The history of the tsarist special services is full of heroic moments. From scratch, Nicholas II managed to create a full-fledged structure for collecting secret information, identifying foreign agents and recruiting his own.

Tsarist intelligence

The secret services of the empire managed to recruit even influential Western politicians and officers.

For example, in 1903, Russian intelligence managed to recruit the head of the military counterintelligence of Austria-Hungary Alfred Redl.

For ten years, he betrayed the Russian command of Austrian agents in St. Petersburg, and also handed over the plan for the Austrian invasion of Serbia. These actions allowed the Serbs to successfully resist the Austrians at the initial stage of the World War (up to half a million killed on the Austrian side)

There were legends about Redl that there were no secrets in Europe that were not available to the intelligence service led by him. In reality, Russian intelligence owned these secrets, for Redl served Russia.

Redl was recruited by a Russian officer, later Major General of the General Staff, Nikolai Batyushin.

Photo from the ceremony of reburial of the great Russian intelligence officer Nikolai Batyushin

As FSB Major General A. A. Zdanovich noted, the name and deeds of a talented professional and a wonderful person named Batyushin certainly deserve to be widely known in modern Russia.

Imperial intelligence services have developed a powerful intelligence network in Europe. Among the agents was the future dictator of Italy Mussolini.

counterintelligence

Since 1911, a separate department of Counterintelligence was created. A real hunt begins for other people's spies and agents.

The first professional spy hunters

On June 8, 1911, the "Regulations on counterintelligence departments" were approved in the Russian Empire.

From that day on, a new professional structure was thrown into the fight against spies.

§ 22. Counterintelligence officer job description:

The duties of the counterintelligence departments, in addition to combating military espionage, are to investigate and combat the activities of foreign states in Russia aimed at:

1) To the creation of internal complications in the empire, capable of disrupting the successful course of mobilization, the concentration of our troops for war with the mentioned states.

2) To increase the armed forces of the latter at the expense of the foreign population of the empire.

The event categories mentioned above include:

a) Preparations in Russia for an armed uprising.

b) Preparation of formation at the expense of the frontier alien population of the empire, armed detachments of a military organization (training of personnel, arrangement of secret warehouses of weapons, subversive means, etc.).

c) Preparation for damage to artificial structures (railway bridges, tunnels, station and port structures, stations, wireless telegraph, as well as all buoys, lighthouses and other signals and signs enclosing the safety of navigation, etc.) in border areas.

d) Collection among the foreign and unreliable population of the empire of funds for military needs.

For the recruitment of agents at a time, funds were allocated in the amount of 246,000 rubles, that is, 263.5 million rubles. in a modern equivalent.

The justification was the report of General Batyushin:
“Restaurants, coffee houses, gambling houses, cafeterias, cinemas, etc. are favorite places where a person tries to forget from the hard everyday life or the barracks situation at home, hoping sometimes in one day to improve his financial situation by participating in gambling. Here, under the influence of captivating temptations in the form of wine, women, etc., a person often becomes a slave to the passion lurking in him, goes beyond the limits of his budget. Help at this time in the form of a monetary subsidy or other kind of assistance may supposedly be accidentally provided by a secret recruiter of spies and thereby connect him with himself. On the other hand, watching people who go out of their budget and go on a rampage can lead an experienced person to a number of conclusions that may be of interest to the counterintelligence officer. In view of this, all these establishments must be under the supervision of agents of counterintelligence, whether they be their own owners, bartenders, lackeys, artists, and especially actresses, or simply ladies of the demi-monde who frequent them. These people, for a relatively small remuneration, can provide valuable information for the counterintelligence officer about the visitors of these establishments.

Special Section

In addition to counterintelligence, another tsarist special service, the Special Section of the Police Department, was engaged in the development of spies.

“Special Department “A” dealt with issues of political search, the issues of monitoring the activities of political parties, managing the activities of local search bodies, developing intelligence information and surveillance data, issuing search circulars, forming a library of revolutionary publications, correspondence on it, questions organizing foreign agents, monitoring revolutionary propaganda among the troops, managing the photography department, deciphering cryptograms, compiling "most subject" notes. The special department "B" dealt with the issues of monitoring the social movement, trade unions, which had and did not have political overtones, revolutionary uprisings among workers, peasants, speeches by railway employees, telegraph operators, preparing reports on strikes, strikes, illegal congresses, deployment of troops "

Okhrana

And of course, the famous Security Department calculated foreign agents and spies.

