3 department of own office. His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery

See also in the Presidential Library:

Complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire. Sobr. 2nd. SPb., 1830. T. 1. No. 449. S. 665-666 ;

His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery // Encyclopedic Dictionary / Ed. prof. I. E. Andreevsky. T. 30a. SPb., 1900. S. 653-657 .

190 years ago - July 3, 1826 - by personal decree of NicholasIwas createdIII Branch of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery, the main task of which was political investigation.

Ranks of the Life Guards of the Gendarmerie half-squadron. Hood. A.I. gobens

In 1880, under the peals of the Narodnaya Volya terror, publicist and publisher Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov issued a verdict to Section III:

“That this institution was useless is loudly evidenced by the history of recent times: it did not prevent anything, did not stop anything, and the evil with which it was called upon to fight, not only did not decrease, but increased and intensified. Upon closer examination, it will turn out that it was not only useless against evil, but itself contributed to its development. Then, in 1880, it seemed that the whole society enthusiastically met the decree on the abolition of the discredited department, which the opponents of the authorities (for example, Alexander Herzen) and even called the "central office of espionage".

However, already in March 1881, a few days after the death Alexander II, Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev received a project to recreate the III Branch under a new name - the Supreme Committee. An anonymous author recalled that the III Department "during the first 20 years of its existence had mandatory supervision of the ministers and made them de facto responsible, if not in the face of the law, then in front of the emperor's person."

Reaction to the rebellion

In the last years of the reign Alexander I the powers of the higher police were delegated to the Special Chancellery of the Ministry of the Interior, which, however, did not interfere with the functioning of the secret police at the headquarters of the Guards Corps, in the Second Army and the southern military settlements. In addition, the Conservation Committee established in 1807 continued to operate. general security; finally, the chief of the Separate Corps of Military Settlements had their own secret agents A.A. Arakcheev and St. Petersburg military governor general M.A. Miloradovich.

However, despite the abundance of secret services, the activities of the Decembrist circles were never stopped. Therefore, when in January 1826, immediately after the Decembrist uprising, Lieutenant General Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf, who was one of the most trusted persons of Nicholas I, proposed to reorganize the political police department in such a way that it "subjected to a system of strict centralization" and "embraced all points Empire", the young emperor instructed him to draw up a detailed draft of the corresponding reform. A little later, he entrusted the leadership of the new department.

Subsequently, Nikolai Pavlovich strictly adhered to the principle of unity of command in matters of political investigation. So, in the summer of 1828, when the sovereign went to the theater of military operations with Turkey, the Minister of the Interior A.A. Zakrevsky offered to temporarily resume the work of the Special Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but received a rebuke from Benckendorff:

“The Sovereign Emperor does not allow this at all, this is contrary to the intentions of His Majesty and exceeds the power of the Minister of the Interior, and, finally, the Sovereign Emperor, having the highest police under my command, forbids the education of any other.”

Nicholas I preferred to remove the secret police department from the ministerial system. “The highest police power in its narrow, basic sense should flow from the person of the monarch himself and spill over into all branches state structure", - wrote then the closest assistant to Benckendorff, the former director of the Special Chancellery Maxim Yakovlevich von Fock.

A nominal decree on the establishment of the III Department of the Imperial Chancellery followed on July 3, 1826 - a few days before the execution of the Decembrists.

This building on the Moika in the 1830s housedIIIDepartment of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery

The basis of the staff of the new department (15 out of 16 officials) were employees of the abolished Special Office. Benckendorff was appointed chief commander, and von Fock - manager of the III Section. By 1842, the staff of the department had grown to 30 people, and its official expenses exceeded 120 thousand rubles a year. But organizationally, the III Branch was still a small office, whose officials served in one position for decades and did not transfer to other departments.

Expeditions and forwarders

Cases in the III Branch were conducted on four expeditions. The first was responsible for “all items of the highest surveillance police”, “observation of the general opinion and the people's spirit”, the collection of “detailed information about all people under police supervision, the expulsion and placement of suspicious and harmful persons”. This expedition was supposed to prevent evil intentions against the emperor, to seek secret societies; cases of abuses in state institutions, during recruiting, in elections to noble assemblies passed through her.

