Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Pléhve (Вячесла́в Константи́нович фон Пле́ве), also Pleve (April 4, 1846, Meshchovsk, Kaluga Guberniya - July 15 (J), 1904, St Petersburg) was the director of the tsarist Russian Police and later Minister of the Interior.
He comes from a German dvoryan family and was raised in Warsaw.
After studying law at the Moscow University, he became a prosecutor's assistant in 1867 and served on various positions in Ministry of Justic. In 1881, he was investigating the murder of Alexander II and then joined the MVD as a Director of the Department of Police, also in charge of Okhranka. He member of the Governing Senate in 1884 and Deputy of the Minister in 1885. Made Actual Privy Counsellor in 1899.
Intelligent, but unrelentingly harsh, anti-Semitic and deeply conservative, he worked energetically in political counterintelligence. He is credited with the destruction of numerous revolutionary and liberal groups. It appears Pléhve did not see a difference in degrees of opposition, and his actions forced the unification of ideological enemies in the Osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie - a significant force in the 1905 disturbances.
In April 1902, following the assassination of Dmitry Sipyagin, he was appointed Minister of the Interior. After a brief attempt at conciliation with the zemstvo conservatives failed, he relapsed - encouraging the pogroms of 1903 and disbanding the police-run labour unions (zubatovshchina).
Pléhve was a obvious target for revolutionaries. He survived one attack in 1903 and two in 1904 before the Socialist-Revolutionary Combat Group succeeded, this was despite the organization being headed by Evno Azef - a police agent. On July 15, 1904 a bomb was thrown into Pléhve's carriage by Yegor Sozonov , utterly destroying him.
He was replaced as Minister by Prince Peter Svyatopolk-Mirsky .
