(Moscow) A statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the formidable Soviet political police, was installed Monday at the headquarters of the Russian foreign intelligence services in Moscow, a new sign of the rehabilitation of the USSR in Russia.
This sculpture is an almost exact copy of the statue of “Iron Felix”, the man behind the Cheka, which reigned for decades in the Russian capital on Lubyanka Square, the headquarters of the KGB and then that of the Russian FSB.
This first statue, erected in 1958, was torn down in August 1991 by a crowd of jubilant Muscovites at the time of the events which led to the disappearance of the USSR.
The new monument, now located in front of the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Services (SVR), was inaugurated on Monday by their boss Sergei Naryshkin, who described Felix Dzerzhinsky as “altruistic, dedicated and determined” and “a symbol of his era, an example of crystal honesty.”
Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877-1926) was one of the architects of the Bolshevik terror which led to mass arrests and executions.
The rehabilitation of the USSR has been progressing for several years in Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent who became director of the FSB.
Several statues of Stalin have recently been inaugurated, while Mr. Putin has multiplied the parallels between the conflict in Ukraine and the Second World War.
The Kremlin does not deny the Soviet repressions, but puts them into perspective, presenting them as a tragedy with no real culprit.
Russian justice ordered at the end of 2021 the dissolution of the NGO Memorial, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, which had documented Soviet crimes for more than 30 years and put pressure on the state to recognize its responsibility for this. regard.
Several plaques in memory of the victims of Soviet repression have also been vandalized in recent months in Moscow.
Thousands of Russians, both opponents and ordinary citizens, have been prosecuted for protesting the conflict in Ukraine, sometimes receiving long prison sentences.