Felix Dzerzhinsky was born in 1877 in Lithuania into the family of a small, Polish, landowner. By 18 years of age, he became a member of the Lithuanian Social-Democratic Party and full-time revolutionary activist. As a result of his political activities, Dzerzhinsky was viciously targeted and repressed by tsarist authorities, alternately exiled and sentenced to serve in penal colonies in Russia and Poland. When he died at age 48, he had spent over half of his life in prison and penal servitude.