What if Tsarist Russia built a stronger police state?

[Jiraiyathegallant]

Tsarist Russia had a secret police in the original timeline, but it only employed a small number of people and killed a relatively small number compared to standard 20th century dictators. Criminals were often deported to Siberia and treated it as a vacation. I’ve heard that while it was illegal to criticize the Tsar in certain manners, the fine for doing so was relatively small by the time of Nicholas II to the point that tabloids would publish rumors and happily pay the fine. Despite a few massacres, it seems to me that Nicholas was not feared.

Could Tsarist Russia under Alexander III and Nicholas II have adopted a more comprehensive and complete police state? More secret police, tougher penalties for certain crimes, etc...

And if they did, would it change anything?

 

[Aghasverov]

Tsarist Russia had a secret police in the original timeline, but it only employed a small number of people and killed a relatively small number compared to standard 20th century dictators. Criminals were often deported to Siberia and treated it as a vacation. I’ve heard that while it was illegal to criticize the Tsar in certain manners, the fine for doing so was relatively small by the time of Nicholas II to the point that tabloids would publish rumors and happily pay the fine. Despite a few massacres, it seems to me that Nicholas was not feared.

Could Tsarist Russia under Alexander III and Nicholas II have adopted a more comprehensive and complete police state? More secret police, tougher penalties for certain crimes, etc...

And if they did, would it change anything?

What they did have was strong enough to get Plehve blown up, I'd imagine that harsher measures would lead to harsher reprisals....

 

[alexmilman]

What they did have was strong enough to get Plehve blown up, I'd imagine that harsher measures would lead to harsher reprisals....

Well, you can look at it from a different perspective: what they had was ineffective enough to allow actions like one you mentioned and many other similar ones.

IIRC, part of Plehve’s security team had been riding the bicycles, aka had been absolutely helpless and useless.

Anyway, what “secret police” are we talking about? Okhranka, at its greatest extension (1905 - 07) had less than 1,000 people out of whom 200 served in St-Petersburg. Most probably during the Soviet times MGB/KGB had more than 1,000 in Moscow alone. It’s functions had been rather limited and they were supposed to act within existing legal framework.

Corps of gendarmes was not a secret police (they had been wearing uniforms) and had numerous functions since the time of its creation (one of the major tasks was fighting corruption in tsarist administration). And, AFAIK, they did not have specially trained anti-terrorism units.

Now, as OP correctly stated, the political criminals had been treated much better than the common ones (except for the relatively rare cases when they were executed). Except for the cases handled by the military tribunals (not too many) they had right for trial by jury with a good chance to get acquitted (as Zasulich) or to get a reasonably lenient sentence of being sent to live for a while in one of the nice areas of Siberia with a good allowance from the state and a freedom of officially permitted movement within local jurisdiction (Lenin, for example, liked to go hunting and hired a cook because his wife refused to do cooking). They could not be forced to work no could not be physically punished. Their relatives were not punished in any way (Lenin’s mother kept getting a state pension and lived in estate after her elder son was hunged for terrorism).

So, if Tsarist government had a real secret police numerous enough to provide a meaningful coverage of the territory and had the laws covering political terrorism and allowing ...er... “intensive methods of interrogation” (not necessarily explicitly) and severe penalties for it (and permanently functioning special courts) and if, as in the Soviet times, the political prisoners had been treated more harshly than the criminals (or at least equally), this could be a serious deterrent because not all the political terrorists had been suicidal maniacs. Extending sanctions to the relatives and associates even if not up to the Soviet degree also would be some kind of a deterrent because in OTL not reporting even known anti-government activities was one of the principles of the Russian intelligencia.

Now, as far as the press was involved, government in OTL was witlessly zealous censoring quite innocent things instead of “letting the steam out”: anyway, in most cases the criticism was targeted the lower levels of administration or depicting a hard life of the lower classes (so what, there was no revolution in Britain after publication of “Oliver Twist”). This was counterproductive because it just produced irritation among the educated classes who were considering their duty (as the educated people) to criticize the government but, as was noticed in one famous book, they “ liked justice but they liked lampreys in mustard sauce even more” . With a benefit of a hindsight we can say that if Tsarist government adopted some kind of the Soviet approach to support of the arts (with more flexibility and brains) introducing special awards for the literary merits, and other forms of encouragement, it could get a generally more sympathetic “media” and literature with at least some positive impact on society in general.

And with more sympathetic media it would be possible to paint the political terrorists as being on a foreign employ: while there could be some scruples regarding reporting on a revolutionary, reporting on a foreign spy was a completely different kettle of fish.