The competence of the second expedition included “news of discoveries on counterfeit banknotes, coins, stamps, documents”, observation of sects, obtaining information about various inventions and improvements, consideration of complaints on family matters, as well as questions of the personnel of the III Division. Later, she was also assigned to oversee four prisons for state criminals.

The third expedition controlled the passage of foreigners to Russia, monitored their stay and dealt with the issues of expulsion. Finally, the fourth expedition was in charge of "all incidents in general in the state", that is, it presented to the highest discretion the monthly statistics of epidemics, fires, unrest and murders in the provinces. In 1842, the fifth expedition appeared, which included censorship cases, mainly in the theater.

Portrait of A.Kh. Benckendorff, Chief ExecutiveIIIBranches, the chief of gendarmes, in the form of the Life Guards of the Gendarme half-squadron. Hood. E.I. Botman

A small apparatus of officials prepared notes to the chief commander of the III Section, as well as all-subject reports. The number of incoming papers from other departments was constantly growing: from 198 in 1826 to 2564 in 1840, and this is not counting the numerous complaints and petitions of private individuals, perusal materials, reports of agents and gendarmerie officers.

The agent network of the III Branch in Nikolaev time was unbranched: the sphere of its attention was limited mainly to the two capitals and the Caucasus. There were no special instructions for agents. Uncomplicated methods of their work official at large ON THE. Kashintsev described it like this:

“Comprehending the sublime significance of useful observations, I am ready to continue it with zeal, to report everything that reaches me, reporting, as always, sincerely: what is mine is mine, what is reported is someone else’s; that the truth is true, that a rumor is a rumor. I can’t answer for someone else’s and for hearing, but if I wrote that it’s true, then believe that this is true according to the incident.

Investigations based on intelligence reports were rarely carried out. Benckendorff himself was of the opinion that secret agents could not serve as the main source of information for the high police. In 1832, he opposed the establishment of secret agents in Warsaw because " common ways As for the secret supervision of the morality and behavior of people, they consist in bringing closer to themselves the most well-meaning of them and enjoying general trust, who usually act on the indicated occasion not out of self-interest, but only out of noble competition for the public good.

At the same time, during the reign of Nikolaev, the network of perusal points at post offices was strengthened, which had existed since Catherine II. In the second quarter of the 19th century, such “black cabinets” operated in five to eight cities, while extracts from opened letters began to flock to the III Department.

Corps of gendarmes

The most important component of the reform of the secret department was the subordination Head III Branches of the paramilitary police - formed in 1826-1827 of the Corps of gendarmes.

The corps included provincial, port and fortress gendarmerie teams, gendarmerie divisions in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and a little later, the Life Guards Gendarme half-squadron and Gendarme regiment (army police) - in total over 4 thousand combat ranks. According to the "Regulations on the Corps of Gendarmes" of 1836, these teams were engaged in the capture of thieves, the pursuit of robbers, the pacification of "disobedience and riots", the detention of fugitives and deserters, the escort of recruits, criminals, prisoners and prisoners. All this was not directly related to the affairs of the higher police, but related to the traditional occupations of the “classical”, Napoleonic gendarmerie, according to the model of which the paramilitary police in the first half of the 19th century was also formed in Spain, Italy and some German states.

Portrait of Major General L.V. Dubelt, Chief of Staff of the Gendarme Corps. Hood. A.V. Tyranov

Meanwhile, at the same time, according to the project of Benckendorff, who in June 1826 was approved as chief of the gendarmes, the European part of Russia was divided into five gendarmerie districts with headquarters in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vitebsk, Kyiv and Kazan. By the end of the 1830s, the gendarmerie network covered the entire empire, including Siberia, the Kingdom of Poland and Transcaucasia, although the last two districts were primarily subordinate to the governors. By the mid-1830s, a separate gendarmerie headquarters officer was sent to each province. It was on these officials that the tasks of the higher police were assigned.

To guide the provincial staff officers, Benckendorff drew up two secret instructions. The idea of ​​​​establishing the Gendarme Corps was defined by his boss as follows:

"To affirm the well-being and tranquility of all estates in Russia, to see them protected by laws and to restore perfect justice in all places and authorities."

To do this, the staff officer was charged with the duty to pay Special attention to "abuses, disorders and acts contrary to the law", to ensure that the rights of subjects are not violated by "anyone's personal power or the predominance of powerful persons." And of course, the staff officer should always remember the main wish of the chief:

“The purpose of your office should be, first of all, the prevention and removal of all evil.”

