Opinion of Toppling Lenin Statues

[H. Ross Peron]

FP

[ElectionsGuy]

FP

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

There are quite a few Lenin statues left as compared to the Ancien Regime, so I'd like to keep them as a historical curiosity.

[Antonio the Sixth]

FP in 1989-1991, HP afterwards. These statues are part of their countries' historical legacy and have a major cultural value.

[Hifly]

That was awesome. I enjoyed myself so much watching those videos on Saturday.

[TNF]

There are quite a few Lenin statues left as compared to the Ancien Regime, so I'd like to keep them as a historical curiosity.

[dead0man]

We should only stop when there are just a handful left...like 4.

[Supersonic]

Mega Freedom Practice.

[rejectamenta]

Historically iconoclastic behavior for those of the sloped forehead variety.

[Lambsbread]

FP in 1989-1991, HP afterwards. These statues are part of their countries' historical legacy and have a major cultural value.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

FP in 1989-1991, HP afterwards. These statues are part of their countries' historical legacy and have a major cultural value.

What happened in Kiev this past weekend was not a rejection of Communism but of Russianism.  Many Ukrainians do not want to return to being Little Russians.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I fail to see how this is any different from the mass destruction of all those Gaddafi murals and portraits two years ago.

[TDAS04]

FP.  Lenin was a massive HP.  I suppose that a few should be kept for historical interest, though. 

[Lumine]

It brings a smile to my face whenever they bring them down.

[Cassius]

Wonderful thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Wonderful thing.

You'd actually strike me as more of a "But CULTURE OMG!!!!" types.

[Maxwell]

FP to a certain extent, but there still should be a couple of statues left, for the sake of history.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Should Germany have kept a few Nazi flags around for the sake of history?

Put them in a museum if anything. Not in public.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Should Germany have kept a few Nazi flags around for the sake of history?

Not everything is comparable to Nazism, you know?

[opebo]

Very sad.   Perhaps someday new ones will be put up somewhere, we can only hope.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Should Germany have kept a few Nazi flags around for the sake of history?

Not everything is comparable to Nazism, you know?

But if anything is, the Soviet Union is pretty damn up there. And in Ukraine you have an intentional famine from the Soviet regime that killed possibly more people than the Holocaust.

[Redalgo]

FP in all instances outside of Russia. Within it I suppose it would depend on the exact nature of the monument on a case by case basis. Russia's imperialism throughout eastern Europe and the Near Abroad has hardly, if ever completely, ceased since the end of the monarchy almost a century ago. And at this point there only really seems to be a very large number of people lamenting the end of the Soviet Union in Russia itself, no?

And yes - there would be some value to be found in preserving some public works and monuments of the Third Reich in Germany. Not everything regimes like that achieve is bad, and not everything that was bad should be hidden away so that common folk don't have to come face-to-face with it anymore and contemplate the horrors of the past or lessons learned moving forward.

If the U.S. were to someday turn out the way I want, I certainly wouldn't approve of destroying all the statues commemorating founders of the old order even though many of them embraced some utterly despicable points of view and were complicit in some utterly terrible policies.

[bedstuy]

FP in all instances outside of Russia. Within it I suppose it would depend on the exact nature of the monument on a case by case basis. Russia's imperialism throughout eastern Europe and the Near Abroad has hardly, if ever completely, ceased since the end of the monarchy almost a century ago. And at this point there only really seems to be a very large number of people lamenting the end of the Soviet Union in Russia itself, no?

And yes - there would be some value to be found in preserving some public works and monuments of the Third Reich in Germany. Not everything regimes like that achieve is bad, and not everything that was bad should be hidden away so that common folk don't have to come face-to-face with it anymore and contemplate the horrors of the past along with the lessons learned moving forward.

You have a very low standard for whether someone deserve to be venerated with public monuments.  Not everything Ted Bundy did was negative.  Would you support having a statue of Ted Bundy in the center of your town?  People could think about the good things he did, while considering the lessons learned, am I right?

That's at the heart of the distinction I think needs to be made.  A statue in public is venerating and paying tribute to someone by its nature.  You can learn from history and preserve it without affording evil people the tribute of public monuments.  As earlier mentioned, preserve these types of symbols in a museum or in a context that shows our contempt. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

Should Germany have kept a few Nazi flags around for the sake of history?

Not everything is comparable to Nazism, you know?

But if anything is, the Soviet Union is pretty damn up there. And in Ukraine you have an intentional famine from the Soviet regime that killed possibly more people than the Holocaust.

Nothing of this was caused by Lenin though. Stalin statues would be a different deal, for sure.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Both. As Tony mentioned, they are part of a historical legacy that should be untouched in most circumstances, though the incident in the Ukraine was a perfect example of when you should do something like that.