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Notes -
I've read the discussion on the destruction of General Lee's statue in Charlottesville in last week's thread. I got the impression that many commenters here are prone to come up with explanations why the official removal of the statue was at least unsurprising or objectively justified from a culture war perspective, and I get that. But it seems they aren't focusing on the palpable difference between legally removing a statue and destroying it in a furnace. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's a big step from one to the other.
I'm reminded of the political transitions that happened in Central Europe in 1989-91, because many local monuments to either Soviet politicians/soldiers or local Communists or Marx/Engels were officially removed as a result. Anyone can correct me if they can, but I think all those new political systems were content with just removing the statues and putting them in "museums", which in most cases basically meant that these statues were put in open-air storage in remote and mostly abandoned memorial parks to just wither away, but not destroying them, cutting them up, melting them down etc. This hasn't even happened to Stalin statues in the Baltic states, for example, even though local anti-Soviet sentiment was definitely the strongest in the entire region, not something to understate. You can still find and visit those statues today.
And in this case, even this relatively close parallel doesn't really work, because it's not like there was a fundamental regime change in Virginia since the statue was erected.
And what happened to Lee's statue certainly cannot be explained by financial considerations either, as I'm sure that whatever arrangement that was on the table for putting it away as a museum piece was cheaper than melting it down in a furnace.
The only fitting parallel that comes to mind is Napoleon ordering captured cannons to be melted down to build a gigantic iron monument in Paris dedicated to the victory at Austerlitz. But again, I'm sure I won't have to explain in detail how that political context was completely different from this, even though I'm aware there are many hardline leftists today who would've preferred the evil Confederacy to be publicly humiliated in such ways back in 1865.
In the end, the only sufficient explanation I can come up with is that local authorities were afraid that Lee's statue, no matter where it were to be placed, was likely to become a site of pilgrimage for right-winger heretics opposed to the culture-warring leftist interpretation of race relations in the US, hence the statue's destruction.
Plus, and this is just pure speculation on my part, I think General Lee was such a perfect personification of the Southern patriarchal ideal of gentlemanliness that he invites leftist hostility like no other figure in US history. Plus, he had the cheek to candidly express views on slavery and the innate characteristics of Africans that are, from a leftist perspective, uniquely horrible, just too painful, and cutting too close to the bone, as they say.
Ukraine dismantled a Soviet-era monument that symbolized friendship between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, by tearing it down and beheading. Beheading may be accidental: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zext2ui755A
Latvia pulled down 79 meter monument in 2022 that celebrated occupation of this country by Russia (there was fig-leaf explanation for it): https://youtube.com/watch?v=JF_ZGbzoc4o
Poland still has some monuments celebrating Red Army that invaded during WW II in full cooperation with Nazi Germany: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4eGxD3GIuaU shows destruction of some in 2022 (though they seem to be concrete/brick making really unfeasible to move it)
https://i.pl/runal-kolejny-pomnik-wdziecznosci-armii-czerwonej-prezes-ipn-on-byl-ahistoryczny/ar/c1-17514513 mentions one demolished in 2023 after confirming that there are no wartime graves next to it.
https://i.pl/w-chrzowicach-zburzono-pomnik-gloryfikujacy-armie-czerwona-gmina-proszkow-jako-pierwsza-odpowiedziala-na-apel-szefa-ipn/ar/c1-16115621 - another from 2022
https://radiogdansk.pl/wiadomosci/region/slupsk/2023/10/03/pomnik-zolnierzy-armii-czerwonej-w-smoldzinie-do-likwidacji-zastapi-go-tablica-pamiatkowa/ - will be replaced by memorial honouring dead soldiers
and so on
Seems pretty obviously accidental, unless you're saying they prepared it beforehand?
Anyway all of your examples seem to show rather unceremonious removal, rather than the bizarre "remove it in secret, but hire professional cameramen for juicy high-def images" ritual.
I was mostly responding to claim that no statues/monuments celebrating Russian occupation were destroyed. Many were destroyed.
Though I do not remember offhand cases where they kept head, after careful vandalising it. (with how many monuments celebrating Russian occupation existed it likely happened at some point)
Some were removed in secret, with press or other cameraman to document removal.
Not bothered to check how they attached it to machinery, can reword it if you have suggestion. I added it as thumbnail with decapitated head seemed misleading.
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