Agents of Autocracy: Career Paths and Convictions of the Tsarist Secret Police’s Wartime Leadership, 1914–1917

This article examines fourteen senior figures within the Russian Empire’s political police (known as the Okhrana in the West) who occupied key roles during the First World War. This was not a unified elite, but a cohort whose positions placed them at the centre of wartime intelligence and internal security. The article considers how their social origin, education and professional development shaped their operational decisions and conceptions of state authority in a period of growing crisis. While historians have long used the reports of these officials as sources on wartime politics and revolution, the personalities behind them are underexplored. By focusing on a small group, this study foregrounds the human dimension of state security, tracing the formation of an intelligent but increasingly marginalized group, and its attempts to defend the Tsarist regime in the face of a changing security landscape brought on by the First World War. In doing so, it provides insights into career patterns and the psychology of service.