About the book: 2010 / New book by leading historians of the special services. The first complete encyclopedia of the state security organs of the Russian state for three and a half centuries - from Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II. The intelligence services of Tsarist Russia were just as powerful and just as merciless to the enemies of the state as the state security organs of the USSR - the security officers borrowed a lot from their predecessors, but until recently they did not like to admit it. Order of Secret Affairs, Preobrazhensky Order, Secret Chancellery, Office of Secret Investigative Affairs, Committee of General Security, Ministry of Police, Higher Military Police, Special Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Office, Special Department of the Police Department, Foreign Agents of the Police Department, Separate Corps of Gendarmes - although the names and structure of the special services of the Russian Empire changed many times over three centuries, their highest professional level and efficiency remained unchanged, guaranteeing the security of the state and the strength of the throne. The merciless struggle against the external and internal enemies of the Empire, intelligence and counterintelligence, the eradication of crime, corruption and terror, the suppression of subversive propaganda, monitoring the unreliable, the execution of punishments - this publication covers all areas of the activities of the Russian special services. This is the first complete history of the security agencies of Tsarist Russia, free from both idealization and denigration, unprecedented in the volume of information, equipped with a colossal reference apparatus and a unique (more than 1000 names!) biographical database of all leaders and key operational employees.