243 Soviet State Security Services 1917-46

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Elite series. Examines the history and organizations of the security apparatus of USSR. The Bolsheviks' seizure of power in Russia in late 1917 was swiftly followed by the establishment of the Cheka, the secret police of the new Soviet state, to eliminate political dissent. In 1922 the Soviet state-security organs became the GPU and then the OGPU (1923-34) before coalescing into the NKVD. By 1946, the power of the NKVD was so great that even Stalin saw it as a threat and it was broken up into multiple organizations, notably the MVD and the MGB - the forerunners of the KGB.