Death
Dzerzhinsky died of heart failure on 20 July 1926 in Moscow, immediately after a two-hour long speech to the Bolshevik Central Committee during which, visibly quite ill, he violently denounced the United Opposition directed by Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev. Upon hearing of his death Joseph Stalin eulogized Dzerzhinsky as "...a devout knight of the proletariat." Nicholas Roerich and his son George were waiting in the Cheka office to see Dzerzhinsky when they heard of Dzerzhinsky's death. Dzerzhinsky was succeeded as head of the Cheka by fellow ethnic Pole Vyacheslav Menzhinsky.
Dzierżyńszczyzna, one of the two Polish Autonomous Districts in the Soviet Union, was named to commemorate Dzerzhinsky. Located in Belarus, near Minsk and close to the Soviet-Polish border of the time, it was created on 15 March 1932, with the capital at Dzyarzhynsk (Dzerzhynsk, formerly known as Kojdanów). The district was disbanded in 1935 at the onset of the Great Purge and most of its administration was executed.
His name and image were used widely throughout the KGB and the Soviet Union—and other socialist countries: there were six towns named after him. The town Kojdanava, which is not very far from the estate, was renamed to Dzyarzhynsk. In Russia there is a city of Dzerzhinsk, a village of Dzerzhinsk and three other cities called Dzerzhinskiy; in former Soviet republics, there are cities named Dzerzhinski (Armenia), Dzyarzhynsk (Belarus), and Dzerzhinsk (Ukraine). A Ukrainian village in the Zhytomyr Oblast was also named Dzerzhinsk until 2005 when it was renamed Romaniv. The Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Works in Stalingrad were named in his honor and became a scene of bitter fighting during the Second World War. The FED camera, produced from 1934 to 1990, is named for him. There is a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace in Belarus.
Read more about this topic: Felix Dzerzhinsky
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
It is enough I may but call her mine.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)