Poland hauls Communist- era monuments to warehouse

Legnica, Pologne: For nearly 70 years, an imposing monument to Soviet Red Army soldiers dominated a central square in the southwestern Polish town of Legnica.

Known as Little Moscow, Legnica hosted the largest Soviet military base in Poland during the Cold War. But one day recently, in the early hours, the classic example of Stalinistera propaganda was hauled away to a warehouse to be mothballed with dozens of other monuments under a new decommunisation law.

According to town spokesman Arkadiusz Rodek, Legnica acted in order to qualify for a state refund of the removal costs, which had included hiring a crane. “After the ( end- March) deadline, we would have paid out of our own pocket,” he said.

Although the Soviet Union drove Nazi German forces out of occupied Poland towards the end of World War II, Moscow went on to impose its own brand of totalitarianism until the regime collapsed in 1989.

Now, nearly three decades on, Poland’s governing rightwing Law and Justice ( PiS) party is bent on removing all vestiges of the communist system, even judges who served during that era, as part of a series of controversial reforms. From statues to street names, the government’s strong nationalist views underpin an enduring aversion to communism, which it views as primarily a form of foreign domination.

Under the 2016 law, the PiS government put the Institute of National Remembrance ( IPN) — responsible for prosecuting Nazi and communistera crimes — in charge of removing around 300 monuments nationwide.

“They glorify the communist regime in public spaces, so they must be dismantled and transferred to museums showcasing communist propaganda,” IPN chief- historian Maciej Korkuc said.

In Legnica, the 5,500- pound bronze statue is of a strapping Red Army soldier shaking a Polish soldier’s hand in a fraternal but dominant gesture of congratulations to Poland for its post- war “freedom”.

The soldiers also hold a little girl dressed as a communist youth pioneer, symbolising a bright future. Dozens of communist monuments still stand across Poland, which has long been a European Union and Nato member, and their removal has rankled Russia.

Several statements by lower- level Russian officials have accused Poland of ingratitude as well as disrespecting Red Army soldiers.

Meanwhile, critics at home, including the liberal opposition, view the PiS’s decommunisation drive as a bid to impose its own version of history.

In the southern town of Lapanow, a memorial to the communist militia killed by the anti- communist resistance in 1946 has been rededicated to the so- called “cursed soldiers” of the Polish resistance, a group now promoted by the IPN.