its Influence, and rousing the wrath of the people against the clergy.
Beside this Inquisitor stands the appalling figure of General Kurlov.
As chief of the gendarmerie and vice-Minister of the Interior, General Kurlov was the head of the secret political police, the "Okhrana."
The corruption of members of revolutionary parties, and their recruiting into the ranks of the agents of the "Okhrana"; the staging of terroristic attempts on those high political personages of more liberal views, the torturing of political prisoners, numerous death sentences, the organising of pogroms of Poles, Letts, Finns, and Jews; the persecution of the national leaders of peoples living within the Russian Empire; spying, suppression of the freedom of the press and of education these are among the deeds of the Chief of Police, General Kurlov.
He was "immortal," as all changes of Government and of political tendencies left him always unaffected. He always remained head of the police, the greatest power in Russia, able to destroy Ministers of State. The chancery of the "Okhrana" had a special department which exercised strict control over the utterances and actions of Ministers and dignitaries, even of the Grand Dukes. The disfavour which befell the family of the well-known poet and President of the Academy of Science, the liberal-minded Grand Duke Constantin, and the distinguished historian, Grand Duke Nicolai
