Bloody Felix – monument to Polish nobleman-turned-revolutionary returns to Moscow

A bronze statue of “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet secret police and architect of the Red Terror which followed the 1917 revolution, was unveiled at the headquarters of Russia’s foreign spy service. Dzerzhinsky, a Polish noble-turned-revolutionary who helped lay the foundations of the repressive system over which Josef Stalin was to preside, is reviled by dissidents but is a hero to the spies who rule in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.