Soviet poster of the 1920s: The GPU strikes on the head the counter-revolutionary saboteur

State Political Directorate was the secret police of the RSFSR and USSR until 1934. Formed from the Cheka on February 6, 1922, it was initially known under the Russian abbreviation GPU for Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie of NKVD of the RSFSR (Государственное Политическое Управление НКВД РСФСР). GPU poster. ... GPU poster. ... // Secret police (sometimes political police) are a police organization which operates in secrecy for the national purpose of maintaining national security against internal threats to the state. ... State motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Workers of the world, unite!) Official language None (Russian in practice) Capital Moscow Chairman of the Supreme... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Year 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar). ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... State motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Workers of the world, unite!) Official language None (Russian in practice) Capital Moscow Chairman of the Supreme...

With the creation of the USSR, a unified organization was required to exercise control over state security throughout the new Union. Thus, on November 15, 1923, the GPU was transformed into Joint State Political Directorate - Ob'edinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie under SNK of the USSR (Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР), or OGPU (ОГПУ), also translated as All-Union State Political Administration. {{year nav|1939 1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Perhaps the most spectacular success of the GPU/OGPU was the Trust Operation, 1924-1925. GPU agents contacted emigrés in western Europe and pretended to be representatives of a large group working for the overthrow of the communist regime, known as the "Trust". Exiled Russians gave the Trust large sums of money and supplies, as did foreign intelligence agencies. The Trust finally succeeded in luring one of the leading anti-Communist operators, Sidney Reilly, into Russia to meet with the Trust. Once he was in Russia, he was captured and killed. The Trust was dissolved, and it became a large propaganda success. TDB Trust or Trest Operation (операция Трест) was an operation presented as a spectacular counterintelligence success of OGPU in 1921-1926. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... Lieutenant Sidney George Reilly, MC (c. ...

The OGPU was responsible for the creation of the GULAG system. It also became the Soviet government's arm for the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious organizations, an operation headed by Eugene Tuchkov. Gulag ( , Russian: ) is an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно—Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, Glavnoye Upravleniye Ispravitelno-trudovykh Lagerey i kolonii, The Chief Directorate [or Administration] of Corrective Labour Camps and Colonies of the NKVD. Anne Applebaum, in her book Gulag: A History, explains: The word Gulag has also come to signify not only the administration of the... The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian: ), also known as the Orthodox Christian Church of Russia, is that body of Christians who are united under the Patriarch of Moscow, who in turn is in communion with the other patriarchs and primates of the Eastern Orthodox Church. ... The sixth department of the OGPU, Tuchkov is seated second from right Eugene Tuchkov, or Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Tuchkov (in Russian Евгегний Александрович Тучков) was the head of the anti-religious arm of the Soviet OGPU. Tuchkov was born in 1892 in the village of Teliakovo near Suzdal. ...

OGPU was reincorporated into NKVD of the USSR in July 1934, becoming the GUGB department. Its final transformation was into the more infamously known Committee for State Security (KGB). This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Main Directorate of State Security (Russian: Glavnoe Upravlenie Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti) was the name of the Soviet secret police from July 1934 to April 1943. ... The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for Committee for State Security, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ...

See also

• Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies

The Soviet Union had a succession of secret police agencies over the course of its existence. ...

External link

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