Public display or burial

Fighting over Lenin's corpse

Amid the internecine bickering over it, the preserved corpse of Vladimir Lenin could be inching closer to the grave. The long fight has split a Russian history institute and its parent organization over what to do with Lenins body.

One of the defenders of keeping Lenins body on display in the mausoleum just outside the Kremlin where its been since 1924 is former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

In 2001, President Vladimir Putin said he opposed the removal of Lenins body because it might disturb civil peace.

In 2005, Gorbachev said that "Lenins body should eventually be laid to rest at a proper moment in line with his own will", adding that `this moment has not come yet, as reported by the ITAR-Tass news agency." (NewsMax.com, Oct. 11, 2005).

But the record shows that Lenin did not will his body for Red Square public showcasing. He wanted to be buried next to his mother in St. Petersburg.

Gregory Poltavchenko, a regional envoy of President Putin said last September, the body should be taken out of its Red Square mausoleum and buried in a cemetery along with the remains of other Bolshevik dignitaries.

Russian Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov warned that his party would stage a massive disobedience action if authorities try to bury Lenins body.

Gorbachev said the issue could be resolved only on the basis of public accord, but "a great deal is still to be done before stability develops into national accord."

Now a Russian history institute and its parent organization have entered the corpse fray.

"Vladimir Lavrov, the deputy director of the Institute of Russian history, wrote in a letter to a memorial fund for victims of communist-era repression that the bodies of Lenin, dictator Josef Stalin and other Communist luminaries should be removed from Red Square, the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers reported Friday. (NewsMax.com, April 7, 2006). "In the letter, he reportedly said the bodies should be given either to their families or to the Communist Party. "

While Lenin is accorded front stage centre, Stalin and the other dignitaries are buried behind the mausoleum.

"The activity of Lenin and Stalin sent the country into a social-political and spiritual dead-end, slowed its development and isolated it from civilized humanity," Lavrov wrote, according to Vedomosti. "The government should not spend taxpayers money on the maintenance, exhibition and restoration of the body of the leader of the Communist Party."

Controversial even in death, Lenins corpse has been awaiting a decent burial since 1924.

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, Red Square is fenced off and members of the public at large may pass through a checkpoint where they are fleeced for hidden cameras and other forbidden items before walking across the black bricks of the square to the mausoleum.

By most accounts, taking a gander at the clenched fisted corpse of Lenin is a spooky if not macabre experience.

Deader than the proverbial doornail, the corpse of Vladimir Lenin gets decked out in a new suit of clothes every 18 months.

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