He is called “Iron Felix,” “The Apostle of Terror,” “The Red Executioner.” He was fanatically devoted to the cause of the revolution and the construction of a new Russia, but for this goal, he shed much blood. Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky was born on September 11, 1877, near Minsk, into a small noble family. From childhood, he believed in God and dreamed of becoming a Catholic priest. However, one day young Felix wrote in his diary that God does not exist. From that moment, he turned to revolutionary struggle. In 1896, Dzerzhinsky dropped out of his final year of gymnasium and engaged in party work. For his revolutionary activities, he was repeatedly arrested. In total, Dzerzhinsky spent 11 years in prisons and labor camps, contracting tuberculosis. However, he, like other political prisoners, was released by the February Revolution of 1917. On December 20, 1917, Dzerzhinsky received his main task — to form and head the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK) to combat counter-revolution and sabotage. VChK employees were called Chekists. They conducted a brutal policy of repression among opponents of Bolshevik power. After the assassination attempt on Lenin in the summer of 1918, Dzerzhinsky became one of the main organizers of the mass Red Terror. People were executed without trial or investigation. “He was a fanatic. He gave the impression of a possessed person. There was something eerie about him. In the past, he wanted to become a Catholic monk and transferred his fanatical faith to communism,” wrote philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev about Dzerzhinsky. At the same time, Felix Edmundovich fought for the future not only through terror. In 1921, he took the position of head of the newly formed Commission for the Improvement of Children’s Lives. At that time, there were about 5 million homeless children in the USSR. Dzerzhinsky organized a system of orphanages, and thousands of destitute children received medical care, education, and food. In a letter to his sister, Dzerzhinsky agreed that “there is no name more terrifying than mine.” However, he was convinced that his path was to be in the thick of change and to build a new life. Felix Edmundovich died in Moscow of a heart attack during a meeting of the Joint Plenum of the Central Committee and the CCC of the CPSU(b). In honor of Dzerzhinsky, more than a thousand squares, avenues, streets, and alleys in Russia are named after him. Cities in the Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod regions bear his name. In 1958, an 11-ton monument to Dzerzhinsky was erected on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. In August 1991, after the attempted coup, it was dismantled and moved to the capital’s “Muzeon” park. Since 1998, there have been regular attempts to return the monument to its historical place.