Russian politicians and activists used the...

Lenin died on January 21, 1924, following a series of strokes. His continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the dispute traditionally heats up on the days of Lenin"s birth and death.

Russian Communists will gather later on Thursday to lay wreaths at the Mausoleum on Red Square, where Lenin"s embalmed body is displayed in a glass case.

"Don"t they [communists] feel that it is the wrong way to treat their idol - to disembowel his body, to stuff it with something, to embalm it and to soak it annually in special liquids with the purpose of putting it on the public display again. For me it looks like a mockery," said Nikita Petrov, a member of the Memorial organization, a civil rights group which focuses on Russia"s totalitarian past.

He said that Lenin"s successors initially planned to preserve their leader"s body for a short period of time, to provide as many people as

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