ABSTRACT
During the first days of the February Revolution street mobs stormed the Department of Police buildings in Petrograd. Bonfires burned day and night, consuming reference books, piles of loose documents and case files, which covered the floors and the courtyards. A mob also charged into the Moscow Okhrana headquarters located on Bolshoi Gnezdnikovsky Lane, causing similar devastation. All types of people were in the crowds: some were simply caught up in the excitement of the moment, others snatched documents, reference books and photographs as souvenirs.1 Others were venting their hatred of the Okhrana for past persecution. But there were in the crowds also agents and informers who attempted to destroy evidence of their service in the Okhrana, which explains why many personal files of secret collaborators, agents’ reports and intelligence notes disappeared from the Okhrana archives during the looting of the Okhrana and police headquarters.2
