I keep hearing that toppling the statues of Lenin was a big mistake on the part of Ukrainian protesters.
I am convinced, however, that this was the most hopeful moment of the last 20 years in Ukraine.
Countries that experienced a totalitarian regime have only two possible scenarios ahead of them. They either address their totalitarian past and undergo the process of public reckoning and expiation, or they pretend that the past never happened. The latter are doomed to stagnating in corruption, aimlessness, cynicism, hatred and poverty for decades to come.
If Ukrainians have started to realize that the country’s tragic history needs to be discussed and, most importantly, judged, this means they have a chance of getting out of poverty.
All of the oil and gas in the world will not help Russia get better until the Russian people bury the corpse of Lenin and jail some of the Communist criminals.
Clarissa's Blog 
The toppling of Lenin statues was good and shows a clear break with “Soviet mentality.” Those countries such as those in the Baltic who have done this are much better off in having a plan to move to the future rather than those for instance in Central Asia continuing to wish for a return to a distorted memory of the Soviet past.
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I agree COMPLETELY!!
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I don’t see why they didn’t do this 20 years ago. If even the Russians are renaming Leningrad (as they were at the time), why keep your own statues of the guy?
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My thinking around 1990-91 was that slowly weaning people from Lenin was the better option since rapid de-Leninization would have to be forced and could have negative consequences in the transition from the USSR to what should come after it.
But… then the transition was handled about as badly as possible (absolutely, it couldn’t have gone worse if making it as bad as possible were the goal).
So now I’m thinking, pathetic soviet fools! You’ve had 20 years to come to grips with the fact that for decades you were forced to worship a murdering bloodsucker! Wake up! What could possibly be controversial about toppling statues of someone who enslaved you unless you long for the chains on your feet and the lash on your back!
In my more…. sympathetic moments many Russian speakers seemed like mistreated children defending their abusive parents with all their strength, but those don’t last long and I’m back to thinking that many of them are simply too stupid to come in out of the rain (and so they make excuses about how being drenched is a part of their mysterious soul that outsiders simply can’t understand).
My favorite name for the city in question is Petrograd but IME Russian native speakers usually find that the worst possible combination…. Go figure.
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“and so they make excuses about how being drenched is a part of their mysterious soul that outsiders simply can’t understand”
Cliff, I nearly sneezed red wine all over my keyboard. Well played.
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I also like Petrograd the best and I have no idea why there’s such a resistance to the name.
I love this entire comment, love it. This is our entire problem on a nutshell.
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The resistance to burying Lenin next to his mother (as per his own wishes) is enormous. So the whole country is still engaging in these necrophiliac orgies.
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