supervisors were also included in the staff.

The Batumi Okhrana post was headed by a rotmister, whose staff included two non-commissioned officers serving as fillery. In 1905, two police supervisors were added to their number to carry out external surveillance duties.

By 1907, the staff of the Tiflis Okhrana department had gradually expanded, and its organizational structure had also become more elaborate. From this period onward, the department comprised three structural units: the general chancery, the external surveillance section, and the internal surveillance (agent) section. The internal surveillance section was the principal unit of the Okhrana. It processed and analysed all the information collected and effectively functioned as an analytical centre. The external surveillance section was also subordinate to the head of the internal surveillance section—the chief of the Okhrana department—who simultaneously directed the internal agent network of secret collaborators. Information gathered by both secret collaborators and external surveillance agents was ultimately concentrated in his hands.

As noted above, the Police Department lacked direct methods for combating revolutionaries operating clandestinely underground. During the Revolution of 1905–1907, it therefore began making extensive use of secret collaborators, since this method was suited to the nature of revolutionary activity. In particular, espionage, which had already been practised, and the gathering of information about revolutionary organizations through police agents infiltrated into them were systematized and declared the principal—and sole—basis of political surveillance: “an internal, completely secret and permanent agent network” (105).

As noted earlier, in 1907 Stolypin approved the regulations governing the Okhrana departments, as well as Instruction No. 120, entitled “On the Organization and Management of the Internal Agent Network” (106). It consisted of five chapters:

1.               The composition of the agent network;

2.               The recruitment of agents;

3.               The management of the agent network;

4.               The use of safe houses;

5.               Measures to protect the identity of secret collaborators (107).

This instruction remained in force without change until 1914, when a new instruction was adopted that differed little from the previous one. Heads of Okhrana departments were required to know it by heart (108). In addition, each year the head of an Okhrana department submitted a report to the central authorities on how thoroughly the subordinate department’s officers had mastered the instruction. The document set out in detail the methods of political surveillance. According to the instruction, the task of a secret collaborator was to investigate the revolutionary milieu and obtain evidence that could be used to bring its members to trial (109). Officers of the Okhrana departments referred to these individuals as “collaborators” because they received a monthly salary, a one-time payment, or a monetary reward as an incentive for their services (110).

The most highly valued secret collaborators were those recruited from within the milieu under investigation—that is, members of political organizations and prohibited societies. The instructions directed Okhrana officers to focus primarily on recruiting prominent party activists and influential members who occupied leading positions within party organizations (111). Nevertheless, the authorities also believed that “a rank-and-file party activist operating within the milieu under investigation could provide more information than other means of intelligence gathering” (112).

Some secret collaborators were “groomed” by officers of local political police departments, taught the methods of political surveillance, and then “placed” inside a political party (113). Preparing such individuals to serve as “collaborators” and infiltrating them into revolutionary organizations was an extremely difficult task. Consequently, secret collaborators working for the Okhrana departments were recruited primarily from among individuals who had been “acquired”—that is, those who had been persuaded or coerced into cooperation during investigations into political cases.

As noted above, the process of recruiting such “collaborators” was known as “agent recruitment” or agenturization. By the 1914 instruction, the methods of “acquiring agents” had been elaborated and justified with explicit consideration of psychological factors (114). Even before that, however, the leadership of the political police had recommended in earlier regulations that officers take into account certain distinctive personality traits of the individuals selected for recruitment.

In this respect, correspondence among representatives of the local political police agencies in Georgia concerning N. Chumburidze, a Social Democratic revolutionary, is particularly revealing. One document states:

“N. Chumburidze participated as a delegate from Poti in the regional conference of the Transcaucasian Social Democrats and must therefore know everything about the activities of the local organization of the aforementioned party. Certain distinctive features of his character and his financial circumstances should be taken into account; it may therefore be possible to involve him in agent work. Use every means to exert influence on him. Warn him that only a frank and truthful confession will save him from exile to a remote location.”

Nothing worked with N. Chumburidze. The following is an extract from the reply sent by the officer concerned:

“I took every measure to involve Chumburidze in agent work and held a lengthy private conversation with him in Poti prison. However, I failed to achieve the desired result. As usually happens in such cases, N. Chumburidze denies his guilt” (115).

The 1907 instruction devoted a separate chapter to specific methods of recruiting an “internal agent network.” In the view of the political police, the individuals most suitable for recruitment were those under investigation—that is, people who had been arrested—as well as those experiencing financial hardship, those who had escaped from exile, and those found in possession of incriminating evidence when arrested, among others (116).

The Okhrana often secretly arrested a person selected for recruitment on the street so that, during a face-to-face “conversation,” moral or physical pressure could be brought to bear on them. This method was used primarily when the police possessed incontrovertible evidence that could be used to arrest the individual. If this approach failed, officers attempted during subsequent interrogations to entice the detainee with money or the prospect of complete exoneration. The latter could be achieved by removing from the case the materials implicating the individual in anti-state activities and then releasing them.

The instructions also advised officers to exploit disagreements within political parties and to bring under their influence individuals who had become resentful of their fellow party members for one reason or another. According to the instructions, people of weak will or those who had begun to doubt the correctness of their own activities were suitable candidates for recruitment.

For example, A. Umakov, known by the alias “Churkin,” transformed himself from a sincere and active revolutionary into a police agent after imprisonment led him to recognize the differences between ordinary revolutionaries and the “aristocrats” of the revolution—that is, individuals occupying senior positions in the party hierarchy.

He wrote:

“In prison, the Red Cross supplied them with large quantities of food and clothing, and all these ‘martyrs for the people’ enjoyed unrestricted access to these provisions, unlike the ordinary workers and peasants sympathetic to the revolution who found themselves in prison. As an ascetic revolutionary, I was astonished to hear how, in intimate conversations, all these professional revolutionaries—who had become parasites—Social Democrats, Socialist-Revolutionaries, anarchists, and Bundists, revealed to one another how much each had received from the organization for living expenses and how they subsequently circulated this money” (117

The instruction explicitly emphasized that individuals whose conduct was disreputable or immoral were easier to recruit, since compromising material about them was relatively easy to obtain (118). A case in point is the recruitment of Degayev, a member of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya, as a police agent. One of the reasons Degayev agreed to cooperate with the Police Department was that, on Sudeykin’s instructions, the Moscow Okhrana had secretly photographed him in a hotel while he was in the company of an underage prostitute. This occurred in the early 1880s (119).

Our examination of the personal files of secret agents revealed that political police officers often did not even need to exert pressure on revolutionaries to recruit them. Many had joined the revolutionary movement in the hope of making money. So frequent were cases of individuals volunteering their services to the political police that, in the vivid words of one Police Department official, “supply exceeded demand.” One such case was Evno Azef, one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party’s Combat Organization, who offered his services to the political police while still a student. Azef managed to embezzle considerable sums from the Combat Organization’s funds while also receiving a substantial salary from the Police Department.

Some individuals became police agents out of an adventurous disposition, while others did so for ideological reasons. Zinaida Zuchенко, a secret collaborator of the Police Department within the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was an example of the latter. She openly declared that she “served an ideal and was an honest employee of the Police Department in its struggle against the revolutionaries” (120). Kesinsky, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist Party who also worked as an agent for the Police Department, made the following remarks after his exposure:

“You do not understand us [that is, agents]. You have no idea what we experience when we pass from one world into another. No, you cannot understand our emotions.”

According to the person who spoke with Kesinsky, “his face expressed the peculiar delight of an adventurer” (121).

According to the instruction, recruitment as a police agent was essentially a psychological process that required great caution and patience. In the words of Belitsky, director of the Police Department, an Okhrana officer had to bring the person he sought to recruit, by psychological means, to the point of making a frank confession (122). Threats, torture, and physical coercion in general were officially regarded as undesirable. In practice, however, Okhrana officers frequently resorted to precisely these methods, since psychological persuasion often failed when used against revolutionaries hardened by years of struggle and adversity.

When all attempts to influence a prospective recruit proved unsuccessful, the instruction recommended placing a secret collaborator in the same cell. The agent would gain the prisoner’s trust and attempt to act as a “catalyst,” encouraging him to make a frank confession. To relieve the pressure being exerted by the political police, the agent might advise the prisoner to inform on people who were already in custody. If the prisoner took this bait, however, Okhrana officers would blackmail him, threatening to inform his fellow party members of his betrayal. In this way, they sought to break the resistance of an obstinate revolutionary and recruit him as a police agent (123).

Once recruited, the individual was required to make a written statement in which he disclosed everything of interest to the Okhrana and acknowledged his guilt. Following this confession and expression of remorse, the charges against him could be dropped. His written statement, however, remained on file as a means of exerting pressure on him should he subsequently prove reluctant to cooperate. The recruit was entered in the agent register, received a salary, and continued his activities within the political party (124).

For a certain period, the agent was placed under external surveillance by fillery to verify the accuracy of the information he supplied. The Okhrana, for its part, took steps, in agreement with the prosecutorial authorities, to have records that might lead to the agent’s exposure or imprisonment removed from the investigative case file (125).

In order to conceal an agent’s role in the destruction of a revolutionary organization, the police sometimes arrested the agent himself when the organization was broken up and a group of its members taken into custody. The instruction stated:

“To prevent an agent’s exposure, it may sometimes be necessary to arrest a collaborator. This measure, however, should be used only as a last resort, since it cannot be repeated.”

It also stipulated that, if an agent was arrested, his release must not arouse suspicion among his fellow party members. To achieve this, the instruction advised:

“For this purpose, several people from his group should first be released, followed by the collaborator himself. Those released alongside him should not occupy lower positions than he does within the party” (126).

If it proved impossible to secure the release of an arrested agent, the Okhrana might even arrange his escape from custody. This was done to preserve his cover, particularly when the general police and judicial officials were deliberately kept unaware of his true role. For example, according to the agent “Churkin,” after his arrest, S. Karpov, head of the Rostov Okhrana department and his supervising officer, came to see him and discreetly informed him that an escape had been arranged. Karpov had given money to a gorodovoy serving with the local police unit so that the constable would not interfere with Churkin’s escape (127).

Each recruited agent was assigned to a particular supervising officer, who gave the agent a code name or alias. The alias had to differ from the agent’s own name and patronymic. In 1908, local political surveillance agencies received a stern warning that an agent’s alias must not reveal whether the person was male or female (128). An alias could be virtually any word or number, such as “Ivan-Priyezzhiy” (“Ivan the Newcomer”), “Sluchayny” (“Chance”), “Vazhny” (“Important”), “995,” or “3.” An agent could have two or even three aliases. In their correspondence, Okhrana officers referred to secret collaborators exclusively by their aliases.

As a rule, in the terminology of the period, a supervising officer “managed” several secret collaborators. In 1906–1907, Angilev, head of the Tiflis Okhrana department, managed an average of ten to fifteen agents per month operating within local revolutionary organizations (129). Agents passed confidential information only to their supervising officer. It was rare for an agent to work with two officers simultaneously. If the supervising officer was transferred to another post, his agents would try to transfer with him or abandon their work altogether.

Gerasimov, head of the St Petersburg Okhrana department from 1906 to 1910, wrote that “particularly important agents left the service together with him; even after the Revolution of 1917, their identities were never exposed” (130).

Supervising officers, for their part, tried to avoid transferring a valuable agent to another officer. They kept the agent’s identity concealed even from their own colleagues in order to continue receiving important intelligence over an extended period. An effective secret collaborator supplied his supervising officer with valuable information and could, in turn, help secure the officer’s career advancement. Rotmister Martinov, head of the Saratov Okhrana department, put it this way:

“Without a good collaborator, it is impossible to make a career. Gendarmes advance only where there are ‘reliable collaborators.’ In a word, a ‘reliable collaborator’ means success, promotion, rewards, unrestricted funds, and power” (131).

Naturally, this kind of “internal secrecy” protected the agent from “cross-surveillance”—additional checks designed to verify his activities—and also gave him the opportunity to deceive his sole “patron,” the officer responsible for him.

The subsequent activities of a recruited agent depended entirely on his supervising officer. According to the instruction, the officer was required to “influence the collaborator’s worldview and state of mind and, as far as possible, foster in him a conscious attitude towards his service and acquaint him with the history of the revolutionary movement” (132). Significantly, in the Central Historical Archive of Georgia, an official who read this document added an ironic handwritten comment in the margin: “Is this intended to promote revolutionary propaganda among the collaborators?” (133).

As noted above, the principal requirement of the instruction was to recruit a prominent party activist or an influential and active member of a revolutionary organization. At the same time, it was considered that “even a weak secret collaborator operating within the milieu under investigation will provide incomparably more information than the social circles in which an officer moves openly in his official capacity” (134).

Recruiting a prominent party activist posed a new challenge for the supervising officer. Newly recruited secret collaborators often knew revolutionary circles better than the officers assigned to supervise them. They occupied leading positions within their parties and were frequently accomplished orators and intellectuals, seasoned in party debates and public rallies. For their part, these individuals sought to bring the supervising officer under their own influence. The psychological contest over “who would dominate whom” was therefore a dangerous one. The instructions accordingly required the supervising officer to establish his authority over a newly recruited agent from the outset (135).

It was recommended that the supervising officer establish a relationship of trust with the collaborator, avoiding any official or formal attitude. “The collaborator’s life is generally morally burdensome, and meetings with the supervising officer are often the only moments in the collaborator’s life when he can breathe freely and find relief from the pangs of conscience,” the instructions emphasized (136). The Police Department knew what it was advising officers in local Okhrana Departments to do. Gurevich, the author of the instructions—by then an official in a highly secret unit within the Department’s Secret Section—had himself worked as a secret police collaborator in St Petersburg in the early 1900s, operating within the Social Democratic Party (137).

Frequent personal meetings with agents were essential. These meetings took place in safe houses rented by clerks or non-commissioned officers of the Okhrana Department in such a way as to avoid arousing suspicion (138). Agents were given a neutral private address to which they could send letters or information. Alternatively, they were informed of the route along which an Okhrana official would pass on a specified day and at a specified time. If an agent wished to meet with his supervising officer, he was to drop a cigarette or a matchbox after lighting it. An Okhrana official would pick it up and deliver the note inside to its intended recipient. The same procedure was used to convey messages to agents. The instructions specified that such meetings should take place in through-courtyards, on staircases, or in places where relatively few people gathered (139).

In addition to non-commissioned officers and the Department’s watchman, the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department also used the watchman’s young child as a messenger. The child inadvertently exposed the Department’s agent “Vazhni,” who had infiltrated the Social Democratic Party. When the child called him to the apartment and was asked who he was, the child told the other residents that his father was the watchman at the Okhrana Department and that he called Vano—the real name of “Vazhni”—“the head of the Okhrana” (140).

Officers were strictly forbidden to attend meetings with agents in uniform. Special funds were allocated to them for the purchase of civilian clothing (141).

In 1905–1907, after agents killed their supervising officers in safe houses, the Police Department was compelled to develop specific procedures for meetings in such locations. These included instructions not to seat a collaborator in front of a window or mirror and to ensure that the supervising officer was the first to arrive at and the first to leave the safe house, among other precautions (142).

The supervising officer personally recorded the information received from a collaborator and entered it in a special register in the form of what was known as an “agent report.” The register also included information supplied by auxiliary agents. A separate register was maintained for each collaborator, and its entries were written in the third person. Thus, the collaborator was identified by his real first and last names in the report, alongside other individuals involved in an illegal meeting or terrorist act (143). In addition to the date on which the information was received, each “agent report” recorded the agent’s pseudonym, the name of the party, and the surname of the supervising officer (144).

The “agent reports” preserved in the collections of the Central Historical Archive of Georgia contain numerous annotations indicating that Okhrana officers used these records for covert operational work. They processed the information received, collected different kinds of data, compared and correlated facts, and verified information through surveillance agents, or fillery. The reports also contain notes on the individuals mentioned—for example, whether they had been arrested and what information had been collected about them. Several copies of reports were prepared on the basis of these records. One was sent to the Police Department; another was returned to the Okhrana’s agent section for further processing; a third was placed in the collaborator’s personal file; and a fourth was filed as an “agent report” in the dossier relating to the relevant party or organization (145).

When a collaborator wrote a report personally, he referred to himself in the third person, using his real first and last names. Moreover, if a man had been assigned a female pseudonym, he wrote in Russian using the feminine grammatical gender, and vice versa (146).

Agents often withheld certain information because disclosing it might put them at risk. Careless actions by Okhrana officials or behind-the-scenes rivalries among officers within a department sometimes led to the deliberate exposure of an information source. Political police officials were well aware of this danger. General Kurlov, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Chief of the Gendarmes, wrote: “The art of political surveillance lies in the ability of the supervising officer to construct a complete picture of a prospective crime or the activities of an underground political organization from fragmentary and oral information” (147).

The instructions therefore listed questions to be used in systematic questioning, to which collaborators were expected to provide comprehensive answers during meetings with their supervising officers:

1.               Which party members were active, and how could they be placed under external surveillance?

2.               How, and by what means, could the terrorist activities of members of the organization be detected at that particular time?

3.               Which party members of interest to political surveillance had arrived or departed, what business had brought them or taken them elsewhere, and for what purpose?

Agents were expected to discover the places where active revolutionaries lived, the passwords they used, the addresses of their meeting places (yavkas), and other relevant details. They were required to indicate whether the information they had obtained was reliable and whether they had learned it by chance or witnessed the events personally. For every person named in a report, the agent had to provide the individual’s party pseudonym and real first and last names, as well as a physical description, including age, height, build, gait, type of clothing, and other identifying features (148).

An agent was expected to be familiar with the program, strategy, and tactics of “his” party. He had to inform his supervising officer promptly and accurately of any changes in these areas and, whenever possible, supply party literature available to him. An analysis of the agent reports we have located indicates that some agents possessed a degree of expertise in political surveillance and information gathering. For example, the Tiflis Okhrana Department’s agent “Rizhy,” reporting on anarchists—Georgian “groupists,” as they are described in his report—stated that the information he had gathered had enabled him to establish the groupists’ real identities. He also identified his sources and analyzed the information obtained (149).

According to the instructions, the supervising officer was also to teach the agent techniques for maintaining secrecy and gathering information. The agent, however, was not to conduct active questioning or show excessive curiosity, lest he arouse the suspicions of his fellow party members.

Three secret collaborators of the Tiflis Okhrana Department were assigned to gather information on the organization mentioned above. In the terminology of the political police, this was described as “covering” the organization. The Police Department required that each organization be covered by several agents—at least two—so that the information obtained could be cross-checked. Agents were also permitted to gather information on several organizations simultaneously. For example, the Tiflis Okhrana agent “Georgiev” supplied information on both the Social Democrats and the Dashnaks (150).

Particularly well-trained agents were sent from the political police headquarters in St Petersburg to different parts of the Russian Empire to infiltrate local revolutionary organizations. They were provided with passwords and yavka addresses obtained through political surveillance and given a cover story—that is, an invented revolutionary past to support their assumed identities.

In March 1907, the Secret Section of the Police Department informed the Tiflis Okhrana Department: “The Police Department has received agent information that the military-revolutionary organization (the Maximalists—T. S.) is establishing contact with Tiflis through the following address: Tiflis, Serebrianye Riady Street, House No. 33, addressed to ‘Rebecca.’ We are informing you so that you may use this information cautiously and establish Rebecca’s identity and connections” (151).

V. Goguadze, a well-known Menshevik terrorist who was active in Baku during the Revolution of 1905–1907, recalled: “At that time, five beautiful kursistki arrived in Baku from St Petersburg. These women worked skillfully and … had five Socialist-Revolutionaries arrested by the police. … It turned out that they had been sent to Baku by the St Petersburg Okhrana Department to work there” (152).

It is worth noting that the Okhrana made extensive use of young women in its agent operations. In the view of Okhrana officers, revolutionaries living under constant psychological strain readily confided in women. The police therefore often recruited young women as agents and sent them to infiltrate revolutionary circles under various pretexts.

 

3. Auxiliary Agents

Among the secret collaborators were individuals who did not belong to any political party but regularly supplied information to the Okhrana (153). They maintained contact with revolutionary organizations or with individual members of such organizations. In his memoirs, the revolutionary G. Chkheidze noted that his organization in Tiflis was repeatedly exposed to police raids and arrests. It later emerged that the cause was a member’s trust in a comrade who, through conversations conducted by means of questioning, passed the information he obtained to the Okhrana (154).

Unlike secret collaborators recruited from within revolutionary organizations, such individuals were known as “auxiliary collaborators” or “informants.” According to the instructions, informants were divided into two categories. The first consisted of regular informants who supplied information systematically. One such auxiliary collaborator was “Babajanov.” He did not belong to any organization, worked as a dentist, and was a socially respectable figure in whose office revolutionaries frequently gathered. According to the Police Department’s assessment, Babajanov was capable of conducting political surveillance and “obtaining information independently, since he possessed all the necessary qualifications for this work. Being close to the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats, he knew many of their clandestine secrets” (155).

In addition to regular informants, there were “liaison” and “casual” agents who supplied occasional, less significant information. They lacked party connections and the appropriate social networks needed to provide the Okhrana with information on a regular basis. They simply reported what they had seen or heard and were paid immediately for their services, usually between three and five rubles (156). Both regular and casual informants received a separate payment for each piece of information they supplied. In the view of political police officials, however, the use of such informants was not particularly effective because “they lacked the qualities of a regular collaborator” (157).

On 9 July 1902, the Special Section of the Police Department instructed local political police authorities to take measures to influence the peasantry so that peasants would assist representatives of the authorities in identifying and arresting agitators and revolutionaries in general. The Department believed that there must be peasants who supported the existing state system and public order and who, at the request of the authorities, would begin keeping watch on one another (158).

