Russia may have been the first country to set up an official counterintelligence organisation: the Okhrana was set up in 1880. Its title 'Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order'. sounds very modern. There was an even earlier Russian security department called the 'Department on Protecting the Order and Public Peace'. It was founded in 1866. It would be fair to say that these Russian organisations were not directed towards foreign intelligence services, but against internal threats to public order. They were part of the MVD (Ministry of the Interior).