Protesting Poles Set Statue of Lenin on Fire in 2nd Attack

KRAKOW, Poland —  In the second such attack in a week, protesters hurled paint and gasoline onto a bronze statue of Lenin and set it afire before police broke up the anti-Soviet disturbance, the official news agency reported today.

The demonstrations have put the Solidarity-led government in the uncomfortable position of having to defend the monument in Nowa Huta, built outside Krakow in the 1950s as a model socialist industrial city.

Several hundred young people attacked the statue--which is in the center of Nowa Huta--creating a fire fueled with benches from nearby parks, the PAP news agency said.

The demonstrators chanted “Down with the Commies!” and “Soviets Go Home!” then moved to a police station in a housing district where they pelted officers with rocks and threw more gasoline bombs, the agency said.