It also recruited its own agents, who by 1917 numbered more than 10,000.

Worthy of mention are the reports of the Department to the Tsar, prepared in a single copy. The secret police presented them twice a month to the Emperor, who read and made notes with his own hand. The Minister of the Interior specifically drew the attention of the Police Department to the places marked by the Tsar, and ordered that the most thorough investigation of these cases be carried out. As a result, the Guard always knew exactly which investigations particularly attracted the attention of the Emperor.

The imperial intelligence services, in addition to resounding successes in the field of intelligence and recruitment of Western political and military leaders, also achieved success within the country.

The revolution from below was stopped. The numbers speak for it.

According to official statistics, from January 1908 to mid-May 1910, there were 19,957 terrorist acts and expropriations.

Attention: This is 300 crimes per day!

By 1911, the terrorist wave was stopped.

Secret circles of revolutionaries were also neutralized, and those that remained consisted of more than 80% of Okhrana agents.

We know Lenin's public statement in January 1917 in Switzerland that he did not expect to live to see the revolution.

The revolution from below was decisively stopped. As you know, the empire was ruined by the betrayal of the generals, who conspired with the liberal forces.

The Bolsheviks and the proletarian revolution from below - that's later. Tsarist Russia did not even leave the Bolsheviks a chance, which was clearly recognized by Lenin.

After the tsar was betrayed and overthrown, and the liberals managed to release all the scum from prisons, the work of the secret services was buried. The Reds have risen from oblivion.

The security department appeared in Russia in the 1860s, when a wave of political terror swept the country. Gradually, the tsarist secret police turned into a secret organization, whose employees, in addition to fighting the revolutionaries, solved their own private tasks.

Special agency

One of the most important roles in the tsarist secret police was played by the so-called special agents, whose inconspicuous work allowed the police to create an effective system of surveillance and prevention of opposition movements. These included filers - "surveillance agents" and informers - "auxiliary agents".

On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 fillers. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were deployed daily in both capitals.

There was a rather strict selection in place of the filler. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persevering, cautious." They usually took young people no older than 30 years old with an inconspicuous appearance.

The informers were hired for the most part from among the porters, janitors, clerks, and passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district warden who worked with them. Unlike fillers, informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be “substantial and useful,” they were given a reward from 1 to 15 rubles. Sometimes they were paid with things. So, Major General Alexander Spiridovich recalled how he bought new galoshes for one of the informants. “And then he failed his comrades, failed with some kind of frenzy. That's what the galoshes did," the officer wrote.

Perlustrators

There were people in the detective police who did a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perusal. Baron Alexander Benckendorff introduced this tradition even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful thing." The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.

"Black cabinets", created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkov, Tiflis. The conspiracy was such that the employees of these offices did not know about the existence of offices in other cities. Some of the "black cabinets" had their own specifics. According to the Russkoye Slovo newspaper of April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in reading letters from dignitaries, then in Kyiv they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to data for 1913, 372,000 letters were opened and 35,000 extracts were made. Such labor productivity is astonishing, considering that the staff of illustrators was only 50 people, who were joined by 30 postal workers. It was quite a long and laborious work. Sometimes letters had to be deciphered, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.

Yours among strangers

For more effective work of the security department, the Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents" that infiltrate various parties and organizations and exercise control over their activities. According to the instructions for recruiting secret agents, preference was given to "suspected or already involved in political affairs, weak-willed revolutionaries who were disillusioned or offended by the party." Payments for secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles per month, depending on the status and benefits. The Okhrana encouraged their agents to move up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.

With great caution, the police treated those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve as the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As a circular from the Police Department shows, during 1912 the Okhrana refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy." For example, the exiled settler Feldman recruited by the secret police, when asked about the reason for giving false information, answered that he was without any means of subsistence and went on perjury for the sake of reward.

provocateurs

The activities of the recruited agents were not limited to espionage and the transfer of information to the police, they often provoked actions for which members of an illegal organization could be arrested. The agents reported the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to detain the suspects. According to the creator of the CIA, Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised provocation to the level of art. According to him, "this was the main means by which the tsarist secret police attacked the trail of revolutionaries and dissidents." The sophistication of Russian agents provocateurs Dulles compared with the characters of Dostoevsky.

The main Russian provocateur is called Yevno Azef - both a police agent and the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. It is not without reason that he is considered the organizer of the murders of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Minister of the Interior Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, receiving 1,000 rubles. per month.

