Fremont’s giant Vladimir Lenin statue carries a complicated history—locally and globally

In the heart of Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, a larger- than-life man positioned in front of guns and flames sternly surveys the streets. Depending on the time of year, he might be dressed in a colorful outfit to celebrate Pride or wearing a large, brightly lit star for the holidays. But recently, his decorations have been a bit more pointed: A thick coating of bright red paint covers his open hand.

This is Seattle’s 16-foot-tall bronze statue of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the notorious Russian revolutionary known for leading the Soviet Union and subsequently causing the deaths and oppression of tens of millions of people in the early 20th century. Unlike many statues that depict Lenin as a scholar or with outstretched hands, this work casts him in an aggressive, battle-ready posture.

For more than two decades, his likeness has been featured in this quirky neighborhood. And for just as long, the piece has been a source of controversy. While some see it as yet another whimsical part of the neighborhood, others view it as paying homage to a villain. But at a time of political turbulence in the U.S. and pushback against the country’s many confederate statues, for some, the controversy surrounding this art piece took renewed sense of urgency.

“We’re becoming very sensitive to the fact that history has long tentacles and that just because something happened 100 years ago or 200 hundred years ago, in the case of other statues, doesn’t mean that we’re not still living with the consequences of that history,” says Leonard Garfield, executive director of the Museum of History & Industry in Seattle. “I think we have come to the point in our own national dialogue that we no longer can just walk past statues and say that, yes, that’s the history we want to pay homage to.”

Shutterstock

Created in 1988 by Slovakian sculptor Emil Venkov as part of an arts competition, the piece was toppled during the 1989 Revolution. Issaquah entrepreneur Lew Carpenter, discovered it while visiting Poprad, Slovakia, and was so taken with the seven-ton scultpure that he decided he wanted to buy it from the city. It took months to get the deal approved by local officials, but when it finally went through, he purchased it for $13,000, according to a 1994 Seattle Times article. It took him another $27,000 to transport it by ship, train, and truck to Issaquah.

It’s attracted plenty of controversy, dating back to when it first reached the United States. In a 1993 Seattle Times letter to the editor published shortly after the statue arrived, reader Nick Shultz questioned the presence of the statue: “Lenin was a calculating, cold-blooded killer whose handiwork ultimately led directly to the death of millions.” Two years later, reader Mary Ann Curtis wrote that she was thrilled to see the statue. “Lenin gets a bad rap because he is falsely equated with Stalin’s reign of terror,” Curtis wrote.

Carpenter had plans to open a restaurant and wanted to mount the statue in front of the business. But just one year after successfully transporting it to Issaquah, at the age of 45, he died in a two-car accident on Stevens Pass.

That’s when bronze sculptor Peter Bevis, who founded the Fremont Fine Arts Foundry, took the Lenin statue reins. In 1995, he told the Seattle Times he felt it was important to make sure Carpenter finished his project. Although Carpenter’s family wanted to sell the art, Bevis worked out an arrangement in which the Fremont Chamber would hold the statue in a trust for as long as it takes to find a buyer.

It’s been in Fremont ever since, and although offers have been made, the statue has yet to be purchased.

Today, it sits on private property and is privately owned, but its central location at the intersection of Fremont Place North, North 36th Street and Evanston Avenue North, and size make it extremely difficult to miss. There’s a plaque next to it that explains the history of the piece and that its purpose is “to serve as a reminder of an important historical period.”

Shutterstock

But questions remain about when historical figures should (and should not) be immortalized through public art.

Earlier this year, 15 Washington state lawmakers proposed getting rid of the statue. The legislation stated, the piece “does not meet the standards of being one of our state’s top honorees with a statue display in Seattle.” It recommended creating a work group that would propose a historical figure to replace it. The bill never made it out of committee.

The bill followed renewed attention—and opposition—to the display. In 2017, following the deadly violence in Charlottesville and impromptu protests around the statue, then-mayor Ed Murray called for its removal. “We should never forget our history, but we also should not idolize figures who have committed violent atrocities and sought to divide us based on who we are or where we came from,” he said during an interview with KIRO Radio 97.3. But aside from the occasional acts of vandalism—think shaving cream and paint—the statue has remained intact and stationary.

There are plenty of people who have more positive views of the statue. Some see it as a reminder about this turbulent political period and an effective way to prompt conversations about Lenin’s atrocities. Others view it as simply another one of Fremont’s quirky features, similar in spirit to the Fremont Rocket aimed at City Hall or the giant troll crushing a decommissioned bug. It’s “a comic, and cosmic, poke in the eye to authoritarianism, by a community that epically fails to be serious about, well, everything,” wrote Kirby Laney, the writer behind the Fremocentrist, a neighborhood news website.

Whatever your view, Garfield says it’s important to remember that by nature, statues function as a tool for honoring and paying homage to the individuals they depict. If the neighborhood is going to keep Lenin in public view, he said, there should be work done to bring all of the many different perspectives on this statue together.

“There should be a conversation that engages all of those opinions so that we have a better understanding of those opinions and then perhaps begin to think about how do we go forward, if we do go forward,” he says.