The growth of strike movement in Moscow in the late XIX - early XX centuries and the growing influence of social democracy in Moscow attracted the attention of the police and gendarmerie. "Security" in the fight against them is now resorting to new methods, called "zubatovschina." They consisted in the fact that the head of the Moscow security department S. Zubatov, with the approval of the Moscow police chief Trepov and the Moscow governor-general, led. Prince Sergei Alexandrovich, in order to weaken the influence of social democracy on the working masses, began to plant first in Moscow, and later in Minsk, Vilna, Odessa and some other cities, organizations of workers who, with the assistance of the police and gendarmerie, waged an economic struggle with entrepreneurs.