Books

Autocracy under Siege: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1866-1905
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1998).

This book explores the pivotal role played by the Imperial Russian security police under the last three emperors in the titanic struggle between the government and those dedicated to the overthrow of monarchical absolutism. From the first terrorist attempt on the life of a Russian emperor in 1866 through the seismic social upheaval of 1905, the steady growth of antigovernment activism and sentiment threatened the continued survival of the regime and compelled it to expand, improve, and refine its security police institutions.

Marshaling a wealth of evidence, including many recently declassified archival documents, my book provides the first comprehensive study in any language of late Imperial Russian security police institutions and operations from 1866 to 1905. Its main focus is the personnel, institutions, functions, methods, and effectiveness of the Imperial Russian security police. The security police, it is argued, attained a high level of professional competence by the turn of the century, thanks in large part to reforms undertaken by Sergei Zubatov. As a result of these reforms Social Democratic activists found it ever more difficult to connect with industrial workers. The security system even appeared poised to halt the most ominous threat to the regime--revolutionary terrorism. Yet in 1903, Zubatov was removed from office, and the entire administrative apparatus gradually fell into disarray. Thus, the regime lurched into 1905. Despite fitful efforts to reinvigorate the security system during the course of the year, the entire apparatus was overwhelmed by large-scale oppositional activity, and only the granting of major political concessions and the massive application of military force kept the regime from collapsing utterly at the end of the year.

The Watchful State: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1906-1917
(DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2004).

Why did the imperial Russian government fail to prevent revolution in 1917? Were its security policies flawed? This broadly researched study of Russia’s security police investigates the government’s efforts to maintain order as it struggled against political opposition and threats of violence during the last decade before the Revolution. Historian Jonathan Daly brings to life the men who, often with reformist intentions, took on the task of defending Russia against political dissent and revolution from within.

The Watchful State reveals how the security police matched wits with revolutionary activists under Russia’s first constitutional government, from1906 until the collapse of order in 1917. The secret police kept a watchful eye on a large number of the political activists who threatened the state order. Such constant scrutiny enabled the secret police frequently to disrupt plots against the government, to set snares to trap conspirators, and to hold the workers’ movement within bounds.

The security police rarely harassed liberal and moderate activists during the constitutional era, though the regular police administration was not so restrained. The two institutions of law enforcement worked together, forming a security system with one primary goal: to thwart social and political radicals seeking to undermine the political status quo.

Countless times, Russia narrowly escaped breakdowns of order, thanks to the intervention of the police who thwarted political assassinations, troop mutinies, and urban unrest. Yet security police activities were not without cost to the established order. As the educated public expanded and an awareness of civil society grew, the tolerance for secretive and often intrusive security apparatus waned. In its battle against its revolutionary adversaries, the late imperial government lost the broader struggle for the hearts and minds of Russians.