By 1907, the instructions identified specific categories of the rural population who were willing to cooperate with the political police. These included idle, indolent, and impoverished peasants who had neither land nor work and spent their days in teahouses and taverns. The instructions also noted that, because of the nature of their work, the owners of teahouses and taverns “came into contact with large numbers of people and were well informed about what was happening within a radius of twenty to thirty versts. Working people, meanwhile, enjoy speaking frankly about everything over a drink” (159). The instructions also acknowledged the potential usefulness of rural clerks in gathering information, but observed that “maintaining them is expensive, and the population does not trust them or confide in them.” This was the Police Department’s assessment.

In 1908, the Police Department also instructed Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations to recruit “auxiliary agents” in rural areas. The Department explained: “Although they do not belong to organizations, for a small payment they can provide information about public sentiment, the appearance of agitators, and anti-government mass demonstrations. Give them precise instructions and inform them of the clandestine addresses to which they should send their information” (160).

In towns and cities, auxiliary collaborators of this category were recruited from among the staff of restaurants, taverns, and hotels. As one former head of the Police Department remarked, “There is nothing new about this—in England, France, and especially Germany, every hotel porter is a police agent” (161).

Local political police authorities also sought to monitor activities among school pupils, university students, and soldiers. To obtain information about these groups, they used the landlords of the premises where their members lived, as well as people with whom they regularly interacted, whom they visited, or at whose premises they gathered. This method of information gathering was known as “indirect surveillance” (162). The instructions classified auxiliary collaborators according to their fields of activity, including the railways, factories, trade unions, and other sectors.

Beginning in 1902, I. Zubatov introduced the practice of recruiting students at institutions of higher education as secret collaborators. These students collected information within student circles and received salaries from the Okhrana Department. Political police officials jokingly referred to them among themselves as “Okhrana scholarship holders.”

The instructions separately emphasized the need to recruit agents in border regions and among inventors and people involved in automobiles, aviation, and submarine navigation. They also called for the recruitment of “editorial agents,” meaning the recruitment of collaborators from among the staff of opposition newspapers (163).

Agents operating in prisons deserve particular attention. These included prisoners who were paid for their services, granted more lenient prison conditions, or had their sentences reduced. For various reasons, however, the authorities in the localities had not given this matter sufficient attention.

On 7 October 1907, the Police Department instructed the political surveillance authorities in Tiflis to recruit secret collaborators in places of detention, since this could help prevent prisoners from escaping (164).

A letter dated 15 October 1907 from the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration indicates that he and the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department had discussed the recruitment of agents among political prisoners held in Tiflis prisons (165). It emerged that no agents had been recruited among the prisoners in the city’s prisons and that no appropriate funds had been allocated for this purpose (166). At the meeting, the participants considered it inadvisable to recruit internal agents from among the prison warders in Tiflis. They also discussed recruiting agents among prisoners held in district prisons, but, because the necessary funds were unavailable, decided to assign this task to the district chiefs (167).

It is worth noting that some secret collaborators continued their work for the Okhrana after being arrested, supplying it with information from prison. Others deliberately arranged to be imprisoned so that they could obtain information from fellow party members in custody and continue their agent work. For example, the Okhrana agent Movshe Kaplan recalled that he had deliberately entered prison to obtain contacts and passwords used in revolutionary circles (168).

Correspondence between the Police Department and its local authorities indicates that officials at the Department were dissatisfied with the recruitment of secret collaborators solely from among prison personnel, particularly warders. They continued to insist that internal agents be recruited from among the prisoners themselves. Special circular letters stipulated that the prison administration must not know the identity of any agent recruited among the inmates. Nor were such agents to be granted more lenient prison conditions, since relaxing the regime frequently led to the exposure of their covert role (169).

Another category of auxiliary collaborators consisted of officials employed in the state service. Local political surveillance authorities received specific instructions to recruit informants from among these officials. They were to identify civil servants experiencing financial difficulties and whose salaries were insufficient to cover their needs, and offer them money in exchange for information of interest to political surveillance officers. The instructions also called for the use of members of academic associations and representatives of the intelligentsia who were ideologically motivated to put an end to unrest and who willingly supplied information even without payment (170).

In 1910, a list of individuals whom revolutionaries regarded as provocateurs and whom the Okhrana classified as “secret collaborators” was published in the revolutionary press in Georgia (171). The list had been received from abroad and supplemented with information about police agents available to local revolutionary organizations. It contained approximately thirty names. The Okhrana checked the list but found no information on a large proportion of the individuals named. The reason was that supervising officers frequently failed to record the sources of the information they received and concealed the identities of their collaborators even from their own colleagues. As noted above, this practice was motivated not only by the need to maintain secrecy but also by the officers’ desire to retain exclusive control over valuable sources of information for as long as possible.

When revolutionaries discovered that someone had betrayed them, they paid little attention to the person’s precise status: whether the individual was an internal agent, an “auxiliary collaborator,” or a casual informant who had supplied information only once. To them, all such individuals were provocateurs. It appears that the latter categories were also included on the aforementioned list. By this period, Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations and Railway Gendarmerie Police Administrations had their own secret collaborators, although their numbers remained relatively small.

Our analysis of the activities of the Tiflis Okhrana Department indicates that the number of agent-collaborators fluctuated constantly. The agents were supervised by the head of the Okhrana Department himself, A. Angilev, and Rozhanov, head of its agent section. The agent reports were written in their handwriting, indicating that these two officials were responsible for managing the agent network. As a rule, a prominent agent’s usefulness was relatively short-lived: sooner or later, the agent’s identity was exposed. In the terminology of the political police, this was described as being “blown.” In some cases, exposure occurred within a month; in others, it took two or three years. There were numerous reasons for such failures (172).

For various reasons, many “collaborators” concealed their connections with members of revolutionary organizations. When the latter were arrested—a process described in political police terminology as “liquidation”—secret collaborators were frequently arrested as well (173). The reason was that not every Okhrana official knew the identities of its agents. During the revolutionary years, hasty arrests sometimes exposed valuable secret collaborators. Such individuals were often arrested on the basis of information they themselves had supplied, while the charges brought against the detained revolutionaries directly revealed who had informed on them. One revolutionary’s memoirs recount the following: “The gendarmerie administration learned of a discussion concerning the preparation of a terrorist act. The sequence of the charges brought against us corresponded to the sequence of topics discussed. There could be no doubt that the police had been informed by a secret collaborator.” According to the same account, it was therefore easy to identify the informer from among those who had taken part in the discussion (174). In a report to his supervising officer, the Tiflis Okhrana agent “Akhverdov” wrote that, during interrogations, a gendarme had asked the arrested individuals questions that made it easy to determine the identity of the person who had supplied the information (175).

Secret collaborators were also exposed because documents sent to the Police Department that contained an agent’s real first and last names were typed in the chancery, inevitably revealing their identities to its employees. The requirement that only the supervising officer should know a collaborator’s identity was breached for other reasons as well. In 1908, the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department received a telegram from Saratov informing him that his collaborator Beridze, known by the pseudonym “Ulіchnyi,” had been summoned. Beridze was an agent operating within the Social Democratic Party (176).

In a report to his supervising officer, “Georgiev,” an agent-collaborator of the Tiflis Okhrana Department, explained that he identified individuals of interest to the Department to surveillance agents by leaving a building hand in hand with the person in question. As a result, the identities of the agents themselves became known to the Okhrana’s fillery (177).

In 1908, Evno Azef was exposed by Lopukhin, a former head of the Police Department. In response, the Police Department wrote to local political surveillance authorities: “The exposure of Azef may have a harmful effect on certain active collaborators. The Police Department considers a properly organized agent network to be one of the most powerful means of combating revolutionary activity; it is therefore essential to preserve and develop it. If a collaborator becomes apprehensive because of the Azef affair, he should be reminded that the political surveillance authorities succeeded in keeping Azef’s secret for sixteen years and that its disclosure was an exceptional case” (178).

How exceptional was this kind of disclosure? The words of V. L. Burtsev provide some indication. He stated that numerous volumes of secret documents from the Police Department’s archives had passed through his hands, brought to him by a Department official in exchange for a small payment (179).

The revolutionary I. Jorbenadze described the exposure of an Okhrana agent as follows: “The case concerning the Gori organization was heard in the judicial chamber … I asked comrades who remained at liberty to find a way to obtain the ‘case file’ and send it into the prison. To my surprise, this was arranged without difficulty. The file contained a confession by the collaborator, together with identifying details” (180).

The clumsy actions of A. Angilev, head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department, exposed what was arguably his most valuable asset within the Social Democratic Party. The activities of “Vazhni,” who headed the Social Democratic Party’s military organization in the Avlabari district while simultaneously serving as an Okhrana agent, lasted only four months, from December 1906 to April 1907. He supplied information of considerable value, ranging from details about officials in the state’s security and law-enforcement structures who cooperated with revolutionaries to lists of members of the Social Democratic Party’s military organization. It was on the basis of his information that the authorities prepared the arrests of members of the party’s military organization in Tiflis. Vazhni’s final report reveals how Angilev compromised him. As noted above, Angilev sent the young child of the Okhrana Department’s watchman to Vazhni’s home, inadvertently exposing Vazhni’s connection with the Okhrana (181).

The identities of collaborators were also exposed as a result of conflicts among political police officials. In 1908, the Special Section of the Police Department informed its local authorities: “Officials of local political surveillance bodies frequently attempt to recruit secret collaborators who are subordinate to their colleagues, promising them financial rewards. If they fail to obtain the collaborators’ consent, they threaten to expose them and, in some cases, actually do so” (182).

According to the instructions, one method of recruiting agents was to entice them with money (183). Heads of Okhrana Departments did not hesitate to summon prospective recruits from prison and offer them payment in exchange for information (184). The instructions stipulated: “Secret collaborators must be paid their salaries promptly. The amount should be directly proportional to the value of the agent information they provide and to the position they occupy within the revolutionary organization.” The instructions also emphasized the need to reward financially those collaborators who supplied accurate and reliable information (185).

The funds allocated for surveillance agents and internal agents were controlled by the heads of the Okhrana Departments (186). The Police Department’s secret fund included a separate allocation for maintaining safe houses used by Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations, Okhrana Departments, and Okhrana outposts.

During the revolutionary period, the Tiflis Okhrana Department was allocated approximately 13,000–14,000 rubles annually to rent safe houses and pay secret collaborators. From 1907 onward, funds for payments to secret collaborators were also allocated to the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration (187).

Secret collaborators of the Tiflis Okhrana Department received salaries of varying amounts. The payment registers recorded each collaborator’s real name, pseudonym, the year in which the individual had begun working as a collaborator, the monthly salary, and the amount actually paid (188). Salaries generally ranged from thirty to fifty rubles. The highest salary was paid to Beridze, known as “Ulіchnyi,” an agent-collaborator operating within the Social Democratic organization. In 1908, he received an average of 105 rubles per month. From time to time, collaborators requested additional funds, supposedly to uncover a serious case or locate an underground printing press (189).

It is worth noting that collaborators were forbidden to use money received from the Okhrana to purchase expensive items. Indeed, the instructions stated: “Collaborators are strictly forbidden to entertain their comrades at the expense of their salaries or to improve their living conditions. Except in special circumstances, it is desirable for a collaborator to maintain the appearance of a person experiencing financial hardship” (190).

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, proclamations, newspapers, and printed materials in general were the principal means of revolutionary agitation. Consequently, the Police Department paid substantial sums to those who discovered clandestine printing presses (191). Large financial rewards were also offered for uncovering preparations for an impending terrorist act or expropriation, or for arresting a prominent revolutionary. Political police officers exerted every effort to discover underground printing presses and met the demands of their agents. The agents, in turn, sometimes fabricated criminal activity themselves. This issue will be discussed below.

It is also worth noting that, when bonuses were paid to agent-collaborators in addition to their salaries, no written receipts were obtained, ostensibly to preserve secrecy. Okhrana officers exploited this practice to appropriate funds intended for the agent network, and money allocated to fictitious collaborators was embezzled on a large scale. This was facilitated by the Police Department’s requirement that “secret collaborators must be recruited in every active revolutionary organization and, wherever possible, several in each one” (192).

According to Komissarov, a former head of the Police Department, “Ridiculous as it may seem, Okhrana Departments registered large numbers of fictitious agents” (193). Following the February Revolution of 1917, quite a number of people discovered that they appeared on the lists of “secret collaborators” maintained by Okhrana Departments, despite having no knowledge of it. Unfortunately, some suffered social ostracism as a result, being branded as Okhrana agents.

The value of a secret collaborator lasted only until their exposure. After being exposed, they might continue to receive a salary for a certain period and be provided with a new passport bearing different personal details. According to a report by the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department, a certain A. Fokelman, known by the nickname “Bryuzgli,” began his career as a secret collaborator in Odessa. He subsequently changed his surname and obtained a new passport. He then “worked” in Kishinev, after which he changed his passport once again and “worked” in St. Petersburg (194). Some agents whose services had been particularly valuable were sent to Okhrana Departments in remote gubernias to continue their work. At their new posts, they were sometimes employed as surveillance agents, or fillery (195). In 1906, the head of the Irkutsk Okhrana Department asked the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department: “For some reason, one of the secret collaborators may wish to transfer to your department, with a salary of 100 rubles per month” (196).

Exposed agents themselves frequently offered their services to Okhrana Departments in other gubernias. For example, the head of the Baku Okhrana office informed A. Angilev: “Your former collaborator, N. Avalova, known by the nickname ‘Chor-nenkaya,’ is offering me her services. Is she reliable? Would she be useful? How much did you pay her?” (197). In October 1907, I. D. Zgursky-Slyansky offered his services to the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department. He told A. Angilev that he had worked with the Odessa Okhrana Department under the nickname “Ivan-Priyezzhi.” In accordance with established practice, Angilev sent an inquiry to Odessa and received the following reply:

“I. D. Zgursky-Slyansky supplied information in Yelizavetgrad. He was subsequently exposed and went to Odessa, where he provided only ‘occasional’ information. He left because he had no connections. He is cunning and resourceful. He could be useful in the Caucasus” (198).

The majority of exposed agents, particularly those who could no longer be employed, were eventually discarded like useless objects. The authorities often threatened them with execution or imprisonment for crimes they had committed previously. For their part, the revolutionaries would almost certainly put them to death. In the memoirs of the revolutionary S. Lomidze, we read: “In 1905–1908, no one questioned the committee’s authority. If they became convinced that someone had betrayed them, they did not conduct much of an investigation; they dealt with the person themselves, killing the informers” (199).

Consequently, former “secret collaborators,” many of whom had been forced into becoming agents, found themselves in desperate circumstances. They moved from place to place, changed their residences, and went into hiding in an attempt to escape the threats they faced from both sides. Since a supervising officer was prohibited from maintaining contact with an agent after the latter’s exposure, these individuals approached the Police Department directly. They requested financial assistance to sustain themselves until they could rebuild their lives. If the Police Department had records of such a person, based on information supplied by local Okhrana Departments, it often granted a one-time payment of 300–400 rubles—far less than the amount requested (200). It should also be noted that particularly valuable members of what was known as the “central agent network” were sometimes granted pensions of 1,000–2,000 rubles a year. Such cases, however, were rare exceptions.

The letters sent by exposed agents to the Police Department recount appalling personal tragedies. Left without any means of support, they sank to the lowest levels of poverty, constantly changed their places of residence, and sometimes took their own lives. Driven to desperation and with nothing left but their shattered dignity, some resorted to blackmailing their former superiors, threatening to expose other Okhrana agents whose identities they knew. For example, one former employee of the Tiflis Okhrana Department began surveilling Okhrana personnel and identifying them to revolutionaries (201).

The files of the Tiflis Okhrana Department contain a case describing the actions of Yevgenia Melik-Shakhnazarova, a former agent of the regular police. After the Tiflis Okhrana Department refused to employ her, she located the yavkas—clandestine meeting places—of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Dashnaks. She then passed on to them the personal details of officers serving in the Caucasus District and Tiflis Okhrana Departments, including their first and last names and physical descriptions. As a result, “the Socialist-Revolutionary Party is now considering the assassination of one of the officials” (202).

 

4. Surveillance Agents — Fillery

 

Although official instructions stipulated that “the principal and sole basis of political surveillance was a completely secret and permanent agent network,” surveillance agents operating in the field—known as fillery—also provided Okhrana Departments with substantial information about revolutionaries. In practice, surveillance was divided into two branches. The first was external surveillance conducted by fillery, who were colloquially known as “spies” and “pea coats.” The second involved “covering” revolutionary organizations from within, through Okhrana agents embedded in the parties themselves (203).

Beginning in 1894, as revolutionary agitation intensified, the Police Department was gradually compelled to take measures to establish a network of secret agents within revolutionary parties in order to monitor the revolutionary movement. To process the information obtained from these agents, it became necessary to establish a thirty-man unit of surveillance agents attached to the Moscow Okhrana Department, which at the time served as the central institution for political surveillance (204). The establishment of this unit is associated with Yevstraty Mednikov, an assistant to I. Zubatov, then head of the Moscow Okhrana Department. Under Mednikov’s leadership, an institution resembling a training school was established alongside the Moscow Okhrana. It became known as the “Yevstratkina Shkola” and was intended to train fillery. According to a contemporary, it produced “outstanding surveillance agents” (205).

During the second half of the 1890s, the Moscow Okhrana’s surveillance unit proved so effective that its personnel were increased by twenty. At the same time, however, the gubernias lacked a network of secret agents, and external surveillance was generally conducted by undercover non-commissioned officers of the gendarmerie. As one contemporary observed, they “sometimes forgot to remove the spurs from their boots” (206).

In 1902, when I. Zubatov became head of the Police Department’s Special Section, Yevstraty Mednikov moved with him to St. Petersburg. In the same year, following the establishment of political surveillance offices—initially known as rozysk offices and subsequently as Okhrana Departments—throughout the Russian Empire, the Moscow Okhrana’s surveillance unit was reorganized. Some of its members were dispatched to the rozysk offices established in the gubernias (207).

Under the regulations governing the rozysk offices, dated 12 August 1902, their heads were responsible for directing political surveillance, including external surveillance and the secret agent network. They were required not only to recruit secret collaborators but also to select and train surveillance agents—fillery (208).

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, procedures for external surveillance were developed in practice, and in 1907 Instruction No. 140, on the organization of external (surveillance) operations, was issued. As in the instructions governing non-commissioned officers of the gendarmerie, the regulations prohibited the recruitment of Poles and Jews as fillery. In practice, however, this requirement was frequently violated.

The instructions did not specify which particular social groups should be targeted for the recruitment and subsequent training of fillery. Von Kotten, head of the Moscow Okhrana during the Revolution of 1905–1907, wrote: “Experience has shown me that good surveillance agents come from among Cossacks, merchants, and prison warders.” Among candidates for surveillance work, he preferred individuals under thirty years of age and of below-average height, with good eyesight. “However, experience has shown,” he wrote, “that recruiting people with exceptionally good eyesight is pointless. Good surveillance agents can also be found among those with relatively poor eyesight, provided that they have no conspicuous physical defects, such as a limp, a hunchback, or the like” (209).

Candidates for external surveillance positions were observed and assessed at the department for two weeks. In particular, their characters were evaluated on the basis of their interactions with other employees. They were then sent to familiarize themselves thoroughly with the town or settlement that would constitute their “operational area.” They had to know its districts, streets, squares, police stations, courtyards connecting buildings, passageways, shops, gardens, train departure and arrival times, tram timetables, cabstands and their fares, the locations of educational institutions and public and private establishments, the opening and closing times of factories and industrial plants, and the uniforms and distinguishing insignia worn by civil servants and students (210).

The next stage of training involved learning a standardized method of describing individuals. A surveillance agent was expected to record a person’s characteristics in the following order: sex, age, height, build, hair color, ethnicity, the color and style of clothing, and the type of footwear.

To recognize a surveillance agent at a glance—even if the person had changed their appearance or gone undercover—the trainee had to learn to identify the agent’s gait, characteristic movements, the way the person held their head and hands, their manner of stepping, and other distinctive features. The instructions required fillery to practice frequently in order to memorize a person’s appearance at a glance. Several times a day, they were to look briefly at any person encountered in the street, close their eyes, and reconstruct that person’s physical appearance from memory. On seeing the person a second time, they were to check whether their initial assessment had been accurate (211).

A filler was permitted to look directly at the person under surveillance only in crowded streets or marketplaces. On deserted streets and at crossroads, face-to-face encounters with the person under surveillance were strictly prohibited. “Under no circumstances should you make eye contact with the person under surveillance. Do not let them see your eyes, because the eyes are what people remember most,” the instructions warned (212). In practice, however, matters were different. It was often precisely because they darted their eyes about and abruptly looked away that fillery were recognized by revolutionaries.

Novice fillery underwent “practical training.” They were assigned to follow an experienced filler under surveillance. Initially, the experienced agent was expected to walk at an ordinary pace and conduct “checks”—suddenly turning around building corners to see whether anyone was following. Once the trainee had learned to conduct surveillance without being detected by the person under surveillance, the latter would make the route more difficult, mingle with crowds, and move from one carriage to another.

After learning the most characteristic techniques of practical surveillance, trainees were sent out on assignments alongside experienced fillery. Evening meetings of surveillance personnel were held daily at the Okhrana Department. There, fillery submitted reports on the day’s surveillance activities to the officer in charge of external surveillance. The officer explained whether they had acted correctly in particular situations. They were also taught how to combine different pieces of information to determine where a person under surveillance lived, whether they were a newcomer or a local resident, whether a meeting with another person was accidental or prearranged, and under what circumstances surveillance could be discontinued, among other matters.

By piecing together such information, fillery sometimes solved cases involving state crimes on their own initiative. In the memoirs of Vecheryn, a filler with the Tiflis Okhrana, we read that in the summer of 1904 he noticed a student and a young woman arriving by carriage at a railway station. They refused to entrust two rather heavy baskets to a porter. Suspicious, Vecheryn asked the police to search the baskets, in which they discovered 5,000 rounds of ammunition (213).

The memoirs of Gurian, head of the external surveillance service at the Warsaw Okhrana Department, recount how he happened to enter a garden in Warsaw and noticed an unfamiliar individual pacing about anxiously. Acting on his own initiative, he placed the man under surveillance and discovered that he was a terrorist. When the man was arrested, a bomb was found on him (214).

No one at their place of residence was supposed to know that fillery worked for the police or where they were employed. To maintain secrecy, they were instructed to tell inquisitive neighbors that they worked in occupations that required them to finish late at night, such as railway work or employment at a tram depot. By order of the Police Department, from 1907 onward, fillery, like secret collaborators, were assigned aliases to conceal their identities. They were expected to dress like members of the local middle class, ensuring that their clothing did not stand out from the attire commonly worn by the population in the area (215).

There were two principal reasons why a person might be placed under surveillance. First, the initiative might come from information supplied by the agent network. Second, the person might be in contact with someone who was already under external surveillance. For example, when the Socialist-Revolutionaries were preparing an attack on Shirinkin, head of the Caucasus police administration, the Tiflis Okhrana placed Maria Nikolaevna Khudadova, a member of the party, under external surveillance on the basis of information received from its agents. Her brother Vladimir, meanwhile, was placed under surveillance because he frequently met with his sister (216).

A filler received the assignment, known as a naryad, from the head of the external surveillance service in the morning. The assignment specified the location where surveillance was to begin—in other words, where the filler was to “pick up” the person under surveillance. The person’s physical characteristics were described verbally; if a photograph was available, it was shown to the filler.

Once the person had been “picked up,” the filler followed them continuously, keeping track of where they went, whom they met and spoke with, what the people they encountered were wearing, when the person was lost from surveillance, and other relevant details (217). Fillery were strictly warned that it was better to abandon a person under surveillance than to allow that person to notice they were being followed (218).

The filler assigned an alias to each person placed under surveillance. The alias had to be short and consist of a single word, and it had to indicate whether the person was male or female. It was also expected to describe some characteristic of the person’s appearance. Maria Khudadova was given the alias “Drapovaya” because she wore a drap (heavy woollen cloth) coat, while her brother Vladimir was called “Tyomny” (“Dark”) because he wore dark glasses (219).

Aliases were also assigned to other people encountered by the person under surveillance. In such cases, the aliases were selected from a particular category—for example, breeds of dogs or species of fish. This system made it possible, during the evening review meetings, to establish with whom the person under surveillance had been in contact throughout the day and to reconstruct their movements and activities. Fillery frequently handed over the surveillance of individuals to one another so that the person being followed would not recognize the same observer. If different fillery assigned different aliases to the same person, the discrepancy could be identified at that evening’s meeting. Okhrana officers sometimes questioned fillery in the apartments where they lived under conditions of secrecy (220).

In special cases, two or three fillery conducted surveillance together. According to the instructions, one was to follow the person from behind, while the second and third were to walk along streets parallel to the one the person was using. The purpose of this arrangement was to ensure that the observers did not move too quickly in relation to the person under surveillance and could identify them at crossroads.

Whenever possible, a filler recorded everything observed about the person in a pocket notebook, noting the time of each event—for example, where the person entered a building and how long they remained there. The filler then used these notes to prepare a report for the supervising officer. The daily reports were collected in what was known as the “External Surveillance Journal” and placed in the file relating to the organization or political party to which the person under surveillance belonged.

When surveillance was conducted around safe houses or suspected locations of clandestine printing presses and weapons depots, a “surveillance post” was established. Two or more fillery were stationed there. To prevent them from attracting attention by remaining in one place for too long, they frequently changed shifts. This arrangement enabled a large proportion of the Okhrana Department’s fillery to become familiar with the group of people under surveillance. If an individual was lost, they could independently search for that person in different districts of the city or town.

In some cases, fillery stationed at surveillance posts rented apartments near the target location or hotel rooms with windows facing the premises under observation. They also positioned themselves in shops, small taverns, and billiard halls, where they could trade, drink, or play games while simultaneously observing the target through the establishments’ windows.

In the memoirs of one filler, we read that surveillance agents began visiting a billiard hall opposite the target premises every day. Two of them played billiards while a third observed the premises through a window. “By using this method, we were able to take over the printing press without compromising the external surveillance operation,” the filler concludes his account (221).

The secret services of European countries employed similar methods of external surveillance during this period. The well-known Social Democrat Leon Trotsky (Bronstein) wrote about the treatment he received from the French authorities: “I was surrounded by spies who ‘worked’ quite openly. They came to a beer hall from which our entire street could be seen as clearly as the palm of one’s hand. They drove out the owner and established their surveillance post there. These spies followed me step by step on the metro and in taxis” (222).

At surveillance posts, fillery dressed as newspaper vendors, petty traders, or couriers. They sold newspapers and small goods accordingly. Moving through the streets around the target premises, they could maintain surveillance without arousing suspicion. The instructions for fillery specified how they were to behave if the person under surveillance suddenly emerged from a building and encountered them. They were told how to stand and how to enter a beer hall or shop to avoid the person. In particular, they were not to turn around abruptly or suddenly quicken their pace, nor were they to walk conspicuously slowly. The instructions also described techniques for using signals or “passwords” to communicate with one another when the person under surveillance appeared (223).

Where a revolutionary arms depot, an explosives laboratory, or a clandestine printing press was suspected to be located, mounted fillery were stationed at surveillance posts if a cabstand was nearby. Other fillery, disguised as petty traders or newspaper vendors, moved around the area to support them.

An entire section of the instructions governing the work of fillery was devoted to the conduct of those operating as cab drivers: “The appearance of a cab driver attracts the attention of house porters and watchmen, who usually drive them away so that their horses do not soil the area” (224). A filler posing as a cab driver was instructed to adopt the manner of a typical cabman and use different pretexts when speaking to local house porters. One might say that he had brought a doctor to see a sick person; to another, he might confide that he was waiting for a “gentleman” visiting another man’s wife, or make a similar claim about a “lady.” He might invite a third to share a drink, giving the impression that he did not want to be driven away from a lucrative spot. Mounted fillery also followed people under surveillance when they travelled by carriage, keeping behind their vehicles. As the number of automobiles increased, the St. Petersburg Okhrana even maintained an automobile for this purpose. It should also be noted that telephone conversations of people under surveillance were being intercepted during this period. Thus, technological advances were already evident in the operations of the Russian political police.

Following the establishment of district Okhrana Departments, fillery were periodically dispatched to peripheral areas of the gubernias where the revolutionary movement was particularly active (225). In such cases, those who had families were instructed to take them along, since doing so reduced the likelihood that their work would be exposed. The instructions noted that going for a walk with one’s wife or child helped “cover” the surveillance operation (226).

While on “assignments,” fillery sent written reports of their observations to their superiors by post. If they knew where the person under surveillance was travelling, they sent a telegram to the local political surveillance office requesting that the individual be placed under surveillance upon arrival. The telegram was written in the form of a commercial message. The head of the office was referred to as the “owner,” the fillery as “employees,” and the person under surveillance as “goods.” For example, the message might read, “Please accept the goods.” If the person was “lost,” the message would state, “The goods have spoiled”; if the person was arrested, it would say, “The goods have been packed in boxes,” and so forth (227).

When a person under surveillance left a city, the fillery followed and, upon reaching the destination, “handed over” the individual to local surveillance agents. On 24 January 1907, the Police Department informed the Tiflis Okhrana Department that it had received information about plans to convene the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party. The Department requested that the delegates from the local organization be identified and placed under surveillance. If the congress was to be held in Russia, the delegates were to be escorted to the venue; if it was to take place abroad, they were to be accompanied to the border and detained there (228).

Until 1907, only Okhrana Departments maintained their own surveillance-agent personnel. Railway Gendarmerie Police Administrations were not required to employ fillery (229). Under the 1908 regulations, local Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations were instructed to organize external surveillance in support of district Okhrana Departments and to train fillery from among the gendarmerie’s non-commissioned officers. According to Article 14 of these regulations, such non-commissioned officers were to constitute two percent of the regular staff; where a large number of additional non-commissioned officers had been appointed, they were to make up half of that additional personnel (230).

The number of fillery employed by political surveillance offices in Georgia during 1905–1907 was quite small. In March 1908, the Tiflis Okhrana Department had nine fillery on its staff. By early 1909, the number had risen to seventeen. The Caucasus District Okhrana Department maintained a separate staff of twenty-eight. The Batumi Okhrana office suffered the most acute shortage of surveillance agents: in 1904, it had only two fillery on its staff. In 1905, the head of the Caucasus police administration assigned two additional personnel from the police supervisors attached to the Special Section of his chancery to perform surveillance duties. In 1906, the head of the Batumi Okhrana office informed the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration that four fillery were insufficient, since they could establish only two surveillance posts, whereas serious surveillance required three. When responsibility for a person under surveillance was transferred from another territory, the local agents sometimes had to discontinue their own surveillance, causing the operation to “collapse” (231). In July 1908, two more fillery were assigned to the Batumi Okhrana office, bringing the total to six (232).

Fillery received extremely meagre salaries, ranging from seven to twelve rubles per month (233). Consequently, they often falsified their reports by including fictitious expenses for travel by carriage or horse-drawn tram (konka). Such dishonesty was also characteristic of the heads of Okhrana Departments themselves. In reports submitted to the Police Department on surveillance operations, they included not only individuals who had actually been placed under external surveillance but also everyone registered by the Okhrana Department as having links to revolutionary organizations. In 1906, the Police Department reprimanded the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department: “The number of persons under surveillance listed in the reports does not correspond to the department’s surveillance capacity, and the lists even include individuals who were arrested quite some time ago” (334).

These inaccurate reports were submitted for two principal reasons. First, they were intended to demonstrate to the Police Department how effectively the local office was operating. Second, they provided a means of embezzling funds allocated for external surveillance.

Over time, the demands placed on fillery increased. The Police Department wanted them to perform tasks beyond following individuals and to be able to “uncover the preparation of various crimes by revolutionary organizations without the assistance of the internal agent network.” To this end, in mid-1905 the Department proposed establishing a training school for fillery (235). Under Instruction No. 140 on external surveillance, issued in 1907, a filler was required not only to follow a person but also to establish the identities, activities, and connections of those who came into contact with them. In effect, this meant investigating the revolutionary milieu, which required knowledge of political surveillance techniques (236). In 1907, the Police Department also instructed local political surveillance offices to train their fillery to “find a way out of any situation” (237).

In 1908, the Police Department directed local political surveillance authorities to send fillery on “assignments” alongside less experienced or less reliable agents to help process “agent intelligence.” The fillery, it stated, “should move beyond routine methods and maintain the secrecy of their operations. At the assignment location, they should dress as petty traders or students, employ political surveillance techniques, remain composed in any situation, and find a way out of every predicament” (238).

It is worth noting that fillery were frequently used for such purposes in practice. The memoirs of an Okhrana officer describe how the authorities learned the details of a family’s revolutionary activities through a young female domestic servant who had been placed under surveillance. A young man—a filler—was deliberately introduced to the servant. He won her affection and eventually became engaged to her. Naturally, the family welcomed their servant’s fiancé into their home and treated him with trust. The filler took advantage of this access to gather comprehensive information about the family members’ revolutionary activities (239). Okhrana Departments also used fillery to facilitate the covert arrest of revolutionaries.

According to the instructions, fillery were not supposed to know the identities or physical appearances of secret collaborators. In practice, however, this rule was repeatedly violated. Heads of Okhrana Departments were sometimes forced to identify secret collaborators to fillery in order to protect them from accidental arrest. Moreover, operational requirements sometimes led fillery to follow agents themselves so that people who came into contact with them could be placed under surveillance. For example, during his travels between various Russian cities, E. A. Azef was accompanied by several experienced fillery, who placed local revolutionaries he met under surveillance (240). Within their own circles, fillery referred to secret collaborators as podmetka (241).

From 1906 onward, Okhrana Departments also retained fillery who were particularly clumsy or conspicuous. When an agent had infiltrated a revolutionary organization, or when an organization was preparing a terrorist attack, but the Okhrana did not wish to arrest its members at that stage, such fillery were deployed for surveillance under the designation “branders” (242). The purpose of the “branders” will be discussed later. Predictably, revolutionaries soon recognized them and went into hiding. This was clearly an undesirable method, since an exposed filler could no longer operate effectively. In such cases, the agents were transferred to another place of employment, sent to remote gubernias, or given some form of official position (243).

Beginning in 1906, fillery were issued identification documents bearing photographs. From 1908, metal badges were also introduced to improve their work, and aliases were assigned to them as a further precaution to preserve secrecy (244). Showing a badge was sufficient for a filler to obtain assistance from lower-ranking police personnel. However, the weapons they needed for self-defence were not issued during the period 1900–1910. On 18 September 1906, the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Department informed the head of the Special Section of the Viceroy’s Chancery that revolutionaries frequently attacked and killed fillery, knowing that they were unarmed. The Okhrana chief cited several specific cases and requested funds to arm the department’s surveillance agents (245).

Fillery also frequently fell victim to their own mistakes. During the surveillance of the well-known clandestine Avlabari printing press, one filler exposed himself in the following way: after passing the person under surveillance at close range, he turned around and looked directly at his face. Two days later, the Okhrana raided the Avlabari printing press, and the recognized filler was killed by revolutionaries the very next day (246).

The person under surveillance in this case was the well-known Bolshevik Mikha Bochoridze, whom the Okhrana described as “a professional revolutionary who was quite cautious when it came to surveillance” (247).

 

 

5. Additional Methods of Obtaining Information

 

The political police also obtained information from their “official agents”—the non-commissioned officers serving in Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations and their local offices. Among their other duties, these officers were responsible for monitoring the population and gathering information through what was known as “covert intelligence gathering.” Surveillance included keeping track of individuals previously arrested for political activities, students and young people, particularly those studying abroad. They were also required to monitor the circulation of proclamations and pamphlets among the population and collect information about events and developments in public life (248).

“Covert intelligence gathering” involved the following practices. Non-commissioned officers conducted discreet inquiries among local residents about individuals in whom they were interested. The Police Department instructed them that “the transition to the subject of interest must be made unobtrusively, so that the person being questioned does not realize what or whom the non-commissioned officer is interested in” (249). If information about a revolutionary organization was obtained, the officer was expected to establish when the organization had been founded, its membership, and whether it had established a printing press, an arms depot, or other facilities. One recommended means of obtaining such information was to offer financial rewards, which could be used to recruit a member of the organization as a police informant.

In the political police’s view, conducting surveillance and “covert intelligence gathering” among the population of the Caucasus required “thorough knowledge of local conditions” and familiarity with local languages (250). The head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration argued that “since the non-commissioned officers assigned to local offices do not know the local languages, they are unable to obtain the necessary information from local inhabitants in the course of political surveillance.” He therefore demanded that they learn the local languages without delay (251).

To maintain close contact with the population, some gendarmerie officers moved in local upper-class circles. They played cards with members of these circles, dined and drank with them, sang at private family entertainments, and attended theatrical performances. One such officer was reprimanded by the Police Department, which warned him against developing this kind of familiarity with members of society indiscriminately. He defended himself as follows:

“I believed that the more I gained the sympathy of local society—and this could be achieved only through close relations with its members and by sharing in their way of life—the more easily I would understand the mood of that society. The hired agents through whom we ‘cover’ underground organizations cannot be recruited from this particular social milieu.”

Apparently, his argument proved persuasive, and the Department did not trouble him further (252).

According to contemporary accounts, senior officers of the political police were “almost all university-educated and invariably liberals and radicals themselves. They openly admitted as much to every intellectual prisoner; they simply believed that Russia was not yet ready for reforms” (253).

The memoirs of one revolutionary describe a revealing incident. Following the suppression of a demonstration, Gamyrelidze, head of the Kutaisi Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, reportedly told an arrested demonstrator:

“I, too, have a Georgian heart; I, too, understand what you long for. But we must wait a little longer ... I have only just arrived. Tell me, as a Georgian, who was there? Who was shouting?” (254).

In one of his reports to his superiors, Gamyrelidze invoked his Georgian identity to support a very different recommendation: “As a Georgian, I know my people’s sentiments well, and I advise you to apply the most decisive repressive measures immediately against unreliable individuals” (255).

One method of gathering information was to place the relatives and associates of persons of interest to the political police under surveillance. In a circular dated 13 July 1902, the Police Department instructed the heads of local Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations on how to locate individuals who had escaped from prison or exile. Surveillance, it stated, “must necessarily be established over the distant relatives and comrades of persons suspected of state crimes” (256).

Okhrana personnel also obtained information from both the legal and the illegal press. They systematically collected proclamations, pamphlets, and revolutionary newspapers. These materials were examined and compared with information published in journals and newspaper articles. Such publications frequently mentioned the pseudonyms of individuals involved in particular revolutionary actions and provided details about their activities. The information was collated, analyzed, and used to identify the individuals concealed behind the pseudonyms and establish their activities (257).

Rumors and gossip circulating among the population were also collected as supplementary sources of information. They were analyzed and checked against other evidence. Information of all kinds was obtained during the interrogation of prisoners. Their statements were analyzed and compared with those of other prisoners and with the content of conversations involving revolutionaries who remained at liberty. Okhrana agents conducted inquiries into such conversations. When necessary, information was also extracted from prisoners through physical coercion.

Okhrana Departments had another source of information: a second category of external surveillance personnel known as police supervisors. They were subordinate to the Okhrana Departments and included in their staffing arrangements, although officially they were registered as employees of the general police chancery. Twice a week, police supervisors were required to report to the Okhrana Department to receive assignments (258). When their duties required it, they could wear civilian clothes. Their official uniform, however, was the same as that worn by district supervisors of the general police, known as okolotchniki.

Police supervisors accompanied the general police when political offenders were arrested. They were also responsible for gathering information about politically unreliable individuals through inquiries and what was termed “investigation.” They had to establish such individuals’ exact addresses and examine the entrances and window arrangements of their residences. Particular attention was to be paid to students and young people: supervisors were expected to collect information about their lifestyles and activities, the circulation of illegal literature in educational institutions, and the organization of secret meetings. They were to obtain much of this information through employees of educational establishments. Similarly, supervisors were required to gather information about the lives and activities of workers in factories and industrial plants within their areas of responsibility, using workshop foremen and supervisors employed at those establishments as sources.

One of the officers of the Okhrana Department instructed police supervisors in methods of obtaining information. Unlike non-commissioned officers of the gendarmerie, police supervisors were officially required to visit hotels, boarding houses, and privately rented apartments and establish reliable relationships with the staff of these establishments. Under the instructions, hotel owners were to be assisted in obtaining information from the city administration; supervisors were to intercede with general police officials on their behalf when minor violations were discovered; and small gifts were to be provided to employees, among other measures. So much importance was attached to establishing trustworthy relationships that, if a supervisor failed for any reason to develop a good relationship with the relevant people, he could even be transferred to another workplace.

The underlying assumption was that police supervisors could use these relationships to encourage members of the public to provide information voluntarily. The arrangement was to be organized so that the required notifications could be delivered to the supervisors at their residences in return for appropriate payment.

Interestingly, police supervisors were also expected—although unofficially—to accept small bribes in the form of “holiday gifts” as a means of strengthening these relationships. Such gifts were believed to foster closer and more candid relations with hotel owners and landlords renting out private accommodation. Okhrana officers were asked to consider the following question: was a police supervisor’s duty to ensure strict compliance with the law by checking whether hotel registration documents were properly completed, whether people were being accommodated without registration, and whether cleaning staff were being employed without the required formalities? (People arriving in a city for work were required to register with the general police.) Strict enforcement of these requirements often caused conflict with the management. Or was the supervisor’s real duty to overlook such matters in exchange for information?

The answer was unequivocal: “Minor violations should be disregarded so as not to damage relations with sources of information” (259). Supervisors used these relationships to persuade cleaners working in hotels and private apartments to report suspicious behavior by residents. After cleaning a room, they were also expected to hand over to the police any notes or papers they found there—even scraps of paper—before disposing of them.

Another auxiliary method of political surveillance was perliustration: the secret opening and examination of private correspondence belonging to employees of public and private institutions and to ordinary citizens. Legislation concerning perliustration had been introduced as early as the reign of Catherine II, who was particularly interested in the correspondence of private individuals.

From the beginning of the 1900s, perliustration was conducted in specially designated rooms at post offices, whose existence was known only to a small circle of employees. In the so-called “Black Cabinets” in St. Petersburg and Moscow, between ten and fifteen people worked on this task; in provincial locations, the staff numbered between two and five. A similar “Black Cabinet” operated at the Tiflis post office (260).

All correspondence arriving from abroad or being sent abroad was examined, including parcels and books in which letters might be concealed (261). Correspondence belonging to people under covert surveillance within the Empire was also examined, as was correspondence addressed to individuals whose addresses might be used by those already under surveillance.

Under Article 1035 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Empire, the correspondence of individuals subject to official surveillance or formal preliminary investigation could be seized and opened. This was carried out as follows: an Okhrana official would be sent to the post office, and the name of the person of interest would be passed discreetly from one employee to another so that no official correspondence concerning the operation was created (262).

Perliustration was also conducted within the Ministry of Internal Affairs itself. For years, this work was carried out by a censor named Mardariev. Interestingly, A. Lopukhin learned only years later that, while he was head of the Police Department, his correspondence had been systematically read on the orders of the Minister of Internal Affairs, Plehve (263).

Letters considered of interest to the political police were photographed or copied. They were then resealed and sent on to their destinations so that the replies could also be subjected to perliustration.

The Police Department recommended the perliustration of letters because “they contain information about the revolutionary movement” (264). Their contents were examined and verified, while coded letters were deciphered by specialists at the Police Department. For this purpose, the Department employed people with higher education who knew various languages (265).

Revolutionaries frequently used coded letters to transmit secret messages. Once a code had been deciphered, the key or method used to break it was sent to local political police institutions in the gubernias. Revolutionaries often used official publications, journals, and books as the basis for their ciphers. Accordingly, police officers were advised during searches to check whether members of the same revolutionary organization possessed identical books and whether particular pages had become worn or dirty through frequent use (266).

Interestingly, the Okhrana deciphered this method of encoding secret messages through books during the Revolution of 1905–1907. German intelligence, however, did not break the same method until the end of the Second World War. It had been used by the Soviet intelligence network operating in Switzerland between 1940 and 1943 (267).

Information about the authors of deciphered letters and the individuals mentioned in them was collected and sent to the relevant address-registration office, which operated within the administrative authorities of cities and administrative centers and was known as the “address bureau.” In Tiflis, an address bureau was established within the city administration in September 1906 (268). Under the laws of the Russian Empire, citizens were registered to a particular locality through their passports, and this registration was monitored by the address bureaus. In May 1907, the Police Department instructed local political surveillance authorities to acquire and send it address-reference books, plans of administrative centers and cities, lists of streets, and information about property owners (269).

The local political police authorities in the Caucasus were interested not only in the correspondence of members of revolutionary organizations but also in that of senior representatives of the regional administration. A copy of one such official’s letter is particularly interesting because it reflects palace intrigues unfolding in St. Petersburg as viewed from the Caucasus, revealing the author’s sympathies and antipathies toward the individuals involved. Apparently, this information was of interest to a senior official in the Tiflis Okhrana Department (270).

The political police were also interested in local public opinion regarding the tsarist government’s policies toward Georgia. A copy of a letter subjected to perliustration has been preserved in the Okhrana files. The author, a certain A. Sharashenidze, wrote to a friend recounting a conversation with an “intellectual Tatar.” The letter had been translated from Georgian into Russian. Sharashenidze wrote:

“My conversation with him astonished me. He said that the Russians would thoughtlessly lead the Russian Empire to destruction. When Russian newspapers praised the Georgians for being Orthodox Christians and encouraged hostility toward the Armenians, we waited and watched. When the Russians failed to achieve their aims in this way, they set the Tatars against us Armenians, and bloody clashes began. The Russians then resorted to a new tactic. They accused the Georgians of separatism and began sending punitive expeditions and plundering Georgian settlements. Now they proclaim, ‘Russia for the Russians.’ Our eyes have finally been opened: we are superfluous to the Russians; all they want is our land. Therefore, we Cossacks, Poles, and Finns must unite against them” (271).

The letter, dated 1907, provides a revealing account of the Russian political police’s tactics against national liberation and revolutionary movements in Transcaucasia. Comparable examples, the author observes, can also be found in the decade immediately preceding the time of writing.

Local political police authorities lacked specialists capable of identifying the authors of documents and correspondence or conducting handwriting examinations. For this purpose, they employed teachers of penmanship and drawing, paying them accordingly (272).

At the end of the nineteenth century, two scientific systems of personal identification—anthropometry and dactyloscopy—were competing in Europe. In 1890, the Russian Empire adopted anthropometry, developed by Alphonse Bertillon, for the needs of both the regular police and the political police. An anthropometric section was established within the Police Department. In 1903, a special identification program devised by Bertillon was distributed to the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations. It specified that suspects did not need to be stripped, since special instruments were used to measure only certain physical characteristics: height when seated and standing, the length and width of the skull, hair color, the lengths of the middle and little fingers of the left hand, the color of the left eye, and other features (273).

This procedure was time-consuming, and mistakes could easily occur during the measurements. The system was based on the assumption that certain parts of the human body did not change shape over time—an assumption that was clearly incorrect.

As noted above, dactyloscopy—the taking of fingerprints—was first introduced in the Russian Empire by I. Zubatov, head of the Moscow Okhrana, in the second half of the 1890s. Its wider implementation began in 1902–1903. After Zubatov left his post, the introduction of the system was suspended for a time. Only during the Revolution of 1905–1907, when the number of offenders increased dramatically, was the Police Department compelled to resume the introduction of dactyloscopy throughout the law-enforcement agencies.

Photographing criminals and suspects in Russia had begun in the 1870s. Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations photographed these individuals in profile and full-face views, producing twelve photographs. Five were sent to the Police Department. From 1903 onward, six photographs were taken of prisoners, two of which were sent to the central authorities (274). At the relevant department, the photographs were attached to special forms: one showing the subject in profile, one full-face, and one full-length. If the person wore glasses, a photograph was also taken with the glasses on, and so forth. The reverse of the form recorded the person’s surname and given name, hair color, the length of the beard and moustache, the shape of the ears, gait, distinguishing marks, and other identifying characteristics (275).

It should be noted that even during the Revolution of 1905–1907, it was not possible to photograph every person suspected of or arrested for a political offense. In the memoirs of the revolutionary K. Tsintsadze, we read:

“We made the person who was supposed to be sent in a prisoner convoy appear ill and had him admitted to hospital. When his name was called, Ambako Samanishvili came forward instead. At that time, photographs were not taken in Kutaisi. The authorities did not recognize him and were deceived” (276).

The Okhrana Departments also obtained photographs through other means, including from the relatives and domestic servants of people suspected of political offenses, or by purchasing them.

 

 

6. The Work of the Okhrana’s General Section

 

Structurally, the Okhrana Department was divided into three sections: the internal surveillance section (the agent section), the external surveillance section, and the general section. The first two have already been discussed. As for the general section, it handled all official correspondence relating to political surveillance with the Police Department, the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, and Okhrana Departments in other gubernias (277).

Every person who came into contact with the activities of an Okhrana Department was registered in the general section, regardless of whether they were themselves wanted by the police or had family or personal associations with individuals considered politically unreliable (278). The general section’s card index consisted of registration cards. These made it possible to retrieve the relevant information on any individual by surname and first name. A separate card index was maintained for arrested persons. Each registration card contained a brief biography of the individual, a photograph, a physical description, the reason for arrest, and marital status. It also listed the addresses of close relatives—sisters, brothers, and parents—and information obtained from the agent network concerning the individual’s criminal activities (279).

The general section received circulars from the Police Department containing lists and photographs of wanted persons. Each list was arranged alphabetically. Political fugitives and wanted persons were divided into five groups. The first group included members of the parties that, in the view of the Tsarist political police, posed the greatest threat during the period 1900–1908: the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists, and the Anarchists. These were parties whose programmes declared terror to be the principal means of combating the authorities. Members of other revolutionary parties operating within the Russian Empire were also included in this group. The lists were numbered and marked accordingly, A/1 and A/2.

The second group comprised two lists. The list marked B/1 included individuals who, upon being discovered, were to be placed under surveillance but neither arrested nor searched. The Police Department was simply to be notified of their whereabouts. The list marked B/2 contained information on individuals prohibited from entering the Empire, those who had escaped from exile, and foreigners who needed to be placed under surveillance.

The third group, marked C, contained the aliases and photographs of revolutionaries whose identities had not been established and who therefore needed to be identified.

The fourth group, marked G, contained information on individuals whose pursuit was to be discontinued.

The fifth group, marked D, contained information about stolen or lost passports, official forms, various documents, and seals. Taken together, these lists formed the basis of the Okhrana general section’s card index of political fugitives and wanted persons (280).

Unlike the general section, the agent section maintained its own separate registration system. Here, agent cards were completed on forms of different colours, classified according to political party. Red forms recorded information about members of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party operating within the area covered by the local political police authority; blue forms were used for Social Democrats; green for Anarchists; yellow for students; and white for members of various public organizations, trade unions, associations, and similar bodies (281).

Separate files were compiled on the individuals of greatest interest to the agent section, particularly party leaders and the most active members of revolutionary organizations (282). These files contained information about specific individuals obtained by fillery and agents. When information was requested about a person registered in the agent section, an information card was prepared. It briefly summarized the person’s biographical details, the alias assigned by the fillery during external surveillance, rank or title, occupation, age, religious affiliation, physical description, family and revolutionary connections, and position within the party hierarchy. The information card also recorded the aliases of the agent and the filler who had supplied the information (283).

When requested by local or central political police authorities, a report was prepared for transmission. It provided a comprehensive account of the anti-state activities of a person registered in the agent section. For example, a report issued on N. Zhordania described his revolutionary activities, beginning with his membership in the League for the Freedom of Georgia in 1892 and continuing through his work in the Social Democratic Party (284).

As noted above, secret collaborators—agents—reported verbally to their supervising officers during meetings. The Okhrana officer recorded their accounts in the form of an agent report. The information was then processed by the Okhrana Department and supplemented with material obtained through external surveillance and from the general section (285). The resulting analysis formed the basis for planning the subsequent activities of both the agent network and the Okhrana Department as a whole.

Separate files were maintained on each revolutionary organization. For example, the file on the Socialist-Federalist Party at the Tiflis Okhrana Department begins on 2 October 1907 and contains material accumulated through 28 January 1917. At the beginning, the file lists party members and provides information about their revolutionary activities. It also records who was arrested and when (286).

The list of party members and their brief descriptions are of particular interest: “Korneli, son of Ilarion, Kasradze—a very serious terrorist; Ippolite Vartagava—a teacher at the Georgian Nobility Gymnasium; Akaki Tsereteli—a poet; Dimitri, son of Soprom, Jashi—a contributor to the newspaper Iveria,” and others. The file contains the programme and statutes of the Socialist-Federalist Party. It also includes extensive documentation concerning the party’s Third Conference, held on 2–7 October 1907. Analysis of this material suggests that the Okhrana had a well-informed agent within the Socialist-Federalist Party, since the proceedings of the conference are described from the perspective of an eyewitness. The file also contains a review prepared by the head of the Okhrana Department on the Socialist-Federalist Party, providing an account of the party’s activities as a whole. In compiling this review, the author used copies of the party’s illegal publications, newspapers, and other printed materials, which are attached to the file.

Diagrams are placed at the end of the file. One of them depicts the organizational structure of the Socialist-Federalist Party graphically, using circles and lines (287). Similar diagrams were prepared separately for every party organization known to the Okhrana. The circles contained the names of party leaders, members of governing bodies, and ordinary members. Information about those belonging to the party’s central leadership was placed in the middle of the diagram, while the names of ordinary members were arranged around it. The lines connecting the circles indicated links between members of the organization. Black lines marked the particular areas of party activity in which individuals were involved, while green lines indicated personal acquaintances. The point at which the lines converged represented the organization’s centre. The aliases of the secret collaborators who had supplied the information were written on the diagram sheet. The circle representing a person intended for arrest was coloured yellow, while a person who had been arrested was marked with a cross (288).

The number of circles on these diagrams increased as the party organization grew. Such diagrams were compiled annually, and comparing them made it possible to reconstruct the overall development of an organization’s activities over the years.

In terms of their content, the diagrams were of two types. One showed the branches of a party organization; the other depicted the party connections among members of a particular organization.

Diagrams were also compiled by the external surveillance section. Unlike those produced by the internal surveillance (agent) section, these were more specific, documenting surveillance of individual members and their connections. They recorded the links between people under fillery surveillance and included concrete details: whom they had met, which premises they had entered, and other observations. An Okhrana officer entered this information onto the diagrams on the basis of the filler’s reports. The diagrams were then sent to the agent section, where the information was incorporated into its own organizational diagrams (289).

The external surveillance section also maintained a separate external surveillance diary for each revolutionary party. These diaries documented in detail the process of surveilling party members. Once a year, on the basis of the diary and the agent reports, the head of the Okhrana Department sent the Police Department a political review describing the activities of the parties operating within the area under his jurisdiction. After district Okhrana Departments were established in 1907, these political reviews were submitted by the heads of the district departments. The reviews suggest that Okhrana personnel assessed the political situation with a considerable degree of objectivity. One example is particularly illustrative.

A political review dated 16 March 1906, concerning the revolutionary movement in the Tiflis and Kutaisi gubernias and the alignment of political forces in Tiflis, stated: “Here, the political question is closely intertwined with the national question, which gives revolutionary and opposition forces a considerable advantage in their activities. Their task is therefore made half as difficult.”

The influence of revolutionary parties on the local population, and the question of which forces occupied the leading position, were described as follows: “The principal revolutionary force in Tiflis is the local proletariat, predominantly Georgian, which stands under the banner of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The Socialist-Revolutionaries, Socialist-Federalists, and ‘Dashnaks,’ as revolutionary forces, are not actively engaged in opposing the existing political regime in the Caucasus.”

The report identified the “Gurian intelligentsia,” led by N. Zhordania, as the leading core of the Social Democratic movement. It noted: “They assumed leadership of this movement in the 1890s, and the situation remains the same today.” The cause of the revolutionary processes unfolding in the Caucasus was attributed to “the economic conditions that had developed historically in the Caucasus.”

The report identified the Mensheviks as the leading force within the Social Democratic movement and accordingly attributed to them the development of the tactics used in the struggle against the authorities. It examined in detail the guerrilla-warfare methods employed by the Mensheviks’ Red detachments. N. Zhordania was credited with devising these methods and tactics and was described as “the chief dictator of the local Social Democratic movement, a man of tremendous willpower, capable of taking everything into his hands with astonishing speed, and a gifted organizer” (290).

The report also discussed the political attitudes of various social circles, preparations for elections to the State Duma, which parties exerted influence among officials in state institutions, and other matters.

As noted above, from 1902 onward, the principal focus of the Police Department’s attention was the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, “because they had established a ‘military organization’ and had turned to terror.” Accordingly, the Department sent numerous circulars to local political police authorities requesting information about the activities and identities of Socialist-Revolutionary Party members, including whether compromising material existed against them. If such material was available, the authorities were to report whether a case had been opened, whether the individual had been tried, what sentence had been imposed, and other relevant details (291).

In 1904, following the abolition of the Regulation on Secret Police Surveillance of 1 March 1889, lists of individuals under the internal and external surveillance of Okhrana Departments were sent to the Police Department annually, by 1 January. One week after a revolutionary organization had been dismantled and its members arrested, the surveillance diary and other relevant materials were sent to the Police Department (292). After the establishment of district Okhrana Departments, in addition to the notifications described above, brief monthly reports were also sent on political offenders, containing information obtained from secret collaborators.

As the revolutionary movement intensified, the time allowed for submitting material required for political surveillance became progressively shorter. From 1904, information about persons arrested on political grounds had to be sent within twenty-four hours (293). In a circular dated 27 July 1904, the Police Department instructed local authorities to notify the central administration immediately whenever persons considered politically unreliable were placed under surveillance (294). Under the Instructions on External Surveillance issued in 1907, Okhrana Departments were also required to send the Police Department monthly reports on the individuals being followed by fillery (295).

 

 

Chapter IV

The General Police alongside the Local Authorities Responsible for Political Surveillance and Investigation

 

In 1862, the structure of the general police in the Russian Empire was reorganized. City police administrations were established in provincial capitals, each headed by a politsmeister (chief of police), who was assisted by deputies and supported by an administrative chancery. Each city was divided into uchastki (police districts), which were further subdivided into smaller sectors and okolotki. Each police district was headed by a pristav (police superintendent), who supervised the okolotki, police district supervisors, and gorodovye (urban police constables).

By the end of the nineteenth century, each uyezd (district) within the Caucasian gubernias (governorates) had its own general police authorities, headed by an uyezd chief and an assistant. The uyezd police administrations were divided into uchastki (police districts) (296). The uyezd chief commanded the strazhniki, who were deployed in small detachments at designated posts in villages and small towns (297).

The general police had a broad range of responsibilities. These included maintaining public order; proclaiming government orders and decrees; conducting population censuses; arresting and pursuing offenders; and ensuring the timely collection of leeches for medical purposes, among other duties (298).

As noted above, under the Regulation on Secret Police Surveillance of 1 March 1882, the general police, which operated within the system of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was assigned responsibility for conducting secret surveillance of individuals deemed politically unreliable. In these circumstances, its activities became intertwined with those of the gendarmerie administrations, and the general police functioned as an auxiliary force for gendarmerie officers.

As previously noted, conducting secret surveillance was a labour-intensive task. Since it did not form part of the general police's primary duties, its officers often sought to avoid it. Their unfamiliarity with the methods and techniques of political surveillance and investigation further hindered their work in this field. Moreover, the general police had acquired a poor reputation not only among the public but also in the eyes of the authorities. In the early 1900s, the customs service issued an order prohibiting the employment of individuals who had previously served in the general police (299).

In 1904, as revolutionary parties were becoming increasingly active, the Minister of Internal Affairs repealed the aforementioned regulation and relieved the general police of responsibility for conducting secret surveillance (300). By 1905, however, it had become clear that the local political police authorities could no longer cope with the widespread campaign of terror directed against representatives of the authorities. City and uyezd police administrations were therefore instructed to identify participants and leaders of the revolutionary movement and protest demonstrations and to arrest them (301).

In practice, the general police was thus assigned duties associated with political surveillance and investigation, since investigating the activities of participants in the revolutionary movement was impossible without employing the methods of political surveillance. General Shirinkin, head of the Caucasus Police Administration, went even further. In 1906, he issued an order requiring the general police to establish an agent network in both urban and rural areas for the purpose of conducting political surveillance.

Between 1903 and 1908, terrorist attacks and expropriations accounted for a substantial proportion of actions directed against representatives of the authorities. Such acts were closely connected with offences falling within the remit of ordinary criminal policing. This circumstance inevitably led to an overlap between the respective spheres of activity of the political police and the general police.

According to the head of the Tiflis Police Administration, he was “almost obliged to remind the pristavs and the head of the criminal investigation section every day that they were not to arrest anyone or conduct searches without coordinating with the Okhrana Department. All information concerning political offences obtained through denunciations, testimony, or statements was to be forwarded to the Okhrana Department. They were to comply with the requests and orders of the head of the Okhrana Department and assist its officers in every matter” (302).

In 1906, “because officers of the general police are closer to the population than the political police,” the Police Department itself instructed them to recruit agents among the inhabitants of towns and villages (303).

It should also be noted that, beginning in 1905, railway gendarmerie police administrations were likewise instructed to recruit secret collaborators. On 11 May 1908, the Special Section of the Police Department pointed out that “some administrations still have no secret collaborators, even though political surveillance constitutes the principal and direct duty of officers of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes” (304).

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, non-commissioned officers stationed at posts maintained by railway gendarmerie police administrations were also assigned the task of obtaining intelligence through agents (305).

Despite the demands of the Police Department, gendarmerie officers remained passive in recruiting agents. Their performance was assessed by their superiors according to the number of investigations they conducted. Detecting preparations for politically motivated offences was not among the duties by which their work was evaluated.

On 26 February 1905, the tsarist government restored the institution of the viceroy in the Caucasus. The local administrative authorities were granted greater powers and autonomy than they had possessed under the previous system of governor-generalship.

To centralize political surveillance and investigation in the Caucasus, the Senate ordered the establishment of the special post of Head of the Caucasus Police Administration on 22 May 1905. The position was to be held by a military officer. If the appointee did not belong to the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, a special ministerial order was required to formalize the appointment. The new authority began operating in September 1905 (306).

Its staff comprised the Head of the Police Administration, staff officers assigned to special duties, and two couriers. The administration had a chancery divided into two sections: a special section and a general section. Under the regulations, the special section was responsible for directing political surveillance and investigation and supervising the activities of the general police authorities. Its staff included a section head, a clerk, an assistant clerk, two translators, and three copyists. Police supervisors were also included on the staff (307). Its activities were governed by the Regulation on the Activities of the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration (308).

The regulation envisaged the integration of the political and general police authorities. Accordingly, the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration was to exercise disciplinary and inspection powers over officers of the gubernial and regional gendarmerie administrations, railway gendarmerie police administrations, and the fortress gendarmerie police detachment. He was also to direct these authorities, together with officers of the general police, in investigating all types of political offences. Gubernial gendarmerie administrations and heads of the general police were required to submit reports on these matters to the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration.

The Head of the Caucasus Police Administration was to serve as an intermediary between the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the local gendarmerie authorities. Circulars, instructions, and other official directives were to be transmitted to local gendarmerie institutions through him (309).

The officers of the general police, by contrast, were subordinated to the Viceroy's Deputy for Civil Affairs. Although they were required to comply with the instructions of the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration, the latter had no authority to take disciplinary or other action against them if they failed to fulfil the requirements laid down in the aforementioned regulation. In practice, therefore, instead of integrating the political and general police authorities, the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration served as an intermediary authority over the gubernial gendarmerie administrations operating in the Caucasus.

Consequently, in a letter to the Russian Emperor dated 15 April 1906, Viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov requested either that the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration be granted broader powers to coordinate the activities of the political and general police or that the post be abolished and its responsibilities transferred to the Viceroy's Chancery (310).

In response to Vorontsov-Dashkov's request, on 23 April 1906 the State Council of the Russian Empire abolished the post of Head of the Caucasus Police Administration. Its responsibilities were transferred to the Viceroy's Deputy for Civil Affairs. The chancery of the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration was incorporated into the police section of the Viceroy's Chancery as a special section. It was headed by a gendarmerie officer with the powers of a deputy director. He was subordinate to the head (director) of the Viceroy's Chancery but remained subject, in disciplinary and military-command matters, to the commander of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes (311).

The staff of the special section of the police division within the Viceroy's Chancery comprised a section head—a colonel—a secretary, two staff officers, three clerks, two officials assigned to various duties, an archivist, a registrar, a translator, three chancery officials, and fourteen police supervisors.

Previously, the Okhrana Department had not been subordinate to the Head of the Caucasus Police Administration. Under the new arrangement, however, one officer assigned to the special section was attached to the head of the Okhrana Department to serve as his deputy (312). In addition, the gubernial and uyezd gendarmerie administrations, railway gendarmerie police administrations, and the fortress gendarmerie police detachment in Batumi were subordinated to the aforementioned special section in matters concerning “the detection and investigation of state crimes.”

Thus, the special section of the police division within the Viceroy's Chancery was to direct investigations into all types of political offences conducted by the gubernial and regional gendarmerie administrations and officers of the general police. The special section itself operated under the Viceroy's direct instructions and the directives it received from the Police Department.

Although this section possessed greater powers than the former Head of the Caucasus Police Administration, gendarmerie officers continued, under their own regulations, to remain subject to the headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes in disciplinary and military-command matters. Under Article 9 of the temporary regulations governing the special section, information about political events and major developments in public life was to be forwarded to the Special Section of the Police Department and to the headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes.

Despite the fact that an officer from the special section of the Viceroy's police division had been seconded to the Tiflis Okhrana Department with the status of deputy, the Okhrana Department was still not obliged to grant the special section of the Viceroy's Chancery access to its political surveillance operations.

Drawing on the experience of suppressing the Revolution of 1905–1906, in 1906 the Ministry of Internal Affairs decentralized the authorities responsible for political surveillance and investigation, granting them a degree of independence in conducting political searches. This reorganization took the form of the establishment of so-called Okhrana districts. By the end of 1906, ten district Okhrana departments had been established across the Empire, each covering several gubernias.

Although the Tiflis Okhrana Department was regarded as a district-level department in the Caucasus in 1906–1907, it did not undergo reorganization during those years because the authorities responsible for political surveillance and investigation remained concentrated in the special section of the police division within the Viceroy's Chancery (313).

In 1907, Viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov again asked the central government to unify the authorities responsible for political investigation and surveillance in the Caucasus. He also petitioned for the establishment of a district Okhrana Department for the Caucasian territories, whose operations would be adapted to the region's distinctive administrative structure.

On 24 December 1907, the Caucasian District Okhrana Department was established. At last, officers of the gubernial gendarmerie administrations gained the opportunity to assert their authority over their Okhrana counterparts: the head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration was appointed head of the district Okhrana Department (314).

In 1908, the staff of the Caucasian District Okhrana Department comprised a colonel as head of the department, two deputies holding staff-officer rank, four officials assigned to special duties, a clerk, an assistant clerk, a registrar, a journalist, three copyists, a translator, and a photographer.

In other parts of the Empire, leadership of the district Okhrana departments established in St Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, and elsewhere was assigned to the heads of the Okhrana departments in those cities. These district departments were supervised by the Special Section of the Police Department. In the Caucasus, however, the head of the district Okhrana Department was, under the regulations, directly subordinate to the Viceroy.

The Caucasian District Okhrana Department, also referred to as the Tiflis Okhrana, covered the gubernias of Tiflis, Baku, Elisabethpol, Kutaisi, and Erivan; the oblasts of Batumi and Kars; the uyezds of Zaqatala and Sukhumi; the Baku city administration; the Caucasian Black Sea coastal district; the separately designated district territories of Kuban, Terek, and Dagestan; and the Black Sea Gubernia.

The establishment of the Caucasian District Okhrana Department finally brought the authorities responsible for political surveillance and investigation in the Caucasus under a unified structure. Under the regulations governing the district Okhrana Department, officers of the gubernial and railway gendarmerie police administrations, as well as those of the city and uyezd police administrations, were required to follow the instructions of the head of the district Okhrana Department in matters relating to political surveillance and investigation.

The Head of the Special Section of the Police Division of the Viceroy’s Chancellery did not possess the same powers as the Head of a District Okhrana Section. The latter was authorised to order any officer of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, or indeed any other police official, to carry out searches or arrests, bypassing their immediate superiors.

Officers of the District Okhrana Section were entitled to use not only the materials available to local Okhrana Sections and Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations, but also to examine any case files. Moreover, despite the strict secrecy surrounding the identities of secret collaborators, the local Okhrana authorities were required, at their request, to disclose these agents’ identities and provide the officers with an opportunity to meet them. The regulations required the Head of a District Okhrana Section to establish his own so-called “central agent network” within the area under his jurisdiction. Naturally, following the introduction of this requirement, secret collaborators also began to be recruited within the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, whose head simultaneously served as the Head of the District Okhrana Section.

For the purpose of facilitating the coordination and supervision of the activities of the political surveillance and investigation agencies, the Head of the District Okhrana Section was entitled to convene a district-wide conference of the heads of these institutions.

Thus, the establishment of the Caucasian District Okhrana Section effectively brought together the agencies responsible for political surveillance and investigation within a single organisational framework. In practice, however, political surveillance remained the prerogative of the local Okhrana Sections. The Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations were primarily engaged in conducting political investigations and were obliged to transmit the information they obtained to the local Okhrana Sections. Nevertheless, to a certain extent, as noted above, they succeeded in taking over part of the political surveillance function, particularly in relation to the supervision and management of secret collaborators. The conduct of external surveillance by filers (plainclothes surveillance agents), as well as the majority of secret collaborators, remained concentrated within the Tiflis Okhrana Section (315).

 

Chapter V

The Local Administration and the Agencies Responsible for Political Surveillance and Investigation

1894–1908

 

The local authorities, represented by the governors, were responsible not only for supervising and directing the activities of the general police, but also for overseeing the covert surveillance conducted by the general police of politically unreliable individuals. Under the Regulation of 14 August 1881, On Measures for the Preservation of State Order and Public Peace, a governor was authorised to place his province under a regime of reinforced security and to order the administrative expulsion of politically unreliable individuals from the province. The Governor’s Chancellery circulated lists of persons whom the general police were instructed to place under covert surveillance.

From 1904 onwards, the governor also became the chairman of the so-called Special Conference. Its members included the Head of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration and the prosecutor of the District Court. The Special Conference was responsible for deciding whether to discontinue preliminary inquiries into political offences or to order that the investigation proceed further. By bringing together the heads of these three institutions, the Ministry of Internal Affairs sought to coordinate the activities of the local administration, the general police, and the gendarmerie in order to improve the conduct of political investigations.

As already noted, officers of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations frequently disregarded the governors’ requests because they were not administratively subordinate to the provincial authorities. For their part, the Police Department sent the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations contradictory circulars. At times, it instructed gendarmerie officers to provide the governor, in response to his request, with the relevant materials, while excluding confidential information from the documents (316). On other occasions, however, they were instructed to send the governor any materials held by the administration that he might request (317).

In practice, the gendarmes provided governors with information at their own discretion. In discussing the activities of gendarmerie officers, we have already noted that they frequently exceeded their authority and interfered in matters that fell within the governor’s jurisdiction (318). In 1905, the Headquarters of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes pointed out to gendarmerie officers that “gendarmerie officers display pronounced independence in their dealings with governors and disregard the provincial authorities” (319). Consequently, the Minister of Internal Affairs instructed the heads of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations as follows: “Although they are not directly subordinate to the governors, they must provide them in a timely manner with information concerning investigations into state offences and coordinate their activities with the provincial authorities” (320).

On the other hand, the Police Department required governors to ensure that the general police coordinated the investigation of anti-state offences with the leadership of the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration (321). At the same time, the local agencies of the political police were required to provide governors promptly with all information they obtained concerning offences of a criminal, administrative, or public-order nature (322).

In the Russian Empire, the activities of the political and general police were closely intertwined not only with one another but also with those of the local judicial institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Justice, including the Judicial Chambers, District Courts, and prosecutorial authorities.

At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, criminal proceedings in the Russian Empire consisted of several stages. The preliminary proceedings comprised two distinct procedures: preliminary inquiry (doznanie) and preliminary investigation (predvaritelnoe sledstvie) (323). As noted above, preliminary inquiries into state (political) offences were conducted by gendarmerie officers and also by judicial investigators under the supervision of a prosecutor (324). The principal purpose of a preliminary inquiry was to establish whether an offence had been committed. A gendarmerie officer was required to notify the prosecutor of the Judicial Chamber of any arrest order issued (325). Searches were conducted either by judicial investigators or by gendarmerie officers acting jointly with general police officials (326).

In cases involving political offences, the general police were entitled to conduct searches and make arrests independently only when no representative of the judiciary or political investigation authorities was present at the location. In such circumstances, the measures taken were subject to subsequent review, as required by law, by a judicial representative or investigator. During investigations into political cases, gendarmerie officers were authorised to search and arrest suspects at their own discretion. Thus, they could take a suspect into custody regardless of the gravity of the alleged offence.

The seizure and examination of a suspect’s correspondence by a judicial investigator required a court order. Gendarmes, however, could seize correspondence only with the agreement of the prosecutor, whom they were required to notify. Preliminary inquiries conducted by the general police were subject to judicial supervision, whereas those conducted by the gendarmerie fell under the supervision of the prosecutor alone (327).

The materials concerning an alleged state offence, which were required to substantiate the bringing of charges, were forwarded by the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration to the prosecutor of the District Court (or the Military District Court). On the basis of whether sufficient evidence was available, the prosecutor decided either to discontinue the proceedings or to bring charges. In the latter case, the prosecutor drew up an indictment, which was then submitted to the court (328). Cases involving state offences were tried by the Judicial Chambers and District Courts (329).

It should be noted that between 1900 and 1908 the prosecutorial authorities sought to exercise greater control over the activities of gendarmerie officers. However, when cases of abuse of authority or misconduct by gendarmerie officers came to their attention, the prosecutors were limited to submitting complaints to the Police Department. Violations committed by the political police, including arrests and searches carried out without formal charges, increased from 1905 onwards. Even the newly appointed Chief of the Caucasus Police Administration, Shirinkin, was outraged when several dozen such cases involving officers of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration came to light. Gendarmerie officers routinely failed to send copies of arrest orders to the prosecutor of the Judicial Chamber (330). Consequently, the prosecutor of the Tiflis District Court was repeatedly forced to demand that the Head of the Tiflis Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration allow representatives of the prosecutorial authorities to participate in the conduct of preliminary inquiries (331).

For their part, the prosecutorial authorities frequently approached the leadership of the Tiflis general police, pointing out that police pristavs (district police officers) quite often arrested citizens on charges of committing state offences, although they had no legal authority to do so, and subsequently handed those arrested over to the Okhrana Section. Under the legislation in force, however, such individuals were to be transferred to the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, which was the formally designated agency responsible for conducting preliminary inquiries into political offences.

A considerable body of archival material documents conflicts between gendarmerie officers, Okhrana officers, and judicial investigators. Despite repeated requests from judicial investigators, political police officers often failed to appear in court. They justified their absence by citing the need to preserve operational secrecy and their fear that interrogation in court might expose their methods of clandestine work and investigative techniques (332).

The Ministry of Justice, for its part, requested that prosecutors attached to the Judicial Chambers and District Courts assist the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations by providing legal advice. More specifically, they were expected to advise which articles of the law would apply to an offender, on the basis of the evidence contained in the files held by the Gubernial Gendarmerie Administration, once the case had been submitted to court; whether the charges could be aggravated if additional evidence was obtained; and on other related matters (333).

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, against the background of widespread unrest, the Police Department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs demanded the arrest of prominent representatives of the revolutionary movement or the extension of their periods of detention. Officers of the political police, however, often lacked sufficient evidence to justify such measures. They were therefore instructed to coordinate these arrests with the prosecutors of the Judicial Chambers or District Courts (334). If no agreement could be reached, the matter was to be reported to the Minister of Internal Affairs, who would then coordinate it with the Minister of Justice (335).

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Durnovo, authorised political police officers, in cases where judicial authorities decided to release prominent revolutionaries or agitators during the preliminary inquiry due to the absence of evidence of criminal activity, to withhold their release until permission had been obtained from the Police Department (336).

In general, the practice of arresting revolutionaries without sufficient evidence was a characteristic shortcoming of the political police in 1905–1906. Consequently, in 1906, the Police Department instructed its officers to obtain substantive evidence before making arrests, rather than resorting to hasty detentions.

In 1906, the commission established to consider police reform was tasked with drafting regulations governing coordinated action between gendarmerie officers and judicial officials during political investigations. However, this initiative was never implemented (337).

Despite interdepartmental conflicts, the political police nevertheless managed to secure the cooperation of officials of the judicial institutions for several reasons. The latter’s desire to advance their careers encouraged them to establish a reputation for loyalty in the eyes of the authorities. At the same time, the government sought to remove judicial officials it considered undesirable, dismissing them from their positions on various pretexts. According to a senior official of the Police Department, “their fate depended on the opinion of the local leadership of the political police” (338). As a result, judicial officials frequently made serious errors, either deliberately or inadvertently, when delivering verdicts (339). Such verdicts were generally quite severe. Even officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs acknowledged that sentences imposed for political offences in the Caucasus were particularly harsh. For example, the sentences handed down by Bogorodsky, a member of the Tiflis Judicial Chamber, stood out for their severity even in the overall judicial statistics of the Russian Empire (340).

It should also be noted that, during interrogations, careerist representatives of the prosecutorial authorities sometimes recognised that a defendant was psychologically vulnerable and might be persuaded to make a confession. Such a confession could then be used as a means of recruiting the defendant as a “secret collaborator”. In these circumstances, the prosecutor would inform a representative of the political police, who would then approach the defendant and attempt to recruit him. Subsequently, the prosecutor would either entirely remove from the defendant’s testimony, now given in the capacity of a “secret collaborator”, or excise from it, any facts that might expose the defendant to criminal punishment.

Such conduct on the part of prosecutorial officials is corroborated by the memoirs of the revolutionary G. Chkheidze: “In November 1908, I was arrested... When they failed to get anything out of me, they resorted to their old approach: ‘Tell the truth, and you will be sent to work immediately. You will receive three times the salary. You can live as you please, and no one will ever find out anything.’ The prosecutor was also present when this offer was made” (341).

According to Beletsky, a former head of the Police Department, “such practices had become systematic and were carried out with the approval of the Ministers of Internal Affairs themselves” (342).

 

 

 

Chapter VI

The Tactics of the Political Police against the Revolutionary Movement, 1902–1908

§ 1. The Tactical Line of the Political Police, 1902–1905

 

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, the activation of the secret agent network effectively became the political police’s strategic response to revolutionary terror. However, the tactics employed in using this network passed through several stages of development, just as the terrorist tactics employed by revolutionaries themselves evolved.

From 1902 through 1905, the tactical line adopted by the Special (Political) Section of the Police Department in its struggle against revolutionary organisations was as follows.

Under the regulations of 1902–1903, secret collaborators attached to the political surveillance and Okhrana sections were assigned only the task of providing information on the activities of revolutionary organisations. At the Department’s direction, an Okhrana officer instructed his network of agents to investigate and study the entire structure of revolutionary organisations, identify their party affiliations and the individuals sympathetic to them and, once an organisation had grown sufficiently in numbers, to encourage its members to undertake active operations. These included organising demonstrations and strikes, distributing illegal literature, setting up printing presses, and importing weapons. In short, agents were expected to promote revolutionary activities that would lead to public disturbances, the storming of government, educational and other institutions, damage to buildings, clashes between demonstrators and the police, physical assaults, and other such incidents.

A striking example from Russian history is 9 January 1905, when workers’ organisations established under Zubatov’s patronage organised a demonstration outside the Tsar’s palace under the leadership of Gapon, an agent of the Police Department. The demonstration ended in bloodshed. Through activities of this kind, the political police obtained evidence that could be used to prosecute revolutionaries. However, agents were formally prohibited from taking an active part in the activities of revolutionary organisations (343). In practice, this prohibition was constantly violated. It was impossible for a secret agent to provide comprehensive information if the members of an organisation did not trust him. Such trust, however, could be gained only by distributing illegal literature, participating in terrorist and expropriation operations, taking part in the importation of weapons and explosives—in short, by engaging actively in revolutionary work.

As noted above, Okhrana officers believed that “it was impossible to make a career without a solid collaborator” (344). Naturally, a “solid collaborator” was understood to mean a person occupying a leading position within a revolutionary organisation. Consequently, the officer in charge would verbally recommend that an agent secure a leading position in the party hierarchy, without officially notifying the Police Department of this arrangement. The Police Department, for its part, naturally turned a blind eye when such cases came to light.

As noted, in 1902–1903 the main focus was on terrorist-type organisations. After all, who could be better informed about the preparation of a clandestine terrorist operation than a terrorist himself? At the direct instruction of E. Azef, who was then heading the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ Combat Organisation, Azef entered the organisation in 1902 and assumed a leading position within it, following the instructions of I. Zubatov, head of the Police Department’s Special Section (345). At the same time, the architects of the political police’s tactics assumed that terror—and, naturally, the bloodshed accompanying such acts—would lead ordinary citizens to develop a negative attitude towards the revolutionary movement and revolutionaries.

The creation of this tactical approach is attributed to I. Zubatov, who openly declared to revolutionaries: “We challenge you to resort to terror, and then we will crush you” (346). He allowed revolutionary organisations to grow and “mature”, and then arrested their members. Zubatov assumed that the agent network would enable the authorities to control terrorist organisations. In practice, however, events unfolded quite differently. After Zubatov’s departure from the political police, officials of the Police Department proved unable, for both subjective and objective reasons, to develop the tactics of using the agent network against the revolutionary movement, which was gradually gaining strength throughout the country. As a result, the Police Department’s instruction that agents should be used solely to collect information had the unintended consequence that agents frequently advanced on their own initiative, without instructions from their superiors. An agent’s determination to obtain the information required by his superior compelled him to become more active, thereby enhancing his authority and influence among his comrades. He also concealed information, since reporting it to his superior would have required him to disclose the source of that information and, in doing so, reveal his actual position within the party hierarchy.

Azef was precisely such an agent. Under his leadership, the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ Combat Organisation succeeded in assassinating the Minister of the Interior, Plehve, on 15 July 1904. Plehve’s assassination caused considerable public excitement throughout the Empire. It was positively received even by those who rejected terror as a means of combating the authorities. Soon afterwards, Sviatopolk-Mirsky was appointed the new Minister of the Interior, and he adopted a more conciliatory policy towards revolutionaries. This, in turn, further encouraged other political parties to place greater emphasis on terror as the principal means of revolutionary struggle.

The memoirs of one Georgian revolutionary, a Social Democrat, note that:

“From 1903 until the end of 1905, terror became an everyday occurrence. This was particularly true in 1905: anyone who in any way obstructed the revolutionary movement became a target of terror employed by all revolutionary parties. There were numerous terrorist acts. No one consulted the committee, and whenever someone was suspected of being an informer, there was no lengthy investigation: they dealt with him themselves. This mass terror continued until almost 1909” (347).

During the revolutionary years, the Red Squads established by revolutionary organisations were, in essence, terrorist organisations, since in their struggle against the authorities they relied primarily on terrorist methods and tactics. The members of these squads were incapable of confronting regular army units. They therefore attacked representatives of the authorities who were more vulnerable and easier to reach, particularly lower-ranking officers of the army, police and Okhrana, officials of government institutions, mamasakhlisi (village headmen), judicial investigators, and others.

Their approach to terror followed the principle of “strike and run”: strike at the weak and defenceless, not at the strong. An analysis of terrorist acts committed by Georgian Social Democrats and Socialist-Federalists indicates that they were far removed from the kind of self-sacrifice characteristic of members of the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ Combat Organisation. It is true that the preparation of explosives, the filling of bombs and their use often resulted in the deaths of the attackers themselves. However, the terrorists of the Combat Organisation knowingly accepted the risk of death. For example, Kaliayev, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ Combat Organisation, deliberately threw a bomb at the carriage of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich from an extremely short distance to ensure that the target would not survive the explosion. He knew, however, that he might also be killed (348).

According to the assessment of the authorities in the Caucasus at the time:

“In Georgia, the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Socialist-Federalists have established combat squads. They consist of outlaws and reckless individuals who carry out orders to assassinate administrative officials. The objective of both organisations is one and the same: to fight against the existing regime by means of terror” (349).

Georgian Social Democrats were no less active in this regard and sometimes even surpassed them. In addition to using terror in an attempt to “awaken among the masses an interest in domestic politics, so that the people would form armed groups against their individual oppressors”, the Social Democrats believed that separate armed actions by the people would gradually merge into a general popular uprising (350).

In 1905, N. Zhordania characterised the activities of the Social Democrats as follows:

“They used terror as a weapon of self-defence and to spread panic among the police forces. In accordance with these views, the Tiflis Committee organised terrorist attacks against gendarmes, particularly loyal police officers, and Okhrana agents. This produced the expected result: the government’s entire apparatus was paralysed, and fear and panic reigned in the Okhrana. Every one of them was thinking about saving himself. The streets came under the control of the Social Democratic Committee.… The police disappeared from the streets” (351).

On 25 November 1905, the head of the Tiflis Okhrana Section wrote to the Chief of the Caucasus Police Administration:

“Since the streets of Tiflis are in the hands of the Social Democratic Menshevik organisation, the police authorities have, in effect, ceased to function. Social Democratic militiamen have begun to pursue filers, and the Okhrana Section is in danger of being raided. I have therefore withdrawn all surveillance of terrorists” (352).

Terror had so thoroughly intimidated officials serving in the local political police agencies in the Caucasus that many resigned or requested transfers to any other region of the Empire, provided it was outside the Caucasus. In 1905–1906, R. Rozhanov, head of the agent section of the Tiflis Okhrana, himself submitted a report requesting transfer to a position unrelated to political investigation, “because the work had strained his nerves to the utmost” (353).

In the assessment of the highest authorities themselves:

“One of the methods employed in the current revolutionary struggle is terror against officials, intended to eliminate the most capable functionaries—those who persecute revolutionaries—and to disorganise the work of government institutions. Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that this method has produced positive results for the revolutionaries” (354).

According to data compiled by the local agencies of the political police, in 1907 there were 3,060 murders and robberies in the Caucasus committed on what was described as a “terrorist basis”. These included 689 murders and attempted murders. In the course of these attacks of a terrorist nature, the perpetrators killed 183 officials and wounded 90 others (355).

 

§ 2. The Tactical Line of the Political Police in 1906

 

From 1906 onwards, the Police Department began implementing a new tactical approach to the use of secret collaborators in the struggle against the revolutionary movement. This approach is associated with General Gerasimov, head of the St Petersburg Okhrana. A protégé of Zubatov who had risen through the ranks thanks to his own abilities, and his worthy successor, Gerasimov developed Zubatov’s methods and techniques of political surveillance. It goes without saying that, in order to pursue such work, he needed a powerful patron and supporter within the ruling circles. Such a patron was Stolypin, one of the most influential statesmen in the history of Tsarist Russia. Stolypin’s name is associated not only with the launch of a rather ambitious plan to place Russia on a capitalist path of development, but also with efforts to improve the activities of the political police.

He believed that the desired objectives could not be achieved through concessions or coercive methods alone. In Stolypin’s view, as expressed during a meeting with the Viceroy of the Caucasus in St Petersburg in 1907, “political surveillance is the most powerful means of combating the revolutionary movement”. He understood clearly that the final suppression of the revolution was impossible without a policy of employing a “properly established and organised agent network”. It was precisely under his patronage that the new 1907 regulations governing Okhrana Sections, mentioned above, were introduced, together with Instruction No. 120, “On the Organisation and Management of Internal Agents”, and Instruction No. 140, concerning external surveillance (surveillance by filers).

Stolypin considered it essential to implement a comprehensive set of measures. One circular issued under his signature combined the following instructions:

“Local authorities must, first and foremost, take measures to eliminate as quickly as possible the economic causes on which revolutionary agitation is based, and… greater attention must be directed by the agent network towards particularly dangerous revolutionaries, whose apprehension constitutes a primary task for police and gendarmerie officials. The timing of their arrest must be carefully selected; in particular, sufficient information must first be obtained from the agent network to ensure that adequate formal evidence is available to justify their arrest” (370).

From 1906 onwards, revolutionary organisations in which the political police had “solid collaborators” were no longer dismantled; on the contrary, they were protected from exposure and disruption. The general police and Gubernial Gendarmerie Administrations were instructed not to arrest anyone or conduct any searches without the knowledge of the head of the relevant Okhrana Section. The reason was to prevent the disruption of the Okhrana Section’s operational activities through the arrest of a secret collaborator or persons associated with him. In fact, what was introduced—or, more precisely, brought into the open—was an idea developed by Zubatov but subsequently forgotten after his dismissal from service: the use of the agent network to control and manage revolutionary organisations.

From this period onwards, Okhrana Sections dismantled revolutionary organisations in which they had a “good” agent only when a terrorist act or another offence was imminent, when Okhrana officers considered it undesirable for such an act to take place at that particular moment, and when it was impossible to prevent it without arresting the revolutionaries involved. At the same time, secret collaborators were instructed to provide advance information to those members of the revolutionary organisation who were to be arrested, indicating what kinds of physical evidence might be found on them.

The point was that, in 1905–1906, the hasty arrests of terrorists and revolutionaries in general, frequently based on unverified information and made without physical evidence, had adversely affected the effectiveness of the Okhrana’s work. A review of the revolutionary movement prepared by the local political surveillance authorities in Batumi for this period stated:

“Today they arrest an agitator; tomorrow they release him. According to the explanations provided by the prosecutorial and investigative authorities, the struggle waged by the search agencies against the revolutionary movement is pointless. We had to prove that a particular individual was keeping illegal literature for the purpose of distribution. Yet we had no material at our disposal with which to prove this, and the offender escaped prosecution… The revolutionaries have thoroughly familiarised themselves with the new Criminal Code, and no charges can be brought against them” (371).

Accordingly, revolutionaries themselves maintained strict conspiratorial discipline. The head of the Moscow Okhrana, General Zavarzin, described the methods of clandestine organisation within the Bolshevik Party as follows:

“In this party, members are involved in its work only in connection with a particular, specific assignment. They use pseudonyms and avoid frequent meetings, endeavouring not to keep documents that the police could use against them. They take various measures to detect whether filers have established surveillance over them. If such surveillance is detected, they use signals to warn one another—a lamp, a flowerpot, or by changing the position of an object. The party leadership is always abroad. If a local organisation is exposed, this does not disrupt the party’s activities as a whole. For reasons of conspiracy, they almost invariably refuse to give statements. The conspiratorial methods employed by exposed Bolsheviks are highly instructive” (372).

This assessment is corroborated by the memoirs of the well-known Bolshevik E. Stasova concerning another prominent Bolshevik, V. Menzhitsky:

“He was an educated Marxist, a good propagandist and an accomplished conspirator. What qualities did a party worker have to cultivate in himself? First and foremost, punctuality. Sometimes we had to meet on the street, at a particular street corner, and punctuality was essential. If you arrived late, your comrade would have to wait. This would attract the attention of a gorodovoy, a shpик, or a caretaker. That is why it was necessary to meet at the exact appointed minute and then move on. In this way, your meeting would pass unnoticed. Our yavkas [clandestine meeting places] were often located in the homes of doctors and lawyers. They had fixed consultation hours. Consequently, you had to arrive and leave on time. It was also necessary to be observant and attentive to the people around you. We developed these qualities in the following way: I would enter a room, and my comrade would tell me to turn around quickly and say what I had noticed when I came in” (373).

When discussing the interrogation process, E. Stasova also notes that during questioning the Okhrana officers would place the source of light directly in front of the interrogated person and observe their facial expressions. Consequently, “we had to conduct ourselves in such a way that the movement of our eyes would not betray our thoughts and feelings”.

Reading the quotations above, one might think that they describe the agents of a powerful state security service. It should be noted, however, that this was the practical implementation of V. Lenin’s demands. In his words, “the struggle against the political police requires special qualities; it requires revolutionaries by profession” (374).

By employing these and other methods and techniques of clandestine organisation, revolutionaries offered determined resistance to the political police. Incidentally, the Bolsheviks later put this experience to use in building the Soviet state. From 1919 onwards, V. Menzhitsky worked in the Cheka. Together with F. Dzerzhinsky, he helped develop the Cheka’s organisational structure and improve methods of combating the subversive activities of foreign intelligence services. Under his leadership, the White Guard organisations known as the “National Centre” and the “Tactical Centre” were uncovered and dismantled in Moscow and Petrograd. The Bolshevik terrorist and expropriator K. Tsintsadze, mentioned above, became head of the Cheka of Soviet Socialist Georgia in the 1920s.

Thus, the political police’s struggle against revolutionaries in 1905–1906 was by no means successful. The impunity of active revolutionaries and terrorists provoked a retaliatory response from the coercive institutions—the general police and the army. Arrested revolutionaries were murdered under the pretext that they had attempted to escape from custody. The White Terror began.

For this purpose, the Okhrana Sections made use of the Black Hundred organisations, which had been established in almost all the major cities of the Empire in 1901–1902 with Zubatov’s blessing. In Georgia, and particularly in Tiflis, between 1,500 and 2,000 people, predominantly Russians, belonged to Black Hundred organisations. In his memoirs, the revolutionary V. Tsabadze observed:

“The overwhelming majority of Russian workers were imbued with nationalist ideas. Here they felt themselves to be representatives of the dominant nation, and for this reason it was difficult to establish relations with them, both politically and from the standpoint of clandestine work” (375).

It was precisely Russians who made up the combat squads established alongside the Black Hundred organisations operating in Tiflis. Naumov, Molchanov and Piorishkin were among the Black Hundred terrorists whose names appear on a short list. They were responsible for the deaths of a considerable number of revolutionaries. Molchanov killed the father of the Socialist-Revolutionaries Alexander and Maria Khudadov, mentioned above, who was himself a revolutionary and an old Narodnik (375).

These groups cooperated with the Okhrana and, enjoying its protection, physically eliminated revolutionaries whom the Okhrana was unable to arrest for various reasons. In accordance with instructions from political police officials, agents also began inciting members of their “own” parties to act against members of other revolutionary parties.

The Tiflis Okhrana files contain an agent report stating that “in Tiflis, the Georgians have formed a group under the leadership of a certain woman, which has decided to carry out terrorist acts against influential Armenians”. Another report states: “The Armenians learned of this and, in turn, formed a squad to terrorise influential Georgians” (377). It is likely that, in accordance with the political police’s new tactics, the dissemination of this information and its communication to the Armenian side did not take place without the involvement of the Okhrana’s agent network.

At the time, considerable public agitation was caused in Moscow by an incident in which a member of a Black Hundred organisation incited and manipulated a young man with revolutionary sympathies into assassinating Ilios, the editor of the government-opposed newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti and, at the same time, a member of the State Duma. The origins of the assassination lay in intrigues within the highest echelons of the government and political police. In early 1907, certain high-ranking court officials sought to have Witte, the Minister of Finance, who was then unwelcome to them, assassinated. At the direction of the political police, Kazantsev, a member of the Union of the Russian People operating in St Petersburg, made the acquaintance of a certain Fedorov, who wished to engage in “active” revolutionary work, and proposed that he organise an attack on Witte. Kazantsev convinced him that he himself was a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists’ Party. Before the planned attack on Witte, however, Kazantsev incited Fedorov to gain some “practical experience”—or, as the text suggests, to get a better grip on the business—by attacking Ilios, whom he described as a Black Hundred supporter and an enemy of the revolutionaries. Kazantsev planned the details of the assassination and entrusted its execution to Fedorov. It was only a week after committing the crime, when he discovered who Ilios actually was, that Fedorov realised the purpose for which he had been used by the political police officials operating behind the Black Hundreds (378).

The revolutionaries did not overlook the beginning of the White Terror organised by the Okhrana officers. In 1908, the head of the Tiflis Okhrana informed the Tiflis Military Governor that:

“Last year, members of a workers’ organisation decided to resort to terror against police and Okhrana officials. As far as the Okhrana was concerned, this took the form of surveillance of Section employees and the identification of them to terrorists. A newspaper seller working on Olga Street distinguished himself particularly in this activity. He acquired considerable experience in this work” (379).

The same letter also stated that Melano, the wife of the Social Democrat Mikha Chodrishvili, was engaged in surveilling the Section’s employees and identifying them to terrorists.

§ 3. Methods and Techniques of Carrying Out the “Red Terror”

 

An understanding of the methods and techniques employed in terrorist acts carried out by revolutionaries can be gained by examining the activities of the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ Combat Organisation. During the Revolution of 1905–1907, its members carried out numerous terrorist acts and refined and developed the “techniques” of terror. In the words of one of its leaders, B. Savinkov:

“The work of a terrorist consists not merely in going out into the street with a bomb in his hand. It also involves living as an ordinary person while engaging in an extremely difficult and unpleasant task—systematic surveillance” (380).

Disguised as petty traders and cab drivers, members of the Combat Organisation monitored the movements and routes of their intended victims. They sought to establish which routes the targeted individuals followed and where a successful attack could be carried out. During the preparations for the assassination attempt against General Trepov, a member of the Combat Organisation named Ivanov worked as a cab driver for an entire year, from the autumn of 1905 until the autumn of 1906 (381). The revolutionaries referred to this form of surveillance as “external surveillance”. In addition to this, a practice of “internal search” also emerged within the Combat Organisation.

B. Savinkov explains T. Leontieva’s admission to the organisation (Leontieva was not entirely mentally sound) by referring, on the one hand, to her “devotion to the revolution and her willingness to make sacrifices for it” and, on the other, to the fact that “as the daughter of the Vice-Governor of Yakutia, with an aristocratic mother and maternal connections to wealthy and influential circles in St Petersburg, she gave us an opportunity to obtain valuable information about ministers and Grand Dukes” (382).

In 1905, the political police uncovered the aforementioned method used by the Combat Organisation—external surveillance carried out through cab drivers and petty traders—and adopted appropriate countermeasures against it (383). Under Gerasimov’s leadership, Azef, in turn, completely disrupted the organisation’s activities. I shall not discuss here the mechanisms through which this disorganisation was achieved, although they are in themselves interesting and could provide further insight into the Police Department’s new tactical approach. I shall merely note that, by various means, Azef managed to convince his comrades that continuing the terrorist struggle was futile.

For example, when an attack was being prepared against a senior government official, Azef deliberately supplied the terrorists with a false route. Already physically and psychologically exhausted by their inability to establish the target’s movements, the terrorists would suddenly notice filers following them. On Gerasimov’s instructions, the general had sent these surveillance agents to monitor the terrorists. However, he specifically instructed them to make sure that the terrorists noticed they were being followed. Inevitably, the resulting nervous strain took its toll, and the terrorists would flee, abandoning their carriages and safe houses (384).

One advantage of this tactic was that, although members of the terrorist organisation were not arrested and some continued their terrorist activities independently—their “mentors”, the aristocrats of the revolution, such as B. Savinkov, instilled in them the idea that “a terrorist’s duty is to remain constantly engaged in terror”—these terrorist acts were, firstly, not of “central importance”; secondly, this approach made it possible to preserve the “agent of central importance”.

It is interesting that, when information about Azef’s cooperation with the police became public, Gerasimov sacrificed another agent operating among the Socialist-Revolutionaries, a certain Tatarov. The party members were informed that this individual was an informer, thereby convincing them that Azef had had nothing to do with the disclosure of information. The Socialist-Revolutionary Central Committee itself assigned Azef the task of organising the assassination of Tatarov as an exposed agent (385)!!!

As a result of this political police tactic, the Combat Organisation operating under the leadership of Azef and Savinkov ceased to exist in 1906. Although the political police retained Azef as an agent, a new Combat Organisation was soon established under the Socialist-Revolutionary Central Committee. Its leaders critically assessed the experience of the previous organisation and developed new methods of carrying out terrorist acts. One of its members described these methods as follows:

“The organisation conducted searches—that is, collected information about the intended victim—in two directions. ‘External search’, meaning street surveillance by means of couriers and filers, was retained, but ‘internal search’ came to the fore. People were sought out in society and within the party who could provide some instruction or information about the person in question (the intended victim), while external surveillance was used to verify the information they supplied” (386).

During this period, the Social Democrats also made fairly successful use of similar methods, although primarily in carrying out expropriations and kidnappings. On 3 October 1905, V. Lenin, in his article “The Tasks of Revolutionary Army Detachments”, provided specific instructions on how such detachments should operate (387). He argued that their members had to develop methods and techniques for conducting armed struggle against the authorities. In describing the means, methods and techniques of street fighting, Lenin stated in the article that the members of these detachments should immediately begin armed attacks, even if these took the form of “disorderly, unprepared petty terror”.

At the same time, he considered it essential to divide armed attacks into two stages: preparatory activities and the actual attack (military operation). During the preparatory stage, in addition to acquiring all kinds of weapons, Lenin called for the conduct of “reconnaissance work in prisons, police units and government institutions”. In other words, they were to place trusted individuals within these institutions and establish contacts with employees who might prove useful to them in one way or another (388).

The previously mentioned kidnapping of a doctor in Batumi by Menshevik terrorists for the purpose of extorting money was organised according to precisely such a plan. A member of the Social Democratic Party was placed in the hospital where the doctor worked as an assistant hospital superintendent, and he organised the kidnapping (389).

From October 1909, Dimitri Sofromis-dze Jashi began cooperating with the political police under the pseudonym “Sluchainy”, as an agent operating within the Socialist-Federalist Party (390). Given the interest in this individual in connection with the assassination of Ilia Chavchavadze, I shall attempt to provide somewhat more information about him. I would also like to emphasise that it is incorrect to accuse the political police of involvement in Ilia Chavchavadze’s assassination on the grounds that Jashi was supposedly an Okhrana agent: there is no evidence of any such contact between him and the Okhrana before 1909.

According to information contained in the Okhrana files, Jashi was arrested in 1904 for participating in a demonstration and spent four weeks in prison. He was actively involved in revolutionary activities: he participated in workers’ anti-government gatherings, distributed proclamations, collected donations for the military fund of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, obtained copies of documents compromising the authorities from a certain E. Tkemaladze, an official of the Gubernial Administration, and, under the pseudonym “Zdeshni”, published them in the illegal newspaper Listok Borby Proletariata (The Leaflet of the Proletarian Struggle) (391).

A person whose conduct was characteristic of such a committed Social Democrat became a member of the Socialist-Federalist Party in 1905. During the same period, he worked for the newspaper Iveria. His description in the Okhrana files states explicitly: “Dimitri Sofromis-dze Jashi—employee of the newspaper Iveria” (392).

It is noteworthy that, in the memoirs of his contemporaries, Jashi is described as a friend of Alexander Oboladze, the head of the Social Democrats’ Bolshevik military organisation in 1906. Oboladze characterised himself in the following terms:

“I can say without exaggeration that no one in the Caucasus carried out as many terrorist acts as I did” (393).

Thus, Jashi may have been infiltrated into what the Social Democrats regarded as the “bourgeois Socialist-Federalist Party” on behalf of the Bolsheviks. In any case, Jashi’s profile fits well with the pattern of methods used by the Social Democrats to carry out terrorist acts and expropriations in 1905–1907: the infiltration of trusted individuals into the opposing camp.

Material concerning N. F. Ilyashenko, the investigator in the case concerning the assassination of Ilia Chavchavadze, indirectly supports the plausibility of this assumption. According to contemporary accounts, after the investigation into Ilia’s assassination, Ilyashenko “became Jashi’s closest friend” (394). In 1921, immediately after the Bolsheviks came to power, N. F. Ilyashenko was appointed, by an order signed by A. Nazaretyan, the People’s Commissar of Justice, to the position of “Head of Administration in the Revolutionary Committee of the South Ossetian District” (395).

Naturally, this raises two questions. First, what could an investigator of special cases such as Ilyashenko have had in common with the revolutionary Jashi? Second, why was Ilyashenko, an official of the Tsarist government, retained as a relatively senior judicial official under Menshevik rule—serving as a member of the Tiflis District Court and of the Audit Commission of the Tiflis Civil Militia—and why did the Bolsheviks subsequently send him to work in the Revolutionary Committee in Tskhinvali?

If we also take into account that Ilyashenko investigated the case involving the stabbing of N. Khizanishvili (Urbneli), a close friend of Ilia Chavchavadze and a well-known ethnographer and lawyer, and that he failed to conduct the investigation properly, after which Khizanishvili was soon subjected to another successful terrorist attack, I believe that the answer should be sought in the Bolshevik tactic of establishing contacts with individuals working within government institutions (396).

Incidentally, one of the versions of N. Khizanishvili’s murder circulating among his contemporaries accused the Social Democrats. According to another version, N. Machabeli, his brother-in-law, had arranged for Khizanishvili to be murdered because of a family dispute. The actual killer was the Socialist-Federalist terrorist Korneli Kasradze (397). This version is supported by material held in the Tiflis Gendarmerie District Administration, which also explains the motive for the murder:

“N. Machabeli, a member of the Tiflis military organisation of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was madly in love with K. Kasradze and had her lover arrange the murder of N. Khizanishvili” (398).

Interestingly, as noted above, the membership list in the file concerning the Socialist-Federalist Party includes the names of both D. Jashi and K. Kasradze (399).

The guidelines formulated by Lenin and quoted above were also circulated in the form of proclamations. For example, a proclamation issued by the military organisation of the Moscow Committee of the Social Democratic Party, entitled “Advice to Insurgent Workers”, contains the same recommendations that Lenin had offered in the above-mentioned article to members of the party’s combat detachments (400).

In this text, Lenin’s recommendations concerning the conduct of partisan warfare in urban streets are discussed in considerable detail. They range from the need to study the city thoroughly, including knowledge of entrances and exits to buildings and connecting courtyards, to the formation of combat detachments of two or three people, avoiding armed confrontations with soldiers, carrying out attacks only against weaker opponents, organising repeated beatings of members of Black Hundred organisations for the purpose of gaining practical experience, and developing recognition signals to identify one another in the dark (401).

Incidentally, the urban guerrilla warfare conducted by left-wing terrorists in Latin American countries during the 1960s–1980s, known as urban guerrilla warfare, represents, in terms of its methods and techniques, the adoption and further development of terrorist methods employed by Russian revolutionaries, and specifically by the Bolsheviks. The methods used to recruit revolutionarily inclined young people into terrorist organisations and to subject them to psychological conditioning were also almost identical. This should perhaps come as no surprise: their advisers were emissaries of the Soviet security services. These, in turn, had been “trained” through the experience of the first Cheka personnel—the Bolsheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists (the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries), many of whom had a terrorist past. The development of methods and techniques adopted from the political police of Tsarist Russia, combined with their own experience of clandestine organisation, made the Soviet security services—the successors to the Cheka—among the most powerful in the world. Former KGB officers, for their part, would probably recognise many familiar features in our discussion of the activities of the Okhrana Sections.

