Secret police Russian Empire

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

Special agents

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. They included spies - "agents of external surveillance" and informers - "auxiliary agents".

On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 spies. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were on duty every day in both capitals.

There was a fairly strict selection process for the spy.The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persistent, careful." 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 doormen, janitors, clerks, passport officers.Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district supervisor who worked with them.

Unlike the spies, the informers were not full-time employees., and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be "solid 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 companions, he failed with some kind of frenzy. That's what the galoshes have done, ”wrote the officer.

Perlustrators

There were people in the detective police who performed a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perlustration. This tradition was introduced by Baron Alexander Benckendorff even before the creation of the security department, calling it "a very useful business." 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, Kiev, 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 offices" had their own specifics. According to the newspaper “ Russian word»For April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in the perlustration of the letters of dignitaries, then in Kiev they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made... This productivity is astounding, given that the staff of the auditors was only 50, joined by 30 postal workers.

Our among strangers

For more effective work Security Department The Police Department has created an extensive network of "internal agents", infiltrating various parties and organizations and exercising 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, disillusioned or offended by the party."

The payment of secret agents ranged from 5 to 500 rubles a month, depending on the status and benefits. The guards encouraged their agents to advance up the party ladder and even helped them in this matter by arresting higher-ranking party members.

Okhranka, (until 1903 it was called the "Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order"), the local body of political investigation in pre-revolutionary Russiasubordinate to the Police Department. The main task of the security departments was to search for revolutionary organizations and individual revolutionaries. The security departments had extensive special agents of both "external surveillance" - fillers and secret agents (passive informants and active participants in the activities of revolutionary organizations - provocateurs).

The police were very wary of those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve the protection state order, since there were many random people in their midst. As the circular of the Police Department shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy."

For example, the exiled settler recruited by the secret police, Feldman, when asked about the reason for giving false information, replied that he was without any means of subsistence and went to perjury for a 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 on the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to arrest the suspects.

According to the CIA founder Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised the provocation to the level of art. According to him, "It was the main means by which the tsarist secret police attacked the trail of revolutionaries and dissidents". Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents-provocateurs with the characters of Dostoevsky.

Evno Fishelevich Azef is a Russian revolutionary provocateur, one of the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and, at the same time, a secret officer of the Police Department.

The main Russian provocateur is called Evno Azef, who is 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 the Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, earning 1,000 rubles. per month.

A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "ally" Roman Malinovsky. The secret police agent regularly helped the police find the whereabouts of clandestine printing houses, reported secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade's betrayal.

In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky won his election to The State Duma, and as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inaction

Events were associated with the activities of the secret police that left an ambiguous opinion about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin.

On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, the anarchist and secret informant of the secret police, Dmitry Bogrov, mortally wounded Stolypin with two point-blank shots without any hindrance. Moreover, at that moment there was neither Nicholas II nor members of the royal family, who, according to the plan of events, were to be with the minister.

On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kiev security department Nikolai Kulyabko were brought to 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. A lot of facts indicate this. First of all, the suspiciously easily experienced secret police officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Socialist-Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to enter the theater building with a weapon to supposedly expose the alleged killer.

The case of the murderer Stolypin - secret agent of the Kiev security department Dmitry Bogrov.

Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot at 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: "I will be killed and the members of the guard will kill me."

Security service abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret police was created in Paris to monitor Russian émigré revolutionaries. And there was someone to keep an eye on: these were the leaders of Narodnaya Volya, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. It is interesting that the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also civilian Frenchmen.

From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these are the years of its heyday. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of cooperation with the French government.

Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky - Russian police administrator, head of foreign intelligence, organizer of political investigations in Russia.

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

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

Taras Repin

For several centuries in Russia, police functions were carried out by various state bodies.

AT Ancient Rus police functions were performed by the prince and his squad.

As it gets better and more complicated public organization, police functions begin to perform and some officials princely administration: governors, posadniks, sotsky, elders, etc.

