Calls to bury Lenin’s body 100 years after the October Revolution will lead to mass unrest, the leader of Russia’s Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov warned on Monday.
The looming centenary of the October Revolution has reignited public debate over whether revolutionary leader’s remains — currently housed in a mausoleum in Red Square — should be buried.
Some public figures in Russia including Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko and 2018 presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, back a referendum to settle the public debate.
“All the chatter about reburial has no grounds other than an attempt to pit generations against each other on Red Square and organize riots,” the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited Zyuganov as telling reporters.
Zyuganov slammed Lenin’s post-Soviet depiction as the German empire’s mole sent to Russia to help Germany win World War One as "filmed forgeries.”
“People who do this are digging a hole for modern Russia, people who don’t respect the heroism of their fathers and grandfathers deserve no understanding or basic respect,” the Interfax news agency cited him as saying.
A state-backed pollster earlier this year said that 60 percent of Russians surveyed this year want Lenin’s body removed from his mausoleum, while one-third want his body buried as soon as possible.
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