Reinhard Meier on the Lenin legend in Russia

Ninety years after the start of the Russian Revolution, journalist Reinhard Meier writes about the restoration of communism in today's Russia. "Nothing symbolises post-Soviet Russia's ambivalence towards its communist past more potently than the continued presence of the embalmed corpse of the leader of the revolution, Lenin, in the marble mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square, which is still on display like the remains of a saint. Boris Yeltsin was the first democratically elected Russian president to toy with the idea of removing the prominent corpse and finally having it buried - just as Khrushchev had Stalin's corpse removed from the mausoleum and buried next to the Kremlin Wall one dark night. But Yeltsin lacked the courage to make this symbolic break, which would not be free of risk, with the Lenin legend. President Putin no doubt has both the power and the popularity to unequivocally distance himself from the legacy of the October Revolution. But the head of state obviously has no intention of doing so."

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