This monograph is about an episode in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement, which was widely covered by propagandist politicians, but very little by historians.... The revolutionaries claimed that the entire Zubatov operation was nothing more than a cynical police trick... in order to isolate workers from a truly revolutionary movement, confuse workers as to where their true interests lie, the facts are actually much more complicated... Zubatov and his employees (about whom Pospelovsky scrupulously collected all the available data)... apparently believed,... that the labor movement can develop in Russia,... not contradicting the autocracy, limiting itself to legal activities, seeking reforms in working conditions and wages, but abandoning the revolutionary path. The idea itself was quite reasonable. Shortly before, Edward Bernstein argued that the workers would achieve much more for themselves through pressure than by resorting to revolutionary violence...