PWT 37 2015

RHINOCEROS WEEKLY TRANSMISSION THURSDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2015 :

RWT-37 SPECIAL OGPU

A SCHOOL FOR INTELLIGENCE ?

TRANSMISSION 37 CONTENTS : OGPU School album OGPU 1923-1934 Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies

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The e-bulletin presents books, albums, photographs and ancient documents as they have been transmitted to us by their creators and by amateurs from past generations.

The physical descriptions, attributions, origins, place and date of printing of books and photographs have been carefully ascertained by collations and comparisons with other prints or comparable samples (from our picture library).

The books and photographs from all around the world are presented in chronological order. It is the privilege of ancient and authentic things to be presented in this fashion, mirroring the flow of ideas and creations.

All the items presented are available at the time of transmission.

The prices are denominated in euro. Paypal is accepted. Priority is given to the first outright purchase, confirmed by email to

studios@robespierre.fr

Rhinoceros & Cie Studios Robespierre 71 rue Robespierre 93100 Montreuil

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OGPU TRAINING SCHOOL AND COMMISSARS PORTRAITS, late 1920’s Eight (8) vintage silver prints, mostly 170x225 mm, on original mounts, one photographer stamp, few pencil inscription.

An usual subject, a photographic report of a soviel secret police school, from the archive of one student. For a silent visit.

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ОбъединённОе гОсударственнОе пОлитическОе управление при снк ссср (Огпу) OGPU

OGPU

OBYEDINYONNOYE GOSUDARSTVENNOYE POLITICHESKOYE UPRAVLENIYE UNDER THE SNK OF THE USSR (OGPU).

The Joint State Political Directorate (also translated as the All-Union State Political Administration) 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 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 Russian State Political Directorate left the 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 very broadly interpreted. Even before then, it 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 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.

OGPU

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OGPU

One undercover Soviet agent, Alexander Yakushev, later recalled a meeting with Sidney Reilly : “The first impression is unpleasant. His dark eyes expressed something biting and cruel; his lower lip drooped deeply and was too slick — the neat black hair, the demonstratively elegant suit. [...] Everything in his manner expressed something haughtily indifferent to his surroundings”.

From 1927 to 1929, the OGPU engaged in intensive investigations of an opposition coup.

Stalin soon made a public decree that any and all opposition views should be considered dangerous and gave the GPU the authority to seek out hostile elements. This led to the Shakhty Trial in March 1928, that prosecuted a group of industrial saboteurs involved in a hostile bourgeois conspiracy.

This would be the first of many trials during Stalin's Five Year Plan.

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, the Greek Catholics, the Latin Catholics, Islam and other religious organizations, an operation headed

by Yevgeny Tuchkov. The OGPU was also the principal secret police agency responsible for the detection, arrest, and liquidation of anarchists and other dissident left-wing factions in the early Soviet Union.

The OGPU was reincorporated into the newly created all-union People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in July 1934, becoming its Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB). Its final transformation was into the more widely known Committee for State Security (KGB).”

Chronology of

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Soviet Secret Police

CHRONOLOGY OF SOVIET SECRET POLICE AGENCIES Organization

Chairman

Dates

Cheka Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky 1917–22 Cheka (abbreviation of Vecheka, itself an acronym for "All-Russian Extraordinary Committee to Combat Counter-Revolution and Sabotage" of the Russian SFSR). February 6, 1922: Cheka transforms into GPU, a department of the NKVD of the Russian SFSR. GPU (NKVD) Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky 1922–23 GPU - State Political Directorate. NKVD - "People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs".

November 15, 1923: GPU leaves the NKVD and becomes all-union OGPU under direct control of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. OGPU

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky 1923–26 Vyacheslav Rudolfovich Menzhinsky 1926–34 "Joint State Political Directorate" or "All-Union State Political Board". July 10, 1934: NKVD of the Russian SFSR ceases to exist and transforms into the all-union NKVD of the USSR; OGPU becomes GUGB ("Main Directorate for State Security") in the all-union NKVD. NKVD

Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda 1934–36 Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov 1936–38 Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria 1938–41 NKVD - "People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs". GUGB - "Main Directorate for State Security". The official liquidation of GUGB within NKVD was announced on 12 February 1941 by a joint order № 00151/003 of NKVD and NKGB USSR. The rest of GUGB was abolished and staff was moved to newly created People's Commissariat for State Security (NKGB).

NKGB Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov 1941 After German attack on USSR in June 1941, decision is made to have all the special services under NKVD (with the exception of Military Intelligence), NKGB is transformed.

NKVD Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria 1941–43 When situation on the fronts is more stabilize, on April 14, 1943, decision is made to recreate NKGB.

Chronology of

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Soviet Secret Police

NKGB–MGB Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov 1943–46 March 18, 1946: All People's Commissariats were renamed to Ministries. MGB - "Ministry for State Security".

MGB Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov 1946–51 May 30, 1947: Official decision with the expressed purpose of "upgrading coordination of different intelligence services and concentrating their efforts on major directions". In the summer of 1948 the military personnel in KI were returned to the Soviet military to reconstitute foreign military intelligence service (GRU). KI sections dealing with the new East Bloc and Soviet émigrés were returned to the MGB in late 1948. In 1951 the KI returned to the MGB. Semyon Denisovich Ignatyev March 5, 1953: MVD and MGB are merged into the MVD by Lavrentiy Beria.

1951–53

MVD

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria 1953 Sergei Nikiforovich Kruglov 1953–54 March 13, 1954: Newly independent force became the KGB, as Beria was purged and the MVD divested itself again of the functions of secret policing. After renamings and tumults, the KGB remained stable until 1991.

KGB

Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shelepin Vladimir Yefimovich Semichastny Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov Vitali Vasilyevich Fedorchuk Viktor Mikhailovich Chebrikov Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kryuchkov Vadim Viktorovich Bakatin

1954–58 1958–61 1961–67 1967–82 1982 1982–88 1988–91 1991

In 1991, after the State Emergency Committee failed to overthrow Gorbachev and Yeltsin took over, General Vadim Bakatin was given instructions to dissolve the KGB. In Russia today, KGB functions are performed by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), and the Federal Protective Service (FSO). The GRU, continues to operate as well.

Number Thirty-seven of the weekly Transmission has been adapted to a new format for iphones and mobile devices uploaded on Thursday, 17th September at 15:15 (Paris time).

Upcoming uploads and transmissions now on Thursdays : Thursday 24th September, Thursday 1st Oct, Thursday 8th Oct. RhinocĂŠros & Cie Studios Robespierre / 71 rue Robespierre 93100 Montreuil / France studios@robespierre.fr Phone (10 am-5 pm) : (+33) 1.43.60.71.71 Correspondence in English, French, Dutch, Russian, Italian, Spanish, German, Turkish.

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