Privatization of the universities probably would be helpful as well. First, the students would protest against the private administration and 2nd if they had to pay for education, probably more of them would concentrate on their studies instead of political activities.

To make the long story short, IMO there had to be not just some kind of a secret police but a much broader set of activities targeting society in general.

 

[bpbruce]

Not releasing a bunch of criminals from jail would have avoided a rise in crime. And if Colonel Iseka's (I think) memoires are right, and the 1905 revolutionaries were funded from Japan, a tough political police might have prevented that.

Or maybe the Tsarists were irredeemably eeevil and nothing would have helped.

 

[brooklyn99]

Well, you can look at it from a different perspective: what they had was ineffective enough to allow actions like one you mentioned and many other similar ones.

IIRC, part of Plehve’s security team had been riding the bicycles, aka had been absolutely helpless and useless.

Anyway, what “secret police” are we talking about? Okhranka, at its greatest extension (1905 - 07) had less than 1,000 people out of whom 200 served in St-Petersburg. Most probably during the Soviet times MGB/KGB had more than 1,000 in Moscow alone. It’s functions had been rather limited and they were supposed to act within existing legal framework.

Corps of gendarmes was not a secret police (they had been wearing uniforms) and had numerous functions since the time of its creation (one of the major tasks was fighting corruption in tsarist administration). And, AFAIK, they did not have specially trained anti-terrorism units.

Now, as OP correctly stated, the political criminals had been treated much better than the common ones (except for the relatively rare cases when they were executed). Except for the cases handled by the military tribunals (not too many) they had right for trial by jury with a good chance to get acquitted (as Zasulich) or to get a reasonably lenient sentence of being sent to live for a while in one of the nice areas of Siberia with a good allowance from the state and a freedom of officially permitted movement within local jurisdiction (Lenin, for example, liked to go hunting and hired a cook because his wife refused to do cooking). They could not be forced to work no could not be physically punished. Their relatives were not punished in any way (Lenin’s mother kept getting a state pension and lived in estate after her elder son was hunged for terrorism).

So, if Tsarist government had a real secret police numerous enough to provide a meaningful coverage of the territory and had the laws covering political terrorism and allowing ...er... “intensive methods of interrogation” (not necessarily explicitly) and severe penalties for it (and permanently functioning special courts) and if, as in the Soviet times, the political prisoners had been treated more harshly than the criminals (or at least equally), this could be a serious deterrent because not all the political terrorists had been suicidal maniacs. Extending sanctions to the relatives and associates even if not up to the Soviet degree also would be some kind of a deterrent because in OTL not reporting even known anti-government activities was one of the principles of the Russian intelligencia.

Now, as far as the press was involved, government in OTL was witlessly zealous censoring quite innocent things instead of “letting the steam out”: anyway, in most cases the criticism was targeted the lower levels of administration or depicting a hard life of the lower classes (so what, there was no revolution in Britain after publication of “Oliver Twist”). This was counterproductive because it just produced irritation among the educated classes who were considering their duty (as the educated people) to criticize the government but, as was noticed in one famous book, they “ liked justice but they liked lampreys in mustard sauce even more” . With a benefit of a hindsight we can say that if Tsarist government adopted some kind of the Soviet approach to support of the arts (with more flexibility and brains) introducing special awards for the literary merits, and other forms of encouragement, it could get a generally more sympathetic “media” and literature with at least some positive impact on society in general.

And with more sympathetic media it would be possible to paint the political terrorists as being on a foreign employ: while there could be some scruples regarding reporting on a revolutionary, reporting on a foreign spy was a completely different kettle of fish.

Privatization of the universities probably would be helpful as well. First, the students would protest against the private administration and 2nd if they had to pay for education, probably more of them would concentrate on their studies instead of political activities.

To make the long story short, IMO there had to be not just some kind of a secret police but a much broader set of activities targeting society in general.

I see. And do you think such measure would go a long way in knee-capping revolutionary action? Perhaps, adequate enough to butterfly the upheavals of 1917 that ended the Tsardom? (Assuming these changes don't tangibly alter OTL, that there wouldn't be WW1 to begin with)

 

[alexmilman]

Tsarist Russia had a secret police in the original timeline, but it only employed a small number of people and killed a relatively small number compared to standard 20th century dictators. Criminals were often deported to Siberia and treated it as a vacation. I’ve heard that while it was illegal to criticize the Tsar in certain manners, the fine for doing so was relatively small by the time of Nicholas II to the point that tabloids would publish rumors and happily pay the fine. Despite a few massacres, it seems to me that Nicholas was not feared.

