October 5, 2005

NOW YOU'RE TALKIN':

With Lenin's Ideas Dead, Russia Weighs What to Do With Body (C. J. CHIVERS, 10/05/05, NY Times)

For eight decades he has been lying in state on public display, a cadaver in a succession of dark suits, encased in a glass box beside a walkway in the basement of his granite mausoleum. Many who revere him say he is at peace, the leader in repose beneath the lights. Others think he just looks macabre.

Time has been unkind to Lenin, whose remains here in Red Square are said to sprout occasional fungi, and whose ideology and party long ago fell to ruins. Now the inevitable question has returned. Should his body be moved?

Revisiting a proposal that thwarted Boris N. Yeltsin, who faced down tanks but in his time as president could not persuade Russians to remove the Soviet Union's founder from his place of honor, a senior aide to President Vladimir V. Putin raised the matter last week, saying it was time to bury the man.

"Our country has been shaken by strife, but only a few people were held accountable for that in our lifetime," said the aide, Georgi Poltavchenko. "I do not think it is fair that those who initiated the strife remain in the center of our state near the Kremlin."

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 5, 2005 12:00 AM
Comments

Soylent green, comrade?

Posted by: obc at October 5, 2005 9:49 AM

"Soylent Green is made from the proletariat, comrades!"

(Sorry. Someone had to do it.)

Posted by: Mike Morley at October 5, 2005 10:02 AM

Sounds like a good idea for a contest. What would you do with Lenin's corpse? I say freeze-dry him and add him to the cappuchinos being drunk by lefty Europeans in their cafes. Communism is a religion, and they need a sacrament to inspire the faithful. What better to keep the faith going than to imbibe the body and blood of their messiah?

Posted by: Robert Duquette at October 5, 2005 10:06 AM

Can't you just see the Rationalist Cafe:

What flavor ism are you having in that: Freudianism, Darwinism, or Marxism?

Posted by: oj at October 5, 2005 10:48 AM

May I suggest: MINWAX Fast-Drying Polyurethane (Clean Satin). Towards the bottom of the can it says: Long Lasting Beauty.

Posted by: AllenS [TypeKey Profile Page] at October 5, 2005 11:20 AM

"Lenin loved the working class, they stuffed his corpse and kissed his glass"

Posted by: obc at October 5, 2005 11:59 AM

Just bury him and be done with it. If there was justice, it would be unmarked with no one knowing where he is. Good riddance.

Posted by: Chris Durnell at October 5, 2005 12:09 PM

Dump him in a hazmat landfill in Secaucus, New Jersey, right next to the PCBs and dioxins, along with all the other unhealthy waste.

Posted by: Mike Morley at October 5, 2005 1:03 PM

Mike - you think Jimmy Hoffa might be upset with that?

btw, Mike, ask oj for my email address if you're still interested in that song.

Posted by: obc at October 5, 2005 1:35 PM

Maybe Disney can use it as the centerpiece in their new Moscow themepark. Sort of a counterpart for their Robo-Lincoln attraction.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 5, 2005 5:58 PM

obc:
My theory is that Hoffa's body was buried beneath (or in) the roadbed of I-75 somewhere between Detroit & the Ohio state line. Lenin's earthly remains are certainly due a similar sort of disposition.

Posted by: Dave W. at October 5, 2005 10:04 PM

Bury him with a stake through his heart.

Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at October 6, 2005 12:29 AM

Slice, dice, auction off pieces on E-Bay. What could be better than to raise revenue, mostly no doubt from aged fellow-travelers, and in a capitalist manner that Lenin would have despised?

Posted by: Tom at October 7, 2005 10:34 AM
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