Cohn, Feliks

  General Notes:

His Jewish name was probably Fiszel. One of his early pseudonyms wa s "Fis" perhaps short for Fiszel. He is usually known by the Russia n spelling of his name Feliks Yakovlevich Kon. Communist revolutionar y, journalsit, and politician. He wrote in his memoirs that his paren ts were "Polish patriots, body and soul" and that Polish patriotism to ok the place of religion in his family. As a child he too was a convi nced Polish patriot and anti-Russian. He joined the "Proletariat," th e first Polsih socialist party when he was a teenager. He was arreste d in 1884 and sentenced to eight years hard labor in Siberia. After h is release from prison he took part in an anthropological expedition t o study primitive peoples of Siberia for which he won a gold medal. I n 1892 he married Kristina Grynberg, who had also been imprisoned i n Siberia for revolutionary activity. She was a member of the Russia n revolutionary organization "Narodnaya Volya" [The People's Will] an d was imprisioned for her p art in the assassination of Tsar Alexande r II in 1881. While in exile Felks met Lenin several times.

In 1917 he took part in the October Revolution and Civil War, first a s a Menshevik and later as a Bolshevik. In 1920, during the Polish-So viet War, he supported the Bolshevik takeover of Poland. At this tim e he was a member of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee of Poland , along with Julian Marchlewski and Felisk Dzierzynski (head of the Ch eka), which had set up headquarters in Bialystok.

Feliks was the editor of several newspapers and journals such as Krasn aya Zvezda [Red Star] (1925-1928), Rabochaya Gazeta [Workers' Gazette ] (1928-1930) and Nasha Strana [Our Country] (1937-1941). He was th e author of numerous articles and books, including his memoirs which h e wrote in four volumes -- Za Piat 'desiat' let [During Fifty Years] ( 1932-1934). His many political positions included: member of th eCen tral Executive Committee of the Ukraine, chief of the Ukrainian Politi cal Administration of the Red Army, member of the Presidium of the Cen tral Executive Committe of the Soviet Union, secretary of the Executiv e Committee of the Comintern [Communist International], member of th e International Control Commission of the Executive Committe of the Co mintern, and director of the Department of Museums of the comissaria t of the Enlightenment of the RSFSR. Feliks was a great lover of th e arts and was the first president of the Central Art Workers House , a club for actors to gather together. Despite the fact he was an Ol d Bolshevik and Polish he survived Stalin's purges.

Feliks married Kristina Grynberg in 1892.