State Political Directorate

The official designation in line to the native reference is:

• Русский: = Государственное политическое управление (ГПУ) при Народном комиссариaте внутренних дел (НКВД) РСФСР
• tr =Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie (GPU) pri narodnom komissariate vnutrennikh del (NKVD) RSFSR – (GPU pri NKVD RSFSR)
• English: = State Political Directorate (also State Political Administration) under the People's Commissariat of interior affairs of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RFSR)

Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
1917–22	Cheka under SNK of the RSFSR (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission)
1922–23	GPU under NKVD of the RSFSR (State Political Directorate)
1923–34	OGPU under SNK of the USSR (Joint State Political Directorate)
1934–41	NKVD of the USSR (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
1941	NKGB of the USSR (Commissariat of State Security)
1934–41	GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (Main Directorate of State Security of People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs)
1943–46	NKGB of the USSR (People's Commissariat for State Security)
1946–53	MGB of the USSR (Ministry of State Security)
1953–54	MVD of the USSR (Ministry of Internal Affairs)
1954–78	KGB under SM of the USSR (Committee for State Security)
1978–91	KGB of the USSR (Committee for State Security)
1991	MSB of the USSR (Interrepublican Security Service)
1991	TsSB of the USSR (Central Intelligence Service)
1991	Committee of protection of the USSR state border

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, Gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravlenie under the NKVD of the 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.

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 transferred into the all-union Joint State Political Directorate, also translated as "All-Union State Political Administration". Its official name was "Joint State Political Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR" (Russian: Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye under the SNK of the USSR, Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР), or OGPU (ОГПУ).

• Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War § Violence and terror
• Commanders of the border troops USSR and RF
• Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
• Eastern Bloc politics

• Gerson, L. D. (1985). The Secret Police in Lenin"s Russia. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
• Nation, R. C. (2018). Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.[1][2]
• Ryan, James. (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge.

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