A look at the life, times and thinking of the great Bolshevik revolutionary Felix Dzerzhinsky from a 1967 issue of Soviet Life magazine:
FELIX DZERZHINSKY (1877-1926) — there was no name more hated by the bourgeoisie and more loved by the proletariat. He earned both the love and the hate by his work as Chairman of the All- Russia Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution , Sabotage and Speculation (Cheka). When the Council of People's Commissars on December 7, 1917, was considering whom to appoint head of this security agency, Lenin said: “What we need is a good proletarian Jacobin.”
Felix Dzerzhinsky was born in Poland into the family of a small landowner. In his teens he began to read Marxist literature and by 17 chose his career in life. He swore "to fight evil to the last breath." And he did. Dying, he stood on the speaker's stand, his hand pressed to his failing heart.
In 1895 Dzerzhinsky joined the local Social Democratic organization and at once associated himself with its left wing. A year later he worked as an agitator among workers and intellectuals of Kovno, now Kaunas, in Lithuania .
After the revolution, his reply to a questionnaire item on his occupation was: “Revolutionary, nothing else. ” Eight years of imprisonment, three years of hard labor and three of exile left him with tuberculosis, a worn-out heart and the conviction that the path he had chosen was the right one.
On the eve of 1909 he wrote in his Diary of a Prisoner, published after he had served two sentences of hard labor and exile: “Here in prison it is often hard and sometimes frightful. Still, if I had my life to begin over again, I would begin just as I did.” (From a letter to his sister)
Revolutions are charged with critical moments. It needs more than human strength of will, presence of mind, energy and unshakable conviction to break the vicious circle of injustice and oppression. Dzerzhinsky was a leader who could be depended upon in critical situations. When it was imperative to put down those who were using every foul means, including murder, sabotage and conspiracy, to regain the privileges they had been deprived of by the revolution, Dzerzhinsky took charge of the Cheka. When the country's railroads, destroyed by the Civil War, had to be rebuilt, he became People's Commissar of Transportation. When the plan for industrialization was adopted, he was chosen Chairman of the Supreme Council of the National Economy.
To work in the Cheka, the Party had selected 120 men with "cool heads, hot hearts and clean hands," as Dzerzhinsky called them. He could not stand corruption and treachery. He released Krasnov after the counterrevolutionary general had pledged not to fight the Soviets again. But Krasnov steeped all of the Don in blood.
The Esers (Socialist-Revolutionary Party members) working in the Cheka suggested that Boris Savinkov, former chief of the Esers combat organization and an implacable enemy of the Soviets, be assassinated. Dzerzhinsky banned any such action. "That is not how we do things," he said. In 1924 Savinkov was caught illegally crossing the border.
In the chaos of events, when son fought against father and brother against brother, it was hard to draw the line between guilt and innocence. But, said Dzerzhinsky, this only called for greater effort. He told his men, "Those of you who have grown so callous that you are no longer sensitive to and con-cerned with the prisoners had better leave this organization. Here more than anywhere else a man must have a heart that feels the suffering of others."
Adamant when dealing with die-hard enemies, he was pained, as if personally to blame, when he learned of an unfounded accusation. Ivan Belov was arrested in Turkestan. He was accused of betrayal and sent to Moscow for questioning. Dzerzhinsky thought it unbelievable that a man who had been an unskilled worker and had proved himself as a Red commander could have become a counter-revolutionary. He called the prisoner to his office.
Dzerzhinsky had a glance that bespoke truth, courage and trust. He looked the person he spoke to in the eye. His glance made lying impossible.
After a long and frank talk, he decided that the commander had been slandered and ordered him released. In World War II, General and Hero of the Soviet Union Belov commanded a large army unit.
"I'm in the very thick of the battle. I lead the life of a soldier who knows no rest because he must safeguard his house. But my heart is in this struggle as much as it ever was" (From a letter to his wife)
They called him the shield of the revolution. There is a long, long list of conspiracies he uncovered, rebellions he thwarted, assassinations he averted. He saw the guiding hand behind the façade of "supreme rulers," "atamans," "Unions for the Deliverance of Russia:" On the night of August 31, the Cheka arrested the participants in the pivotal anti-Soviet "conspiracy of envoys," as it was called. It was headed by the British envoy Lockhart, with diplomats of France and other countries involved. They took refuge in diplomatic immunity, but Dzerzhinsky countered with irrefutable evidence.
The invisible battlefield on which the Cheka fought often turned into a real one, and Dzerzhinsky was always in the fore.
