The article considers the features of the functioning of early models of the Russian foreign policy mechanism. With this in mind, in the process of research, institutional, historical-genetic and activity methods have been applied. On the basis of a retrospective analysis, the traditional features of domestic systems for making and implementing foreign policy decisions that functioned within the framework of the Ancient Russian State, the Moscow State and the Russian Empire have been characterized. Five main models of the mechanism for the formation and implementation of foreign policy,which were characterized by varying degrees of subjectivity of representative institutions, have been identifi ed: the system of making foreign policy decisions in the Ancient Russian principalities in the X–XIV centuries (a high degree of subjectivity of the veche, taking into account the infl uence of the activation of external threats and internal instability); 2) the mechanism for the formation and implementation of the foreign policy of the Moscow State in the XVI–XVII centuries (increase in the subjectivity of the Boyar Duma and the Zemsky Sobor in the context of exacerbation of external threats and internal crisis manifestations); 3) foreign policy mechanism of the Russian Empire in the XVIII – early XX centuries (low subjectivity of the Senate, the Legislative Commissions, the State Council in the circumstances of constant external threats, the strengthening of central power and relative domestic political stabilization); 4) the mechanism of foreign policy activity of the Russian Empire in 1906–1917 (a higher level of subjectivity of the State Duma against the background of the crisis of the international system, the aggravation of external threats and internal economic and political problems); 5) a conventionally distinguished foreign policy mechanism that functioned in the period after the February Revolution of 1917 until the formation of the USSR (deviant model: contradictions between the Petrograd Soviet and the Provisional Government on foreign policy issues against the background of the transformation of the system of international relations, the activation of external threats and internal shocks). It has been established that these models (except for the last one, which seems to be a special case) have in common the presence within the state bureaucracy of the dominant role of the «fi rst person», which, at diff erent historical stages, could have the powers of a commander and sovereign, exerting the greatest infl uence on the process of foreign policy formation. At the same time, the supreme leader, as a rule, relied on a narrow circle of trusted persons in the implementation of their functions in the foreign policy sphere. Traditionally, «power departments» (military, naval, foreign aff airs) were personally subordinated to the head of state. It is concluded that the subjectivity of representative institutions within the framework of the state foreign policy mechanism increased in the face of increased external threats and internal crises and, accordingly, decreased against the background of general stabilization and strengthening of the central government.