In addition, police functions were carried out by the archbishop, who headed the Christian church, which dealt with cases of special jurisdiction.

The network of bodies performing police functions is gradually expanding. In medieval Russia, the creation of special police bodies is noted, such as the Rogue Order, which acted as a central police and judicial body and operated throughout Russia, with the exception of Moscow and the Moscow Region, where the Zemsky Order was created as a police body.

Initially, the police originated in St. Petersburg. In 1715, a police chief's office was established here, and three years later the position of chief of police was introduced, corresponding to the fifth class of the "Table of Ranks". In 1722, a police chief's office was established in Moscow.

Under Peter I, the Preobrazhensky Prikaz acts as a special body of the political police. Since 1695, the order has been in charge of maintaining order in Moscow and investigating especially important court cases. The order was led by Prince-Caesar Fyodor Yurievich Romodanovsky.

Along with the Preobrazhensky order, there were major offices in Russia, which arose as a result of Peter I giving special personal assignments to close persons, most often guards officers in the rank of major.

In 1718, a new structure engaged in political investigations was created - the Secret Chancellery.

The end of the 18th century was remarkable for the creation of secret agents - a new phenomenon for those years, but, as time showed, very promising.

In 1802 Alexander I created new organs in Russia central administration - ministries and among them - the Ministry of Internal Affairs Kuritsyn V.M. "History of the Russian Police". A brief historical outline and basic documents. Tutorial... - M .: "Shield-M", 1998. S. 77.

Further development of the central police administration is associated with the implementation of the reform of M.M. Speransky, during which the Ministry of Police was formed. The Ministry of Police consisted of departments (Economic Police Department, Executive Police Department, Medical Department) and two Chanceries (general and special). The government has given the Ministry of Police great powers. In addition to protecting internal security, the Ministry monitored the implementation of laws by all other government ministries.

After the suppression of the uprising of the Decembrists, the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery became the organ of political investigation. During the formation of the Branch as initial component parts it included the special office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, secret agents and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes.

Proceedings in criminal cases were then subdivided into three stages: investigation, court, execution of the sentence Ivanov E.A. "Legal framework for the organization and activities of the general police of Russia", Krasnodar :, 2003 - P.102.

The reform of 1880 turned the Ministry of Internal Affairs into the dominant link in the state apparatus, in the role of which it remained almost until the fall of the autocracy.

The Police Department consisted of seven office work, two divisions and an undercover unit. Administrative office work led personnel work. Legislative - in charge of the construction of police bodies throughout the country, the prevention of antisocial behavior of the inhabitants. Third, it was engaged in the secret collection of information about citizens wishing to enroll in civil service, as well as leading active social activities... In addition, he was entrusted with control over the search for criminals. Fourth, it controlled the conduct of inquiries into cases of state crimes. Fifth, he monitored the execution of decisions taken against state criminals. Sixth, oversaw the production and storage of explosives, monitored the observance of laws on the wine monopoly and Jews, and regulated relations between entrepreneurs and workers. Seventh - supervised the activities of detective departments.

The need to create special bodies dealing exclusively with criminal investigation was realized in Russia by the beginning of the 20th century. In July 1908, a law was adopted on the organization of a detective unit, according to which detective departments were created in city and county police departments. Their task was to produce inquiries in criminal cases with the support of the necessary operational-search measures.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian criminal investigation department was recognized as one of the best in the world, as it used the latest techniques in its practice. For example, a registration system based on the systematization of information about individuals into 30 special categories. Photo albums were actively used.

After the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia, the tsarist police were eliminated. The replacement of the police by the "people's militia" was announced.

On May 10, 1918, the Collegium of the NKVD of the RSFSR made a decision that "the police exist as a permanent staff of people performing special functions." From this moment, the militia from the "people's" begins to move into the professional category.

The All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1920 approved the first provision "On the Workers 'and Peasants' Militia". In accordance with it, the police included: city and district police, industrial, railway, water, search police. Service in the police was voluntary. On November 17, 1923, a service of district warders was created in the system of internal affairs bodies - the current district police inspectors.

