The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 14, 1926, Page 13

ir Weng ee ox BR) £¥ AES ad eo ie Be ALAR URSA LN RET ONS AESoa me wae or Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky By B. K. GEBERT. ~ “After the fall of the proletarian dic- tatorship the black- est night began for the Hungarian pro- letariat. The white terror raged thru- eut the land,” The president calls Vagi to order and instructs him to speak in his own defense. Vagi continued fearlessly; “Sev- enty thousand pris- onmers were thrown into the dungeons and numbertess martyrs were sent to etérnity.” —From the speech of Comrade Stefan Vagi, before the court of Horthy on July 19, 1926, in Budapest. This is how the capitalist class teaches the workers a lesson in what not to do when taking power in its bands. In 1871, after the fall of the Paris Commune under the assault of Thierre and Bismarck, over 30,000 workers were butchered hy the capi- talists. But this fact does not alone in the history of the class struggle. The same happened when the work- ers’ revolutions were crushed in Fin- land, Germany, Poland and Esthonia. Yes, in every struggle of the workers for their rights, the capitalist class uses all its power to drown the fight in workers’ blood. Even in the every day struggles this method is applied, only on a “small scale”, But even 30,000 martyrs of a Paris Commune would be a “trifle” as compared with what would have hap- pened to the workers had the capital- ist succeeded in »Russia after Novem- ber 7, 1917. ae > The Proletarian Revolution in Rus- sia was victorious at first with few martyrs. There was no cheka in the first days of the revolution. It was created on December 7, 1917 to defend the Revolution, inasmuch as the bour- geoisie, the landlords, the former czar’s officers began a campaign to smash the workers’ and peasants’ govern- ment. Then the Soviet Government resorted to drastic means to defend the Revolution. Comrade Felix Ed- mundowich Dzerzhinsky was chosen to lead the fight as on so many other occasions, the right comrade was chosen for the right job. Comrade Dzerzhinsky properly used the sword of the cheka, Blow after blow was delivered at the counter- revolutionary conspiraey. The name of Dzerzhinsky became most hateful Vilna, he was already identified with the revolutionary movement., In 1895 he joined the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania, a revolu- tionary Marxist party led by Rosa Lux- emburg. He was known among the comrades under the name.of “Jozef”. In 1897 we find him among the workers of Kovno, an industrial city.. but the workers there were not organ- ized. Here he was arrested by the czar’s police for the first time and Felix E. Dzerzhinsky in the coffin in to the bourgeoisie while it was pro- nounced with pride by the workers as they saw in this apparatus the protec- tor of the revolution. Bourgeois and socialist, pacifist and christian all alike condemned the red terror. They cried for mercy for the oppressors, whereas they not only kept quiet but actually supported the butchering of 15,000,000 workers and peasants in the last war, and today these same opponents of red terror are taking part in oppressing and murdering the struggling ‘workers, peasants and the oppressed nationalities, Comrade Dzerzhinsky showed the whole world proletariat how to defend a workers’ revolution. * . s OMRADE Dzerzhinsky was known among revolutionary workers of Poland and Russia for the last 32 years. In 1894, while in college in Moscow, Trade Union Hall, July 21. sent for three years to the province of Viatka, and later 50 verst farther From Cracow he came back to Rus- sian Poland in 1905 and settled down for work as executive member of the party. During 1905 he was again kept in jail for a few months, In 1906 Dzerzhinsky was a dele- gate to the Unity Congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Par- ty. He was elected to the Central Executive Committee as a represen- tative of the Social-Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania. At the end of 1906 he was again arrested in Warsaw and released in 1907, In 1908 he was arrested and sent to Siberia, but he spent there only seven days. He escaped and again went abroad. He returned to Warsaw in 1912 where on September 1 he was once more arrested and condemned for three years. In 1916 the Moscow Czar’s Tribunal sentenced him to six more years for activity in the Party. The February Revolution opened for him the doors of the Central pri- . son in Moscow. He went to Petro- grad and joined the fighting ranks of the Bolsheviks. In August 1917, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and worked in Petrograd. In the October Revolu- north in Siberia to Kapgorodock, From tion we find him serving as a member there he escaped in 1899 and returned to Vilna. Soon after he went to Mos- of the Military Revolufionary Council and on December 7 he was chairman cow. In Moscow he purshased a pass-| of the famous cheka, port for 10 rwbles and went to War- saw. campaign against the PPS. elements (Polish Socialist Party, an organiza- tion of reformists and nationalists) and was one of the most beloved leaders of the Warsaw proletariat. In 1900 he was. arrested. in. Warsaw, After the counter-revolutionary for- Here he launched a merciless| “eS were broken up, Comrade Dzerz- hinsky become Commissar of Ways and Means of Communication, where he proved to be just as good an organ- izer as he -was a merciless fighter of the counter-revolution. Later he was elected chairman of the ..Supremé where he} Council of National Beonémiy ana’ on was first detained in the fortress and| iis post the great collaborator of later sent to Sediece. In 1902 he was! Lenin, the great revolutionist died deported to Eastern Siberia, but on July 20, 1926 at 8:40 P, M. the way escaped and went abroad, Comrade Dzerzhinsky is dead but In Berlin, in 1902, he took part in! ne jert behind him en accomplished the second congress of the Social- Democratic Party of Poland and Lith- uania and afterwards settled in Cra- cow, Galicia. job from which the workers of the world will learn how to defend their revolutions and build up a Communist society. FUNERAL OF DZERZHINSKY ON THE RED SQUARE IN MOSCOW, JULY 22, 1926 % eel follow the coffin, LLL LLL LL LOL LLL LLL LLL CC RTS 7 The coffin Is carried by (from left to right) Rudsutak, Rykov, Stalin, Tomsky, Molotov and Kirov. Janek, son of Dzerzhinsky, and Varsky