Establishment of the OGPU

Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, Organizing the Unified State Political Administration of the Soviet Federation. November 15, 1923

This decree created the Unified State Political Administration (OGPU), raising the secret police from a republican agency to an all-Union institution as the USSR’s constitutional framework took shape. Cast in the language of “socialist legality,” it nonetheless consolidated extraordinary security powers: the OGPU was charged with combating “counterrevolution,” espionage, border violations, and political banditry, and it built a centralized apparatus with its own troops and nationwide reach. The text marks a key step in making political policing a permanent pillar of Soviet governance, not a temporary Civil War expedient.

Original Source: Sistematicheskoe sobranie deistvuiushchikh zakonov Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (Moscow: [Kontora "Sobraniia zakovov SSR], 1926), pp. 194-195.

  1. In conformity with Article 61 of the Constitution of the USSR, and in order to consolidate the revolutionary efforts of the republics in their struggle against the political and economic counterrevolution, espionage, and banditism, the OGPU shall be created in the Sovnarkom of the USSR

  2. The president of the OGPU and his deputy are appointed by the presidium of the TsIK of the USSR The President and his deputy are members of the Sovnarkom. of the USSR with the right of advisory vote.

  3. To the president of the OGPU of the USSR is attached a collegium, the members of which are appointed with the consent of the Sovnarkom of the USSR and have all rights of the members of the collegiums of people's commissariats of the USSR

  4. Within the jurisdiction of the OGPU fall:

(a) Direction of the activity of all state political administrations of the union republics and special departments of the military circuits subordinate thereto, as well as of the activity of all organs of transportation of the state political administrations on the rail and water ways throughout the corresponding union republics.

(b) Immediate direction of and supervision over the special departments of the frontiers and armies.

(c) Organization of the protection of the boundaries of the USSR

(d) Immediate operative work on an all-Union scale.

  1. The OGPU and its local organs have the rights of active units of the red army in all matters relating to the use of rail, water and airways, as well as of the state means of communication (telephone, mail, telegraph, etc. ); in relation to the equipment of these special departments, frontier branches, and of the personnel of the OGPU with supplies and clothing.

  2. The agents of the OGPU and of the local organs thereof in their rights and duties, as well as in all other aspects, have a status similar to those in active military service.

  3. The OGPU has its own separate budget, approved by the Sovnarkom and included in the budget of the USSR In the budget of the OGPU are included likewise the budgets of special branches thereof engaged on the fronts and in the armies, as well as the budgets of the state political administrations of the union republics, including also the budgets of all special branches in the military circuits and of the organs of transportation subordinate thereto.

  4. At the immediate disposal of the OGPU are special military units whose number shall be determined by the STO; they are subordinate in all respects to the president of the OGPU or his deputy.

  5. The OGPU directs the activity of the local organs of the state political administrations through its plenipotentiaries accredited to the Sovnarkom of the union Republics and acting in conformity with special statutes ratified in a legislative manner.

  6. The OGPU, state political administrations of the union republics, special units, the frontier organs, as well as all organs of transportation act in conformity with the decisions of the VTsIK, dated February 6, 1922, October 16, 1922, and March 22, 1922, as well as of the central executive committees of the union republics, and in conformity with the decision of the presidium of the TsIK of the USSR on November 2, 1923.

  7. The OGPU has its representative in the supreme court of the USSR, subject to the consent of the Presidium of the TsIK of the USSR as provided for in Article 45 of the Constitution of the USSR.

  8. Supervision over the legality of the actions of the OGPU of the USSR lies within the jurisdiction of the prosecutor of the supreme court of the USSR in an order and within the limits as determined in the statute on the supreme court of the USSR ratified at the third session of the TsIK of the USSR, and in special decisions of the presidium of the TsIK of the USSR

Source: J. Meisel and E. S. Kozera, eds., Materials for the Study of the Soviet System (Ann Arbor: G. Wahr Pub. Co., 1953), pp. 168-170.

1924

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