State Political Directorate

State Political Directorate
(GPU pri NKVD RSFSR)
	Badge commemorating 5 years of the Cheka–GPU
Agency overview
Formed	6 February 1922; 104 years ago (1922-02-06)
Preceding agency	Cheka;
Dissolved	15 November 1923; 102 years ago (1923-11-15)
Superseding agency	OGPU;
Type	Secret police; Intelligence agency
Headquarters	Lubyanka,; Moscow, RSFSR, USSR;
Agency executive	Felix Dzerzhinsky (1922–1923);
Parent agency	NKVD

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Soviet national security agency (1922–1923)

The State Political Directorate (Russian: Государственное политическое управление, romanized: Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie), abbreviated as GPU (ГПУ), was the secret police of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) from February 1922 to November 1923. It was the immediate successor of the Cheka, and was replaced by the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU).

The full official designation was the State Political Directorate (also State Political Administration) under the People's Commissariat for interior affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian: Государственное политическое управление при Народном комиссариaте внутренних дел РСФСР, romanized: Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie pri Narodnom komissariate vnutrennikh del RSFSR; abbr. ГПУ при НКВД РСФСР, GPU pri NKVD RSFSR).

Establishment and functions

Formed from the Cheka, the original Russian state security organization, on February 6, 1922, it was initially known under the Russian abbreviation GPU—short for "State Political Directorate under the NKVD of the RSFSR" (Russian: Государственное политическое управление при НКВД РСФСР, romanized: Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie pri NKVD RSFSR). Its first chief was the Cheka's former chairman, Felix Dzerzhinsky.

Internal security

On paper, the new agency was supposed to act with more restraint than the Cheka. For example, unlike the Cheka, it did not have the right to shoot suspected "counter-revolutionaries" at will. All those suspected of political crimes had to be brought before a judge in normal circumstances.^[1]

Foreign intelligence

The 'Foreign Department' of the GPU was headed by a former Bolshevik and party member, Mikhail Trilisser.^[2] The Foreign Department was placed in charge of intelligence activities overseas, including espionage and liquidation of 'enemies of the people'. Trilisser himself was later liquidated by Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge in 1940.

Reorganization

With the creation of the USSR in December 1922, a unified organization was required to exercise control over state security throughout the new union. Thus, on November 15, 1923, the GPU left the Russian NKVD and was reorganized as the all-union Joint State Political Directorate. Its official name was "Joint State Political Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR" (Russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР, romanized: Obyedinyonnoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie pri SNK SSSR), or OGPU (ОГПУ).

References

External links

History of the MVD of Russia: 1917–1931 (in Russian)

[Dictators-1] Overy, Richard (2004). The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia. London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393020304.

[2] Kindermann, Karl Gustav, In the Toils of the O.G.P.U., Translated by Gerald Griffin; Hurst & Blackett, 1933 Digitized December 5, 2007, p. 149.

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