In July 1918 a Moscow regiment subject to the Cheka and commanded by the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Popov, rebelled. Another Left Socialist-Revolutionary, Blumkin, had assassinated the German ambassador Mirbach. Dzerzhinsky had to find out whether the assassination and the rebellion were a plot of the Eser Party or unconnected events. The assassin had fled to the regiment. Dzerzhinsky followed him without a bodyguard and learned that the terrorist act had been ordered by the Central Committee of the Left Eser Party, with the hope of provoking war with Germany. He demanded the extradition of the assassin. An attempt was made to arrest Dzerzhinsky, but he addressed the soldiers over the heads of their commanders:
"You have been deceived, deceived by a pack of vile traitors who care only for their personal welfare, for their power, for them-selves. They have turned you against the most legitimate authority in the world, the working people. They have pumped you with alcohol stolen from the drugstores and given you money stolen from the state."
In harsh, plain terms he told them why the factories had shut down, how the Soviets were trying to save the country from famine, war and ruin. He was attacked from behind, disarmed and led to Popov.
Dzerzhinsky told him: "Give me a revolver and I'll shoot you down like the traitor you are! Afraid? Hope to survive? Not a chance. You'll be shot in a few hours."
Dzerzhinsky's confidence affected everyone like a cold shower. Dissension began. The commanders did not dare kill Dzerzhinsky. In fact, they did not know what to do with him, and to get themselves out of a tricky situation, they declared him a hostage.
Firing broke out. The rebels panicked. Having gotten a small group together, Dzerzhinsky arrested the leaders of the conspiracy. Afterward he told Sverdlov: "Why didn't they shoot me? If they had shot me, it would have done the revolution a good turn."
What he meant was that if the Esers had killed him, that would have been proof evident to the German Government that the Soviets had nothing to do with the ambassador's assassination.
In January 1920 the Presidium of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee presented him with the order of the Combat Red Banner.
The decree read: "In the responsible task entrusted to him, Comrade Dzerzhinsky, as Chairman of the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation evinced great organizational ability, untiring energy, presence of mind and restraint, constantly putting the interests of the working class above all other considerations and feelings."
He assumed as a matter of course that the extraordinary measures against the counter-revolution were temporary. As soon as mili-tary success passed to the young republic, Dzerzhinsky proposed that the death penalty for Cheka sentences be abolished. A decree to that effect was published in January 1920. But for a long time thereafter the bourgeois press continued to feed its readers with stories of the bloodthirsty Cheka "from the most reliable sources."
About the "red terror" Dzerzhinsky later remarked that "it could not be compared even remotely to the white terror, when workers were hanged by the thousands just because they were workers."
In the heat of the battle with the counter-revolution he told his wife: "When the war is over, I'll ask for a transfer to the People's Commissariat of Education."
He was inordinately fond of children. Perhaps it came from missing his son, whom he saw for the first time as an eight year old. "I love children as I love no one else. I could never love a woman as I love children. And I don't think I could love my own children more than other people's. At times I think that even a mother could not love her children as I do." (From a letter to his sister)
After the Civil War there were five million homeless children in the country. The boys became thieves, the girls prostitutes, many of them died from hunger and cold. The People's Commissariat of Education could not handle the situation. Dzerzhinsky decided to use the well-organized Cheka to save the children.
For several nights in a row he and his staff carried bloated and emaciated waifs from cellars and attics. The items: "Children's food rations. Children's shoes. Can jersey be sewn out of satin? Textbooks" appear in his note-book along with the names of counter-revolutionary organizations.
He had the best country houses turned into children's homes. He suggested the idea of self-managed labor communes. He believed that self-government and work under the supervision of experienced teachers was the only way to rehabilitate young offenders.
"A child knows how to love those who love him. Only love can bring up a good child." (From a letter to his sister)
In the famine year of 1921 a teenager, Pasha Zheleznov, came to the Cheka commandant's office. Glancing about inquiringly, he asked: "Where's Uncle Dzerzhinsky? I hear he gives away cookies to homeless children."
Zheleznov is a well-known poet now.
Dzerzhinsky saved thousands of talented people for the country. The little tramps he took off trains became academicians, poets, engineers of spaceships, physicians, teachers, Heroes of the Soviet Union.
"...You know perfectly well where my strength comes from. I never spare myself. . . ." (From the speech he made two hours before his death)
His deeds cannot be regarded as self-sacrifice. For him, serving the revolution was tantamount to living. He could not have lived any other way.
When he left for exile in Siberia in 1909, he had a passport and money for his escape. On arriving at the place of detention, he learned that one of the exiles was to be executed. Dzerzhinsky gave the man, a political opponent from the Eser Party, his pass-port and money. A week later he escaped himself, without documents and with hardly any money.
The revolution won, he made even greater demands on himself. "We Communists," he said, "should live so that the working masses will see that we are their servants, that we use the victory of the revolution and our power not for our own benefit but for the good of the people."
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