The Tsarist Secret Police and Russian Society, 1880-1917


Book Description

Karakozov in 1866, Russian political life became trapped within a vicious circle of political reaction, growing disillusionment with the government and intensifying political dissent that increasingly manifested itself in acts of terrorism against Tsarist officials.




The Tsarist Secret Police in Russian Society, 1880-1917


Book Description

This is the first book to portray the history of the Russian secret police - the so-called 'Okhrana' - its personnel, world view and interaction with both government and people during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II. The secret police harassed, infiltrated and subverted Russian radical and progressive society as it struggled to preserve Tsardom's traditional political culture in the face of Russia's rapid socio-economic transformation - a transformation which the forces of order scarcely understood, yet deeply despised.




The Russian Secret Police


Book Description

This book, first published in 1970, is an important study of Russia’s security services from their earliest years to the mid-twentieth century. Ronald Hingley demonstrates how the secret police acted, both under the Tsars and under Soviet rule, as a key instrument of control exercised over all fields of Russian life by an outstandingly authoritarian state. He analyses the Tsarist Third Section and Okhrana and their role in countering Russian revolutionary groups, and examines the Soviet agencies as they assumed the roles of policeman, judge and executioner. This masterly evaluation of Russian and Soviet secret police makes extensive use of hard-to-find Russian documentary sources, and is the first such research that studies Russian political security (Muscovite, Imperial and Soviet) as a whole.




The Truth of the Russian Revolution


Book Description

Bronze Medalist, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the World History Category Gold Winner, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the History category Major General Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev was chief of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in the two years preceding the 1917 Russian Revolution. This book presents his memoirs—translated in English for the first time—interposed with those of his wife, Sofia Nikolaevna Globacheva. The general's writings, which he titled The Truth of the Russian Revolution, provide a front-row view of Tsar Nicholas II's final years, the revolution, and its tumultuous aftermath. Globachev describes the political intrigue and corruption in the capital and details his office's surveillance over radical activists and the mysterious Rasputin. His wife takes a more personal approach, depicting her tenacity in the struggle to keep her family intact and the family's flight to freedom. Her descriptions vividly portray the privileges and relationships of the noble class that collapsed with the empire. Translator Vladimir G. Marinich includes biographical information, illustrations, a glossary, and a timeline to contextualize this valuable primary source on a key period in Russian history.




Fontanka 16


Book Description

This account describes the development of a secret police force that was rooted in tsarist Russia, but provided a model for Soviet police organizations. Ruud (history, U. of Western Ontario) and Stepanov (history, Russian Independent Institute of Social and Nationality Problems, Moscow) provide a comprehensive study of the tsarist secret police, the Okhranka, which was designed to catch terrorists before they assassinated Russia's leaders, during the period leading up to the Revolution of 1917. The book explores the Okhranka and its allied organization, the Gendarmes, through particular cases rather than in strictly institutional terms. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution


Book Description

Introduction -- Prelude to revolution -- Rising crime before the October revolution -- Why did the crime rate shoot up? -- Militias rise and fall -- An epidemic of mob justice -- Crime after the Bolshevik takeover -- The Bolsheviks and the militia -- Conclusion




The Russian Revolution 1917


Book Description

Author of the only full-length eyewitness account of the 1917 Revolution, Sukhanov was a key figure in the first revolutionary Government. His seven-volume book, first published in 1922, was suppressed under Stalin. This reissue of the abridged version is, as the editor's preface points out, one of the few things written about this most dramatic and momentous event, which actually has the smell of life, and gives us a feeling for the personalities, the emotions, and the play of ideas of the whole revolutionary period." Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.




Russia in Flames


Book Description

Laura Engelstein, one of the greatest scholars of Russian history, has written a searing and defining account of the Russian Revolution, the fall of the old order, and the creation of the Soviet state.




Soviet Culture and Power


Book Description

Leaders of the Soviet Union, Stalin chief among them, well understood the power of art, and their response was to attempt to control and direct it in every way possible. This book examines Soviet cultural politics from the Revolution to Stalin’s death in 1953. Drawing on a wealth of newly released documents from the archives of the former Soviet Union, the book provides remarkable insight on relations between Gorky, Pasternak, Babel, Meyerhold, Shostakovich, Eisenstein, and many other intellectuals, and the Soviet leadership. Stalin’s role in directing these relations, and his literary judgments and personal biases, will astonish many. The documents presented in this volume reflect the progression of Party control in the arts. They include decisions of the Politburo, Stalin’s correspondence with individual intellectuals, his responses to particular plays, novels, and movie scripts, petitions to leaders from intellectuals, and secret police reports on intellectuals under surveillance. Introductions, explanatory materials, and a biographical index accompany the documents.




Soviet State Security Services 1917–46


Book Description

The Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Russia in late 1917 was swiftly followed by the establishment of the Cheka, the secret police of the new Soviet state. The Cheka was central to the Bolsheviks' elimination of political dissent during the Russian Civil War (1917–22). In 1922 the Soviet state-security organs became the GPU and then the OGPU (1923–34) before coalescing into the NKVD. After it played a central role in the Great Terror (1936–38), which saw the widespread repression of many different groups and the imprisonment and execution of prominent figures, the NKVD had its heyday during the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). During the conflict the organization deployed full military divisions, frontier troop units and internal security forces and ran the hated GULAG forced-labour camp system. By 1946, the power of the NKVD was so great that even Stalin saw it as a threat and it was broken up into multiple organizations, notably the MVD and the MGB – the forerunners of the KGB. In this book, the history and organization of these feared organizations are assessed, accompanied by photographs and colour artwork depicting their evolving appearance.