SEPARATE CORPUS OF GEANDARMS (OKZH) - specialized state law enforcement agency in 1836-1917, built on a military model, an important part of the repressive system in the Russian Empire.
In 1827, all gendarme units (see Gendarmerie) were consolidated into the Gendarme Corps (from 1836 OKZH), subordinate to the Third Division (from 1880 to the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). He carried out political investigation and investigation into cases of state crimes, fought against the mass peasant and labor movement, escorted especially dangerous criminals and prisoners, supervised (until the abolition of serfdom) the capture of fugitive peasants, as well as deserters (see Desertion), criminals, followed moods in various strata of the population, observed order on the railways and endorsed passports at the border; supervised prisoners in political prisons. In addition, the officers and officials of the OKW conducted foreign intelligence and counterintelligence (until the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, the only institution that performed these functions).
In 1827, the Gendarme Corps consisted of the Headquarters, 5 gendarme districts (from 1837 - 8 districts), which served as intermediate links between the main administration and local authorities. Each district was divided into 5-6 departments, which were headed by headquarters officers - heads of departments. There were usually 2-3 provinces per branch. In the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, these bodies were subordinate to the gendarme divisions in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw and 123 gendarme teams. In 1867, only the Warsaw, Siberian and Caucasian gendarme districts remained, instead of the abolished ones, provincial gendarme departments (GZHU) were created. In the counties, the positions of assistant heads of departments have been established. Serf and port gendarme teams and gendarme border posts were subordinate to the chiefs of the GZHU. According to the instructions of 1904, the responsibility of the GZHU included: monitoring the local population and the direction of the political ideas of society, bringing information about riots and abuses to the attention of the highest authorities, conducting inquiries in cases of state crimes, conducting investigations in accordance with the Regulations on State Protection, carrying out secret supervision; surveillance of persons crossing the border; surveillance of foreign intelligence officers; search and surveillance of persons hiding from the authorities; assistance to the general police in restoring disturbed order, escorting prisoners. In addition, gendarme police departments of railways, ports and their departments were also organized, the military police remained - gendarme squadrons attached to the troops, subordinate to the headquarters of the military districts.
For the inspector (personnel), combat and economic parts, the OKZh divisions were part of the system of the War Ministry. On the organization and conduct of the political search, conducting inquiries and other issues, its institutions (GZHU and others) were subordinate to the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery (1836-1880), and from 1880 to the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The chief of the OKW was chief boss The third branch, and then the Minister of Internal Affairs, the commander of the OKZh - as a rule, one of his comrades (deputies). The commander of the OKZH in combat, inspector and naval relations had the rights and authority of the commander of the troops of the military district; in combat units he acted through the Headquarters of the OKW, and in subjects related to the investigation of crimes - through the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The headquarters of the OKZh was the executive body of the chief of gendarmes and the corps commander (the governing body of the OKZh was also the Main Directorate of the Corps) for drill, inspector, naval vessels and farms. parts. The headquarters of the OKW directly supervised the activities of the gendarme police departments of the railways, the gendarme supervision on waterways, in river and sea ports. In addition, the Office of the Police Guard (1906-1917), which was responsible for recruiting the police guard, providing and inspecting the provincial and district police guards, as well as the military court unit of the OKW (1874-1896), operated as part of the OKW Headquarters.
The officer corps of the OKZh was recruited from army officers who had high intelligence, impeccable morally and who had served in the ranks for at least 3 years or who graduated from the cadet school in the 1st grade (with honors). Non-commissioned officers were selected from servicemen of all branches of the military, mainly from those who were transferred to the reserve or retired. The lower ranks were appointed on the same grounds as in the troops. Until 1864 and since 1871, the OKW officers carried out not only inquiries, but also investigations into state crimes. From 1906, this right was extended to the officers of the railway police. Non-commissioned officers carried out operational observation, supervisory and executive functions. The lower ranks, who were in the states of the gendarme divisions, played the role of the police rapid reaction forces.
By 1917, the OKZh included: the General Gendarme Directorate, the Headquarters, 106 gendarme directorates (67 provincial, 3 regional, 2 territorial, 4 city, 30 district), 32 railway directorates, 19 serfs and 2 port teams, 3 divisions, 1 horse and 2 foot teams, 27 combat units. The number of OKZh in 1880 was 521 officers and officials, 6187 lower ranks; in October 1916, respectively, 1051 and 14667.
After the February Revolution of 1917, the Provisional Government abolished the OKW, including the gendarme police departments of the railways. All gendarme ranks, with the exception of those who, due to age or health reasons, were not subject to conscription, were transferred to the Military Ministry, the rest were dismissed.
OKZh commanders: P.V. Orzhevsky (1882-1887); N.I. Shebeko (1887-1895); A.A. Frese (1896-1897); A.I. Panteleev (1897-1900); P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky (1900-1902); V.V. von Wal (1902-1904); K.N. Rydzevsky (1904-1905); D.F. Trepov (May - October 1905); V.A. Dedyulin (1905-1906); Baron F.F. Taube (1906-1909); P.G. Kurlov (1909-1911); V.A. Tolmachev (1912-1913); V.F. Dzhunkovsky (1913-1915); Count D.N. Tatishchev (1915-1917).
If the III Section of SEIVK was engaged in the collection of operational information and its analysis, then the Separate Corps of Gendarmes was created for direct operational work to ensure state security within the borders of the Russian Empire.