The instruction - a kind of "moral code of the gendarme" - soon began to go from hand to hand. The opposition-minded writer Mikhail Dmitriev recalled how he "got, with great difficulty, the instructions that Benckendorff gave to his secret agents." “The purpose of the institution was to secretly seek out the guilty and the right, the vicious and the virtuous, in order to punish the former and reward the latter, especially to prosecute bribe-takers,” the memoirist noted. “And this right of the gendarmes was based ... on their own virtue and on the purity of their hearts, probably on the assumption that anyone who puts on a blue uniform of heavenly color immediately becomes an angel in the flesh!” A secret wagon that delivered two exiled Poles to Irkutsk, 6,000 miles from St. Petersburg. Hood. EAT. Korneev

For his part, journalist and writer Faddey Bulgarin, who actively collaborated with the III Department, already in February 1827 reported to Benckendorff: “The instruction to the gendarmes goes from hand to hand. It is called the charter of the Welfare Union. It surprised and delighted me."

The legend of the handkerchief

At the same time, the authorities gave a certain signal to society: gendarmerie officers should be perceived as conductors of the will of the emperor, standing up for the defense of justice and called upon to help everyone whose rights are violated. Not by chance wide use received the "legend of the scarf", which at first existed in the gendarmerie environment. This story is beautiful.

“The sovereign, in response to the chief’s repeated request for instructions, instead of an answer, once gave him a white handkerchief, saying: “Do not miss the opportunity to wipe the tears of the unfortunate and offended - here is an instruction for you.”

The gendarmerie officers also sought to imbue themselves with the spirit of the lofty mission ahead of them. For example, in January 1830, the then retired colonel Leonty Vasilyevich Dubelt wrote to his wife:

““Don’t be a gendarme,” you say, but do you understand ... the essence of the matter. If, when I join the corps of gendarmes, I become an informer, an earphone, then my good name will, of course, be tarnished. But if, on the contrary, I ... will be the support of the poor, the protection of the unfortunate; if, acting openly, I will force justice to be given to the oppressed, I will see that in the places of justice a direct and fair direction is given to grave cases - then what will you call me? excellent, the most noble? Reception Count A.Kh. Benckendorff. Unknown artist. Late 1820s

Benckendorff's colleague during the years Napoleonic Wars, Decembrist prince Sergei Volkonsky claimed that the idea of ​​creating such a "cohort of good-minded people" visited Benckendorff in France. Even the Soviet historian Nathan Eidelman drew attention to the fact that “Benckendorff called almost “everyone” to his department and was especially pleased with yesterday’s freethinkers, who, he knew, were smarter, livelier than their tongue-tied antipodes, and would serve better if they went.”

When selecting gendarmerie ranks, the stake was placed on the participants of the Napoleonic Wars, known for their military merits. As the gendarmerie general of the early 20th century wrote Alexander Ivanovich Spiridovich:

“What other environment could give an appropriate contingent of people to carry out such a lofty task? Only the Russian army, for the most part, has always served faithfully to its sovereigns.

The competence and duties of the provincial headquarters officers, even in a secret document, were formulated very vaguely, and therefore their official position turned out to be peculiar. Not having legally defined powers, the gendarmes could not give orders or orders to local authorities and even demand files and certificates from provincial state institutions. But through their boss, they had a direct channel of communication with the emperor. At the same time, the vagueness of the gendarmerie's powers was part of the general plan of the "cohort of good-minded people."

“The power of the gendarmes,” Benckendorff wrote in 1842, “in my opinion, should not be executive, “its actions should be limited to observations alone, and here the more independent they are, the more they can be useful ... Gendarmes should be ... like envoys in foreign powers: if possible, see everything, know everything and not interfere in anything.

So if you call the provincial headquarters officers the political police, then we must not forget that they acted quite openly (hence the “blue uniforms”) and did not receive funds to create an agent network in Nikolaev time.

Channel feedback

Nicholas I demanded vigilant supervision of the exiled Decembrists, guards, students and circles of writers from the supreme police. In the second quarter of the 19th century, the famous cases of the students of the brothers passed through the first expedition of the III Branch. Peter, Michael And Basil of Crete, Cup Nikolai Sungurov, “About persons who sang libelous verses” (that is, the first case of Alexander Herzen and Nikolai Ogarev), about the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. The vast majority of such cases concerned Poles - participants in the uprising and exiles, but in common row archive folders of the III Division, political affairs did not occupy the first place.

