Table of contents:
- By what method did Nicholas I decide to put an end to conspiracies once and for all?
- Objects of surveillance, or how Benckendorff organized surveillance even for members of the imperial family
- What salaries were received by the officials of the Third Section and what were "part-time jobs"
- How the secret police managed to "blink" all the assassination attempts on top officials of the state
Video: Why did the Russian secret police "blink" all the assassination attempts on top officials of the state?
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Institutions designed to investigate and prevent political crimes appeared in Russia as early as the 18th century. They had different names and existed, as a rule, under certain state structures, for example, under the Ministry of Police or the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The innovation of Emperor Nicholas I was the separation of such formations into an independent organization.
By what method did Nicholas I decide to put an end to conspiracies once and for all?
The prototype of the special services in the field of state security of Russia - the III Branch as part of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery - appeared in July 1826 according to the decree of Nicholas I. The formation of this structure was directly related to the December events of 1825 on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. The conspirators did not exclude such a scenario as regicide. And the significant forces controlled by them at that time made it quite possible.
The attempted coup d'état failed, but the young monarch was clearly aware of the real danger to himself and his family. Therefore, it is quite natural that after the suppression of the Decembrist revolt, the question of suppressing the attempts of revolts at the state level arose especially acutely. The project on the creation of a special political police was developed by the famous statesman, Count Alexander Benckendorff. After consideration and approval of the proposal, Nicholas I signed decrees on the organization of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes and the reorganization of the Special Chancellery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the III Department of the Imperial Chancellery. Benckendorff headed the new law enforcement agency and led it for many years.
Objects of surveillance, or how Benckendorff organized surveillance even for members of the imperial family
Count Benckendorff devotedly served the sovereign and skillfully led the department entrusted to him. At first, 4 divisions, called expeditions, operated in the Third Section. After some redistribution of functions, their number increased to 5. The duties of the first (secret) expedition included monitoring public sentiments, revolutionary organizations, supervised individuals, as well as conducting inquiries on political matters, exposing conspiracies.
The second was charged with overseeing sects and the spread of religious cults, collecting information about inventions and frauds of counterfeiters. In addition, she was in charge of political prisons. The third expedition can be called counterintelligence. She monitored the activities of parties and organizations of foreign countries, and also looked after foreigners living in Russia, looking for unreliable among them and expelling those from the country. The fourth was in charge of the fight against smuggling and the collection of information on peasant issues, such as the prospects for the harvest, the supply of food to the population, the state of trade. The fifth expedition oversaw censorship, bookselling, printing houses, and controlled periodicals.
Thus, all spheres of social influence and all social strata of the population were covered. Even members of the imperial family were under the tacit supervision of the staff of the Third Section. Special agents controlled the movements of the crowned persons in the city, tracked their contacts outside the palace walls, and recorded visitors to the royal residence. Every day detailed reports on what they saw were laid down on the table for the authorities.
What salaries were received by the officials of the Third Section and what were "part-time jobs"
This is not to say that the salaries of the employees of the Third Section were very high. An ordinary agent received almost half the salary of an ordinary government official. However, there was no shortage of people willing to join the secret police. Work in this organization was considered very prestigious. And besides, there was a good opportunity for earning unearned income. Firstly, it was possible to embezzle part of the money allocated for anti-revolutionary measures, the maintenance and food of political prisoners, as well as for economic needs.
Some employees did not disdain such, by the way - very solid, additional earnings, like selling documents. Of the most famous cases - the loss from the archive of about two dozen reports of Count Alexei Orlov with the emperor's resolutions. Preserved information about the episode when a person who collaborated with the revolutionary organization "Narodnaya Volya" got a job in the Third Section. For a long time he pleased his colleagues, rewriting business papers for them, and sold the secret information he received to the People's Will. For each of the facts, an official investigation was opened, but it was not possible to completely suppress the atrocities.
How the secret police managed to "blink" all the assassination attempts on top officials of the state
Despite the efforts of the management, the work of the Third Section was far from perfect. A serious flaw was the not averted attempt on the life of Emperor Alexander II, which Dmitry Karakozov committed in April 1866. Another attempt to kill the sovereign took place a year later in Paris. In both cases, Alexander II was saved by a fluke.
During the rampant terror in Russia, the secret police department was completely unable to cope with its duties. In 1878, the chief of the Gendarme Corps Nikolai Mezentsev was killed by the verdict of the "Land and Freedom" organization. In February 1879, the Kharkiv governor, Prince Dmitry Kropotkin, became a victim of the Narodnaya Volya, in March a student of the Medical and Surgical Academy Leonid Mirsky fired at the carriage of the new head of the Third Department, and in April another unsuccessful attempt on Alexander II was made by the revolutionary populist Alexander Solovyov. By this time, "Narodnaya Volya" had become a powerful association. Its executive committee sentenced the emperor to death and made several attempts to carry it out. In particular, two terrorist attacks on the railway were planned, which also suffered a fiasco by the will of fate.
Unable to cope with the wave of terror that swept the country, the Third Section caused numerous complaints about its work and proposals to create a new law enforcement agency.
But some members of the imperial family it was forbidden to enter Russia.
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