A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "comrade-in-arms" Roman Malinovsky. The Okhrana agent regularly helped the police to locate underground printing houses, reported on secret meetings and conspiratorial meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in the betrayal of his comrade. In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky achieved his election to the State Duma, moreover, as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inactivity

The activities of the secret police were connected with events that left an ambiguous judgment about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, an anarchist and a secret informer of the Okhrana, Dmitry Bogrov, without any interference, mortally wounded Stolypin with two shots point-blank. Moreover, at that moment, neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family were nearby, who, according to the plan of events, were supposed to be with the minister. On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kyiv security department Nikolai Kulyabko were involved in the investigation. However, on behalf of Nicholas II, the investigation was unexpectedly terminated. Some researchers, in particular Vladimir Zhukhrai, believe that Spiridovich and Kulyabko were directly involved in the murder of Stolypin. Many facts point to this. First of all, the suspiciously easily experienced Okhrana officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Social Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to get into the theater building with a weapon in order to allegedly expose the alleged killer.

Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot Stolypin, but also contributed to this in every possible way. Stolypin, apparently, guessed that a conspiracy was brewing against him. Shortly before the murder, he dropped the following phrase: "They will kill me and the members of the guard will kill me."

Okhrana abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian emigre revolutionaries. And there was someone to follow: these were the leaders of the People's Will, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and the publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and the anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. It is interesting that the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also French civilians.

From 1884 to 1902, Pyotr Rachkovsky headed the foreign secret police - these were the heydays of its activity. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents defeated a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of collaborating with the French government.

When the director of the Police Department, Plehve, received a report about Rachkovsky's dubious contacts, he immediately sent General Silvestrov to Paris to check on the activities of the head of the foreign secret police. Silvestrov was killed, and soon the agent who reported on Rachkovsky was also found dead.

Moreover, Rachkovsky was suspected of involvement in the murder of Plehve himself. Despite compromising materials, high patrons from the environment of Nicholas II were able to ensure the immunity of the secret agent.

"

• AMBASSADOR'S ORDER - the first independent state body in Russia that was in charge of all issues of international relations. It was created by Ivan IV in 1549. Prior to the creation of the Posolsky Prikaz, diplomatic documents were kept together with the royal treasury. At that time, there were practically no differences between diplomatic and intelligence activities. The diplomat, as a rule, also performed the functions of a scout.


• ORDER OF SECRET MATTERS - a special office, created in 1654 by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. This special service began to work in parallel with the Ambassadorial order. She took over all intelligence functions. Thus, for the first time, a structural separation of diplomacy and intelligence was undertaken. Secret ciphers are introduced into the regular practice of secret correspondence. Abolished in 1676.


• PREOBRAZHENSKY ORDER - an organization created by Peter I to fight the internal enemies of the state (counterintelligence). In the period between the liquidation of the oprichnina in 1572 and the creation of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz in 1697, there was no centralized "secret police" service in Russia. The order existed for thirty years, was liquidated in 1699.


• SECRET OFFICE - Created in 1718. In the system of public administration, it performed the functions of a political investigation (detective). Created to conduct an investigation into the case of Tsarevich Alexei Peter I, it was under the personal control of the tsar, who himself often took part in its work. The department of the office was located in St. Petersburg in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Its branch also worked in Moscow. In 1826, the Secret Chancellery was liquidated. In its place, the Office of Secret Investigation Affairs was created.


• MYSTERIOUS EXPEDITION - was created under the Senate in 1762. All counterintelligence functions were transferred to it. To combat foreign agents, the expedition introduced and began to effectively use the institution of informers abroad. Through them, the "confidants", the Russian special services received information both on spies sent to Russia and on employees recruited by them from among Russian subjects.


• SPECIAL COMMITTEE. The secret expedition ceased to exist with the accession to the throne of Alexander I. Its functions were transferred to the First and Fifth Departments of the Senate. But the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars required a revision of the entire system of intelligence and counterintelligence work. In January 1807, a Special Committee was created to consider cases of crimes "tending to violate the general peace" (in the documents there is another name for this body: "Committee for the Protection of General Security"). The committee existed until 1829.


• SPECIAL OFFICE OF THE MINISTRY OF POLICE . This office acted in parallel with the Special Committee as an organ of political investigation. She was instructed to be in charge of "cases under the department of foreigners and foreign passports", "censorship audit" and "special affairs" - the fight against espionage. It ceased to exist as an independent body in 1819 (transferred to the Ministry of the Interior).


• BOARD OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS is one of the organs of government. It was created along with others that replaced the orders in 1717-1721 by Peter I. According to the Senate decree of August 31, 1719, the collegium was charged with the duty to register all foreigners coming to the Russian Empire, as well as issuing passports to Russian citizens traveling abroad for diplomatic, trade work, study. The Board constantly collected all the information about foreigners. In June 1718, she was charged with the secret reading (perusal) of all letters received from abroad.


• III DEPARTMENT OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OWN OFFICE . Created in July 1826 on the basis of the Special Chancellery by Nicholas I. It was headed by A. Kh. Benckendorff. It was conceived as the "high police" and, unlike the former search agencies, had a widely branched network of territorial bodies in the form of gendarmerie units. The III Division was entrusted with diverse tasks - organizing a political search, conducting an investigation into cases of state crimes; surveillance of anti-government organizations and individual public figures; expulsion and exile of “suspicious people”, supervision of them; the fight against the anti-church activities of schismatics and sectarians, against peasant uprisings; false fraud; malfeasance and other major criminal offences. The department was supposed to supervise foreigners, collect information about improvements and inventions, censor periodicals and the press. The structure of the department included five expeditions (departments) and two secret archives. The affairs of counterintelligence were partially dealt with by the first and third expeditions, the latter supervising foreigners. Abolished in August 1880.


• CORPS OF THE GENDARMES. This structure (special unit) was created in April 1827 by imperial decree. (Subsequently, it was called the Separate Corps of Gendarmes.) Over time, the gendarmerie units turned into the executive bodies of the III Branch. According to the regulation adopted in 1836, the whole country was divided into gendarmerie districts (later provincial gendarme departments were created there), which were headed by gendarmerie generals.


• STATE POLICE DEPARTMENT. The subdivision of the reorganized Ministry of Internal Affairs, which included the past III Division, began to be called the State Police Department in 1883. He dealt with all the same issues, with the exception of counterintelligence, which became one of the main divisions of the General Staff of the Russian army.


• "SECURITY" - Russian secret police of the times of Imperial Russia. It was founded in the era of Peter I. The term “Okhranka” itself became widespread in the early 80s of the 19th century. The employees of the Okhrana (political police) were called gendarmes, trained in an appropriate way to investigate political crimes. The Okhrana practically did not engage in foreign intelligence. She only kept track of political emigration. Ophrana operated for thirty-six years.


• MILITARY AGENT. The Institute of Military Agents was established in 1810. Then, at the direction of the Minister of War of Russia, M. B. Barclay de Tolly, the first permanent military representatives were sent abroad to the Russian embassies. Their main task was to conduct undercover, intelligence work. The extraction of important secret information was put on a professional basis. Foreign intelligence is structurally formalized in the military department. At the same time, foreign intelligence issues also remain the prerogative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


• MILITARY-SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE. Formed in 1812 at the General Staff of the Russian Army, he was directly responsible for the fight against espionage. It existed until the beginning of the 20th century. This committee was not engaged in direct search work. His role was mainly to collect and record information. The Committee for the first time began to actively use the institute of "military agents" (attache) for intelligence at the embassies of the Russian Empire in European countries. Officially existed until 1864.


