Under the law, monuments are to be erected and dismantled as resolved by a given “territorial community” represented by the local self-government. Are there such executive authorities in Kyiv? The obvious answer is in the negative. No Mayor of Kyiv, no Kyiv City State Administration. The term of office of the previous one ended on June 2. The Constitution of Ukraine does not provide for a renewal of this term. Article 141 has it in black and white that this term is five years, period. On May 30, 2013, the Constitutional Court ruled that all scheduled elections to the Verkhovna Rada, the Supreme Council of the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea, town, village, city and city district councils be held simultaneously all over Ukraine, on the last Sunday of October of the fifth year in office (that began on October 10, 2010).
After this questionable CC ruling the Verkhovna Rada could appoint early municipal elections, so as to secure scheduled ones in 2015. The lawmakers, however, decided to follow the well-trodden path pulling the judicial levers and added two years to the term of office – and the Constitution be damned. Article 38 of the Constitution reads that each citizen has the right to elect and be elected to the local self-government. Ethically speaking, it was a slap in the face of the entire Kyiv community, an act of blackmail. This time, on the crest of the wave of mass protests, the monument to Lenin was destroyed. The reasons behind the act lie deeper than meets the eye, because the state has been blackmailing its people and then the thing hit the fan.
I can’t say that I wholeheartedly support what Svoboda people did to the statue. Among other things such acts tap into the energy of struggle. Instead of campaigning against Yanukovych and his administration, the pertinent websites are now packed with debates on Lenin. What happened in Bessarabka city district on December 9 spread in the midst of the Euromaidan. Guess whose hands this is playing into? Indeed, apart from the circumstances in which the monument to Lenin was toppled, in the historical context, considering that the capital of Ukraine claims the status of a European city, there is no room here for communist totalitarian symbols. Other post-Soviet countries have transferred such symbols and monuments to special sites. Lenin created the Red empire and many Bolshevik atrocities in Ukraine are associated with his name, ranging from the first occupation in December 1917 – January 1918, when Bolshevik commanders like Muravyov shed people’s blood in Kyiv, to the Holodomor and repressions architected by his successor, Joseph Stalin. Of course, I wouldn’t want Lenin to return to Kyiv. A woman in labor suffers attacks of pain. Many would not want to watch a video with the process, but with the passage of time such unpleasant aspects are forgotten for the joy of watching the child grow. Political passions will abate and the destruction of the remaining monument to Lenin in Kyiv will be regarded as another event in the painful process of parting with the totalitarian past.
