Free Republic

Moscow, October 5, Interfax - The russian communists will organize mass protests if authorities go ahead with a decision to bury Lenin and tear down the Mausoleum near the Kremlin wall. "We will hold actions of civic disobedience and will not let such things happen," Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said at a press conference. Zyuganov said that the communists are holding a referendum on the issue and have already gathered 4,5 Mln signatures. Zyuganov said that 26 public organizations back the Communists'' statement against any eventual burial of Lenin''s body. "We have enough wisdom and will to defend our history...

MOSCOW, Oct. 4 - 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?...

Last Saturday, representatives of the Communist parties of the former republics of the USSR held a meeting of the Union of Communist Parties (UCP) and urged one another “desperately and bravely to fight for the rebirth of the great union government.” As they understand it, that means resisting the “color revolutions” whose goal is the destruction of the CIS and Russia. The plans for staging that resistance were not only varied but contradictory. But the theoretical successors of Josef Stalin were unanimous in their desire to take up arms to rebuild the power. The UCP counts its congresses from Soviet...

MOSCOW, Sept. 13 - President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system on Monday in what he called an effort to unite the country against terrorism. If enacted, as expected, the proposals would strengthen his already pervasive control over the legislative branch and regional governments. Mr. Putin, meeting in special session with cabinet ministers and regional government leaders, outlined what would be the most sweeping political overhaul - and his most striking single step to consolidate power - in Russia in more than a decade. Critics immediately said it would violate the Constitution and stifle what...

IT HAS been a humiliating few days for Gennadi Zyuganov, the leader of Russia’s once-mighty Communist Party. When the party opened its congress at the weekend the lights went out in the auditorium shortly after delegates had sung the national anthem. Mr Zyuganov, who almost brought the party back to power in the mid-1990s, had to read his speech by torchlight. Meanwhile, a splinter faction elected a new leader, Vladimir Tikhonov, at a parallel meeting on a riverboat. It accused Mr Zyuganov of links to “oligarchic capital” and vowed to investigate his record since 1991. Yesterday Mr Zyuganov complained to...

Criminal investigations into the oil-and-banking empire of Russia's wealthiest tycoon have shocked the capital, sent the stock market into a nosedive and even stirred up worries about the fragility of the country's fledgling democracy. Heavy-handed raids in recent weeks by the tax police and security agencies have targeted Yukos, the conglomerate headed by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a 40-year-old magnate whose personal fortune is estimated at $8 billion US. Some observers suggest the Yukos investigations could be the start of a serious Kremlin campaign against Russia's so-called oligarchs, the handful of young businessmen who schemed to take control of key industries and...