The Russian Government is planning to remove Lenin's embalmed body from Moscow's Red Square and give it a decent burial in some cemetery. It is time the ideologue, after lying for 80 years in Red Square, following in the footsteps of the ideology was given a grave, too. Mikhail Gorbachev, who presided over the demise of Lenin's USSR in 1991, has cautioned Kremlin against undue haste in burying Lenin. But President Vladimir Putin feels Russia is already late. His predecessor Boris Yeltsin had also brought such a proposal during his tenure but could not persuade the Russians.

It is a mystifying as to why the Russians, who demolished many statues of Marx, Lenin and Stalin, stopped short of burying Lenin's body. Perhaps their enslaved mindset could not catch up with the abrupt reality of freedom. It is like the Hindus of India who could not get the better of their mindset under Islamic rule; and still spend public money in beautifying their mausoleums. Whether it is under the Romanov monarchy or Bolshevik Communism, the Russian people have remained oppressed and marginalised.

Today, there are many people in Russia who can openly say they want Lenin to go. One Georgi Poltavchenko feels that the one who started all the strife in Russia should not remain at the centre of the state beside Kremlin. Nikita Mikhalov, an eminent film director and chairman of Russian Cultural Foundation, says that vast funds are squandered away every year to maintain a 'pagan show'.

Lenin's corpse lies encased in a glass box for public viewing. He is perhaps the world's only dead man for whom suits are still tailored. But his embalmed body occasionally sprouts fungi and needs medical attention. His admirers say he is resting in peace, but others find him ghastly. Mikhalov,no doubt, is a Russian Orthodox who wants Lenin to be buried beside his mother's grave in St Petersburg 'as Lenin had wanted it'. No one is sure whether Lenin wanted a Christian burial or cremation.

But most feel it will be humane to end this 80-year long postscript to a 56-year long life with a decent burial. Valeriya Novodvorskaya, who heads a small reform party named Democratic Union, will not be bothered even if the body was thrown into a garbage bin. But 'that horrible mummy' must go from Red Square else no talk of democracy or civilisation is possible in Russia. Then there are others who feel not only Lenin but all other Communist stalwarts who lie beneath the ground beside Kremlin too should be removed.

Mr Putin, however, still insists on taking majority of Russians into confidence before removing Lenin's mummy. There was an interesting anecdote from New Delhi. It was in 1987 when the erstwhile Soviet Union was celebrating the 70th year of its establishment and India 40 years of its independence, that a full-size asthadhatu (alloy of eight metals) statue of Lenin was installed in Nehru Park, located in Chanakyapuri, also known as the diplomatic enclave in New Delhi. It was unveiled by then Premier Nikolai Ryzkov. A plaque notifying the inauguration was put up. The Press and Doordarshan covered the event which took place on November 1, 1987.

Interestingly, a colour photograph of the occasion taken by N Srinivasan of Frontline magazine is available on the Internet. It shows, inter alia, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, his wife Sonia Gandhi and PV Narasimha Rao alongside Mr Ryzkov. The inauguration plaque is visible on the right-hand side of the photograph. One can still see Lenin, if one visits Nehru Park, standing in the same pose. The plaque, however, is no longer there; it disappeared leaving behind marks from where it was unscrewed soon after the Soviet Union disintegrated. It is obvious that the post-Communism Russian establishment was no longer interested in associating itself with Lenin.

The statue still stands because no body in India thought it necessary to remove it. But "the park of fallen heroes" in Moscow is a study in contrast. It is an ironical name the Muscovites have given to a patch of wasteland between Krymsky Val from Gorky Park, where many of the broken images of Soviet heroes were dumped after the end of the Communist era. The great hoax about Leninism has been disowned in the very country of its origin. Thus it will be in fitness of things if the body of Lenin, along with those of other Communist leaders, is removed from Red Square.

Lenin had wished, shortly before his death, that no memorial be created for him. But post-Lenin leadership in the USSR felt it was profitable to raise him to a status of a mythological demigod and associate themselves with him. While they got Lenin's body embalmed, they did not spare his brain either. It was taken out and commissioned to well-known German neurologist Oskar Vogt to study the precise location of his brain cells which was responsible for his genius.

The study was conducted in Vladimir Blekhterev's psycho-neurological institute in Moscow. Vogt published his paper in 1929 wherein he said that some pyramidal neurons in the third layer of Lenin's cerebral cortex were very large. However, the relation of large pyramidal neurons with Lenin's genius (genius here refers to Communism) remained debatable. Thus a Soviet team conducted further research but its results were not publicised.

Thus we see Communism claiming itself to be 'scientific socialism', reducing itself to a metaphysical cult. While Vogt was carrying his research in Blekhterev's institute, Dr Vladimir Blekhterev, was summoned by Stalin one day in 1927. Dr Blekhterev was never seen again after he met Stalin. The best known version of the story is that Stalin had consulted Blekhterev for a cure of his depression. When Blekhterev diagnosed that Stalin suffered from paranoia, the dictator did not agree with him and got him killed.

Mummification is associated with ancient Egyptian pharaohs and should ideally be left there. Lenin's mummy is coincidentally a chilling reminder that the people of Soviet Union suffered the fate of people in Pharaonic Egypt. One lakh Gulag prisoners perished (1931-33) building Stalin's humongous whim of White Sea-Baltic Canal, a completely useless enterprise (only ten boats a day and two ships a week pass through it) then and now.

There is no permanent Lenin Museum in Russia. There were several during the Communist era. The world's sole surviving Lenin Museum is in Tampere, Finland, which does not have any ideological strings attached to it. It was exactly 100 years ago, in (1905), that Lenin and Stalin met for the first time at Tampere conference, the venue where the museum stands. The first attempt at Socialist revolution against Czarist monarchy of Russia took place in 1905. One hundred years have passed since then and it is time the memory of 'Marxist Czar', Lenin, too was buried.

Lenin was certainly not as bad as Stalin who was no less than a monster during his 30 years of dictatorship. But Stalin was influenced by the actions of Lenin, as Lenin was influenced by the militant philosophy propounded by Karl Marx. The mass deaths caused by (a) Bolshevik repression, and (b) famine which was a result of wrong economic and agricultural policies dictated by Moscow against public, led to the death of 3.8 million people in 1921 and 1.9 million in 1922.

The Civil War (1918-1922) between the Reds and Whites claimed eight million lives. It is something that continued even in Stalin's era and Russia has never recovered from it. Every year the Russian population shrinks by half a million. Forget Chechnya, Russia might not have enough people to man its extensive borders by 2020. Lenin was the mastermind of all that!

Courtesy: The Pioneer, October 21, 2005