Vera Mukhina, THE sculptor behind the worker and kolkhoz woman sculpture, would’ve probably convinced people to keep it purely for artistic value. She allegedly did it with the “Freedom monument” in Latvia, but the Latvian “Freedom” statue is so ugly I wouldn’t have listened.
I’d vote to keep it.
But I probably wouldn’t have a vote, because I’m not a USian and wouldn’t be a voting member of the hypothetical people’s republic, and it’s unlikely that I’d be invited onto a consultative committee to deliberate on what to do with it.
In such a hypothetical setting, though, that statue would be a reminder of the lies USians were told. People could see it as aspirational, a benchmark of progress in their new republic if it finally earned the reputation that that torchbearer claimed.
But any decision to keep it would have to be subject to the approval/veto of minority groups who saw it as a symbol of their oppression.
We wouldn’t have to worry about white supremacists shites seeing it as ‘their’ symbol and a rallying cry, because they’ll all either be in gulags (where they can’t see it) or rotting in ditches (where they can’t think about it).