Feliks before the Fall. A Biographical Approach to Understanding Stalinism

Abstract

This article explores the use of biography as a means of explaining the rise of Stalin. As a case study it focuses on the early life of Feliks Dzerzhinskii, founder of the Cheka, a man who seemed to embody the ambivalent nature of the transition from Leninism to Stalinism. This piece highlights the formative experiences of a figure many saw as the ideal Bolshevik and the way in which these experiences shaped the Stalinist regime.

University of Edinburgh