Grave concern over possible Lenin burial

By Elizabeth Piper

MOSCOW (Reuters): They came in the night and picked up the corpse. Taking it out through a secret passage, they buried his mummified remains in the ground behind the red marble mausoleum.

By morning, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had disappeared from his mausoleum and Vladimir Lenin's corpse lay there alone. No trace of Stalin's almost eight-year stay was left -- they had even removed his name, which had adorned the guarded entrance.

That was 1961, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ordered Stalin's removal as the ultimate symbol of his fall from grace.

Now 38 years on, Russia's Communist Party fears there will be a re-run and Lenin, the embodiment of their dying ideology, will be removed and buried, or cremated, in secret.

Many Communists had feared that President Boris Yeltsin would move Lenin's embalmed body on July 17, the anniversary of the day in 1918 when Bolshevik revolutionaries executed Russia's last tsar, his wife and five children.

In the event the day passed without incident.

Many Communist deputies have remained in Moscow, reluctant to return to their constituencies because Yeltsin is taking his summer holiday within striking distance of the Russian capital instead of heading for one of the country's far-flung regions.

They want to stay close to the founder of the Soviet state, fearful his body could be removed at any time.

"Yeltsin could bury Lenin at any moment," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a political analyst who was part of Yeltsin's campaign team in 1996.

"If he buries Lenin, the Communists would need to mount the barricades and fight, or they would not mount the barricades and lose face. Either way, it is a bad deal for the Communists," he said by telephone.

"I would think that he does not have to hurry, but he could."

Yeltsin says he wants to break the cord connecting Russia with its Communist past, so that the ghosts of what he portrays as the "bad old days" cannot return.

And the burial of the Bolshevik revolutionary would purge the most prominent relic of the cult of Lenin, a move which would also remove a powerful symbol from the clutches of Russia's Communist Party.

"He will be buried," Yeltsin said in a rare interview with Russia's Izvestia newspaper. "But the question is when?"

Yeltsin has often called for Lenin's burial but backed down under pressure from the Communists in their power base of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament.

But now, in what analysts call an organized campaign, Russia's Orthodox Church has added its voice to a chorus calling for Lenin to be put to rest.

Patriarch Alexiy II has said Lenin, who was an atheist, deserves a Christian burial -- a ceremony which the Communists fear will be conducted under a veil of secrecy so that it cannot be stopped.

"The problem is serious. Lenin, in his mausoleum, is a historical symbol of our past. On the other hand, I agree with the Patriarch Alexiy II that to display in public the body of someone who died a long time ago is neither humane nor Christian," Yeltsin told Izvestia.

Nikonov agreed that Yeltsin wanted to get rid of Lenin who, helped by his ageless corpse and ever-present image, has endured for 75 years after his death offering a beacon of hope to the Communist faithful in bleak times.

"He fears Russians cannot kill Communism in the country, because he (Lenin) has become such a symbol," Nikonov said, adding however that in a recent poll 55 percent of Russians were in favor of burying Lenin's body.

Lenin's burial would not rid Russia of his image. Statues of him still adorn main squares in provincial cities and his face looks down on travelers from the roof of Moscow's underground system. Many streets still bear his name.

But the Communists' outrage at Yeltsin's statement, and persistent rumors that the 68-year-old leader has already drawn up a decree permitting the ceremony, shows that they fear not only the burial but what could happen next.

Political analysts say Yeltsin has cornered the Communists, suggesting he could ban the party if they protest against Lenin's burial or cause disappointment among their supporters if they are seen to fail to attack the move.

Yeltsin vowed before going on holiday that he would do all he could to ensure democratic forces emerge on top in a parliamentary election due in December and loosen the Communists' grip on the Duma, their power base.

"I consider that the Communists themselves have already 'switched off'. They have collapsed politically," he said in the Izvestia interview.

"Today their chances of winning the elections are falling. And they, of course, now really need to make some noise. They want the president to help them with their fight. If they hype up the hysteria, and break the law, they will act against the decree, and they will be judged."

The Communists' paranoia has hit an all-time high.

Communist parliamentarian Viktor Ilyukhin has voiced fears that Lenin has already been removed and replaced by a wax model.

Turning full circle to the secrecy of Soviet times, conspiracy theories abound over how the body could be removed.

One Russian weekly magazine shows a map of the mausoleum, highlighting a secret passage connecting Lenin's resting place with the Kremlin, which stands behind it.

On a Russian internet site, one contributor quoted sources close to the leadership of the Communist party as saying Yeltsin signed a decree on the burial of Lenin's body a long time ago."

"The plan of action...would not take more than three hours," the contributor says.

Russia's Sevodnya newspaper says a route has already been worked out, flying Lenin's body to Russia's second city of St Petersburg to be buried in the Volkovy cemetery.

The body may also be cremated to stop any further "outrage" or adoration of his corpse, it said, adding that the Communists are having difficulties in dealing with all the surprises.

"This is all trying to push the Communists to a nervous breakdown."