Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence

and revolutionaries alike, the tsar’s secret police prevented the emer-

gence of a loyal opposition. By encouraging and financing pogroms,

it satisfied the base anti-Semitism of members of the royal family but

destroyed the legitimacy of the regime at home and abroad.

OPRICHNINA. Russia’s first secret service, the Oprichnina, was

founded in 1564 by Tsar Ivan IV (“The Terrible”). To search out his

enemies, Ivan dispatched 6,000 Oprichnikiwho were dressed in black,

rode black horses, and carried a dog’s head and a broom to symbolize

their mission of purging the land of terror. The Oprichnikimurdered

thousands of men and women suspected of disloyalty, purging the

once-great city of Novgorod of its leaders and merchants. The Oprich-

ninawas abolished in 1572. Some Russian historians compared the

NKVDof Nikolai Yezhovand Lavrenty Beriato Ivan’s oprichniki.

ORGANIZED CRIME. There has always been organized crime in

Russia. In the last days of the tsars, criminal gangs flourished. In the

first days of the 1917 Revolution, many of their members joined the

Red Guards and the Cheka. After the civil war, they were dismissed

or executed. Joseph Stalin’s efforts to break the back of organized

crime failed. Even in the gulag, the gang leaders maintained their or-

ganizations. Known as vory v zakone(those who live under thieves’

law), they flourished in the Stalinist camps and built organizations

that survive today.

In the 1930s, criminals controlled the forced labor camps. Most of

the politicals were no match for the underworld and suffered terribly

at the hands of the criminals. Things changed with the arrival of hun-

dreds of thousands of new prisoners from the Baltic states and the

Ukraine in 1945–1946. In the late 1940s, gang war in the camps

broke out between the vory(thieves) and political prisoners. Known

as the “Bitches’ War,” the battle left hundreds dead, as political pris-

oners, many fresh from the front, fought back and killed thieves they

believed to be informers.

In the 1960s, organized economic crime made a major comeback

in the Caucasian republics, Central Asia, and the European republics.

Nikita Khrushchevtried to crush the new economic criminal: the

death penalty was liberally used against economic criminals, and the

KGBreceived the mission of investigating “especially dangerous

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