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This article is a list of current and former known monuments of Vladimir Lenin. Many of the monuments in former Soviet republics and people's republics were removed after the fall of the Soviet Union, with Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine being the most proactive. However, some ex-Soviet countries like Russia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan retained the thousands of Lenin statues that were erected during the Soviet period. [1] [2]
Important regions and capital cities are highlighted in bold.
Country | Location | Installed | Removed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ethiopia | Africa Park, Addis Ababa | October 1983 | 1991 | The first Lenin statue in Africa, this monument was constructed in October 1983. [3] The statue was toppled with the fall of the Derg government in 1991. [4] |
Mauritius | Port Louis | 1972 | No | [5] |
Country | Location | Installed | Removed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Canada | Richmond, BC | 2008 | 2011 | A small statue of Mao Zedong on top of a large stainless steel Lenin bust. Displayed in Richmond from 2008 to 2011. [6] [7] |
Cuba | Havana | ? | ? | Monumento a Lenin, in Parque Lenin. |
? | ? | Colina Lenin in Regla. | ||
Santa Cruz del Norte | ? | ? | In a petroleum plant. | |
Holguin | ? | ? | In Vladimir Lenin Hospital. | |
United States | Las Vegas | ? | 2019 | Outside Red Square Restaurant, Mandalay Bay Hotel. Removed in 2019 when restaurant closed. |
New York City | ? | ? | On top of the Red Square apartment building, E. Houston St. in the East Village. [8] Moved to Norfolk St. in 2016, half-block south. [9] | |
Seattle | 1995 | No | Fremont neighborhood; see Statue of Lenin (Seattle). | |
ACE Gallery Los Angeles | ? | 2017 | There was a large metallic bust of Lenin on display at the corner of La Brea Avenue and 4th Street. | |
Hutchinson, Kansas | ? | ? | Inside the Soviet wing of the Cosmosphere. | |
Willimantic, Connecticut | ? | ? | Hidden in a scrapyard to avoid vandalism. [10] | |
Venezuela | Caracas | November 13, 2017 | No | Lenin bust, unveiled at 100th anniversary of Bolshevik Revolution. [11] |
Country | Location | Installed | Removed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Antarctica | Pole of Inaccessibility | December 1958 | No | Plastic bust left by Soviet scientists in December 1958. [12] |
The golden bust of Lenin still stands as of 2024. [13]
Country | Location | Installed | Removed | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Armenia | Republic Square, Yerevan | November 24, 1940 | April 13, 1991 | Since being taken down it has been stored in the courtyard of the National Art Gallery behind Republic Square, with the head detached. |
Vanadzor | ? | ? | What is said to be the first-ever statue of Lenin is still standing in the Arbanyak Soviet Camp outside of Vanadzor. It was erected during his lifetime. [15] | |
Amasia | 1985 | ? | Near Gyumri (the former Leninakan). Built in 1985 and kept in Amasia ever since. [16] | |
Arin | c. 1991 | No | Built in 1947, moved to Arin after the dissolution of the USSR. [17] | |
Azerbaijan | Baku | ? | c. 1990 | The central monument was in front of the Government House, but was removed during the mass uprisings of 1990. |
China | Dongcheng District, Beijing | ? | No | Wax statue [18] |
India | Kolkata | <1972 | No | At the mouth of Lenin Sarani in Esplanade, Jadavpur 8B bus stand. [19] |
Vijayawada | 1987 | No | [20] | |
Nehru Park, Delhi, Chanakyapuri | November 1, 1987 | No | A life-size statue was erected on November 1, 1987, during the 70th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was unveiled by then Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov, Indian Prime-minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife Sonia Gandhi. Every year on April 22 members of the Communist Party of India and other Left-oriented political parties visit the place to commemorate Lenin's birthday. [21] | |
