Abstract

Secret Police Under the Czar

This article focuses on the book "The Ochrana, the Russian Secret Police," by A.T. Vassilyev. Vassilyev was the last chief of the Russian secret police under the Czar, and his book, written in exile at Paris, is an absorbing account of the history of that organization. In the greatest detail and with every appearance of frankness he tells us how the secret police came into existence, how its personnel was recruited, trained, and kept in hand, how it went about the business of spying and espionage, and of its activities in circumventing or trying to circumvent the plots of revolutionaries and terrorists. Some of Vassilyev's estimates of persons or events, backed by a mixture of facts, inferences, and prejudices which cannot easily be unscrambled, are at least interesting.