In the 1500s, Czar Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) became the first Russian leader to give his secret police a name, the Oprichniki. Ivan wanted to destroy the Boyars, the feudal aristocracy in Russia at the time. Similar to the KGB, the Oprichniki swore complete loyalty to the czar. In one five week period in the city of Novgorod, the Oprichniki massacred 60,000 people, using means of torture and execution. The organization was eventually dissembled by Ivan because he feared it was becoming too powerful.
This trend of dissolving secret police can also be seen in later Russian history when leaders like Stalin also feared about the rising power of the secret police.
After the Oprichniki , the secret police in Russia went through changes under different czars but the most important organization after the Oprichniki was the Okhrana.
This trend of dissolving secret police can also be seen in later Russian history when leaders like Stalin also feared about the rising power of the secret police.
After the Oprichniki , the secret police in Russia went through changes under different czars but the most important organization after the Oprichniki was the Okhrana.
Okhrana: (1881–1917) It was the secret police of the Russian empire that was founded to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary activity. The agents infiltrated labor unions, political parties, and, newspapers. Sometimes Okhrana agents joined revolutionary groups to spy on their members and eventually became converted to the cause. They then became double-agents who provided information to both Okhrana and the revolutionaries.
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“In August 1913 the Bolshevik leaders were summoned to a new Central Committee conference in a village near Zakopane in Galicia. There were twenty-two Bolsheviks present, including Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Troyanovsky, Shotman, Ganetsky, Malinovsky and the other Bolshevik deputies in the Duma.Five of these men later proved to be Okhrana agents.” |
“I met every member of the Central Committee then in St Petersburg, and all the members of the military organization; I knew all the secret meeting places and passwords of the revolutionary army cells throughout Russia. I kept the archives of the revolutionary organization in the Army; I was present at all the district meetings, propaganda rallies, and party conferences; I was always in the know. All the information I gathered was conscientiously reported to the Okhrana.” |