December 22, 2024

A Memory Battle, Won


A Memory Battle, Won
The Dzerzhinsky monument. Telegram, Govorit NeMoskva.

Officials in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk recently unveiled a new monument in their city: a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police force.

The unveiling ceremony was held on December 20. Several local grandees, veterans, and cadets attended. Fittingly, the statue is located across from the local offices of the FSB, Russia's modern internal security service.

Dzerzhinsky is best known for organizing the Cheka to solidify the revolution's hold on Russia, by rooting out "class enemies." The Cheka would eventually become the NKVD and then the KGB, Stalin's tool of repression that imprisoned and killed million in the 1930s and 1940s. The modern FSB continues the internal security legacy begun by Dzerzhinsky.

In 2020, Moscow locals were polled on whether or not a Dzerzhinsky statue that had once stood in front of the Cheka's, NKVD's, and FSB's historic Lubyanka headquarters should be reinstated. Voters indicated distaste, but, when the count was halted due to online vitriol, the result was declared inconclusive.

At the same time, some have called for the Solovetsky Stone to be removed from Lubyanka Square. The stone, brought from a White Sea prison camp, sits where the Dzerzhinsky statue once did, and is a monument to victims of political repression.

All this in the context of a Russia that is increasingly turning towards its oppressive past.

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