Alongside similarities in the means employed and in terminology, the political police and terrorist organisations also shared a common weakness. Just as the political police agencies failed to exercise adequate control over their secret collaborators and placed excessive trust in them, terrorist organisations, too, failed to monitor their own members in the name of clandestine security—or, more precisely, lacked the time and resources to vet them.

After Azef was exposed in 1908, the man who had headed the Combat Organisation in 1904–1906 and organised the assassinations of Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, the Socialist-Revolutionaries established a special body known as the “Investigative Commission into the Azef Affair”. This commission analysed the activities of the Combat Organisation. It concluded that the excessive importance attached to the conduct of “central terror”, on which the party spent enormous sums of money—for example, the Socialist-Revolutionaries received 100,000 francs from the Japanese military attaché in France, a large part of which was transferred to the Combat Organisation (402)—and to which it assigned its very best personnel, had resulted in the creation of an organisation operating independently of party control (403).

And not merely in its creation. Savinkov, who aspired to a kind of “superhuman” status; Azef, an agent of the Police Department; and individuals with mental illnesses, such as T. Leontieva and D. Brilliant, among others, were able to realise their ambitions with relative ease. Paradoxically, it was under Azef’s leadership that the Combat Organisation delivered its most devastating blows against the authorities. In Azef’s hands, it had become a compliant instrument, since he selected its members according to the extent to which they would submit to his authority and whether they were genuine revolutionaries. He needed them to be sincere revolutionaries so that no police agent would infiltrate the organisation and the Police Department would be unable to exercise control over its activities.

For their part, revolutionary organisations also sought to gather information about the activities of the political police, using the same methods employed by the Okhrana. Not infrequently, Okhrana officials themselves agreed to cooperate with revolutionaries for various reasons. In 1906, an employee of the Tiflis Okhrana, known by the nickname “Bluza”, informed his superior that:

“The district supervisor of the Tenth Police Precinct tells everyone that I cooperate with the Okhrana Section and provide information to the head of the Section” (404).

As the head of the Okhrana Section subsequently established, the reason for this particular police official’s behaviour was quite mundane: he had been working in the same position for several years and had not been promoted (405).

V. Tiroev, an official of the Tiflis Okhrana Section, was himself found to have been cooperating with revolutionaries, as the head of the Section established in 1908. He was providing them with information about the activities of the Okhrana. He had previously even been arrested by the general police in connection with the Bolsheviks’ expropriation of 250,000 roubles from Erivan Square (406).

After learning, during a conversation with V. L. Burtsev, editor of the revolutionary journal Byloye, that the former Director of the Police Department, Lopukhin, had disclosed that Azef had organised Plehve’s assassination, and after suspecting that Azef was connected with P. Rachkovsky, who had succeeded him as Director of the Police Department, Lopukhin exposed Azef to Burtsev (407).

Burtsev was engaged in exposing agents whom the Police Department had infiltrated into the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. By comparing information from various sources, he managed to identify Azef, although it was Lopukhin who ultimately provided decisive proof of Azef’s agent status. As a result, Burtsev became famous among revolutionaries as someone who exposed secret collaborators.

From 1908 onwards, a wave of agent exposures began in Russia. Burtsev was approached by L. Menshikov, Assistant Head of the Special Section of the Police Department, and M. Bakai, an official for special assignments at the Warsaw Okhrana. They handed over information on more than 300 agents to the revolutionaries. Burtsev’s so-called “Investigative Commission”, established to expose police agents, frequently received original documents or copies of personal files concerning secret collaborators from other individuals connected with the political police. According to Burtsev, secret documents from the Police Department’s archives passed through his hands, brought to him by a Department official in exchange for a small payment (408).

It should also be noted that revolutionaries, for their part, sought to penetrate the political police itself. As early as 1878, a revolutionary named N. Klechotnikov was recruited into the agent section of the Third Expedition of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery, the central body then responsible for political policing. He exposed several informers operating among the Narodniks, including I. Zubatov, with whom we are already familiar (409).

During the Revolution of 1905–1907, a relatively successful attempt by a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party named Petrov to infiltrate the secret agent network of the St Petersburg Okhrana Section also took place. This supposedly “recruited” revolutionary exploited the trust of his superior and blew up Colonel Karpov, head of the Petrograd Okhrana, in a safe house (410).

The greatest success in this field during the Revolution of 1905–1907 was achieved by the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalist Party in St Petersburg. In 1906, S. Ris, a member of this party, was supposedly “recruited” by the Police Department. Ris had, however, arranged this in advance with his comrades. By providing the Department with certain genuine information, he managed to convince its director of his sincerity. While supplying the Department with information of interest to it, he persuaded Director Trusevich that, in order not to compromise his agent activities, the Petrograd group of the Maximalists should be left untouched.

At the same time, through his contacts with Department officials, he obtained information useful to his organisation and passed it on to his comrades. As a result, the Petrograd group of the Maximalists, whose activities were, so to speak, “protected” by the political police, carried out several successful expropriations and terrorist acts (411).

The introduction of a new tactical line by the Police Department in 1906 was also обусловлено by changes in the country’s system of government. The State Duma, an elected body with limited influence over the governance of the Russian Empire, attracted the interest of revolutionary parties. Some of these parties sought to pursue their objectives through this institution.

In November 1906, the Police Department informed the local political surveillance sections:

“Almost all revolutionary parties have decided to take an active part in pre-election agitation and are seeking to achieve a change in the existing state system through the State Duma. To this end, they are establishing special election commissions, while specially appointed agitators are stepping up their efforts to secure the election of suitable individuals as electors and, subsequently, as members of the State Duma.

You must immediately organize systematic internal and external surveillance in order to: first, identify the individuals who hold information concerning the elections within the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Peasants’ Unions—that is, among those who are not boycotting the elections to the State Duma; second, identify those who are intended to be elected as electors and members of the Duma. Take every measure to expose such individuals, particularly those in the latter category. Apply the following articles of the Criminal Code to them […] Direct all your efforts towards their prompt liquidation (arrest) and prosecution under the aforementioned articles, through judicial investigators, so as to deprive such individuals of the right to be elected as electors and subsequently to the State Duma. As for those engaged in and directing pre-election agitation, if they cannot be prosecuted through the courts, a formal preliminary inquiry or an Okhrana inquiry should be conducted.” (412)

In other words, every possible measure was to be taken to prevent candidates representing the revolutionary parties from participating in the elections. The revolutionaries, for their part, were no less willing to employ every means available to achieve their objectives. The Tiflis Okhrana files contain intelligence reports stating that the Social Democrats had altered entries in the electoral lists and succeeded in getting their representatives elected as electors. They also note that, during the pre-election period, “despite their formal unity, the Mensheviks are suppressing the Bolsheviks and preventing them from carrying out their work (agitation).” (413)

The experience of the First and Second State Dumas, and the use of the Duma tribune by revolutionary parties for propaganda and agitation, compelled the authorities to begin implementing comprehensive countermeasures against their legal and illegal activities. The Police Department’s interest in this issue was so great that, on reviewing its circular letters from this period, one gains the impression that the political police had made it one of the principal directions of its campaign against the revolutionary movement. Nevertheless, in a telegram sent to the local political surveillance sections in early 1907, the Director of the Police Department expressed his indignation that:

“Gendarmerie administrations and Okhrana sections confine themselves to collecting information about electors and candidates to the Duma from revolutionary parties. They display no initiative whatsoever in instituting judicial proceedings against the candidates identified. A task that serves the interests of the authorities has therefore remained unfulfilled, evidently because neither the agents nor other surveillance resources have been directed and employed by the Police Department to achieve the designated objective. Make every effort to carry it out.” (414)

For the reasons outlined above, the Police Department was compelled to develop and supplement its tactical line of 1906–1907. It was no coincidence that we noted earlier that, despite retaining Azef as an agent, the political police had failed to put an end to the Socialist-Revolutionaries’ terror. Moreover, as we have already seen, despite the prohibitions imposed by the central committees of the revolutionary parties, their local committees continued to carry out terrorist activities on their own initiative, “within their own circles.” The betrayal of political police officials and the exposure of Okhrana methods also led to the unmasking of numerous agents. Under these circumstances, the Police Department placed its main emphasis on increasing the number of agents within the local and central organizations of the parties, ensuring that their identities were kept under strict secrecy, and using these agents to control illegal organizations and subsequently bring them into the open.

The legalization of revolutionary parties became one of the principal objectives of the political police from late 1907 onwards. This was because the events of 1905–1907 had clearly demonstrated that the most radical manifestations of the revolution—terrorist acts and expropriations—were carried out precisely by illegal parties. By providing them with an official platform for propaganda and agitation, the political police hoped to satisfy the ambitions of revolutionary leaders and weaken the position of those within the revolutionary movement who advocated the use of extreme methods of struggle. However, revolutionary parties had learned not only how to maintain effective secrecy but also how to counter the methods employed by the political police to obstruct their election campaigns. Naturally, they were able to adopt appropriate countermeasures and secure the election of their preferred candidates to the State Duma.

Consequently, whereas the political police had previously sought artificially to deprive revolutionary parties of the opportunity to participate in elections, from late 1907 onwards it began allowing them to do so. More than that, both the local and central bodies of the political police sought to secure the election of their own agents to representative institutions. For example, from 1910 onwards, political police officials assisted the Police Department’s agent within the Bolshevik Party, R. Malinovsky (agent codenames: “Partnoi” and “X”), not only in standing for election to the Fourth State Duma but also in securing victory. (415)

Since individuals with previous criminal convictions were ineligible for election as members of the State Duma, Malinovsky, with the assistance of the political police, managed to eliminate from the general police archives the document proving his criminal past. In 1902, he had committed robbery. When, during the pre-election campaign, a certain Krivov challenged him and Malinovsky’s election to the Duma was consequently placed in jeopardy, this obstacle was swiftly removed: on the personal orders of the Minister of Internal Affairs himself, Krivov was arrested. (416)

The political police’s particular interest in Malinovsky was prompted by the fact that, as reported to his superiors by “Sidor” (A. A. Polyakov), a secret collaborator of the Moscow Okhrana who was unaware that Malinovsky himself was an agent working for the Police Department, “Malinovsky is seeking to put forward his candidacy from the province through the workers’ electoral curia, and there is reason to believe that he will easily secure election, since he enjoys popularity among the workers.” (417)

 

§4. The Tactical Line of the Political Police in 1907–1908

 

The changes in the tactical line of the political police were directly connected with the successive stages in the development of the Revolution of 1905–1907. From 1907 onwards, as the revolutionary movement began to retreat, a new tactical line was developed.

From this time, the Police Department sought to use secret collaborators to exercise control over revolutionary organizations. Whereas, according to the earlier instructions, agents were expected to limit themselves to a passive role in the activities of these organizations, a special circular issued by the Police Department in October 1907 fundamentally changed the existing approach. Henceforth, the heads of Okhrana Sections were required to “take advantage of the transitional situation and advance their collaborators towards the centre of the organization.” (418)

Agents were now permitted to take part in terrorist acts organized by their respective organizations, including attacks against senior officials of the political police, in order to gain the confidence of the organization's leadership. At that time, the list of such potential targets was headed by P. Kurlov, Deputy Director of the Police Department. (419) The circular also stipulated that members of revolutionary organizations who obstructed agents' advancement through the organizational hierarchy, or who had a hostile attitude towards them, were to be arrested (“removed from circulation”). By contrast, the agents' close associates within the party were to be left untouched and protected from accidental arrest.

Once secret collaborators had secured senior positions within their organizations, they were expected to change their stance “naturally.” In particular, when taking part in meetings and sessions at which the party's strategy and tactics were discussed, agents who had been promoted to leadership positions were, contrary to the earlier instructions, required to “advocate the most moderate tendencies within the revolutionary movement.” They were also to disseminate these ideas “in the circles in which they moved.” (420)

From this period onwards, members of revolutionary organizations who advocated the use of extreme methods of struggle and exercised influence over their associates through their “personal qualities” began to be arrested. One revolutionary's memoirs describe the situation as follows:

“From 1907 onwards, our organization in Tiflis was systematically ‘penetrated’. We would begin our work, establish contacts with workers and the provinces, and then, after a year or a year and a half […] they would arrest only the intellectuals and, occasionally, one or two leading workers. The rest remained untouched […] It was clear that someone was at work behind the scenes.” (421)

The local political surveillance authorities were instructed to pay particular attention to preventing revolutionary organizations from merging into larger groups or federations of organizations. Different factions, such as the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, were not to be allowed to establish closer relations. To this end, agents were to play a divisive role. They were to oppose supporters of unification by advancing appropriate arguments, or report them to the authorities so that they, too, could be “removed from circulation”—that is, arrested. (422) Thus, from this period onwards, the Police Department actively obstructed attempts by the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks to unite.

Moreover, at one consultative meeting between representatives of the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, at which the possible unification of their parties was discussed, both representatives verbally expressed their agreement with the idea. However, each put forward conditions that were designed to make the other side reject unification first. The reason for this became clear only after 1917: both representatives turned out to have been Okhrana agents. (423)

Thus, the Police Department sought to manipulate revolutionary parties through its agents. This approach is particularly evident in its policy towards the Bolsheviks. In a letter concerning the Helsingfors Conference held by the Bolsheviks in 1907, the Police Department instructed the heads of local Okhrana Sections to direct their agents within local Social Democratic organizations to support “the line of the more moderate Social Democrats—that of Lenin,” because Lenin and his supporters had rejected the use of terror as a method of struggle at the conference. They intended to propose that the party abandon altogether the idea of armed uprising and the establishment of a democratic republic. (424)

When, in January 1912, a “All-Russian Conference” of Social Democrats convened on Lenin's initiative, the Police Department did not attempt to prevent it from taking place. It already knew, through its agent network, who would be elected and what issues would be discussed. It also took every measure to ensure that supporters of the Bolsheviks were able to attend, arresting representatives of other factions. (425)

The political police's apparently “sympathetic” attitude towards the Bolshevik Party can readily be explained by the words of Beletsky, Director of the Police Department during those years: “The Social Democratic Party was covered quite thoroughly by agents and the surveillance authorities.” (426) Agents of the political police were actively operating within the Bolsheviks' central organizations. They included M. Briandinsky, Ya. Zhitomirsky, I. Krivov, A. Romanov, A. Marakushev, and others. (427) R. Malinovsky, who had been elected to the Fourth State Duma as a Bolshevik deputy, was also among them. Incidentally, he was a well-known opponent of unification between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

Thus, from 1907–1908 onwards, the Police Department's new tactical line consisted of controlling revolutionary organizations through agents who had been advanced by every available means within the party hierarchy. It was through these agents that the authorities were able to contain and subsequently suppress the revolutionary movement. Accordingly, between 1908 and 1914, efforts continued to place agents in the leadership of revolutionary parties, in accordance with the requirement of the 1907 instructions to have “several in each” organization. The Socialist-Federalist Party provides a clear example: in 1909–1910, the Tiflis Okhrana had two agents operating within it, “Sluchainy” and “Dvarianina.” (428)

One consequence of this policy was that the Social Democrats and Socialist-Federalists in Georgia disbanded their combat detachments. At its Third Party Conference, the Socialist-Federalist Party declared that its combat detachment operated independently of the party, “because its members had committed acts that had no connection with revolutionary activity.” (429)

Clearly, the Red Guards had committed unjustifiable terrorist acts and expropriations even before this period. At the time, such actions were often excused with the saying that “when a tree is felled, woodchips inevitably fly.” From 1907 onwards, however, agents' accounts of such acts provided party members with yet another argument in favour of abandoning terrorist activity. Moreover, as the activities of revolutionary parties were legalized under the influence of the agent network, many Red Guard terrorists were abandoned by their party organizations, just as the superiors of exposed Okhrana agents had cast them aside. For the now-legalized parties, terrorists whose hands were stained with blood and whose activities had discredited the movement had become a heavy burden. Deprived of unified leadership, the scattered Red Guards, under the influence of the criminals and various kinds of unscrupulous opportunists who had already made up a considerable proportion of their ranks, turned into ordinary bandits.

The attacks carried out by former Red Guards in 1908–1909 had lost any ideological foundation. Even the terrorists of the Socialist-Federalist Party, a party imbued with a national spirit, were not immune to this tendency. In 1909, K. Kasradze, a well-known Socialist-Federalist terrorist and one of the participants in the expropriation of the Dusheti Treasury (in 1906, Socialist-Federalist terrorist-expropriators had seized 315,000 roubles from the treasury), wrote to his brother:

“In order to reap a good harvest, I must wait […] and then I shall make for America, not there.”

This letter has been preserved in the Okhrana files, where it is noted that the reference was in fact to the preparation of an expropriation and that K. Kasradze intended to flee abroad with the money he obtained. (430) An analysis of the various materials contained in the case file suggests that he was arrested on the basis of information supplied by an Okhrana agent, in order to prevent him from committing this kind of crime.

While K. Kasradze was apparently planning to flee abroad, a large number of terrorists abandoned by the Social Democrats sought refuge in the forests, from where they continued to engage in banditry. Those among them who remained ideologically committed went into exile in Iran and took part in the Iranian Revolution. Among these revolutionaries was G. Berbichashvili, the principal suspect in the murder of Ilia Chavchavadze.

A similar situation prevailed throughout the Russian Empire. In 1917, General Gerasimov—the architect and principal implementer of the Police Department's new tactical policy—testified before the Investigative Commission of the Provisional Government:

“At that time [1907–1908], there existed, under the guise of anarchist organizations, criminal gangs that had nothing whatsoever to do with anarchism. They were disintegrated revolutionary organizations that robbed and killed […] They were the dregs of a disintegrating revolution.” (431)

Revaz Gabashvili's memoirs provide a vivid account of this process. In one instance, while discussing “revolutionary levies,” he describes a meeting in Tiflis with members of the Socialist-Federalists' “military detachment,” who were collecting money on the instructions of the “Committee.” The following conversation took place:

“Rezo, you must come with us. We have been sent by the Committee on ‘business’ […] It's a rather unusual and interesting business: we have been instructed to collect contributions from merchants […] Look how much we have already collected […] Come along, and you'll get your share too.” (432)

In another passage, Gabashvili recounts how an elderly female relative of his was terrorized. She received a letter demanding money, on which, “as was customary for such pleasant letters at the time, a coffin and crossed bones had been drawn.” Gabashvili then describes the conversation with the expropriators who had threatened the elderly woman. When asked, “On whose orders have you come?”, they replied that they had been sent by the Social Democratic Party Committee. However, when pressed further, they admitted:

“We are former Red Guards […] Nobody needs us anymore, and they have thrown us out onto the street. We don't know what to do […] We go hungry for weeks at a time. Surely we cannot take to begging?” (433)

Having assumed that revolutionary organizations would no longer be capable of launching active anti-government actions, the tsarist authorities began dismissing political police officials who had risen from humble social backgrounds. General Gerasimov, head of the St Petersburg Okhrana, was forced to leave his post. He does not appear to have been particularly troubled by this. By his own account, he began speculating on the stock exchange with considerable success—which suggests that he had accumulated substantial sums of money while serving in the political police.

Spiridovich soon left the service as well. He had headed the Tsar's personal secret police and had uncovered several plots to carry out terrorist attacks against the Tsar. As for Stolypin, the prominent statesman who, together with Gerasimov, had helped formulate the tactical lines of the political police in 1906 and 1907, he was assassinated in 1911 by a man named Bogrov in the Kyiv theatre, beside the Tsar's box. To this day, there is no conclusive information about Bogrov's affiliations: some researchers consider him to have been an Okhrana agent, while others regard him as a revolutionary infiltrated into the political police by the Socialist-Revolutionary Maximalists. (434)

Thus, the political police officials who had helped the authorities secure victory over the revolutionaries gradually disappeared from the scene. Clearly, the authorities themselves had little desire to retain in office experienced political police officials—men who had been deeply involved in the bloody struggle against the revolutionaries and who were also intelligent and ambitious. After all, the Revolution had been suppressed.

Naturally, during the period of relative calm that lasted until 1914, the political police continued to operate along much the same lines as before. According to the Police Department's assessment, its agents infiltrated into the parties kept it promptly informed of developments within the revolutionary camp, and the authorities were confident that they would not allow the Revolution to awaken again. However, the leadership of the political police failed to draw the appropriate lessons from the Revolution of 1905–1907 and did not develop any contingency plan for dealing with the outbreak of mass unrest in the country.

Nevertheless, it seems that the political police also had some far-sighted individuals among its ranks. On the cover of one of the last Moscow Okhrana case files, dated 26–27 February 1917, the following note was written:

“The Last Days of the Old Regime.” (435)

 

P.S.

While working with the materials used in this book, I became acquainted with the biographies of numerous individuals: professional revolutionaries, terrorists, senior and junior police officials, and agents. Of all these people, three made the strongest impression on me personally.

The first was Łukasiński, a member of a Polish patriotic organization who spent 46 years (1822–1868) alone in a cell at Butyrka Prison, where his only human contact was with prison guards. When he encountered another prisoner for the first time in all those years, in 1867, he asked him three questions: What year is it? Who is in Poland? What is happening in Poland?

The second was Bakunin, the famous anarchist, who wrote while in prison: “Life imprisonment is a terrible thing. To spend one's life without a purpose, an interest, or hope. To tell yourself every day: today I have become more foolish, and tomorrow I shall become even more foolish.”

