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p At the end of the 19th century, the revolutionary working-class movement in Russia entered a new period of development. It became a massive one in scope, and in addition, since the mid-1890s social-democracy in Russia had become not only an ideological trend but an active political force closely associated with the working-class struggle.

p In the autumn of 1893 Lenin moved to St. Petersburg, where he began the historic trail along which he led the proletariat, all working people of Russia to the overthrow of the autocracy and bourgeoisie, the victorious socialist revolution.

p That was the background of Felix Dzerzhinsky’s youth.

p His father, Edmund Dzerzhinsky, came from the Polish poor small gentry and worked as a schoolteacher. Out of the ten Dzerzhinsky brothers, only Edmund and Felicjan managed to obtain a higher education. In 1863, Edmund graduated from the physics and mathematics department of St. Petersburg University and three years later moved with his family to Taganrog, where he taught physics and maths at both a girls’ and boys’ grammar schools.

p Edmund was consumptive, and hard work made his health rapidly deteriorate. In 1875, he took his family back to his native parts, the Dzerzhinovo estate near the Nalibokskaya Pushcha where, on August 30 (September 11, New Style) 1877  [10•1 , in the small house  [10•2  by the rapid Usa River, Felix Dzerzhinsky was born.

p His mother, Helena, nee Januszewska, came from the intelligentsia. For many years, her father was a professor at 11 St. Petersburg Railway Institute, and her two brothers were transport engineers.

p Edmund gave free lessons to peasant children, teaching them reading, writing, arithmetic and physics. Local peasants, who were brutally oppressed by landowners, kulaks (wealthy peasants) and the police, felt free to appeal to him for advice at any time. He had a reputation as a just man. He died of consumption in 1882 at the age of 42, leaving a 32-year-old widow with eight children. They subsisted on Edmund’s small pension and the tiny rent they received for Dzerzhinovo. Luckily, Helena’s mother, Kazimiera Januszewska, was able to assist her daugher financially; the sum, though not large, was regular.

p From earliest childhood, the Dzerzhinsky children were used to working quite hard, to doing things for themselves, and to helping each other. The atmosphere in the family was warm and friendly. Helena did her best to bring up her children strong in health and in spirit. In summer, her sons took long boating trips along the Usa, a tributary of the beautiful Niemen, and went on hiking tours to the distant fairy-tale corners of the Nalibokskaya Pushcha. They had many friends among village children.

p Felix was a high-spirited and sensitive child. Though sometimes naughty, he was never cruel or rough. He was fond of animals and could not bear to see them maltreated. He loved nature and enjoyed wandering in forests, picking flowers, berries and mushrooms, swimming in the river, and catching fish and crabs. The boy’s contributions were a welcome addition to family meals.

p From his friends—village children mostly—he learned how hard the poor peasants’ and young hired labourers’ lives were, and it is probably at that time that the seeds of protest against social injustice were sown in his soul...

p Need did not prevent Helena, an intelligent and morally strong woman, from giving her children adequate opportunities for physical, moral and intellectual development. Family life, and especially the example set by his mother, were among the major formative influences on Felix. Later, writing to his sister Aldona on the subject of family upbringing, Dzerzhinsky wrote: “Love makes its way into the souland makes it strong, kind and responsive, while fear, pain and shame only warp it. Love is the source of all that is good, noble, strong, warm and bright.”

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p When Felix was a child, the 1863 uprising for the national emancipation of Poland and Lithuania was still fresh in people’s memories. It was not easy to forget the reprisals instituted by the tsarist General Muravyov against Poles, Byelorussians, and Lithuanians, as well as against the Russian officers and men who sympathised with the insurgents. Felix was aware of the oppressive policies of the autocracy and the inhuman way the landowners and kulaks treated the poor peasants. All this made a strong impression on the sensitive boy.

p Many years later, in a letter to his wife written on June 11, 1914, Dzerzhinsky remarked: “I remember the nights at our small country house when our mother told us stories by the light of a lamp, and the trees were whispering outside ... her stories about the indemnities levied against the people, the reprisals against them, and vexing taxes... This was the moment of truth. This, among other things, led me to choose the road that I later traversed, and every violent act I learned about, I felt as an act of violence against me personally.”

p That Dzerzhinsky deeply loved his mother is evident: “Our mother is immortal through us. She has given me my soul and filled it with love, opened my heart and won a place for herself in it forever.”

p At the age of six, Felix learned to read and write, first in Polish and then, at the age of seven, in Russian. His first teacher was his mother. Later, his elder and favourite sister, Aldona, prepared him for attending school in 1887. It was at that time that the family moved to Wilno (now Wilnius, the capital of the Lithuanian SSR).

p The family spent the summer in Dzerzhinovo. Felix went there for the last time before the revolution in 1892. He would never lose his love for wild life and the memory of Dzerzhinovo. In prison and exile, he would dream about the time when the autocracy would fall, and he could go back home to join the people he loved. Characteristically, he wrote later: “I can remember that the beauty of nature ... almost invariably made me think about our idea... That beauty, that nature should never be rejected. It is the temple of the wanderers ... who have happened to find themselves homeless but will gain a whole world if they follow the road of the proletariat.”

