Director of Cheka
Vladimir Lenin regarded Felix Dzerzhinsky as a revolutionary hero and appointed him to organize a force to combat internal threats. On 20 December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars officially established the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage—usually known as the Cheka (based on the Russian acronym ВЧК). Dzerzhinsky became its director. The Cheka received a large number of resources, and became known for ruthlessly pursuing any perceived counterrevolutionary elements. As the Russian Civil War expanded, Dzerzhinsky also began organizing internal security troops to enforce the Cheka's authority.
The Cheka undertook drastic measures during the Russian Civil War. Tens of thousands of political opponents were shot without trial in the basements of prisons and in public places. Dzerzhinsky said: "We represent in ourselves organized terror – this must be said very clearly." and “ the terrorization, arrests and extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles.”
In 1922, at the end of the Civil War, the Cheka was renamed as the GPU (State Political Directorate), a section of the NKVD. This did not diminish Dzerzhinsky's power; he was Minister of the Interior, director of the Cheka/GPU/OGPU, Minister for Communications, and director of the Vesenkha (Supreme Council of National Economy) from 1921–24 .
At his office in Lubyanka, Dzerzhinsky kept a portrait of Rosa Luxemburg on the wall.
Besides his leadership of the Cheka, Dzerhinsky also took on a number of other roles; he led the fight against Typhus in 1918, was Chair of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs from 1919 to 1923, initiated a vast orphanage construction program, chaired the Transport Commissariat, organised the embalming of Lenin's body in 1924 and chaired the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema.
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