At its heart lay Aleja Róż, a pedestrianized artery flanked by mammoth apartment blocks; it was this boulevard that was chosen to house a statue of Lenin.

The idea to build such a monument was born as the centenary of Lenin’s birth approached, with the competitive process to find a suitable design drawing 68 entrants.

From these, it was Marian Konieczny’s submission that was selected on account of its perceived dynamism—seen as a physical representation of the 1917 October Revolution, it depicted a striding Lenin with his trademark cap in hand and a billowing overcoat trailing behind.

The foundation stone was laid on April 20, 1970, two days shy of what would have been Lenin’s 100th birthday, and accompanied by speeches, revolutionary songs, and recitals of the Polish and Soviet national anthems. Such was the scale of the project, though, it would be another three years until the monument was completed.

Cast in bronze at a workshop in the southern city of Gliwice, it was created in 65 segments that were later bolted together with 1,600 screws.

Once finished, the statue was transported to Krakow under police escort and on April 16, 1973, it was hoisted onto a 2.8-meter pedestal in an operation that lasted 90 minutes. Twelve days later, it was officially unveiled in a ceremony attended by party dignitaries and tens of thousands of people.

Despite this seeming show of public approval, from the outset the statue was deeply unpopular with the locals.

While Nowa Huta had been built as a showcase Communist district, dissent was rife. This would be amplified further by the Lenin statue—although much of the cost was borne by state funds, the shortfall was allegedly covered by bonus money intended for those working at the steel factory.

On state occasions, party loyalists would lay flowers at the statue—which would earn the nickname King Kong because of its lumbering form—but for most it would become a symbol of Soviet hegemony and enslavement.

This resentment would reach a crescendo on the evening of April 17, 1979, when an explosive charge was placed at Lenin’s feet.

The resulting blast succeeded only in blowing a portion of Lenin’s heel off and shattering every window in the vicinity. Unfortunately, one local was said to have been so startled by the explosion that he dropped dead of a heart attack.

Who the culprit was remains one of the great whodunnits of the era—5,500 people were grilled by security services, but no one was ever charged.

Some fingers pointed to one Tadeusz Winczewski, but this was never proved. The suspect was executed in 1982 for the murder of a policeman.

Although a local political agitator by the name of Andrzej Szewczuwianiec would later take credit, the veracity of his claim has been widely disputed and some have even gone so far as to suggest the attack was an inside job conducted by the authorities to prevent Pope John Paul II from visiting Nowa Huta.

Thereafter, a guard booth was positioned next to Lenin to prevent future attacks, but this too would become a target—given that every anti-Communist demonstration in Nowa Huta would usually gravitate towards the monument, this guardhouse would often find itself mobbed and its occupants stripped of their clothes.

These attacks increased in intensity in 1989. Poland’s so-called Roundtable Talks and a legislative election that year saw the Communists lose their vice-like grip on power and this emboldened protestors seeking to accelerate change. In November and December, angry mobs targeted the Lenin statue four times, only to be repelled by the riot police on each occasion.

To all concerned, it was clear that December 13—the eighth anniversary of the declaration of martial law—would see another attempt made to remove the much-hated statue, so to avert further trouble, authorities moved in to dismantle Lenin on December 10.

Spirited away to a fort in southwestern Poland, there it sat in storage for the next three years before being sold to businessman Bengt Erlandsson for $100,000. Transported to Sweden, today it stands on display in his cowboy-inspired High Chaparral Theme Park.

Yet as fleeting as the statue’s presence was in Nowa Huta, it is remembered to this day and has inspired several documentaries, books, exhibitions, paintings, performances and art projects.

In 2014, a miniature copy of the statue returned to Nowa Huta as part of a modern art project. Painted neon yellow and depicting a urinating Lenin, this cheeky fountain-like object inflamed opinion much like the original and has since been shifted to Nowa Huta’s House of Utopia cultural center, where it happily urinates to this day.