Russian Communist Party Slams Seattle Lenin Statue Plan

In response to a call by Seattle authorities to take down a statue of the late revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian Communist Party has condemned the proposal.

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“The war of monuments is under way, but there are a lot of Lenin monuments all over the Earth. We denounce vandalism because different monuments must exist,” the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Sergey Obukhov, stated, reported RT.

“I understand that the mayor of Seattle is doing this to please the kind of leftists whose activities, I would say, included the organization of clashes in Seattle,” he added.

Russian Communist Party MP Dmitry Novikov said the plans to remove the statue are yet another manifestation of the anti-Soviet, anti-Communist and anti-Russian sentiments prevalent in the United States.

“If the mayor of Seattle tries to connect the campaign against Confederate monuments and the campaign against Lenin’s statue it looks rather strange, because Lenin was in strong opposition to all forms of slavery and all forms of social violence. He was for justice and personal freedom, he had created a party that was steadily fighting against the absolute monarchy in our country,” Novikov pressed.

“This cannot be called anything else but an attempt to remain in some political trend,” the Russian lawmaker added.

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray called for the statue’s removal on Thursday, arguing that it represents “historic injustices” as well as being a symbol of hate, racism and violence equivalent to that of Confederate statues, which he also wants taken down.

The 5-meter-high bronze statue of Lenin installed in the Washington city is privately owned, where the owner bought it from Slovakian authorities in the early 1990s. It is currently on display, the owner told reporters, because he is trying to sell it.

Shortly before Mayor Murray’s call to have it removed, protesters staged a demonstration near the monument, holding posters that read “Lenin is Hitler” and “Tear it down.”

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The protest was in response to last weekend’s rally by far-right groups in Charlottesville, Virginia, where city authorities had ordered the removal of the monument to Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. That rally saw counter-protests, which resulted in a major standoff that killed one counter-protester and injured several others.

State Senator Reuven Carlyle also weighed in on the debate surrounding the Seattle Lenin statue.

Reflecting on his family’s history, where his relatives had left Poland in 1924 after attacks on Jewish villages, the official called the statue of Lenin a testament to the defeat of a “murderous, painful regime.”