As part of the police, over time, new divisions arose. In 1936, divisions of the State Automobile Inspectorate (GAI) were created, in 1937 - for the fight against theft and speculation (BHSS).

By 1941, in the structure of the Main Directorate of Militia, there were departments for criminal investigation, BHSS, external service, traffic police, railway police, passport, scientific and technical, to combat banditry.

Subsequently, in different years, the police included such departments as police units special purpose - special forces, a special police detachment - OMON, the Main Department for Combating organized crime - GUBOP and others. In 1990, the National Central Bureau of Interpol was created in Russia.

On April 18, 1991, the Federal Law of the RSFSR "On the Police" came into force. The Law addresses issues general position, the organization of the police in the RSFSR, the duties and rights of the police, the use of physical force, special means and firearms by the police, service in the police, guarantees of legal and social protection of police officers.

At the referendum on December 12, 1993. the Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted, which enshrined the main provisions of the Law of the RSFSR "On the Police".

By 2004, there were over 37 departments in the structure of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

On November 5, 2004, the President signed a decree, according to which these directorates were replaced by 15 departments, centers and special bodies.

The Law "On Police" was signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on February 7, 2011. The date of entry into force of the new law is March 1, 2011.

Law on the Police, developed as part of the reform russian authorities Internal Affairs stipulates that the police will change their name to the police. police legal federal law

The law defines the status, rights and obligations of the police officer; frees the police from duplicating and unusual functions, consolidates, as it were, a partnership model of relations between the police and society.

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

Special agents

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. They included spies - "agents of external surveillance" and informers - "auxiliary agents".

On the eve of the First World War, there were 70,500 informers and about 1,000 spies. It is known that from 50 to 100 surveillance agents were on duty every day in both capitals.

There was a fairly strict selection process for the spy. The candidate had to be "honest, sober, courageous, dexterous, developed, quick-witted, hardy, patient, persistent, careful." 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 doormen, janitors, clerks, passport officers. Auxiliary agents were required to report all suspicious individuals to the district supervisor who worked with them.
Unlike the spies, the informers were not full-time employees, and therefore did not receive a permanent salary. Usually, for information that, when checked, turned out to be "solid 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 companions, he failed with some kind of frenzy. That's what the galoshes have done, ”wrote the officer.

Perlustrators

There were people in the detective police who performed a rather unseemly job - reading personal correspondence, called perlustration. This tradition was introduced by Baron Alexander Benckendorf even before the creation of the security department. He called it "a very useful business." The reading of personal correspondence became especially active after the assassination of Alexander II.

"Black offices", created under Catherine II, worked in many cities of Russia - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, 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 offices" had their own specifics. According to the newspaper "Russkoe slovo" for April 1917, if in St. Petersburg they specialized in rewriting the letters of dignitaries, then in Kiev they studied the correspondence of prominent emigrants - Gorky, Plekhanov, Savinkov.

According to the data for 1913, 372 thousand letters were opened and 35 thousand extracts were made. This productivity is astounding, given that the staff of the auditors was only 50, joined by 30 postal workers.
It was a rather lengthy and laborious job. Sometimes letters had to be decrypted, copied, exposed to acids or alkalis in order to reveal the hidden text. And only then the suspicious letters were forwarded to the search authorities.

Our among strangers

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

The police were very wary of those who voluntarily expressed a desire to serve the protection of state order, since there were many random people among them. As the circular of the Police Department shows, during 1912 the secret police refused the services of 70 people "as untrustworthy." For example, the exiled settler recruited by the secret police, Feldman, when asked about the reason for giving false information, replied that he was without any means of subsistence and went to perjury for a 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 on the place and time of the action, and it was no longer difficult for the trained police to arrest the suspects. According to the CIA founder Allen Dulles, it was the Russians who raised the 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." Dulles compared the sophistication of Russian agents-provocateurs with the characters of Dostoevsky.