The sphere of interests of the higher police gradually emerged. Over the years, the III Branch has become a kind of receiving power or, as they say now, a feedback channel between the government and society.

With the expansion of university education and the formation of the intelligentsia, public opinion turned into a factor in political life. The first chief of the gendarmes considered it absolutely necessary that the government exert a deliberate influence on public sentiment. “Public opinion is for the authorities what a topographic map is for the commander of the army during the war,” we read in the very first report of the III Division.

The printed word became the main channel for the development of public opinion, and the high police could not stay away from the literary process of the era. The censorship and even repressive measures of the III Division in this area have been thoroughly studied, but there was another aspect of the participation of the high police in literary affairs.

So, the secretary of Benckendorff was the prose writer and poet A.A. Ivanovsky, and the writer V.A. Vladislavlev; officials of the III Branch in the 1840s were the poet V.E. Verderevsky, writer P.P. Kamensky, son of the director of the Imperial Theaters M.A. Gideon. The department on the Fontanka used the services of the "Northern Bee" F.V. Bulgarin and N.I. Grech and actively collaborated with a number of publications. Articles and notes commissioned by the III Branch were written by N.A. Polevoy, M.N. Zagoskin, P.A. Vyazemsky, A.S. Pushkin and N.V. Gogol.

However, the "literary aristocracy" strove for greater independence. In 1831, Pushkin made a proposal to the chief of the gendarmes: “I would gladly take up the editorial office of a political journal ... Around him I would connect writers with talents and thus bring useful people closer to the government, who are still savage, in vain believing it to be hostile to enlightenment". But this idea never caught on.

Benckendorff, who simultaneously served as commander of the Imperial Headquarters from 1826, accompanied the sovereign on all his trips around Russia and Europe. On such journeys, subjects of the Russian Empire often filed complaints, petitions and notes to the highest name. These papers then fell into the III Division: they were sorted and transferred to the responsible departments, and the III Division controlled the outcome of the case.

On the intricacies of the bureaucratic system

It was clear to Nicholas I that he inherited from his older brother an old problem - the disorder of the central and local government apparatus. He was worried that the strengthening bureaucracy was gathering all the threads of control in its hands, while a “bureaucratic mediastinum” was growing between the highest power and subjects. III Division reported to Nikolai about the officials:

“It is they who rule, and not only individual, the largest of them, but, in essence, everything, since they know all the subtleties of the bureaucratic system.”

In this situation, the III Division and the gendarmes were tasked with collecting information about the central departments and provincial officials (especially in remote provinces) and supervising their activities. Observant "Decembrist without December" Nikolay Turgenev noted in this regard that "the need for secret supervision is characteristic of almost all autocratic sovereigns and can only be explained by complete ignorance of what is happening around."

In February 1832, all provincial staff officers received a secret circular, which ordered “to pay the most vigilant attention to those gentlemen of officials, landowners, merchants and other classes who, by their rank, or wealth, connections, intelligence, enlightenment, or other virtues, have bad or good influence on others and even on high-ranking officials. Vedomosti had to be submitted twice a year: tacit supervision of the provincial bureaucracy took on a systematic character.

Politician landlords. Hood. K.A. Trutovsky

A huge file cabinet has gathered in the III Section: many gendarmerie characteristics of the officials of the empire make it possible to "materialize" the world of Gogol's "Inspector General". For example, the chairman of the Yaroslavl Treasury Chamber “is not content with the benefits of his place, which, so to speak, are consecrated by time and, as it were, included in the permanent budget, but concentrated in his hands the entire revenue part of the departments of the chamber, thus depriving the advisers of most of the benefits that they could use it." The emperor learned the following about the Kazan governor, Major General Albert Karlovich Pirkh:

“The governor does not have the proper respect. I would not dare to rely on rumors for such a respectful person in the province, but I myself am an eyewitness to everything; except for the daily dinners for the merchants, and after dinner at the theater, he is also burdened with hibernation. It is impossible to be in time with such a life in business.

