Putin pays tribute to one of the biggest criminals in Russian history: FSB Academy renamed in honor of Felix Dzerzhinsky
Russian President Vladimir Putin has renamed the Academy of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in honor of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police CEKA. The decision was announced by a decree published on the Kremlin website.
Putin renamed the FSB Academy in honor of Felix Dzerzhinsky PHOTO Profimedia
The decree states that this honorary title was granted in recognition of the activity and results of the academy's staff, writes the independent website Meduza.
“Taking into account the merits of the staff of the FSB Academy in the professional training of cadres for the benefit of the Federal Security Service and taking into account the special contribution to ensuring the security of the state”, it is shown in the decree.
The FSB Academy is the main higher education institution of the Russian security service. It bore Dzerzhinsky's name between 1962 and 1993, when it was known as the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR.
“This is probably the first time that Putin publicly expresses an opinion about the figure of “Felix de Fier””wrote the independent Russian political publication Faridaily.
In 2025, Putin has repeatedly expressed regret over the demolition of Dzerzhinsky's monument in 1991. The Communist Party of Russia (KPRF) has consistently called for the statue to be reinstated in Lubyanka Square in front of the FSB headquarters.
The statue of Felix Edmundovici Dzerjinski PHOTO Profimedia
Who was Felix Dzerjinski, the architect of the Red Terror
Felix Dzerzhinsky was the founder and head of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (CEKA), whose successors were the NKVD, the KGB and the current Federal Security Service of Russia. Dzerzhinsky organized the Red Terror, a period of political repression and mass murder after the start of the Russian Civil War in 1918 by the Bolsheviks.
Dzerzhinsky is known as the initiator of the system of mass terror and extrajudicial repressions. Under his leadership, CEKA carried out mass executions, suppressed peasant uprisings, persecuted the clergy and political opponents of the Bolshevik Party, notes Mezha.
“The restoration of Dzerzhinsky's name to the FSB Academy is an important symbolic event that gives a clear picture of the ideals shared by the most powerful people in Russia,” Faridaily also wrote.
