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Эдмундович Дзержинский; September 11, 1877 - July 20, 1926) was a Polish Communist revolutionary, famous as the founder of the Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka, later known by many names.
His name in native, Polish language is Feliks Dzierzynski. The Russian version is sometimes transliterated as Dzerzhinskiy or Dzherzhinsky.
Dzerzhinsky was born into a bourgeois Polish family in a town of Koidanow (now Dzyarzhynsk), then part of the Russian Empire, now part of BelarusThe Republic of Belarus ( Belarusian: #x301 Russian: #x301 (former: #x301 ) is a landlocked nation of Eastern Europe with the capital Minsk. Name Main article: White Russia The spellings Belorussia and Byelorussia are transliterations of the name of the c. He was expelled from school for "revolutionary activity". He joined a MarxistMarxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. Marx drew on Hegel's philosophy, the political economy of Adam Smith, R group—the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party , in 1895Events January events January 5 Dreyfus Affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. February events February 14 First showing of Oscar Wilde's last play The Importance of Being Earnes. He spent the major part of his early life in various prisons. He was arrested for his revolutionary activities in 1897Events January 1 Brooklyn, New York merges with New York City. January 4 A British force is ambushed by Chief Ologbosheri, son-in-law of the Oba of Benin. This leads to a Punitive Expedition against Benin. February 2 The Pennsylvania state capitol is dest and 19001900 is the common year starting on Monday. see link for calendar) For the film, see 1900 (film). Events January January 1 Nigeria becomes British protectorate January 2 John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China. January 2 Chicag, sent to SiberiaSiberia ( Russian: , common English transliterations: Sibir Sibir' is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan, constituting all of northern Asia, and extending eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and southward from the Arctic Oc, and escaped both times. He then went to BerlinBerlin [ bɛrˈliːn ] is the national capital of Germany and its largest city, with 3,387,404 inhabitants (as of September 2004); down from 4. 5 million before World War II. Berlin is located on the rivers Spree and Havel in the northea, before returning to participate in the failed 1905Events January-April January 22 Massacre of Russian demonstrators at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, one of the triggers of the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. January 26 The Cullinan Diamond is found near Pretoria, South Africa at the Premier revolution, after which he was again jailed, this time by the Okhranka. After being released in 1912, he was quickly rearrested for revolutionary activity and jailed in Moscow.
In March, 1917, he was freed (although Pravda usually asserts that he escaped, and indeed the facts are uncertain), along with many others, from the jail he had been imprisoned in since 1912. His first act was to join the Bolshevik Party. His honest and incorruptible character, combined with his complete devotion to the cause, gained him swift recognition and the nickname Iron Felix.
Lenin regarded Dzerzhinsky as a revolutionary hero, and appointed him to organise a force to combat internal political threats. On December 20, 1917, the Council of People's Commissars officially established the Vecheka, a Russian acronym for the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage. The Cheka received a large amount of resources, and became known for ruthlessly pursuing any perceived counterrevolutionary elements. As the Russian Civil War expanded, Dzerzhinsky also began organising internal security troops to enforce the Cheka's authority. Lenin gave the organization tremendous powers to combat the opposition.At the end of the Civil War in 1922, the Cheka was changed into the GPU (State Political Directorate), a section of the NKVD, but this did not diminish Dzerzhinsky's power: from 1921- 24, he was Minister of the Interior, head of the Cheka/GPU/OGPU, Minister for Communications, and head of the Supreme Council of National Economy . It is said, however, that he was not ambitious.
In 1924, Dzerzhinsky organized a mechanical calculator manufacturing operation. The most successful pinwheel calculator model was named the Felix. This sturdy model was in service until the 1970s, and was (not surpisingly) known in folklore as "Iron Felix".
There was a popular Soviet camera, FED. The first models were made after Leica. Initially it was produced by a working commune for homeless children named after F.E.Dzierzhynski under the management of the famous Soviet pedagogue, Anton Makarenko . Later the production was expanded to a factory (also named after F.E.Dzierzhynski) in Kharkov, Ukraine.
Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack in July, 1926. His name and image were widely used throughout the KGB and the Soviet Union—there were six towns named after him. There is a museum dedicated to him in the town of his birth in Belarus. The town itself was renamed Dzyarzhynsk after him to be the capital of the short-lived Polish Autonomous District, or Dzierzynszczyzna, in Belarus. There also is a city of Dzerzhinsk & three cities called Dzerzhinskiy in Russia and two cities in Ukraine called Dzerzhinsk.
Iron Felix also refers to his monument at the Lubyanka Square in Moscow, near the KGB headquarters. Symbolically, the Memorial to the Victims of the Gulag (a simple stone from Solovki) was erected beside the Iron Felix; the latter was removed in August, 1991.