Cheka
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The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, abbreviated as VChK, and commonly known as the Cheka, was the first Soviet secret police organization. It was established on 20 December 1917 by the Council o
Chekists frequently dressed in black leather, allegedly following the example of Yakov Sverdlov (pictured here in 1918).
Members of the presidium of VCheKa (left to right) Yakov Peters, Józef Unszlicht, Abram Belenky (standing), Felix Dzerzhinsky, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, 1921
Smolny, the seat of the Soviet government in 1917 (pictured in 2004)
Grigory Petrovsky
Felix Dzerzhinsky
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Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed Iron Felix, was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first three Soviet secret police organ
Cheka
…police organization. It was established on 20 December [O.S. 7 December] 1917 by the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR, and was led by Felix Dzerzhinsky. By the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the Cheka had at least 200,000 personnel. Ostensibly created to protect the October Revolution from "class…
![Portrait by Moisey Nappelbaum [ru], 1919](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Feliks_Dzier%C5%BCy%C5%84ski.jpg/500px-Feliks_Dzier%C5%BCy%C5%84ski.jpg)
Portrait by Moisey Nappelbaum [ru], 1919
Dzerzhinsky (left) with his fiancée Julia Goldman and her brother Mikhail Liber, 1904
Dzerzhinsky pictured with wife Sofia and son Janek in Lugano (Switzerland), October 1918
Dzerzhinsky at Oryol Prison, 1914