Monument to the Four Communists

Location: Grūtas Park (Druskininkai), Lithuania

Completed: 1973

Sculptors: Bronius Vyšniauskas and Napoleon Petrulis

Genre: Soviet monument, former USSR

The monument is dedicated to Rapolas Čarnas, Kazys Giedrys, Juozas Greifenberger and Karolis Požėla. All four were active in the Communist Party of Lithuania and soon after the (17th December) 1926 Lithuanian coup d’état, which resulted in the country’s democratically elected government being ousted by a conservative authoritarian one under the leadership of the Lithuanian interwar politician, Antanas Smetona, they were arrested along with other socialists. The four men were charged with organising an anti-government armed rebellion and sentenced to death by shooting, which took place at Kaunas’s Sixth Fort on 27th December 1926. The monument was originally erected in Kaunas and is now on display at Grūtas Park, a communist-themed sculpture park near Druskininkai.