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Lenin's tomb, what to do with the body and space?

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With Lenin's Ideas Dead, Russia Weighs What to Do With Body
By C. J. CHIVERS
MOSCOW, Oct. 4 -
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For eight decades he has been lying in state on public display, a cadaver in a succession of dark suits, encased in a glass box beside a walkway in the basement of his granite mausoleum. Many who revere him say he is at peace, the leader in repose beneath the lights. Others think he just looks macabre.

Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?

Revisiting a proposal that thwarted Boris N. Yeltsin, who faced down tanks but in his time as president could not persuade Russians to remove the Soviet Union's founder from his place of honor, a senior aide to President Vladimir V. Putin raised the matter last week, saying it was time to bury the man.

"Our country has been shaken by strife, but only a few people were held accountable for that in our lifetime," said the aide, Georgi Poltavchenko. "I do not think it is fair that those who initiated the strife remain in the center of our state near the Kremlin."

In the unending debate about what exactly the new Russia is, the subject of Lenin resembles a Rorschach inkblot test. People project their views of their state onto him and see what they wish. And so as Mr. Poltavchenko's suggestion has ignited fresh public sparring over Lenin's place, both in history and in the grave, the dispute has been implicitly bizarre and a window into the state of civil society here.

First came a rush to second the idea, from figures including Nikita Mikhalkov, a prominent film director and chairman of the Russian Cultural Foundation, who shares Mr. Poltavchenko's distaste for the relic.

"Vast funds are being squandered on a pagan show," Mr. Mikhalkov told Russian journalists, saying that Lenin himself wished to be buried beside his mother in St. Petersburg. "If we advocate Christian ideals, we must fulfill the will of the deceased."

Then came the backlash. Gennadi I. Zyuganov, leader of Russia's remnant of the Communist Party, lashed out at proponents of moving the remains, insisting that Lenin had no wish to be buried elsewhere.

He also made a pre-emptive strike against any suggestion of relocating other deceased Soviet leaders, who are buried under a lawn behind Lenin's mausoleum. There, along the Kremlin wall, are the remains of Yuri V. Andropov, Leonid I. Brezhnev and Konstantin U. Chernenko, as well as those of Stalin and Feliks Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police.

At a news conference on Friday, Mr. Zyuganov described those who would dare move those Communist figures as people "who do not know the country's history and stretch out their dirty hands and muddy ideas to the national necropolis."

His position has only hardened. "Raising this issue smells of provocation and illiteracy," Mr. Zyuganov said Tuesday in a telephone interview, during which he accused President Putin of hiding behind an aide to test the idea in public. "It seems unlikely that Poltavchenko would come out with a proposal of such desecration of Red Square without approval from the highest power."

Lenin, who led the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, died in 1924 at the age of 53. A near theology rose around him in the ensuing decades.

Depending on who is speaking about him now, he is either a hero or a beast, a gifted revolutionary or a syphilitic mass murderer. (By some accounts he died not of strokes, the official cause of death, but of an advanced case of sexually transmitted disease.)

Some still see in him the architect of a grand and daring social experiment. Others describe an opportunist who ushered vicious cronies to power, resulting in a totalitarian police state. "It is time to get rid of this horrible mummy," said Valeriya Novodvorskaya, head of the Democratic Union, a small reform party. "One cannot talk about any kind of democracy or civilization in Russia when Lenin is still in the country's main square."

She added: "I would not care even if he were thrown on a garbage heap."

Others propose moving Lenin on religious grounds, combining words and ideas rarely associated with the man. Setting aside the matter of Lenin's atheism, Svetlana Orlova, a deputy speaker of the upper house of Parliament, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday that his followers should consider "Lenin's soul, which has been searching for peace."

Informal polls conducted Monday by the radio station Ekho Moskvy found that 65 percent of people who called in, and 75 percent of people who contacted the station via the Internet, said that not just Lenin but all of the Soviet figures should be evicted from Red Square.

But the polls were hardly scientific, and for every Ekho Moskvy listener there often seems to be another Russian who still believes. "The name of Lenin is quite sacred," said Nikolai Kishin, 51, a clerk from the Siberian city of Irkutsk who emerged from the mausoleum on Tuesday, having paid his respects.

Such opposing views cannot be bridged any time soon, but on one point all agree: Lenin, the central symbol of the Soviet period, has survived Russia's transition and found an enduring place in public life.

His once ubiquitous statues may have mostly been torn down in Eastern Europe, but they scowl at passers-by from the Russian Pacific to the Baltic, and it is not hard to find him on pedestals, murals or plaques in nations that have made great show of shaking free from Moscow's reach, including Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.

He loiters even in Grozny, the destroyed capital of Chechnya, the region in southern Russia where separatists have waged war against Moscow for more than a decade. While he is loved by a dwindling number of followers and hated by many, he is tolerated for reasons that mix nostalgia, resignation, political expediency and ennui.

Where Mr. Putin stands is now the central remaining question of Lenin's future address.

