and Balt Chekists, who were deeply distrusted by Stalin, were heav-
ily represented within the leadership of the OGPU. By 1936 Stalin
had begun to purge the security service. Only a few of the service’s
leaders in 1936 would survive the next two years. See alsoYEZHOV,
NIKOLAI; YEZHOVSHCHINA.OKHRANA(OKRANKA).The most notorious of the tsarist police
agencies was the Okhrana. Established on 5 December 1882 by Min-
istry of Internal Affairs (MVD)ordinance in response to the assassi-
nation of Tsar Aleksandr II, the Okhranawas composed of subordi-
nate Okhrannye otdeleniia (Security Divisions) established in
Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Warsaw to conduct secret counterter-
roristoperations. Over the next decade, the Okhranaevolved into an
empire-wide organization targeted against revolutionaries, terrorists,
and militant nationalists. In 1883 the Okhranaopened a foreign bu-
reau in Paris to conduct operations against enemies operating outside
the Russian empire.
Okhranaoperations in Paris and within Russia included close
surveillanceof suspected enemies, penetration of terrorist organi-
zations, and the use of agents provocateurs. The Okhranawas a
small, elite organization. Its total staff was never more than 1,100,
with 200 staff officers at headquarters in St. Petersburg. While it
had a reputation as an omniscient security service, the Okhranahad
a relatively small stable of informants. According to recent re-
search, the Okhranaemployed only 600 paid informants in Russia
at any one time. In 1910–1916, the service maintained an average
of only 116 informants in Moscow.
The Okhranahad a number of spectacular successes. It recruited
Roman Malinovskiy, a Bolshevikmember of the tsarist duma (par-
liament), and ran him in place for more than a decade. Inspection of
the Okhranafiles following the 1917 Revolutionrevealed that their
penetration of the Bolshevik Party was extensive and thorough. An-
other agent, Yakov Zhitomirskiy, was a close friend of Vladimir
Lenin. In Moscow, four of the five leading Bolsheviks worked for
the Okhrana.
The Okhrana’s failures at home, however, were devastating. One
of the Okhrana’s key agents provocateur was Yevno Azev, who
operated as a well-paid informant for more than a decade whileOKHRANA(OKRANKA)• 18106-313 G-P.qxd 7/27/06 7:56 AM Page 181