Dzerzhinsky, Feliks

Dzerzhinsky, Feliks (Edmundovich)

(born Sept. 11, 1877, Dzerzhinovo, near Minsk, Russian Empire—died July 20, 1926, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian Bolshevik leader, head of the first Soviet secret-police organization. Son of a Polish nobleman, he was repeatedly arrested for revolutionary activities beginning in 1897. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he headed the newly created Cheka, which became Soviet Russia's security-police agency. He organized the first concentration camps in Russia and acquired a reputation as a ruthless and fanatical communist. In 1924 he was given control of the Supreme Economic Council.