Could Tsarist Russia under Alexander III and Nicholas II have adopted a more comprehensive and complete police state? More secret police, tougher penalties for certain crimes, etc...

And if they did, would it change anything?

The problem (actually, one of many problems) was that Tsarist government did not have a secret police. In 1880-81 there was a secret detective department in administration of the head of Moscow police but that was it. Below is photo of the members of St-Petersburg’s Okhrana department. What’s “secret” in the people in uniform working at the well-known address? They had, of course, few plainclothes agents but so did the criminal police.

 

[alexmilman]

Not releasing a bunch of criminals from jail would have avoided a rise in crime. And if Colonel Iseka's (I think) memoires are right, and the 1905 revolutionaries were funded from Japan, a tough political police might have prevented that.

Or maybe the Tsarists were irredeemably eeevil and nothing would have helped.

They (the emperors) were irredeemably incompetent on the issues of state security by their upbringing and education. They had been taught parade ground drill since a childhood and later their curriculum was expended to include horsemanship, religion, languages, history, economics and few other subjects but very little about the country they were going to govern. Then they’d get appointment into Council of the State (the top administrative entity) and perhaps honorary chairmanship in some important commission (future AII was a head of commission discussing possibility of emancipation of the serfs).

They did not have any meaningful contacts with those outside a narrow aristocratic circle and seemingly were not interested in going deeper than the vague notions. And of course they had some ...er.... “counter-productive” notions like honor, morale, etc.

The Bolsheviks knew these classes much better and it was easier for them how to create almost perfect (in strictly negative sense) oppression apparatus.

 

[alexmilman]

I see. And do you think such measure would go a long way in knee-capping revolutionary action? Perhaps, adequate enough to butterfly the upheavals of 1917 that ended the Tsardom? (Assuming these changes don't tangibly alter OTL, that there wouldn't be WW1 to begin with)

Taking into an account that 1917 was not absolutely inevitable, the only thing I can say more or less surely is that a successful implementation of such a system could strengthen regime as far as political terrorism was involved and perhaps even against the external enemy (after all, NII screwed WWI on a smaller scale than Stalin managed in 1941-42). But, without having an advantage of a hindsight, it would require a much greater wisdom on the top than existed in OTL and a lot of the cadres capable of implementing such a program. And while we know that the Soviets never had shortage of such cadres, I have no idea if they could be found in the needed numbers in Tsarist Russia: WWI and RCW “helped” to get rid of most people with the principles and backbone but prior to that promoting only complete scumbags may (or may not) be problematic. The same goes for fundamental change of the mindsets.

 

[marktaha]

In other words - if they'd behaved like the Reds, would they have stayed in power?

 

[alexmilman]

In other words - if they'd behaved like the Reds, would they have stayed in power?

They did not have to behave like the Reds turning the whole country into a big concentrating camp (“we don’t have innocent people, just temporarily not arrested”) and installing regime of an unrestricted terror. But they could improve their position by combination of a stronger security apparatus backed up by a special legislation and skillful PR/propaganda policies. In both areas they had been clearly inadequate.

If we are talking about regime’s long term stability, it can’t be guaranteed exclusively by terror: the fundamental problems had to be addressed.

Of course, political terrorism had little to do with the fundamental problem of the land shortages and neither “narodovoltsy” (just a bunch of the deranged maniacs with no traction with a real world) nor SRs (they at least had a program but rather idiotic) had been anywhere close to its solution. So sooner or later the regime had to address it and an earlier implementation of Stolypin reform may provide a temporary solution because amount of agricultural land was not unlimited and the prevailing low-efficiency agricultural methods combined with a fast growing predominantly agricultural population demanded much more than could be provided. Possible solution was to turn a big percentage of the peasants into the industrial workers while simultaneously reforming agriculture in a way that allows a greater productivity. So we are talking about American model (farmers) vs. Soviet model (collective farms). The 1st is better but taking into an account prevailing mentality, some combination of both by gradually phasing out the traditional communal schema would be probably more realistic (IIRC, there were already some agricultural cooperatives).

Which leaves the issue of the new industrial workers because one needs money for building up the industry. Which means more and more foreign investments which has its own pluses and minuses. OTOH, the foreign loans (as opposite to the direct investments into the economy) in OTL put Russian Empire into dependency from France with the terrible results (including Russian operations during WWI). So, while Witte was a great minister, not all of his activities had been beneficial (including those contributing to conflict with Japan).

 

[Wypad]

“we don’t have innocent people, just temporarily not arrested”

Where does this quote come from?

 

[alexmilman]

Where does this quote come from?

From an NKVD employee.