Cases of abuse that required an immediate response were reported by the gendarmes in urgent reports. According to Benckendorff's report, Nicholas I could immediately make an administrative decision - to transfer, remove or bring an official to court. But more often the notes were handed over to the responsible ministry, after which there was a long interdepartmental correspondence, the outcome of which was difficult to predict. However, to clarify all the circumstances, the emperor could send auditors to the province. As a result of gendarmerie reports in Nikolaev time, more than ten governors and hundreds of officials of various ranks were fired. The conflict with local gendarmes cost positions to higher-ranking officials, in particular, the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia V.Ya. Rupert and Governor-General of Western Siberia P.D. Gorchakov.

The nature of gendarmerie supervision is illustrated by the case of the Orenburg civil governor I.D. Talyzin. In 1841, the local gendarmerie headquarters officer accused the governor of numerous abuses, as well as drunkenness and obscene behavior. The head of the Kazan gendarme district, however, denied this information. The secret police were in trouble. “Being misled, which of the aforementioned information that has come down to me, contradicting one another, to believe,” Benckendorff asked for the opinion of the Orenburg military governor, Lieutenant General V.A. Perovsky.

Perovsky took the side of Talyzin, but the gendarmerie officer presented a new note about the governor's riotous lifestyle. The matter was reported to the emperor. To clarify all the circumstances, Nicholas I sent a senator-auditor to Orenburg, who eventually accused the gendarme of spreading ridiculous rumors (“instead of taking care, as a gendarmerie headquarters officer, to eliminate any grumbling and distrust of the government”). The gendarme was immediately dismissed. Years later, already as a private person, he became aware of facts confirming Talyzin's abuses and pointing to the bias of the senatorial report, and this time the new military governor of Orenburg did not defend the civil governor. A resolution was preserved in the margins of the note of the former gendarme Alexei Fedorovich Orlov, chief of the gendarmes since 1845:

“It’s a pity, my heart hurts, but it’s impossible to help.”

Knowing well the inner workings of the capital's ministries and departments, the chief of gendarmes, through his most loyal reports and notes, had a direct influence on personnel policy emperor. Benckendorff was behind a number of important reshuffles, for example, the resignation of the Minister of the Interior A.A. Zakrevsky and Minister of Justice A.A. Dolgorukov, as well as for the appointment of S.S. Uvarov.

"Moral police chiefs"

According to the results of observations, the gendarmes transferred to the III Department and various projects - from the provincial reform to the wine farming reform. Thus, a unique array of information about the internal state of the empire has accumulated in the III Division. Based on these materials, officers of the highest police compiled annual all-subject reports, which have long attracted the attention of historians with non-trivial judgments about the political and public life countries (among them one of the most famous - "serfdom is a powder magazine under the state").

It is worth noting that the political police department was the least bureaucratic institution in the management system created by Nicholas I. For example, in 1848, gendarmerie colonel A.V. Vasiliev did not hesitate in a memorandum to accuse his own boss L.V. of abuses. Dubelt. And for Vasiliev, this trick remained without consequences.

The published notes of the Simbirsk staff officer serve as a good illustration. Erasmus Ivanovich Stogov. He happened to be engaged in the reconciliation of the bride and groom, amicably solve stories with gambling losses; he once stood up for a local architect who had been kicked out of his house by the governor. With regard to the employees of the judicial chambers, Stogov acted as follows:

“... secretaries, head clerks, assessors and the like came across complaints: they take bribes - take them, God bless them, they are nettle seeds, otherwise they are greedy, they will take from one and take from the enemy, the offended side complains.<…>A guilty person comes, I say in the most affectionate way that I am at a loss in one matter and turn to his experience; I ask for his advice and invite him to the office, lock the doors - and there is already an explanation, from which three soaps will come off your head! Seeing cowardice and remorse, a promise to immediately return the money and an oath not to do this again - leaving the office, I politely thank him for his smart and experienced advice. Things did not go further than the cabinet. I do not remember the case that there were repeat offenders. The goal was achieved without insult. Stogov himself called himself a "moral police chief."

There was no secret police in this form anywhere in the world; its indispensable feature was the absolute, unshakable trust of the tsar in the chief of the gendarmes - the entire system of secret supervision was built "under Benckendorff." So, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, after a long conversation with Nicholas I, wrote in his diary: the emperor "believes that Benckendorff cannot be deceived."

