Feliks Kon

File:Feliks Kon 1891.jpg

Born in Warsaw, Kon was the son of Yakov (Jakub) Kon and a Georgian Jewish woman who was brought up in Russia.{{cite web|url= http://www.komunizm.nazwa.pl/kunicki/089michal.htm |last=Nowicki |first=Michał |title=Stanisław Kunicki w polskiej historiografii |language=Polish |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070223110955/http://www.komunizm.nazwa.pl/kunicki/089michal.htm |archivedate=23 February 2007 |accessdate=7 April 2014}} His parents were both patriotic revolutionaries and took part in the Polish national movements such as the January Uprising.{{Cite web |title=FELIKS KON - DANE OSOBOWE |url=https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/biogramy/2943-kon-feliks}} He was trained as a historian and a journalist, but was involved in politics.{{cite web| url=http://www.jewishgen.org/BELARUS/rje_k.htm |title=Jewish Encyclopedia of Russia (Rossiyskaya Evreiskaya Entsiclopediya); first edition |year=1995 |location= Moscow |accessdate=7 April 2014}} He had limited knowledge of Polish affairs at first, but intuitively felt the revolutionary element among Polish workers that he could mobilize.

He was a member of the anti-Piłsudski faction of the Polish Socialist Party and gravitated towards the anti-independence & pro-communism point of view. In January 1897 the Tsarist government at last taken took an administrative decision to banish him.{{cite journal|first1=P. Iu. |last1=Savel'ev |first2=S. V. |last2=Tiutiukin |title=Iulii Osipovich Martov (1873-1923): The Man and the Politician |journal=Russian Studies in History |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=6–92 |date=Summer 2006 |doi=10.2753/RSH1061-1983450101|s2cid=153626069 }} He was exiled to Irkutsk and began working on the progressive newspaper "Vostochnoye Obozrenie" (Eastern Review).{{cite book| last=Solzhenitsyn |first=Alexandr I. |year=1974 |title=The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956 | url=https://archive.org/details/gulagarchipelago02solz | url-access=registration |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=978-0-06-013914-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/gulagarchipelago02solz/page/337 337] }}

File:Polrewkom 1920.jpg, Felix Dzerzhinsky, Julian Marchlewski, Feliks Kon)]]

As the Bolsheviks began to prepare for the Polish-Soviet War, they summoned an increasing number of Polish communists, active elsewhere in Soviet service, to Moscow in order to form a cadre of party and state officials to move into ethnographic Poland with the Red Army.{{cite book|last=Debo |first=Richard K. |year=1992 |title=Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921 |publisher=McGill-Queen's Press |isbn= 978-0-7735-0828-6 |page=225 }} He was put on the Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee (formed in Białystok on 30 July 1920 - dissolved 20 August 1920){{cite web|url= http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Poland.htm |title=Poland Chronology (Polish Soviet Socialist Republic) |first=Ben |last=Cahoon |publisher=worldstatesmen.org |accessdate=7 April 2014}} during the Polish-Soviet War.

During this period he was editor-in-chief of the Goniec Czerwony newspaper, the official organ of the temporary revolutionary committee. The first issue appeared on 7 August. Its purpose was to agitate and it printed all the appeals issued by the Communist puppet government, as well as distinctly skewed news from the war. Twelve issues appeared, the last on 20 August as the Polish army approached the city. In the last issue he triumphantly proclaimed in an article entitled "Dwa światy" (Two Worlds): The old world disappears, but a new one is born: great, powerful and a genuinely independent Polish Socialist Republic will hold the prominent post in this world.{{cite web|url= http://geocities.com/kpp_1918/rewkom.htm |title=Przemysław Sieradzan Julian Marchlewski i Krótka Historia Polskiego Rewolucyjnego Komitetu |language=Polish |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20090809204324/http://geocities.com/kpp_1918/rewkom.htm |archivedate=9 August 2009 |accessdate=7 April 2014}}

In the 1930s, he held various positions in the Soviet and party apparatus. in 1930-1931 he was head of the arts sector of the People's Commissariat of Education and from 1931 to 1933 he served as the first chairman of the All-Union Committee on Radio Broadcasting at the People's Commissariat of Posts and Telegraphs of the USSR and 1933 head of the museum department of the People's Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR. He was also among the founders of the International Red Aid.{{Cite book|title=Кон Фелікс Якович — Енциклопедія Сучасної України|url=https://esu.com.ua/search_articles.php?id=4646|access-date=2021-10-29|website=esu.com.ua| isbn=9789660220744 }}

