Donetsk workers' union sues company for insulting Lenin (12/02/01)

Donetsk workers' union sues company for insulting Lenin

RFE/RL Poland, Belarus and Ukraine Report

DONETSK - The local branch of the All-Ukrainian Union of Workers in Donetsk has sued a local trade company for using the image of Vladimir Lenin "in a distorted and insulting form" in its advertisements, Interfax reported on November 16.

On billboards displayed by the company, Lenin calls on Donetsk residents to buy a "truly bourgeois stove" (burzhuika). The colloquial term "burzhuika" - denoting a small, movable stove - was very popular in the post-October Revolution era, and for many in the post-Soviet bloc this word still evokes an image of Bolsheviks (or even Lenin himself) warming themselves beside the fire kindled in such a heater.

"This insult to the image and name of the leader of the world proletariat - an outstanding scholar and politician, the founder of the world's first state of workers and peasants - offends all people of all generations and, in the first place, the working people who have been brought up under socialism and adhere to Marxist-Leninist ideas," the Donetsk workers' union wrote in support of its lawsuit. [The union demanded $1 million hrv ($190,000) from the company in damages to be paid to the city budget.

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