The role of the III Branch decreased already under Alexei Orlov, who was also the closest friend and right hand of Nicholas I, but was rather cool about the affairs of the higher police. And during the reign of Alexander II, six chiefs of the highest police managed to change. By this time, their status in the informal court hierarchy had become incomparably lower. With the weakening of government control of the press and with the Zemstvo reform of the 1860s, the secret supervision III The departments behind the provincial administration and society already looked like an obvious anachronism: indeed, it would be extremely difficult to imagine the chief of gendarmes of the era of Alexander II as the personal censor of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy or Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The provincial gendarmes, in turn, turned out to be ill-prepared to confront the underground circles of revolutionaries.

Returning to words Mikhail Katkov, it is worth mentioning that at the end of his invective against Section III, he quite rightly added: "It had a meaning and could act in its meaning when it was part of the system corresponding to it." By and large, the system that Katkov wrote about collapsed with the death of Nicholas I. The III Branch never managed to get out from under its rubble.

Grigory Bibikov,
Candidate of Historical Sciences

STOGOV E.I.. Notes of the gendarmerie headquarters officer of the era of Nicholas I. M., 2003
Bibikov G.N. OH. Benckendorff and the policy of Emperor Nicholas I. M., 2009
Oleinikov D.I. Benkendorf. M., 2009 (ZhZL series)

© 2003. O.V. Zaitsev

THE ORIGIN OF THE III DEPARTMENT OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OWN OFFICE

Most historians express their negative attitude towards such a state body of the time of Nicholas I as the III Branch of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. Without idealizing the very activities of the III Section, we will nevertheless try to more objectively understand the reasons for its appearance as a body of police supervision. That is why we turn to the historiography of this issue.

I. Trotsky in his work “The III Division under Nicholas I” notes that “the reign that began in the roar of the December cannons, first of all, attended to the reorganization of police surveillance. This is how the III Branch arose. So, one of the reasons for the creation of this body is considered the uprising of the Decembrists.

Historian L.E. Shepelev names another reason. He claims that " the most important task Its leaders considered the third branch to be "the suppression of the intrigues of the bureaucracy." Concern about the state of the bureaucracy was caused by two circumstances. On the one hand, the fact that in connection with the introduction of a ministerial system in the country at the beginning of the century, the number of civil servants increased sharply due to representatives of social groups who did not have the right to public service. On the other hand, the somewhat increased education of officials and their aggravation of their critical attitude to the realities of that time. Thus, the second reason that prompted the government to create a police body is concern about the state of the service environment.

Interestingly, the researcher D.V. Rats, speaking about the reasons for the establishment of the III Department, is close to the point of view of I. Trotsky and L.E. Shepeleva: “The III Section was created as a body of “quick response” to complaints, harassment, bribery, arbitrariness of the administration. It is quite natural that Nicholas I and Benckendorff also included measures to protect the existing system in this concept: monitoring revolutionary figures and organizations, monitoring foreigners, religious sects, etc.”

In other words, the III Section was to become a hundred-eyed Argus, who is aware of all social and political affairs.

Contemporaries of Nicholas I also mention the reasons for the establishment of the III Branch. Even the main associate of Nicholas I, the chief of gendarmes Benckendorff, explained the reasons for the establishment of the III Department in this way: “Emperor Nicholas sought to eradicate the abuses that had crept into many parts of the government, and was convinced from a suddenly discovered conspiracy that stained the first minutes of the new reign with blood, of the need for a more vigilant ubiquitous supervision, which would eventually flow into one focus;

the sovereign chose me to form the highest police, which would patronize the downtrodden and watch the evil intentions and people prone to them.

Indeed, the Decembrist uprising was the immediate reason for the formation of the new police department.

In his project on the organization of the higher police, Count A. Benckendorff wrote: “The events of December 14 and the terrible conspiracy that has been preparing these events for more than 10 years, fully prove the insignificance of our police and the need to organize a new police power according to a deliberate plan, given as quickly as possible. into execution."

But at the same time, he points out that "the secret police is almost unthinkable, honest people are afraid of her, and idlers easily get used to her."

Thus, the police was to become a public body of the state, acting on the instructions of the government and on behalf of it.

