Felix Dzerzhinsky - Iron Felix

Iron Felix

"Iron Felix" also refers to his 15-ton iron monument, which once dominated the Lubyanka Square in Moscow, near the KGB headquarters. It was built in 1958 by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and was a Moscow landmark during Soviet times. Symbolically, the Memorial to the Victims of the Gulag (a simple stone from Solovki) was erected beside the Iron Felix and the latter was removed in August 1991, after the failed rebellion of hard-line Communist members of government. The memorial to Dzerzhinsky was removed at the end of the USSR. A mock-up of the removal of Dzerzhinsky's statue can be found in the entrance hall of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

In 2002, Moscow mayor Yuriy Luzhkov proposed returning the statue to its plinth, but the plan was ended by opposition from liberals and the national government. The statue remained in a yard for old Soviet memorials at the Central House of Artists, although a smaller bust of Dzerzhinsky in the courtyard of the Moscow police headquarters at Petrovka 38 was restored in November 2005 (this bust had been removed by the police officers on 22 August 1991).

As it was a symbol of the Soviet Union and its domination over Poland, his monument in Dzerzhinsky Square (pl. Plac Dzierżyńskiego) in the center of Warsaw was toppled in 1989 as the Polish United Workers' Party lost power as part of the collapse of communism. The name of the square was soon changed to its pre-Second World War name, "Bank Square" (pl: Plac Bankowy).

A 10-foot bronze replica of the original Iron Felix statue was placed on the grounds of the military academy in Minsk, Belarus in May 2006.

In April 2012, the Moscow authorities stated that they would be renovating the "Iron Felix" monument in full and put the statue on a list of monuments to be renovated, as well as officially designated it an object of cultural heritage.