Felix Dzerzhinsky

Felix Dzerzhinsky
Felix Dzerzhinsky
Феликс Дзержинский
	Dzerzhinsky in 1918
Chairman of the OGPU
	In office; 15 November 1923 – 20 July 1926
Premier	Vladimir Lenin; Alexei Rykov;
Preceded by	Himself as Chairman of the GPU
Succeeded by	Vyacheslav Menzhinsky
Chairman of the GPU
	In office; 6 February 1922 – 15 November 1923
Premier	Vladimir Lenin
Preceded by	Himself as Chairman of the Cheka
Succeeded by	Himself as Chairman of the OGPU
Chairman of the Cheka
	In office; 20 December 1917 – 6 February 1922
Premier	Vladimir Lenin
Preceded by	Office established
Succeeded by	Himself as Chairman of the GPU
People's Commissar of VSNKh
	In office; 2 February 1924 – 20 July 1926
Premier	Alexei Rykov
Preceded by	Alexei Rykov
Succeeded by	Valerian Kuybyshev
Candidate member of the 13th, 14th Politburo
	In office; 2 June 1924 – 20 July 1926
Member of the 6th Secretariat
	In office; 6 August 1917 – 8 March 1918
Personal details
Born	Feliks Dzierżyński; 11 September [O.S. 30 August] 1877; Dzerzhinovo estate, Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	July 20, 1926 (aged 48); Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Nationality	Polish
Political party	VKP(b) (from 1917)
Other political; affiliations	SDKPiL (1900–1917); LSDP (1896–1900); SDKP (1895–1896);
Spouse	Zofia Sigizmundovna Muszkat (m. 1910)
Children	Jan Feliksovich
Signature

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Russian: Феликс Эдмундович Дзержинский; Polish: Feliks Edmundowicz Dzierżyński [ˈfɛliɡz ɛdmundɔvʲiʈ͡ʂ d͡ʑɛrʐɨj̃skʲi];^[a] 11 September [O.S. 30 August] 1877 – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first two Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing state security organs for the Bolshevik regime. He was a key architect of the Red Terror^[1]^[2] and de-Cossackization.^[3]^[4]

Born to a Polish family of noble descent in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus), Dzerzhinsky embraced revolutionary politics from a young age, and was active in the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party. Active in Kaunas and Warsaw, he was frequently arrested and underwent several exiles to Siberia, from which he escaped every time. He evaded the tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, whose work he took interest in. Dzerzhinsky participated in the failed 1905 Revolution, and after a final arrest in 1912, was imprisoned until the February Revolution of 1917. He then joined Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party, and played an active role in the October Revolution which brought them to power.

In December 1917, Lenin named Dzerzhinsky head of the newly established All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka), tasking him with the suppression of counter-revolutionary activities in Soviet Russia. The Russian Civil War saw a vast expansion of the Cheka's authority, inaugurating a campaign of mass arrests, detentions (including in newly founded Gulag forced labour camps), and executions known as the Red Terror. An estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people were executed by the Cheka during the years of the civil war. The agency was reorganized as the State Political Directorate (GPU) in 1922, and then as the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) a year later, with Dzerzhinsky remaining as head of the powerful organization. He served as director of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy (VSNKh) from 1924.

Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack in 1926, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Remembered by secret police agents (known as "Chekists" throughout the Soviet era) as a hero of the revolution, a large statue of him stood in front of the security service headquarters at Moscow's Lubyanka Building until 1991. Meanwhile, he also became a prominent symbol of repression and brutality to critics of the Soviet regime.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

