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Though the faithful marked this year's 80th anniversary of Lenin's death with a visit to his mausoleum at Red Square, it will take more than nostalgia for the USSR's founder to revitalize Russia's ailing Communist Party. Once a potent force in Russian politics, the Communist Party has recently suffered crushing electoral defeats, pushing it nearly to the point of political irrelevance. Polls show widespread sympathy for aspects of the party's agenda, but voters have walked away in droves as Putin's government has appropriated many of its key issues and undermined its ability to capture the once-reliable protest vote opposing reform. Some within the party hope for renewal, anticipating the resignation of party leader Gennady Zyuganov -- an admirer of Joseph Stalin who nonetheless denounces Putin's "police state." Meanwhile, die-hard Communists resist calls for Lenin's embalmed body to be given a truly final resting place alongside his mother's in St. Petersburg.
Photo: EPA/Associated Press
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