Why Do the Lenin Statues Still Stand?

By Daniel Nardini

Lawndale News Chicago's Bilingual Newspaper - CommentaryVladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known better to the world as Lenin, was the creator of the first Communist revolution in history. In 1917, Lenin took over portions of Russia and created the first modern Communist regime in history. There were many people who resisted this, and thus began the Russian Civil War which lasted from 1918 to 1921. An estimated five million people died as a result of Lenin’s policies, and an estimated 500,000 were mass executed under Lenin’s personal orders during what became called the Red Terror which lasted during the same time period. Lenin committed wholesale butchery on a scale that until that time was rarely known or seen. And this was during and after the First World War (1914-1918). Many statues of Lenin were erected in the Soviet Union—his own creation—and many other Communist countries long after his death. Almost all of his statues have since been torn down (only those existing Communist countries still keep them up) in all those countries that have thrown off Communism.

It is an irony that three Lenin statues actually stand in the United States right now. One in Seattle, Washington, a bust of Lenin in Los Angeles, California, and one in New York City. These statues were brought over by private collectors and therefore sit on private land. The Lenin statues can still be seen. What is amazing to me is that these statues to a tyrant and a certified mass murderer are still very much standing. They have not been defaced, and they certainly have not been pulled down. Communist and anarchist mobs have had no problem destroying statues to Americans who committed far, far less heinous crimes than Lenin did. These statues and monuments, on both public and private lands, are being defaced, torn down and destroyed by leftist mobs. But the Lenin statues still stand. I guess they will not touch one of their own? These mobs do not seem to really know nor care about history. They would willingly deface and destroy a statue of America’s first president George Washington who did a lot of good for this country than touch the statue of a mass murderer like Lenin? Explain this logic to me?!

Yes, I say punish the vandals and mobs who deface, destroy and threaten our American statues, our monuments and sacred graves of all our war dead whether they be Union or Confederate. At the same time, one has to asked why statues of a mass murderer remain standing. Don’t the people who own these have a conscience? Why not put up statues of Adolf Hitler? Why not put up statues of Attila the Hun? But the bigger picture is that America should be putting up statues, monuments and memorials to those Americans who had made a great impact on this country. We may debate who these great Americans are, and what their legacy entail, but we should celebrate who they were and what they did. If we wish to bring down statues, monuments and memorials, it should be done through a legal process and not through mob rule. But I have to ask why are statues of Lenin still standing at all in America?

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