Secret police

• Alex II:

  • 1880: Replaced the Third Section with the ‘softer’ Okhrana. But, the power of this body was enhanced throughout the 1880s to counter the growth of political pressure
• Alex III:

  • But, the power of the Okhrana was enhanced throughout the 1880s to counter the growth of political pressure 
  • Used the Okhrana as a tool for spying on, arresting, imprisoning and exiling opposition
• Prov Gov:

  • Disbanded the Okhrana
• Nich II:

  • Okhrana activity increased as the SRs and SDs took off, reaching peak usage in 1905
  • Members of the Okhrana were used as agents provocateurs (as seen in the case of Father Gapon) and executioners
• Lenin:

  • Dec 1917: Bolsheviks established the Cheka, which dealt with counter-revolutionaries
  • The Cheka differed from previous variants of the Secret police as they used terror to victimise people based on who they were and not what they’d done. They formally implemented the Red Terror
  • After the Civil War, the Cheka was disbanded and replaced by the GPU (1922), which was expanded in 1924 and renamed the OGPU. Although this was not as brutal as the Cheka, it still inspired fear
• Stalin:

  • 1934: The NKVD was formed to combat opposition, and created a permanent form of terror
  • NKVD was crucial to the imposition of purges and helped to administer the Gulags
  • However, Stalin suspected the NKVD of conspiracy. By the start of WW2, the NKVD itself had been purged of around 20,000
  • In 1943, the NKVD was replaced with the NKGB, which was later replaced in 1946 with the MGB and the MVD. These merged in 1953 to form a larger version of the MVD
• Khrushchev:

  • In March 1954, as part of the de-Stalinisation process, the MVD was reorganised into a refined version of the MVD and the KGB. These were placed under the direct administration of the party rather than an individual.
  • The number of arrests by the secret police plummeted
• Synthesis:

  • The secret police were constantly used as a way of repressing Russian people, however their purpose differed under Tsarist and Communist rule
  • Under Tsars, their main purpose was to maintain autocracy
  • Under the Communists, they were used to repress Russian people with the intention of stopping counter revolutionaries, creating terror and implementing policies
  • Extent of Secret Police usage increased when rule was threatened