p From 1889 to 1895 Felix attended a boarding school. He 13 and his brothers lived under the watchful eyes of school headmasters and supervisers, whose goal was to turn out loyal servants of tsarism. There were constant drills and strict rules; and also tale-bearing, informing and cramming. Felix found it all exceedingly difficult to bear. He fearlessly rose in defence of those unjustly punished and persecuted and earned himself a reputation of being constantly dissatisfied, a young man critical of the school customs and traditions. The most reactionary tutor, the German master, even demanded that Felix be expelled altogether.

p He read a lot at school. He loved books, especially poetry, and tried his hand at writing verse. He had a good knowledge of the Polish and Russian classics—Adam Mickiewicz, Marja Konopnicka, Ludwik Kondratowicz, Boleslaw Prus, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Nekrasov. He also liked to read Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, and studied the works of Vissarion Belinsky and Alexander Herzen.

p Having many friends among workers in Wilno, Dzerzhinsky gained a close view of the condition of the working class and could not help trying to find the answer to the obvious question: why the masses must work, and even so many still starve to death, while a handful of exploiters enjoy a life of leisure?

p Beginning with the sixth grade, his faith in God began to waver, and in the seventh, it crumbled altogether. Since that time, Dzerzhinsky was an avowed atheist who did his best to grasp the laws of social life and find radical ways to put an end to injustice.

p At that time, Marxist literature was banned. It was hard to find, being distributed mostly illegally. Dzerzhinsky wrote about that period: “I had to grope my way without guidance, without a hint from anyone.” But the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, which he somehow managed to obtain and thoroughly studied, clarified many things. The Marxist philosophy became his credo and shaped his world outlook.

p At the age of 17, as a seventh-grader, Dzerzhinsky joined an illegal students’ social-democratic self- development group. This is when he first read the Manifesto of the Communist Party written by Marx and Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Engels, Plekhanov’s The Development of the Monist View of 14 History, and the Erfurt Programme of the German Social-Democracy, among others.

p Dzerzhinsky’s letters to relatives and friends reveal how he came to profess the positions of scientific communism and Marxism.

p Since his childhood Dzerzhinsky had been devoted to his people, loved Polish literature and art, and had a good Knowledge of Polish history. But even as a child he had many occasions to witness how Polish landlords and capitalists, who existed hand in glove with the Russian autocracy, exploited and maltreated the working masses, regardless of their nationality.

p Even as a youth Dzerzhinsky was a consistent and convinced internationalist. He appreciated the strength and significance of the revolutionary movement in Russia, and was aware of the character of Poland’s and Lithuania’s capitalist way of development. He realised that only in collaboration with the Russian proletariat could the working people of Poland and Lithuania attain social and political freedom. Lenin wrote in 1914: “The Polish SocialDemocrats were therefore quite right in ... pointing out that the national question was of secondary importance to Polish workers.... in proclaiming the extremely important principle that the Polish and the Russian workers must maintain the closest alliance in their class struggle."  [14•1 

p Having joined the revolutionary movement, Dzerzhinsky soon became an experienced agitator and populariser well versed in the methods of secret work. He was the organiser of youth study groups at the girls’ school and technical high school, among Wilno’s factory apprentices, handicraftsmen and workers. He livened up the meetings by discussing interesting topics. Even then, he realised the need to link working conditions at a particular factory with the more general goals of the class struggle, and to give the men a motive for joining the struggle.

p While still at the boarding school, Dzerzhinsky strictly observed the rules of secrecy and was very cautious. It was at that time that he developed the traits essential for underground work: reserve, ability to swiftly assess a situation, and to act daringly and resolutely.

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p Dzerzhinsky’s associate in the underground work, a working-class poet Andrzej Gulbinowicz, thus described him: “Comrade Jacub (Dzerzhinsky’s underground alias.—Ed.) was a fiery eager youth. At meetings, he did not deliver long speeches or reports. He spoke concisely and clearly and willingly plunged into the work... He was indefatigable and it rubbed oft on us.”

p The year 1894 marked a crucial turning point in Dzerzhinsky’s life. This was when he, together with a small group of friends, swore on the Mountain of Gediminas in Wilno to devote his entire life to the struggle against evil and injustice, and for the freedom and happiness of the working people. It was an oath he would keep until his final heartbeat.

p The year 1895 was a notable one in the history of the Russian revolutionary working-class movement: in St. Petersburg, Lenin set up the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, the nucleus of a proletarian party which opened up a new, proletarian stage in the liberation movement in Russia. The League, headed by Lenin, soon began to conduct mass activities among the workers, and succeeded in uniting Marxism with the working-class movement.

p In the autumn of 1895 at the age of 18 years, Dzerzhinsky joined the Social-Democratic Party of Lithuania. His proCaganda and organisational work was gaining in scope, and e remained active among the handicraftsmen and workers of Wilno. At that time, he had several Party pseudonyms, but his favourite one was Jacek. That was the name given him by the young railroad workers of Wilno whom he instructed at youth group meetings.