• GENERAL-QUARTER MAINTAIN SERVICE. For the first time in Russia, quartermaster ranks are mentioned in the Charter of 1698. Then they were introduced regimental quartermasters (special service employees). In 1701, Peter I approved the post of quartermaster general. This position was taken by Prince A.F. Shakhovskoy. But only in 1716 intelligence work acquires a legal basis. In the new Petrine military regulations, intelligence is subordinate to the quartermaster general service. When Catherine II established the General Staff in 1763, it included the Quartermaster General Service as one of the important divisions. Quartermaster General - a person in charge of the officers of the General Staff and the special service. In 1810, Minister of War M. B. Barclay de Tolly first put into practice the institution of military agents in the embassies of the Russian Empire in a number of European countries. The duties of military agents included conducting undercover and intelligence work. Thus, the collection of secret military-political information abroad is placed on a professional basis. At the same time, foreign intelligence continues to be conducted, albeit at the level of one-time responsible assignments, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1856, Alexander II approves the first Instruction in the history of Russian intelligence on the work of military agents. The functions of foreign intelligence are increasingly becoming fundamental in the work of the military department. The main role here was played by Russia's defeat in the Crimean War. In 1865, the post of quartermaster general was abolished. The corps of officers of the special services of the General Staff was at that time directly subordinate to the Chief of the General Staff. Since 1892, the post of quartermaster general has been reintroduced, but only in a number of military districts, and since 1890 in the General Staff. Its functions included preparatory work for the conduct of hostilities and the defense of the state. In 1905, the military situation was repeated (Crimean War - Russo-Japanese War). This led to a new reorganization of the entire intelligence and counterintelligence work of the Russian special services. In the future, all training of professional intelligence officers is entrusted to the General Staff, which introduces a special course in secret intelligence into its program. On the eve of the First World War of 1914-1917, significant transformations were carried out in Russian intelligence. From the composition of the General Staff, the Main Directorate (GU) of the General Staff (GS) was separated. It was in it that the leadership of military intelligence was concentrated. Specifically, since 1910, the department of the quartermaster general (OGENKVAR) of the Main Directorate of the General Staff has been in charge of intelligence. With the outbreak of war, a significant part of the OGENKWAR officers was transferred to the active army. In the course of hostilities, the organization of reconnaissance was improved taking into account the experience gained. By the beginning of 1917, the military intelligence network was clearly divided according to the tasks performed. Having formed as an effective instrument of the state and military mechanism, Russian intelligence by the end of the summer of that year was not able to fully realize its capabilities. The advancing new era required a change in the entire system of intelligence and counterintelligence. The old government could no longer do anything, a new one still had to be born.
  * * *


• Cheka - The Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage. The Soviet organization responsible for state security from 1917 to 1922 was then renamed the VChK (All-Russian Emergency Commission), and from 1923 - the GPU. Formed by decree of V.I. Lenin, it performed police and intelligence functions. It was headed by F. E. Dzerzhinsky. At first, twenty-three people worked in it, and by the middle of 1921 it numbered thirty-one thousand people, about one hundred and forty thousand soldiers of the internal troops and more than ninety thousand border guards. Under the Cheka-VChK, a Foreign Department (foreign intelligence) was created, as well as a Special Department to conduct counterintelligence work and ensure party political control in the ranks of the Soviet armed forces.


• OGPU — United Main Political Directorate. It was created in 1922 and worked until 1934 under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR. Designed to protect state security. Supervised the work of the GPU of the Union republics. Incorporated into the NKVD and renamed the Main Directorate of State Security. The Counterintelligence Department was created in it (separated from the Special Department). The system of measures developed by the KRO to prevent and suppress the subversive activities of foreign intelligence services on the territory and outside the borders of the USSR retained its significance for many decades. In the 1930s, the OGPU increasingly became involved in solving internal and, most often, political tasks that were completely uncharacteristic of intelligence and counterintelligence. It, in fact, has turned into a punitive body, carrying out, as a result, the expansion of extrajudicial powers of security agencies.


• INO - Foreign department (foreign intelligence) of the Cheka-VChK-GPU-OGPU. Formed December 20, 1920. At first, his duties included working against counter-revolutionary figures who had emigrated from Soviet Russia. Among the first major operations were "Trust" and "Syndicate". Later, the department began to train and send its agents abroad to conduct political, military, scientific, technical and economic intelligence.


• NKVD- People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR (included state security agencies in 1922-1923 and 1934-1943). He was responsible for ensuring the internal security of the state and conducting foreign intelligence.


• GUGB- The Main Directorate of State Security - a security service that was part of the NKVD in 1934-1943.


• PGU- The first main department (foreign intelligence) of the KGB of the USSR.


• KGB — State Security Committee. One of the most powerful state security organizations in the world. The KGB was created in March 1954 on the basis of the existing Ministry of State Security. It worked until October 1991. Its structure was as follows: First Main Directorate - foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, "active measures", analysis of information coming from residencies; Second Main Directorate - internal counterintelligence, the fight against espionage and subversion, industrial security; Third Main Directorate - counterintelligence in the Soviet armed forces (military counterintelligence), OO (special departments); The fourth department - political search, conducted work on the search for political criminals and traitors to the motherland, further engaged in the protection and internal security of embassies and consulates, carried out counterintelligence in transport; Fifth Department - the fight against anti-Soviet activities (work in all ideological organizations, with dissidents); The sixth directorate - counterintelligence on all types of transport (was engaged in anti-sabotage activities, preventing dangerous situations, etc., subsequently engaged in the protection of state secrets in the economy); The seventh department is the surveillance service (operational search); The eighth main department - encryption and decryption, worked for its intended purpose; Ninth Directorate - Ensuring the protection of the country's leadership and secret objects, the Kremlin Regiment; Tenth department - accounting and archival; Main Directorate of Border Troops; Office of Government Communications; Inspection Department - carried out inspections of the activities of the KGB units in the center and in the field; Investigative unit for especially important cases (on the rights of management); Economic service department. In addition to the listed central offices and departments, the committee included ten independent departments, then two more were added. The KGB ceased to exist on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union (December 1991). Its functions were later carried out by the Foreign Intelligence Service and the Federal Security Service.


