What are Polish opinions regarding Felix Dzerzhinsky?

Dzerzhinsky was the first head of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka, which is a forerunner of the KGB, and the modern FSB. He was also perhaps one of the highest ranking Poles in Soviet government, earning the nickname "Iron Felix" from his fellow revolutionaries. While skimming through his biography on Wiki I was surprised to learn that he attended the Wilno Gymnasium at the same time as Pilsudski. What two different Poles, what two different lives....

In Poland he is known as Bloody Feliks which sums it all.

It seems that he was a more complex character, than the way he's been popularly remembered. I was surprised to read in his wiki biography, what Pilsudski wrote about him in his memoirs: "[He] distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon... Tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify; in any case this person did not know how to lie."

In other places, he is described as a peculiar murderer, in that he wasn't driven by any of the usual impulses, i.e. lust for power, or banal cruelty/sadism. The consensus being that what defined him was his fanaticism. Now whether this makes much of a difference is a different question.

It's interesting to me that you say he is remembered in Poland as Bloody Felix, when in fact he spent very little time involved in Polish affairs, and for most of the duration of him being a member of the Soviet government Poland was an independent entity outside of his reach (remember, he died in 1926). I thought that the Polish people may have a sort of grudging respect for a former compatriot that had laid the foundations for one of the most powerful and feared intelligence agencies of the 20th century. On the other hand, another thing he is famous for is being a Great Russian chauvinist and an opponent of the right for self-determination for the varied peoples of the Russian Empire. Even Lenin once accused Dzerzhinsky of crass Great Russian chauvinism, to which Dzerzhinsky replied: "I can reproach him (Lenin) with standing at the point of view of the Polish, Ukrainian and other chauvinists."

It's quite hilarious imagining Lenin, a Russian, accusing Dzerzhinsky, a Pole, of being a Russian nationalist and getting "well you're a Polish nationalist" thrown back at him!

They may have done, but in Communist Poland, he was treated like some sort of mythical figure. That pretty much guarantees hatred towards him, though I can say that not many people accept him as being Polish.

Two new statues of Iron Felix have gone up in Russia over the past month, provoking the ire of the church, monarchists, and just good ol' liberal folk. Wonder if there are still people in Poland that would think to put up a statue of him? As mentioned above, he's probably the second most famous/consequential Pole of the 20th century after Pilsudski.

Maybe three or four, mostly detained in psychiatric hospitals and think they're Napoleon or in old folks' homes, reading Trybuna upside down.

Haven`t heard of such a discussion. That topic was closed in 1989 when communism collapsed and the head of Bloody Red Baron Felix was hanging up high in the air. We are not Russia where the majority think about their past communist leaders with nostalgia. This is Poland. :):) It was Poles who toppled communism first in Europe.


hahahaha

Old issues of it, btw.


I am not a fan of Piłsudski who made a coup de etat and introduced dictatorship. But putting them together is certainly a huge disgrace to the Marshall. Think twice before you write similar bs next time. :):)

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I'm sorry!

May I ask, just as in the earlier post from 2018 - why the outrage if Dzerzhinsky and his machine of terror never had a chance to operate in Poland?

Coz he and his oprichniks contributed to the death of thousands of innocent people in Russia. Their sole guilt was rejecting bolshevism and they paid the highest price for that on that repulsive butcher`s orders.

Another argument: he helped to establish communism in Russia which later annihilated Polish elites in Katyn and elsewhere.

@pawian

So... no pride for a compatriot reaching staggering career heights abroad?

Please......

@pawian
Ok. Now without irony - I do see a certain romanticism in the work of an internal security agent, or counter-intelligence agent. Felix once said "«У чекиста должна быть холодная голова, горячее сердце и чистые руки". For our non-cyrillic readers "A Cheka-worker should have a cold head, hot heart, and clean hands".

Romanticism in slaying people en masse only because they don`t share your views??? That`s a nutty idea, I must say.


That`s bs. Bolsheviks robbed and stole anything of value. I presume the opportunity to gain financial gratification through robbery was one of main incentives for new candidates into bolshevik ranks. Clean hands ideal is a myth. Communism created a lot of myths. Frankyl ,whole idea of communism was a myth.

Yes, that's pretty romantic compared to slaying them for owning valuable cash generating assets you covet, or slaying them because they are of a different skin color or faith. By the measure of the entirety of human history, it was pretty romantic to kill over a discussion of ideas of how to better the average man's life rather than whether a man was a Huguenot, a Hussite, or Tutsi. When thinking of the different classes of society and prominent occupations within, I would rate intelligence workers somewhere above cops, and below firemen, maybe? The drive that makes a person want to be a cop is of a different distillation of romance than I would prefer. And I think the person that wants to work in intelligence is overall less likely to take bribes and be generally corrupt. It's this romanticism I refer to. As the father of an organization that had hundreds of thousands of employees over the decades, the culture he instilled was formative. I'm just reflecting on that.

Not really. I absolutely reject any romanticism in slaying people only for their different views.


Are you such a worker who is looking for understanding in the forum?


I highly doubt it. Consider cases of double agents. Why have there been so many of them ???? It is only a matter of how high your gratification is - if it is decent enough, you will turn sides easily.


No, he instilled or rather perfected the culture which had haunted Russia for centuries since tsar Ivan the Terrible sent his oprichniks killers all over the country to murder, torture and rob.

God, no. I think they are sneaky little creatures that enjoy too much their power of being able to look into the private lives of fellow citizens or just other people. Getting my jollies up by peering over someone's shoulder is not who I am. I am more on the fireman level, I hope!

I had a simple point, that there is some James Bond element to the job. It attracts a certain type of people. Iron Felix was a very interesting person, and not at all like the now century-old caricature of him. A butcher certainly, but a very pious one.

Before you suggested romanticism, now sneaky creatures. I don`t get this inconsistency. :)


A butcher doesn`t impress me no matter how pious he is.