Today, the history of tsarist Russia is of great interest. A lot of interesting and useful things can be learned from the experience of professionals in pre-revolutionary Russia. It's about Russian intelligence.
The Bible speaks of the first scouts: Moses sent people to bring him information about the people of Palestine and Phenicia, as well as the fertility of their lands (collecting information about a foreign country). The ancient Indian epic also speaks of poisonous spies, of those who were financially dependent on the authorities and therefore had to bring the necessary information.
When states began to emerge, external intelligence was needed. The princes, and then the kings, needed information about the neighbors, their strengths and weaknesses, etc. In ancient Russia, intelligence was of a military nature. The scouts had a hard time traveling: at any time, on any road, "robbers" could rob or kill, and the observers did not have the necessary skills and abilities to perform such work. Nevertheless, before the Rus campaign against Constantinople, the Russians carried out reconnaissance that revealed the enemy's weaknesses. Alexander Nevsky also created an intelligence unit, information from which allowed him to successfully fight the German knights, keeping the Horde from interfering in the affairs of Russia.
Until the 15th century in Russia intelligence and the army were led by appanage princes. Foreign intelligence and diplomacy were synonymous in Russia.
The services of intelligence were especially urgently required under Ivan III, the land collector. The king's scouts were his ambassadors, numerous merchants, representatives of the church, and sometimes foreigners were paid for the services. Under Ivan the Terrible, the functions of foreign intelligence were carried out by the Ambassadorial Order. One of the duties of the order was to prepare ambassadors before traveling to a foreign country and to assign them specific intelligence tasks. For example, when sending an ambassador to Sweden, he was charged with collecting information about the relationship of King Gustav to the Lithuanian and Danish rulers. Now the "state little people" were trained to carry out observations, negotiate and obtain the necessary information. They were chosen from among those who had a high intellect and had extraordinary abilities.
During the Livonian War, the head of the Ambassadorial Prikaz, managed to solve many intelligence tasks by attracting "agents of influence" (bribing the necessary high-ranking officials of the enemy). This was also fraught with big problems: after all, an official could disagree and report to whomever needed. Therefore, preliminary work was carried out to determine the weaknesses of each of the potential agents, that is, the key to each was found.
During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, the intelligence function was carried out by the Order of Secret Affairs and the officers of the order, in addition to their main work, had to deal with … the search for minerals! At the same time, ciphering or "gibberish writing" became widespread. Of course, among the scouts there were also traitors who passed secret information to the enemy in the person of the ambassadors of these countries. There were many reasons that contributed to the betrayal: resentment against the bosses, dissatisfaction with the size of salaries, a desire to get rich …
Under Peter I, intelligence was reformed. But this only improved intelligence work. The Russian tsar organizes a number of permanent missions abroad, and they become centers supplying intelligence information to Muscovy. So, thanks to the timely intelligence received from the Ambassador of Holland, Peter I learned about the plans of Charles XII and turned his troops to Ukraine, where he replenished the army at the expense of the Poles and the soldiers of the Crimean Khan. And the Russian ambassador A. Khilkov managed to warn the tsar in time about the Swedish attack on Arkhangelsk. A nobleman from Livonia, I. Patkul, also helped Peter I. Thanks to him, it was possible to create the Northern Union, which included Denmark, Russia, Poland and Saxony. Patkul attracted the Austrian chancellor to the side of the Russians. The Liflander died due to the betrayal of the Polish king, who handed over a talented intelligence officer to the Swedes.
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Russia had an urgent need for intelligence before the attack of Napoleonic troops in the early 19th century. A special role in the collection of information was played by General Barclay de Tolly, the representative of the Russian tsar in the Napoleonic headquarters - Colonel Chernyshev, who was assisted by the French "initiator" (a man who offered his services himself) - Foreign Minister Charles Talleyrand. Despite the titanic work of Russian intelligence officers, Russia was not ready to repulse the Napoleonic horde, the enemy entered Moscow. The special office, as an intelligence agency, was disbanded. General de Tolly was dismissed from his post of Minister of War. The scouts in other countries were recalled. Tsarist officials felt that having defeated Napoleon, Russia no longer needed intelligence gathering.
But to say that Russia has lost its agents on the territory of other countries would be wrong. The embassies continued their work to collect the information Moscow needed. The famous writer A. Griboyedov worked as a scout in Persia. The first Russian consul in Brazil, von Langsdorff, meticulously collected information for conducting profitable trade with a distant country.
State intelligence was fully restored by de Tolly's successor, Count A. Chernyshev. It was he who introduced career military personnel to the embassies. Industrial espionage became a priority task for intelligence, as Russia lagged behind European countries in industrial development. The scouts obtained scientific and technical information in various ways. For example, the Russian ambassador to France for several hundred francs copied the description of new devices for cannons, the consul in Hamburg managed to get a copy of a report on roads, new models of weapons and a telegraph diagram. During the Crimean War, it became clear that the work of intelligence agents in industrial espionage did not help the country: Russia did not have time to introduce new technologies.
At the turn of the 20th century, foreign intelligence was carried out by the hands of employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it was there that all the collected information flowed to. Huge sums were received from the state budget for conducting intelligence work: more than 162 thousand rubles were allocated only to bribe the necessary informants. But there was a serious flaw in this system: the conduct of intelligence work by the envoys was not a prerequisite, and many Foreign Ministry officials were passive about intelligence.
The success of Russian intelligence was the recruitment of the Austro-Hungarian intelligence officer A. Redl, who not only conveyed to the Russians the plans of Austria-Hungary and Serbia in relation to Russia, but also concealed from his leadership the reports of Vienna's agents working in Russia.
It follows from the documents that not only the Russian Foreign Ministry, but also the police department, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, and the Ministry of Finance were engaged in the collection of intelligence information on the territory of other countries. Information of a secret nature was supplied to the Russian crown by the Holy Synod, which had several spiritual missions abroad.
As it turned out, just getting classified information is not enough: it is necessary to process it correctly. But, unfortunately, Russian intelligence before the First World War had a lot of fragmentary information that confirmed only one truth - Russian intelligence was in a state of disrepair. There were many intelligence structures, they did not coordinate their work, received by them, the information was not of serious importance, since it was not correlated and was not generalized in a single center.
Undoubtedly, Russian intelligence had many shortcomings in its work. There were traitors in its ranks. But most importantly, Russian intelligence officers honestly and selflessly served the Motherland, obtaining information that contributed to the strengthening and prosperity of the state.