For the first time in English, the anatomy of the Tsarist secret police, drawn up by Victor Serge for the Bolsheviks following the Russian Revolution. The records of the notorious Okhrana, captured intact by the revolutionaries, show all the working of repression: from surveillance and back-room analysis to provocation, arrest and torture. Designed to present the findings of the Bolsheviks to the international proletariat, this book acquires new importance today as the state machines throughout the capitalist world prepare to confront the revolutionary upsurge of the working class As relevant as ever is Serge’s section on ‘Simple Advice to Revolutionaries,’ together with his unmasking of the techniques which made the Okhrana ‘the prototype of the modern political police’