The object of the research: state security bodies of the USSR of the 1920s. The purpose of the research: to analyze the organization, functions and main directions of activity of the state security bodies of the Kharkiv region in the New Economic Policy period. The methods: synthesis, analysis, induction, deduction, generalization, abstraction, structural-functional, system-structural, logical; problem-chronological, comparative-historical, historical-genetic, historical-topological, historical-systemic. Scientific novelty: the dissertation fully considers the issue of the organization and functioning of public security in Kharkiv region during the New Economic Policy period; based on the analysis of historiography and a wide range of published and archival sources, the author has been able to fully examine the legal establishment, make a social portrait of Cheka officers, the structure and functions of the bodies of the All-Russian Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage (Cheka) – State Political Directorate in Kharkiv (DPU), a lot of parameters, to identify the main stages of the operation, to determine the place and role of local security mechanism of totalitarian power; the major trends and the extent of the repressive activities of the Cheka – GPU (suppression of insurgency and clandestine resistance movement, persecution of dissidents and nationally conscious intellectuals, participation in the liquidation of opposition political parties and movements, anti-church activities, persecution of officials of punitive and repressive apparatus of the imperial era and servicemen of anti-Bolshevik regime during the civil war, etc.) were analyzed; the methods and technologies applied by Soviet secret police in the fight against opponents of the Bolshevik regime such as registering politically "unreliable" people, surveillance, planting a network of informants in the community, active use the practice of intimidation and provocation, discrediting political public figures and tactics for church splits have been revealed; activities of the public security sector of the economy, the fight against economic crime, combating corruption, embezzlement of budget funds, clandestine importation and speculative manifestations. Practical value of research: the materials of research can be used to write generalizations works on the history of Ukraine, the history of Soviet special services, the history of political terror and repression in Ukraine in the era of totalitarianism, the history of the formation of the Soviet repressive system, in regional studies, in the preparation of museum thematic exhibitions. Sphere of use: higher educational institutions, museum.
