Felix Dzerzhinsky - Dzerzhinsky and Lenin

Dzerzhinsky and Lenin

Dzerzhinsky became a Bolshevik as late as 1917. Therefore it is wrong to claim, as the official Soviet historians later did, that Dzerzhinsky had been one of Lenin's oldest and most reliable comrades, or that Lenin had exercised some sort of spellbinding influence on Dzerzhinsky and the SDKPiL. Lenin and Dzerzhinsky frequently had opposing opinions about many important ideological and political issues of the pre-revolutionary period, and also after the October Revolution. After 1917, Dzerzhinsky would oppose Lenin on such crucial issues as the Brest-Litovsk peace, the trade unions, and Soviet nationality policy, during the April 1917 Party Conference when Lenin accused Dzerzhinsky of Great-Russian chauvinism he replied:"I can reproach him (Lenin) with standing at the point of view of the Polish, Ukrainian and other chauvinists." He had creative organizational ability and was willing to perform unwelcome and difficult tasks.

From 1917 to his death in 1926, Dzerzhinsky was first and foremost a Russian Communist, and Dzerzhinsky's involvement in the affairs of the Polish Communist Party (which was founded in 1918) was minimal. The energy and dedication that had previously been responsible for the building of the SDKPiL would henceforth be devoted to the priorities of the struggle for proletarian power in Russia, to the defense of the revolution during the civil war, and eventually, to the tasks of socialist construction.