The Internal Agency : Linchpin of the political police in Russia - article ; n°1 ; vol.24, pg 151-177

Nurit Schleifmann

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Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique - Année 1983 - Volume 24 - Numéro 1 - Pages 151-177
Nurit Schleifmann, L' espionnage interne : cheville ouvrière de la police politique en Russie.
Cet article se propose de dégager plusieurs traits caractéristiques de l'infiltration policière dans le mouvement révolutionnaire par le truchement des agents secrets. Cette tactique procédait dans une large mesure de la conception sous-jacente de la Direction de la Police dont l'objectif principal était la liquidation : la surveillance des groupes révolutionnaires dans le but de les éliminer au moment opportun. Ainsi l'espionnage interne - telle est l'appellation globale que la Police réservait aux agents secrets - avait l'honneur de figurer dans l'activité de chaque section de l'Ohrana. Les renseignements collectés par les agents avaient priorité pour évaluer la situation ; comme ces renseignements étaient tendancieux, cela conduisait à une disproportion entre la marée révolutionnaire et le déploiement de la police pour l'endiguer. En outre, au nom de cette même conception sous-jacente, la police préconisait une concentration policière sur l'acte révolutionnaire individuel et présumait à tort que plus une organisation révolutionnaire était vaste, plus elle représentait un danger. La vision que la police se faisait de la réalité déterminait aussi son attitude envers les divers éléments du camp révolutionnaire. Cependant, l'ampleur de l'infiltration dans un mouvement donné dépendait de la combinaison de trois facteurs : le degré d'intérêt témoigné par la police envers l'activité du mouvement, l'importance de ce dernier et la nature de son organisation.
Nurit Schleifmann, The Internal Agency: linchpin of the political police in Russia.
The purpose of this article is to outline several of the characteristic features of police infiltration into the revolutionary movement by means of the secret agent. These features stem largely from the underlying conception of the Police Department which viewed its cardinal objective as liquidation: the surveillance of revolutionary groups with the aim of eliminating them at an appropriate moment. Thus the Internal Agency - as the secret agents were collectively dubbed by the Police - had pride of place in the activity of each Okhrana section; the data gathered by the agents were given top priority in appraising the situation and since this information was tendentious, this led to incongruities between the revolutionary tide and the deployment of the police to combat it. Moreover, the underlying conception dictated police concentration on the individual revolutionary act and brought about the erroneous assumption that the larger the revolutionary organization, the greater its menace. Police comprehension of reality determined also their attitude towards the various components of the revolutionary camp. However, the scope of infiltration into a given movement was affected by a combination of three factors: the degree of interest evinced by the police in the movement's activity, the movement's size and the nature of its organization.
27 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: CAHIERS_DU_MONDE_RUSSE_ET_SOVIETIQUE
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1983
• Nombre de lectures: 10
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Nurit Schleifmann
The Internal Agency : Linchpin of the political police in Russia
In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique. Vol. 24 N°1-2. Janvier-Juin 1983. pp. 151-177.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Schleifmann Nurit. The Internal Agency : Linchpin of the political police in Russia. In: Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique. Vol.
24 N°1-2. Janvier-Juin 1983. pp. 151-177.
doi : 10.3406/cmr.1983.1971
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/cmr_0008-0160_1983_num_24_1_1971Résumé
Nurit Schleifmann, L' "espionnage interne" : cheville ouvrière de la police politique en Russie.
Cet article se propose de dégager plusieurs traits caractéristiques de l'infiltration policière dans le
mouvement révolutionnaire par le truchement des agents secrets. Cette tactique procédait dans une
large mesure de la conception sous-jacente de la Direction de la Police dont l'objectif principal était la
"liquidation" : la surveillance des groupes révolutionnaires dans le but de les éliminer au moment
opportun. Ainsi l'espionnage interne - telle est l'appellation globale que la Police réservait aux agents
secrets - avait l'honneur de figurer dans l'activité de chaque section de l'Ohrana. Les renseignements
collectés par les agents avaient priorité pour évaluer la situation ; comme ces étaient
tendancieux, cela conduisait à une disproportion entre la marée révolutionnaire et le déploiement de la
police pour l'endiguer. En outre, au nom de cette même conception sous-jacente, la police préconisait
une concentration policière sur l'acte révolutionnaire individuel et présumait à tort que plus une
organisation révolutionnaire était vaste, plus elle représentait un danger. La vision que la police se
faisait de la réalité déterminait aussi son attitude envers les divers éléments du camp révolutionnaire.
Cependant, l'ampleur de l'infiltration dans un mouvement donné dépendait de la combinaison de trois
facteurs : le degré d'intérêt témoigné par la police envers l'activité du mouvement, l'importance de ce
dernier et la nature de son organisation.
Abstract
Nurit Schleifmann, The Internal Agency: linchpin of the political police in Russia.
