Introduction
The six articles reprinted in this anthology were published in Studies in Intelligence between 1965 and 1967. They describe foreign operations of the Russian Imperial Police, commonly referred to as the Okhrana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Also included are a letter from the author of these articles to Studies in Intelligence and the book review that prompted the letter, both of which discuss the still-debated issue of whether Josef Stalin was an Okhrana agent. The 1883 opening of a Paris office known as the Zagranichnaia okhranka or agentura was a sign of both success and failure on the part of the tsarist authorities. It reflected their success in having driven many revolutionaries, terrorists, and nationalists out of Russia; it also underscored their failure to stem an upsurge in Russian subversive activity based abroad. By the 1880s, the Russian émigré community in France had grown to some 5,000 people, most of them in the Paris area. The City of Light had become the hub for Russian revolutionary groups operating in much of Europe.
Ben Fischer’s preface and the six articles, all by “Rita T. Kronenbitter,” can be downloaded from the list below.
Download PDF of the Preface: Okhrana: The Paris Operations
Download PDF of The Illustrious Career of Arkadiy Harting
Download PDF of The Sherlock Holmes of the Revolution
Download PDF of Okhrana Agent Dolin
Download PDF of The Okhrana’s Female Agents—Part I: Russian Women
Download PDF of The Okhrana’s Female Agents—Part II: Indigenous Women
Download Review of Edward Ellis Smith, The Young Stalin, by Harry Gelman
Download Rita Kronenbitter's Commentary on Edward Ellis Smith review of book, The Young Stalin