In wake of Charlottesville, some attention turns to Fremont's Lenin statue

SEATTLE -- A controversial statue in a Seattle neighborhood is once again getting some attention.

On Wednesday, six marchers led by conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec gathered at a bronze sculpture of Vladimir Lenin in Fremont.

The small group gathered around the statue,  trying to draw attention to Lenin's history and the alleged hypocrisy of those who want Confederate statues torn down, but appear fine with Lenin.

Posobiec and others garnered little attention in person, but live video of the group was viewed more than 50,000 times.



Posobiec climbed to national attention recently following a retweet from President Donald Trump. He is a naval intelligence officer, according to NBC News, and  has falsely accused Hillary Clinton of running a pedophile ring out of a pizza place in Washington, D.C.

Holocaust-denier and former leader of the KKK David Duke also retweeted about the statue Tuesday.

The statue is privately owned and on private property. It's also for sale for $250,000, according to the Seattle Times.

But it's not just extreme-right personalities who have advocated tearing down the statue. Seattle's Geekwire reported Tuesday venture capitalist and critic of Trump Benedict Evans also wanted the statue gone.



"It's not complicated," Evans said on Twitter. "Lenin was a mass-murderer. I don't think there should be statues of such people."

Fremont is not the statue's first home. It was installed in the Sloviakia in 1988. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, it was torn down.

An American military veteran and teacher spotted the sculpture in Eastern European scrap yard 1989, and mortgaged his house to bring the sculpture to Issaquah. The teacher recognized the statue as a piece of art, regardless of its subject.

The statue is now owned by the teacher's family, and it sits at the "temporary viewing" site in Fremont while it's for sale.

According to Fremont.com, the presence of the sculpture is supposed to illicit a wide range of responses as a piece of art.

“If art is supposed to make us feel, not just feel good, then this sculpture is a successful work of art,” the website reads. “The challenge is to understand that this piece means different things to different people and to learn to listen to each other and respect different opinions. From an artists standpoint, all points of view are valid and important."


The statue is often doused in red paint to draw attention to the atrocities committed while Lenin led the Soviet Union.