Russia KGB founder honoured

international | crime and justice | other press

Monday September 13, 2004 11:48

by pat c

Russia KGB founder honoured
By Rob Cameron
BBC correspondent in Moscow

A new statue of the founder of what became the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky, has
been unveiled in a small town outside Moscow. The monument was commissioned
by the town authorities.

Some believe the event is part of the gradual rehabilitation of the once
feared Russian secret service under President Vladimir Putin, himself a
former officer of the KGB. Around 300 people - including Dzerzhinsky's
grandson - attended Saturday's ceremony in the town that bears his name.

Dzerzhinsky was nicknamed Iron Felix, but this statue is actually bronze and
will stand outside the town's palace of culture.

Murky past

As every Russian school child knows, Felix Dzerzhinsky played an active part
in the October Revolution and founded the Cheka - or All-Russian
Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage - to
give the body its full name.

It was later renamed the NKVD before becoming the KGB and throughout the
Communist era was the most feared arm of the Soviet apparatus, abducting,
torturing and killing many thousands of people.

A statue of Dzerzhinsky once stood in Moscow's Lubyanka Square, home to the
KGB's infamous headquarters. In 1991, however, following the failed coup
against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev it was torn down. But in the last
few years there have been attempts to rehabilitate the organisation.

President Putin even allowed the organisation's successor, the FSB, to
produce a calendar commemorating major events in the KGB's history.

Story from BBC NEWS:

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Comments (7 of 7)

Good News For The Trots

by Watcher

Mon Sep 13, 2004 14:38

They hail Dzerzhinsky as a great revolutionary who put down the counter revolutionary Anarchists, Left SRs and Trade Unionists who thought they had the right to strike in a Workers State. The old Militant used to produce a poster of Dzerzhinsky! I wonder if the SP have any left?

by Totwatch

Mon Sep 13, 2004 15:36

Theres a lot of blood thirsty stuff on the SY Noticeboard in support of Red Terror. The SY members literally drool over the number of Bourgeois hostages and Anarchists killed by the "Workers State". Dzherinsky would certainly be the pinup for the SY.

The site seems to have died down since Shane Kenna was booted out of the SY/SP. He used to run it. Poor Shane. At least he got off lightly. Think of what would have happened to him if the SP were in power!

Honouring a Psycho

by Joe Soap

Mon Sep 13, 2004 16:53

Its appalling in this day and age that a mass murderer should have a statue unveiled to him. Whats far worse is that supposed Irish Socialists will think this a good thing. I am sure that Joe Higgins wont mention this in the Dail. Good old Joe, in the Dail and dealing with the mainstream press he believes in Democratic Socialism. But the reality is that the SP want a Leninist dictatorship in Ireland.

hmm. yep the BBC ran this story on September 11.

by :-) - "the other press team"

Mon Sep 13, 2004 21:17

but I couldn't find a russian news site with the same story so I didn't put it up.
Not that I'm saying Aunty Beeb isn't anything but completely reliable.

Out of interest -
are there any russian speakers / readers in the collective at the moment?

Iron Felix was a pussy

by karl kautsky

Tue Sep 14, 2004 10:13

Like the rest of the Bolshevik hard men he was good at dishing it out but not so good at taking it. Look at the way in which they all debased themselves when they ended up in the Lubyanka. And then in the midst of "War Communism" (Trotsky's term for mass terror and murder) all the spoliled little boys were packed off to rest themselves whenever they caught a cold. Dzerzhinsky ought to be remembered in the same way as Himmler - a cowardly mass murderer.

Hmmm

Tue Sep 14, 2004 11:30

Its also at:

"KGB's founder back on his plinth in Russia
By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
12 September 2004

Thirteen years ago, democracy-hungry Russians yelped with joy as a statue to one of the Soviet Union's most brutal secret policemen was toppled. Yesterday, in a potent symbol of the new Putinised Russia, a new statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of what was later to become the KGB, was erected."

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=560807

A somewhat different story from 2 years ago. So some such plans were in the works:

"Liberals fight return of KGB memorial
By Ben Aris in Moscow
(Filed: 17/09/2002)

Russian liberals began collecting signatures yesterday to block a plan to return the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of Russia's secret police, to its original site outside KGB headquarters.

Demonstrators help to demolish the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, Moscow 1991
The Moscow landmark was torn down by pro-democracy protesters during the first days of the August 1991 coup that ended the Soviet Union.

The mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, originally opposed the communist plan to return the statue to Lubyanka Square but is now backing it."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/17/wkgb17.xml

More of same at:
http://www.hri.org/news/balkans/rferl/2000/00-06-30.rferl.html

And
"KGB's ghost still haunts Russia
The statue of feared Soviet secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky, hauled away from its prominent pedestal amid protests in one of the most dramatic scenes of the Soviet collapse, has been quietly resurrected, half-hidden by trees in an out-of-the-way park....(AP, 9 Sep 01)"
http://www.cicentre.com/2001_CI_News_Archives/NEWS_SEP_09_to_SEP_15_01_.htm

H'mm

by Joe

Tue Sep 14, 2004 13:28

The timing it is a little worrying. It's an 'interesting' moment to rehabilitate the methods of the Cheka which is presumably the message this is meant to send.

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Russia KGB founder honoured

Comments (7 of 7)