Soviet Communism: Feliks E. Dzerzhinskii (1877-1926)


Figure 1.--.

Feliks Dzerzhinskii wa an impoverished Polish nobleman who dreamed of becoming a priest. He is best known for organizing the Cheka, the Bolsevik secret police. The Cheka was originally enpowered to investigate "counter revolutionary" crimes. Under Dzerzhinskii the Cheka not only was given the authority of summary justice without any form of trial. This was a far greater authority than the Okrana ever operated under. Dzerzhinskii organized the Red Terror. The Cheka instituted an expansive campaign of terror against the propertied classes and enemies of Bolshevism. Many Bolsheviks were repelled by the excesses of the Cheka, but Lennin did not restrict its power. Lenin during the Civil War saw the Cheka as critical for the survival of the emerging Soviet state. The Bolsheviks in the Civil War (1918-21) defeated both domestic and foreign opponents. The Bolsheviks did disband the Cheka. The functions were assigned to the State Political Directorate or United Department of Political Police (OGPU/GPU) (1922). The initial powers of the GPU were more restricted than the Cheka and the represive police state rule declined. An Izvestiya article indicted, "Dzerzhinskii organized the Red Terror in order to combat injustice and was a man who saved children by killing adults. Dzerzhinskii has never left us. He remains in our hearts, souls, and minds. [Izvestiya]

Parents


Childhood


Education

Feliks Dzerzhinskii wa an impoverished Polish nobleman who dreamed of becoming a priest.

Character

Dzerzhinskii was the most feared man in the Soviet Union. Some of his contempories decribe him as a chivalrous man with a hard job to do. History records him as Iron Felix. One biographer describes him as a "hollow-cheeked ascetic". He apparently existed on a diet of tea and bread to which he had become accusstomed to while serving sentences in Tsarist prisons. [Rayfield]

Cheka

Dzerzhinskii is best known for organizing the Cheka, the Bolsevik secret police. The Cheka was originally enpowered to investigate "counter revolutionary" crimes. Under Dzerzhinskii the Cheka not only was given the authority of summary justice without any form of trial. This was a far greater authority than the Okrana ever operated under. Dzerzhinskii organized the Red Terror. The Cheka instituted an expansive campaign of terror against the propertied classes and enemies of Bolshevism. Many Bolsheviks were repelled by the excesses of the Cheka, but Lennin did not restrict its power. Lenin during the Civil War saw the Cheka as critical for the survival of the emerging Soviet state. The Bolsheviks in the Civil War (1918-21) defeated both domestic and foreign opponents. The Bolsheviks did disband the Cheka. The functions were assigned to the State Political Directorate or United Department of Political Police (OGPU/GPU) (1922). The initial powers of the GPU were more restricted than the Cheka and the represive police state rule declined. An Izvestiya article indicted, "Dzerzhinskii organized the Red Terror in order to combat injustice and was a man who saved children by killing adults. Dzerzhinskii has never left us. He remains in our hearts, souls, and minds. [Izvestiya]

Children's Hostels

After World War I and the Civil War there were large numbers of displaced and orphaned children scattered throughout the Soviet Union. Dzerzhinskii as head of the Cheka used his organisation to set up Children's hostels for these children. We have very limited information on these hostels at this time. One of these Children's hostels became a commune and manufactured the first soviet russian camera. It was named the FED, using Dzerzhinskii initials. It was a camera that was copied from the German Leica.

Inventor

Dzerzhinskii also designed a mechanical calculator which was still in use in Soviet Union during the 1970s. This was called a Felix. No doult many school boys benefitted from using this instrument?

Modern Views

The statue of Dzerzhinskii in front of the dreaded Lubyanka Prison where was for years a Moscow landmark. It was removed after the fall of Communism and the disolution of the Soviet Union. Some Russian politicians now want the statute rereplaced. Nobel Prize laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told "Izvestiya" on September 17, 2002 that the restoration of the monument to Dzerzhinskii would be an outrage to the millions who perished in the concentration camps. "[Dzerzhinskii] was a Red henchman, and his figure is a symbol of the punitive organs of the USSR."

Sources

Rayfield, Donald. Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him (Random House, 2005), 541p.

Izvestiya, September 12, 2002.





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Created: 5:02 PM 4/25/2005
Last updated: 12:48 PM 4/27/2005