• "SMERSH" - "Death to spies" (Soviet military counterintelligence, operated from 1943 to 1946). Smersh had five departments. The first department is the Smersh representation for the trial of suspects in all units and formations of the Red Army, up to battalions and companies. Conducted surveillance of personnel, led informants. The second directorate - operations, communications with the NKVD, the NKGB, special units for the protection of headquarters and senior officers (by company - for the army, battalion - for the front). The third department is the receipt, storage and dissemination of intelligence. The fourth department is the inquiry and investigation of military personnel suspected of treason and other anti-state actions. The Fifth Directorate is the military "troikas" of Smersh employees.


• GRU - The Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army (military intelligence), since 1992 - the Russian Army, known as the Fourth Directorate of the General Staff and "VCH No. 44388". Formed in 1918, it was originally called the Registration Directorate of the Headquarters of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army (the GRU began to be called from 1942). At present, according to the "Encyclopedia of espionage" (M.: Kron-Press, 1999), eighteen departments work in the GRU.


• CI- Information Committee under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It existed for a short time (October 1947 - July 1948). It absorbed the functions of foreign intelligence, military intelligence. The Information Committee was headed by V. M. Molotov (Scriabin). Carried out military and political intelligence abroad; operations against all foreign anti-Soviet organizations; counterintelligence in Soviet embassies, trade missions; intelligence operations in the People's Democracies. A year after its creation, he was engaged only in the collection of foreign policy information. In 1951 it ceased to exist.


• FSB— Russian Federal Security Service. It is called upon to oversee the observance of internal state laws and order and counterintelligence. Initially, it was called the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK). It was created in October 1991. In April 1995, it was renamed the FSB. At the same time, the functions of combating organized crime, banditry, terrorism, smuggling of goods and valuables, and corruption were transferred to the service. In accordance with the adopted new law, the FSB received the right to have its own prison system, infiltrate its agents into foreign organizations and criminal groups, and create its own commercial structures in the interests of its main work. The FSB also has the right to demand the necessary information from private companies and firms. The FSB is, among other things, responsible for guarding classified government materials, ensuring security in the armed forces and other state structures. "

Special services of the Russian Empire [Unique encyclopedia] Kolpakidi Alexander Ivanovich

Chapter 22 Military Secrets of the Russian Empire

Military secrets of the Russian Empire

Already in the first years of the last century, all the major world powers began preparing for war, closely watching what potential allies and opponents were doing. In peacetime, a few intelligence agencies "hunted" for mobilization plans, new military equipment and information about preparations for a future war.

As a result, the military department began active actions to create and improve a system for the protection of military secrets. The work was carried out in four areas:

creation and improvement of the system of counterintelligence agencies. Their main task was to counter enemy espionage in peacetime and wartime (this is described in detail in other chapters of this book);

organization of an integrated system for the protection of information containing military secrets;

improvement of the courier communication system;

organization of military censorship.

Many years after the end of the First World War, it can be argued that, despite all the measures taken, the Russian Empire was unable to effectively and reliably protect its military secrets.

In Russian society, the problem of counteracting enemy espionage was regularly discussed on the pages of the newspapers "Russian invalid", "New time", "Military collection". But all the materials were of a debatable nature and were of interest only to a narrow group of specialists and the curious. Occasionally, monographs devoted to the problem of military espionage were also published.

At the same time, explanatory work was carried out among the troops. For example, as Nikolai Batyushin, one of the leaders of pre-revolutionary Russian counterintelligence, recalls, “after the Russo-Japanese War, at the headquarters of the Warsaw Military District, a procedure was established for detailed notification of orders in the district that were not subject to disclosure about any espionage case that reached the court, without making any secrets from the description of those methods used by spies in order to collect secret military information.

According to Nikolai Batyushin: “this trust of the highest military authorities in the officers, firstly, eliminated all rumors after the trial of espionage cases, and secondly, brought up the officer environment in the proper direction, through it and the soldiers in their due civic duty. It then involuntarily seeped into the depths of the civilian population, which was thus an indispensable employee of government agents.