The main Russian provocateur is called Evno Azef, who is 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 the Minister of Internal Affairs of Plehve. Azef was the highest paid secret agent in the empire, earning 1,000 rubles. per month.

A very successful provocateur was Lenin's "ally" Roman Malinovsky. The secret police agent regularly helped the police find the whereabouts of clandestine printing houses, reported secret meetings and secret meetings, but Lenin still did not want to believe in his comrade's betrayal. In the end, with the assistance of the police, Malinovsky won his election to the State Duma, and as a member of the Bolshevik faction.

Strange inaction

Events associated with the activities of the secret police left an ambiguous opinion about themselves. One of them was the assassination of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin. On September 1, 1911, at the Kiev Opera House, the anarchist and secret informant of the secret police, Dmitry Bogrov, mortally wounded Stolypin with two point-blank shots without any hindrance. Moreover, at that moment, there was neither Nicholas II, nor members of the royal family, who, according to the plan of events, were to be with the minister
.
On the fact of the murder, the head of the Palace Guard Alexander Spiridovich and the head of the Kiev security department Nikolai Kulyabko were brought to 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. A lot of facts indicate this. First of all, the suspiciously easily experienced secret police officers believed in Bogrov's legend about a certain Socialist-Revolutionary who was going to kill Stolypin, and moreover, they allowed him to enter the theater building with a weapon to supposedly expose the alleged killer.

Zhukhrai claims that Spiridovich and Kulyabko not only knew that Bogrov was going to shoot at 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: "I will be killed and the members of the guard will kill me."

Security service abroad

In 1883, a foreign secret service was created in Paris to monitor Russian émigré revolutionaries. And there was someone to keep an eye on: these were the leaders of Narodnaya Volya, Lev Tikhomirov and Marina Polonskaya, and publicist Pyotr Lavrov, and anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin. Interestingly, the agents included not only visitors from Russia, but also civilian Frenchmen.

From 1884 to 1902, the foreign secret police was headed by Pyotr Rachkovsky - these are the years of its heyday. In particular, under Rachkovsky, agents destroyed a large Narodnaya Volya printing house in Switzerland. But Rachkovsky was also involved in suspicious connections - he was accused of cooperation with the French government.

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

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

Taras Repin

Original post and comments on

In 2017, the history of the police changed its second century. On November 10, 1917, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR under the leadership of Alexei Ivanovich Rykov adopted a resolution "On the workers' militia." This decree served as the legal basis for the creation of the militia as a law enforcement agency. Subsequently, November 10 became an official holiday - Police Day.

In fact, the history of the police is deeply rooted in the past. The first predecessors of modern law enforcement agencies appeared in the days of Ancient Rus. It was still a long way before the creation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but criminals, undoubtedly, have always existed, like those who fought with them.

Alfiya Alkinskaya, Deputy Head of the Central Museum of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation, gave us an excursion into the history of law enforcement agencies, including the police and criminal investigation. Read below about the name of the first Russian detectives, why in Russia they were executed with molten metal, which of the tsars invented the peasant police and what the word "militia" means.

"Murder" in robbery "was considered more serious than" at the feast ""

The very terms "police", "investigation" and everything connected with them seem to us to be something relatively modern. But the history of law enforcement agencies in our country goes back more than one hundred years! Alfiya Aminovna, tell us, when did we have the first semblance of a modern criminal investigation department?

The formation of the detective as a police service really took place in the 19th century, and at the beginning of the 20th century - its legislative, legal registration. But before that, the domestic investigation had come a long way, almost a millennium long. The very first Russian code of laws was called Russian Truth. It appeared during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise and operated until the end of the 15th century. This was the first system of laws of the Rurik dynasty.

- And what were the people involved in catching criminals called in those days? And for what, in fact, were they caught?

