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The Okhrana and the Cheka: Continuity and Change

Ward, Amanda M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1398772391

Abstract Details

2014, Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, History (Arts and Sciences).
The most notorious aspect of the Soviet Union was its culture of secret policing that, through a series of state security agencies, carried out mass arrests, deportations, and executions. Since the collapse of the socialist state and the opening of the Soviet archives, the historical community has only begun to understand the full extent of crimes committed at the hands of the Cheka, and its successors, the OGPU, NKVD, and KGB. Yet, after tracing this repression to its origins, historical evidence indicates that Imperial Russia first cultivated this culture of secret policing and introduced many of the policing techniques the Bolsheviks later implement and further perfected. By the turn of the 20th century, the Okhrana — the Tsarist secret police — developed into a highly effective political police force which was, by and large, quite successful in penetrating underground revolutionary organizations, including Lenin's Bolshevik party. The imperial political police cultivated a new tradecraft that influenced the later Soviet apparatuses in cryptanalysis, signals intelligence, external surveillance, and agent provocateurs. Though known Russian historians, including Richard Pipes and Orlando Figes, have paid tribute to this influence and included a wider historical context in their works, the general historiography remains mute on the topic. This thesis looks to fill this significant gap by investigating the major continuities between the Tsarist Okhrana and the Soviet Cheka.
Steven Miner (Committee Chair)
96 p.
History; Russian History
Russian secret police; Okhrana; Cheka; Red Terror

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Ward, A. M. (2014). The Okhrana and the Cheka: Continuity and Change [Master's thesis, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1398772391

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Ward, Amanda. The Okhrana and the Cheka: Continuity and Change. 2014. Ohio University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1398772391.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Ward, Amanda. "The Okhrana and the Cheka: Continuity and Change." Master's thesis, Ohio University, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1398772391

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.