p In October 1895 his grandmother, Kazimiera Januszewska, moved to Wilno. She took a house at 26 Poplawska St., and her grandchildren came to live with her. It was with great relief that Felix and his brothers left the loathsome boarding school.

p Felix used the wing attic to print illegal leaflets. He and his fellow-revolutionaries plastered them around the city at night. The strictest secrecy was maintained, and no one ever learned about the existence of an underground press in his grandmother’s house.

p But Felix did not spend all his time writing and mimeographing leaflets. In the basement of St. Bernardinu 16 Cathedral, he equipped another underground press. “At night, we used a hectograph to print pamphlets and leaflets,” reminisced Maria Voitkevich-Krzhizhanovskaya. “The secrecy of the surroundings ... made us closely watch every movement and listen to every sound. Our nerves were strained. Felix, who was totally engrossed in what he was doing, looked inspired.” Felix set up another hectograph in another district not far from a police station, where no one ever thought of looking for subversive activity.

p In December 1895 he represented the Lithuanian youth at the congress of illegal students’ groups in Warsaw. Their purpose was to study Polish (which was banned at educational establishments) and the history of Poland, and to involve young people in the struggle against the autocracy. The majority of congress delegates, as well as its leaders, held nationalistic views. Dzerzhinsky’s speech at the congress established him as a resolute champion of proletarian internationalism. He spoke with confidence of an inevitable victory, was adamant in his demands and filled with revolutionary enthusiasm. According to Bronislaw Koszutski, who thought like Dzerzhinsky, their position at the congress was shared by only three or four other delegates belonging to a small group of left-wingers.

p Persistent work in educating the masses about revolutionary theory finally yielded results. In 1896, Dzerzhinsky organised the first (in Wilno) congress of social-democratic students, which approved a curriculum for students’ groups drawn up with Dzerzhinsky’s active participation.

p At that time, his mother’s health began to fail. More than once Felix escorted her to Warsaw for treatments. He was devoted to her, and her illness disturbed him deeply. He frequently came to visit her in hospital. “I fervently hope that mother will be all right in about a month,” he wrote to his sister Aldona. But Helena grew worse and worse, and died on January 14, 1896. It was a severe blow for Felix, however, he refused to be overcome by grief and redoubled his efforts as a Party member.

p Dzerzhinsky was doing well at school, but the atmosphere of the establishment made him detest it. Studies took up a great deal of his time and interfered with his work in the revolutionary movement. But his mother had wanted him to get an education and, not wishing to upset her, Felix carried on at school.

17

p However, after her death and having given serious thought to his future, he decided to leave school in the spring of 1896, his last, eighth year. The school management had no idea of his illegal activities and was unable to accuse him of anything undesirable. Having made his decision to leave school, he once walked into the tutors’ room and openly attacked one of the most hated and reactionary tutors, chauvinist Mazikov. The flabbergasted tutors had to listen to his views of education in tsarist Russia.

p Felix’s aunt Zofja Pilar requested the headmaster to allow her nephew to leave school. She was given a certificate stating that student of the 8th grade of the First Wilno School Felix Dzerzhinsky terminated his studies in accordance with his aunt’s request. The certificate gave Felix the right to take his graduation exams in another town and enter a university without entrance exams.

p After leaving school, Dzerzhinsky became a full-time professional revolutionary. “Faith must be followed by deeds, and one must be closer to the masses and learn together with them,” he wrote later in his autobiography. His activities were mostly among the working class. He lived the life of workers and fought for their interests. On August 29, 1916, he wrote to his brother Wladyslaw that he had become a part of the broad proletarian masses and shared all their strivings, torments and hopes with them. He also stated that he felt he had found a way straight to the people’s hearts and seemed to sense them beating. The social conditions in which Felix worked gave him the opportunity to gain invaluable experience of the revolutionary struggle, and to study the theory, strategy and tactics of Marxism, the international doctrine of the proletariat.

p Throwing himself wholeheartedly into his work, Jacek asked to be sent to the people, to carry out assignments that would be more fulfilling than teaching students’ groups. “I managed to become an agitator,” he wrote in his autobiography, “to get to the working-class strata which had hitherto been untouched by revolutionary propaganda.”

p Among Dzerzhinsky’s closest friends were Aleksander, Wincenty and Mikolaj Birinczyk, agitators with a workingclass background, Waclaw Balcewicz, a shoemaker and revolutionary Social-Democrat, and Andrzej Gulbinowicz.

p Felix and his friends were working against great odds. Wilno workers were mostly employed at small factories or 18 in workshops scattered all over the city, so agitation and propaganda consumed a great deal of time and energy. The disunited proletarian masses had to be helped to evolve a socialist consciousness and roused to take part in concerted action. At the same time, it was essential to combat the Polish Socialist Party (PSP),  [18•1  which was doing its best to take advantage of the workers’ political backwardness and lack of unity to extend its influence over them.

