The Presidential Library spotlights the 145th anniversary of Felix Dzerzhinsky

145 years ago, on September 11, 1877, in a small noble Polish family, Felix Dzerzhinsky was born. A true knight of revolution, or Iron Felix – no matter how you call him, everyone agrees that this was a man of strong personality and an undeniably significant figure of Russian history.

He was born in Oshmyansky Uezd of the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire (currently, the territory of Belarus and Lithuania). He attended the Vilna Gymnasium, where P. A. Stolypin studied in his time.

Here, he was introduced to Marxist literature. According to his own recollections, soon, engrossed in revolutionary ideas, he “with a bunch of his peers (in 1894) gave an oath to fight against evil until the last breath”. He was seventeen years old. A second period of his life started, in which he was destined to spend 11 years overall in hard labour, prisons and exile. Relatives and friends were worried and asked him to stop the revolutionary activity and agitation. Still, he wrote to them in a letter from the Vyatsk exile: “the only limit to my fight is the grave”. The rebel spirit didn’t leave him – this man couldn’t accept the fate of a prisoner and escaped numerous times.

The February Revolution freed Dzerzhinsky from Butyrskaya prison. Being a free man, he joined the Moscow Party Organization: gave speeches at rallies, encouraged people to fight against the imperial war, created troops of Red Guards. He actively participated in the 6th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks), which aimed at the preparation of an armed insurrection. At the congress, he was chosen as a member of the Central Committee of the party. Then, on October 16, 1917 at the extended meeting of the Central Committee he was selected to join the Military Revolutionary Committee for supervising the uprising. The October Revolution was conducted under his direct command.

Dzerzhinsky left a vivid mark in the development of Soviet statehood and history of Soviet Russia, while being the head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK). The organization was established on December 20, 1917, as the country was left without an agency that would encourage the fight “against counter-revolution, sabotage and speculation” after the revolution. The new agency, reporting directly to the Council of People’s Commissars, could quickly react to the new challenges and had quite broad powers.

The VChK apparatus consisted of several people, while the chancellery was in Dzerzhinsky’s briefcase. The chairman and his few subordinates worked in the building on Gorokhovaya Street in Petrograd. At first, they only conducted preliminary investigations of committed crimes. Slowly, the organization established new departments, subdivisions and regional units. When the Civil War broke out, chekists (as the members of VChK were called) were granted almost unlimited rights in the imposition and executions of sentences. So it was extremely important to “hold the mark” and not cross the line, to not become an executioner. Dzerzhinsky raised his subordinates in the spirit of everlasting loyalty to the party.

It is not hard to measure how deeply his people and colleagues were touched by this guidance. Researchers and historians sometimes call their work “the Red Terror”, a period when thousands of people have died without a trial and investigation.

Dzerzhinsky’s efficiency and personal qualities were highly appreciated by the administration. Therefore, he was appointed to problematic positions several times, and things truly became better wherever he worked. For example, during his leadership in the People’s Commissariat of Communication Routes the routes protection was finally introduced, and bandits stopped attacking the railway. Dzerzhinsky was behind the creation of the border patrol of Soviet Russia. He also personally supervised the establishment of special communes for numerous children, who became orphans during the tough post-revolutionary time. Thus, he saved millions of homeless kids and brought them back to normal life.

In 1921, about 20 governorates and regions of the country suffered from hunger. Dzerzhinsky conducted a great work on the mobilization of food supplies of the country, on the delivery of bread to starving areas. In January, 1922 he was directed to Siberia as a special official for the management of all issues associated with the transportation of food to Moscow, Petrograd and the starving territories of the Volga Region.

Iron Felix left a mark in the new economic policy (NEP) of the young Soviet state. Dzerzhinsky was appointed head of the Supreme Board of the National Economy (VSNKh). It was the superior institution for management of the industry of the RSFSR. Interestingly, contrary to Joseph Stalin’s beliefs, Dzerzhinsky reckoned that the excessive “governmentalization” will not lead to the development of economy. He encouraged supporting of small private initiatives and focusing on the needs of the main breadwinner of the country – villages, during the industrialization.

After Lenin’s death, Dzerzhinsky noticed the country’s government stepping away from the principles, formulated by the leader of the revolution, and wasn’t scared to call them out. He blamed the party workers for “bureaucratization”.

The Presidential Library contains a whole collection of fascinating publications about Dzerzhinsky, written by his contemporaries. Among them, there is a rarity – the book The Last Three Speeches of F. E. Dzerzhinsky (presentations in front of the people’s commissariats and apparatus), published only once, in 1926. It features his last three speeches, given during the several days of the plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Communist Party (July 14-23, 1926).

These speeches were accompanied by disapproving noises, shouts from the audience. On the night after the plenum Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky died.