"Iron Felix" is a legendary person. He is remembered not only for his concern for homeless children, but also for his fanatical devotion to the ideas of the revolution, for the protection of which all methods are good.
Child of vice
Felix Dzerzhinsky is from the Vilna province. His father is Jewish by nationality, a gymnasium teacher and court counselor, his mother is Polish, the daughter of Professor Ignatius Yanushevsky. The story of the union of Felix's parents is as follows: 25-year-old home teacher Edmund Dzerzhinsky, who taught Yanushevsky's daughters, seduced 14-year-old Helena. The lovers were forced to marry and sent away from home - to Taganrog.
You will be happy
At baptism, Dzerzhinsky received a double name - Felix Shchensny. The first is Latin, the second is Polish, but both mean happy. The fact is that shortly before the birth, Helena Dzerzhinskaya fell into an open cellar, which provoked premature labor. Nevertheless, the boy was born quite healthy, and the parents decided to thank the fate by giving the child such a name.
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I do not want to study
Despite the fact that Felix quite early mastered three languages - Polish, Russian and Yiddish - he studied frankly badly at school. Documents say that he graduated from the first grade twice, and in the eighth he never finished his studies, having received a certificate in his hands.
The future head of the Polish government, Joseph Pilsudski, who studied at the same gymnasium as Dzerzhinsky, called the latter "gray" - a schoolboy "without bright abilities." Only the Law of God was well given to Felix, maybe that's why he was aiming for priests.
Closer to the end of the gymnasium, Dzerzhinsky abandoned his studies altogether, carried away by reading romance novels. At the same time, a very nasty character trait awoke in Felix - insolence. Once he insulted a German teacher and publicly gave him a slap in the face, after which he was immediately expelled from the gymnasium.
Underground worker
In his youth, Dzerzhinsky became close to a criminal element, often taking part in street battles. There is a version that it was Felix who shot his sister Wanda (according to another - his brother Stanislav shot).
Later, the young man, together with his fellow Zionists, became interested in underground circles, posting anti-government leaflets around the city. And in 1898 he joined the Jewish Social Democratic group.
Dzerzhinsky propagated the ideas of socialism among artisan and factory students and, in the end, played it out: in 1897 he was arrested on a denunciation and put in the Kovno prison. A year later, he was exiled for a three-year term under police supervision to the Vyatka province.
Without pity
In 1904, Dzerzhinsky tried to activate explosives at an officers' meeting in the city of Novo-Alexandria, intending to provoke unrest by mass murder of Russian officers. It didn't work out. His partner got cold feet at the last moment, and the bomb did not explode.
According to the testimony of fellow revolutionaries, Felix Dzerzhinsky mercilessly killed everyone who was suspected of having links with the police. He was arrested six times, but when no evidence was found, he was released. They could not have been, since Dzerzhinsky's associates quickly eliminated the witnesses of the massacres. If the prosecutor had any questions for Dzerzhinsky, then after the threat of the murder of the children, the ministers of the Themis closed the case.
Money can do everything
In his memoirs, Dzerzhinsky wrote how he often bought off the authorities with a bribe. The money was used to release terrorists on bail, to bribe police officials and to forge documents. Where did the funds come from? Most of this is proceeds from robberies. Felix could afford to wear smart suits and foreign boots, drink expensive cognacs and wines, and stay in luxury hotels in Europe.
Iron Felix
In the book "Secret watch stories", dedicated to the history of Russian counterintelligence, the events of March 1918 are described. It was then that the government of Soviet Russia moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The Cheka headed by Dzerzhinsky occupied a corner building on Lubyanskaya Square, where the Yakor insurance company was located earlier.
Dzerzhinsky was assigned a spacious office on the second floor, where there was a large safe. However, he could not work quietly there: soon a hand grenade flew into the window - the Chekist, showing unprecedented agility, rushed to the safe and even managed to hide in it. The explosion of a grenade tore the entire room, but Dzerzhinsky remained unharmed.
After the incident, the head of the Cheka was moved into an office overlooking the courtyard. They say that it was then that the nickname "Iron Felix" was fixed for Dzerzhinsky.
They did not understand each other
In 1918, at one of the meetings of the Council of People's Commissars, where the issue of supply was discussed, Lenin handed Dzerzhinsky a note with the following question: "How many malicious counter-revolutionaries do we have in our prisons?" The head of the Cheka noted on the same piece of paper: "about 1500". Ilyich returned the paper to him, having previously put a cross in front of the number.
The next night, all 1,500 "dangerous prisoners" were shot. Later, Lenin's secretary Lidia Fotieva explained what had happened: “There was a misunderstanding. Vladimir Ilyich did not want to be shot at all. Dzerzhinsky did not understand him. Our leader usually puts a cross on a note as a sign that he has read it and took note."
Red Terror
In July 1918, Dzerzhinsky fell out of favor. After the revolt of the Left Social Revolutionaries, the Chekists were unable to fight back. On July 7, he was removed from the leadership of the Cheka, but on August 22, he was reinstated in his post. Following the return of Dzerzhinsky, two terrorist attacks thundered in the country: in Petrograd, the Socialist-Revolutionary Leonid Kannegiser kills the head of the Petrograd Cheka Moisey Uritsky, and in Moscow the Socialist-Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan seriously wounds Lenin.
The response was followed by what would later be called the "Red Terror". From now on, Dzerzhinsky will act decisively and brutally. According to various estimates, the structures of the Cheka, under the vigilant supervision of their leader, liquidate from 50 thousand to 140 thousand people by verdicts of revolutionary tribunals and extrajudicial meetings. Among the victims of Dzerzhinsky, almost all the Romanovs who remained in Russia.
Taras Repin