What was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organisations, created by a decree issued on 20 December 1917 by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by Felix Dzerzhinsky?
Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Dzerzhinsky Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Russian: Фе́ликс Эдму́ндович Дзержи́нский; Polish: "Feliks Dzierżyński" ; 20 July 1926), nicknamed Iron Felix, was a Bolshevik revolutionary, leader and statesman. From 1917 until his death in 1926, Dzerzhinsky led the first two Soviet state security organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing a secret police for the post-revolutionary Soviet government. Felix Dzerzhinsky was born on 11 September 1877 at the Dzerzhinovo family estate, about away from the small town of Ivyanets, in the Minsk Region, a part of the Russian Empire (today Belarus). His aristocratic Catholic family belonged to the former Polish-Lithuanian "szlachta" (nobility),
Felix Dzerzhinsky 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 Brest-Litovsk peace, the trade unions, and Soviet nationality policy, often times coming to blows. 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