Counterintelligence in the Civil War in the Russian North (1918-1920)

The modern stage of Russia's development requires a certain rethinking of the place and role of special services in the system of state administration, and this is possible only taking into account the historical experience of functioning of these institutions. The Civil War period is of considerable interest in this respect since the events of 1918-1920 were accompanied not only by a direct struggle between the intelligence and counter-intelligence departments of "red" and "white", but also by a competition of principles and trends in their development. The Soviet and anti-Bolshevik camps had different solutions to the common problem of improving the effectiveness of intelligence services in conditions of armed conflict, and an assessment of the reforms carried out by the opponents should be based on a balanced analysis of documents of the past era. In the course of the study we used documents from 10 Russian and foreign archives, including those introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.