October Revolution: Russia's Communists Warn of Riots If Lenin Is Buried, Kadyrov Demands Apology

While Russian President Vladimir Putin is voicing no opinion on the Bolshevik Revolution, it has opened a rift between two of the country’s most outspoken politicians. In a rare example of mainstream political split in Russia, the row has seen threats of riots and demands for apology to victims of the Soviet regime.

Ahead of the revolution’s centennial this week, the President of Russia’s Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov joined a chorus of voices from across the political spectrum in Russia, calling for the burial of the uprising’s leader, Vladimir Lenin. For almost a century, the revolutionary’s body has laid embalmed in a mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square, splitting opinion from the outset.

Gennady Zyuganov, who now holds the reins of Lenin’s Communist Party that remains Russia’s second largest, has made it his flagship policy to keep the mausoleum working despite the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992.