The Third Section of
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancery or H.I.M. Own Chancery () began as personal chancery of Paul I and grew into a kind of regent's office, run by Count Arakcheyev from 1815 and until the death of Alexander I of Russia.
Under Nicholas I, the Ch ...
(russian: Tretiye Otdeleniye, or ''III otdeleniye sobstvennoy E.I.V. kantselyarii'' - in full: Третье отделение Собственной Его Императорского Величества канцелярии ''Tretye otdeleniye Sobstvennoy Yego Yimperatorskogo Velichestva kantselyarii'', sometimes translated as Third Department) was a
secret-police department set up in
Imperial Russia
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...
. Inheritor of the
Tayny Prikaz, Privy Chancellery and Specialty Chancellery, it effectively served as the Imperial regime's secret police for much of its existence. The organization was relatively small. When founded in July 1826 by
Emperor Nicholas I
, house = Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp
, father = Paul I of Russia
, mother = Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Gatchina Palace, Gatchina, Russian Empire
, death_date ...
it included only sixteen investigators. Their number increased to forty in 1855.
The Third Section disbanded in 1880, replaced by the
Police Department and the
Okhrana.
Creation and purpose
The
Decembrist Revolt
The Decembrist Revolt ( ru , Восстание декабристов, translit = Vosstaniye dekabristov , translation = Uprising of the Decembrists) took place in Russia on , during the interregnum following the sudden death of Emperor Al ...
of December 14, 1825 shook Tsar Nicholas I's (r. 1825-1855) confidence in his control and led him to desire an effective tool against sedition and revolution. Created by imperial decree on June 25, 1826, Tsar Nicholas’ thirtieth birthday, the Third Section was Nicholas’ personal police force. Although Nicholas gave
Count Alexander Benckendorff
Count Alexander Philipp Konstantin Ludwig von Benckendorff (russian: link=no, Александр Константинович Бенкендорф, Alexander Konstantinovich Benkendorf; 1 August 1849 – 11 January 1917) was a Russian diplomat, of ...
, the first Head Controller of the Section, few specific instructions, the Tsar intended the Third Section to act as Russia's “moral and political guardian.” Just as Russia had ambassadors to other nations keeping the Tsar apprised of political conditions abroad, Nicholas saw the officers of the Third Section, the
Gendarmes
Wrong info! -->
A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to "men-at-arms" (literally, " ...
, as domestic ambassadors who listened, if surreptitiously, to the political discussions of everyday Russians. As ambassadors and moral guardians, the Gendarmerie was ostensibly tasked with guiding Russians along the political path the Tsar desired; however, the Gendarmerie gradually became a counter-revolutionary force rather than a group of “moral physicians.”
Count Alexander Benckendorff was the Head Controller of the Section from 1826. He was the person who tried to warn
Alexander I Alexander I may refer to:
* Alexander I of Macedon, king of Macedon 495–454 BC
* Alexander I of Epirus (370–331 BC), king of Epirus
* Pope Alexander I (died 115), early bishop of Rome
* Pope Alexander I of Alexandria (died 320s), patriarch of ...
of the
Decembrist
The Decembrist Revolt ( ru , Восстание декабристов, translit = Vosstaniye dekabristov , translation = Uprising of the Decembrists) took place in Russia on , during the interregnum following the sudden death of Emperor Al ...
plot; thus
Nicholas I saw him as perfect head of the secret force. He also served as Chief of Gendarmes, but the office of the Executive Director of the Third Section was not formally merged with Chief of Gendarmes until 1829.
Tasks and responsibilities
This list enumerates the functions of the Third Section as Tsar Nicholas I described to the Director of the Special Chancellery of the Ministry of Internal Affairs:
# All orders and announcements in all instances of the higher police.
# Information concerning the number of various sects and heretical religious groups existing within the state.
# Information concerning the distribution of counterfeit money, stamps, documents, etc., the investigation and further prosecution of which is to remain in the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Finance and Internal Affairs.