AKG Bhawan, New Delhi | 2010 | ? | A large bust of Lenin is located in the headquarters of the Communist Party of India in New Delhi. The white bust is installed right in front of the bust of A. K. Gopalan. The bust was a gift from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Before its final installation in the year 2010 it remained isolated in the Headquarters' backyard for several years. | |
Belonia, Tripura | 2013 | March 5, 2018 | A statue of Lenin was installed at Cege Square in 2013. Within days of winning the 2018 Tripura Legislative Assembly election, supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party bulldozed the statue. [22] | |
Sabroom, Tripura | ? | 2018 | Another such statue was erected by the Communist Party of India – ruled state until their electoral defeat by the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2018, when it was razed to the ground by supporters of the party. [23] | |
Katwa, West Bengal | ? | ? | Red Ink thrown at the statue in 2019. [24] | |
Kalyani, West Bengal | ? | ? | Bust exists on main crossing. | |
Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu | ? | ? | Tallest Lenin statue in India located outside the local CPI(M) office. [25] | |
Kazakhstan | Baikonur | ? | ? | Located in the central square of the city. |
Almaty | November 7, 1957 (Astana Square) 1997 (Sary-Arka square) | 1997 (Astana Square) | Formerly located in Astana square (formerly:Vladimir Lenin square),changed to locate at Sary-Arka square | |
Karaganda | ? | ? | ||
Kokshetau | ? | ? | ||
Semey | ? | ? | ||
Kyrgyzstan | Multiple places | ? | ? | Nearly every city and village in the country has a Lenin statue, usually located in the central square. |
Bishkek | ? | ? | Removed from the central square and now located behind the State Historical Museum. | |
Osh | ? | ? | ||
Karakol | ? | ? | ||
Kochkor | ? | ? | ||
Mongolia | Ulaanbaatar | ? | October 14, 2012 | In front of Ulaanbaatar Hotel and in close proximity to the Mongolian People's Party headquarters. In a speech during the removal ceremony, Mayor Erdeniin Bat-Üül denounced Lenin and his fellow communists as "murderers". [14] |
Tajikistan | Dushanbe | ? | ? | The monument in central Freedom Square was replaced by a monument of Ismoil Somoni, while a second in Central Park was removed and replaced by a statue of Rudaki, Khujand, Nurak, Faizobod.[ citation needed ] |
Istaravshan | ? | ? | ||
Khojand | ? | ? | ||
Khorog | ? | ? | ||
Murghab | ? | ? | ||
Panjakent | ? | ? | ||
Turkmenistan | Ashgabat | 1927 | ? | Erected in 1927 in the heart of the city. |
Uzbekistan | Tashkent | ? | 1991 | Dismantled in 1991, replaced with a globe, featuring a geographic map of Uzbekistan. |
Vietnam | Hanoi | August 20, 1985 | No | Dien Bien Phu Street, adjacent to the Vietnamese Army museum. A 5.2m high bronze statue donated by the Soviet Government with the image of Lenin in a walking posture, placed on a 2.7m high granite pedestal. [26] |
North Korea | Pyongyang | ? | ? | In the Workers' Party of Korea Founding Museum. |
? | ? | Russia-DPRK Embassy | ||
Hamhung | ? | ? | Soviet war memorial |
All statues were taken down in 1991 or soon after, most eventually winding up in Grutas Park. They were erected during the Soviet period and stood, among other places, in Vilnius (at least two statues, one of them together with Lithuanian communist leader Kapsukas), Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Jonava, Druskininkai, and Jurbarkas (the Jurbarkas Lenin is now part of an installation in Europos Parkas park in Vilnius).
In 1939–1941, after the attack of the Red Army, statues of Lenin were in: Sokółka, [90] Augustów, Kolno, Suwałki, Białystok (pulled down in June 1941), Łomża, Choroszcz (3x), [91] Brańsk, Bielsk Podlaski, Jedwabne, [92] [93] Siemiatycze, [94] Śniadowo, Czyżewo (pulled down July 5, 1941), [95] Zaręby Kościelne, [96] Zambrów, [97] Przemyśl, Lubaczów, Łapy, Zabłudów [98] etc.