Gendarmes appeared in the Russian army during the reign of Alexander I. In June 1815, a gendarme team was created in each cavalry regiment to fight looters and other military crimes. By 1826, the gendarmes numbered more than 4 thousand people, in 1880 - 6808 people, that is, in 55 years the staff of the gendarme corps grew by 60% 229. In 1826-1827. subdivisions of gendarmes were brought into a single structure - a separate corps of gendarmes, which was engaged in operational work. To this end, the entire empire was divided into 7 districts, in which the structures of the secret police were created. At the same time, strict requirements arose for the staffing of the corps, which remained until the beginning of the 20th century. For the transfer to the elite corps of gendarmes from army and guard officers, it was required: age not younger than 25 years, hereditary nobility, graduation from a military or cadet school in the first category, as a rule, Orthodox religion230, absence of debts and stay in the ranks for at least 6 years. Derevnina T.G. From the history of the formation of the III branch // Bulletin of Moscow State University. Story. 2003. No. 4.
The procedure for transferring to gendarme officers from the army gradually took shape. In March 1830, army officers who were transferred to the Gendarme Corps began to be subjected to special "tests". There was no question of exams yet. The candidates were seconded for 2-4 months to the Corps Headquarters, where colleagues assessed their "skills and abilities", moral qualities and degree of education.
Actually "examinations" when enrolling in the Corps were introduced later. First, it was necessary to pass preliminary exams at the Headquarters of the Gendarme Corps. Then those who passed the exams were enrolled in the candidate list, and as vacancies appeared, they were summoned to St. Petersburg for 4-month courses, after which they still had to pass the final exam. And only then those who passed through this sieve were enrolled in the Separate Corps of Gendarmes by the highest decree. The following data testifies to the strict selection to the Gendarme Corps. In 1871, 142 army officers filed a request for transfer to the Gendarme Corps, of whom 21 were selected. Only 6 people were admitted to the courses, that is, only 4.2% of the number of applicants. Abakumov O.Yu. Personal affairs of officials of the III branch, as a historical source // General and national history: topical problems. Saratov, 2003.
It was very important for army officers seeking to transfer to service in the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, that there was a special order of rank for the gendarme officers, which, with luck, made it possible to quickly make a career. Therefore, the competition among those wishing to get into this service was so high that, according to A.I. Spiridovich, and at the end of the 1890s. "It was impossible to get to the gendarme courses without patronage." Moreover, in the public consciousness up to the end of the 1880s. the gendarme service was considered quite decent and did not cause negativism. Only then, through the systematic efforts of the liberal intelligentsia, the image of a gendarme - a "satrap", began to form purposefully in the public consciousness, which undoubtedly hampered the work of the officers of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. Derevnina T.G. From the history of the formation of the III branch // Bulletin of Moscow State University. Story. 2003. No. 4.
One of the main tasks of the III Branch and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes is to ensure the personal safety of Nicholas I. Although he himself was the best protection of the tsar. His imperious charisma was such that Nicholas I alone managed to bring the rebellious crowd to its knees on Sennaya Square during the outbreak of the cholera epidemic at the beginning in 1831 in St. Petersburg. Admiral A.I. Shestakov wrote about this character trait of Nikolai Pavlovich: “The courage that brought mad crowds to their knees illuminated him with a radiance of power, which did not allow the thought of disobedience, which rejected the very villainy. No hand could rise to a person who carried the conviction of invulnerability. The fear in his eyes was for mere mortals, and not for the anointed one, over whom supernatural guards watched. " The tsar was aware of this, therefore, after the reconstruction of the Winter Palace in 1838-1839. night posts at the personal chambers of the emperor, introduced during the reign of Alexander I, were canceled by order of Nikolai Pavlovich. Derevnina T.G. Political police under Nicholas I // Liberation movement in Russia. Saratov, 2005. No. 4.
As contemporaries testify, the tsar, like his older brother Alexander I236, allowed himself lonely walks along the Palace Embankment and the Summer Garden in a simple greatcoat, bowing to his acquaintances. Citizens could often see the emperor without any protection. He regularly attended the public masquerades at Engelgart's home. The subjects knew exactly where and when they could meet Nicholas I on the street. For example, Baron M. Korf mentions in the "Notes" that if someone wanted to meet the emperor "face to face", then "it was only necessary to go along Malaya Morskaya for about 3 hours before lunch and about 7 hours along Bolshoi. At this time he was visiting his daughter at the Mariinsky Palace ... ". Derevnina T.G. Political police under Nicholas I // Liberation movement in Russia. Saratov, 2005. No. 4.
But during periods of political crises, contemporaries had questions, is the emperor's sacred person protected at all? So, in 1848, when Europe was shaken by the convulsions of bourgeois revolutions, Baron Korf wrote: “With confidence in the mass of the people, it was difficult to vouch for each individual and, with all that, not only were no external precautions, guards and etc., not only was it allowed freely, as always, to enter the palace and pace its halls, but the sovereign himself walked the streets completely alone every day, the heir also, and the royal ladies rode for hours in open carriages. It goes without saying, however, that this did not weaken and should not weaken the secret measures of supervision ”Korf. M.A. Materials and features to the biography of Emperor Nicholas I. And the history of his reign // Collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society. SPb., 2008. V. 98. It can be assumed that such behavior of members of the imperial family is associated with a conscious demonstration of the political stability of the Russian Empire. Nevertheless, contemporaries believed that there were "secret surveillance measures".
