Dzerzhinsky, Feliks Edmundovich (1877-1926)

Polish-born Russian revolutionary and founder of the Cheka secret police, forerunner of the KGB.

Dzerzhinsky was born into an upper-class Polish family in Minsk, in today's Belarus, then the Polish part of the Russian Empire. Dzerzhinski joined the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania in 1895 and he was accused of being a political agitator and exiled to Siberia, but was released during the February Revolution of 1917. After this his main political involvement was one with the Russian revolutionary movement. As a central committee member of the Bolshevik Party he was one of the organizers of the 1917 October Revolution. During the civil war that ensued he became responsible for counter-espionage and sabotage. Directly after the revolution he set up the Cheka, and until his death he was its chairman. After the civil war he also became commissar for transport in 1921 and in 1924 chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, which tried to find a middle way between rapid industrialization and the ‘New Economic Policy’ attitude of conciliating the farmers.