Pomnik Lenina i Stalina w Ołomuńcu, Socialist monument in Olomouc, Czech Republic
The Lenin and Stalin Monument in Olomouc was a sandstone sculpture about 7–8 metres tall, more than half of it a square-based pedestal. It showed Stalin with a paper scroll on the left, Lenin on the right, and a worker carrying a flag, a composition compared to the Holy Trinity Column nearby.
The monument was built between 1949 and 1955 on the site of a former synagogue destroyed by the Nazis in 1939. It marked the transformation of the location under the new communist government that took control after World War II.
The sandstone base carried the inscription "S.K. Neumann — to you thanks and love — 7 November 1955, in the tenth year of the liberation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet Army — the people of the Olomouc Region". Two large stone bowls with figure reliefs stood in front, meant for an eternal flame but later planted with flowers.
The monument was dismantled in January 1990 and cut into stone blocks; the monumental base was destroyed during removal. The fragments were donated to the Museum of Art in January 2007 and are kept in its depository, not on public display. The site on today's Palachovo náměstí is now a parking lot owned by the Olomouc Jewish community.
In February 1989, students covered the monument with red paint and placed an executioner's hood on Stalin's head as an act of protest. This action became a powerful symbol against communist rule just months before the system collapsed.
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