S.P. Beletskii and V.F. Dzhunkovskii and the Forces of Modernity within Russian Society

Abstract

Stolypin's assassination capped an exceptionally tumultuous period in MVD politics. The tsar himself hoped that the new minister of internal affairs, A.A. Makarov, would be able to terminate the energy-wasting internecine warfare within the MVD.¹ The turmoil created by Stolypin's policies, the Azef Affair, the persistent calls for police reform and the work of the Makarov Commission and ultimately by the scandal surrounding Stolypin's assassination confirmed that the tsar's concern was not misplaced. Yet the OOs and Gendarme Directorates alike misjudged the significance of such adversities upon the future of the political police, so busy were they in revelling in the apparent magnitude of their victory over the opponents of the regime on the battlefield of revolution.² Between 1908 and 1912 the exhausted and defeated dissident movements allowed Fontanka to bask in this illusion.