 

[Shevek23]

Possible solution was to turn a big percentage of the peasants into the industrial workers while simultaneously reforming agriculture in a way that allows a greater productivity. So we are talking about American model (farmers) vs. Soviet model (collective farms).

You can call it an "American" solution if that makes the optics look better. But the actual "American solution" was to seize a big swathe of a relatively warm, fertile section of a continent from decimated, plague-reduced and low tech Native Americans, pretty much brush them aside at will (not without some cost, in the mid and later 19th century "controlling" Native Americans accounted for a good part of the Federal military budget and casualty lists, but this was of course on a smaller scale than typical European wars) and take effectively "virgin" good land. And the pioneers were not European peasants (well, quite a few were immigrants from such backgrounds--but part of the ambition of moving to America was a fresh start aiming at a more prosperous life) but farmer-entrepreneurs of an already capitalistic mentality. Most American settlers did not intend to carve out a homestead where they could live autonomously as free prosperous peasants; they were keenly paying attention to eastern markets and land values, aiming to enrich themselves in dollar terms. Some specialized in clearing and getting quick and relatively cheap crops on the market, somewhat exhausting the soil in so doing, and then when "civilization" caught up with them intensively, selling out and moving west again to repeat a specialized niche behavior that they were experienced in and suited them. Others did intend to stay, but also to participate in the general development of the region so as to get in on the ground floor of being the first families in the new states they intended to found.

In short, capitalist mentality was pre-fabricated in America, and the land was quite rich for the picking.

In Russia, the nearest analog would be nothing like this, in most places. The Russian far east, Siberia and so on, had some resemblance but with far lower transport tech infrastructure, and the mentality was therefore less profit and more settlement oriented. But this sprawling zone was only a fraction of the major agricultural activity, which was on lands west of the Urals that had been settled and developed for centuries. What needed to happen, if we simply presume that Western European capitalist type agriculture is morally superior, or anyway sustainable politically never mind the fate of the losers, was for the existing peasant population on the land to sort out into richer landowners and poorer people either owning no land at all or owning too little to sustain themselves without selling some hired labor to the richer landowners. In Western Europe this was not accomplished by massacring an entire continent full of low population density peoples and seizing "virgin" land, it was done by a much more painful, and slow, process of disruptive upheaval that took centuries to accomplish. Enclosure was a key and major part of it all. It involved suddenly taking away rights to exploit land in various ways that had existed for centuries, giving the uprooted and hemmed in peasants essentially nothing to compensate them, and these dispossessed persons then either drifting off to the cities to become a politically dangerous "mob" there, or being ground down into hard agrarian labor for little pay on the spot. This process in say England started before the reign of Henry VIII and was still ongoing though largely completed toward the end of the 18th century, and continued in Ireland leading up to the Potato Famine, which was in part a matter of the dispossessed Irish hanging on with the nutritional margin intensive cultivation of potatoes gave them on their little plots--until the blight yanked that precarious perch out from under them, resulting in general starvation, widespread disease, and massive emigration, and the reinforcement of centuries of deep Irish resentment against their British masters.

That is the face of transforming precapitalist peasantry on the land into the sort of agrarian regime capitalists admire and extol.

Could it have been done in Russia? I don't know, maybe. But it certainly would not be a softer landing for the people of the countryside than Soviet policy at its worst, not if someone tried to get it all done in one swift generation. And that was the gun to Russia's head, get done over a handful of decades what took centuries in the Western European nations. This is before we even consider whether the potential fertility of the land was sufficient for Russia to profit on such a basis.

Obviously if we read history through the lens of winners in a given social transformation, progress looks very rosy and easy. I believe though that a double standard is always in play--read the story of rival forms of society in competition with one's own from the standpoint of the worst losers and denounce them as monsters, and read one's own story of development from the winners' point of view to extol ourselves as morally righteous. That might be a suitable and perhaps God help us necessary thing to achieve civil order, though obviously a person with Enlightenment ideas rather hopes the truth shall make you free, and ought to be survivable. It is hardly a realistic guide to what is realistically possible.

It seems plain to me that without major and painful upheaval, neither Russia nor China could possibly have managed to assert themselves as powers capable of fending off foreign conquest. It is one thing to suggest that less vicious roads ought to have been possible, but one should never forget how ruthless the forces Russian and Chinese nationalists had to try to find the means to fend off actually were. As a humanist and progressive I think it is especially nasty how low Marxist reformers sank, given they aspired to higher ideals than their capitalist competitors, but I think it is laughable the way persons determined to portray these revolutionaries as agents of Satan on Earth like to pretend capitalist processes are kindly and fair.

