Editing Felix Dzerzhinsky (section)

==Dzerzhinsky and Lenin==
[[File:19260528 dzerzhinsky kharkov.jpg|thumb|left|Dzerzhinsky, [[Vsevolod Balitsky]] and [[Stanislav Redens]] in [[Kharkov]], [[Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic|Ukrainian SSR]], 1926]]

Dzerzhinsky became a Bolshevik as late as 1917. Therefore, it was wrong to assert (as official Soviet historians did subsequently) that Dzerzhinsky had been one of Lenin's oldest and most reliable comrades, or that Lenin had exercised some sort of spellbinding influence on Dzerzhinsky and the SDKPiL. Lenin and Dzerzhinsky frequently had opposing opinions about many important ideological and political issues of the pre-revolutionary period, and also after the October Revolution. After 1917, Dzerzhinsky would oppose Lenin on such crucial issues as the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], the trade unions, and [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union|Soviet nationality policy]]. During the April 1917 Party Conference, when Lenin accused Dzerzhinsky of Great-Russian chauvinism, he replied: "I can reproach him (Lenin) with standing at the point of view of the Polish, Ukrainian and other chauvinists."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch16.htm |title=Leon Trotsky: The History of the Russian Revolution (1.16 Rearming the Party) |publisher=Marxists.org |date=21 February 2007 |access-date=22 January 2014}}</ref>{{Better source needed|date=October 2020}}

From 1917 to his death in 1926, Dzerzhinsky was first and foremost a Russian Communist, and Dzerzhinsky's involvement in the affairs of the [[Communist Party of Poland|Polish Communist Party]] (which was founded in 1918) was minimal. The energy and dedication that had previously been responsible for the building of the SDKPiL would henceforth be devoted to the priorities of the struggle for Bolshevik power in Russia, to the defence of the revolution during the civil war, and eventually, to the tasks of socialist construction.<ref>Blobaum 1984. pp. 230–231.</ref>
[[File:Pomnik Feliksa Dzierżyńskiego plac Bankowy w Warszawie przed 1953.jpg|thumb|A statue of Dzerzhinsky in [[Warsaw]] built in 1951. It was toppled in 1989 to mark the end of the communist era in Poland.]]
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