Activities of Local Authorities to Ensure State and Public Security in the North-West Territory of the Russian Empire (1900–1907)

The article examines the activities of local authorities of the North-Western Territory of the Russian Empire to solve problems in the field of state and public security in the region from 1900 to 1907. The purpose of the article is to analyze the peculiarities of organizing government policy, taking into account local socio-political, economic and confessional characteristics and conditions, as well as the personal contribution of the governors-general who led the region during the specified period, in the fight against revolutionary and nationalist movements. The main directions of the policy are noted and its results are shown. It was concluded that the activities of local authorities in the western outskirts of the Russian Empire to ensure state and public security had not only the goal of restoring law and order in the run-up to and during the First Russian Revolution, but also had a social and confessional orientation, was unstable and depended on the changing course of state policy and political conjuncture of that time. The policy of Russification, bureaucratization and unification, accompanied by administrative and police measures, did not contribute to the final stabilization of public order and internal security in the region. The work uses retrospective, problem-chronological, historical-comparative, as well as general scientific research methods. This study deepens the information available in Russian historiography on the issue under study.