It should also be noted that in 1907 (republished in 1912) in the Russian Empire, the book of the captain of the 2nd infantry regiment of the French army, Raoul Rudeval, “Intelligence and espionage. Practical instructions to combat officers. In it, based on the experience of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the Russo-Japanese War, the author analyzed in detail the various methods of espionage and ways to counter it. It should be borne in mind that France lost the war to Prussia, and Russia to Japan, largely due to the fact that Paris and St. Petersburg greatly underestimated the capabilities of the German and Japanese special services. This book was used as a teaching aid for officers of the Russian army.

When the First World War began, it turned out that the army and, together with it, the state were not able to provide the necessary level of protection of military secrets. And, as a consequence of this, the population was not ready to actively help the counterintelligence agencies.

And only on June 22, 1914, the newspaper "Russian invalid" published an appeal to the citizens of the Russian Empire. This was the first attempt to express the opinion of the authorities on the attitude towards the protection of military secrets in the Russian Empire. In it, the authorities urged the population to keep secret information about the deployment, movement and number of troops. The population was urged not to believe various rumors and to remain calm. The government promised to inform about the real situation at the front.

A few months later, pamphlets began to be published, which described in detail the real and fictional cases of the activities of the enemy intelligence services. So, readers of the thin pamphlet “German espionage” published in 1914 in Moscow learned the following story:

“The German spy Keller, who served as a chemist at the Triangle rubber plant in Petrograd, tried to poison all the workers of the plant and thereby provoke a uniform rebellion among the workers. Fortunately, the workers soon suspected where the wind was blowing from, and the German spy would have had a hard time if he had not been arrested and imprisoned.

It is clear that such stories only aroused increased spy mania in society, forcing them to look for enemies among people with German surnames.

Unfortunately, time has been lost. The wave of spy mania that swept over Russia, like other European countries, did not contribute to the intensification of measures to protect military secrets. As one of the counterintelligence officers of the Russian Empire wrote:

“Not only in the civilian society in which I constantly revolved, they had no idea about counterintelligence, its purpose and purpose, but among the military there was a very vague idea about the essence of this extremely complex and necessary institution.”

Another officer of the Russian army, Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich, who dealt with counterintelligence issues in St. Petersburg during the First World War and developed the “Draft Manual on the Organization of Counterintelligence in the Field Army”, fully shared the opinion of his colleague.

He recalls that the “secret war”, which was waged in parallel with the open one, was little known to anyone. Newspapers of all directions crackled about an obvious war, countless photographs and films reproduced it, millions of participants - soldiers and officers - spoke about it. Few knew about the "secret war". In the bodies that dealt with it, everything was strictly classified.

The body of military counterintelligence itself, originally called the Intelligence Department, was created behind the scenes, "without its official establishment", otherwise, according to the organizers, the main chance for its effective operation would be lost. This principle was preserved until 1917. Even the position of the head of the Intelligence Department, for the purpose of secrecy, was called "... at the disposal of the chief of the General Staff."

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The secret services of the Russian Empire were just as powerful and merciless towards the opponents of the monarchy, as were the state security agencies of the USSR towards the enemies of Soviet power. Another thing is that during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, due to the weak political will of the latter, the tsarist special services were less tough on external and internal enemies than, for example, under Emperor Nicholas I. Despite this, the Chekists borrowed a lot from their predecessors, but never admitted to it.

The history of the special services of the Russian Empire began to be created back in Soviet times and reflected all the features of the official ideology that prevailed at that time. The state security agencies were engaged exclusively in political investigation. At the same time, the gendarmes were portrayed exclusively in a negative light, and the scope of terror on the part of the radical opposition was carefully hidden. An example is the book by V.M. Zhukhrai "Terror. Geniuses and victims” (a reprint of the work of this author “Secrets of the Tsarist Okhrana: adventurers and provocateurs” published in 1991 by the Politizdat publishing house). The fact of the existence of political and scientific-technical intelligence in the Soviet era was hushed up, and individual military intelligence operations were reported extremely succinctly. An example is the book by A. Gorbovsky, Yu. Semenov "Without a single shot: From the history of Russian military intelligence".