At that time, crimes against private individuals were mainly known, so in written documents they were designated by the word "offense". And the word "search" itself, obviously, comes from the Old Russian verb "seek" ("seek"). After a crime was committed somewhere, it was publicly announced in some public place, for example, in the market square ("at the auction"). And this procedure itself was called "call" - in fact, it was the first stage of the ancient Russian trial. Later, the term "general search" will appear in legislative documents - an interrogation of all witnesses to establish involvement in a crime. Torture in those days was called experienceand thieves and other criminals - tatami... In that era, the prince was the head of justice, and everyone was judged in the prince's court.

- And what was the name of those who were involved in the search for criminals?

The prince entrusted these powers tiunam... Those who investigated criminal cases were called virnikov.

- How was the measure of punishment determined?

The punishments were different, even for the same crime. Historians argue that this depended on how great the role of the criminal's evil will was.

- That is, malicious intent?

Quite right. Thus, premeditated murder “in robbery” was considered more serious, more serious than, say, “at a feast,” where participants, heated with drinks, would often get into a fight. It was believed that in this case it happened by negligence, without malice and in a state of excitement. It took a long time before the attitude towards crime changed and it began to be perceived as a phenomenon that harms the whole society, and not just the victim.

"At every step one could meet a man with a cut off ear"

- The punishments, I suppose, were much more severe and cruel than now?

During the reign of Ivan III, under which the first Code of Law was created (1497), people were often branded, their limbs were cut off - this was how the criminals were counted. Therefore, in Muscovite Russia, at every step, one could stumble upon a person with a cut off ear, nose, and tongue. So the guilty ones could easily be identified in the crowd. Branding was abolished only in the 19th century.

- The inhabitants believe that the most severe punishments were in the era. Is it so?

Ivan Vasilievich, on the one hand, grew up on atrocities. On the other hand, he was a richly gifted man, well educated. He did not tolerate bribe-takers, drunkards, and flatterers. But his desire to create the most fair legal system was simply unbridled. It was often expressed in cruelty, including with help. In 1550 Grozny adopted a new code of law, which consisted of 100 articles. It contained new norms of criminal law. By the way, it was under Grozny in our country that state system fight against criminal offenses. So-called orders appeared - central government bodies.

- And what crimes were considered the most terrible and most severely punished?

First, crimes against the church, then against the state and the order of government, and only then against the individual. The death penalty was provided for in 30 cases. They were executed in different ways: by hanging, cutting off the head, burning them too, burying them alive in the ground ... They even practiced pouring metal down the throat - this was how counterfeiters were punished. Such was the age, and such, as they say, were morals.

"The policemen were jokingly called" Arkharovtsy "

What has changed since coming to power? In history, he was known as an innovator king. Probably, his reforms also affected the judicial system?

Of course, his reign brought many changes to Russian legislation. First of all, Peter I formed the administrative system. This was a special class of officials who controlled all spheres of life and activities of society. In 1718, the Chief of Police Office appeared in St. Petersburg. It was headed by the personal batman and favorite of the tsar, the former sea-boy Anton Devier. The police and the military were involved in the service in the office. Later, since there were not enough personnel, assistants on duty were assigned from each courtyard to help the police. It should be noted that under Peter the police were only in the capital. And already during the reign of Catherine II, law enforcement officers appeared in other russian cities... In 1775, she created a rural police, consisting of peasants and villagers. By the way, although Catherine was a supporter of European values, she did not abolish the stigma.

- Today we are well aware of the names of the great legislators, but have the names of famous detectives come down to us?

Of course, from the earliest times. We know, for example, the names of some boyars who led the orders. So, in the Belozersk lip letter, the name of the head of the Rogue Order "boyar Ivan Danilovich Penkov and his comrades" is mentioned. When the Time of Troubles ended, the people elected the Council of the Whole Earth. This provisional government also had a Rogue Order. After the end of the Troubles, one of its leaders was a Russian national hero -. In the era of Catherine II, there were also many wonderful detectives. Thanks to one of them, the famous term "Arkharovets" even appeared.

- It means "hooligan", "swindler". What have the detectives got to do with it?

In the old days, police agents were jokingly called. The word arose thanks to the Chief of Police of Moscow Nikolai Petrovich Arkharov. He was a very clever detective: he possessed a living logical thinking and loved to unravel complex cases. Also known is his assistant - the famous Moscow detective Maxim Ivanovich Schwartz.

N.P. Arkharov

- And when did the Ministry of Internal Affairs appear in Russia?

Its founder was already Alexander I. The creation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was one of his innovations. The emperor entrusted the leadership of the new department to his close friend and colleague in reform policy, V.P. Kochubei. Subsequently, the ministry was led by many outstanding personalities, but the question of creating an independent criminal investigation service within the ministry remained unresolved for a long time. This happened only after the peasant reform 1861. It was time big reforms in Russia, in the framework of which educational, financial, military and judicial reforms have successfully entered. In the context of the judicial reform, the prosecution power was separated from the judiciary.

- How did this affect the police?

Investigative functions were removed from the competence of the police. This narrowing of her activities was due to the ineptitude of the police in investigative practice, which was also caused by the absence of an independent detective service in the operational structure.

"Dzerzhinsky brought rations and uniforms to the police"

The revolution turned life in the country upside down and, of course, had to affect the criminal investigation. What has changed with the coming to power of the Bolsheviks?

The fate of the police officers after 1917 was rather dramatic. Many had to emigrate. So, for example, did the head of the detective service of Moscow and the Russian Empire, Arkady Frantsevich Koshko. He put so much love, energy and strength into his profession, and in the end he became an exile of the Motherland. On the whole, the incredibly high wave of revolutionary terror affected very many representatives of the department. The fate of Koshko was still better than that of many others. Let us recall the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who was killed by terrorists, the interior ministers von Plehve or Sipyagin. The fate of Sergei Alexandrovich's adjutant, General Dzhunkovsky, who was appointed governor of Moscow after the death of the Grand Duke, was also terrible. He was the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, during the First World War he commanded an army corps. After October coup he was transferred from one prison to another, and in 1937 he was shot.

- How was the fight against criminals carried out in Soviet Russia?

After the revolution, the new apparatus for combating crime was called the NKVD. It was headed by such famous people as Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. He certainly contributed significant contribution in the development of our department. With his direct participation, the most important for that time regulations... For example, on April 3, 1919, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the Soviet Workers 'and Peasants' Militia" was adopted. However, it is worth noting that this document was being developed even before Dzerzhinsky, but significant changes in the life of the police began to occur when he was appointed People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR. So, the maintenance of the militia was now carried out according to the estimate of the NKVD (that is, it was transferred to the state budget), which meant a new structure - the final subordination of the militia to the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs. The personnel were now provided with rear rations and uniforms. In addition, having headed the NKVD, Dzerzhinsky, with his iron will, managed to educate there the people he needed for the "cause of the revolution", on whom he wanted to rely in the NKVD.

““ Police” - means “armed people” »

- And where did this name come from - "police"?

According to the decree "On workers' militia", which was adopted by the first People's Commissar Alexei Ivanovich Rykov, the militia was not a regular body. In fact, these were the armed formations of workers. Hence the name: the word "militia" means "armed people". The decree on the creation of the militia was adopted on November 10, 1917. This day later became considered a professional holiday of the police - born of the revolution, as they began to talk about it. So it is, however, it is. But the activities of these formations in the conditions of class struggle, devastation, in the context of world and civil wars and the aggravated criminal crisis very soon demonstrated its unviability. And the police became a professional body only on October 12, 1918, when the Instruction of the NKVD and the People's Commissariat of Justice "On the Organization of the Soviet Workers 'and Peasants' Militia" was born.

You can endlessly approve or criticize the revolution in Russia, everything is very ambiguous here. But if we talk specifically about law enforcement agencies, then what did this coup bring more - harm or good?

