New laws in Ukraine will take lots of time, work, and money to put into action. In May, President Petro Poroshenko approved a national ban on Communist symbols.
The country of 45 million people spent more than 70 years under Communist rule. During that time, thousands of large monuments and Communist symbols sprung up. Cities and towns, streets and squares also bear the names of famous Communist leaders.
Statues like the 330-foot tall Motherland Monument in Kyiv will take great effort to remove. Half as tall as the Washington Monument, this huge steel structure portrays a victorious female Soviet soldier with sword and shield.
Difficult as it will be to eradicate these relics of Communism, Ukraine’s leaders are eager to take on the task. They want to reinvent the nation outside of the shadow of its Communist past under Soviet (Russian) rule.
Last year Russia began encroaching on Ukrainian territory. As a result, millions of Ukrainians want to make a clean break with Russia and their Communist past. Already, Ukrainian citizens have destroyed dozens of statues of Communist icon Vladimir Lenin.
But during more than two generations of Communism, many Ukrainians learned to rely on the state for everything. Communism historically removes personal property and distributes wealth across the population. It’s a very different system from capitalism and free enterprise. Under that system, individuals take their own risks but also benefit from their successes. Older people in particular don’t want things to change in Ukraine. They grew up in a culture that treated the government as sovereign. The Communist government took the place of religion and demanded allegiance and patriotism. Many older Ukrainians remain loyal to Russia.
Will removing statues be the beginning of a new Ukraine? Time will tell—and it may take quite some time to change the hearts and minds of citizens to embrace a lifestyle they’ve never known.