p Wilno workers celebrated May Day 1896 in secret gatherings out of town. They were sponsored and organised by Social-Democrats, including Dzerzhinsky. Preserved in the manuscript section of the archive of the Central Library of the Lithuanian SSR is Dzerzhinsky’s speech which he himself wrote down. The contents reveal quite clearly that at that time he was already a competent propaganda worker trying to elevate the workers’ class-consciousness. He effectively promoted the masses’ political education and involved the working-class strata into the revolutionary movement. In his speech, Dzerzhinsky levelled criticism against the PSP accusing it of chauvinism, setting workers of different nationalities against each other, and failure to fight for working-class interests. He emphasised that a mass proletarian movement was instrumental in this struggle.

p On May 1, the First Inaugural Congress of the Social- Democratic Party of Lithuania (SDPL) was held at the flat of doctor Anton Damaszewicz. Here a difference of opinion on the national question became apparent. The Marxist, revolutionary wing of the SDPL was represented by true internationalists Felix Dzerzhinsky, Aleksander Birinczyk, Waclaw Balcewicz, J. Janulewicz, G. Malewski and others. Anton Domaszewicz and Alfons Morawski, who headed the Party, and held erroneous views, were instrumental in having a petty-bourgeois and nationalist programme adopted.

p Dzerzhinsky took part in the work of the congress as a 19 representative of the Social-Democratic youth. He vigorously championed the Marxist principles of the class struggle and proletarian internationalism, but he and his supporters were in the minority.

p In Wilno and later in Kowno (now Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic) Dzerzhinsky worked to bring the Lithuanian Social-Democrats closer to the Russian SocialDemocrats and the Russian working-class movement, and did a great deal to introduce the principles of proletarian internationalism. He took part in a mass campaign aimed at giving the workers a correct understanding or pressing political and economic issues and the more general goals of the class struggle.

p After the death of his mother in 1896, Dzerzhinsky made his home for a while with his sister Aldona. But in January 1897, not wishing to further inconvenience her, he rented a room in a workers’ suburb in Zarechnaya St., where he lived up to February 1897.

p The revolutionary outbursts in the spring and summer of 1897 had begun to annoy the police in Wilno. The gendarmes were particularly interested in the activities of Felix Dzerzhinsky—Jacek—who was very popular among Wilno workers. His arrest seemed imminent.

p With the upswing in the revolutionary movement, the Party sought to extend its activities to other Lithuanian towns, especially the industrial town of Kowno, which did not have a social-democratic organisation. It was decided to send Dzerzhinsky there since he was the best propagandist and organiser. Leaving Wilno in early March 1897 Dzerzhinsky registered himself in Kowno as an aristocrat from Wilno Gubernia who was himself a student and instructed others. And that was the truth. In Kowno he had acquired a great deal of knowledge as a political leader and organiser of workers.

p Dzerzhinsky’s task was by no means easy. Informers were everywhere-, the police had recently disbanded the organisation of the PSP; factories and workshops employed workers of many nationalities—Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Jews, Poles, Russians, and Letts; workshops had from two to five workers, while large factories, for instance those belonging to Tilmans and Rekos, employed from 500 to 800 workers, many of whom were poverty-stricken, ignorant people. There was a great deal for Dzerzhinsky to do in Kowno.

20

p To gain the workers’ confidence, he got a job at a bookbinder s shop, naturally, without informing either the police or his landlord. This work allowed him to develop the skills required for secret activities. He learned to “do up" various documents (i.e., conceal them in book bindings) for the use of Social-Democrats who were forced to work underground.

p At the workshop Dzerzhinsky had the opportunity to procure paper and paint for printing revolutionary leaflets and newspapers. Besides, his work as a bookbinder gave him a means of subsistence, although a very meagre one. His working hours were long and the wages extremely low. Not infrequently he went hungry. To earn a little extra money, he gave lessons. Speaking about that time, Dzerzhinsky said, “The smell of pancakes or something else made my mouth water more than once when I went into a worker’s flat. Sometimes, I would be invited to dinner, but I refused, saying that I had already eaten, although my stomach was empty.”

p During the five months of his stay in Kowno Felix demonstrated his tremendous capacity for work, ability to think quickly and clearly, and a gift for attracting people, getting to understand them, stirring them to action and inspiring faith in the final victory of the proletariat.

p In his work as an agitator and propagandist, Dzerzhinsky repeatedly focused on the struggle waged by workers of other nationalities, particularly the citizens of St. Petersburg. Exposing the nationalist ideology and policies .of the PSP, he tried to make it clear to the workers that only joint action with the Russians would enable Lithuanians, Poles and other nationalities to abolish the autocracy and capitalist oppression and exploitation, and gain true freedom.

p Dzerzhinsky’s work in Kowno demonstrated his political maturity and his competence as an organiser and populariser. At factories and workshops, he singled out and trained the most promising workers, both men and women, who were later to make up the nucleus of the social-democratic organisation in Kowno. “The work went well and yielded good results. Contacts were established with all factories,” reminisced Dzerzhinsky later. His closest associate at the time was Juzef Olechnowicz.

