Interfax: Putin entitled to personal opinion about Lenin – spokesman

(Interfax – January 21, 2016)

The Russian president’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov has said Putin is entitled to have a personal opinion about Russian Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 21 January.

Peskov was commenting on a statement made by President Putin, who compared Lenin to a nuclear bomb which had destroyed historical Russia.

“The president has put forward his point of view. It shouldn’t really be a cause for indignation. Rather, it may be a cause for disagreement, but there is nothing to be indignant about,” Peskov said.

“Everyone, including the president, is entitled to express his attitude to the role of this or that individual in history,” Peskov said.

Commenting on complimentary remarks about Lenin made by head of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk at a meeting of the Presidential Council for Science and Education, Putin said: “It is good to manage ideas, but it is important that ideas lead ! to good results, not like in the case of Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin]. After all this idea led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, this is what I mean. There were many thoughts then about autonomy and so on. A nuclear bomb was put under the building called Russia, and it went off later. Neither did we need a world revolution. This idea was also there,” Putin said.

Peskov said that the issue of Lenin’s reburial is not on the Kremlin’s agenda.

“There are no discussions or practical suggestions about this issue. This issue is not on the agenda at all,” Peskov told reporters.