Okhrana
Sign in to saveThe Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order, usually called the Guard Department and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as the Okhrana, was a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the Imperial police department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century and early 20th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes.
Key facts
- Government agency.agency_name
- OkhranaGuard DepartmentDepartment for the Protection of Public Safety and Order
- Government agency.logo
- Emblem of the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Empire.svg
- Government agency.logo_caption
- Emblem of the Ministry of the Interior
- Government agency.picture
- File:Okhranka group photo.jpg
- Government agency.picture_width
- 300px
- Government agency.picture_caption
- Okhrana group photograph in St. Petersburg, Russian Empire in 1905
- Government agency.superseding
- PVRK
- Government agency.headquarters
- Petrograd
via Wikipedia infobox
~18 min read
Encyclopedic overview
12 sectionsContents
- Overview
- Use of torture
- History
- Pre-1905
- The Revolution of 1905
- The 1917 Russian Revolution (February Revolution and October Revolution)
- Successor organizations
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
- External links
The Department for the Protection of Public Safety and Order, usually called the Guard Department and commonly abbreviated in modern English sources as the Okhrana, was a secret police force of the Russian Empire and part of the Imperial police department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) in the late 19th century and early 20th century, aided by the Special Corps of Gendarmes.
==Overview== Formed to combat political terrorism, left-wing politics, and revolutionary activity, the Okhrana operated offices throughout the Russian Empire, as well as satellite agencies in a number of foreign countries. It concentrated on monitoring the activities of Russian revolutionaries abroad, including in Paris, where Okhrana agent Pyotr Rachkovsky (1853–1910) was based from 1884 to 1902 before he returned to service in Saint Petersburg from 1905 to 1906.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Okhrana” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.