After the war, he decided to remain in the Soviet Union, where he was an activist in the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine, Comintern. However, letters written by Vladimir Lenin referred to Kon, whom he "couldn't stand", as simply an "old fool" (staryi duren).{{cite journal|jstor= 40870275 |last=Elwood |first=Carter |title=Lenin and Armand: New evidence on an old affair |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |volume=43 |issue=1 |date=March 2001 |pages=49–65 |doi=10.1080/00085006.2001.11092270 |s2cid=143446664 }}

Kon also served as an editor at several newspapers including Krasnaya Zvezda. In 1941, he became the director of the Polish-directed propaganda section at Radio Moscow. The first broadcasts in Polish were on 22 June 1941. However, he died a natural death shortly afterwards at age 77, at Moscow's Khimki water station during the evacuation of the city before the advancing German army and the Battle of Moscow.{{cite web|url= http://www.crai.republika.pl/vor.htm |language=Polish |title=Radio Voice of Russia - History of the Polish broadcasts |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070207113215/http://crai.republika.pl/vor.htm |archivedate=7 February 2007 |accessdate=7 April 2014}} Many of the other prominent members of the Polish Socialist Party-Left were later liquidated by the NKVD.{{cite web|url= http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/40-2-53.shtml |title=Poland's Communist Party: Its History, Character and Composition |pages=2–3 |publisher= Blinken Open Society Archives |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070914104819/http://files.osa.ceu.hu/holdings/300/8/3/text/40-2-53.shtml |archivedate=14 September 2007 |accessdate=7 April 2014}} Many had also been liquidated earlier, in particular during the Great Purge.

During his exile for revolutionary activity turned to ethnographic research although he had no preparation for it. He also recorded literature possessions in Siberia.{{cite web|url= http://www.racjonalista.pl/kk.php/k,2/s,4160 |last=Michałowski |first=Witold Stanisław |title=Szamańskie safari (2) |language=Polish |publisher=Fundacja Wolnej Myśli |date=30 January 2011 |accessdate=7 April 2014}}

During the late 1920s and 1930s, he was the head of the museum department in the People's Commissariat for Education. As an "old Bolshevik" he managed to secure many pictures for the Kyrgyz Gallery.{{cite web|url= http://www.apms.kg/tourism/aboutkyrg_muzeiiskustv_e.html |title=Brief information about the history of the Fine Arts Museum and the founders of fine arts in Kyrgyzstan |publisher=apms.kg |archivedate=2 February 2007 |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070202165751/http://www.apms.kg/tourism/aboutkyrg_muzeiiskustv_e.html |accessdate=7 April 2014}}

In 1936, he published his memoirs (in Russian) entitled Za Pietdziesiat Let (also translated into Polish in 1969: Narodziny wieku – wspomnienia published by Książka i Wiedza).

A Russian sea vessel named in his honor, the Feliks Kon, sank in 1996 in the Sea of Okhotsk, releasing 1000 tons of fuel oil.{{cite web|url= http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/russiaenviro.pdf |title=Environmental Problems in the Russian Federation |page=12 |publisher=Foreign & Commonwealth Office |date=October 2000 |archivedate=27 September 2007 |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070927213426/http://www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/russiaenviro.pdf |accessdate=7 April 2014}}

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• {{Cite book |last = Blit |first = Lucjan |year = 1971 |title = The Origins of Polish Socialism: The History and Ideas of the First Polish Socialist Party, 1878–1886 |location = Cambridge |publisher = Cambridge University Press |isbn = 978-0-521-08968-5 }}
• {{cite web|url= http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1982_Deutscher.pdf |title=Introduction |first=Tamara |last=Deutscher |pages=133 and 160 |archivedate=31 July 2009 |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20090731111350/http://socialistregister.com/socialistregister.com/files/SR_1982_Deutscher.pdf |accessdate=7 April 2014}}
• {{cite journal |last = Leinwand |first = A. J.|url= http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?07PLAAAA02054356 |title=The Agitation and Propaganda Activity of Polish Communists in the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic in 1918-1920 |journal=Studia z Dziejow Rosji i Europy Srodkowo-Wschodniej (Studies in the History of Russia and Central-Eastern Europe) |year=2005 |volume=40 |pages=25–61 |archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20070929100207/http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?07PLAAAA02054356 |archivedate=29 September 2007 |accessdate=7 April 2014}}

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{{5th Politburo of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine}}

{{Soviet Ukraine Government (before 1938)}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kon, Feliks}}

Category:1864 births

Category:1941 deaths

Category:Polish communists

Category:Jews from the Russian Empire

Category:Soviet Jews

Category:Jewish Soviet politicians

Category:Politicians from Warsaw

Category:People from Warsaw Governorate

Category:19th-century Polish politicians

Category:First secretaries of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Soviet Union)

Category:Soviet people of Polish-Jewish descent

Category:Krokodil editors