The Bolshevik Party was led by different people. Some of them were brilliant orators, others were distinguished by outstanding organizational skills, others were distinguished by amazing bestial cruelty. Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky occupies a special place in party iconography. Quotes from his speeches and just phrases dropped by him in passing testify to the ambiguity of nature and a peculiar talent. On the one hand, they demonstrate a liveliness of mind, a certain romantic outlook and soundness of reasoning, and on the other hand, they are in direct conflict with the methods of his work. The time, of course, was difficult, but people made it so.
Controversial icon
A portrait of Felix Dzerzhinsky in Soviet times adorned the walls of offices of all organizations that inherited the functions of the Cheka (OGPU, MGB, KGB, MVD), and a monument to him stood in the center of Lubyanka Square, directly opposite the building of the former Rossiya joint-stock company, which provided before the insurance services revolution. The AO disappeared, but the fear remained for a long time, all the time of the existence of the USSR. The apparatus of coercion is necessary for the state, especially for the people andproletarian. At the origins of the creation, at the very beginning of the development of the concept of its mechanism, was Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. The paradox of this situation (perhaps, as a pattern) lies in the fact that he himself spent a significant part of his life in exile and prisons, suffering for his disagreement with the then dominant social system. The experience gained by the "iron Felix" in those years was taken into account by him. The Soviet system of suppression of discontent turned out to be much stronger, tougher and more effective than the tsarist one.
The family of the landowner and childhood spent in it
On September 11, 1877, a son named Felix appeared in the family of a gymnasium teacher E. I. Dzerzhinsky, a Catholic denomination. According to the social status of the father of the future chairman of the Cheka, he could be attributed to the landowners, however, small ones, he owned only the Dzerzhinovo farm.
The family had many children, except for Felix, brothers and sisters grew up in it (Ignatius, Kazimir, Stanislav, Jadwiga, Aldona, Vladislav and Wanda), and apparently, the lack of funds forced the poor gentry to work in the field of public education. When Felix was already a young man, a tragedy occurred on the farm, Edmund Iosifovich's daughter died from an accidental shot. They did not investigate who was responsible for Wanda's death, the investigators concluded that the accident had occurred due to negligence.
Gymnasium friend Jozek Piłsudski and academic success
BAt the age of ten, Felix met another future great Pole, Yuzek. The friends studied together for eight years, not realizing that one of them would become a professional revolutionary, and the other a staunch anti-communist. It is Jozef Pilsudski who will be able to repel the attack of the Red troops in 1920, the rear of which will be commanded by Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich. Nationality is not so important for a real Bolshevik, if necessary, then one can attack one's own country.
The schoolboy Felix did not show any special talents. He was in first grade for two years. The gymnasium cannot be considered finished, he did not receive a certificate, only a certificate stating that “good” (but not “excellent”) he was given the Law of God, but in Latin, French, physics, geometry, algebra and history, his success was evaluated for a solid three. And it was absolutely bad business with the Greek and Russian languages. And all this with satisfactory diligence, behavior and attention.
The beginning of the revolutionary struggle
So, the young man left the walls of the gymnasium. It was clear to everyone: both teachers, fellow students, and himself that he did not shine with any special inclinations and talents. A rich inheritance was also not to be expected. And then the young man became interested in Marxism (then this idea actively seized the rebellious minds). Enrolled in an underground circle and Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich. The real name, apparently, seemed to him too Polish and not romantic enough, and he took the nickname Astronomer. Why exactlysuch that history is silent. Conducting campaigning among poorly educated students and apprentices (there was enough education for this), the Astronomer made some kind of mistake, as a result of which one of the low-skilled workers promoted by him wrote a report to the police of the appropriate content - and Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky landed in the Kovno prison (1897). After a year of imprisonment, he was sent to Nolinsk, Vyatka province, under three years of police supervision, but here, too, he worked as a typist at a tobacco factory, and did not abandon the revolutionary idea. Link again, then escape.
A Life of Romance: Arrests, Exiles and Escapes
Vilno, Lithuania, Poland - these are the places on the geographical map where Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich acted at the turn of the century. His biography is replete with episodes of arrests and sentences. Warsaw Citadel (1900), Sedlec Central (1901), Vilyui transit prison (1902), Alexander's exile and a romantic escape from Verkholensk by boat. Then emigration, in which, during the Social Democratic Conference of Poland and Lithuania, a party career begins. Now he is the secretary of the Foreign Committee.
