By Iain Lauchlan

This book explores the origins, structure, and activities of the Okhrana, the secret police in Tsarist Russia and discusses the comparison of security policing in Russia and the West, as well as the role of the Okhrana in suppressing revolution and counter-revolutionary activities. It also examines the connections between the Okhrana and right-wing terror groups, as well as its interactions with civil society and military intelligence.The author uses various sources, including archival documents and personal memoirs, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the Okhrana’s operations.

The book concludes with some remarks on the predictable downfall of Imperial Russia.A bibliography and index are included.

SKS-FLS, 2002, 405 pages

By Serguei Cheloukhine

This Brief provides an in-depth look at crime and corruption in Russian Law Enforcement, in the fifteen years since the 2009 police reforms. It focuses on corruption and organized crime at various levels of public services and law enforcement, how these organized crime networks operate, and how to enhance police integrity and legitimacy in this context.

It begins with a short overview of the history of law enforcement in the Soviet and Post-Soviet context, and the scope of organized crime on the operations of local businesses, public services, and bureaucratic offices. It provides an in depth examination of how organized crime developed in this context, to fill a void between the supply and demand of various goods and services. Based on an in-depth survey of police integrity and corruption in Russia, it provides key insights into how countries in a transition to democracy can maintain and enhance legitimacy of their police force.

Cham: Springer, 2017. 84p.

By Robert J. Abbott

Founded by Peter the Great in 1718, Russia’s police were key instruments of tsarist power. In the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881), local police forces took on new importance. The liberation of 23 million serfs from landlord control, growing fear of crime, and the terrorist violence of the closing years challenged law enforcement with new tasks that made worse what was already a staggering burden. This book describes the regime’s decades-long struggle to reform and strengthen the police. The author reviews the local police’s role and performance in the mid-nineteenth century and the implications of the largely unsuccessful effort to transform them. From a longer-term perspective, the study considers how the police’s systemic weaknesses undermined tsarist rule, impeded a range of liberalizing reforms, perpetuated reliance on the military to maintain law and order, and gave rise to vigilante justice. While its primary focus is on European Russia, the analysis also covers much of the imperial periphery, discussing the police systems in the Baltic Provinces, Congress Poland, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Siberia.

Budapest–Vienna–New York: Central European University Press, 2022. 235p.