The figures placed side by side in the title combine many things. V.K. Pleve, the second director of the Police Department, held this post from April 15, 1881 to July 20, 1884. In 1884, he was appointed comrade Minister of the Interior, head of the police. And on April 4, 1902 he became Minister of the Interior. V.F. Dzhunkovsky was a fellow Minister of the Interior and commander of the Separate Gendarme Corps from January 1913 to September 1915. Both stood at the helm of the political police of the Russian Empire and determined the priorities of its activities. The nature and direction of the political police reforms carried out under these heads of the department make it possible to trace the documents presented in the collection. When selecting materials, the focus was on those related to changes in the structure and methodology of the political search. The book made an attempt to build a fairly representative documentary series reflecting the main activities of the bodies of political investigation and the transformations to which they were subjected from the 80s of the XIX century. until the first decades of the XX century.