Free Republic

A statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police, Cheka, was unveiled in front of the headquarters of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) in Moscow on September 11. The statue is a replica of a larger Dzerzhinsky statue, one of the symbols of Soviet repression, which was pulled from its pedestal outside KGB headquarters in August 1991. SVR Director Sergei Naryshkin said at the ceremony for the statue's unveiling that Dzerzhinsky's face on the original and new statues is turned toward Poland and Baltic states "because the threat to Russia from the northwest remains."

When a recently-freed political prisoner who was foreign and black (and a former communist terrorist by his own admission) visited the U.S. in 1990 to request economic and diplomatic sanctions against the segregationist government that jailed him the U.S. media and political establishment went absolutely bonkers with acclaim and adulation. “The hero of oppressed people everywhere!" (hailed ABC.) "A larger than life figure!" (gushed CNN) "A virtual symbol of freedom!" ( heralded CBS). "His name has a mystical quality--a worldwide hero!" (rhapsodized Dan Rather.) “A Hero in America!” (headlined Time magazine.) Other reports compared Nelson Mandela to the Pope, Jesus...

Moscow legislators backtracked on claims that they are considering the return of a monument honoring the founder of the Soviet secret police to the center of the city. The city parliament made no plans concerning the return of the statue of Felix "Iron Felix" Dzerzhinsky, legislature speaker Vladimir Platonov said on Ekho Moskvy radio Saturday. City lawmakers have no right to pitch such initiatives anyway and can only rule on their funding, said Platonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party. Fellow city lawmaker Andrei Metelsky said earlier Saturday that the Dzerzhinsky statue was a historical landmark and could...

Moscow Police Retrieves Iron Felix. The Moscow city police has given itself a present for the Police Day and set up the monument of Felix Dzerzhinsky at the square in front of the Interior Ministry’s headquarters in central Moscow where it once stood. The monument of the notorious founder of the Soviet secret police was put down during the 1991 coup. Now the sculpture has been re-installed at the initiative of the Council of Veterans of the Moscow Department for the Interior who laud Dzerzhinsky on “his activities to tackle the issue of homeless children” and “crime fighting”. Social organizations...