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Undercover Agents in
the Russian
Revolutionary
Movement
The SR Party, 1902-14
Nurit Schleifman
Lecturer in History
Tel-Aviv University
M
in association with
MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan
© Nurit Schleifman 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-43265-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1988
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
HoundmiIIs, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Schleifman, Nurit
Undercover agents in the Russian revolutionary
movement: the SR Party 1902-1914. - (St Antony's/MacmilIan)
1. Police - Soviet Union - Political activity -
History 2. Secret Service - Soviet Union -
History 3. Revolutionists - Soviet Union -
History 4. Soviet Union - Politics and government
- 1904-1914 5. Soviet Union - History -
1904-1914
I. Title II. St Antony's College III. Series
322.4'2'0947 HV8035
ISBN 978-1-349-09203-1 ISBN 978-1-349-09201-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-09201-7
To my mother
Contents
List of Tables Vlll
Preface ix
Acknowledgements XVI
Chronological Framework xvii
Introduction 1
1 The Challenge to the Police 12
(i) In Search of Means 12
(ii) The Secret Agent: Hopes and Risks 26
(iii) The Internal Agency in Action 45
2 The Revolutionary Response 74
(i) Denial of the Threat 74
(ii) The Unbottling of the Genie 82
3 Chain Reactions 119
(i) The Moral Issue 119
(ii) Provocation and Internal Strife 152
4 Exposures as a Political Tactic 178
Conclusion 194
Notes 199
Index 216
vii
List of Tables
1 Occupational structure of the secret agents within the SR
party compared to the general SR population, 1902-14 33
2 Occupational structure of the secret agents among the
Social Democrats compared to the general SD popu-
lation 34
3 National composition of the secret agents within the SR
party compared to the general SR population 34
4 National composition of the secret agents within the
Social Democrats compared to general SD population 35
5 Distribution of secret agents, 1902-14 54
6 Distribution of agents' wage levels according to party
affiliation, 1902-14 (in roubles) 61
7 Distribution of agents' wage levels according to party
affiliation, 1902-14 (in francs) 61
8 Example of wage levels in Russia at the beginning of the
twentieth century (in roubles p. a.) 62
9 Annual recruitment 64
10 Agents' party activity 67
11 Number of annual exposures compared to the number of
active agents in the same year 81
Vlll
Preface
The secret agent has been a constant figure in struggles between
regimes and their opponents. In the nineteenth century police pen
etration of subversive organizations was widespread, especially in the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, during the Metternich period, in the
France of Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III, and in Prussia under
Friedrich Wilhelm IV. However, while in those countries their use
was limited and temporary, in Russia it became the cornerstone of
the political police work. The contemporary revolutionaries were
aware of its unusual scope. Indeed, the secret agent of the Russian
political police was a permanent factor from the very outset of the
revolutionary movement, and one whose presence cannot be disre
garded in any study of its history.
The secret agent took part in the entire range of revolutionary
activity: in propagandizing and in agitation, in the publication of
underground periodicals, leaflets and pamphlets, and in terrorist
actions. He was a member of commissions and committees of all
types and at all levels, from the local organization to the central party
committees, and was even to be found on commissions of inquiry that
investigated suspected traitors to the party. His imprint is striking in
the letters and memoirs of revolutionaries, and in the revolutionary
press which constantly reported the exposure of secret agents. Every
movement or party was infiltrated by secret agents; all of them had to
cope with the phenomenon sooner or later.
At the same time, contradiction exists between the secret agent's
prominence in revolutionary life, and the place of betrayal in the
collective consciousness of the generation; the revolutionaries were
not preoccupied with betrayal but with the betrayer. Their memoirs
depict the exposure of agents as a rationale for a defeat or the failure
of a revolutionary initiative; their letters bear witness to their im
mense personal grief when a comrade was exposed as a traitor.
In only one case did the issue surface as a major phenomenon with
an impact on the life of the revolutionaries, with the exposure of
Evno Azef, a widely acclaimed member of the SR leadership. Azef
was a secret agent for about 15 years. He began his activity before the
foundation of the SR party and by 1901 had already acquired a
position of prominence that made him instrumental in the formation
of the united party. Following the arrest of Grigorii Gershuni in 1903
lX
X Preface
he succeeded him as the head of the Battle Organization and in this
capacity was also appointed member of the Central Committee. For
as long as five years he turned in scores of revolutionaries and at the
same time organized assassinations which caused a sensation
throughout the world. Prominent examples are the murder of the
Minister of the Interior V. von Plehve and that of the Grand Duke
Sergei Alexandrovich. In 1908 he instigated an attempt on the life of
the Tsar, but was not responsible for its failure.
Throughout the years the SRs received several warnings about
Azefs true role but these were stubbornly rejected as being police
intrigues. Vladimir Burtsev, an independent revolutionary firmly
convinced of Azefs guilt and aided by Mikhail Bakai, a police
defector, led the struggle for Azef's exposure. This brought him into
severe conflict with the party leadership which firmly supported Azef
and sued Burtsev before a revolutionary court of honour. During the
trial Burtsev managed to meet with Alexander Lopukhin, a former
Director of the Police Department, who confirmed the allegations.
Lopukhin later repeated these accusations to a dumbfounded del
egation of the party leadership. Azef succeeded in escaping. In 1912
he contacted his former colleagues from his hiding place, offering to
stand trial before the Party on condition that his safety was guaran
teed pending the outcome. 1 The affair rocked the SR party and the
entire revolutionary movement. Yet in the discussion that followed
the point of departure was generally apologetic or rhetorical and
focused primarily on the problem as it existed in the rival political
camp. Despite their sense of the pervasiveness of the secret agent,
the revolutionaries did not seriously ask themselves what part the
police were actually playing in revolutionary developments. Did they
deliberately use agents in order to influence the revolutionary process
on the basis of a defined policy, or was the effect achieved uninten
tionally simply through the agents' very presence in the revolutionary
movement? Beyond referring to the subject for purposes of political
backbiting, the revolutionaries also failed to consider seriously what
conditions the secret agents needed and whether these differed from
one movement to another; nor did they draw the operational conclu
sions which might have resulted from replies to these questions.
The revolutionaries' tendency to avoid the full import of this topic
is perhaps understandable, since it undermined their revolutionary
credibility in their own eyes and vis-a-vis their adversaries, while they
themselves came across as tools in the hands of the police. This being
so, they preferred to regard the plethora of secret agents in their
