State Political Directorate in the context of Wrecking (Soviet crime)

The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1922) and the Soviet Union (1922–1991) from their beginnings in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1923 to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In May 1992, Russian president Boris Yeltsin issued decrees forming the Russian Armed Forces, which subsumed much of the Soviet Armed Forces. Multiple sections of the former Soviet Armed Forces in the other, smaller Soviet republics gradually came under those republics' control.

According to the all-union military service law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Red Army, the Air Forces, the Navy, the State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the convoy guards. The OGPU was later made independent and amalgamated with the NKVD in 1934, and thus its Internal troops were under the joint management of the Defence and Interior Commissariats. In 1989, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Ground Forces, the Air Defence Forces, the Air Forces, and the Navy, listed in their official order of importance.

Wrecking (Russian: вредительство or vreditel'stvo [vrʲɪˈdʲitʲɪlʲstvə], lit. "inflicting damage", "harming") was a crime specified in the criminal code of the Soviet Union in the Stalin era. It is often translated as "sabotage"; however, "wrecking", "diversionist acts", and "counter-revolutionary sabotage" were distinct sub-articles of Article 58 (RSFSR Penal Code) (58-7, 58–9, and 58-14 respectively), and the meaning of "wrecking" is closer to "undermining".

The Joint State Political Directorate (Russian: Объединённое государственное политическое управление, IPA: [ɐbjɪdʲɪˈnʲɵn(ː)əjə ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əjə pəlʲɪˈtʲitɕɪskəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪje]), abbreviated as OGPU (Russian: ОГПУ), was the secret police of the Soviet Union from November 1923 to July 1934, succeeding the State Political Directorate (GPU). Responsible to the Council of People's Commissars, the OGPU was headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky until 1926, then by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky until replaced by the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) within the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

The OGPU played an important role in the Soviet Union's forced collectivization of agriculture under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, crushing resistance and deporting millions of peasants to the growing network of Gulag forced labor camps. The OGPU operated both inside and outside the country, persecuting political criminals and opponents of the Bolsheviks such as White émigrés, Soviet dissidents, and anti-communists.

The Soviet Border Troops (Russian: Пограничные войска СССР, romanized: Pogranichnyye voyska SSSR) were the border guard of the Soviet Union, subordinated to the Soviet state security agency: first to the Cheka/OGPU, then to NKVD/MGB and, finally, to the KGB. Accordingly, they were known as NKVD Border Security and KGB Border Troops. Unlike the border guards of many other countries, Soviet Border Troops also included the maritime border guarding units, and aviation units (i.e., a coast guard).

The mission of the Border Troops included repulsing armed incursions into Soviet territory; preventing illegal crossings of the border or the transport of weapons, explosives, contraband or subversive literature across the border; monitoring the observance of established procedures at border crossing points; monitoring the observance by Soviet and foreign ships of navigation procedures in Soviet territorial waters; and assisting state agencies in the preservation of natural resources and the protection of the environment from pollution. Border guards were authorized to examine documents and possessions of persons crossing the borders and to confiscate articles; to conduct inquiries in cases of violations of the state border; and to take such actions as arrest, search and interrogation of individuals suspected of border violations.

Chekism (Russian: Чекизм) was the form of counterintelligence state widely present in the Soviet Union by which secret police, counterintelligence and internal security services (originally the Cheka, hence the name, but most famously the KGB) strongly controlled all spheres of society. Similar circumstances exist in some post-Soviet states, particularly Russia. The term encompasses both the ideological underpinnings justifying often arbitrary repression as well as the political situation where security service members occupy high-level political offices and a lack of civilian control over their activities (in extreme cases, the opposite). The term is sometimes also applied to other Eastern Bloc security services (long-serving East German security chief Erich Mielke was fond of calling himself a Chekist), and, presently, to the federal government of Russia under Vladimir Putin (himself a former KGB officer).

The name is derived from Cheka, the colloquial name of the first in the succession of Soviet secret police agencies. Officers of the succession of security agencies (Cheka, GPU, OGPU, NKVD, GUGB, NKGB, MGB, MVD, and, longest-lasting, the KGB), as well as their Russian successors, the Federal Security Service, are often referred to, both by themselves and by the broader public, as "Chekists".

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Russian: Феликс Эдмундович Дзержинский; Polish: Feliks Edmundowicz Dzierżyński [ˈfɛliks ɛdmundɔvʲiʈ͡ʂ d͡ʑɛrʐɨj̃skʲi]; 11 September [O.S. 30 August] 1877 – 20 July 1926), nicknamed Iron Felix (Russian: Железный Феликс), was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first three Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka, the GPU and the OGPU, establishing state security organs for the Bolshevik government. He was a key architect of the Red Terror and de-Cossackization.

Born to a Polish family of noble descent in their Ozhyemblovo Estate (in 1881 named Dzerzhinovo), in Russian Poland, Dzerzhinsky embraced revolutionary politics from a young age, and was active in the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party. Active in Kaunas and Warsaw, he was frequently arrested and underwent several exiles to Siberia, from which he escaped every time. He evaded the tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, whose work he took interest in. Dzerzhinsky participated in the failed 1905 Revolution, and after a final arrest in 1912, was imprisoned until the February Revolution of 1917. He then joined Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party, and played an active role in the October Revolution which brought them to power.