The day protestors blew foot off hated statue of Lenin
On this day in history, the steel town of Nowa Huta bore witness to arguably the most unusual assassination ever attempted in Poland.
Ultimately, the bomb plot didn’t quite go as planned and succeeded only in blowing the target’s heel to smithereens. Nonetheless, the act alone was to enter local folklore with the unknown perpetrator quickly attaining the status of a national hero.
Seen as both a patriotic and political action, the intended victim had long been despised by the natives of Nowa Huta and was none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
That someone would want to kill Lenin is perhaps no surprise, what is, however, is that the conspiracy took place fifty-five years after his death. Stranger still, the actual mark wasn’t Lenin per se, but rather the largest Lenin statue in the whole of Poland.
At around midnight on April 17th, 1979, two blasts ripped through the air shattering all the nearby windows.
Erected in Nowa Huta in 1973, the 6.5 metre figure was commissioned after local authorities found themselves questioned as to why a town whose iconic steelworks had been named after Lenin, could not even boast a statue of the man.
Following a competitive process, Marian Konieczny was selected to create the work, and he set about sculpting something that would be every bit as iconic as his Nike monument in Warsaw, and his abominable Monument to the Revolutionary Act in Rzeszów.
Cast in sixty-five parts in Gliwice (Konieczny himself offered a contradictory figure of seventy-three), the bronze statue was then taken to Kraków before being loaded onto a truck bound for Nowa Huta.
It soon became apparent that a pair of bombs had been positioned on the pedestal at Lenin’s feet.
One had succeeded in ripping his ankle off; the other, though, had plopped to the ground and exploded there. The statue remained intact.
Flanked by armed militia vans, the statue finally arrived to Nowa Huta on April 16th, 1973. Hoisted onto a 2.5 metre plinth, it depicted Lenin striding southwards with his mac flapping and his hands clutched firmly behind his back.
Costing over PLN 12 million, it exceeded the original PLN 10 million budget, with the shortfall reputedly made up via ‘contributions’ from the workforce employed in the Lenin Steel Factory.
Solemnly unveiled on April 28th, the ceremony featured speeches from diligent communists and the Deputy Prime Minister. So important was the event, that it was televised in colour with the finale including fireworks, regional bands, a dance ensemble and a piano recital courtesy of the globally renowned Halina Czerny-Stefańska.
The statue was commissioned after local authorities were questioned about why a town whose iconic steelworks had been named after Lenin, could not even boast a statue of the man.
This razzmatazz could not, though, obscure the wave of negativity that the monument elicited. Symbolic of the Soviet Union’s hegemony, it became a loathed landmark that was increasingly subject to pranks and suchlike.
For instance, some dog owners reportedly trained their dachshunds to bark at Lenin whenever he loomed into view whilst other residents would leave substances around the plinth that would encourage the area’s prowling street cats to urinate at the base.
Notable for its awkwardly outsized dimensions, the statue soon found itself nicknamed Godzilla and King Kong by cheeky locals. However, this dislike would reach new and unseen levels on the evening of April 17th, 1979.
Flanked by armed militia vans, the statue finally arrived to Nowa Huta on April 16th, 1973.
At around midnight, two blasts ripped through the air shattering all the nearby windows. In the aftermath, it soon became apparent that a pair of bombs had been positioned on the pedestal at Lenin’s feet.
One had succeeded in ripping his ankle off; the other, though, had plopped to the ground and exploded there. The statue remained intact.
According to historian and author Maciej Mizian, “the only victim was an unfortunate resident of an adjacent building, who, woken by the sudden explosion, was so frightened he had a heart attack.”
Hoisted onto a 2.5 metre plinth, it depicted Lenin striding southwards with his mac flapping and his hands clutched firmly behind his back.
In the months that followed, 4,000 people were questioned with investigators even looking into the backgrounds of school pupils that had demonstrated a particular enthusiasm for chemistry.
Still, their enquiries met a wall of silence and the crime became something of a whodunnit. Only after the statute of limitations had run its course did an individual by the name of Andrzej Szewczuwaniec come forward to claim responsibility.
Gaining fame in 1988 as a strike leader, Szewczuwaniec claimed that he and his friends had planted the six-kilo bombs. According to his account, an old woman happened upon the scene just minutes before the devices were primed to detonate and had to be manhandled away by his colleagues. Had they not intervened, it is certain she would have perished in the blast.
Symbolic of the Soviet Union’s hegemony, it became a loathed landmark that was increasingly subject to attack.
Despite this revelation, many have refused to accept Szewczuwaniec as the assassin with some conspiracy theorists going so far as to claim that the whole caper was the work of Communist secret services – by destroying Lenin, they had hoped to see Nowa Huta locked down, thereby thwarting the upcoming visit of Pope John Paul II.
Whatever the case may be, the statue survived the explosion only to be repeatedly attacked in the years that followed – having been vandalised during Martial Law, angry locals again returned in 1989 with ropes to pull the statue down. When that failed, a militia booth was set on fire in the hope that the flames would envelop Lenin.
By this stage, Solidarity had already assumed power, so it was with a degree of shock that it was their call to send in the riot police to baton charge the unruly crowds.
On December 10th, 1989 the people got their wish and this hated symbol of Communism was removed once and for all.
Finally, on December 10th, 1989 the people got their wish and this hated symbol of Communism was removed once and for all. Sitting in storage for the next three-years, it was subsequently purchased by ‘Big Bengt’, a Swedish millionaire looking to decorate the High Chaparral amusement park outside Stockholm.
Although the monument of Lenin lasted less than 20-years in Nowa Huta, memories of it have not diminished. In the years after, two documentaries were made, the attempted assassination playing a prominent role in both.
Moreover, in 2014 a miniaturised version of the statue was placed where once the original had stood – painted in luminous colours, it depicted Lenin urinating with his appendage in hand. Arousing immediate controversy, it was removed shortly thereafter.
