In a move symbolic of the nation’s rejection of Communism and the Soviet era, Ukraine has removed one of the last large statues of Vladimir Lenin from public view.
The Guardian reported:
Ukraine topples biggest remaining Lenin statueIt took two days and a giant crane, but Ukraine has finally managed to lift its biggest remaining statue of the Soviet founder Lenin off its pedestal and consign it to the dustbin of history.The 20m tall (65ft) bronze and granite monument fell victim on Thursday to a Ukrainian ban on Soviet symbols that was imposed in May 2015.The statue, in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhia, weighed 40 tonnes and was one of about 2,500 similar ones scattered across the country since its Soviet days.Most of those have since been toppled, with Ukraine’s tallest Lenin in the city of Kharkiv falling in September 2014, seven months after the removal of a pro-Russian leadership in Kiev…Russia often accuses Ukraine of violating international law by banning the Communist party, which it also did shortly after the 2014 pro-EU revolt.
Here’s a video of the statue coming down. You’ll notice no one in the crowd seems very sad to see him go.
In September of 2014, Rick Noack of the Washington Post explained the anti-Lenin sentiment in Ukraine:
What toppled Lenin statues tell us about Ukraine’s crisisIn an incident reflecting growing Ukrainian anger toward the Kremlin, anti-Russian protesters pulled down a massive Vladimir Lenin statue in Ukraine’s second-largest city late Sunday. To many Ukrainians, Lenin is a symbol of the Soviet Union and Russia’s aggressive support for the separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.Despite the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union which resulted in the split between Russia and Ukraine, hundreds of monuments to the founder of modern Russia survived the transition. Over the last months, however, many have been toppled…”To many Ukrainians, Lenin represents not only the communist regime, but also radical separation from Europe and Western civilization more broadly,” Steven Fish, a Russian studies professor at University of California Berkeley, told the Los Angeles Times last December after a statue had been toppled in Kiev.Other scholars view the toppling in a more modern light. Sasha Senderovich, assistant professor of Russian Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder who wrote a New York Times op-ed on this issue last December, considers Sunday’s event not to be connected to Lenin specifically. “At this point, after Putin’s assault on Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the statue has become more symbolic of Russia’s continued attempt to exercise imperial dominance over Ukraine rather than solely the historical legacy of the Soviet Union,” he told The Post on Monday.
It’s ironic that as former Soviet states reject the failed policies of their past, American progressives are embracing them.
Chalk that up to the ongoing failure of our education system.
Featured image via YouTube.
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