Joint State Political Directorate

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Joint State Political Directorate" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Joint State Political Directorate

Объединённое государственное политическое управление при СНК СССР Ob"yedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye pri SNK SSSR
Agency overview
Formed	15 November 1923; 100 years ago (15 November 1923)
Preceding agency	State Political Directorate
Dissolved	10 July 1934; 89 years ago (10 July 1934)
Superseding agency	NKVD
Type	Secret police
Headquarters	11-13 ulitsa Bol. Lubyanka, Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Agency executives	Felix Dzerzhinsky (1923–1926) Vyacheslav Menzhinsky (1926–1934)
Parent agency	Council of People's Commissars

The Joint State Political Directorate (Russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление, romanized: Ob"yedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye), abbreviated as OGPU (Russian: ОГПУ), was the intelligence and state security service, and secret police, of the Soviet Union from November 1923 to July 1934, succeeding the State Political Directorate (GPU). The OPGU was responsible to the Council of People's Commissars, and based in the Lubyanka Building in Moscow. It was headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky until his death in 1926, then by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky until replaced by the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

The OGPU played an important role in the Soviet Union's forced collectivization of agriculture under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, crushing resistance and deporting millions of peasants to the growing network of Gulag forced labor camps. The OGPU operated both inside and outside the country, persecuting political criminals and opponents of the Bolsheviks such as White émigrés, Soviet dissidents, and anti-communists.