Russian President Vladimir Putin has renamed the Federal Security Service (FSB) Academy in honor of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police CEKA. The decision was announced through a decree published on the Kremlin’s website.
The decree specifies that this honorary title was granted in recognition of the activities and results of the academy’s staff, writes the independent website Meduza.
“Considering the merits of the FSB Academy staff in the professional training of personnel for the benefit of the Federal Security Service and taking into account the significant contribution to ensuring state security,” the decree states.
The FSB Academy is the main higher education institution of the Russian security service. It bore the name of Dzerzhinsky between 1962 and 1993, when it was known as the Higher School of the KGB of the USSR.
“This is probably the first time Putin has publicly expressed an opinion about the figure of ‘Iron Felix'”, wrote the independent Russian political publication Faridaily.
Who was Felix Dzerzhinsky, the architect of the Red Terror?
Felix Dzerzhinsky was the founder and leader of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (CEKA), whose successors were the NKVD, KGB, and the current Federal Security Service of Russia. Dzerzhinsky organized the Red Terror, a period of political repression and mass murder following the start of the Russian Civil War in 1918, committed by the Bolsheviks.
Dzerjinski is known as the initiator of the system of mass terror and extrajudicial repressions. Under his leadership, the CEKA carried out mass executions, suppressed peasant revolts, persecuted the clergy and political opponents of the Bolshevik Party, notes Mezha.
“The restoration of Dzerzhinsky’s name for the FSB Academy is a significant symbolic event, which provides a clear image of the ideals shared by the most powerful people in Russia,” Faridaily further wrote.
In 2025, Putin has repeatedly expressed regret over the demolition of the Dzerzhinsky monument in 1991. The Communist Party of Russia (KPRF) has consistently demanded the reinstallation of the statue in Lubyanka Square, in front of the FSB headquarters.