Mr. Putin said in 2001 that he did not want to upset the civic order by moving the founder's remains. "Many people in this country associate their lives with the name of Lenin," he said. "To take Lenin out and bury him would say to them that they have worshiped false values, that their lives were lived in vain."

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, said Tuesday that the president's position was unchanged and that he was not allied with Mr. Poltavchenko and others who have embraced his idea. "He is not supporting those who are insisting on removing the body immediately," Mr. Peskov said.

But Ms. Novodvorskaya and Mr. Zyuganov, two politicians who agree on almost nothing, both say the president is testing the reaction.

Ms. Novodvorskaya suggested that the president could find it useful, at a time when he is being portrayed as an autocrat, to lead a catharsis of the Lenin phenomenon. "He is trying to be taken as a democrat in the eyes of the West," she said. "He is also very fond of playing his comedies of national reconciliation."

No matter what Mr. Putin decides, there already are indications that time may ultimately do what no politician has yet achieved. The youngest Russian adults barely recall the Communist times, and some show little interest in looking back.

"Lenin," mused Natasha Zakharova, 23, as she walked off Red Square on Tuesday, admitting that she was not quite sure whose body she had just seen. "Was he a Communist?"

Personally I think that it should remain as it is. It's part of the history and allows people to question and think about the past. Just because you remove buildings and signs doesn't change the history of what happened.

What do you think should happen to the Lenin tomb and the necropolis?

Bury the body, reuse the real estate for other things.

Why not just leave it where it is. If it is getting to expensive to maintain, just seal it up. He doesn't have to be on display.

Better yet, why not keep it open but seal the body in a closed sarcophagus.

I agree that they shouldn't forget their past. Another example of this is the tomb of Napoleon in France.

I think this issue is perfect for the leader of the country to show his qualities.

No debate, no fuss. Just make an announcement.

"This is what's going to happen...

I'm sure Lenin wouldn't be the man he was if he questioned his every action and sought 2nd, 3rd, 4th opinions on everything.

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What do you think should happen to the Lenin tomb and the necropolis?

They should turn it into a trendy wine bar.

Not an easy answer. I am never one to re-write history, and I believe that people should be reminded once in a while that history is not always pleasant.

But if the man is sprouting fungus, and the area is in a state of disrepair... someone should do something.

I remember the guards at Lenin's Tomb. The way they marched, the way they held their rifles for ceremonial drill (fuck man that would suck, I thought Canadian drill was tough) and the way they had to LOOK a certain way. You were chosen by your physical features as well. Imagine someone doing that in the good ol' US of A. "Sorry son, but you don't look 'Marine' enough to do that duty..."

If the Tomb is a symbol of what is holding Russia back, then maybe they need a symbolic change. I say move the body to a more historically appropriate place, like a national museum, or the first place he made a public speech, or the first place he massacred his dissidents!

JK on that last one :)

Build a toilet paper factory

I am a bit biased against this display. My grandfather fled the Bolshevic Revolution. His father, a successful Jew, was killed in a street accident when Grandpa was only 5 or 6. The family began losing everything and a few years later,while he was still young, his mother died of illness and he was left, along with his brother to live with their uncle. Then the Revolution started-Jews were not welcome and they fled to Turkey, but soon after the Russian uprising, the Turks began their ethnic cleansing(the blueprint for Hitler's holocaust) and again they had to flee, coming finally to the US.
Bury him, preferrably in an unmarked grave. Those that followed him are no longer alive anyway. His ideals were murderous and long-since archaic. Hell, hand me a shovel, I'll pitch a few piles of dirt.

I think they should give it to Paul. Ringo can have George's.

It should remain a shrine to the ideals of the working class, which Lenin attempted and failed to implement. It should not be forgotten that Lenin dealt a severe blow to the master class, and destroyed Feudal relations of production in Russia. Unfortunately it was capitalism and not socialism which fille dthe void of the system smashed by Lenin.

Lenin is a Russian and international hero who should be treated with the upmost respect. Its a bit much all these people to clamouring to defile the resting place of the dead to be honest.

All revolutionaires are heroes and should be held in high esteem by those who live in the conditions they create. Millions of people were freed from slavery by Lenin. Yes, wage slavery replaced this total slavery... but the final destruction of feudalism and the creation of social capitalism, the final existing form of capitalism before the greta revolution ios a very important step in human history.

Lenin will be held in higher esteem than Einstein, Lincoln, or Shakespeare in the fullness of time.

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Originally Posted by ngdawg

Leon Trotsky was Jewish

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Originally Posted by Strange Famous

All revolutionaires are heroes and should be held in high esteem by those who live in the conditions they create.

All??? Seriously? Wow. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Wow.

And Hitler was 1/4 Jewish...what's your point? The fact that the leaders of the Revolution renounced their religious heritage does not negate the fact that it was a violent, killing revolution and those that did not embrace it were driven out, imprisoned or killed. Trotsky himself was imprisoned when he and Lenin parted ways for a time. He later embraced the idealism and became prominent in it. But for all the biographies, no mention is made of the fate of his own prominent Jewish family.
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At the end of the 19th century there was an estimated 5,500,000 Jews living in Russia. Under a law introduced by Alexander III, all Russian Jews were forced to live in what became known as the Pale of Jewish Settlement. Exceptions were made for rich business people, students and for certain professions. The Pale comprised the ten Polish and fifteen neighbouring Russian provinces, stretching from Riga to Odessa, from Silesia to Vilna and Kiev.

