Changes

In late 19th century Romanov Russia, a new department was developed to create a modern espionage service. This was the Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order, or Okhrana, which was also mostly a secret police organization. The department was created as a reaction to the attempted assassination of Alexander II in 1866. While most of their activity was to protect the Russian state, they increasingly were concerned with revolutionary ideas that had begun to spread in Europe. This included concerns about communism and left-leaning groups that began to openly oppose the tsar. Their activities often involved infiltrating groups abroad that were opposed to the Russian regime, thus exposing them to working in foreign countries more. Foreign espionage was still rudimentary but the experiences of having a professional body for domestic espionage enabled Russian services to better learn on applying spying activities abroad. The Okhrana were unprepared for the 1905 Russian Revolution, where their actions may have even made events even worse for the regime. Often, agents worked in small groups and did not coordinate activities. This meant information was not well shared and it was not able to properly identify a large, national-level movement had been launched.