Decommunization

This should not be confused with lustration which is the procedure of scrutinizing holders or candidates for public offices in terms being former informants of the communist secret police.

[12] The process of decommunization and de-sovietization in Ukraine started soon after dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, led by President Leonid Kravchuk, a former high-ranking party official.

[16] In April 2015, a formal decommunization process started in Ukraine after laws were approved which outlawed communist symbols, among other things.

[24] Historian Lukasz Kaminski of the Institute of National Remembrance said, "Memorials in city centers and villages can send the wrong historical signal... What do you think we got, when the Soviets liberated Poland from Hitler, if not a new yoke?

[26][27] In April 2020, a statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev was removed from Prague, which prompted criminal investigation by Russian authorities who considered it an insult.

The Mayor of Prague's sixth municipal district, Ondřej Kolář, announced on Prima televize that he would be under police protection after a Russian man made attempts on his life.

Prime Minister Andrej Babiš condemned that as foreign interference, while Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations of Russian involvement as "another hoax".

[28] In December 2023, the Monument to the Soviet Army in downtown Sofia was partially dismantled and set to be put in the Museum of Socialist Art.

Holmes notes that the only real exception was former East Germany, where thousands of former Stasi informers have been fired from public positions.