The relationship between regional political police units and other departments of the Russian empire in the second half of the 1820s-1850s (institutional and legal aspect)

The problem of the relations between local political police units and other departments is of high relevance to the scientific community as it helps assess the state mechanism of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 1820s-1850s. Based on regulations and record-keeping correspondence, an attempt was made to study the development of laws and regulations governing the relationships of political police with other departments at the regional level, review the status and specific nature of its implementation, and identify the dialectic interaction of the above-mentioned processes. The authors noted that despite the intensive development of the legal regulation of their joint activities, the institutions under review faced many gaps and contradictions. The implementation of laws and regulations had a number of negative effects. In particular, the Governors and Governors-General enlarged the scope of their interaction with gendarme officers and required them to fulfill orders not being within their competence. Officers of Gendarme Corps regional units were under the authority of the high-ranking officials and lost their institutional autonomy. Laws and regulations in this regard were to be steadily improved to ensure the effective performance of duties by political police officers.