# Detailed information concerning all persons under police surveillance, as ordered.
# The exile and arrest of suspicious or dangerous persons.
# Economic and supervisory administration of all places of imprisonment in which state prisoners are kept.
# All orders and instructions with regard to foreigners living in Russia, travelling in the country, or leaving it.
# Information concerning all events, without exception.
# Statistical information relating to the police.
Surveillance
In the wake of the Decembrist Revolt, Tsar Nicholas wanted above all to know what his people were thinking about his regime and to remain apprised of any growing conspiracies in order to stop them before they caused potential unrest. Thus, the main task of the Third Section was surveillance. In 1836, a year with no foreign wars that might increase domestic sedition, the Third Section had 1,631 individuals under surveillance, 1,080 of those for political reasons; this included everything from monitoring the actions of potentially dangerous civilians to assigning Third Section agents to pose as officials inside Russian governmental agencies to surveil senior officers and statesmen. Anyone under the Tsar could be watched since the Third Section answered to Nicholas alone. At one point in the early 1850s, Third Section agents were even detailed to monitor every move of
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaievich, Chief of Russia's Navy and Nicholas’ second son. However, since the agents of the Third Section generally surveilled only powerful nobles or bureaucrats or those suspected of treasonous acts, the Section's reports to Tsar Nicholas, which had been intended to keep the Tsar accurately informed, gave Nicholas an incomplete view of the general mood of his people.
Censorship
In addition to monitoring actions and oral speech, the Third Section also played an important role in
censorship
Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
of printed works. Although the Ministry of Education created the censorship laws and did the busywork of searching for objectionable material, Ministry censors were instructed to inform the Third Section of authors who violated the regulations. However, rather than wait to surveil only authors who had violated the censorship regulations, Third Section agents preferred to surveil certain authors and then, once suspicious activity was spotted, reject that author's material even if it had passed the censors. In 1832, the Third Section gained the ability to reject publishers or editors of new periodicals on moral grounds, effectively putting the section in control of new periodicals, which could be established only with the Tsar's approval. In the early 1830s, the Section attempted to apply its mandate to be a moral guide to Russians by encouraging publications it deemed good for the Empire rather than just punishing the authors of damaging works. For example, when
Mikhail Pogodin
Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin (russian: Михаи́л Петро́вич Пого́дин; , Moscow, Moscow) was a Russian Imperial historian and journalist who, jointly with Nikolay Ustryalov, dominated the national historiography between the death ...
wrote an article supporting Russia's historic right to
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
, the Third Section offered him a reward.
Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
One practical project that the Third Section attempted as part of its duties as moral guardian of Russia was not only to inform the Tsar of the public's opinion but also to try to influence that opinion in the Imperial regime's favor, both in Russia and abroad. Indeed, one of Count Benckendorff's first actions as Head Controller had been the creation and distribution in English, French, and German translations, of an account of the Decembrist Revolt that presented the Tsar's actions in a positive light to western Europeans. The Third Section also employed Russians living abroad not only to keep the Section apprised of foreign politics but also to write responses to attacks on Russia published in the foreign press. Additionally, the Third Section used any publications under its direct control, like the Polish newspaper Tygodnik Peterburgski (Petersburg Weekly), to publish pro-Russian articles in other European nations. However little success the Third Section's modest propaganda efforts met in foreign presses, it had even less success domestically: rather than print pro-Nicholas propaganda of its own to improve Russians’ opinions of the Tsar, the Third Section resorted to pushing even broader censorship of Russian periodicals, threatening in 1848 to punish publishers not only for running seditious articles but even if the publication's “tone and tendency” was not positive enough. During the series of
European revolutions of 1848, the Third Section forbade any Russian periodical from printing any article of news describing a European nation facing a revolution.
Failures and dissolution
While the Third Section served as the Tsar's deputy for 55 years, the organization had its share of failures and administrative shortcomings. For its entire history, the Third Section's surveillance had been imperfect; not only did the gendarmes often fail to surveil people who were actually plotting, in one case, they even allowed
Sophia Perovsky, who later led the successful plot to assassinate
Tsar Alexander II
Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Fin ...
(r. 1855-1881), to escape from them at a railroad station.
Although the Third Section was dissolved on August 8, 1880, nearly seven months before Tsar Alexander's assassination on March 2, 1881, there were several assassinations and attempted assassinations which did occur under the Section's watch.
