![]() ![]() In an attempt to implement preventive security measures, Emperor Alexander III ( r. 1881–1894) immediately set up two more Security and Investigation (охранно-розыскные) secret-police stations, supervised by Gendarme officers, in Moscow and Warsaw they became the basis of the later Okhrana. Still, these measures did not prevent the assassination of Alexander II in March 1881. The position of Chief of Gendarmes was merged with that of the Minister, and Commander of the Corps was assigned as a Deputy of the Minister. After another failed assassination attempt, on August 6, 1880, the Emperor, acting on proposals made by Count Loris-Melikov, established the Department of State Police under Ministry of the Interior (MVD) and transferred part of the Special Corps of Gendarmes and the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery to the new body. Its street address, Fontanka, 16, was publicly known in the Russian Empire. Petersburg, set up in 1866 after a failed assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II, with a staff of 12 investigators. The first special security department was the Department on Protecting the Order and Public Peace under the Head of St. History įorerunners of the Okhrana as a Russian security service included the Secret Prikaz ( Taynyy Prikaz ) (1654–1676), the Preobrazhensky Prikaz (1686–1726), the Secret Chancellery (1731–1762), the Secret Expedition (1762–1801), and the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (1826–1880). Claims persisted the Okhrana had operated torture chambers in places like Warsaw, Riga, Odessa and in a majority of the urban centres. Possibly, the formation of the Okhrana led to increasing use of torture, due to the Okhrana using methods such as arbitrary arrest, detention and torture to gain information. In the early 19th century, the practice of torture was never truly abolished. It never received more than 10% of the total police budget. The Okhrana was perpetually underfunded and understaffed before 1914 it had just 49 employees split between seven offices and never had more than 2,000 informants at any one time. Suspects captured by the Okhrana were passed to the judicial system of the Russian Empire. The organization also fabricated documentation connected with the antisemitic Beilis trial of 1913. ![]() Many historians, such as the German historian Konrad Heiden and the Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine maintain that Matvei Golovinski, a writer and Okhrana agent, fabricated the first edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). ![]() ) and with the participation of Pyotr Rutenberg. The Communists blamed the Okhrana in part for the Bloody Sunday event of January 1905, when Tsarist troops killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during a demonstration organized by Father Gapon. The Okhrana tried to compromise the labour movement by setting up police-run trade unions, a practice known as zubatovshchina. ![]() The Okhrana became notorious for its agents provocateurs, including Jacob Zhitomirsky (born 1880, a leading Bolshevik and close associate of Vladimir Lenin), Yevno Azef (1869–1918), Roman Malinovsky (1876–1918) and Dmitry Bogrov (1887–1911). The Okhrana's Foreign Agency also served to monitor revolutionary activity. The Okhrana deployed multiple methods, including covert operations, undercover agents, and "perlustration"-the reading of private correspondence. It concentrated on monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, including in Paris, where the Okhrana agent Pyotr Rachkovsky (1853–1910) was based (1884–1902) before returning to service in Saint Petersburg (1905–1906). 'the guard') was a secret-police force of the Russian Empire and part of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century and early 20th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes.įormed to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary activity, the Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire, as well as satellite agencies in a number of foreign countries. The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order ( Russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called the Guard Department (Russian: Охранное отделение) and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as the Okhrana (Russian: Охрана, IPA: ( listen), lit. ![]()
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