Russia under the Old regime

4.

Siberian exile, and hard labour, the political police apparatus could partly or fully isolate dissidents from the rest of society;

6. No literature could be published in Russia or enter it from abroad without the censor's permission;

7. The Minister of the Interior had the authority to declare any region of the empire under Reinforced Safeguard, in which event normal laws and institutions were suspended and the entire population became subject to martial law; top provincial administrators likewise had the power, with the Minister's approval, to turn dissidents over to court martials.

Nor was this all. In the early years of the twentieth century, the imperial government carried out experimentally certain policies which overstepped the boundaries of police regime and moved into the even more sinister realm of totalitarianism. Under a police regime, political activity is outlawed and security organs are given practically unlimited powers to make sure the proscription is observed. The system is essentially defensive; it is created to beat back challenges. Totalitarianism is characterized by a more positive approach: while it includes also all the elements of police statehood, it goes beyond them, trying to reorganize society in such a manner that all public institutions and expressions of social life, even those with no political connotation, fall under the management of the bureaucracy, or, more specifically, its security apparatus. Everything is politicized and everything is directed.

The attempt referred to, linked with the name of Serge Zubatov, is usually treated as one of the more bizarre episodes in the running war between the imperial regime and the revolutionaries. However, from a broader historical perspective, Zubatov appears to have made a very major contribution to the techniques of authoritarian politics, and earned himself a prominent place in any list of political innovators.

Zubatov, who was born in 1866, seems in his youth to have been implicated in some kind of dissident activity. Solid biographical facts are lacking, but apparently some time in the mid-1880s he joined the Department of Police, rising to be the head first of the Moscow Okhrana and then of the Special Section. In intelligence and vision he towered above the run of the mill of policemen and gendarmes with whom his work brought him in contact. He was a true professional security officer, the first that Russia has ever had. With him he brought into the service dedicated young men, whom he appointed to run the branches of the Okhrana with which he covered the empire. He introduced such innovations as fingerprinting and photographing suspects. But he also had an ideology. A dedicated monarchist he felt it his duty to protect Russia from revolutionaries whom he feared would otherwise destroy his country. (In 1917, as soon as he had heard of the tsar's abdication, he put a bullet through his head.) Zubatov did not think the police should be used merely to forestall and suppress subversion; it ought actively to reach out into society. An admirer of Bismarck's, he envisaged for Russia some kind of social monarchism under which the crown would place itself at the head of the working class. Having from close observation of the nascent labour movement convinced himself (as did Lenin, with different conclusions) that Russian workers had no political aspirations, he began to experiment with police-sponsored trade unions. Between 1901 and 1903, with powerful backing in high circles, he launched his 'police socialism', setting up numerous trade-union organizations under police protection. The result surpassed all expectations. The workers, at last enabled to fight for their economic interests without fear of arrest, flocked to Zubatov's unions, the first legally operating labour associations in Russian history. He was especially popular with Jewish workers. All went well, but late in 1903 he fell from favour and was dismissed, a victim of bureaucratic intrigues and of protests from industrialists who objected to police agents backing their striking employees.32 The device which Zubatov introduced was infinitely expandable. If allowed to go on, he might have founded police-sponsored associations of every conceivable kind. Indeed, he did experiment for a while with police-sponsored student societies. Ultimately, one might have put together a parliament staffed exclusively with policemen or their appointees. In this manner, the security organs would have assumed a truly creative role in the nation's life. But intriguing as this subject is, it exceeds the chronological limits of our study. Yet, when all is said and done, it would be difficult to maintain that imperial Russia was a full-blown police state; it was rather a forerunner, a rough prototype of such a regime, which fell far short of its full potential. The system had too many loopholes. Most of these resulted from the assimilation by the Russian ruling 61ite of western institutions and western values which, though incompatible with the patrimonial spirit, they were unwilling to give up. Such loopholes quite vitiated the elaborate set of repressive measures, introduced in the 1870s and 1880s.

Of these counterforces perhaps the most important was private property. The institution came late to Russia, but once introduced it soon made itself thoroughly at home. While harassing its subjects for the slightest political offences, the imperial regime was very careful not to violate their property rights. When publishing in London The Bell, that powerful irritant to the authorities, Alexander Herzen had his rents regularly forwarded to him from Russia by an international bank. Lenin's mother, even after one of her sons had been executed for an attempt on the tsar's life and her other children had been jailed