Arrests and releases are getting more interesting
When the war with Japan began, the Polish-Lithuanian socialist democrats (SDKPiL) did everything to complicate the economic situation of the Russian Empire. Demonstrations, riots, strikes and even sabotage were actively carried out by the militant wing of the party, for which its leaders again ended up in prison. It remains only to wonderleniency of royal sentences. Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky was thrown into the dungeons in 1905. It was in July, and in October he was already amnestied. December 1906, arrest in Warsaw and trial, and in June he was released on bail. 1909, sentence - lifelong Siberian exile, from which it turned out to be a simple matter to escape, and not just anywhere, but directly to Maxim Gorky in Capri. Can anyone repeat this now?
Before the revolution
In 1910, an important event took place in the life of the party secretary (and part-time treasurer) - he got married. Sofya Mushkat, a comrade-in-arms, became his chosen one. In his diary notes of this time, lines about love appear, which gives strength to endure all hardships. Previously, only in the struggle saw the meaning of life Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich. His brief biography contains information that in 1910-1911 he supported the Leninist position, speaking out against Plekhanov with his legal methods. In 1912, he was arrested again, this time more effective repressions were used against the malicious rebel and fugitive - first three years of hard labor (Orlovsky Central), then six more in Butyrka, where he might have been sitting right up to 1922, if not February Revolution.
The Jacobin of the proletarian revolution
After the unification of the SDKPiL with the RSDLP (b), Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky immediately joins active party work. During this period, there are no dogmas yet, positions are only being determined, and on such an important issue as the self-determination of nations, the secretary opposes the Leninist course,but it's temporary. It is not the word that is more important, but the deed, for example, the organization of an armed coup, the formation of combat detachments of the Red Guard and the capture of communication centers on October 25th. Dzerzhinsky was even Commissar of the Navy for almost the entire summer of 1917, before L. D. Trotsky accepted this post. Lenin called him a Jacobin, which was a compliment. The party urgently needed a person who could create and lead a special body, punishing and merciless, and this task was entrusted to the "iron" Felix.
Terror and some Trotskyism
In December 1917, there was a real threat of an all-Russian strike of civil servants. The Council of People's Commissars responded to it by creating the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Sabotage. Here it was led by Dzerzhinsky (in 1922 it was renamed the OGPU) until his death. The Cheka participated in mass repressions, and its head often became the initiator of actions for the percentage destruction of the population and the complete extermination of representatives of the "parasitic classes". Only once did he stop fulfilling his duties by resigning. This happened after the assassination of Mirbach, the German ambassador, committed with the aim of disrupting the peace (and actually capitulation) negotiations in Brest. At this point, Dzerzhinsky took a Trotskyist position, which he later repeatedly repented of. In all other respects, the "iron" Felix Council of People's Commissars arranged: he carried out purges, took hostages, and shot them. He did not see anything wrong with his activities.
Children, sports, repression, internal party struggle and death
The civil war is over, and the consequences of this criminal fratricidal massacre are revealed in all their horror. Industry was destroyed, devastation reigned everywhere, the country was flooded with homeless children. Five million surviving children were left without parents, and the number of dead cannot be counted today. Felix Dzerzhinsky became the initiator of an important state program for raising a generation affected by the war, which should not only be fed, clothed and shod, but also educated in the spirit of a new social order. To this end, children's homes, special reception centers and children's communes were created throughout Russia. This project can be called one of the most successful in Soviet history.
Few today remember that Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, whose photos (especially later ones) suggest his ill he alth, became one of the main initiators of mass sports in the USSR. Moreover, the Dynamo society can be safely called its brainchild.
Remembering his own past, full of fluctuations and deviations from the party line, Dzerzhinsky often stood up for the Bolsheviks, who made such ideological flaws. It is quite possible that if he had lived longer, he would have shared the fate of many members of the Central Committee of the Leninist recruitment, and he would have been remembered for all his “Trotskyisms” and other “rykisms-pyatakisms-kamenisms” in 1937 or 1938. In a sense, he was even lucky, at least in the historical sense. During the party plenum in 1926, hehe argued so emotionally with his former comrades-in-arms and friends Pyatakov and Kamenev that his Bolshevik heart could not stand it, and by evening Comrade Dzerzhinsky died.
He became a Soviet icon, a symbol of inflexibility, plants, factories, schools, divisions, ships and cities were named after him…
