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Text originally published in 1931 under the same title.
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Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
THE OCHRANA
THE RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE
BY
A. T. VASSILYEV
THE LAST CHIEF OF POLICE UNDER THE TSAR
EDITED AND WITH
AN INTRODUCTION BY
REN FLP-MILLER
AUTHOR OF RASPUTIN: THE HOLY DEVIL
WITH 47 ILLUSTRATIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS
A MAKER OF BOMBS
CHIEF OFFICIALS OF THE PETERSBURG OCHRANA
A BOMB FACTORY DISCOVERED BY THE OCHRANA IN KUOKALA, in FINLAND
AFTER THE EXPLOSION OF A BOMB IN THE ARMENIAN BAZAAR IN TIFLIS
POLICE ARREST A REVOLUTIONARY
BEFORE THE POLICE ARRIVED
SAZONOV, MURDERER OF PLEHVE, AS A CONVICT
KALYAEV, MURDERER OF THE GRAND DUKE SERGYEI ALEXANDROVITCH
BODY OF PLEHVE, MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR, SHATTERED BY A BOMB
VLADIMIR BURTSEV
EVNO AZEF
A. LOPUCHIN, HEAD OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT
DESTRUCTION WROUGHT BY THE EXPLOSION AT STOLYPINS VILLA
AFTER THE UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF STOLYPINSHATTERED CARRIAGE USED BY THE CONSPIRATORS
THE CROSS WORN BY STOLYPIN SHOT THROUGH BY THE BULLET
DIMITRY BAGROV, THE MURDERER OF STOLYPIN
MURDER OF GENERAL KARPOVSECRET RENDEZVOUS AFTER THE EXPLOSION
GENERAL SUCHOMLINOV, MINISTER OF WAR IN 1914
RASPUTIN
THE SON OF NICHOLAS II
PLAYING-CARD CONFISCATED BY THE OCHRANA
GENERAL KURLOV, COMMANDER OF THE GENDARMERIE, WITH DYEDYULIN, CONTROLLER OF THE IMPERIAL HOUSEHOLD, AND GERARDI, THE CHIEF OF THE PALACE POLICE
EXILED ANARCHISTS PRISON CARD
THE TSAR, AND THE TSARINA LEAVING THE CHURCH
MEMBERS OF THE PETERSBURG WORKMENS COUNCIL (SOVIET), INCLUDING TROTSKY, ON THEIR WAY TO PENAL SERVITUDE IN 1905
SCHLSSELBURG FORTRESS
COURTYARDS IN THE FORTRESS OF SCHLSSELBURG
A. GUTSHKOV, WAR MINISTER UNDER THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
JERZHINSKY AS A CONVICT
FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL
PROTOPOPOV, LAST MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR UNDER THE TSAR
MILYUKOV, FOREIGN MINISTER UNDER THE FIRST REVOLUTIONARY GOVERNMENT
RODZYANKO, PRESIDENT OF THE DUMA
TSHERNOV
PRISON OF THE OCHRANA FIRED BY REBELS
GENERALS ARRESTED BY MUTINEERS
SOLDIERS OUTSIDE THE DUMA IN MARCH 1917
PETLYURA, HETMAN OF THE UKRAINE
POLITICAL EXILES IN SIBERIA UNDER THE TSARDOM
POLITICAL EXILES IN AKATUISK PRISON
POLITICAL EXILES RETURNING FROM SIBERIA IN 1917
NADESHDA KONSTANTINOVA KRUPSKAYA, LENINS WIFE
TROTSKY IN PRISON
TSHEKA HEADQUARTERS IN MOSCOW
JERZHINSKY, HEAD OF THE TSHEKA
BORIS SAVINKOV, REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST, BEFORE THE BOLSHEVIK TRIBUNAL
GRAND DUKE CYRIL VLADIMIROVITCH, PRESENT CLAIMANT TO THE RUSSIAN THRONE
INTRODUCTION
BY
REN FLP-MILLER
O Dionysius, thy tyrants robes are but a shroud!
Empedocles to Dionysius of Syracuse
MODERN man looks proudly upon the organization of the constitutional state as peculiarly his own creation. That the brutal elements in man have been able more rapidly and more skilfully to take advantage of even that institution than the humaner part of him has done must be regarded doubtless as one of the most characteristic traits of human nature.
In every political organism poor relief and the care of the sick were still in a state of anarchy, being left to the accident of individual compassion or the operation of pious communities, long after matters connected with spies, informers, imprisonment, torture, and execution had reached an admirably high degree of organization.
And it must be said that this officially sanctioned inhumanity has very rarely failed to justify itself in its own eyes by some lofty idea; nay, it would almost appear that lofty ideas are most intimately related to barbarity, and absolutely require for their realization hangmen and spies.
In subservience to the idea of the Roman Empire, the followers of the religion of love were tracked down in their catacombs and thrown to the lions. Again, the idea of Christian love seemed to demand the espionage system of the Inquisition: for his souls salvation everyone had to be put on the rack who had excited suspicion by singing Arab songs, by dyeing his finger-nails with henna, by indulging in too frequent baths, or even by too strict observance of the Sabbath. In honour of St. Mark the secret tribunals of Venice called for their human sacrifices.
And in the name of reformed, evangelical Christianity Cromwells police arrested all who took part in popular merrymaking, all who frequented theatres and taverns, and all who had been guilty of swearing a full round oath. At that period strict Puritan authorities gave orders to burn all pictures in the royal galleries in which Christ or the Virgin Mary was represented; Greek statues were mutilated because of their sensual charm; adultery was punishable by death; an enactment ordered maypoles all over England to be cut down and playhouses to be destroyed.
An Austrian police administration, again, had the closest watch kept upon all persons who had aroused the distrust of the higher powers by their inclination toward philanthropy, for this, in the view of the Head of the Police at the time, was calculated only to shake to its foundations the Christian religion.
While the French Revolution was putting an end to the intolerance and cruelty of persecution as practised by absolute authority in Church and State, it was at the same time spying upon, imprisoning, and guillotining all citizens who perchance were unwilling to believe in the ideas of the rights of manliberty, equality, fraternity.
More than once, from such facts as these, thinkers have drawn the conclusion that cruelty constitutes a feature inherent in human nature. Just a short time ago Professor Siegmund Freud, on the strength of his profound knowledge of psychoanalysis and of the psychology of nations, expressed his conviction that cruelty, being one of the most powerful psychic impulses, has incontrovertibly taken a very large share in the creation of forms of social arrangements generally. In Freuds view man is not a gentle being in need of love; rather is he a being for whom his neighbour is always a temptation to satisfy his aggressiveness upon him, to cause him pain, to torture him, and to kill him. Whatever new paths may be taken by civilization in its development, we shall have to expect, according to Freud, that crueltythat indestructible trait in human naturewill follow it everywhere.
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