The lessons of history. Benkendorf's special service

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The lessons of history. Benkendorf's special service

The revolt of the Decembrists became a serious signal to the state that new threats appeared. Soon the Third Division of his own Imperial Majesty's Office was created - in fact, the first Russian special service. What it was and what prevented it from effectively preventing the aggression of revolutionaries and terrorists, says the historian, a recognized expert in this field, Fedor SEVASTYANOV.
The uprising on Senate Square 14 December 1825

- Fedor Leonidovich, what is remarkable in the domestic stories created in 1826, the Third Division?

- In a sense, it was the first special service of the modern type. For the most part, it consisted not only of people, figuratively speaking, chasing those who showed the royal portrait with a fist. The third division had both a central apparatus, which was a kind of brain of the department, and a corps of gendarmes attached to it, operational officers in cities and towns.

Before that, none of our secret police had an executive office in the field. Accordingly, it did not have the scope of activities that it received after 1826 of the year. The functions of political investigation were strengthened by a more extensive control than before, which was carried out by gendarme officers who collected information about the moods of the inhabitants of a particular locality. And they did it in addition to the governor's power, which also worked in this regard. That is, the Third Division had its parallel information and analytical vertical.

- The founder and long-term chief of the Third Division was, as you know, Alexander Khristoforovich Benkendorf. What was he like a leader and a man?

A.H. Benkendorf. 1822
- It was a very brave general, sissier. His name is associated with many romantic and heroic stories. For example, several years before the beginning of the Patriotic War, he was landed with a small detachment in Corfu, setting the task of creating an anti-Napoleonic partisan movement with the involvement of local residents. And Benkendorf coped with this task remarkably. And during the war years he also brutally beat the French, captured generals, a huge number of soldiers and officers, attacked and forced them to surrender already in Western Europe ...

At the time of the interregnum, when various lobbyist groups at the court were in favor of Constantine, some in favor of Nicholas, and the Decembrists staged an uprising in Senate Square, Benkendorf, naturally, showed loyalty to the new king. The naturalness of this step is primarily that the Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich and Alexander Khristoforovich were friendly. In any case, as much as kings and grand dukes can have friends.
When Nicholas became emperor, in his office the bust of Benkendorf, one might say, was located in the most prominent place. Well, that is, in modern times it is something like a memory photo.

As for Benkendorf's service as the head of the Third Division, most of the memoirists of this period agreed: the administrator, he was the useless organizer, and the head, to put it mildly, was not fully competent.

M. Ya. Von Fock. 1820-s.
Although his services in creating this structure are indisputable. From the time of the Napoleonic wars, he had been nurturing the idea of ​​such a creation, which, by the way, was largely borrowed from the French police minister Joseph Fouche. But to create is one thing, and to control is quite another. For routine, bureaucratic activity, he was completely unsuitable, and almost all the work of the Third Division for the time was held on the shoulders of his manager, an old specialist Maxim Yakovlevich von Fock, who was very famous at that time as the former director of the special office at the Ministry of Police. Moreover, admittedly, he had very positive character traits. And when he died, none other than Pushkin expressed regret in this regard in his diary, describing the deceased as a man "kind, honest and firm."

- The creation of the Third Division, many historians unequivocally explain the previous attempt of a coup by the Decembrists. How absolute is this causal relationship?

- It is not indisputable. That is, the uprising of the Decembrists was only one of the reasons, it became a kind of impetus to the creation of a new Russian special service. However, in 1825, of the largest events in the Russian Empire, not only the Decembrist uprising occurred. First of all, a new emperor came to power and, accordingly, his environment was changed. No wonder that in connection with the formation of the Third Division, Benkendorf is certainly remembered with his considerable ambitions and influence at court. Given that the then, let's say, intellectuals spoke of him not in the most flattering way, in Russia as a whole he was a very authoritative person. That is why the most different people with the most different petitions appealed to him personally and through him appeals “to the highest name”. In fact, it was, as they would say now, a feedback channel between the subjects of His Imperial Majesty and supreme authority.

After all, if you look at the archive of the Third Division during the first years of its existence, it is not surprising to marvel at the crazy flow of these appeals. And on the occasions, from the point of view of today, surprising, strange and even very funny. They considered purely intra-family conflicts, property disputes, all sorts of domestic troubles, countless searchlights, and much more, in theory not related to the main purpose of the secret police. For example, an adult son quarreled with his father or mother and one of the parents wrote a complaint to the governor: so, they say, and so, a child is found in an unforgivable living, drinking, not listening. Such a disobedient happened to be put under administrative arrest, in a monastery prison. And this could be a man of about thirty, in some headquarters ranks. And he sat for his faults for many weeks, months, or even a year, serving his sentence with the official wording “before forgiveness.” Well, if the mother does not forgive? .. So this sidelets turned to the highest authorities, trying to reach the sovereign-emperor himself. A great many of this kind of petition went through the Third Division.

