LENIN MONUMENT SUCCUMBS TO DIALECTICAL FORCES IN KYRGYZSTAN
A EurasiaNet Photo Essay by Alexander Shablovsky: 8/29/03

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Vladimir Lenin asserted in his political tract The State and Revolution that a state would wither away after the proletariat seized power and established a dictatorship. It was thus an ironic moment when authorities in Kyrgyzstan recently toppled the Lenin statue in Biskek’s central Ala-Too Square, saying that it will be replaced with a monument to the Central Asian country’s independence.

During the Soviet era, Lenin monuments occupied a place of honor in virtually all cities, towns and villages. Over the past 12 years, since Communism’s collapse, Lenin statues have lost their luster and have been removed in many areas. Indeed, the Baltic states began dismantling the Lenin legacy even before the Soviet empire officially withered away. Bishkek is actually among the last former Soviet republican capitals to experience a Lenin cleansing.

On August 16, the day the statue came down in Bishkek, a few protesters gathered in Ala-Too square. Most were pensioners, the people hardest hit by the jarring economic and political transition brought on by Communism’s demise. For them, Lenin served as a symbol for a simpler time, when the Soviet state ensured a comfortable-enough living standards in a society largely devoid of the need for individual initiative.

For most in Kyrgyzstan, the removal of the Lenin statue in Bishkek generated little interest. It is widely viewed as a symbolic act, doing little to address Kyrgyzstan’s significant political, economic and social problems. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Most would prefer that the government take substantive steps to improve present-day living standards, rather than engage is cosmetic action.

Editor’s Note: Alexander Shablovsky is a freelance photographer in Kyrgystan.

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Posted August 29, 2003 © Eurasianet
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