The third was I. Kalyaev, a terrorist belonging to the Socialist-Revolutionaries' Combat Organization and the assassin of the Tsar's uncle, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. In his autobiography, written on the eve of his execution, we read:

“My father served as a district police officer in Warsaw […] He was an honest man; he did not take bribes, and consequently we lived in great poverty. Of all my brothers, I was the only one who managed to enter university. I believed in my abilities, aspired to higher education, and wished to become an honest public figure. I was expelled from the University of St Petersburg for taking part in the student strike of 1899. This was a terrible blow to me, one that ultimately determined my fate.”

And his fate is well known. The day after writing these words, he was executed—hanged.

Thus, as a result of the thoughtless actions of some university or police official, the Russian Empire acquired yet another individual who had been “thrown out of the ordinary rhythm of life.” It was not difficult for professional revolutionaries to turn him into a man “hardened in hatred of the existing authorities.” Unlike the aristocrats of the revolutionary movement, he ended his life at a very young age, “without a clear purpose, interest, or hope.”

The biographies of these individuals have once again convinced me that history is not merely the history of conflicts between political organizations, ideologies, and state institutions. It is, above all, also the history of people—their choices, mistakes, hopes, disappointments, and often tragic fates. Behind the confrontation between the political police and revolutionary organizations stood real human beings, whose lives were so often shaped by decisions made by others.

Finally, as we have seen above, terrorists and agents, sincere revolutionaries and loyal officials of the political police were ultimately used and discarded by those who had employed them. And, looking back today, on the basis of our analysis of the past decade, we must “agree” with Karl Marx's words:

“The goal for which unworthy means are required is not a worthy goal.”

23 November 2003

 

Sources and References

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2. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, p. 160.
3. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, p. 161.
4. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, p. 55.
5. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. I, Leningrad, 1925, p. 490.
6. N. P. Eroshkin, История государственных учреждений дореволюционной России [History of State Institutions in Pre-Revolutionary Russia], Moscow, 1983, p. 209.
7. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 145.
8. N. P. Eroshkin, История государственных учреждений дореволюционной России [History of State Institutions in Pre-Revolutionary Russia], Moscow, 1983, p. 209.
9. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 153, inventory 2, file 134, fol. 4.
10. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 472, fol. 5.
11. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1073, fol. 5.
12. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 166, fol. 37.
13. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 2, file 224, fol. 71.
14. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 166, fol. 45.
15. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, pp. 153–154.
16. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 134, fol. 53.
17. A. A. Lopukhin, Из итогов служебного опыта [From the Results of My Service Experience], Moscow, 1907, p. 26.
18. A. A. Lopukhin, Из итогов служебного опыта [From the Results of My Service Experience], Moscow, 1907, p. 27.
19. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 32, fol. 9.
20. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 32, fol. 82.
21. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 104.
22. A. A. Lopukhin, Из итогов служебного опыта [From the Results of My Service Experience], Moscow, 1907, p. 19.
23. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 102.
24. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 58.
25. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 48.
26. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 134, fol. 4.
27. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, p. 158.
28. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 3, fol. 62.
29. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 344, fol. 1.
30. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 134, fol. 11.
31. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 134, fol. 6.
32. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 3, fol. 56.
33. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 3, fol. 75.
34. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3326, fol. 1.
35. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 175.
36. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 36.
37. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 36.
38. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 48.
39. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 76.
40. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 37.
41. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 35.
42. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 46.
43. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 127.
44. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], no. 5, Tbilisi, 1923, p. 90.
45. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 101.
46. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 45.
47. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 236, fols. 31–35.
48. N. Nikoladze, მოგონებები [Memoirs], Tbilisi, 1984, p. 161.
49. F. Makharadze, 1905 წელი ამიერკავკასიაში [The Year 1905 in Transcaucasia], Tbilisi, 1926, p. 24.
50. G. Giorgadze, საზოგადოებრივი ურთიერთობა საქართველოში (1864–1905) [Social Relations in Georgia (1864–1905)], Tbilisi, 1928, p. 213.

51. F. Makharadze, 1905 წელი ამიერკავკასიაში [The Year 1905 in Transcaucasia], Tbilisi, 1926, p. 53.

52. F. Makharadze, 1905 წელი ამიერკავკასიაში [The Year 1905 in Transcaucasia], Tbilisi, 1926, p. 54.

53. Z. Shvelidze, რევოლუციური ორგანიზაცია „თავისუფლების ლიგა“ [The Revolutionary Organization “League of Freedom”], Tbilisi, 1969, p. 47.

54. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 2, p. 96.

55. Z. Shvelidze, რევოლუციური ორგანიზაცია „თავისუფლების ლიგა“ [The Revolutionary Organization “League of Freedom”], Tbilisi, 1969, p. 90.

56. G. Giorgadze, თვითმპყრობელობა და რევოლუცია [Autocracy and Revolution], vol. I, Tbilisi, 1929, p. 101.

57. A. Bendianishvili, ეროვნული საკითხი საქართველოში (1801–1921) [The National Question in Georgia (1801–1921)], Tbilisi, 1980, p. 163.

58. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3202, fol. 1.

59. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 318, fol. 176.

60. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 318, fol. 72.

61. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 318, fol. 72.

62. Былое [The Past], journal devoted to the history of the liberation movement, Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 194.

63. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Socialist Revolutionary Party and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 25.

64. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 124.

65. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 36.

66. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 194.

67. G. Zhvania, ამიერკავკასიის ბოლშევიკური ბეჭდვითი სიტყვა რუსეთის პირველი რევოლუციის წინ და რევოლუციის პერიოდში [The Bolshevik Press in Transcaucasia on the Eve of and during the First Russian Revolution], Tbilisi, 1984, p. 24.

68. 1905–1907 წლების რევოლუცია საქართველოში [The Revolution of 1905–1907 in Georgia], collected volume, Tbilisi, 1955, p. 93.

69. N. Zhordania, ჩემი წარსული [My Past], Tbilisi, 1990, p. 36.

70. Революционное движение 1860-х годов [The Revolutionary Movement of the 1860s], collected volume, Moscow, 1932, pp. 169–170.

71. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 177.

72. V. V. Vityuk and S. A. Efirov, «Левый» терроризм на Западе: история и современность [“Left-Wing” Terrorism in the West: History and the Present], Moscow, 1987, p. 43.

73. V. V. Vityuk and S. A. Efirov, «Левый» терроризм на Западе: история и современность [“Left-Wing” Terrorism in the West: History and the Present], Moscow, 1987, p. 86.

74. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Socialist Revolutionary Party and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 121.

75. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Socialist Revolutionary Party and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 126.

76. P. V. Orzhekhovsky, Самодержавие против революционной России (1826–1880) [Autocracy against Revolutionary Russia (1826–1880)], Moscow, 1982, p. 135.

77. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 45.

78. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 45.

79. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 195.

80. V. L. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 41.

81. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 45.

82. V. L. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 41.

83. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 46.

84. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 2, p. 218.

85. 1905–1907 წლების რევოლუცია საქართველოში [The Revolution of 1905–1907 in Georgia], Tbilisi, 1955, p. 182.

86. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 5, p. 182.

87. I. Vartagava, მოგონებები [Memoirs], Tbilisi, 1962, p. 69.

88. S. Pirtskhalava, მოგონებათა ფურცლები [Pages from My Memoirs], Tbilisi, 1988, p. 110.

89. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 189.

90. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 203.

91. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 30.

92. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 124.

93. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Socialist Revolutionary Party and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 115.

94. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 214.

95. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], journal, Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 252.

96. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 27.

97. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 19.

98. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 164.

99. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 165.

100. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 113.

101. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 258.

102. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 145.

103. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 141.

104. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 163.

105. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 252.

106. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 19.

107. Преподавание истории в школе [Teaching History at School], Moscow, 1966, no. 1; N. P. Eroshkin, “Россия под надзором” [Russia under Surveillance], p. 99.

108. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Moscow, 1925, p. 154.

109. Преподавание истории в школе [Teaching History at School], Moscow, 1966, p. 92.

110. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 34.

111. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 477.

112. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fols. 182–185.

113. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Moscow, 1925, p. 271.

114. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 49.

115. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 189.

116. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, pp. 281–282.

117. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 257.

118. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 281.

119. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 15.

120. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 35.

121. V. L. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 86.

122. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 271.

123. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, pp. 281–290.

124. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 144.

125. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. I, p. XV.

126. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 285.

127. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, pp. 258–259.

128. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 286.

129. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 92, fol. 16.

130. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 169.

131. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 297.

132. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 18.

133. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fols. 182–185.

134. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 283.

135. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 18.

136. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 10.

137. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 285.

138. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 285.

139. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 285.

140. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 18, fol. 97.

141. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 75.

142. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 286.

143. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 75.

144. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 19, fol. 1.

145. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 13.

146. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 197.

147. P. Kurlov, Конец русского царизма [The End of Russian Tsarism], Moscow, 1923, p. 123.

148. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 278.

149. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 13, fol. 1.

150. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 19, fols. 1–16.

151. დაბრუნება [Return] (memoirs of Revaz Gabashvili and Valodia Goguadze), Tbilisi, 1992, p. 405.

152. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 95, inventory 1, file 17, fol. 142.

153. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 78.

154. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1922, no. 2, p. 233.

155. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 234.

156. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 302.

157. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 6.

158. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 82.

159. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 266.

160. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 77.

161. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 271.

162. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 330.

163. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 6.

164. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file [not specified], fol. 3427.

165. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 73, fol. 17.

166. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 7, fol. 95.

167. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 73, fol. 17.

168. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 246.

169. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 66, fol. 12.

170. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 44.

171. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 66, fols. 117–118.

172. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 139.

173. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 176.

174. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, pp. 111–112.

175. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 7, fol. 26.

176. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 33, fol. 98.

177. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 19, fol. 7.

178. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 287.

179. V. L. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 160.

180. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, nos. 4–5, p. 200.

181. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 18, fols. 1–10.

182. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 96.

183. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 282.

184. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 3, p. 131.

185. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 7.

186. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 166.

187. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 11.

188. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 65.

189. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 19, fol. 16.

190. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 284.

191. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 263.

192. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 278.

193. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 154.

194. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 17, fols. 1–3.

195. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 239.

196. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 17, fol. 149.

197. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 17, fol. 221.

198. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 17, fol. 217.

199. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 122.

200. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 232.

201. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 95, inventory 1, file 66, fol. 65.

202. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 191.

203. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 252.

204. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 85.

205. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 11.

206. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 124.

207. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 33.

208. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 1, fol. 163.

209. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, pp. 44–45.

210. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 2.

211. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 26.

212. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 28.

213. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 60.

214. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, pp. 60–61.

215. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 65, fol. 26.

216. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 78, fol. 1.

217. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 16, fol. 25.

218. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 253.

219. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 78, fol. 1.

220. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 109, fol. 183.

221. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 55.

222. საქართველოს რესპუბლიკა [The Republic of Georgia], newspaper, 8 July 2001, nos. 166–167.

223. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 28.

224. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 263.

225. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 76.

226. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 263.

227. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 258.

228. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 7.

229. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 69.

230. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 16.

231. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 110, fol. 1.

232. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 110, fol. 22.

233. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 110, fol. 49.

234. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 77.

235. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 33.

236. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 27.

237. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 75.

238. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 75.

239. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 55.

240. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 49.

241. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 259.

242. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 179.

243. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 16.

244. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 261.

245. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 65, fol. 50.

246. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 9, fol. 337.

247. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 9, file 9, fol. 221.

248. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 36.

249. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 38, fols. 6–23.

250. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 28.

251. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 156, inventory 2, file 3, fol. 56.

252. P. Pavlov, Агенты, жандармы, палачи [Agents, Gendarmes, Executioners], Petrograd, 1922, p. 17.

253. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 283.

254. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 3, p. 352.

255. I. Khutsishvili, 1905–1907 წლების რევოლუცია საქართველოში [The Revolution of 1905–1907 in Georgia], Tbilisi, 1955, p. 263.

256. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 80.

257. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 210.

258. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 14, fols. 30–36.

259. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, pp. 51–52.

260. Преподавание истории в школе [Teaching History at School], Moscow, 1966, p. 95.

261. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 223.

262. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 301.

263. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 29.

264. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3216, fol. 8.

265. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], Leningrad, 1925, p. 158.

266. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 363.

267. Sh. Rado, დორას ფსევდონიმით [Under the Pseudonym Dora] (Memoirs of a Soviet Intelligence Officer), Batumi, 1978, p. 191.

268. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 2, fol. 67.

269. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 369.

270. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 13, fols. 125–130.

271. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 13, fol. 131.

272. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 93.

273. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 2, file 2, fol. 259.

274. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 185.

275. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 259.

276. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 65.

277. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 30.

278. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 267.

279. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 885, fol. 75.

280. D. I. Shindzhikashvili, Сыскная полиция в царской России в период империализма [The Detective Police in Tsarist Russia during the Period of Imperialism], Omsk, 1973, p. 31.

281. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 268.

282. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 372.

283. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 6, fol. 8.

284. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 42, fol. 306.

285. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 379.

286. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3267, fol. 1.

287. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3267, fol. 101.

288. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 274.

289. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 276.

290. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 9, fol. 81.

291. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 100.

292. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fol. 184.

293. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 181.

294. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fols. 113–114.

295. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 77.

296. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 38, fol. 49.

297. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 236, fol. 31.

298. A. A. Lopukhin, Из итогов служебного опыта [From the Results of Professional Experience], Moscow, 1907, p. 38.

299. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 195.

300. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 20.

301. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 153, inventory 1, file 626, fol. 273.

302. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 184.

303. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 4, fol. 10.

304. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 3216, fol. 4.

305. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 638.

306. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 31, fol. 1.

307. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 114, fol. 6.

308. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 2.

309. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 258.

310. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 31, fol. 42.

311. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 114, fol. 56.

312. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 114, fol. 40.

313. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 1, fol. 111.

314. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 6, fol. 31.

315. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 65, fol. 19.

316. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 48.

317. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 2, fol. 17.

318. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 58.

319. CHAG, fond 156, inventory 1, file 2, fol. 17.

320. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 47, fol. 16.

321. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 36, fol. 41.

322. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 49.

323. N. P. Eroshkin, История государственных учреждений дореволюционной России [History of State Institutions in Pre-Revolutionary Russia], Moscow, 1983, p. 239.

324. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 38, fol. 10.

325. CHAG, fond 84, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 5.

326. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 38, fol. 10.

327. A. A. Lopukhin, Из итогов служебного опыта [From the Results of Professional Experience], Moscow, 1907, p. 22.

328. N. P. Eroshkin, История государственных учреждений дореволюционной России [History of State Institutions in Pre-Revolutionary Russia], Moscow, 1983, p. 239.

329. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 38, fol. 32.

330. CHAG, fond 83, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 5.

331. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 39, fol. 82.

332. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 59, fol. 36.

333. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fol. 286.

334. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fol. 272.

335. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fol. 282.

336. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1092, fol. 262.

337. P. Kurlov, Конец русского царизма [The End of Russian Tsarism], Moscow, 1923, p. 111.

338. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 373.

339. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 133.

340. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. I, Leningrad, 1925, p. 359.

341. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, no. 1, p. 214.

342. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 372.

343. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 14.

344. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 227.

345. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 61.

346. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 46.

347. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, nos. 4–5, p. 105.

348. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 2, p. 100.

349. F. Makharadze, 1905 წელი ამიერკავკასიაში [The Year 1905 in Transcaucasia], Tbilisi, 1926, p. 326.

350. Знание — сила [Knowledge Is Power], journal, Moscow, 1990, p. 8.

351. N. Zhordania, ჩემი წარსული [My Past], Tbilisi, 1990, p. 49.

352. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 94, inventory 2, file 2, fol. 143.

353. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 10.

354. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 5113, fol. 8.

355. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 5281, fol. 4.

356. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1916, p. 298.

357. N. Zhordania, ჩემი წარსული [My Past], Tbilisi, 1990, p. 55.

358. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 56.

359. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 59.

360. N. Zhordania, ჩემი წარსული [My Past], Tbilisi, 1990, p. 55.

361. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 57.

362. N. Zhordania, ჩემი წარსული [My Past], Tbilisi, 1990, p. 56.

363. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 56.

364. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 61.

365. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 62.

366. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 98, fol. 44.

367. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 147.

368. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 73, fol. 10.

369. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 148.

370. CHAG, fond 13, inventory 27, file 5113, fol. 2.

371. F. Makharadze, 1905 წელი ამიერკავკასიაში [The Year 1905 in Transcaucasia], Tbilisi, 1926, p. 324.

372. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 282.

373. M. A. Smirnov, О Вячеславе Менжинском [On Vyacheslav Menzhinsky] (Memoirs, Essays, Articles), Moscow, 1985, p. 25.

374. V. I. Lenin, Полное собрание сочинений [Complete Collected Works], vol. VI, p. 112.

375. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 5, p. 182.

376. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, no. 1, p. 321.

377. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 9, fol. 342.

378. V. Zhukhrai, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 71.

379. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 9, fol. 5.

380. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 93.

381. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 92.

382. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 78.

383. Былое [The Past], Petrograd, 1917, no. 3, p. 116.

384. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 176.

385. V. L. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 135.

386. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия социалистов-революционеров и ее предшественники (1886–1916) [The Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 296.

387. В. И. Ленин о революции 1905–1907 гг. [V. I. Lenin on the Revolution of 1905–1907] (Collected Volume), Moscow, 1984, p. 251.

388. В. И. Ленин о революции 1905–1907 гг. [V. I. Lenin on the Revolution of 1905–1907] (Collected Volume), Moscow, 1984, p. 252.

389. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1923, no. 4, p. 59; სახალხო განათლება [Public Education], 7 June 1990, E. Goguadze, “საიდუმლო სერობა სოფელ ბახვში თავად ილია გრიგოლის ძე ჭავჭავაძის მოსაკვდინებლად” [The Secret Meeting in the Village of Bakhvi to Murder Prince Ilia Grigolis-dze Chavchavadze].

390. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 33, fol. 79.

391. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 2, fol. 122.

392. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 70, fol. 2.

393. სახალხო განათლება [Public Education], 4 October 1990, Sh. Badridze, “წიწამურის ტრაგედიის გამოცანები” [The Riddles of the Tsitsamuri Tragedy].

394. P. Gugushvili, ილია ჭავჭავაძის მკვლელობა [The Murder of Ilia Chavchavadze], Tbilisi, 1938, p. 27.

395. CHAG, fond 116, inventory 1, file 1042, fol. 148.

396. В. И. Ленин о революции 1905–1907 гг. [V. I. Lenin on the Revolution of 1905–1907], Moscow, 1984, p. 253.

397. N. Khizanishvili, რჩეული იურიდიული ნაწერები [Selected Legal Writings] (Collected Volume), Tbilisi, 1981, p. 618.

398. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 994, fol. 253.

399. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 70, fol. 2.

400. ამიერკავკასიის ბოლშევიკური ბეჭდვითი სიტყვა რუსეთის პირველი რევოლუციის წინ და რევოლუციის პერიოდში [The Bolshevik Press in Transcaucasia on the Eve of and during the First Russian Revolution], Tbilisi, 1984, p. 151.

401. В. И. Ленин о революции 1905–1907 гг. [V. I. Lenin on the Revolution of 1905–1907], Moscow, 1984, p. 251.

402. D. Shvelidze, ფედერალისტები [The Federalists], Tbilisi, 1993, p. 158.

403. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия Социалистов-Революционеров и Ея Предшественники (1886–1916) [The Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 121.

404. Central Historical Archive of Georgia (CHAG), fond 95, inventory 1, file 22, fol. 16.

405. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 27, fol. 47.

406. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 27, fol. 47.

407. Vl. Burtsev, В погоне за провокаторами [In Pursuit of Provocateurs], Moscow, 1989, p. 146.

408. CHAG, fond 151, inventory 1, file 5, fol. 20.

409. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 38.

410. B. Nikolaevsky, История одного предателя [The Story of a Traitor], Moscow, 1991, p. 279.

411. A. I. Spiridovich, Партия Социалистов-Революционеров и Ея Предшественники (1886–1916) [The Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Its Predecessors (1886–1916)], Petrograd, 1918, p. 313.

412. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 324.

413. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 9, fol. 289.

414. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 336.

415. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 285.

416. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 286.

417. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 287.

418. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 98, fol. 44.

419. P. Kurlov, Конец русского царизма [The End of Russian Tsarism], Moscow, 1923, p. 5.

420. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 477.

421. რევოლუციის მატეანე [Chronicle of the Revolution], Tbilisi, 1924, no. 1, p. 233.

422. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 478.

423. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 286.

424. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 37, fol. 468.

425. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 276.

426. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 286.

427. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 287.

428. CHAG, fond 95, inventory 1, file 66, fol. 16.

429. CHAG, fond 94, inventory 1, file 70, fol. 140.

430. CHAG, fond 153, inventory 1, file 1592, fol. 7.

431. Падение царского режима [The Fall of the Tsarist Regime], vol. III, Leningrad, 1925, p. 3.

432. დაბრუნება [Return] (Memoirs by Revaz Gabashvili and Valodia Goguadze), Tbilisi, 1992, p. 74.

433. დაბრუნება [Return] (Memoirs by Revaz Gabashvili and Valodia Goguadze), Tbilisi, 1992, p. 77.

434. V. Zhukhray, Тайны царской охранки: авантюристы и провокаторы [Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: Adventurers and Provocateurs], Moscow, 1991, p. 152.

435. Голос минувшего [The Voice of the Past], Moscow, 1917, nos. 9–10, p. 306.