And then the Count remarks: “In order for the police to be good and embrace all points of the empire, it is necessary that it obey a system of strict centralization, that it be feared and respected, and that this respect be inspired by the moral qualities of its chief commander.

He should have the title of Minister of Police and Inspector of the Corps of Gendarmes in the capital and in the provinces. This title alone would give him the opportunity to use the opinions of honest people who would like to warn the government about some conspiracy or tell him some interesting news.

On April 12, 1826, Nicholas I submitted the project to the adjutant generals I.I. Dibich and P.A. Tolstoy. Thus, Benckendorff's project was the basis for a new organization of political investigation and investigation, as well as the political police (gendarmerie). Nicholas I went further and found it more convenient to establish not an ordinary "Ministry of Police", but a department of higher government agency- Own e.i. in. office.

In addition, in general, the original purpose of this institution was to monitor the misconduct of officials and punish them, in addition to clerical delay, by surprise and speed. Following the Polish uprising (1831), a distortion of the original thought began.

The "Instruction of Count Benckendorff to an official of the Third Section" is known. According to I. Trotsky, the main task of the instruction is, in addition to the suppression of all "abuses, disorders and illegal actions", the fight against bureaucracy. “How many deeds,” the chief of gendarmes enthusiastically recites in his instructions, “how many lawless and endless hardships can be stopped through yours, how many malicious people, eager to take advantage of their neighbor’s property, will be afraid to put their pernicious intentions into action when they are certified,

that the direct and shortest path to the patronage of His Imperial Majesty has been paved for the innocent victims of their greed. On the contrary, it is necessary to highlight the work of honest and blameless officials: “Even by your own inclination of your heart, you will try to find out where there are official people, completely poor or orphans, serving disinterestedly by faith and truth, who cannot even earn a living by one salary, - about such you have to provide me with detailed information to provide them with possible benefits and thereby fulfill the sacred will of His Imperial Majesty on this subject to find modest faithful servants.

It should be noted that the fight against the bureaucratic system was taken seriously by the III Division. This system, especially developed in the reign of Alexander I, in connection with the complicated structure of social life, by that time had developed into a fairly strong and wide, although not very slender, building. Contemporaries, accustomed to personify the causes of social phenomena, associated the growth of bureaucracy with the activities of Speransky: “In Speransky’s office, in his living room, in his society ... a completely new estate, hitherto unknown, was born, which is constantly multiplying, one can say, as now it covers the entire Russia - the class of bureaucrats. Officials multiplied in such myriad numbers that special state-owned cities appeared, the highest circle of which consisted exclusively of officials, - one of these cities belonged to the one bred by Gogol in The Inspector General, whose only non-serving nobles were, apparently, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky. Along with the growth of the apparatus, the confusion of the relationships between its individual parts grew, and the number of abuses also grew.

The fact that the III Division took seriously the task assigned to it in the field of control is evidenced by the correspondence between Fock and Benckendorff that has come down to us during the latter's stay at the coronation in Moscow. Speaking about internal disorders, Fok writes in a letter dated September 17, 1826: “... city government should know the laws and be as impartial as they are. Yes, this, I will say, is the plan of the republic de Moras. Let's say so, but this is not a reason for refusing to improve the police department.

In the next letter, he agrees with the rumors going around the city: “The bureaucracy, they say, is a gnawing worm that should be destroyed by fire and iron; otherwise, neither personal security nor the implementation of the most good and well-thought-out intentions are possible, which, of course, are contrary to the interests of this hydra, more dangerous than the fabulous hydra. She is insatiable; it is an abyss that grows wider as more victims arrive... The persecution begun for this purpose is as useful as it is necessary; everyone agrees on this…” However, the old campaigner, who had both the time and the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the bureaucratic

nism, looked at the possibility of success of the launched campaign rather skeptically. “To suppress the intrigues of the bureaucracy,” he notes in one of the previous letters, “is a beneficial intention; but the farther you advance, the more you meet the guilty, so that, due to their sheer number, they will go unpunished. At the very least, their persecution will be more difficult and inevitably imbued with the nature of gossip.

Thus, the III Branch "should have served as a direct continuation of the will of the emperor, had to remove bureaucratic barriers between the monarch and subjects, free the head of state from dependence in terms of information from high-ranking bureaucracy" .

control tool supreme power The political police and the repressive apparatus as a whole have been behind the ruling stratum and society throughout history. Such a body of control over the activities of officials under Nicholas I becomes the III Branch of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery.