It is difficult to say whether the tsar was constantly accompanied by a secret guard and what was its composition. But nevertheless, mentions slip through the memories, indicating that such an unspoken guard existed.
On the street, Nikolai Pavlovich could strike up a casual conversation with people he personally knew. However, this could have ended in disaster for the interlocutor. For example, after a conversation with the actor-comedian of the French troupe Berne, whom the emperor especially favored, he ended up in the police station for “harassing” the emperor, since “having a poor command of the Russian language, he could not speak to the policeman. And only later, when everything turned out, he was released with an apology. " It can be assumed that the tsar's guards, the "police", immediately found out the identity of the emperor's interlocutors, if they were not already known to her. According to the memoirs of the actress A.Ya. Panaeva, the emperor loved to be in the theater on stage, but at the same time “no one went, officials were everywhere, watching that someone accidentally jumped out onto the stage ... finally, the sovereign was tired of this deathly silence behind the curtains and on the stage, and he gave the order that they should never be shy in his presence, and everyone would do their job. You should have seen how officials bustled so that, for example, the carpenters, dragging the curtain, did not touch the sovereign, how all the artists walked around the stage in the hope that the sovereign would make them happy with his attention. " Benckedorf. OH. Emperor Nicholas 1 in 1830-1831 // Russian antiquity. 2006. T. 88. These "officials", of course, could be representatives of the theater administration, but it can be assumed that the "officials" were gendarme officers who were responsible for the personal security of the king. Perhaps these were special officials "on special assignments" of the III Section, whose names were first mentioned in the order of April 17, 1841. They, quite legally engaged in undercover activities, could secretly accompany the emperor.
But, in any case, they had little work. Of the many memoirs about personal protection, there are only a few indirect references, so we can only talk about its existence hypothetically. But this does not mean that for all 30 years of his reign, there were no real threats to the life of the king. In the first half of the 1830s, after the brutal suppression of the uprising in Poland by the Russian troops, this threat became quite tangible. Perceptible so much that, going to maneuvers in Kalisz in 1835 and assuming the possibility of assassination attempts by the Poles, Nikolai Pavlovich left something like a will for the heir. In June 1833, it became known that in France in Avignon, Polish rebels decided to kill Nicholas I. Soon Marcelius Shimansky, who had secretly returned from France, was arrested in Vilna, and poison and a dagger were seized from him. In the 1830s. In the secret correspondence of the Peterhof palace administration with the ranks of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, several Poles were guided through the orientation, who were considered as persons capable of assassinating the Tsar. Thus, the gendarmes reported to the palace guard the signs of one of the possible terrorists: “Plater Vladislav. Average height, light blond hair, blue eyes, moderate nose, good appearance "
An episode that occurred in 1843 in Poznan can also be attributed to an attempt to assassinate the emperor. In September 1843 Nicholas I left Berlin for Warsaw via Poznan. On September 7, in the evening, he drove up to Poznan, but local authorities asked to go around the city, since a large funeral procession was moving through it. The tsar agreed, but one of the stragglers of the military field office did not know about the tsar's decision and drove through the city. “While following the main street, at the corner of a small alley, shots were fired. The bullets, ten in number, pierced the body of the carriage, and three of them remained in the cotton overcoat ”Benckedorff. OH. Emperor Nicholas 1 in 1830-1831 // Russian antiquity. 2006. T. 88. one of the officials. It is unlikely that this attempt was a pre-planned action. Most likely, it was an emotional outburst of someone unknown Pole.
The problems of personal safety of Nicholas I became the subject of discussion during the emperor's travels abroad. So, in 1844, on the eve of the visit of Nicholas I to Great Britain, consultations took place on this issue between the interested parties. As a result, Count Nesselrode wrote to the Russian ambassador in London: “The Emperor does not in the least oppose the precautionary measures that the British ministers would consider necessary ... the Emperor does not want to know anything about them, nor to see them. It would be too unpleasant for him to walk surrounded by incessant precautions. " Benckedorf. OH. Emperor Nicholas 1 in 1830-1831 // Russian antiquity. 2006. T. 88. These words actually stated the position of Nicholas I in relation to his personal protection in general. He perfectly understood its importance and necessity and agreed with its existence. I agree, but on one condition. He did not want to be noticed not only by others, but also by himself. The emperor was convinced that too intrusive guards, endlessly demonstrating their zeal, only undermined the prestige of the imperial power in Russia.
Ultimately, the threats of an attempt on the life of Emperor Nicholas I remained only threats, and the plague of political terrorism, which had already begun to corrode the political life of Europe, did not affect Russia during his reign. Under Nicholas I, the special services that provided the Tsar's personal protection did not have much work. Actually, during this period, Section III cannot yet be called a special service in the modern sense of this term. The military guards were mainly of a demonstration nature. The charm of the personality of this man was so great, and the power inherent in him so organically, that during the entire time of his reign, not a single organized attempt was made against him. Benckedorf. OH. Emperor Nicholas 1 in 1830-1831 // Russian antiquity. 2006.Vol. 88.
The executive body of the Third Section was the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. In Russia, the word "gendarme" appeared at the end of the 18th century, being introduced from France, where the Life Guards of the French kings were originally called, since 1445 - heavily armed cavalry, since 1791 - a special corps designed to maintain order in the army and within the state, and since 1854 - a military-organized police, subordinate to the Minister of War and the Minister of the Interior of France.
