Part I
Soviet Chekism
1 Dzerzhinskyâs Commandments
In the perception of enemies, trembling at his very name, Dzerzhinsky figures as some sort of demon, some sort of wizard of Bolshevism⊠Dzerzhinsky is omnipresent, Dzerzhinsky is everywhere merciless, Dzerzhinsky breaks all obstacles on his path. Enemies do not understand, cannot understand, that Dzerzhinskyâs âsatanic all-roundednessâ, [his] âgood luckâ, flow from the fact that all the greatness and all the might of our class, its passionate will to struggle and to victory, its deepest creative forces, were embodied in Dzerzhinsky.1
This front-page Pravda editorial deriding Dzerzhinskyâs critics for their primitive fear of his power was published shortly after Dzerzhinskyâs death in July 1926. I have chosen this passage to open my introduction to the Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky, because it conveys some sense of the bizarre range and mixture of powers and properties that were attributed to Dzerzhinsky. The cult that surrounded the figure of Dzerzhinsky was a highly distinctive and vivid leadership cult,2 abundant in apparent contradictions and surprises. In this introductory tour, I shall approach the cult through what Robert Darnton would call its âopaqueâ moments: the points where it is at its most strange and puzzling, the better to grasp hold of it with a view to unravelling its meaning.3 We shall see the founder of the Soviet secret police and executor of the Red Terror compared to a sunbeam; weeping tears of love and compassion; cradling an orphaned child in his arms; and gazing into peopleâs souls. Diabolical to his enemies, a saint to his friends, the figure of Dzerzhinsky seems to have functioned as a vehicle for all kinds of fantasies and fears. More officially, he served to represent the ideal chekist, and it is in this capacity â as the incarnation of the chekist ethos â that I will mostly be concerned with the figure of Dzerzhinsky here. In this chapter, I provide an introduction to the Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky, outlining those conventions and motifs which remained more or less constant throughout the cultâs existence. This preliminary sketch of the cultâs main contours will set the scene for subsequent chapters in which we shall explore the ways in which this cult was modified at particular historical moments.
The Pravda editorial reproduced above conveys a sense of Dzerzhinskyâs status as a mythic, larger-than-life figure. Symbolically, Dzerzhinsky functioned as the emblematic and quintessential chekist. His symbolic status as the archetypical chekist was underlined insistently in Soviet discourse. Upon dying, Dzerzhinsky was said to have âmerged with the ChK, which became his embodimentâ.4 This message was reinforced in poems such as Bezymenskiiâs âFeliksâ (extracts of which were published in Pravda to mark the ninth jubilee of the Cheka in December 1926),5 in which a father explains to his little son that âFeliksâ and âthe VChKâ are one and the same thing.6 This status as archetype or prototype was also flagged by one of Dzerzhinskyâs key sobriquets: âthe first chekistâ. In fact, it is impossible to detach or disentangle the figure of Dzerzhinsky from the term âchekistâ, since the two were practically synonymous. Any examination of the term âchekistâ must thus begin with Dzerzhinsky. Dzerzhinsky was absolutely central to the corporate identity of the institution and insofar as the term âchekistâ has meaning, this meaning is derived from and associated with the figure of Dzerzhinsky.7
The whole semantic universe of Soviet chekism turned on the figure of Dzerzhinsky. He provided the focus for the vast majority of chekist rites and traditions. Key dates from Dzerzhinskyâs life punctuated and organized the chekist official calendar. Thus, for example, new foreign intelligence officers were sworn into the service on the anniversary of Dzerzhinskyâs birthday (11 September),8 and chekist salaries were paid on the eleventh of the month.9 Rituals venerating Dzerzhinsky operated in broader society, too; in the late Soviet period, for example, young people were mobilized to undertake pilgrimages (agitpokhody) to various sacred sites related to Dzerzhinskyâs life,10 and Soviet childrenâs homes often featured a special ugolok devoted to Dzerzhinsky.11 There was a vast body of hagiographical literature on Dzerzhinsky, including such works as Soldier of Great Battles: The Life and Work of F. E. Dzerzhinsky (1961); Knight of the Revolution (1967); Dzerzhinsky in My Life (1987); and Feliks Means Happy (1974) â to name but a few. Dzerzhinsky was also the key protagonist in the Soviet security apparatusâ elaborate foundation myth, as we shall see below.
One of the most striking features of the Soviet hagiographical literature on Dzerzhinsky are the ubiquitous but opaque references to his âmoral purityâ,12 âmoral beautyâ13 and âmoral talentâ.14 This preoccupation with Dzerzhinsky as first and foremost a moral figure points to the strong connection between the chekist and the new Soviet morality being forged. This struggle often came to be focused in the figure of the chekist. In the early Soviet struggle to overhaul morality, the chekist was on the front line. It was the chekist who manned the camps in which criminals and enemies underwent âreforgingâ (perekovka); it was the chekist who, having removed the priests, now took confession; and it was first and foremost the chekist who was defying and transgressing the old moral codes, now declared to be defunct. As Nadezhda Mandelstam put it, âThe Chekists were the avant-garde of the ânew peopleâ, and they had indeed basically revised, in the manner of the Superman, all ordinary human valuesâ.15 This connection remained present throughout the whole Soviet period, albeit in somewhat modified form. The figure of the chekist was central to the new moral universe being created â the chekist was both embodiment and chief executor of the new moral code. In what follows, I shall explore some of the linkages between the figure of the Dzerzhinsky and morality, showing how and why Dzerzhinskyâs claim to the title of a great humanitarian was supported and sustained.
The Dzerzhinsky Vita
The first official hagiography of Dzerzhinsky appeared immediately after his death in July 1926. Two days after Dzerzhinsky died, the state publishing house Gosizdat rushed through the publication of a small 32-page book on Dzerzhinsky, containing reprints of government reports of his death, obituaries, a brief autobiography and speeches. It was recommended in Pravda that âevery workerâ in the USSR should obtain a copy of this book, pending the publication of more comprehensive works.16
After his death, Dzerzhinsky was elevated into the realm of the symbolic and the elemental. Bukharinâs obituary underlined the fact that Dzerzhinsky was more than human, more than a mere mortal: âIt is as though the boiling lava of revolution, and not simple human blood, flowed and seethed in his veins.â17 Other metaphors used made a similar point. One tribute described Dzerzhinsky as a kind of walking monument, âa figure, seemingly hewn out of a single block of graniteâ.18
The standard, stylized image of Dzerzhinsky as it subsequently emerged in Soviet discourse was more icon-like than that of any other Soviet leader.19 The Dzerzhinsky cultâs dominant notes of âsternnessâ and âsorrowfulnessâ recall the saints of Orthodox icons.20 The tenor of the cult generally has a distinctive mournfulness about it. As Hingley puts it, Soviet historians presented the Chekaâs actions as conducted âin a spirit more of sorrow than of anger under the inspiration of the saintly Dzerzhinskyâ.21 Unlike Lenin or Stalin, Dzerzhinsky is frequently depicted as âsadâ, âtiredâ; emotionally drained by the strain of his work. In the Khrushchev era, these qualities made the Dzerzhinsky cult exceptional amongst Soviet leadership cults. As Tumarkin has shown, this was a period in which the sorrowful and the funereal were largely banished from Soviet public life, and from the Lenin cult in particular, which was refashioned in an âupbeatâ style, in keeping with the tenor of the period.22
The language used to describe Dzerzhinsky is often strikingly religious. One 1936 tribute to Dzerzhinsky, for example, speaks of the âincorruptible⊠image of Dzerzhinsky, his thin, spiritual face with high cheekbones and sunken cheeks, with a meek mouth and a burning gaze, saturated with rage and sorrowâ, and asserts that âthe very essence of Dzerzhinsky⊠was the most profound longing [toska] for the construction of the new lifeâ.23 More than any other Soviet leader, Dzerzhinsky combined the qualities of the martyr and the ascetic.
The religious elements and tenor of the Dzerzhinsky cult have their roots partly in Dzerzhinskyâs own biography. He was intensely religious as a boy and felt a calling as a priest, until he abandoned religion after converting to the revolutionary cause. His writings are permeated by religious imagery. He wrote, for example, of the âsacred sparkâ that burned within him, sustaining him on his revolutionary path and lending him strength âeven on the bonfire of persecutionsâ.24 He also wrote that âThe more horrifying the hell of this life, the most clearly and loudly I hear the eternal hymn of life, the hymn of truth, beauty and happiness, and there is no place within me for despair. Life is joyful even when one has to wear legironsâ.25
The marked religious overtones of the Dzerzhinsky cult are further exemplified by one of its key motifs: that of light â the conventional signifier of the presence of the divine in hagiographic literature. Thus, for example, for Buikis, âThere was something bright, something special, in him [Dzerzhinsky]. It was as though he radiated warmth, penetrating into the soulâ.26 Dzerzhinsky himself once wrote that he aspired âTo be a bright ray for others, to radiate light â this is the highest happiness which a person can attainâ, words which Soviet accounts presented as best encapsulating his character, as âthe best commentary to F. E. Dzerzhinskyâs life, work and idealsâ.27 Dzerzhinskyâs connection with the celestial realm was also depicted visually, in images like the one in the January 1965 issue of the journal The Borderguard, in which Dzerzhinskyâs face hovers in the clouds.28
The exceptionally long time which Dzerzhinsky had spent in prisons and exile before the revolution furnished the cult with a huge store of material for his vita â passion stories, heroic feats, trials, and acts of sacrifice.29 In one of the most frequently quoted stories, during one of his numerous prison terms, Dzerzhinsky, despite being gravely ill himself, performed the feat of carrying on his back his ailing cell-mate, who was unable to walk, out into the prison courtyard each day for months on end.30
Dzerzhinsky also resembled a saint by virtue of his celebrated sensitivity and gentleness, exemplified by his fondness for flowers and for nature more generally, and his appreciation of poetry. Central to the Dzerzhinsky cult is the notion that he would not hurt a fly; one memoir, for example, describes how he âwould bend down and pluck flowers, and I noticed how carefully he placed his feet, clad in heavy boots, so as not to trample the beautiful plants or an ant-hillâ.31 He displayed such qualities from childhood, when he acted as the protector of mistreated animals.32 In general, âloveâ was said to be a primary force motivating Dzerzhinsky.33
Most important in this connection was Dzerzhinskyâs renowned passionate love for children, expressed most famously through his actions in the sphere of child welfare in the early 1920s.34 This was easily the single most important and marketable, palatable facet of the Soviet cult of Dzerzhinsky. This was the cultâs pride; its showpiece; a âbright, unforgettable page from the history of Soviet chekistsâ.35 It was in thi...