ASSASSINATION TRY ON LENIN SPOTLIGHTED

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 7, 1993                   TAG: 9302070167
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short
ASSASSINATION TRY ON LENIN SPOTLIGHTED
Russia's top prosecutor has ordered a new inquiry into the attempted assassination in 1918 of Vladimir I. Lenin, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Investigators have already retrieved documents, borrowed a pistol from Moscow's Lenin Museum and expressed interest in removing the body of the founder of the Soviet state from its glass coffin on Red Square for examination. The investigators hold out little hope of getting permission to examine the body.
The Aug. 30, 1918, shooting of Lenin left him with severe health problems, resulting in a series of strokes that led to his death in 1924.
The key issues are whether the assassination attempt, which set off large-scale repressions against opponents of Bolshevism, actually occurred and whether the prime suspect arrested in the case in fact pulled the trigger.
Bolshevik leaders sometimes used assassinations - even staged attempts or killings they ordered themselves - as an excuse to crack down on enemies.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB