Most Russians declare in favour of burying Lenin's body

More than half of Russian citizens (56%) think that the body of the founder of the Soviet state, Vladimir Lenin, should be removed from the mausoleum on Red Square and buried. Their opponents constitute merely 30 percent.

These figures have been supplied by the Public Opinion Fund following an all-Russia survey of 1,500 urban and rural respondents from 100 settlements of 44 regions, territories and republics of all economic and geographical zones of Russia-statistical error does not exceed 3.6 percent. This poll was staged on the eve of Lenin's birthday celebrated on April 22.

There is evidence that the number of champions of Lenin's burial has grown over the past decade by some 10 percent. They have inevitably exceeded over the past decade the number of their opponents but never before has the gap between the two indices been so great as today when the number of those who want to see him buried is almost the double of their opponents.

However, amid the Communist electorate and people with incomplete secondary education the number of burial opponents is larger than advocates (46% to 39%--former group; 44% to 40%--latter group) The survey has indicated that 53% of the Russians assert that Lenin has done more good than harm to the country. This assessment prevails among the Communist Party advocates (83%) and among people above 55 years of age (66%), those lacking general secondary education (67%) and rural dwellers (64%).

Lenin did more harm than good is the answer of 17 percent of respondents.