A bronze statue of “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet secret police and architect of the Red Terror that followed the 1917 revolution, has been unveiled at the headquarters of Russia’s foreign spy service.
Dzerzhinsky, a Polish noble turned revolutionary who helped lay the foundations of the repressive system over which Joseph Stalin was to preside, is reviled by dissidents but is a hero to the spies who rule in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
