Abstract
The External Agency supplied only superficial, although extensive, data to the Special Section. The inner life of Russia's numerous revolutionary groups was inaccessible to the Special Section's filery. Yet the political police believed it essential to unravel the administrative structure, programmes, tactics and internecine politics of these circles in order to develop effective counter strategies. Some of this intelligence was gleaned from the substantial variety of revolutionary publications available to Fontanka. The aspects of subversive political life that most interested the political police, however, (particularly those of the terrorists) were rarely publicised.1 The information that the Special Section considered so vital for the success of its operations could only be obtained by a special team of undercover agents known as sekretnye sotrudniki (literally ‘secret collaborators’). For the sake of simplicity I have shortened their title to sotrudniki from here onward.
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