GPU-OGPU eastern department and the experience of studying it in the works of V.S. Khristoforov

The author analyzes a new book by V.C. Khristoforov, a well-known military historian and archivist, an expert in the history of national security service, placing it in the context of the modern history of Russian Intelligence and Counterintelligence. The book titled “The Soviet Secret Services Discover the East” published by the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2019 gives a comprehensive insight of the structure and activities of the Eastern Department of the Unified State Political Administration (OGPU). The author of the article starts with the estimation of the book’s reference sources. The latter are appreciated not only for their wide scope, but also for the fact that the bulk of them are entirely new, unknown documents found by V.C. Khristoforov in Russian and Kazakhstan archives. These documents, having been in secret storage for a long time, were completely inaccessible for historians. The author of the article notes that it is these materials that allowed the researcher to reveal the operation of the Eastern Department of OGPU, its importance for the leadership of the Bolshevik party and Soviet state to make critical decisions in the area of domestic policy. The author argues that V.C. Khristoforov’s conclusions are well-grounded, citing that for quite a long time the Soviet leaders normally entertained suspicion for Muslims and the conviction that any form of social and political activity of Muslim peoples of Russia was targeted against the Soviet state.