In the Russian Empire, since 1792, the equestrian cuirassier command under Tsarevich Paul I was called gendarmes, which served as military police until 1796. During the overseas campaigns of 1813-1814. the gendarme troops were formed at the expense of one trustworthy officer and five privates selected from each cavalry regiment, who were supposed to keep order on the march and bivouacs. Their duties also included the fight against looting, escorting the wounded to the place of medical aid, etc. According to the order of the commander-in-chief MB. Barclay de Tolly from June 10, 1815: "The people of these teams are called gendarmes, and they must be distinguished from others by a red band on their right hand."
After a while, these teams were abolished, and the Borisoglebsk dragoon regiment was renamed the gendarmerie. At the end of 1815, a gendarme half-squadron was created under the guards corps.
In 1817, as part of the Internal Guard Corps, which was involved in training recruits and assisting the provincial authorities in capturing robbers, suppressing popular unrest, collecting taxes and arrears, gendarme units were formed to serve in both capitals, provincial and main port cities. In total, by 1826 in Russia, there were 59 gendarme units and subdivisions, different in their purpose, with a total strength of 4099 people. These military formations, stationed in almost all significant settlements of the empire, but did not have a single control center, A.Kh. Benckendorff suggested in his project on the organization of a centralized political investigation to put the mining and security apparatus of the new special service as the basis. Nicholas I, who preferred to see the special service, formed from officers rather than civilians, supported the proposal of A.Kh. Benckendorff and almost simultaneously with his appointment as head of the Third Section on June 25, 1826, entrusted him with the post of chief of gendarmes.
The legalization of the new structure was completed by the tsar's decree of April 28, 1827 establishing a gendarme corps. The entire territory of the Russian Empire was divided into five gendarme districts, each of which covered from eight to eleven provinces. The district, in turn, was subdivided into 4-6 departments (there were 26 of them in total). At the head of the district was a gendarme general, at the head of the department was a gendarme staff officer in the rank of major to colonel.
In 1832, after the suppression of the Polish uprising, on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire, the sixth gendarme district was formed, which was under double subordination - the chief of the gendarme corps and the governor.
On July 1, 1836, the corps of gendarmes was reorganized into a separate corps of gendarmes. The new department was conceived and created as an elite unit. For the posts of lower ranks, the most literate soldiers of various types of troops were selected at the age of at least 25 years. There were practically no restrictions based on ethnicity.
Main tasks:
1. Pay special attention to what can happen without seizure in all parts of the government and in all states and places of abuse, disorder and the law contrary to the law.
2. Observe that the peace of mind and the rights of citizens cannot be violated.
3. Communicate with those local authorities in whose jurisdiction riots are noticed, anticipate them and only in those cases if all his "harassment" "are in vain", report them to the Third Department.
Main functions:
Later, quite specific functions of the department were determined:
“1) All orders and reports on all cases of the highest police.
2) Information about the number of sects and schisms existing in the state.
3) News of discoveries on counterfeit banknotes, coins, stamps, documents remain in the control of the ministers: finance and internal affairs.
4) Details of all persons under the supervision of the police, including all discrepancies on this subject.
5) Expulsion and placement of people suspected and harmful.
6) Supervisory and economic management of all places of detention, in which state criminals are imprisoned.
7) All decrees and orders about foreigners.
8) Records of all incidents without exception.
9) Statistical information related to the police ”.
To ensure the fulfillment of the functions assigned to them, the offices of the gendarme offices were divided into the following parts: general management, search, investigative, political reliability and money.
With the development of railway transport in the Russian Empire, the first gendarme police department of the railway appeared in the country (1861), and by 1895 their number had increased to 21. The departments had gendarme departments at all junction railway stations. It is noteworthy that initially these departments were under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Railways, but in 1866 P.A. Shuvalov succeeded in transferring them to his own authority.
The main goal pursued by P.A. Shuvalov, restructuring the work of the special services in accordance with the provisions of the second instruction, suppressed free-thinking, prevented the formation of opposition, especially the preconditions for an open protest against the existing government.
Nevertheless, the reforms carried out by P.A. Shuvalov, proved to be quite effective and allowed the Separate Corps of Gendarmes to exist until the February Revolution of 1917, after which it was liquidated.
The Separate Corps of Gendarmes (OKZH) is a special-purpose unit of the Russian Imperial Army, whose servicemen (military ranks) were the basis of the permanent staff of gendarme-police units and institutions of the Russian Empire in 1826-1917. De facto, this is the Russian political police, which has realized, first of all, the task of protecting the security of the state, its political and social system.
Historically, heavy cavalrymen were called gendarmes in the Middle Ages - that is, horsemen who had knightly armor. Each gendarme had his own retinue, consisting of squires, pages, warriors, horse archers and servants. When the French king Charles VII established in 1445 the first units of regular cavalry under the name of "ordinance companies", the gendarmes were their basis - the company consisted of 100 mounted gendarmes, as well as cutiers, archers, etc. Gradually the term "gendarme" was replaced the former name "knight", and began to denote all heavily armed horsemen - regardless of their origin. But the proliferation of firearms and a change in tactics led to the transformation of heavy cavalry. Gendarmes are gradually turning into cuirassiers, and only in France and Prussia (in the latter - until 1806) cavalry regiments of gendarmes have survived.
The Great French Revolution gave the gendarmes a new quality - in 1791 the revolutionary government formed a corps of gendarmes to monitor internal order - primarily in the troops and state structures. Other Western European powers followed the path of France. It should be noted that for the first time police functions were entrusted to gendarmes in France during the reign of King Francis I, who created a special so-called prevotal jurisdiction in his army - the provost was entrusted with maintaining order in the troops, and the gendarmes were the instrument in their hands.
In the ranks of the French gendarme corps, only the lower ranks of excellent behavior were accepted, and those who had served in the armed forces for at least 10 years. The Gendarme Corps of France was a multifunctional unit. Its tasks included: maintaining order within the state, ensuring security, fighting robberies, catching smugglers and other criminals, escorting prisoners, etc. The armies consisted of special field gendarme teams that maintained order not only at the locations of troops, but also in battle (being behind the battle line), they fought desertion, picked up the wounded on the battlefield and evacuated, suppressed looting and ensured order in the military rear. In the Napoleonic period, gendarme units sometimes took part in hostilities. By the 70s of the XIX century, the French gendarme corps consisted of 800 officers and 26,000 lower ranks. A similar situation was observed in Austria and Germany (in the latter there was also a special Gendarme brigade).
In Russia, the word "gendarme" was first mentioned in the historical monuments of the era of Empress Catherine II - when in 1792 the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, established his own "model" troops in Gatchina, which included a horse team (181 people) headed by a lieutenant colonel Kastylev. This command, periodically called the Cuirassier or the Gendarme Regiment, functioned as the military police of the Gatchina troops.
After the accession of Emperor Paul I in 1796, the team was included in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment.
In the Russian army, the concept of a gendarme - a military policeman - is revived during the Napoleonic Wars - during the campaigns abroad in 1813-1814. During this period, the best officers and 5 lower ranks selected in each cavalry regiment were supposed to monitor the observance of order on the bivouacs, on the march, fight looting and desertion, accompany the wounded to dressing points, etc.
In 1815, at the corps headquarters of the Russian army in France, temporary military-police teams were formed, called gendarmes. The order of the commander-in-chief, Field Marshal M. B. Barclay de Tolly of 10.06.1815 called them gendarmes, and introduced a service distinctive sign for them - a red armband on their right hand. These teams, which were at the disposal of the corps commanders, did not last long and were soon disbanded, but they were replaced by the Borisoglebsk Dragoon Regiment, which carried its subunits (3 squadrons were distributed among infantry and cavalry corps, 3 squadrons were assigned to the headquarters of the armies, and another squadron served to replenish the loss in six active squadrons) with the troops of the military-police service. 27.08.1815 Borisoglebsk dragoon regiment is renamed into Gendarme regiment.
In December of the same year, from the lower ranks of the Guards cavalry, as the old guard, the Life Guards gendarme half-squadron was formed to serve in the Guards and Reserve Cavalry Corps.
Both of these units were organized as combatants, but they were entrusted with military-police and ordinary service with the troops.
In 1817, in the structure of the Internal Guard Corps (existed since 1810 and was engaged in training recruits, as well as assisting the provincial authorities in suppressing unrest, capturing robbers, collecting arrears and taxes) were established in the capitals (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw) gendarme divisions, and in provincial divisions (Vologda, Petrozavodsk, Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Pskov, Mitava, Riga, Revel, Vladimir, Kaluga, Kostroma, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, Tula, Yaroslavl, Kiev, Vitebsk, Mogilev, Zhitomir, Kamenets -Podolsk, Minsk, Vilno, Grodno, Bialystok, Yekaterinoslav, Kursk, Poltava, Simferopol, Kharkov, Kherson, Chernigov, Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh, Tambov, Vyatka, Kazan, Simbirsk, Penza, Ufa, Perm, Tobolsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk) and some port (Feodosia, Taganrog and Odessa) cities - gendarme teams.
During this period, the gendarme units acquired the significance of the political police.
The metropolitan gendarme divisions, considered to be seconded from the Internal Guard Corps, were subordinate to the capital's chief police chiefs, while the gendarme teams of the provincial cities were part of the local garrison battalions, and the gendarme teams of the port cities were part of the invalid garrison teams.
In total, by 1826, there were 59 gendarme units and units of different composition and purpose - a total of 4099 people. These special military formations, deprived of a single command, drew attention to the Adjutant General Lieutenant General Count A. Kh. Benkendorf. It was he who proposed to Nicholas I the project of creating a centralized political investigation, subordinate to the head of the so-called "higher police".
The idea of putting the country and the army under vigilant political control was supported by the emperor, who not only appointed A. H. Benckendorff as the head of the Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery, but also on 06.06.1826 ordered him to act as Chief of the Gendarmes. Although initially only a part of the gendarme units were subordinate to A. Kh. Benckendorff, and, in addition, the solution of economic, food, military-court and investigative issues remained outside his competence, the beginning of a new powerful state structure was laid.
Guards and army gendarmes were subordinated to the chief of the gendarmes, as well as gendarmes, which were attached to separate corps: Lithuanian, Internal Guard and Siberian. In 1826 - 1827. all gendarme units come under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Gendarmes. But the Gendarme Regiment until 1842 was under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Gendarmes only in an inspector's sense.
The fact that Count AH Benckendorff, manager of the Third Section of His Majesty's Own Chancellery, was appointed Chief of the Gendarme Corps was not accidental. The corps became the executive body of the Third Section (the central body of the political investigation of Russia), the head of which was the Chief of the corps.
The creation of the Corps was also the reaction of the imperial government to the Decembrist uprising.
When in January 1826 A. Kh. Benckendorff submitted for consideration to Nicholas I the "Project on the structure of the higher police", it contained an indication of the events of December 14 - the fact that the conspiracy had been prepared for more than 10 years, proved, according to him, "The insignificance of our police." The author of the project proposed to assign this chief the status of the Minister of Police and at the same time the inspector of the gendarmerie.
1. Chief of the gendarmes, Count A. Kh. Benckendorff.
In the "Memorandum on the establishment of the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery", drawn up in the 20th of June 1826, it was emphasized the need to give the "higher" police a clear vector of direct service to the Sovereign.
The statute on the Gendarme Corps was issued by Nicholas I on 28. 04. (10.05) 1827. The Gendarme Regiment, which carried military police service, and the gendarme units of the Internal Guard Corps became the basis of the corps.
To structure the activities of the Corps, the territory of the Russian Empire was divided into 5 gendarme districts (each with 8 - 11 provinces), which were divided into 4 - 6 departments (each had, as a rule, 2 - 3 provinces). The gendarme district was headed by a gendarme general, who was directly subordinate to the Chief of the gendarmes, and the department was headed by a gendarme headquarters officer in the rank of major to colonel. The gendarme divisions were also enrolled in the districts: St. Petersburg - in the 1st, Moscow - in the 2nd and Warsaw - in the 3rd gendarme districts. To manage the Corps under the Chief of Gendarmes, the so-called Corps Watch was created.
After the liquidation of the Polish rebellion on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland in 1832, the 6th gendarme district was created. He was in double subordination - the Governor and the Chief of the gendarme corps.
In general, the gendarme structure of the empire was formed by 01.07.1836, when the Corps was reorganized into a Separate Corps (that is, a military unit, according to its legal status, equated to an army). All gendarme units were withdrawn from the Internal Guard Corps and incorporated into the OKW.
The Siberian was added to the six existing gendarme districts. The districts were no longer divided into sections - they were replaced in each province by the directorates of gendarme staff officers, as a result of which the network of gendarme control bodies became denser. Corps "watch" was replaced by the Corps Headquarters. The "Regulations on the Gendarme Corps" appeared. And in December 1837 the 8th gendarme district - Caucasian - was created.
In 1839, the post of Chief of Staff of the Corps was merged with the post of Manager of the Third Section. In 1842 the Gendarme Regiment was included in the Corps.
Structurally, the Corps included: Main Directorate, Headquarters, District Directorates, Provincial, Regional and City Gendarme Directorates, Uyezd Gendarme Directorates in the Vistula Territory, special departments for the protection of order and public security, gendarme police departments of railways (and their departments), city, serfs and port gendarme teams, 3 gendarme divisions (St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw) and the Odessa city equestrian gendarme team (by 1880 there were 7 city equestrian teams). Chanceries of gendarme departments were subdivided into parts: general management, investigative, search, political reliability and financial.
2. Chief of the gendarmes, Prince AF Orlov.
In the period 1817 - 1850. a whole system of urban gendarme teams emerged. 27. 04. (09. 05.) 1846 a temporary Gendarme squadron appears in the Corps (the ranks of the St. Petersburg and Moscow divisions and 9 city teams were drawn to its formation). The squadron carried out police supervision on the St. Petersburg-Moscow railway, and for this was seconded to the disposal of the chief commander of this railway. In 1847, on the basis of this squadron, the Police Department of the St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway was created.
The total number of the Gendarme Corps increased significantly: from 4278 people by the end of 1828 and 7076 people by 1866 - to 15718 people in 1917. Is this a lot or a little? For comparison - in the "democratic" and much smaller than Russia on the territory of France by the beginning of the First World War, there were 2 times more gendarmes - 30,000 people.
3. The lower ranks of the OKZH 1894-1917.
To be continued
The word gendarmerie literally translates as people of arms. The gendarmerie appeared in France in 1445, as a multipurpose military-police formation, performing the functions of protecting law and order, both in the army and within the country. In Russia, the name of the gendarmerie was first mentioned in 1792 in connection with the establishment of a special equestrian team as part of the troops of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, the future Emperor Paul I.
On December 27, 1815, the Guards gendarme half-squadron was formed, which on January 6, 1816 was granted the rights and advantages of the old guard. On July 10, 1815, Barclay de Tolly ordered to select from each regiment one officer and five privates - gendarmes - to maintain order. On August 27, the teams thus formed were abolished. Instead, the Borisoglebsk Dragoon Regiment was renamed into the Gendarme Regiment and distributed among the army in separate teams. These were special police units with military organization and discipline. In February 1817, on the personal order of Alexander I, mounted gendarme units of rapid reaction were created as part of the Separate Corps of Internal Guard. Gendarmes served in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Warsaw (one battalion of 334 people), provincial and port cities (one team of 31 people) and were subordinate to the chief police chiefs (chiefs of police).
By the highest decree of July 3, 1826, the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Chancellery was established as the highest institution of the empire in charge of cases of political crimes. A. Kh. Benckendorff was appointed head of the III department. The Special Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was also transferred to the jurisdiction of the department, the head of which A. Ya. Von Fock took the position of director of the office of the department. In 1827, by decree of the emperor, the Gendarme Corps was formed, headed by A. X. Benckendorff. Major General L. V. Dubelt became the chief of staff of the Gendarme Corps in 1835.
On April 28, 1827 Nicholas I issued a decree “On the establishment of five districts of the Gendarme Corps”. On the basis of the decree, the Russian Empire was divided into 5 (from July 1, 1836 - into 8) gendarme districts, which in turn were divided into gendarme departments. A.Kh. Benckendorf. In the project submitted to Nicholas I on the organization of a centralized political investigation, he suggested that these units and subdivisions be subordinated to the head of the "higher police": "To this chief information would flow from all gendarmes scattered in all cities of Russia and in all units of the troops." The idea to put both the country and the army under vigilant political control found the support of the emperor, and almost simultaneously with the appointment of Benckendorff as head of the Third Section on June 25, 1826, he entrusted him with the post of chief of the gendarmes. Although at first only a part of the gendarmes was organizationally subordinate to the head of state security, and the solution of economic, food, military-court and investigative issues remained outside his competence, nevertheless, the beginning of a new powerful centralized structure was laid.
First of all, Benckendorff ordered the chiefs of the gendarme units and subdivisions to submit reports and reports on incidents once a month, and also took over the personnel issue as the chief of the gendarmes. The total number of this paramilitary structure by the end of 1828 was 4278 people, including 3 generals, 41 staff officers, 160 chief officers, 3617 lower ranks and 457 non-combatants. In this regard, the following fact is curious: back in 1823, the leader of the Southern Society of Decembrists, Colonel P.I. Pestel calculated that after the overthrow of the autocracy, the revolutionary dictatorship would need 112,900 gendarmes to maintain its power in Russia. The number of the tsarist gendarmerie never even remotely approached such a figure: in 1836 there were 5164 people in its states, in 1857 - 4629, 1866 - 7076, 1880 - 6708, 1895 - 9243, 1914 - 13 645 and in 1917 - 15 718.
The activities of the employees of Section III and the Gendarme Corps were regulated by secret internal instructions. The first of them, drawn up in September 1826, is known as "AH Benckendorff's instruction to an official of the III Section." Similar instructions were received by the heads of the gendarme departments and the gendarme officers who carried out audits in the provinces. In February 1827, an addendum to the instruction to the gendarme officers was drawn up, and already in March - April it was handed over and sent to the gendarmes along with the instruction. In addition, special attention is paid to the independence and secrecy of the actions of the gendarmes.
The new department was conceived and created as an elite unit. For the posts of lower ranks, literate and most advanced soldiers of other branches of the army were specially selected. The procedure for selecting officers was even stricter. In addition to being of noble origin, wanting to serve in the Gendarme Corps and reaching the age of 20, they had to undergo a special test. Any official punishment, and even more evidence of political unreliability, became an almost insurmountable obstacle when entering the gendarmerie service. Each officer of the corps gave a special subscription stating that "I did not belong to any Masonic lodges and secret societies, dumas, councils and others, under whatever name they may exist, and I will not belong in the future." Subsequently, for those entering the corps, a course of study, examinations and a probationary period were introduced. Such a strict selection was due to the fact that Nicholas I saw his local representatives in the gendarme officers, and Benckendorff never ceased to remind his subordinates of their high mission: “In you everyone will see an official who, through my mediation, can bring the voice of suffering humanity to the throne of the royal and a defenseless and dumb citizen will immediately be placed under the highest protection of the sovereign emperor. "
The attitude of society towards the new elite unit was ambivalent. On the one hand, the royal trust and the resulting power, coupled with a significantly higher salary than in the army, attracted many officers to the Gendarme Corps. For example, in 1871, 142 army officers filed applications for transfer to the gendarmes, of whom 21 were selected, and only 6 people were allowed to take classes. The number of those wishing to become gendarmes almost always exceeded the number of available vacancies. On the other hand, in society, the view of the gendarme as a spy and informer was quickly established, cases of refusal of such a "shameful" service by those persons who were invited to the gendarme service were also not isolated.
Sending the gendarme colonel I.P. Bibikov and the agent of the Third Department, Lieutenant I.V. Sherwood for a political survey of the southern provinces, January 13, 1827 Benckendorff gave them instructions, the text of which later became stencil. The first and most important point of this instruction from the subordinate chief of gendarmes demanded: "Pay special attention to what can happen without seizure in all parts of the administration and in all states and places of abuse, disorder and the law contrary to the law." The second point obliged "to observe so that the peace and rights of citizens could not be violated." Proceeding from the third point, the gendarme who was on the spot received the right to communicate with those local authorities in whose jurisdiction he had noticed the disturbances, "to anticipate them" and only in those cases if all his "harassment" "were in vain", to report them in the Third branch. The instructions especially drew the attention of the gendarmes to the following: "The purpose of your position should be, first of all, the prevention and removal of all evil." A very vague understanding of the struggle against "all evil" gave the gendarme officers a wide administrative scope, and their subordination to the distant chief of the district and the even more distant chief of gendarmes reliably ensured their independent position in the field.
The secret agents of the Third Section and the units of the Gendarme Corps on the ground covered the whole country with a network of regular political investigations. In a letter to Benckendorff dated August 14, 1826, M.Ya. von Fock states the scale of this process: "The activity of supervision is growing every day, and I hardly have enough time to accept and write down all the statements." Society instantly felt the surveillance that was total at that time, and already in the next month, September 24, 1826, critics "strongly revolt" against the system introduced by Nicholas I: sovereign ".
After the suppression of the Polish uprising on the territory of the Kingdom of Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire, in 1832, the sixth gendarme district was formed, which was under double subordination - the chief of the Gendarme Corps and the governor. In its main features, the gendarme structure was formed by July 1, 1836, when the Gendarme Corps was reorganized into the Separate Gendarme Corps (a military unit was considered a separate corps in Russia in the 19th century, in its legal status equated to the army) and the Siberian gendarme district. All seven districts were no longer divided into divisions; instead, gendarme headquarters officers were formed in each province, as a result of which the network of detective agencies became even denser. The economic support of the gendarme units from the Internal Guard Corps was taken over by the chief of the gendarmes, and the so-called "watch" of the corps was replaced by the headquarters. At the same time, the "Statute on the Gendarme Corps" was adopted. Finally, in December 1837, the eighth gendarme district, the Caucasian one, was formed, and in 1842 the Borisoglebsk regiment was transferred to the gendarmerie.
The unification of the Third Branch and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes into a single vertical of political investigation was ensured for many years by the fact that the same leader, A.Kh. Benckendorff (died 1844). However, the actual combination of both departments turned out to be so successful that personal union acquired the character of tradition and all Benckendorff's successors in the Third Division were also simultaneously appointed chiefs of the Separate Gendarme Corps. When the first structure was liquidated, the gendarmerie came under the authority of the Police Department, which became the successor to the Third Section as the leading body of state security.
Developed by A.Kh. Benckendorff, the internal structure of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes existed unchanged until its reorganization undertaken by P.A. Shuvalov in 1867. To further expand the network of gendarmes, the former district system territorial division was retained on the outskirts of the empire (Siberia, the Caucasus and the Kingdom of Poland), and in the rest of Russia the provincial gendarme offices became the main structural units. The activities of the ranks of the Gendarme Corps were regulated by special instructions. For example, the secret instruction of February 14, 1875 provided that it (this activity) “is presented in two forms: in the prevention and suppression different kinds crimes and violations of the law and under comprehensive supervision. The first of these types of activity is based on existing legislation, and all actions of the gendarmerie ranks in this regard are determined by the law on May 19, 1871. The second type ... cannot obey any specific rules, but, on the contrary, requires a certain amount of space, and then only meets limitations when the material obtained by observation passes to legal ground and is subject to evaluation, i.e. is already the subject of activity of the first type ”. In the same document, it was emphasized that the main task of the employees of the gendarme department was to uncover and pursue any attempts to “spread harmful doctrines tending to fluctuate the fundamental foundations of the state, public and family life. " The law of May 19, 1871, to which the instruction refers, provided the gendarmes with the right to "conduct inquiries about crimes of the state," and the gendarmes could deal with this "both at the suggestion of the prosecutor of the judicial chamber, or directly," putting the prosecutor in the latter case only in fame.
To ensure the fulfillment of the functions assigned to them, the offices of the gendarme offices began to be divided into the following parts: general management, search, investigative, political reliability and money. When a new type of transport - railroad - began to develop rapidly in Russia, it was also put under the control and protection of this department. In 1861, the first gendarme police department of the railway appeared in the country, and by 1895 their number had increased to 21. They had offices at all junction railway stations. Initially, these directorates were under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Railways, but in 1866 the Chief of Staff of the Corps P.A. Shuvalov seeks to transfer them under his command, reintroducing all the gendarme units and administrations into the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. During his leadership of this department (until 1874), measures were taken to increase the educational level of the gendarmes, as well as their material content. In this updated form, the Separate Gendarme Corps existed until the February Revolution of 1917, when it was liquidated.
In 1880, after the abolition of the Third Section, its functions were taken over by the Police Department. The gendarmes were not transferred to the subordination of the director of the Police Department. They have retained their special status and separate corpus structure. The head of the gendarme corps was entrusted to the Minister of the Interior. The assistant minister of the interior was the commander of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes. According to the decree of Emperor Alexander II, the gendarmes were also subordinate to the governors. A separate corps of gendarmes consisted of a headquarters (a general was appointed to the post of chief of staff, who continued to be listed on the General Staff), district, provincial, city and district gendarmes, gendarme police departments on the railways, gendarme divisions and city horse teams. In addition, there were also serf gendarme teams (this was the name of the gendarmes who guarded the fortresses) and field gendarme squadrons, which carried out military-police service in the areas where troops were located, both in peacetime and in wartime. The main task of the gendarmes was to suppress possible riots.
The performance of its duties by the Separate Corps of Gendarmes was sometimes accompanied by the collection of intelligence information, including military information. First of all, this applied to the gendarme offices in the border areas and the gendarme police departments of the railways, whose area of responsibility included the border posts. In some cases, the gendarme police departments of the railways were attracted by the peripheral military intelligence agencies to organize communications and the leadership of the covert agents at the headquarters of the military districts. The agreements signed with the governments of Austria-Hungary and Germany in the 90s contributed to the solution of intelligence tasks by the gendarmerie ranks. XIX century. The agreements dealt with establishing cooperation between the officers of the Separate Gendarme Corps with the Austrian and German authorities at the border points. However, the cooperation of the military department with the Separate Corps of Gendarmes in the collection of intelligence information was outlined only at the beginning of the XX century.
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