Okhrana

The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called the Guard Department (Охранное отделение) and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as the Okhrana (Охрана) was a secret-police force of the Russian Empire and part of the police department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century and early 20th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes. Formed to combat political terrorism and left-wing revolutionary activity, the Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire, as well as satellite agencies in a number of foreign countries. It concentrated on monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, including in Paris, where the Okhrana agent Pyotr Rachkovsky (1853–1910) was based (1884–1902) before returning to service in Saint Petersburg (1905–1906). The Okhrana deployed multiple methods, including covert operations, undercover agents, and "perlustration"—the reading of private correspondence. The Okhrana's Foreign Agency also served to monitor revolutionary activity. The Okhrana became notorious for its agents provocateurs, including Jacob Zhitomirsky (born 1880, a leading Bolshevik and close associate of Vladimir Lenin), Yevno Azef (1869–1918), Roman Malinovsky (1876–1918) and Dmitry Bogrov (1887–1911). The Okhrana tried to compromise the labour movement by setting up police-run trade unions, a practice known as zubatovshchina. The Communists blamed the Okhrana in part for the Bloody Sunday event of January 1905, when Tsarist troops killed hundreds of unarmed protesters who were marching during a demonstration organized by Father Gapon.) and with the participation of Pyotr Rutenberg. Many historians, such as the German historian Konrad Heiden and the Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine maintain that Matvei Golovinski, a writer and Okhrana agent, fabricated the first edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903). The organization also fabricated documentation connected with the antisemitic Beilis trial of 1913.