Russian and Soviet cryptology: I--some communications intelligence in Tsarist Russia

The fact that diplomatic documents were encrypted only served to intensify MID's efforts to discover their contents. One Black Cabinet official described the ease with which foreign cryptographic materials could be obtained, even on the open market, in the following manner:

Codebooks were acquired not only with the assistance of embassy employees but also in the cities of Brussels and Paris, where well-known persons engaged directly in open trade of foreign codebooks for a fixed price.8 The situation was completely identical in both cities. Codebooks which were of less interest to us, e. g., Greek, Bulgarian and Spanish, and could be obtained rather easily, cost 1,500 to 2,000 [rubles]. Such codebooks as those of the German, Japanese or U. S. A. foreign offices cost several tens of thousands. The prices for the remaining countries fluctuated between 5,000 to 15,000. It was possible with this trading in codebooks to place an order for this or that new codebook, and these orders were filled within a short period of time.9

The "similar establishment" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to which the encrypted diplomatic correspondence was sent by the Black Cabinets was, of course, the main COMINT organization within MID responsible for diplomatic cryptanalysis. Little information is available on the specific structure and operations of this organization. Before World War I, purportedly, it could read the encrypted correspondence of at least France, Great Britain, Turkey, AustriaHungary, and Sweden. According to one source the following additional countries' diplomatic correspondence was being read by MID cryptanalysts during WWI itself: Italy, Japan, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. Shortly before World Wax I this cryptanalytic organization was reorganized by Aleksandr A. Savinskij, Chief of the MID Cabinet (1901-10), and brought directly under control of the foreign affairs minister himself.lo

MINISTRY OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS (MVD)

Like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), through the cryptanalytic organization of its Department of Police, was an important component of the tsarist Russian COMINT community. The internal security and surveillance functions of the MVD, including the monitoring of communications of anti-tsarist revolutionary groups as well as the general populace of the empire, have been rather well documented elsewhere.ll What is not generally well-known is that, at least for a short period of time, the MVD expanded its jurisdiction to include monitoring the communications (as well as the movements) of foreign ambassadors, ministers, and military attaches based in Russia. This extension of the MVD into an area normally under sole control of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs occurred between 1904 and 1906. Included among those whose communications were being monitored by the MVD was the U. S. ambassador.

The monitoring of U. S. diplomatic communications, according to the former chief of this self described "Top Secret" MVD bureau, Colonel Mikhail Stepanovich Komissarov, had "enormous significance for tsarist diplomatic initiatives." On 4 May 1917, in testimony before the Extraordinary Investigating Commission of the Provisional Government,l2 Komissarov stated: