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Felix: the Bloody Or the Iron – on the Dzerzhinsky Monument

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Felix: the Bloody Or the Iron – on the Dzerzhinsky Monument Nadezhda Vasilyeva GAUGN; Mikhail Chernysh, Ph.D. (Academic Advisor) Felix: The Bloody or the Iron – on the Dzerzhinsky monument: General information The Dzerzhinsky monument is a statue of Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, a Soviet statesman, a member of the Soviet government heading several commissariats and the founder of the Emergency Commission – Soviet State Security forces (Cheka). Today the monument is situated in the Muzeon park of Sculptures near the Central House of Artists on the edge of the Moscow River. The monument was originally was put on Lubyanskaya square, which was renamed Dzerzhinsky Square for many years (1926–1990). The weight of the sculpture without pedestal is 11 ton. The statue was created by prominent Soviet sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich, who also created such monuments as Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park, Berlin (1946), Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares in the United Nations garden (1957), The Motherland Calls! at Mamayev Kurgan (1967). The architect of the statue was Sergei Speransky. The idea to erect a monument to Dzerzhinsky was set fourth ten years after his death in a Political Bureau of the CPSU decree from July 19, 1936: “Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky‘s 10th death anniversary prescript” № 41, p. 1841. The decree established: 1. For “Pravda”, “Izvestiya” “Za Indusrializatsiyu”, “Komsomolskaya Pravda” and other papers to report in details on life and work of Felix Dzerzhinsky, one of the closest associates of Lenin, the unswerving defender of unity amongst the party ranks, the Founder of the Emergency Commission – Joint State Political Directorate and the facilitator for the Party’s first big accomplishments in the sector of industry and transport. 1 http://www.muzeon.ru/articles/116-dzerzhinskii-pamyatnik-i-chelovek 2. To set the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky on the Dzerzhinsky Square in Moscow. 3. To rename after Felix Dzerzhinsky: a) Tagil Carriage Works b) Krasnopresnenskaya Manufacturing Works c) Kurskaya Railway line d) Lyuberetskaya Working Commune 4. To cause a municipal Party core group and NKVD members meeting in the Memory of Felix Dzerzhinsky to be organized by All-Union Communist Party Moscow Committee in NKVD club. The unveiling of the monument was held on December 20, 1958, at 41st anniversary of the creation of the Emergency Commission. The monument was dismantled on August 22, 1991, during the Soviet coup d'état attempt, also known as the August Putsch. A huge crowd of people gathered at Lubyanskaya square and had attempted to demolish the statue of its own accord, so the deputy chairman of the Moscow City Council Sergei Stankevich had to decide forthwith and to pass a verdict for the statue to be toppled by a crane on that very night. After the removal the monument was moved to the Muzeon park of Sculptures near the Central House of Artists on the edge of the Moscow River, where it remains at the present day. Social and historical background The decision to erect the monument was taken in 1936, during the Joseph Stalin’s reign. The USSR was forcing the process of socialist construction and tightening the political regime in the 1930s. The creation of the new type of society required not only changing the sociopolitical image of the country, but also ideological influence on the county’s population, on its world view. The influence on the population was being exerted via culture and art. The ideological pressure had a tangible impact on architecture and urban development of Moscow in the 20s and 30s: many streets and squares were renamed, a lot of churches and monasteries were destroyed, the monuments for idols of czarist regime were demolished and replaced with the monuments for Marx, Engels and Lenin. Theatre Square became Sverdlov Square, Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street was renamed in honour of Alexander Herzen, Varvarskaya Square – in the name of Nogin, Tverskaya Street – in the name of Maxim Gorky, Znamenka street was renamed after Mikhail Frunze, the Patriarch's Ponds were renamed Pioneers' Ponds, and this list can go on for very long. Among the demolished memorials were monuments to Alexander II and Alexander III. Such monasteries as Strastnoy Convent, Nikitsky Convent, Zachatyevsky Convent, Zlatoustovsky and Sretensky Monastery were destroyed. The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour was exploded in 1931 initially in order to build the huge Palace of the Soviets in its place2. Felix Dzerzhinsky was an outstanding Soviet statesman. Best known for establishing and developing the Soviet State Security forces, Dzerzhinsky was also very active in other spheres: he was the Chairman of the Committee for juvenile delinquency and homelessness, soviet minister for Transport Systems, the Chairman for Supreme Soviet of National Economy, and the founder of Dinamo Sport Society. It is worth noting that all of these institutions were working very efficiently. Dzerzhinsky was also a professional revolutionist and contributed significantly to the Soviet regime establishment. So after the main communist ideologues, such as Marx, Engels and Lenin, and also reining ruler at the time – Joseph Staling, it was Felix Dzerzhinsky who was the worthiest to be commemorated as a bronze figure. For the Bolsheviks he was the ideal embodiment of the Soviet regime, the manifestation of its power and efficiency. Apart from building the monument, on 1936 the Political Bureau of the CPSU made a ruling for the biggest media to report in details on life and work of Dzerzhinsky, and he was described as a “one of the closest associates of Lenin, the unswerving defender of unity amongst the party ranks, the Founder of the Emergency Commission – Joint State Political Directorate and the facilitator for the Party’s first big accomplishments in the sector of industry and transport”. Dzerzhinsky was a very multi- faceted state figure, and the Soviets obviously made an effort to memorialize all of his accomplishments. 2 http://мировая-история.рф/otrazhenie-novoj-ideologii-v-oblike-moskvy-sovetskaya-arxitektura-20-30-x- godov.html But the monument was actually erected much later, in 1958, during the period known as the Khrushchev Thaw. The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956 may be considered the beginning of the Thaw. At that Congress Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party at the time delivered the speech criticizing the personality cult and repressions of Joseph Stalin. The Congress had ushered in drastic changes in the country’s social and political life. The official Soviet censorship were had weakened, so-called “iron curtain” (a symbol of Soviet Union’s tendency to block itself the west and non-Soviet- controlled areas) was risen a bit. Khrushchev initiated a wave of rehabilitations that officially restored the reputations of millions of innocent victims who were convicted in the times of Stalin, also a lot of political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps. As a result of loosening the ideological control, Soviet art and literature found themselves on the uprising. The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party adopted the Third Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which declared that Soviet Union had entered a new stage of development, the stage of the completion of the building of a Socialist society and the gradual transition to Communist society. Nevertheless, despite the loosening up, art and culture were still under government and Party control. The Ministry of Culture of the USSR was established in 1953. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was still setting the guiding principles in the sphere of art. In the context of adopted the Third Program of the Communist Party the creative intelligentsia of Soviet society was once again given a task to draw a positive appearing image of socialistic reality and Soviet economy’s achievements and to animadvert upon bourgeois culture. The Felix Dzerzhinsky figure fit very well into country’s declared course: he was an active politician with a strong commitment to communist idea, not sparing himself for the sake of the country. His position of the Cheka founder was not also forgotten, of course, but it was unlikely to be in the center of attention taking into consideration the criticism of repressions and massive innocent victim rehabilitation that Khrushchev proclaimed. The government’s idea for the erected monument wasn’t to symbolize the all-might of Soviet State Security forces, at least officially. The “bloody” reputation of Felix became the main discourse decades later. Demolition of the monument The monument was removed from Lubyanskaya square on the night August 22, 1991, after the failure of August Coup – an attempt by members of the Soviet Union’s government to take control of the country from Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev. A group of high-level officials within the Soviet government had created the State Committee of the State of Emergency (GKChP) on 18 August 1991 in order to preserve the integrity of the Soviet Union and building the constitutional order. But within two days the attempted coup collapsed, the Gorbachev, who was arrested by GKChP returned to the government. By the August 22 most of the GKChP members were arrested and from the morning that day victorious Russian were parading in the center of Moscow with Russian national flags. According to eyewitness accounts, a crowd of people gathered in the center of Moscow was initially planning to take the KGB and the CPSU Central Committee headquarters by storm3. (The KGB headquarters was also situated on Lubyanskaya square, and the Central Committee building was very nearby). It was more than somewhat risky idea open to many hazards and great loss of life, since the security staff member who remained in the building were capable of making a stout resistance, not to mention there were snipers on roofs all around the place, ready to open fire in case of combat assault.
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