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Secret Police
From the beginning of their regime, the Bolsheviks relied on
a strong secret, or political, police to buttress their rule.
The first secret police, called the Cheka, was established in
December 1917 as a temporary institution to be abolished once
Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power.
The original Cheka, headed by Feliks Dzerzhinskii, was empowered
only to investigate "counterrevolutionary" crimes. But it soon
acquired powers of summary justice and began a campaign of terror
against the propertied classes and enemies of Bolshevism.
Although many Bolsheviks viewed the Cheka with repugnance and
spoke out against its excesses, its continued existence was seen
as crucial to the survival of the new regime.
Once the Civil War (1918-21) ended and the threat of
domestic and foreign opposition had receded, the Cheka was
disbanded. Its functions were transferred in 1922 to the State
Political Directorate, or GPU, which was initially less powerful
than its predecessor. Repression against the population
lessened. But under party leader Joseph Stalin, the secret
police again acquired vast punitive powers and in 1934 was
renamed the People's Comissariat for Internal Affairs, or NKVD.
No longer subject to party control or restricted by law, the NKVD
became a direct instrument of Stalin for use against the party
and the country during the Great Terror of the 1930s.
The secret police remained the most powerful and feared
Soviet institution throughout the Stalinist period. Although the
post-Stalin secret police, the KGB, no longer inflicted such
large-scale purges, terror, and forced depopulation on the
peoples of the Soviet Union, it continued to be used by the
Kremlin leadership to suppress political and religious dissent.
The head of the KGB was a key figure in resisting the
democratization of the late 1980s and in organizing the attempted
putsch of August 1991.
TO THE POLITBURO
1. To Comrade Stalin.
------------------------
2. Copies to all members of the Politburo.
-------------------------------------------
For some time now, particularly during the period of the
Genoa Conference, the Moscow representative of the American
Telegraph Agency "United Press" citizen Gullinger has started
sending abroad telegrams tendentiously reflecting events in
Russia. This has been particularly so in his telegrams on the
removal of church properties and in telegrams that have
anticipated the "united front" of Germany and Russia at the Genoa
Conference. We have repeatedly brought to his attention the
distortion of the facts permitted by him in his telegrams; we
have not let pass several of his telegrams, while in others we
have expunged the particularly tendentious passages that might
serve as the basis for propagating false rumors about Russia
abroad. In response to this, citizen Gullinger has begun to slip
into his telegrams phrases about the tightening of censorship in
Moscow. On April 26, he brought for transmission a telegram, a
copy of which is enclosed with this letter. This telegram was
not let through; nevertheless, Gullinger sent it, apparently
through some mission, as we learned from the response he received
to his suggestion.
I feel that it is intolerable to permit such crooks to live
in Moscow and to continue to do such dirty tricks. I suggest
that he be deported immediately.
....
Since it is necessary to deport him immediately, I would
request that the question be resolved by Thursday by an
arrangement over the telephone. (A copy of this letter has been
circulated to all members of the Politburo).
With Communist Greetings
................................................................
Stamp (bottom right): Secret Archive of the Central Committee
of the All-Union Communist Party
(of Bolsheviks)
Inventory No 290; Convocation; F-GR;
Archive No.--