Gregory Goldenberg
Grigory Goldenberg (also referred to as Gregory Goldenberg or "Grigorii Goldenberg"; 1855–1880) was a Russian revolutionary and member of the «Narodnaya Volya» (People's Will) organisation.
Revolutionary life
Born at Berdichev, son of a Jewi ...
assassinated the Governor of Kharkov, Prince Dmitry Kropotkin, on February 9, 1879 under the Third Section's eye. Even
General Drenteln, the Head Controller of the Third Section, was nearly assassinated on March 13 of that same year. These failures aside, perhaps the most damaging to the Third Section's reputation was its failure to stop, or even to detect, the six attempts to assassinate Tsar Alexander II, including the
successful attempt in 1881. The first failed attempt on the Tsar's life, by the nihilist
Dmitry Karakozov
Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov (russian: Дми́трий Влади́мирович Карако́зов; – ) was a Russian political activist and the first revolutionary in the Russian Empire to make an attempt on the life of a tsar. His ...
on April 4, 1866, led
Prince Dolgorukov, the head of the section, to resign out of shame for his and the Section's failure to protect Alexander II.
There was a second attempt on Alexander II's life in Paris in 1867, but it was not until the third attempt, this time by the revolutionary
Alexander Solovyov, on April 2, 1879, that the Tsar took concrete actions to remove power and responsibility from the Third Section, with which he was becoming quickly disillusioned. Alexander effected this removal of power by granting the responsibility for investigation of political crimes, previously the domain of the Third Section, to the Governors-General of Moscow, Kiev, Warsaw, Odessa, Kharkov, and Saint Petersburg. Two more assassination attempts on the Tsar were made after the decentralization of the Third Section. In November 1879, The
People's Will
Narodnaya Volya ( rus, Наро́дная во́ля, p=nɐˈrodnəjə ˈvolʲə, t=People's Will) was a late 19th-century revolutionary political organization in the Russian Empire which conducted assassinations of government officials in an att ...
, a revolutionary group, attempted to blow up the Tsar's train as he travelled from the Crimea to Moscow; however, one bomb failed to detonate and the second destroyed only a shipment of jam meant for the Tsar. The fifth and final unsuccessful assassination attempt occurred February 5, 1880 when a carpenter,
Stephen Khalturin, detonated a bomb which he had secreted under the Tsar's dining room at the
Winter Palace
The Winter Palace ( rus, Зимний дворец, Zimnij dvorets, p=ˈzʲimnʲɪj dvɐˈrʲɛts) is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the Emperor of all the Russias, Russian Emperor from 1732 to 1917. The p ...
; the bomb killed numerous soldiers and failed to kill Alexander only because he was late for dinner that night. Although the Third Section had had reason to suspect that there might be an attempt made on the Tsar's life at the Winter Palace (agents had discovered blueprints of the palace with strange markings during a search of a suspicious person's house in St. Petersburg weeks before the attempt) the Section had been unable to search the palace or to keep it under surveillance in large part because the
Tsar's mistress lived there and so the secret police had to pretend to ignore activities at the palace.
In the end, the powerful image of the Section and the Gendarmes was largely undermined when they failed to suppress the rising
revolutionary movement
A revolutionary movement (or revolutionary social movement) is a specific type of social movement dedicated to carrying out a revolution. Charles Tilly defines it as "a social movement advancing exclusive competing claims to control of the State ( ...
and acts of terrorism against government officials. The large network of informers and agents often supplied nothing more than rumors and slanders.
On March 3, 1880,
Count Loris-Melikov
Count Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov (, hy, Միքայել Լորիս-Մելիքյան; – 24 December 1888) was a Russian- Armenian statesman, General of the Cavalry, and Adjutant General of H. I. M. Retinue.
The Princes of Lori - Lori ...
, the chairman of the Supreme Executive Committee that Alexander created in the wake of the Winter Palace bombing to address the wave of revolutionary terrorism, took control of the Third Section and Gendarmerie from General Drenteln and appointed Major-General Cherevin as acting Head Controller. Soon after this change of command, an investigation of the Third Section uncovered a high level of disorganization within the section. Not only did the Third Section have a long backlog of cases to settle (nearly eleven-hundred), various offices of the Section did not even agree on what suspicious people needed to be surveilled. Rather than sort out the confusion and make the Third Section an effective and efficient secret police once again, Count Loris-Melikov ordered it abolished on August 8, 1880.
Heads of the Third Section
* General of the Cavalry Count
Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf
Konstantin Alexander Karl Wilhelm Christoph Graf von Benckendorff (russian: Александр Христофорович Бенкендорф, Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf, – ) was a Baltic German Cavalry General and statesman, Ad ...
(1826–1844)
* General of the Cavalry Count
Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov
Prince Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov (russian: Алексе́й Фёдорович Орло́в; ) was a Russian diplomat, the natural son of Count Fyodor Grigoryevich Orlov. Born in Moscow, he took part in the Napoleonic Wars from 1805 to the c ...
(1844–1856)
* General of the Cavalry Prince
Vasily Andreyevich Dolgorukov
Prince Vasily Andreyevich Dolgorukov (russian: Князь Василий Андреевич Долгоруков; 1804–1868) was a Russian statesman, General of the Cavalry (1856, a full General equivalent), Minister of War (1852–1856), Chief ...
(1856–1866)
* General of the Cavalry Count
Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov
Count Pyotr Andreyevich Shuvalov (russian: Граф Пётр Андре́евич Шува́лов) (27 July 1827, Saint Petersburg – 22 March 1889, Saint Petersburg) was an influential Russian statesman and a counselor to Tsar Alexander II.
B ...
(1866–1874)
* General of the Cavalry
Alexander Lvovich Potapov (1874–1876)
* Adjutant general
Nikolay Vladimirovich Mezentsev (1876–1878)
* Major general
Nikolai Dmitrievich Seliverstov (1878)
* General of the Infantry
Alexander Romanovich Drenteln (1878–1880)
* Major general
Pyotr Alexandrovich Cherevin (1880)
Managers
* 1826-1831 Fock, Maxim Yakovlevich von
* 1831-1839 Mordvinov, Alexander Nikolaevich
* 1839-1856
Dubelt, Leonty Vasilievich
* 1856-1861
Alexander Yegorovich Timashev
* April — October 1861 Count Shuvalov, Pyotr Andreevich
* 1861-1864 Potapov, Alexander Lvovich
* 1864-1871 Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich
* 1871-1878 Schulz, Alexander Frantsevich
* 1878-1880 Schmitt, Nikita Konradovich (Kondratievich)
Gendarme Corps Chief of Staff
* 1835-1856
Dubelt, Leonty Vasilievich
* 1856-1861 Timashev, Alexander Egorovich
* April-October 1861 Count Shuvalov, Pyotr Andreevich
* 1861-1864 Potapov, Alexander Lvovich
* 1864-1871 Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich
* 1871-1874 Levashov, Nikolai Vasilievich
* 1874-1876 Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich
* 1876-1877 Nikiforaki, Anton Nikolaevich
* 1878 Seliverstov, Nikolai Dmitrievich
* 1878-1880 Cherevin, Peter Alexandrovich
Departments of the Third Section
The Third Section was organized into the following departments (ekspeditsiya); although there was no strict allocation of tasks among different offices.:
[Monas, The Third Section, 64.]
* I - ''supreme police'' (political crimes and enemies of the regime)
* II - counterfeiting, religious sects, murders, penitentiary, serfdom
* III - aliens
* IV - incidents, staff matters
* V (1842) - censorship of theatre plays (performed by the 1st department since 1828)
See also
*
Oprichnik
Oprichnik (russian: опри́чник, , ''man aside''; plural ''Oprichniki'') was the designation given to a member of the Oprichnina, a bodyguard corps
established by Tsar Ivan the Terrible to govern a division of Russia from 1565 to 1572.
F ...
*
Ministry of Police of Imperial Russia
*
Okhrana
*
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
References
Further reading
* Ronald Hingley, ''The Russian Secret Police: Muscovite, Imperial, and Soviet Political Security Operations'' (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1970).
* R. J. Stove, ''The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims'' (Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2003).
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1826 establishments in the Russian Empire
1880 disestablishments in the Russian Empire
Organizations established in 1826
Organizations disestablished in 1880
Law enforcement in Russia
Branches of the secret services of the Russian Empire
National security institutions
Nicholas I of Russia