What role did the OGPU play in the deportation of kulaks?

As the Unified State Political Administration (OGPU), the Soviet security agency implemented the forced collectivization of agriculture and directly carried out the deportation of the kulaks—wealthy peasants deemed enemies of socialism.1

Beginning in late 1929, the Soviet government launched a campaign to "liquidate the kulaks as a class," a process known as dekulakization. The OGPU played a central role in this effort by enforcing the seizure of land and property and overseeing the mass deportation of these peasants to remote regions of the Soviet Union, or their arrest. By 1934, the OGPU’s actions contributed to the successful collectivization of approximately 75 percent of Soviet farms.21