p Dzerzhinsky knew how to efficiently use oral and written propaganda. Arriving in Kowno in March 1897 he published the first (and, unfortunately, last) issue of the illegal paper 21 Kowienski Robotnik (Kowno Worker) as early as April 1. The newspaper was small, written and mimeographed by Dzerzhinsky himself. On one of his numerous visits to Wilno, the Wilno Committee of the Social-Democratic Party discussed the issue of the Kowienski Robotnik he had brought with him.

p “We noticed,” wrote Andrzey Gulbinowicz, “that the first pages were written in a clear and elegant hand, the others, in very small and often illegible print... He [Felix] explained that he had been pressed for time, having to write the entire paper himself, and that he also had to print and distribute it running from factory to factory and talking to workers.”

p The articles printed in the paper vividly reflected the situation prevailing at Kowno factories, where workers had to toil for 13-14 hours for a pittance. The paper depicted their hard and hopeless existence and urged them to take action to protect their rights.

p Forced to work with the utmost secrecy due to the threat of police reprisals, Dzerzhinsky was of course unable to openly advocate the establishment of a social-democratic organisation. But the meaning of his essays was clear enough. He also wrote and mimeographed the memorable illegal leaflet “May Day Workers’ Holiday”, which was distributed in Kowno and Wilno. “Let every worker with an advanced consciousness explain to his brothers what we should do, what we can attain and how, and what sort of force we shall represent when everyone comes to understand our cause and express solidarity with us, i.e., when everyone will stand up for all, and all for one ... let the fraternal ties of unity be established among us from this day; let this holiday be the day of our rebirth!”

p Dzerzhinsky also wrote for the Wilno Echo Zycia robotniczego (Echo of Workers’ Life) and for the Robotnik Litewski (Lithuanian Worker) printed abroad. His articles discussed pressing issues of the working-class movement.

p In his party work, Dzerzhinsky emphasised the political education of the proletariat and its class struggle against the autocracy and bourgeoisie. In an essay entitled “The Schmidt Factory”, Dzerzhinsky wrote: “Political freedom is our watchword in the struggle against the government. And when we shall overthrow the tsarist government, when we shall have a chance to unite and openly discuss our affairs, 22 when we shall have an opportunity to openly enlighten our uninformed comrades, then the solidarity and strength of the working class will grow, and, having put an end to the rule of tsarism, we shall then also put an end to the rule of capitalists. Factories, mines, railways, all land and implements of labour will become the property of all, everyone will work as much as necessary—socialism will come. The whole working world is striving towards socialism—let us, too, strive for emancipation!”

p While in Kowno, Dzerzhinsky kept up the proletarian struggle with many strikes, trying to make them organised and directed towards clearly defined goals. He wrote in his autobiography: “At that time, I received the practical experience needed to stage a strike.” A strike Dzerzhinsky organised in Aleksot, a Kowno suburb, was particularly successful: the working day was reduced by three hours. That strike had not only economic but major political significance for Kowno workers, and for the entire Lithuanian proletariat.

p Dzerzhinsky’s contributions to the Kowienski Robotnik and the leaflets he wrote helped to enhance the workers’ class consciousness, urged them to join forces and act in an organised manner, and promoted proletarian solidarity. In his addresses to workers, he always urged them to link their concrete economic demands with the pressing political tasks of the proletariat.

p In his article “How Should We Fight?”, he stated that strikes were very efficient and discussed how to stage them. He stressed the need for strict organisation, explained the negative consequences of spontaneous outbursts, and the senselessness of destroying equipment and machinery.

p Another important article written by Dzerzhinsky, “April 16”, praised the struggle of the Russian proletariat, particularly the activities of St. Petersburg workers. Dzerzhinsky pointed out the important contribution of their organised strike movement to improving the conditions of workers throughout the country, including Lithuania, and called upon Lithuanian workers to follow in the steps of their St. Petersburg comrades.

p While in Kowno, Dzerzhinsky worked with extreme caution. Even at that early stage of his career as a revolutionary, he realised the grave danger posed by political provocations staged by tsarist authorities, and the need to combat 23 the actions of agent-provocateurs. “There must not be traitors in our midst who betray their brothers to our foe... Let the tyrants perish, let the blood-suckers perish, let the traitors perish, and long live our holy workers cause!" he wrote in the leaflet “May Day Workers’ Holiday”.

p The upsurge of the workers’ campaign in Kowno factories annoyed the police and factory-owners. Gendarmes suspected that an experienced propagandist and organiser was operating in the town. For quite a long time the police were unable to track Dzerzhinsky down due to the secrecy of the underground work, and the efforts of the workers to protect their leader. However, on July 17, 1897, the gendarmes managed to capture him with the assistance of an agent provocateur. In Kowno, he was arrested and served a prison sentence for the first time in his life.

