To Bury or Not to Bury
Today’s NY Times once again raises the question of what to do with V. I. Lenin, whose body remains mummified in his mausoleum on Red Square. The debate reared its head after a senior Putin aid, Georgii Poltavchenko remarked, “Our contry has been shaken by strife, but only a few people were held accountable for that in out lifetime. I do not think it is fair that those who initiated the strife remain in the center of out state near the Kremlin.”
This question seems to come up every so often. Yelstin wanted to bury him in the 1990s as a way to symbolize the transition from the old regime to the new one. The effort failed. It was seen as too soon. Too many people attached their lives and their national pride to Lenin. Putin has refused to move forward on burying him, rightly observing, “Many people in this ..read more
