 Soviet poster of the 1920s: The GPU strikes on the head the couter-revolutionary saboteur State Political Directorate, known under the Russian abbreviation GPU for Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravlenie (Государственное Политическое Управление при НКВД РСФСР/СССР) was the secret police in the USSR at a certain period of history. The GPU was formed from the Cheka in 1922. Already in 1923, it was transformed into the OGPU with the formation of the USSR. Both times it operated under the auspices of the NKVD. It's final transformation was into the more infamously know Committee for State Security (KGB).
The abbreviation "GPU" may also stand for Glavnoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie, or Main Political Directorate, which existed at major state establishments, such as Red Army (GPU RKKA) and a number of People's Commissariats.
Perhaps the most spectacular success of the GPU was the Trust Operation, 1924-1925. GPU agents contacted emigrés in western Europe and pretended to be representatives of a large group working for the 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.
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