p According to the report of a police colonel, a search of Dzerzhinsky’s flat yielded clippings from “permitted and banned" papers, and legal and illegal literature: about strikes, unrest, and clashes between the workers, on the one hand, and the police and the troops, on the other, both in Russia and abroad. Dzerzhinsky’s notes of his talks with workers, and a list of Kowno factories with the number of workers employed at them. Also found was a postal sheet stating the condition of peasant holdings in Russia, as well as a handwritten excerpt from the poem “The Sun of Truth Shall Rise after a Bloody Dawn”. Dzerzhinsky had a small library (36 books in all) of popular scientific books and fiction, up to 5 copies of each, and a catalogue.

p A search of the arrested workers’ rooms conducted on August 11, 1897, revealed that some had books from Dzerzhinsky’s library, and he was charged with distributing banned literature. But the incriminating materials were insufficient for a conviction, partly because Dzerzhinsky was still a minor. However, even during the investigation “that dangerous political criminal" was in fact kept under the harsh regimen of penal servitude. He was repeatedly locked up in the punishment cell without food or water, and several times he was beaten unconscious.

p There were endless confrontations, intimidation, threats, blackmail and promises designed to force Dzerzhinsky to reveal his contacts. He spent about a year in prison before trial, and behaved honourably during his first severe ordeal. He retained his cheerful disposition and his belief in a brighter 24 future for his people. His brother Stanislaw sent him books, and he began to learn German.

p Trying to cheer up his sister Aldona, he wrote: “ Although I am here in prison, I am not depressed... Prison is frightening only for those who are weak in spirit.”

p Dzerzhinsky secretely slipped out letters and essays for the Echo Zycia robotniczego, in which he described the harsh prison life. When he learned that Domaszewicz was trying to engineer a split in the working-class movement, he lashed out against nationalist views and did what he could to unite the SDPL and the RSDLP. Despite the restrictions of prison life, he managed to keep in touch with people outside.

p On June 10, 1898, the superintendant of the Kowno prison informed Dzerzhinsky that, in conformity with the “royal command" issued by Tsar Nicholas II, Dzerzhinsky was to be exiled, without a court hearing, under police surveillance to Vyatka Gubernia for a term of three years. On June 13, he was to begin his journey.

p Aldona waited for him by the prison gates the entire night of June 12. Finally, the sun rose, and, bound together, the prisoners began to troop out surrounded by mounted and unmounted guards. Felix was thin and pale, but his head was raised as proudly as ever. His eyes lit up with joy at the sight of his sister. She ran up to him but a gendarme pushed her roughly aside. Aldona ran along the pavement trying to keep up with Felix, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t cry, sister, I am all right, I’ll write to you,” said Felix in a loud and firm voice.

p The prisoners travelled in overcrowded convict coaches. Political prisoners were kept together with murderers and thieves. I spent more time in prison cells than on the road,” wrote Dzerzhinsky. But the worst of the journey began after the stay in Kaluga prison. The prisoners were kept in the tightly closed hold of a ship. They suffered from thirst and hunger; many were unable to bear the privations and died on the way. “I sailed along the Oka, Volga and Kama. We were locked up in the so-called ‘hold’ like sardines in a tin. There was not enough light and air.” Thus Dzerzhinsky was becoming acquainted with the tsarist empire’s system of eliminating “dissidents” which was approved by law and the church.

p The number of political prisoners continued to grow. Dzerzhinsky made friends with some of them and, as an 25 old-timer, tried to make things easier for them. In turn, new arrivals told him about the latest revolutionary developments in Russia. Thus Dzerzhinsky came to know Russian SocialDemocrats and was later able to establish contacts with the Bolsheviks.

p On July 27, 1898, Dzerzhinsky arrived in Vyatka (now Kirov). Governor Klingenberg assigned him to the small town of Nolinsk. But the ship that he was to sail on failed to arrive because of low water. Nearly all his comrades had already been sent on their way, but Dzerzhinsky remained under guard. He was exhausted by the journey and fell ill.

p On August 6 he wrote to the Governor requesting that he be allowed to travel to Nolinsk at his own expense. Finally, on August 14, he was released from prison, and on the 15th received permission to sail on a small private steamer unescorted and paying his own fare. A Polish engineer, one Zawisza, who was working at a railroad construction site, helped him to get hold of some money and clothes.

p Nolinsk was a small town of about 5,000 residents with a tobacco factory, a library and a hospital. There, Dzerzhinsky met ancl became friendly with Margarita Nikoleva, also a political exile.

p On December 1, 1898, Dzerzhinsky began to keep a diary, which now makes profoundly moving reading. It just shows how strong and honourable young Dzerzhinsky was, how he devoted his life to the cause of revolution, and how critically he judged himself. Writing about Nikoleva, he said: “It seems to me that she puts the personal soul, personal qualities above all else. She believes that the important thing is to develop personal feelings, such as compassion, responsiveness, truthfulness, etc. ... Perhaps I’ll be able to awaken a person of action in her, a fighting person, a person who is actively looking for real life...” And he did help her to understand many complicated issues, such as social relations.