The purpose of this article is to outline several of the characteristic features of police infiltration into the
revolutionary movement by means of the secret agent. These features stem largely from the underlying
conception of the Police Department which viewed its cardinal objective as "liquidation": the surveillance
of revolutionary groups with the aim of eliminating them at an appropriate moment. Thus the Internal
Agency - as the secret agents were collectively dubbed by the Police - had pride of place in the activity
of each Okhrana section; the data gathered by the agents were given top priority in appraising the
situation and since this information was tendentious, this led to incongruities between the revolutionary
tide and the deployment of the police to combat it. Moreover, the underlying conception dictated police
concentration on the individual revolutionary act and brought about the erroneous assumption that the
larger the revolutionary organization, the greater its menace. Police comprehension of reality
determined also their attitude towards the various components of the revolutionary camp. However, the
scope of infiltration into a given movement was affected by a combination of three factors: the degree of
interest evinced by the police in the movement's activity, the movement's size and the nature of its
organization.NU RIT SCHLEIFMANN
THE INTERNAL AGENCY :
Linchpin of the political police in Russia
The secret agent of the political police was a participant
in every sphere of activity within the revolutionary movement,
whether propaganda, agitation, literary production or terror
ism. A member of all committees from local to central, he
was to be found in the ranks of every party and movement.
In memoirs of senior police officers, he appears as the effec
tive linchpin of all anti-revolutionary activity. (1) However,
neither contemporaries nor modern historians have paid the
phenomenon the attention which would seem to be justified by
the range and depth of the agent's participation in revolu
tionary life. From both perspectives, contemporary as well as
modern, he is generally viewed as a necessary evil, an
inescapable adjunct to revolutionary activity.
Except for the atypical case of Azeff, however, the
questions that seem to suggest themselves have never been
asked: if the phenomenon of the secret agent was so general
and pervasive, what part did the police play in the develop
ments that occurred within the revolutionary movement? Did
the police, whether consciously or not, through the very
presence of their secret agents in the movement,
actually contribute to the events that took place within it?
Did police agents operate in equal manner and like degree
throughout the revolutionary movement; was the attitude toward
them always and everywhere identical; were there certain
conditions which facilitated their operation in one movement
as opposed to another; did the results of their activity differ
in different movements and diverse periods? Modern historiog
raphy has dealt only with isolated, extreme instances, such
as those involving Azeff and Malinovsky. (2) However, both
affairs were atypical in their scope, and their examination
outside the general context of the phenomenon cannot provide
answers to the questions we have posed. The present article,
too, does not intend to deal with the entire set of questions
that the phenomenon raises, but only to outline several of
its characteristic features, focusing on the manner in which
the agents were deployed by the police. NURIT SCHLEIFMANN 152
THE INTERNAL AGENCY: MANNER OF DEPLOYMENT
Like the revolutionaries, the heads of the police also
described the use of secret agents as routine activity such as
existed in other countries and other periods as well. Thus,
Nikolaevsky argues that police infiltration of revolutionary
movements using secret agents was not confined to Russia,
but was the accepted practice in Italy during the period of
Austrian rule, in France under Louis Philippe and Napoleon HI
or in Prussia in the time of Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Employed
on a temporary and restricted basis in those countries, in
Russia the method became a permanent feature, so that: "There
is nothing surprising, therefore, in that Russia has given
the world a classical example of provocation" - the Azeff
affair. Nikolaevsky regards that affair as a perfect example
"of the logical conclusion of provocation applied as a
system. "(3)
It was the revolutionaries who used the term "provocation"
to describe the infiltration of police agents into the revolu
tionary camp; they argued that the agents' activity was
against the law. The police, they said, were encouraging
their own men to join illegal organizations and take part
in what the law defined as subversive activity. From this
point of view, then, the secret agents were divided into two
categories: informers (osvedomiteli ) , who conveyed to the
authorities information about illegal organizations without they
themselves being members; and agents provocateurs, who were
actually members of the organizations, encouraged others to
take an active part in them, and who did so themselves.
In fact, this distinction, which was made by the revolu
tionaries, reflected actual differences in the agents' roles.
The informers, who, for the most part, were not party members,
did not pass on information regularly and systematically, but
reported on matters which had come to their knowledge indi
rectly. They might be workers who heard on the job about
the time and place of a workers' meeting, or persons consid
ered sympathetic to a certain revolutionary circle and who
were clandestinely informed about activities.
The salary of these auxiliary agents ( vospomogatel 'nye
agenty), as the police termed them, was usually low and not
steady; they were, rather, paid separately for each item of
information in accordance with its value. On the other hand,
party members who maintained permanent and regular contact
with the police, reporting on their organization and its ongoing
activity, were called secret agents (sekretnye sotrudniki);
they received a steady salary and sometimes also bonuses for
particularly valuable information. Cases are known in which
auxiliary agents gradually rose in the ranks and became
secret agents. Bentsion Moshkov Dolin, for example, who was
known as one of the most important police agents among the
anarchists, began as an auxiliary agent who reported chiefly
on the Bund. It was only in 1904, after he had excelled in
his work, that he became a secret agent, at first in Zhitomir;
however, after he came under suspicion he went to Ekateri- THE INTERNAL AGENCY 153
noslav, where he joined the C