Literature

1. TrotskyI. III Branch under Nicholas I. L., 1990. S. 151.

2. Shepelev L.E. Official world Russia XVIII - early XIX centuries SPb., 1999. S. 79.

3. Rats D.V. Negatively kind person // Torch: Ist.-rev. almanac. M., 1990. S. 48.

4. Gershenzon M.O. Nicholas I and his era. M., 2001. S. 163 - 165. Russian antiquity. 1900, December.

5. Eroshkin N.P. Feudal autocracy and its political institutions. M., 1981. S. 161.

6. Russian archive. 1889.II(7). S. 389.

7. Essays on Russian culture of the XIX century. T. 2: Power and culture. M., 2000. S. 25.

8. Goman-Golutvina O. Bureaucracy and oligarchy in the historical and political perspective // ​​Russia -21. 2000. No. 6. P. 105.

THE THIRD DIVISION OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OWN OFFICE - in the Russian Empire - an organ of political investigation and investigation. It was created by Emperor Nicholas I in 1826. The third department was led by the chief chief (he was also the chief of the gendarmes) and (he was also the chief of staff of the gendarme corps in 1839-1871). The executive bodies of the Third Branch were the institutions and military units of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes (see). The third department consisted of 5 expeditions, a general archive, 2 secret archives and a printing house. The 1st - secret, was in charge of monitoring revolutionary and public organizations and figures, conducted inquiries on political matters, compiled annual "Action Reports" for the Emperor - reviews of public opinion and the political life of the country, the 2nd expedition carried out religious sects, and tzh. collected information about inventions, counterfeiters, was in charge of the Peter and Paul and Shlisselburg fortresses, the 3rd expedition monitored foreigners living in Russia, collected information about the political situation, revolutionary parties and organizations of foreign states, the 4th expedition collected information about the peasant movement and events government on the peasant question, about all the incidents in the country, about the views of the harvest, etc. (it was abolished in 1872, and its affairs were transferred to the 1st and 2nd expeditions), the 5th expedition was in charge of censorship and monitored periodic publications (since 1865, these functions were transferred to the Main Directorate for Press of the Ministry of Internal Affairs). In the conditions of the revolutionary situation of the late 70s - early 80s. The third branch turned out to be ineffective in the fight against the revolutionary movement, and went to the creation of special interdepartmental bodies with emergency powers (Supreme Administrative, etc.). The third branch was liquidated in 1880, and its functions were transferred to the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Economics and law: a dictionary-reference book. - M.: University and school. L. P. Kurakov, V. L. Kurakov, A. L. Kurakov. 2004 .

See what the "THIRD DIVISION OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S OWN OFFICE" is in other dictionaries:

Body of political supervision and investigation in Russia in 1826 80. executive body there was a separate corps of gendarmes, the chief of which headed the Third Section. After the abolition, the functions were transferred to the Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Political Science: Dictionary ... ... Political science. Dictionary.

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III.4.4.5. Third branch of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (1826 - 1880)- ⇑ III.4.4. Bodies of political investigation Chief managers and chiefs of the Gendarme Corps: Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf (1826-44). Alexey Fedorovich Dolgorukov (1856 66). Petr Andreevich Shuvalov (1866-74). Alexander Lvovich Potapov (1874-76). Nicholas ... Rulers of the World

Higher government agency in the Russian Empire. Originated at the end of the 18th century. as the personal office of Emperor Paul I. It received nationwide functions in 1812. To conduct business on various industries office management... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

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Third branch- His Imperial Majesty's own Chancellery, the highest body of the political police, was created by Emperor Nicholas I in July 1826 (after the defeat of the Decembrist uprising). Consisted of 5 (up to 1841 of 4) expeditions, general and 2 secret archives and ... ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

His Imperial Majesty's own chancellery was the organ of political supervision and investigation in Russia in 1826 80. The executive body was the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, the chief of which headed the Third Section. After the abolition of the functions transferred to ... ... Big encyclopedic Dictionary

His Imperial Majesty's own chancellery, body of political supervision and investigation. Created in 1826 on the initiative of A. Kh. Benckendorff after the defeat of the Decembrist movement. The executive body was the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, whose chief ... ... Russian history