The Soviet secret police - the Cheka (from the Russian abbreviation 'ChK' (ЧК) for 'чрезвыча́йная коми́ссия' - chrezvychainaya komissiya) - was founded on 20 December 1917 on the basis of a decree issued by Vladimir Lenin. Lenin appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat turned communist, to head the organization. Dzerzhinsky remained the director of the secret police until his death from a heart attack in 1926. While the organization underwent a series of reorganizations and renaming - becoming the GPU in 1922 and then subsequently OGPU, NKVD, NKGB, NKVD, NKGB, MBB, KGB, and in the post-Soviet era FSK and FSB (the latter being the organization's current name) - the Cheka has remained a name for the Russian secret police in colloquial use. Operatives of the Cheka are known as 'Chekists'.