If a Tsarist regime was going to be able to survive and also modernize Russia enough to fend off such predators as Germany, they were bloody well going to have to develop means of mass terror quite comparable with Soviet police state methods, just on behalf of different goals. Perhaps, toughing through the terror, they might achieve better outcomes though I hardly see any good reason to bet on it, other than sheer ideological dogma that we have to be better than Them by the tautology that we are the Good Guys.

Your post certainly has the good and realistic effect of stressing that Russian problems in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not a matter of a handful of crazed agitators disturbing the otherwise peaceful and content dreams of a bovine populace, but rather this populace was a mass of people who had ample reasons to fear falling into really miserable circumstances, from a perch that was not too comfortable or safe to start with. The drawback is that the immediate clear and present danger to the majority of Russian peasants on the land was precisely the sort of program you point to, with misleading mixup between an inapplicable (and hardly morally immaculate either) "American" approach not available to most peoples, and the actual drawn out of how agrarian capitalism was actually invented and imposed, concentrated in some attempt at getting it done overnight in one generation. In real life, exactly these recommendations were made, and attempted; insofar as the Tsarist regime slow walked it or quailed completely, it would be because they had the good sense to see such measures would be politically explosive--and yet the peasants were no fools, and had seen the direction the wind was blowing, and did not like it one bit. So the Romanovs fell between stools, having neither stood up for a stasis that might have been sustainable, were it not for the pressure of foreign capitalist regimes crushing the Russian situation with rising productivity, nor able to leapfrog to a new order that would in fact deliver acceptable security for all either.

 

[alexmilman]

uys.

Your post certainly has the good and realistic effect of stressing that Russian problems in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were not a matter of a handful of crazed agitators disturbing the otherwise peaceful and content dreams of a bovine populace, but rather this populace was a mass of people who had ample reasons to fear falling into really miserable circumstances, from a perch that was not too comfortable or safe to start with. The drawback is that the immediate clear and present danger to the majority of Russian peasants on the land was precisely the sort of program you point to, with misleading mixup between an inapplicable (and hardly morally immaculate either) "American" approach not available to most peoples, and the actual drawn out of how agrarian capitalism was actually invented and imposed, concentrated in some attempt at getting it done overnight in one generation. In real life, exactly these recommendations were made, and attempted; insofar as the Tsarist regime slow walked it or quailed completely, it would be because they had the good sense to see such measures would be politically explosive--and yet the peasants were no fools, and had seen the direction the wind was blowing, and did not like it one bit. So the Romanovs fell between stools, having neither stood up for a stasis that might have been sustainable, were it not for the pressure of foreign capitalist regimes crushing the Russian situation with rising productivity, nor able to leapfrog to a new order that would in fact deliver acceptable security for all either.

I don’t recall claiming that a change would be easy or possible to implement overnight. However, the tendencies toward the farmer-ship, cooperatives and rural capitalism already existed and could be further helped with a continued support from the state. The existing prevailing communal system was not actually protecting the peasants’ interests because by preventing improvement of productivity it was making a problem with land shortage only worse (assuming that population growth continues). Unfortunately, in OTL the government was supporting and promoting exactly that model based both upon the “moral considerations” (as being linked to the inherent peasants’ virtues, etc.) and because it was simply convenient. Russian peasants were not fools but a “communal mentality” is a fact. Notice that, for example, the Ukrainian peasants had been much more individualistic and, in general, had better entrepreneurship skills. Most of the active part of the Russian peasantry used Stolypin reform to become the independent farmers and the rest was lacking the initiative so for them business as usual was the optimal model even if it was going from bad to worse. Their “solution” was “more land” but there was not too much available close to their homes so one of the alternatives would be growth of the cooperatives. Another alternative was for the government to turn them into the state slaves as the Soviets did and establish the collective farms in which, theoretically, a higher productivity could be achieved. Honestly, I don’t this as a probable option for Tsarist Russia (but not completely impossible either)


“Security for all” is a notion that pretty much did not exist in the late XIX - early XX century so it does not make sense to discuss it seriously. The subject of the OP was security of the regime. It does not imply everybody’s well-being, just regime’s stability against the domestic problems and ability to withstand the outside challenges. Pauperization of a big part of a peasantry was an objective process and it was producing cadres for a growing industry. This was happening in most of a developed world. Was it nice? It was not. But eventually the industrial proletariat (and the railroad workers) even in the Russian empire was reasonably well off so the process was not all tragic and negative.

 

[Jiraiyathegallant]

And by secret police, I don’t mean they have to reach Stalin’s level. Just to the point political criminals are actually afraid of the Tsar due to widespread and harsh enforcement.