OGPU

Operations

The OGPU, like the GPU before it, was in theory supposed to operate with more restraint than the Cheka, which had orchestrated the Red Terror from 1918 to 1922. Unlike the Cheka, the OGPU could not shoot "counter-revolutionaries" at will, and most suspected political criminals had to be brought before a judge. The OGPU's powers increased greatly in 1926, when the Soviet criminal code was amended to include Article 58, a section on anti-state terrorism. The provisions were vaguely written and very broadly interpreted. Even before then, OGPU 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. The OGPU achieved perhaps its most spectacular success with the Trust Operation of 1924–1925. OGPU agents contacted White émigrés and anti-communists in Western Europe and pretended to represent a large group, known as "the Trust", working to overthrow the communist régime. Exiled Russians gave "the Trust" large sums of money and supplies, as did foreign intelligence agencies. Soviet agents finally succeeded in luring one of the leading anti-communist operators, Sidney Reilly, into Russia to meet with the Trust. Once in the Soviet Union in September 1925, Reilly was arrested and executed. The Trust was then dissolved, having become a huge propaganda success. Dzerzhinsky died in 1926 and was succeeded as chief of the OGPU by deputy chairman Vyacheslav Menzhinsky.