In the nineties, the situation changed. Now employees of the Police Department and officers of the Separate Gendarme Corps were declared heroes, or at least faithful defenders of the interests of the state. As a result, a lot of quality books appeared on the book market. We list the main ones: a collection of articles "The Gendarmes of Russia"; The undercover work of the political police of the Russian Empire. Collection of documents. 1880-1917" ; monographs: Z.I. Peregudova "Political Investigation of Russia (1880-1917)"; F. Lurie “Policemen and Provocateurs: Political Investigation in Russia. 1649-1917" ; A.A. Zdanovich, V.S. Izmozik "Forty Years in the Secret Service: The Life and Adventures of Vladimir Krivosh"; B.N. Grigorieva, B.G. Kolokolova "Daily life of Russian gendarmes"; VC. Agafonov "Paris secrets of the tsarist secret police"; A. Borisov "Special Department of the Empire"; V. Dzhanibekyan "Provocateurs"; N.V. Voskoboynikova "Management and paperwork of the political investigation bodies of the Nizhny Novgorod province (1890–1917)"; memoirs "Okhranka": Memoirs of the heads of security departments "in two volumes and K.I. Globachev "The Truth about the Russian Revolution: Memoirs of the Former Chief of the Petrograd Security Department".

In the last decade it has become popular to write about the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery (1826–1880). True, most of the authors devoted most of their works to the story of the organization of political investigation on the territory of Russia and beyond its borders, touching extremely succinctly on the topic of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence. It is possible that they followed a tradition that originated in the Soviet era. Then the Third Branch had a "label" of the main fighter against dissent in the Russian Empire of the 19th century. Allegedly, it was created after the Decembrist uprising, and disbanded when it became clear that it could not cope with the radical left opposition. Among the books devoted to the Third Section are: G.N. Bibikov “A.Kh. Benckendorff and the policy of Emperor Nicholas I"; O.Yu. Abakumov "... So that the moral infection does not penetrate our borders": from the history of the struggle of the III branch with European influence in Russia (1830 - early 1860s) "; A.G. Chukarev "The Secret Police of Russia: 1825–1855" and a collection of documents "Russia under Surveillance: Records of Section III, 1827–1869".

A separate topic is the history of political investigation bodies from the oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible to the Third Branch of Nicholas I. Of course, even in Soviet times, historians regularly published their monographs, only they were written in a dry scientific language and designed for fellow scientists. In addition, many ideological clichés were present in them. But in the popular science literature published in the last two decades, you can find out the details of the organization of political investigation: I.V. Kurukin "The Daily Life of the Guardsmen of Ivan the Terrible"; V.D. Volodikhin "Oprichnina and" the sovereign's dogs "; AND I. Froyanov "Terrible oprichnina"; I.V. Kurukin, E.A. Nikulin "Daily life of the Secret Office"; E.V. Anisimov "Russian dungeon. Secrets of the Secret Office "; M.I. Semenovsky "Secret Chancellery under Peter the Great"; N.M. Molev "Secret Chancellery of the Russian Empire (secret people, secret affairs, secret time)".

The history of military intelligence of the Russian Empire in the domestic literature is reflected modestly. It is possible that this is one of the consequences of the Soviet book publishing policy. It was not customary to write about undercover military intelligence, especially of the pre-revolutionary period. It is difficult to say what caused such a ban. Maybe in the USSR military intelligence did not officially exist. Recall that the book "Aquarium" by the defector Viktor Suvorov, published then in the Soviet Union in the late eighties, produced the effect of an exploding bomb. It was then that the citizens of the USSR learned a new abbreviation - the GRU.

The appearance of books on the military intelligence of the Russian Empire did not produce a similar effect. Monographs published in the late 1990s and early 2000s have now become a bibliographic rarity. We list these publications: V. M. Bezotosny "Intelligence and plans of the parties in 1812"; four books by M. Alekseev “Military intelligence of Russia from Rurik to Nicholas II” (books I and II) and “Military intelligence of Russia. World War I" (book III, parts 1 and 2); V. Avdeev, V. Karpov "Secret mission in Paris: Count Ignatiev against German intelligence in 1915-1917", E. Sergeev, Ar. Ulunyan “Not subject to disclosure. Military agents of the Russian Empire in Europe and the Balkans. 1900–1914”, K.K. Zvonarev "Intelligence: Russian undercover intelligence before and during the war of 1914-1918" (a reprint from a book published in 1931 in the USSR, where the military intelligence of the tsarist period was, to put it mildly, depicted very subjectively), as well as memoirs (P. Ignatiev "My mission in Paris"). In May 2010, M. Alekseev's book Military Intelligence of the Russian Empire from Alexander I to Alexander II appeared on the shelves of bookstores.