Comments on: Time marches on: Lenin who?

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

“Was he a Communist?”

LOL – Ozymandias was an excellent choice to underscore the demise of Communism and the fading memory of younger Russians. Always one of my favorite poems.

By: Ymarsakar

Ymarsakar — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

The first time I learned the context of the Ozymandias quote. I have only read the inscribed poetry lines, not the context lines.

Which does give it a different air.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

George Washington has yet to be consigned to the dustbin of history, despite the best efforts of the postmodern multicultists. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln… real heroes are remembered in spite of efforts to destroy them, not forgotten in spite of efforts to preserve them.

By: Goesh

Goesh — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

My favorite memories are of the statues being pulled down. It seems even heros are not long spoken of these days, let alone tyrants.

By: Pancho

Pancho — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

"Was he a Communist?"

If memory serves me correctly.....he was.

By: who, me?

who, me? — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

"bizarro twin Snow Whites waiting for princes who never came"

&

"Lenin? Was he a communist?"

HEH.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Mildly tangential. In the Szobor Park statues in Budapest, there are none of Stalin. The attempted revolution came in 1956, after he was discredited, and when all the torn-down statues were replaced by the Soviets, none of Stalin were replace.

It has been a nice compromise, what the Hungarians have done. They wanted to avoid falling into the rewriting-of-history trap that would come from destroying all the statues to communists, but they also didn't want to glorify them. So they put them in a backyard out in the suburbs, where tourists can gaze on overdramatic Soviet art, lordly creations ruling over telephone poles and weedy fields. Much like Ozymandias

By: roman

roman — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

Neo..,
Excellent choice on the poem and very appropriate for the subject at hand. It prompts a flash of memory of a scene in the movie “Planet of the Apes” where Heston’s character encounters the half-burried Statue of Liberty on the beach.

By: MP Martin

MP Martin — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

It's not just Communists that put their dead leaders on indefinite display. There are a number of "incorruptible saints" entombed in glass displays in cathedrals and other holy places. One of the most famous is St. Bernadette, whose body has been in a state of remarkable preservation since 1879. There are also rumors that the nuns/monks who attend the body carefully repair the body with wax, makeup, paint or whatever. In Autobiography Of A Yogi, it is told how the body of Paramansa Yogananda was on display, undecayed, for 30 days. And there were stories of a Tibetan monk who was found in a cave in a remarkable state of preservation after performing a ritual "final meditation." When locals found the body, they built a shrine around it, and carefully guard the site. I think it's ghoulish to have a dead body displayed for religious purposes. I'd rather be cremated. But believers flock to these places in a superstitious dogmatic belief that if they can see or touch the body or something associated with it, they will be blessed. It would be more useful to learn what the Saint knew that enabled him to be incorruptible by disease in life and by decay in death. Not to compare Lenin with a saint, but it might be interesting to see how well preserved the body is in comparison to the so-called incorruptible saints.

By: THIRDWAVEDAVE

THIRDWAVEDAVE — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:00:00 +0000

FYI: I posted about this last night when the article first came out. Since then, the NYT changed the headline of the story, and now my post makes no sense. Orginal headline read:

NOW THAT LENIN'S IDEAS ARE DEAD, RUSSIA WONDERS WHAT TO DO WITH HIS BODY.

Go figure.