Joint State Political Directorate
| Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye under the SNK of the USSR |
|
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | November 15th, 1923 |
| Preceding agency | |
| Dissolved | 1934 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Type | Secret police |
| Headquarters | Lubyanka Square, Moscow |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency |
.svg){kind=small} Council of the People's Commissars |
The Joint State Political Directorate (also translated as the All-Union State Political Administration and Unified State Political Directorate) was the secret police of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934. 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), Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye under the SNK of the USSR, or ОГПУ (OGPU).
With the creation of the Soviet Union in December 1922, a unified organisation was required to exercise control over state security throughout the new union. Thus, on November 15, 1923, the Russian State Political Directorate left the Russian NKVD and became the all-union Joint State Political Directorate. Felix Dzerzhinsky, chairman of the GPU, became the OGPU's first chief.
Like the GPU before it, the OGPU was theoretically supposed to operate with more restraint than the original Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka. The OGPU's powers were greatly increased in 1926, when the Soviet criminal code was amended to include a section on anti-state terrorism. The provisions were vaguely written and very broadly interpreted. Even before then, it had set up tribunals to try the most exceptional cases of terrorism, usually without calling any witnesses. In time, the OGPU's de facto powers grew even greater than those of the Cheka.
Perhaps the most spectacular success of the GPU/OGPU was the Trust Operation of 1924–1925. OGPU agents contacted émigrés in western Europe and pretended to be representatives of a large group working to 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 anticommunist operators, Sidney Reilly, into Russia to meet with the Trust. Once he was in Russia, he was captured and killed. The Trust was then dissolved and had become a large propaganda success.
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