^
Carr, Barnes (2016). Operation Whisper: The Capture of Soviet Spies Morris and Lona Cohen. University Press of New England. pp. 11–13. ISBN 978-1-61168-939-6.
- Southwell, David; Twist, Sean (2004). "The KGB". Secret Societies. Mysteries and Conspiracies. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group (published 2007). p. 60. ISBN 9781404210844. Retrieved 27 May 2019. Dzerzhinsky was the mastermind behind the Red Terror that allowed the Communists to seize and hold on to power ...
- Ryan, James (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 9781138815681. Estimates of the total number of executed victims of the Terror vary. Rat'kovskii puts the figure at 8,000 for the period from 30 August until the end of the year, Nicolas Werth at between 10,000 and 15,000. The majority of the Terror's targets were former Tsarist officers and representatives of the Tsarist regime.
^ Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // Sergei Melgunov «Красный террор» в России 1918—1923. — 2-ое изд., доп. — Берлин, 1924
^ Lauchlan, Iain (2018). "A Perfect Spy Chief? Feliks Dzerzhinsky and the Cheka". In Maddrell, Paul; Moran, Christopher; Stout, Mark; Iordanou, Ioanna (eds.). Spy Chiefs. Vol. 2: Intelligence Leaders in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 9781626165236. Retrieved 27 May 2019. The Cheka's first mass operation—'Decossackization,' the deportation in April 1919 of an estimated 300,000 people—was more akin to the actions of an invading army than a police measure; it was carried out to secure the southern front against the White armies.
^ Havlat, Alexander (2011). Victims of the Bolsheviks: 1917-1953. GRIN Verlag. p. 5. ISBN 9783640797004. Retrieved 27 May 2019. In the course of the so called deCossackization, (i.e. the planned annihilation of the Cossacks as a social class) between 300 000 and 500 000 Don Cossacks were killed or deported in the years 1919/20, out of a total population of 3 million ...

[Carr2016-2] Carr, Barnes (2016). Operation Whisper: The Capture of Soviet Spies Morris and Lona Cohen. University Press of New England. pp. 11–13. ISBN 978-1-61168-939-6.
Southwell, David; Twist, Sean (2004). "The KGB". Secret Societies. Mysteries and Conspiracies. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group (published 2007). p. 60. ISBN 9781404210844. Retrieved 27 May 2019. Dzerzhinsky was the mastermind behind the Red Terror that allowed the Communists to seize and hold on to power ...

Ryan, James (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 9781138815681. Estimates of the total number of executed victims of the Terror vary. Rat'kovskii puts the figure at 8,000 for the period from 30 August until the end of the year, Nicolas Werth at between 10,000 and 15,000. The majority of the Terror's targets were former Tsarist officers and representatives of the Tsarist regime.

[2] Southwell, David; Twist, Sean (2004). "The KGB". Secret Societies. Mysteries and Conspiracies. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group (published 2007). p. 60. ISBN 9781404210844. Retrieved 27 May 2019. Dzerzhinsky was the mastermind behind the Red Terror that allowed the Communists to seize and hold on to power ...

[3] Ryan, James (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 9781138815681. Estimates of the total number of executed victims of the Terror vary. Rat'kovskii puts the figure at 8,000 for the period from 30 August until the end of the year, Nicolas Werth at between 10,000 and 15,000. The majority of the Terror's targets were former Tsarist officers and representatives of the Tsarist regime.

[3] Часть IV. На гражданской войнe. // Sergei Melgunov «Красный террор» в России 1918—1923. — 2-ое изд., доп. — Берлин, 1924

[4] Lauchlan, Iain (2018). "A Perfect Spy Chief? Feliks Dzerzhinsky and the Cheka". In Maddrell, Paul; Moran, Christopher; Stout, Mark; Iordanou, Ioanna (eds.). Spy Chiefs. Vol. 2: Intelligence Leaders in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Georgetown University Press. ISBN 9781626165236. Retrieved 27 May 2019. The Cheka's first mass operation—'Decossackization,' the deportation in April 1919 of an estimated 300,000 people—was more akin to the actions of an invading army than a police measure; it was carried out to secure the southern front against the White armies.

[5] Havlat, Alexander (2011). Victims of the Bolsheviks: 1917-1953. GRIN Verlag. p. 5. ISBN 9783640797004. Retrieved 27 May 2019. In the course of the so called deCossackization, (i.e. the planned annihilation of the Cossacks as a social class) between 300 000 and 500 000 Don Cossacks were killed or deported in the years 1919/20, out of a total population of 3 million ...

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