The Iron Felix: 100 years since the death of Felix Dzerzhinsky

One hundred years ago, on 20 July 1926, the international communist movement lost one of its most steadfast revolutionaries. At just 49 years old, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky—remembered forever as the "Iron Felix"—passed away after suffering a heart attack, only hours after delivering a lengthy speech to the Plenary of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party on the country's economic situation.

Dzerzhinsky was not born into the working class. Born in 1877 into a relatively well-off Polish family, he consciously abandoned privilege and devoted his entire life to the cause of proletarian revolution. 

 

Aleka Papariga — Lenin on the role of the revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party

By Nikos Mottas.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's death, an important event titled “Lenin on the role of the revolutionary vanguard, the Communist Party” was organized on Wednesday 13 March in the fully-packed “Studio” cinema, in the heart of Athens. 

The keynote speaker was Aleka Papariga, the former General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), former MP and currently member of the CC. The speech was followed by the screening of the 1937 Mikhail Romm classic film “Lenin in October”. 

On the 100th anniversary of Vladimir Lenin's death

By Nikos Mottas.

It was in the dawn of January 21, 1924, 100 years ago, when the heart of the greatest revolutionary in modern history, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, stopped beating. 

Lenin, the leader of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution and architect of the first socialist state in the world, was 54 years old.

The name of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is identified with two dialectically connected issues. On the one hand, there is his revolutionary activity and practice as the leader of the 20th century's most significant event- the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution.  

Sergei Kirov — An example of Bolshevism

Sergei Kirov, one of the most prominent party and state leaders in the Soviet Union in 1920-1930, a charismatic personality and close companion of Joseph Stalin, was murdered on 1st December 1934 aged 48.

Sergei Mironovich Kirov (real name Sergei Kostrikov) was born on 27 March 1886 in the city of Urzhum, Vyatka province (now Kirov region) in a middle-class family. Sergei lost his parents at an early age and was raised, along his two sisters Anna and Elizabeth, by his grandmother Melania Avdeyevna. He was sent to the "House of Charity for young orphans" and in 1901 he graduated from City College. He later joined the lower Mechanical and Technical School of Kazan. 

The imperialist intervention against Soviet Russia in 1919 and Greece's participation

By Nikos Mottas.

The First World War had not yet ended when the imperialists turned militarily against the then-young Soviet power which had been dominated in Russia through the Great October Socialist Revolution on November 7th (October 25th according to the Old Calendar) 1917. 

The first British, French and U.S. troops disembarked in the country in Spring 1918. After the defeat of Germany in November 1918, the intervention was intensified: 14 capitalist states participated in the imperialist campaign with a total force of approximately 300,000 men [1].

E.Yaroslavsky- History of Anarchism in Russia (The First Russian Revolution/Part II)

History of Anarchism in Russia.

By Emelyan Yaroslavsky, 1937.

II.
THE FIRST RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
(1905-07)

The Rise of Revolutionary Marxism.

In 1884 the first Russian Marxist group, known as the Emancipation of Labor, was founded in Switzerland by Plekhanov, Axelrod, Deutsch and Zasulich. It should be noted that all the organizers of this group had for several years been prominent in the Narodnik movement, and had belonged to the Bakuninist rebel wing. 

Goodbye Tsar: 100 years since the end of the bloodstained Romanov dynasty

The Great October Socialist Revolution — the most significant world-shaking event of the 20th Century — prevailed on November 1917 thus giving a death blow to the barbaric Tsarist regime and beginning the construction of the new, socialist society. 

Around eight months later, on 17th July 1918, in the city of Yekaterinburg, the remaining members of the Romanov dynasty, the Tsar and his family, were executed by the armed hand of the Bolshevik revolution. Justice had been delivered and the Romanovs received what they actually deserved after centuries of tyranny against the Russian people.

J.V. Stalin- Lenin: The Genius of the Revolution

Joseph V. Stalin -

Speech Delivered at a Memorial Meeting of the Kremlin Military School.

January 28, 1924. 

First Published on Pravda, No. 34, 

February 12, 1924.

Source: Works, Vol. 6, January-November, 1924, pp. 54-66, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1954.

Reproduced from Marxists Internet Archives.

Comrades, 

I am told that you have arranged a Lenin memorial meeting here this evening and that I have been invited as one of the speakers. I do not think there is any need for me to deliver a set speech on Lenin’s activities. It would be better, I think, to confine myself to a few facts to bring out certain of Lenin’s characteristics as a man and a leader. There may, perhaps, be no inherent connection between these facts, but that is not of vital importance as far as gaining a general idea of Lenin is concerned. At any rate, I am unable on this occasion to do more than what I have just promised.