The Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU; russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление) was the

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can ...

and state security service and

secret police Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic ...

of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

from 1923 to 1934. The OGPU was formed from the State Political Directorate of the

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

one year after the founding of the Soviet Union and responsible to the

Council of People's Commissars The Councils of People's Commissars (SNK; russian: Совет народных комиссаров (СНК), ''Sovet narodnykh kommissarov''), commonly known as the ''Sovnarkom'' (Совнарком), were the highest executive authorities of ...

. The agency operated inside and outside the Soviet Union, persecuting

political criminal A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...

s and opponents of the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

such as White émigrés, Soviet dissidents, and anti-communists. The OGPU was based in the

Lubyanka Building The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky until his death in 1926 and then Vyacheslav Menzhinsky until it was reincorporated as the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

in 1934.

History

Founding

Following the formation of the

in December 1922, the ruling Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) saw the need for a unified intelligence service to exercise control over state security throughout the new union. At the time, the State Political Directorate (GPU) served as the

for the

(RSFSR) and was successor to the Cheka. It was responsible to the

, which functioned as the highest executive body of the Soviet Union after the formation. On 15 November 1923, the GPU was dissolved and reformed into the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) with its

jurisdiction Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels. J ...

covering the entirety of the Soviet Union. Its official full name was the Joint State Political Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР, ''Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye pri SNK SSSR''), though the name is also translated as the All-Union State Political Administration and Unified State Political Directorate. Felix Dzerzhinsky, the chairman of the State Political Directorate and the Cheka, was appointed as the OGPU's first chief.

Operations

The OGPU, like the GPU before it, was in theory supposed to operate with more restraint than the Cheka, which had orchestrated the

Red Terror The Red Terror (russian: Красный террор, krasnyj terror) in Soviet Russia was a campaign of political repression and executions carried out by the Bolsheviks, chiefly through the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. It started in ...

from 1918 to 1922. Unlike the Cheka, the OGPU could not shoot " counter-revolutionaries" at will, and most suspected

s had to be brought before a judge. The OGPU's powers increased greatly in 1926, when the was amended to include Article 58, a section on anti-state

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

. The provisions were vaguely written and very broadly interpreted. Even before then, OGPU had set up tribunals to try the most exceptional cases of terrorism, usually without calling any witnesses. In time, the OGPU's ''

de facto ''De facto'' ( ; , "in fact") describes practices that exist in reality, whether or not they are officially recognized by laws or other formal norms. It is commonly used to refer to what happens in practice, in contrast with '' de jure'' ("by l ...

'' powers grew even greater than those of the Cheka. The OGPU achieved perhaps its most spectacular success with the Trust Operation of 1924–1925. OGPU agents contacted White émigrés and

anti-communist Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...

s in

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...

and pretended to represent a large group, known as "the Trust", working to overthrow the communist régime. Exiled Russians gave "the Trust" large sums of money and supplies, as did foreign intelligence agencies. Soviet agents finally succeeded in luring one of the leading anti-communist operators, Sidney Reilly, into Russia to meet with the Trust. Once in the Soviet Union in September 1925, Reilly was arrested and executed. The Trust was then dissolved, having become a huge

propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...

success. Dzerzhinsky died in 1926 and was succeeded as chief of the OGPU by deputy chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. From 1927 to 1929, the OGPU engaged in intensive investigations of an opposition coup d'etat. Soviet leader

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

issued a public

decree A decree is a legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state (such as the president of a republic or a monarch), according to certain procedures (usually established in a constitution). It has the force of law. The particular term used ...

that any and all opposition views should be considered dangerous and gave the OGPU the authority to seek out "hostile elements." That led in March 1928 to the Shakhty Trial, which saw the prosecution of a group of supposed industrial saboteurs allegedly involved in a hostile conspiracy. That would be the first of many trials during Stalin's rule. The OGPU planned and set up the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

system, and also became the Soviet government's arm for the

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these ter ...

of the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

, the Greek Catholics, the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...

and other religious organizations, in an operation headed by Yevgeny Tuchkov. The OGPU was also the principal secret police agency responsible for the detection, arrest, and liquidation of

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

s and other dissident left-wing factions in the early Soviet Union. It also enforced the

Dekulakization Dekulakization (russian: раскулачивание, ''raskulachivanie''; uk, розкуркулення, ''rozkurkulennia'') was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, or executions of millions of kul ...

campaigns during the First Five-Year Plan through extrajudicial special troikas of local OGPU agents,

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

officials, and state procurators with the authority to sentence suspects to

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

without a formal trial in the Soviet judicial system. OGPU brigades led the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

during the 1934 Soviet invasion of Xinjiang.

Dissolution

Menzhinsky's health had deteriorated rapidly during his directorship of the OGPU and Stalin tended to deal with his first deputy,

Genrikh Yagoda Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda ( rus, Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as directo ...

, who essentially took over as head in the late 1920s. Menzhinsky spent his last years as an invalid until his death in May 1934, for which Yagoda would later be blamed in the

Trial of the Twenty One In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, ...

. In July 1934, two months after Menzhinsky's death, the OGPU was dissolved and reincorporated into the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), the newly created

interior ministry An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministr ...

of the Soviet Union, becoming its Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) under the leadership of Yagoda. The OGPU would later be transformed into the more widely known Committee for State Security (KGB) in 1954.

References

{{Soviet Union topics Law enforcement agencies of the Soviet Union Soviet intelligence agencies Defunct law enforcement agencies of Russia Defunct intelligence agencies National security institutions Law enforcement in communist states Political repression in the Soviet Union Secret police . 1923 establishments in Russia 1923 establishments in the Soviet Union 1934 disestablishments in the Soviet Union Government agencies established in 1923 Government agencies disestablished in 1934

History

Founding

Operations

Dissolution

See also

References