- Here, as you said, not everything is clear. An objective understanding of all facets of revolutionary events requires a sober and honest assessment. On the one hand, in the new country, the new authorities did not need the previous personnel, including representatives of the law enforcement system. It was bitter by human standards and unwise and economically ineffective. Indeed, in those years, in conditions of very high criminal tension, the issue of training new police and criminal investigation personnel urgently demanded immediate resolution. But the modernization of personnel was impossible without trained specialists. However, along with the previous system of ranks and awards, which were put under the knife immediately after the revolution, the entire previous composition of the police was rejected. The former specialists were disposed of in various ways, including by shooting representatives power structures... On the other hand, new people came to the internal affairs bodies for various reasons - often because of unemployment, often at the call of the heart. They learned the basics of fighting crime in a combat situation, in the course of difficult events. They risked their lives, rejoiced at the successes of their comrades. They managed to defeat criminal banditry. They were tempered professionally together with the internal affairs bodies, helped to create and form the main units and police services. They always had a hard time - a difficult financial situation constantly reigned in the NKVD and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But they survived, enduring all the troubles.

It is interesting that even after the militia was renamed back to the police, many in our country continue to use the former name. Apparently, it has become somehow familiar ...

Yes, after all, the Soviet militia went along with the people a difficult path associated with all stages of the construction and development of the socialist state. The police gave our society many wonderful heroes and good specialists, who during the war years and in peacetime demonstrated their best qualities, laid down, including by its distant progenitors. And the police veterans continue to do a lot of good today. Believe me, these are amazing examples of kindness and decency: they spend scientific research, take part in military excavations to find the graves of soldiers of the Great Patriotic War, who remained nameless in the earth, establish the names of those buried, restore monuments, patronize orphanages and schools ... In a word, they provide real help. Their knowledge and experience should fall on fertile soil. There, where there is no place for ideology that turns them into unnecessary "former", as it was 100 years ago. I think this time should teach us a lot.

One of the common myths about tsarist Russia is its description as a police state.

In books about the revolution or the life of revolutionaries, policemen, gendarmes, spies, detective agents flicker on every page. In my time in school textbooks Literature cited a phrase attributed to General Ermolov: "In Russia, every blue uniform, and if not a uniform, then a blue lining, if not a lining, then a blue patch." After reading this, the students should have been imbued with a sense of total police control in old Russia.

What really happened? Let us give the floor to an unusual witness - First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev. Speaking in 1953 at the July plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU with criticism of the Soviet state security organs, he recalled: “Comrades, I first saw the gendarme when I was probably already twenty-four years old. There was no gendarme in the mines. We had one Cossack policeman who went and got drunk. There was no one in the volost, except for one police officer. " Let us leave on the conscience of the secretary general a message about the unworthy behavior of a police officer, and take note of his information on the number of the police apparatus.

And here is another example - while still heir to the throne, the future emperor Alexander III was greeted at the pier of the city of Uglich by a huge crowd of townspeople and peasants from the surrounding villages. For a long time, the Tsarevich and his retinue could not pass through the dense mass of people to the city cathedral, and there was no one to clear the way for him, since there were only 2 (two !!) police ranks for the entire district town of Uglich.

When, after the "Uglich pandemonium", Tsarevich Alexander met with the Yaroslavl military governor, Vice-Admiral I.S. Unkovsky and asked him about the small number of police in Russia, then he received an unexpectedly simple answer: “The police in Russia has a purely symbolic meaning; it protects nothing, because it cannot protect anything: it exists only to testify to the power of the Russian God over Russia and every corner of it. As a force, the police is only a mockery of force, this is such a police as the one that appears in other plays in theaters. But at the same time, the improvement in Russia of the right to life, property, if not by the power of the Russian God, is kept to it! " - that is, the conscience of the Russian people.


Officers and lower ranks of the St. Petersburg police

Let's turn to the documents. In December 1862, the county and city police merged into one structure - the county police department ("Provisional Regulations on the Organization of the Police"). The districts were subdivided into camps headed by police officers. The cities were controlled by city and district bailiffs, as well as police overseers.

Police institutions were subject to double control: “vertically” by the Police Department and “horizontally” by the governor and the provincial government.

From the end of 1889, to help the district police administration, the police officers were assigned on foot and on horseback, with the preservation in the villages of the sotsky and ten. In cities not under the jurisdiction of the district police, city police departments are created, headed by chiefs of police and their assistants with a salary of 1,500 and 1,000 rubles a year. They are subordinate to district and city bailiffs, as well as district warders. In cities with a population of no more than 2 thousand people, according to the law of 1887, no more than five city officers were allowed, in larger cities - no more than one city officer per 500 inhabitants. For every four policemen, there was one senior. Their salary ranged from 150 to 180 rubles annually and 25 rubles for uniforms. All expenses were paid by the city.

In 1903, taking into account the constantly increasing volume of work performed by this institute, an additional category of lower ranks was introduced into the district police - guards. Together with the officers, they made up the police guard. The position of the sergeant was introduced in each volost, and the total number of guards was determined at the rate of no more than one per 2.5 thousand inhabitants.

The guards were armed with revolvers and edged weapons (non-commissioned officers) and checkers (guards; although they had the right to carry firearms, but acquired at their own expense).

Thus, the police in the Russian Empire was a very small structure, and the number of police officers in the provinces rarely exceeded two or three hundred people.

So, at the beginning of the 20th century, a police chief with an assistant and a secretary, three bailiffs with assistants, twelve district wardens, twenty senior and eighty junior police officers served in the Kaluga province.

In Khabarovsk, the number of police officers was 30 (including an interpreter from Chinese and Manchu languages), in Vladivostok - 136, in Rostov-on-Don - 57.

The small number of grassroots police was somewhat compensated for by imposing on the janitors the duty to provide assistance to the policemen if necessary: \u200b\u200b"As the law enforcement officer squeals into his whistle, two or three janitors from the nearest gateways immediately grow up near him."

With this help, and also due to the fact that the crime rate in the country was 10 times lower than it is now, the police could well control the situation and ensure the protection of law and order.

As for the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, by 1917 it had only 1,000 officers and 10,000 lower ranks in its ranks, while most of the corps ranks were involved in ensuring security railways, the share of the political police proper remained less than a third.

A significant shortcoming of the Russian pre-revolutionary police and the gendarme corps was the lack of their own educational institutions... The lower ranks were recruited, as a rule, from retired army non-commissioned officers, and the commanding staff - from officials and officers of the armed forces. The Prime Minister of Russia P.A. Stolypin, in his draft reform of the Russian police, proposed the creation of special educational institutions. But "in order to save money" the project was postponed. Therefore, the police officers had to learn the wisdom of the police service exclusively through practice.

Service in the police has always been difficult and dangerous, and especially during the years of aggravation of the political struggle. The revolutionaries classified all police officials without exception as "enemies of the people" and sentenced everyone to death in absentia. Killing a policeman was revered among "fighters for people's happiness" for special valor.

The police officers tried to fulfill their duty honestly. Let's give just one example. He served in the Moscow Presnensk police unit as a district warden Sakharov. A strict and fair policeman, he was well respected in the working-class neighborhoods. And when in 1905 an uprising broke out in the city, the neighboring workers begged the policeman not to go to work. “I do not serve my sovereign in order to hide,” answered the honest overseer and went on duty. Two days later, his corpse was caught by soldiers in the Moscow River. On the body of the policeman there were 19 bullet and knife wounds - this is how the militants' squad dealt with him, having sealed the "revolutionary brotherhood" with blood.

During the "bloodless" revolution in February 1917, revolutionary squads and insurgent soldiers of the Petrograd garrison mercilessly killed almost the entire composition of the capital's police. Police officials tried to maintain order in the city to the end. The sovereign had already been removed from power, the Provisional Government had already appeared, and the police stations surrounded by the rebels held out. They still hoped for help, which never came. According to some reports, up to 80% of the city's policemen were killed in those days ...

From the book "10 Myths about Russia" Alexander Muzafarov.