Autocracy under Siege: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1866-1905

This book explores the pivotal role played by the Imperial Russian security police under the last three emperors in the titanic struggle between the government and those dedicated to the overthrow of monarchical absolutism. From the first terrorist attempt on the life of a Russian emperor in 1866 through the seismic social upheaval of 1905, the steady growth of antigovernment activism and sentiment threatened the continued survival of the regime and compelled it to expand, improve, and refine its security police institutions. Marshaling a wealth of evidence, including many recently declassified archival documents, my book provides the first comprehensive study in any language of late Imperial Russian security police institutions and operations from 1866 to 1905. Its main focus is  the personnel, institutions, functions, methods, and effectiveness of the Imperial Russian security police. The security police, it is argued, attained a high level of professional competence by the turn of the century, thanks in large part to reforms undertaken by Sergei Zubatov. As a result of these reforms Social Democratic activists found it ever more difficult to connect with industrial workers. The security system even appeared poised to halt the most ominous threat to the regime--revolutionary terrorism. Yet in 1903, Zubatov was removed from office, and the entire administrative apparatus gradually fell into disarray. Thus, the regime lurched into 1905. Despite fitful efforts to reinvigorate the security system during the course of the year, the entire apparatus was overwhelmed by large-scale oppositional activity, and only the granting of major political concessions and the massive application of military force kept the regime from collapsing utterly at the end of the year.