Lenin | Moscow | Russia
On August 9, 1918,
Lenin wrote in a telegram to the Penza Provincial Executive Committee
and Evgenia Bosch: “It is necessary to organize enhanced security
from selectively reliable people, to conduct merciless mass terror
against the kulaks, priests and white-guards; lock up those who are
doubtful in a concentration camps outside the city”.
In the Soviet
period, an extensive cult arose around the personality and name of
Lenin. The former capital of the Russian Empire was renamed
Leningrad, villages and streets were named after him, a monument to
Lenin stood in each city - all this became part of the Soviet
tradition. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many monuments to
the “leader” were dismantled, some were vandalized. The attitude
towards him in Russia is differentiated. Today, the Soviet leader
still lies on Red Square in the Mausoleum. But, time is changing, and
even the presenters of the central television channels are thinking
about the need for so many monuments to Lenin tom come down.
On April 26, 2020,
on the Russia-1 federal television channel in the Vesti Nedelya
rating program, the famous TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said: “The
number of monuments to Lenin in our country is disproportionately
high. We must erect monuments to Kolchak, Wrangel, Denikin, Krasnov.”
Monuments to Lenin
were a serial production. In many cities, these monuments are located
in central squares. In Moscow, there are almost 200 monuments to
Lenin, in Russia - more than 5,800. In Ukraine (formerly part of the
Soviet Union) - there were more than 2,550 monuments to Lenin, but
since 2014 there was adopted a law on decommunization, after which
the monuments to Soviet leaders began to be demolished.
It was Lenin who was
the ideological inspiration for the demolition of the old "kings
and their servants" to the monuments in order to replace them
with "ideological sculptural works." He understood that
high-quality royal monuments effectively affected the masses and
illiterate people. According to the plan, it was necessary to
demolish the "ugly idols" on proletarian works of
monumental art.
“On April 12,
1918, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted the
decree“ On the Monuments of the Republic, ”which became one of
the cornerstones of the Leninist plan of monumental propaganda. The
monuments "erected in honor of the kings and their servants and
not of interest from either the historical or the artistic side"
were subject to demolition. What exactly should be dismantled was
decided by a special commission of people's commissars of education
and property of the Republic.
