growing. In 1925, at his insistence, the Ukrainian Politburo signed a series of decrees strengthening the Ukrainian secret police, whose name was changed first to GPU—the State Political Directorate—and then to OGPU—the Joint State Political Directorate.101 Among other things he convinced the Politburo to protect the salaries of his departments’ employees. Even as the cultural influence of the Ukrainian intelligentsia was at its height and the power of the peasants was at their greatest, Balytsky, Ukrainian by birth but Russian-speaking and Soviet by sympathy, was building the loyalty of quite
...more
