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In Russia, They Tore Down Lots of Statues, but Little Changed - The New York Times
“Waging war on bronze men doesn’t make your life any more moral or just,” one observer noted. “It does nothing really.”
MOSCOW — Elated by the defeat of a hard-line Communist coup in August 1991, thousands of mostly young Muscovites gathered in front of the K.G.B. headquarters and argued over how best to seal their victory with a bold, symbolic act.
After some discussion, recalled Sergei B. Parkhomenko, then a young journalist covering the scene, the crowd turned its passion — more euphoria than anger, he said — on the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet secret police, which stood in a traffic circle in front of the Lubyanka, the forbidding stone building that housed the K.G.B.
The removal of the statue, accomplished with help from a crane sent by Moscow city authorities, was greeted with cries of “Down with the K.G.B.” and sent a powerful message that change had finally come to Russia.
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Nearly 30 years later, Russia is ruled by a former K.G.B. officer, President Vladimir V. Putin, and Dzerzhinsky is honored with a bust outside the Moscow city police headquarters. Taking it out on statues changes very little.
“Waging war on bronze men doesn’t make your life any more moral or just,” one observer noted. “It does nothing really.”
MOSCOW — Elated by the defeat of a hard-line Communist coup in August 1991, thousands of mostly young Muscovites gathered in front of the K.G.B. headquarters and argued over how best to seal their victory with a bold, symbolic act.
After some discussion, recalled Sergei B. Parkhomenko, then a young journalist covering the scene, the crowd turned its passion — more euphoria than anger, he said — on the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the ruthless founder of the Soviet secret police, which stood in a traffic circle in front of the Lubyanka, the forbidding stone building that housed the K.G.B.
The removal of the statue, accomplished with help from a crane sent by Moscow city authorities, was greeted with cries of “Down with the K.G.B.” and sent a powerful message that change had finally come to Russia.
============================================================
Nearly 30 years later, Russia is ruled by a former K.G.B. officer, President Vladimir V. Putin, and Dzerzhinsky is honored with a bust outside the Moscow city police headquarters. Taking it out on statues changes very little.