Lenin Poleaxed: Polish company pulls ad campaign after public condemnation

Get short URL

Published time: January 09, 2013 13:24
Edited time: January 09, 2013 17:34

An advertising poster by one of Polish mobile operators featuring a caricature of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is pictured in Warsaw on January 8, 2013. (AFP Photo/Janek Skarzynski)

Tags

Europe, Scandal

A leading Polish mobile operator had to retract its newly-launched advertising campaign featuring Soviet communist leader Vladimir Lenin after facing a wave of protests.

In the ads for Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa, a cartoon of Lenin urged customers to sign up for the company’s newest offer.

The use of Lenin for marketing purposes outraged Polish activists. Lukasz Kaminski, head of the Institute of National Remembrance, condemned the campaign, saying it “is irresponsible and trivializes mass crimes and their victims.”

INR is a Polish government-affiliated organization mainly investigating Nazi and Soviet crimes committed in Poland between 1939 and 1989.

The mobile company reacted immediately by shutting the controversial campaign down.

“In view of the unfavorable comments that have been expressed against the campaign, as well as the emergence of ideological threads in the discussion, we have decided to end [the campaign],” the company said in the official statement.

Along with other Soviet Communist leaders, the name of Lenin invokes negative sentiment in Poland, as many still remember the crimes committed by the Soviet Union against the Polish people.

In May 2012, protests broke out in Polish Gdansk as Lenin`s name was temporarily reinstated for a movie shoot.

Over a hundred protesters gathered together singing “We will hang communists on the trees instead of leaves” and throwing eggs at portraits of communist leaders.

An advertising poster by one of Polish mobile operators featuring a caricature of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is pictured in Warsaw on January 8, 2013. (AFP Photo/Janek Skarzynski)

Comments (9)

Johnny (unregistered) 10.01.2013 03:23

Can't they tell between Lenin and Stalin ?? (unregistered) wrote in #7
@Johnny: Under the Soviet block ?? Lenin had nothing to do with taking over Poland, it was taken over by Stalin in late WW2, Lenin died back in 1929 so way before WW2 even started and even before the Spanish Civil War, yet Stalin "Liberated" Poland back in 1944 or 1945, so AFTER Stalin had hijacked Communism and effectively "Liberated" Poland from Hitler...The Soviet Block outside of Russia and Ukraine had been formed during the end of WW2...
Lenin designed the Soviet ideology of spreading revolution. Stalin followed this same ideology. Lenin tried to take over Poland and link up with communists in Germany in order to spread revolution to all of Europe in 1919. This resulted in the Polish-Soviet war. Poland stopped the Bolsheviks in 1920. Stalin did what Lenin failed to do at the end of WW2 and in the early post war period.

Undo

redandwhite 09.01.2013 23:05

Most of the leading communists in Russia and Europe were Jews,
from Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Uritsky, Kaganovitch, Kamenev, Sverdlov.

In fact at the early stages over 80 percent of leading communists were Jews.

They killed tens of millions of Russians (and Eastern Europeans),
they killed the Czar (and his family) one of the richest people ever,

Im no supporter of them.

But someone had it right Hitler did kill more Poles than Stalin.

Undo

Can't they tell between Lenin and Stalin ?? (unregistered) 09.01.2013 21:56

@Johnny: Under the Soviet block ?? Lenin had nothing to do with taking over Poland, it was taken over by Stalin in late WW2, Lenin died back in 1929 so way before WW2 even started and even before the Spanish Civil War, yet Stalin "Liberated" Poland back in 1944 or 1945, so AFTER Stalin had hijacked Communism and effectively "Liberated" Poland from Hitler...The Soviet Block outside of Russia and Ukraine had been formed during the end of WW2...

Undo

View all comments (9)