Poland has removed another Soviet monument as part of long-running efforts to “decommunise” public spaces that have picked up pace in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The “Brothers in Arms” monument in the northwestern town of Nowogard – which depicted Soviet and Polish soldiers – was torn down by a demolition team on Monday 22 July.
That date was not chosen by chance: it was communist Poland’s most important annual holiday, marking the anniversary of the proclamation of the Polish Committee of National Liberation in 1944. That Soviet-backed body, also known as the Lublin Committee, exercised control over Polish territories conquered by the Red Army.
Dziś w Nowogardzie przewrócił się komunistyczny pomnik głoszący odwieczne braterstwo broni polsko – sowieckie 😎 pic.twitter.com/EZ5uj2JxLM
— Leszek Dobrzyński (@l_dobrzynski) July 22, 2024
“The communists not only took away our free and independent Poland, but after 1945 they did everything to subject our national soul and minds to a lobotomy,” said Karol Nawrocki, the head of the state Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), at the demolition, which the IPN funded.
“That is why monuments appeared all over Poland at that time – ahistorical, [expressing] lies and contempt for the victims and tribute to the perpetrators,” he added.
“This is a ‘brotherhood in arms’ that does not take into account the nearly 200,000 lives of Poles murdered as a result of the NKVD operation,” said Nawrocki, referring to a mass ethnic-cleansing action against Poles in the Soviet Union in 1937-38 that killed at least 110,000 people.
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Nowogard’s mayor, Michał Wiatr, declared that the monument has “no place in the public space” and that he “could not wait” for it to be removed, reports news website Wirtualna Polska. Wiatr said that a “beautiful fountain” would be built instead.
Hundreds of local residents gathered to watch the monument being removed, with many applauding as it collapsed.
The monument was one of hundreds erected in communist Poland expressing “gratitude” to the Soviet Red Army for “liberating” the country. Nowogard’s was opened in 1972.
Precz z komuną… pic.twitter.com/IY9lTg50ya
— Karol Nawrocki (@NawrockiKn) July 22, 2024
In 1995, six years after the fall of communism in Poland, it was renamed “Monument to the Veterans of the Republic of Poland” and a Soviet star on one of the soldiers’ helmets was removed.
However, “even in its current form, this object insults all those who fought for a free Poland, especially those who fought the Soviet aggressor”, said Krzysztof Męciński, director of the IPN’s branch in the nearby city of Szczecin.
“The Red Army brought enslavement, murder, rape and robbery to Poland,” he continued. “There is no consent to glorify Soviet bandits in the public space of our homeland.”
A building that served as a Soviet headquarters – and in which prisoners were detained, tortured and executed – has been bought by the Polish government and will be turned into a museum commemorating communist crimes https://t.co/wKGxLowLS9
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) July 8, 2021
In 2016, the then ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government introduced a law requiring local authorities to “decommunise” public spaces by removing objects and names that “propagate communism or other totalitarian systems”.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, efforts to remove large Soviet memorials accelerated. The monument in Nowogard is the 41st in Poland to be torn down since then.
The IPN branch in Szczecin first proposed removing it in 2017 and the plan was approved by the town council. However, it was blocked by Nowogard’s former left-wing mayor until he lost power at this year’s local elections and was replaced by Wiatr.
Poland has removed 20 Soviet monuments since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The head of the state historical body has welcomed the fact that officials are now more willing to take such action, but notes that there are still 40 memorials to be dismantled https://t.co/qOE5PcKPFR
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 28, 2022
The removal of Soviet memorials in Poland has been criticised by Russia, which argues that not only does it dishonour the memory of those who liberated the country from Nazi-German occupation, but also violates a bilateral agreement between the two countries.
Poland has pointed out, however, that the agreement relates only to graves and war cemeteries, not separate monuments and symbols. It also notes that, while the Red Army did push out the German occupiers, its arrival ushered in decades of brutal communist dominance.
Main image credit: Mikołaj Bujak/IPN (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