p On Wednesdays the exiles assembled to discuss political questions, the latest development, and new books. Dzerzhinsky was the centre of these gatherings thanks to his intelligence, extensive knowledge and firm principles.

p Soon after his arrival in Nolinsk, he found a job at the tobacco factory as a cloth-printer. Working hours were from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the wages extremely low. Tobacco dust made his eyes smart and ate into his lungs. But he was happy—he felt at home among the workers and enjoyed 26 trying to awaken their desire for social emancipation. His popularity among the exiles, local residents and factory workers evoked the sharp displeasure of the police and the factory owners, and he was fired.

p Dzerzhinsky was kept under constant open police surveillance in Nolinsk. Gendarmes often broke into his room, eavesdropped, and instructed his landlords to observe the activities of their tenant and his visitors. It was an intolerable existence and he was forced to change flats often.

p “As I am forever changing flats,” he wrote to his sister, “don’t write to me at my home address but straight to the post office in Nolinsk.”

p Constant hunger and poor living conditions aggravated his illnesses. His trachoma grew worse: he was threatened with blindness. Finally, he ended up at the local hospital. However, even there the police did not leave him alone. At the Governor’s order he was forcefully evicted from the hospital and, in freezing weather, taken to the village of Kaigorodskoye, 400 versts (some 265 miles) north of Nolinsk. With him went Alexander Yakshin. Dzerzhinsky had spent about five months in Nolinsk.

p On the eve of year 1899, Dzerzhinsky found himself in the farthermost corner of Vyatka Gubernia. In winter, it was bitterly cold (the temperature dropped below 40°C); in spring and autumn, the roads were completely impassable, and the summer was scorching hot. The village stood in the midst of bogs which emitted^ a putrid miasma. Clouds of gnats and midges made life miserable. Kaigorodskoye was a truly god-forsaken hole, which seemed to have no contact with the outside world. The pub and church were the “ spiritual centres" of the settlement, which consisted of about a hundred ramshackle huts sitting low in a hollow.

p Dzerzhinsky suffered tremendously. The climate was making him very ill, and neither a doctor’s services nor drugs were available. He lived in constant need, did not have enough to eat and was poorly clothed. The worst thing, however, was the isolation from his friends and from revolutionary work. Afterwards, Dzerzhinsky remarked that the time in Kaigorodskoye was the worst of all. But even during that period he remained an optimist, still believing in a brighter future and continuing to further his education. His eyes hurt, but he read all the same. “The future will require that we be knowledgeable,” he wrote to 27 Margarita Nikoleva on January 29, 1899.

p Despite the constant surveillance and strict censorship, Dzerzninsky managed to keep in touch with his friends outside. Through exiles living in Nolinsk and Slobodskoye, he received news of the activities of Party comrades. Although thousands of kilometres lay between him and Wilno, he tried to remain part of his friends’ struggle.

p Dzerzhinsky’s letters from Kaigorodskoye describe his first exile, his interests, his Marxist world outlook, and personal qualities of integrity.

p On November 5, 1898, he wrote to Aldona, “My views are quite established ... life can destroy me ... but it will never change me ... only the grave will terminate my struggle.”

p His letters to Margarita Nikoleva reveal that the young revolutionary had gained a clear understanding of the complex questions of social life, political economy, philosophy, and ethics. He thoroughly studied the second volume of Marx’s Capital. “Recently I’ve been doing mostly political economy,” he wrote to Nikoleva on January 21, 1899. “I’m terribly interested in the law of equalisation of general rate of profit, i.e., average rate of profit, and the way the theory of value (i.e., surplus value.—Auth.) relates to it.”

p A knowledge of Marxism enabled him to level bold and well-founded criticism against such a distinguished bourgeois scholars as the British subjectivist philosopher John Stuart Mill, the Russian “legal Marxist" Bulgakov, and liberal Narodniks (Russian Populists).

p Critically analysing Mill s utility theory, Dzerzhinsky also set forth his own views of psychology and ethics. “I am interested in morality as a social phenomenon. From this point of view, morality is a product of social development, the development of social relations among the people stemming from economic relations, which in their turn depend on the development of productive forces and the technical form of these forces. My view proceeds from my overall world outlook... It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence; but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”

p Dzerzhinsky worked out a plan for the systematic study of fundamental works. Of great interest are his synopses of the second volume of Capital and Mill’s works which he sent to Nikoleva and which reveal his ability to deal with complicated issues.

28

p Dzerzhinsky thought highly of group discussions, and sympathised with Margarita Nikoleva in one of- his letters: It is, however, not very pleasant to study on one’s own. I know this from my own experience.” And indeed, his very serious studies must have required a great deal of time and energy, especially in the remote Kaigorodskoye, where he had neither books nor friends. From time to time he managed to obtain permission to travel to the bigger village of Slobodskoye (and sometimes went secretly), where SocialDemocrats, including the Marxist Pyotr Stucka, were living in exile.

p Dzerzhinsky’s notes on the condition of peasant holdings in Russia that had been found and confiscated during the search of his Kowno flat show that he had carefully studied rural economics. While in Nolinsk and Kaigorodskoye, he continued to work on this question. His letter to Aldona written from Nolinsk on November 5, 1898, contains an exhaustive description of the country’s agriculture and its development trends, and notes, among other things, the ruin of many peasant farms and the growing tendency among the peasantry to leave the land and seek employment elsewhere.

p Criticising liberal Narodniks, Dzerzhinsky pointed to the process of stratification under way among the peasantry. “Village life-what is it really like? It is a life full of ignorance, full of petty cares, a life that is not the same for everyone ... life of gradual impoverishment of the majority and its enslavement oy the kulaks.”

p While in Kaigorodskoye, Dzerzhinsky spent much time among local peasants. Frequently, he could be seen helping them to take in the harvest or lay in a supply of fodder. He tried to awaken their consciousness and make them see the need for protesting the exploitation and arbitrary rule of the tsarist authorities. The peasants changed his first name to Vassily, which sounded better to the Russian ear. Dzerzhinsky helped the peasants as much as he could, mostly by drawing up requests for the division of land or property. He was always ready to come to the aid of a friend. He lent moral support to Margarita Nikoleva when she was feeling low, and was invariably attentive and considerate towards A. Yakshin, whose life had been full of hardships, Dzerzhinsky did his best to bolster his faith in his own strength and the ultimate victory of revolution.

p Dzerzhinsky was a man of principle, and one of the 29 things he could never accept was grovelling before the police authorities. He was self-critical and constantly worked to eradicate his own weaknesses. He would closely analyse his behaviour, desires, feelings and attitude to people. “To be strong, one must throw away everything unworthy,” he wrote to Nikoleva. “I will become, and am becoming, a better man, and if at times I feel terrible—well, that means that the struggle goes on, and it is a good thing, since I will emerge from it ready for action. I will live for the cause alone.”

p Even at the beginning of his revolutionary career, Dzerzhinsky’s views of morality, family, friendship and love stemmed from his world outlook. He was convinced that man’s personal happiness rested on his public activities. “It’s not as if there was just one feeling. There are two vital feelings: a personal feeling and its support and basis—a public feeling.’ He believed that love and friendship are a great source of energy and strength, building up a person’s will and fortitude in the struggle. But, he said, not every feeling gives strength. “We can allow only that feeling that strengthens the will.”

p On February 15, 1899, Dzerzhinsky was given a medical examination and declared unfit for military service. He was told he would certainly die young. But that horrible prognosis failed to crush his will. He was not afraid of death and would not humble himself to beg the Governor to transfer him to another, healthier, place of exile.

p What tormented him, though, was his belief that he had done too little for the emancipation of the people. “It is indeed a bitter, an unbearably painful thought: to have lived and done nothing, to have brought nothing with me... No, this will not be,” he wrote to Margarita Nikoleva. And so he decided to escape in order to accomplish as much as he could in the time that was left him. “I shall try to arrange my short life so as to live it as fully as possible,” he wrote in another letter. Soon it became apparent that the medical board’s report had been made for a reason: to prevent the dangerous rebel from coming into contact with servicemen.

p As spring drew near, Dzerzhinsky began to prepare his escape in earnest. He went on long hunting trips so that his guards would not get alarmed at a long absence. This also gave him a chance to thoroughly acquaint himself with the locality and map out his escape route, and to somewhat 30 improve his health.

p More than anything else, Dzerzhinsky missed taking part in revolutionary activities. He was spoiling for a fight. In a letter to Aldona, he wrote, “I missed my homeland ... the homeland that has so grown into my soul that nothing can tear it out, for it is a part of my heart... Passing before my eyes were the images of the past and still more vivid pictures of the future... This life ... was poisoning me... I gathered my last strength and escaped.”

p Not later than August 27, 1899, he fled unnoticed from Kaigorodskoye, though the police were keeping an eye on everyone. On October 30, a circular from the police department instituted a search for Dzerzhinsky throughout the Russian Empire.

p The escape route mapped out by Dzerzhinsky was not an easy one, and quite different from what the police expected. Alone, he courageously sailed a small boat along the upper reaches of the Kama, whose banks were overgrown by thick forests. After safely reaching a railway station, he boarded a train and arrived in Wilno much earlier than the arrival of the police circular ordering a search for the “ dangerous criminal”.

p “So I was back at Wilno,” he wrote in his autobiography. “The Lithuanian Social-Democrats were engaged in talks with the PSP on the subject of unification. I was the most resolute opponent of nationalism... When I got back to Wilno my old comrades were already in exile, and students were calling the tune. I was kept away from the workers and told to go abroad.” However, Dzerzhinsky did not go abroad but rather travelled secretly to Warsaw.

p Thus ended an important stage in the life of Felix Dzerzhinsky—six years of serious studies, the assimilation of Marxism, and constant revolutionary struggle.

September 1899 opened a new page in his career; he became actively involved in the Polish revolutionary workingclass movement.