THE proposed reburial of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin may spark riots on the streets of Russia, politicians have warned.
Lenin’s embalmed body has been on display in a mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square since he died in 1924.
But as Russia marks the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik uprising, a debate is raging over what should be done with his corpse.
There are calls for the Soviet leader’s body to be properly buried, with the head of the Chechen Republic saying it would be a “humane” step to stop people staring at his corpse.
The controversial question of his re-burial could even go to a referendum.
Russia’s Communist Party leader has warned that the debate could spark civil unrest.
Gennady Zyuganov said: "All the chatter about reburial has no grounds other than an attempt to pit generations against each other on Red Square and organise riots.
"People who do this are digging a hole for modern Russia, people who don’t respect the heroism of their fathers and grandfathers deserve no understanding or basic respect."
Earlier this year, a poll found that 60 percent of Russians wanted Lenin’s body removed from the mausoleum.
Results of the state-backed poll also found that a third wanted his body buried as soon as possible.
Around a third believed any burial should wait until "the generation which reveres Lenin has passed away".
While the same amount thought that Lenin's preserved body should remain in state.
Russian scientists have carefully preserved Lenin's body, which is why it doesn't look a day over 53, despite being 146 years old.
Lenin was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist.
He was head of government of the Russian Republic after the revolution, which then became the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1924.
Under his administration Russia and the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state.
He became interested in revolutionary socialistic politics after his brother's execution in 1887.
After rising to a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party he was arrested for sedition and exiled for three years.
He eventually returned to Russia to take a key role in the failed revolution of 1905, and the then-successful revolution of 1917.
Russian authorities were reluctant to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution yesterday.
Low-key events were held to mark an uprising that launched more than 70 years of Communist rule.
President Vladimir Putin has overseen a crackdown on opposition activists.
This means that celebrating any sort of dissent, let alone a revolution, is at odds with his political keyword of "stability".
The Kremlin is not holding any special events for the day, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
A procession of several thousand supporters of the Communist Party walked through central Moscow waving red Soviet flags and pictures of Bolshevik revolutionary Lenin.
One group carried a giant red banner yelling "Power to the Soviets!" as police looked on.
"The October Revolution gave me everything," retired military flight navigator Nikolai Korotkov, 85, told AFP at the rally. "It educated me and it raised me."
Throughout the Soviet era, anniversaries of the revolution were marked with a public holiday which included pomp and military parades on Moscow's Red Square.
Under Putin, November 7 became a regular working day in 2005.
This year there was again a parade on the square, but the event was to mark the 76th anniversary of a parade during World War II, rather than the centenary of the revolution.
The centenary is the last landmark event before a presidential election in March that Putin is widely expected to contest and win.
Putin has skipped key commemorative events including a 3D light show this weekend on the facade of the Winter Palace in his hometown of Saint Petersburg.
Putin said this month that the revolution was "an integral, complex part of our history", emphasising the need for "treating the past objectively and respectfully".