Johannes Diderik van der Waals, a 1910 Nobel Prize winner, was responsible for a number of advances in physical chemistry. You might want to read:
... of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Cheka (1917-1922) Gosudarstvennoye Politicseskoye Upravleniye[?] (GPU, 1922-1923) Obyedinennoye Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye ...