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| Europe |
| Belarus Unveils Monument to 'Iron Felix' |
| 2006-05-27 |
| MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A monument to Soviet secret police founder Felix Dzerzhinsky was unveiled Friday in the Belarusian capital Minsk, provoking protests from human rights defenders and opposition politicians. Dzerzhinsky, reviled by critics of the Soviet era, helped establish the first Soviet secret service, called the Cheka, in 1917 under Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. The Cheka, a forerunner of the KGB, was responsible for mass arrests and executions. The towering 10-foot bronze figure, a copy of the statue of Dzerzhinsky that pro-democracy crowds tore down in front of KGB headquarters in Moscow in 1991, occupies a spot inside the grounds of the Military Academy. Dzerzhinksky was known as 'Iron Felix." He was born in modern-day Belarus. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 My old Soviet History professor told a story about a statue of Dzerzhinsky which supposedly stands (or at least once stood) in Warsaw: An American scholar, in Warsaw researching Polish archives, walked past it every day, and every day he noticed there were fresh flowers laid at the feet of the statue. He finally asks one of his Polish hosts why this is. He is told, "Dzerzhinsky was a Pole, and no Pole ever killed more Russians." |
| Posted by: Mike 2006-05-27 07:18 |
| #2 So that's why Belarus is so strange. With Felix as a hero... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-05-27 01:12 |
| #1 The first Soviet secret police, maybe, but hardly the first in Russia. |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-05-27 00:46 |