While the Okhranais seen today as inefficient and corrupt, it was
feared by generations of opponents of the regime from the center to the
far left of the Russian political spectrum. The greatest compliment paid
to the institution was that much of its tradecraft and tactics were copied
by the Bolshevik Party following the Russian Revolution. Within weeks
of the great October Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin had created an
organization that beggared the Okhranain resources and ruthlessness.
The Cheka became a byword for terror: Lenin often stated that a revo-
lution without a firing squad was doomed.
The Cheka and its successor agencies had far more administrative—
one hates to use the word judicial—power. In the last half-century of
tsarist power, between 10,000 and 14,000 deaths can be attributed to
pogroms and political repression, whereas the Cheka sentenced and
shot more than 140,000 prisoners between 1918 and 1921. It is worth
noting that between 1866 and 1900 there were 94 executions, and the
period was notable for 40 assassinations, including that of Tsar Alek-
sandr II. While the Okhranacould open and read approximately 35,000
letters a year, the GPU (the successor of the Cheka) intercepted 3 mil-
lion letters and 5 million telegrams in 1925.^2
Soviet intelligence was designed to serve the ruling party. Unlike
Western governments, which created competing intelligence and secu-
rity bureaucracies, the chief of the Soviet service was able to deploy all
his resources to protect or avenge the party. The Soviet intelligence and
security empire was, from its origins, integrated into one umbrella or-
ganization known as the Cheka, covering intelligence, counterintelli-
gence, the security of the military, surveillance of the population, lead-
ership protection, technical intelligence, and border security.
Subsequent versions of this security organization were the GPU,
OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, MVD, and KGB. Leaders of the service were
the secret servants of the Communist Party. The security services were
never masters of the Soviet Union.
In evaluating the impact of the services on Russian history, historians
have been forced to confront several issues.- Effectiveness: The security service destroyed opposition to the
regime during the postrevolution civil war. During World War II, it
prevented any Nazi intelligence service from penetrating the home-
land. Following the war, it defeated insurgencies in the Ukraine and
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