....the use of pseudo-gangs, as "provocateurs" + cheap/free cannonfodder /to take the rap, is discussed in "Low Intensity Cnflict", the ''70s U.K. classic, + goes back to the use of them by the tsarist secret police against serfs asking for even small ameliorations of their slavery, as "black legions", that used the "classic" roman tactic of "decimation" - to cause brutality + chaos in society (they even "reinvented" the pogroms that had diminished in russia until this late 1800s deliberate strategy) - to "kill one in ten (1/10 - see) - then target the journalists, trade unionists, critics, etc, amidst the following "legitimised" official clampdown. As the okhrana developed an increased criminality of its own, it used this tactic as tool to cover up its own crimes, as well as its failures, ploys, etc.
In fact, the 1905 revolution was accidentally got going by a staged demo outside the tsars palace - the famous "Father Gapon" of the incident, the archives reveal, was a stooge - to get the reinstatement of a "hardline" okhrana boss that had gotten sacked for trying to insert his own "rasputin"type priest into the Tsars entourage ("nilus") - with a poisonous tract he had, himself, forged(the Protocols of the Elders of Sion, in "the great in the small") to try to make the tsar sack the politician in charge of his dept., who had a jewish-SOUNDING name ! Keystone (secret) cops or what!
Its very unfortunate for the world that when the paris dept was shut by the french parliament in 1913, the "cunning plans" . . . .
to reinstate a favoured baron-of-choice by torpedoing the provisional govt with its "most penetrated targetted political faction", to provoke a pre-prepared few brigades to "change sides" then sweep down from the N of the city to "restore order" . . . . FAILED, AGAIN.
( It seems very possible, in retrospect, that the murder of the tsar was. . . . guess! )( the footnts of the T. Mangold '77 book on the subject + other info, sees the odd, self-incriminating witness accounts fall into place!)
. . . . but, since the "power" to cover things up exceeded the "getting anything right in the first place" thing, they took these tactics into the 20th century . . . . to f*** it up, again + again, + again.

yes. . . . they played the same game on the germans .... found jobs teaching "political warfare" at munich/heidelberg .... manipulated + twisted the "thule" ideology . . . . tricked people in britain into setting up "false fronts" such as "patriotic labour", etc, etc ....
even had people thinking that what they were doing was supporting an "alliance against the comintern", when some of the uk,european+u.s. old okhrana hands + colleagues had "tags" on some very high up soviets. Unwitting as most of the world was, a very, very , very few people had - almost accidentally - set the 20th century up for tragedy. . . .

. . . . + it looks as if its happening again, but worse, + much, much faster. . . .