After the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 there was a wave of pogroms in Russia against the Jewish community. This led to a large increase in Jews leaving Russia. Of these, more than 90 per cent settled in the United States.

A significant number of Jews played leading roles in the October Revolution. This included Leon Trotsky, Gregory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Dimitri Bogrov, Karl Radek, Yakov Sverdlov, Maxim Litvinov, Adolf Joffe, and Moisei Uritsky.

On 10th July, 1918, the Soviet government passed a law that abolished all discrimination between Jews and non-Jews. This resulted in a considerable amount of Jewish migration within the Soviet Union.

As I had stated, my greatgrandfather was a prominent business man( we believe he owned a sweater factory at the time he was killed)My grandfather and his family fled before this law in 1918 came into effect, but rather than return to Russia, they came to the US as the Turkish Holocaust was beginning

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Originally Posted by BigBen931

Imagine someone doing that in the good ol' US of A. "Sorry son, but you don't look 'Marine' enough to do that duty..."

From what I understand there are physical requirements (height among them) for presidential support duty in the Marine Corps.

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Originally Posted by mrklixx

I think they should give it to Paul. Ringo can have George's.

Best. Post. Ever.

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Originally Posted by ngdawg

And Hitler was 1/4 Jewish...what's your point?

No he wasn't. Although many people claim it, sound evidence has never been presented to support the claim.

Lenin, as much as I despise the result of the ideology he furthered, deserves to have his corpse treated respectfully. I don't really care if they bury it or not, but it sounds like the corpse has seen better days. If he is starting to decompose, they should build a nice mausoleum for him and bury the body inside.

The current displaying area can be changed into a WalMart, that great symbol of capitolism. What's up now, Comrade?

A Russian asking if Lenin was a Communist had to be the high point of this article.

I say they should give it to a major military industrial company, say Lockheed-Martin , in the united states to enshrine in front of their financial department.

I bet they will take better care of it there than in Russia.

Hell they could depleted-uranium-plate it.

Anti-semitism in the soviet union? Certainly it existed, but it was the bolshevik revolution which ended the sanctioned pogroms of the Tsar, toppled his secret police - publishers of the "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion" - and granted Jews full rights as citizens.

As for Lenin's corpse?
It's a corpse - I could care less what happens to it either way . . .
But I'd love it if an attempt to remove it served as a rallying point for a resurgent Russian left.

A man that will be remembered over Lincoln, Einstein, or Shakespeare certainly should have corpse his respected. A man like Lenin however who furthered a moronic and flawed idealogy that is ultimately responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions world wide should be a remembered for what he is, a skidmark of the history of the world... I second the notion of an unmarked grave, to be nameless, a pathetic icon of an era and idealogy easily and happily forgotten.

All the vitriol against Lenin... why I could say the same thing about Reagan, but I digress...

Anyway that article has several points wrong the two most glaring of which are that yes the golden boy of liberal democracy in Russia, Yeltsin, had infact ordered tanks to shell the Russian pariliament in 1993 after his "democracy" didn't go his way, killing many members of parliament in the process.

Secondly, Lenin himself wanted to be buried next to his mistress, not his mother as the article claims.

Lenin was a great man, ideologist and politician, he cunningly exploited the apathetic czar Nicholas in order to seize control and begin to turn Russia from an agrarian state into an industrial power. His works are still one of the most scathing critiques of capitalism ever written, which are still applicable today.

Now that my personal convictions about the man are out of the way... In Russian culture there is a strong respect for the dead, all the dead must be eventually committed to the ground in order to put their soul to rest. I believe that Lenin (if that is still him, not a wax dummy or a modern day Argo dilemma) should be buried on the grounds of the Kremlin alongside the other Sovied leaders. The grounds of the Red Square themselves are sacred, his mausoleum should be flattened and a plaque explaining who Lenin was, and what stood on this site should be left at that place, that is all.

What I think will happen, Putin would leave it just as it is, doing away without would be against his ideology and would make him very unpopular.

well, fark.com made an offer to buy Lenin. . . .capitalism meets the ultimate communist ;)

As much as some of us would love to see the corpse cremated or disposed of in some obsurd way I think it would probably be best that they bury him with the other former leaders, wise and unwise ones alike. To do otherwise would be lowering themselves to his level of disrespect for the dead. To bury the corpse does not have to be a way of showing respect for the man but a respect for live and death in general. I do believe he should be buried and the former monument turned into a simple declaration of what once stood there and what the man did with his life. It was a crucial formative part of what Russia is today and affected the rest of the world for decades so to wipe it clean and remove it completely would be allowing other's to forget. To forget our history means we will be doomed to repeat it someday.