Out of 7,000 Lenin statues as of 1991, Russia retained the vast majority. As of 2022, there are approximately 6,000 monuments to Lenin in Russia. [1]
In 1991 Ukraine had 5,500 Lenin monuments. [107]
Before Ukraine's Euromaidan, Lenin monuments and other Soviet-era monuments were already being removed. [108] [109] However, in 2008, the 139th anniversary of Lenin, two new Lenin monuments were erected in Luhansk Oblast (now occupied by Russia). [110]
Following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, more than 500 statues of Lenin were dismantled between February 2014 and April 2015, after which nearly 1,700 remained standing.[ citation needed ] On May 15, 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law that set a six-month deadline for the removal of the country's communist monuments. [111] By December 2015, 1,300 Lenin monuments were still standing (in Ukraine). [107]
In April 2015, a formal decommunization process started in Ukraine after laws were approved which, among other acts, outlawed communist symbols. [112]
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of these statues of Lenin, which had been taken down by Ukrainian activists, were re-erected by occupying Russian forces and Ukrainian collaborators in Russian-controlled areas. [113] [114] [115] [116]
In May 2016 Dnipropetrovsk was itself officially renamed to Dnipro to comply with decommunization laws. [130]
Mariupol is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is situated on the northern coast (Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was the tenth-largest city in the country and the second-largest city in Donetsk Oblast, with an estimated population of 425,681 people in January 2022; as of August 2023, Ukrainian authorities estimate the population of Mariupol at approximately 120,000. Mariupol has been occupied by Russian forces since May 2022.
Soviet-era statues are statuary art that figured prominently in the art of the Soviet Union. Typically made in the style of Socialist Realism, they frequently depicted significant state and party leaders, such as Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin.
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The Statue of Lenin is a 16 ft (5 m) bronze statue of Russian communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, United States. It was created by Bulgarian-born Slovak sculptor Emil Venkov and initially put on display in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in 1988, the year before the Velvet Revolution. After the revolutions of 1989 and dissolution of the Soviet Union, a wave of de-Leninization in Eastern Europe brought about the fall of many monuments in the former Soviet sphere. In 1993, the statue was bought by an American who had found it lying in a scrapyard. He brought it home with him to Washington State but died before he could carry out his plans to formally display it.
Grigory Ivanovich Petrovsky was a Ukrainian Soviet politician and Old Bolshevik. He participated in signing the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Petrovsky was Communist Party leader in Ukraine until 1938, and one of the officials responsible for implementing Stalin's policy of collectivization.
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The Vladimir Lenin monument in Kyiv was a statue dedicated to Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The larger than life-size Lenin monument was built by Russian sculptor Sergey Merkurov from the same red Karelian stone as Lenin's Mausoleum. It was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair and erected on Kyiv's main Khreshchatyk Street on 5 December 1946.
From the end of February 2014, in the aftermath of the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity, which resulted in the ousting of Russian-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, demonstrations by Russian-backed, pro-Russian, and anti-government groups took place in Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv and Odesa. The unrest, which was supported by the Russian military and intelligence services, belongs to the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Decommunization in Ukraine started during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and expanded afterwards. Following the 2014 Revolution of Dignity and beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Ukrainian government approved laws that banned communist symbols, as well as symbols of Nazism as both ideologies deemed to be totalitarian.
The demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine began during the collapse of the Soviet Union and continued on a smaller scale throughout the 1990s, primarily in some western towns of Ukraine. However, by 2013, most Lenin statues across Ukraine were still intact. During the 2013–2014 Euromaidan protests, the destruction of statues became widespread, a phenomenon that came to be popularly known as Leninopad, or Leninfall in English. The use of "-пад" being akin to English words suffixed with "fall" as in "waterfall" and "snowfall".
The Statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was a sculpture monument to Vladimir Lenin, located in Freedom Square, Kharkiv, Ukraine, that was toppled and demolished in 2014. It was the largest monument to Lenin in Ukraine, designed by Alexander Sidorenko after entering an open competition to design the monument in 1963, in the lead up to the anniversary of the October Revolution.
Monument of the Great October Revolution was a Soviet monument that was located on the October Revolution Square from 1977–1991 in Kiev, at the time the capital of the Ukrainian SSR as part of the Soviet Union.
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De-Leninization is political reform aimed at refuting Leninist and Marxist–Leninist ideology and ending the personality cult of Vladimir Lenin. Examples include removing images and toppling statues of Lenin, renaming places and buildings, dismantling Lenin's Mausoleum currently in Red Square, Moscow, and burying his mummified corpse.
Imagery promoting the Soviet Union has been a prominent aspect of the Russo-Ukrainian War, especially since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Both Russia and Russian separatist forces in Ukraine have used Soviet symbols as a means of expressing their antipathy to Ukraine and to Ukrainian decommunization policies. For Russia, in particular, these displays are also part of a broader campaign to de-legitimize Ukrainian statehood and justify annexations of the country's territory, as was the case with Crimea in March 2014 and with southeastern Ukraine in September 2022.
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