⁸GPU is the abbreviation for Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie, or State Political Administration. It is the name of the Soviet secret police which replaced the Cheka in February 1922. See also Chekist (note 2). In 1923, the GPU was renamed OGPU, which meant United State Political Administration. But the acronym GPU continued to be used popularly even after 1923. OGPU remained a separate institution until 1934 when it was absorbed into the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In 1941, the People’s Commissariat for State Security (in Russian, Narodnyi kommissariat gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti) was created, known under the acronym NKGB. Thus state security was divorced from the NKVD, but not for long. With the beginning of the war with Germany in June 1941, state security was returned to the NKVD until 1943. It existed as a separate agency until 1946. When the people’s commissariats were redesignated as ministries, the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs became the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del, or MVD as its abbreviation). The People’s Commissariat for State Security became the Ministry of State Security (Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, or MGB). Thus the NKVD and NKGB became the MVD and MGB. During the power struggle that followed Stalin’s death, the MVD absorbed the MGB, but then the security service was once more divorced from the MVD. In March 1954, the state security agency emerged as the KGB, which is an acronym for Komitet gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti, meaning the Committee for State Security.