Joint State Political Directorate

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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 (JSPD) (OGPU; Russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление, romanized: Ob"yedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye) was the intelligence and state security service and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934.

The OGPU was formed from the State Political Directorate of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic one year after the founding of the Soviet Union and responsible to the Council of People's Commissars. The agency operated inside and outside the Soviet Union, persecuting political criminals and opponents of the Bolsheviks such as White émigrés, Soviet dissidents, and anti-communists. The OGPU was based in the Lubyanka Building in Moscow and headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky until his death in 1926, and then by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, until it was reincorporated as the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD in 1934.