The debate on whether Vladimir Lenin's embalmed corpse should remain in a mausoleum in the middle of Moscow's Red Square or be interred alongside his mother, as some say was the communist leader's wish, bubbled up again this week – but it has been simmering since the late 80s, when Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" allowed for criticism of the once-sacred symbols of the Soviet regime.
Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first president and a vociferous opponent of communism in his later years, brought up the issue of burying the Bolshevik leader numerous times, but to no avail. In the mid-90s, when Yeltsin met fierce opposition from the Communist party of the Russian Federation and its many supporters, it was decided that tampering with such a key symbols of the Soviet past might radicalise the anti-Yeltsin sentiment in Russia. Burying Lenin would spark protests, which, considering Yeltsin's diminishing support, and the popularity of the Communist party – especially among the elderly – could have seriously harmed Yeltsin's 1996 presidential campaign and his administration's ability to push its agenda through the Russian parliament, in which the communists were a major force.The last time Yeltsin spoke on the issue as president was during his last year in office, in 1999, when he told a newspaper that he intended to bury Lenin once and for all. He never did.
Considering Lenin's waxed body lies within 100m of the presidential office, the issue of Vladimir Ilyich's interment is one no Russian leader can ignore. In 2001, in his second year in office, president Vladimir Putin said that "the country has lived under a 70-year long communist monopoly on politics. It's a lifetime of an entire generation, and people associate Lenin's name with their own lives. To them, Lenin's interment would mean that they've been worshipping false ideals, set false goals and that their lives have been lived in vain."
Nine years later, when the aforementioned demographic of people who grew up in the Soviet Union and closely associated themselves with the communist ideology began to shrink, Putin said, "In due time the Russian people are going to decide on the matter. History can't be hasty."
However, public discontent with the federal government has been steadily rising since then. A recent poll showed that 33% of Russians are ready to take part in the protests. Putin's administration, frightened by this, is desperate to play any card that would distract public attention from the ongoing protests. Forcing a debate on Lenin's corpse is one of those "cards" – designed to both split the opposition (many of whom are communists), and spark a national debate on what is an essentially meaningless topic in contemporary Russian politics.
It's not the first time in the past six months that issues, irrelevant to the protesters' demands, were brought before the public. A good example would be the arrest of three members of a Russian feminist punk-rock band Pussy Riot after their performance in Moscow's Church of the Christ Saviour. Their concert and subsequent arrest made headlines in both state-owned and opposition media, forcing the Russian public into a debate on blasphemy, feminism and the clericalisation of the officially secular Russian State, thus diverting public attention from the much more important issues of rampant corruption, police lawlesness and fraudulent elections. Those in the opposition who considered themselves orthodox Christians were faced with a dilemma – was Pussy Riot's performance a desecration of a holy shrine, or a legitimate form of protest against the current regime? The debate bought the Kremlin time to regroup and formulate a strategy to counter the opposition – which was implemented in the recent anti-rallying laws and crackdowns on the opposition leaders.
The debate around Lenin's interment, brought up by Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's culture minister, at a time of political turmoil and ongoing protests, is designed to distract the Russian public. It has nothing to do with any genuine wish to rid a modern European capital of an embalmed corpse, strategically located between the Russian presidential office and a luxury mall.