Reception A.H. Benkendorf. End of 1820's
Preserved in his archives and "ambitious plans for the salvation of Russia", compiled by indefatigable scribes. In those days, they knew exactly what to do in order, for example, to eradicate corruption in the country and, in general, to improve it in the best possible way.

In short, judging by the documents of that era, it does not seem that the Third Section was somehow very concerned about the problems of countering revolutionary organizations, to some extent similar to the Decembrist ones. Although, on the other hand, there were virtually no such organizations that were at all dangerous for the imperial power of organizations in Russia during the years of the reign of Nicholas I.

- And what was the potential of the movement, called “Decembrist”? What could lead to the revolt of these nobles, with the succession of circumstances for them? To the overthrow of the absolute monarchy, to the establishment of a certain constitutional form of government in Russia? ..

- In Soviet times, the main Decembrist scholarship was M. V. Nechkina, who used, as they say, a colossal administrative resource. It was she who determined almost completely the view of our society on the Decembrists and their activities. Nechkina owns the famous two-volume book, thoroughly saturated with such kind of carbonar spirit. There she tried to compare, compare the Decembrist movement with the processes and driving forces that led to the Great French Revolution. But is there any reason for this!

Indeed, in France, the revolution was carried out by broad masses of very different people. The Decembrists distanced themselves not only from the people, but even, by and large, from the army. In this regard, the episode connected with the revolt of the Chernigov regiment is quite indicative. When the conspirators who led him tried a model of a popular uprising, they did not succeed. In a short time, the rebels turned into a kind of semi-gang organization like the Pugachev one. And they ended about the same as Razin and Pugachev. We walked for several days in Ukraine, until they were “cleaned out”. That is, the leaders of the revolution did not work out of them at all. Yes, probably could not happen.

Arguing about the possible objective causes and hypothetical consequences of the 1825 uprising of the year, some important circumstances should be taken into account, which in Soviet historiography did not attach due importance. Here I mean, first of all, the above-mentioned friction between the two lobbyist groups at court, and the banal conflict of generations. After all, Nicholas, in contrast to his brother Constantine, not only didn’t smell the powder of the 1812 war, but didn’t even remember his father. Those who advocated the accession of Constantine, for the most part saw Suvorov, Catherine’s times, the reign of Paul, and perhaps had some reason to consider Nicholas not mature enough to manage a huge empire. But Constantine, apparently, to reign sincerely did not want.

There is a version that their mother, Maria Feodorovna, was not so simple, not so indifferent to the question of succession, as is commonly believed. It is known that even in 1801, she was not averse to occupying the Russian throne, but she was not allowed to reign.

Nikolay I.
Could the 14 events of December 1825 of the year and everything connected with them could lead to the fall of absolutism, to the adoption of some kind of constitution in Russia? Hard to say. However, in my opinion, neither the Muravyov's constitutional draft, or even more the Pestelevskaya Russkaya Pravda, had any chance of being adopted at that time.
After all, Alexander I was carrying some plans for constitutional reform of the state. And in general, he planned a lot of interesting things. Including live to see the 25 anniversary of his reign. And he even said that here, they say, after 25 years of service, even a soldier is released, so why, they say, and not release him from the service of the Tsar.

But how it could happen, live the emperor Alexander for another year or two, no one, of course, does not know.

- Is it possible to conclude that in the Nikolaev times there was no particular need for the work of the department founded by Benkendorf, in general, to be felt? But under Alexander II, when the time came to seriously deal with threats to the internal stability of the state, the Russian special services seemed to have blundered ...

- During the reign of Alexander II, Russia was confronted with terrorism, for which it turned out to be practically not ready. The terrorists were well organized and disguised, used new, often extremely cruel, bloody methods of dealing with the state. And sometimes this cruelty was just meaningless.

The main omissions of the Third Division were that its leaders could not at one time establish an effective agent network, put up to the proper level of preventive, preventive work to counter terrorist and other "extremist" actions. And when it ordered to live long, when it, to put it mildly, was reorganized, it was too late. For Tsar Alexander Nikolaevich Romanov first of all.
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3 comments
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  1. dred
    -2
    13 December 2011 12: 21
    No matter how the history of esleba turned, there was no revolution.
  2. Strabo
    +1
    16 December 2011 18: 24
    They write whatever they get. Although there is a rational grain about V. Nechkina, who, as they say now, used a colossal administrative resource. So let us lay out this resource and we ourselves will read and draw conclusions. History has been falsified and continues to do so. And for me, the Decembrists traitors acted in favor of the Massons.
  3. 0
    April 15 2013 15: 24
    The article is not bad, one gets the impression that the third branch was created somewhat ahead of time (from a historical point of view).

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