Russians undecided on what should happen to
Lenin remains
By JONATHAN LUXMOORE
Special to the National Catholic Reporter
When Russias communist members of parliament urged followers
last summer to defend the mausoleum housing the body of Vladimir Ilich Lenin
(1870-1924), it touched off the latest of many rows to engulf this
controversial Moscow landmark.
Since Soviet rule collapsed, no communist emblem has been more
argued over than the tinted-marble Red Square edifice, where the ghoulish
remains of the Bolshevik revolutions leader have been viewed by millions
for over eight decades.
Pressure is strong to have Lenin moved.
Of course, many people dont really care whether he
stays or not, explained Sergei Filatov, a Russian religious sociologist.
Yet his presence has symbolic importance for democrats, who want him out,
and for communists who say he must stay.
Many believe communist rule will finally be laid to rest only when
its mastermind is buried with it.
The Catholic church has no official position, western
Russias vicar-general, Fr. Antoni Hej, told NCR.
For communists who hold the parliamentary majority, Lenin is
still the leader -- since his mausoleum is their temple, its obvious
theyll keep on defending it. But there are plenty of other Russians who
believe todays problems all arise from the fact that he still isnt
buried.
When the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, even non-communists argued
pragmatically in favor of keeping Lenins body in place, believing it was
risky to remove the symbolic mainstays of the Soviet state too quickly.
However, Russias still-entrenched communists had deeper
ideological reasons for defending the mausoleum.
In 1997, they forced through a Duma resolution forbidding the Red
Squares architectural reconstruction. In 1998, the head of
Russias Communist Youth League, Igor Maliarov, even called for
Lenins body to be cloned.
Despite this, the great helmsman faces tough opposition.
Before his Dec. 31, 1999, resignation, President Boris Yeltsin
proposed burying Lenin alongside his mother, Maria Alexandrovna, in St.
Petersburgs Volvovsky Cemetery, and even hinted at a national referendum.
He also urged the removal of other communist figureheads buried in
the nearby Kremlin Wall, including Soviet bosses Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov
and Konstantin Chernenko, as well as U.S. journalist John Reed and Lenins
lover Inessa Armand.
Press reports said plans were laid two years ago to have Lenin and
the murdered Tsar Nicholas II interred in parallel St. Petersburg ceremonies as
a mark of national reconciliation.
In the end, only Nicholas and his family were consigned to dust in
the citys Petropavlovsk Cathedral.
The head of Russias dominant Orthodox church also
recommended Lenins burial last May, in the first such statement by a
church leader.
Its immoral that rock concerts are taking place in Red
Square next to a cemetery, Patriarch Alexei II said during a procession
from the Kremlins Virgin Mary Basilica. Red Square is a beautiful
place which was turned into a cemetery for revolutionary activists. I hope a
pantheon can be set up instead or some other burial place for their
remains.
Lenin was embalmed two months after his death on Jan. 21, 1924,
against the wishes of his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, who outlived him by 15
years.
The Red Square mausoleum was opened the following August by an
Immortalization Commission and replaced by the present building in 1930, from
where Soviet leaders traditionally reviewed parades.
However, many Russians view the gray-and-black mausoleum as a
cursed place.
Church leaders have traditionally urged visitors to pray before
entering the building in recognition of the sufferings unleashed by
Lenins theories, which historians say led to the deaths of up to 35
million people in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
Jesuit Fr. Stanislaw Opiela, who became secretary of Russias
newly formed Catholic Bishops Conference a year ago, is cautious about
talk of curses.
Evil spirits exist everywhere, so one shouldnt attach
importance to this, the 61-year-old Polish priest said.
Personally, I see no reason to move him, since hes a
part of Russian history. Though the mausoleum is important for communists as a
place of pilgrimage, I dont think it has great significance for most
other people.
Pressure looks certain to continue.
In his May 1999 speech, Patriarch Alexei urged politicians to
tackle the issue carefully, so as not to divide society at such a
sensitive time.
However, a communist Duma deputy, Yuri Nikiforenko, accused
Yeltsins Kremlin recently of making new plans to have the body removed by
underground tunnel in the dead of night.
In a Dec. 31, 1999, poll to identify the centurys greatest
Russians, readers of the Izvestiya daily placed Lenin second behind former
human rights dissident Andrei Sakharov and just ahead of writer Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Russias latest strongman, acting President Vladimir Putin,
still hasnt pronounced on Red Squares famous horizontal inhabitant.
Filatov doubts hell be in a hurry to do so.
Putin is too busy trying to gather all parties, communists
included, into one block for this Marchs presidential election. He
isnt following Yeltsins confrontational politics, Filatov
told NCR.
Meanwhile, even Patriarch Aleksi is now watching his words
carefully. Hes merely said he hopes Lenin will be taken away sometime,
when it wont cause social tension.
National Catholic Reporter, February 11,
2000
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