and morally just citizens who couldrnrefuse to let abortuary employees shop inrntheir stores, dine in their restaurants, buyrnhomes, and license their “clinics” (orrnlive, for that matter, if local governmentsrnand laws were established to be Chris-rnHan).rnBy majority, America is pro-choice.rnThis fact should drive every Christianrnwho recognizes the evil of murderingrnchildren to fight for local rights —or secession.rnInstead, Christians turn to thernsame “big government” they claim tornloathe (when it disappoints them) and tornshocking, immoral images and propaganda,rndesigned not to convert unbelieversrnor placard natural law, but to invokernthe “feel, don’t think” mentality of post-rnChristian pop culture. Gutting a babyrndoll in public is not a proclamation of thernGospel; it will not convert pagans onrntheir way to murder their children; and itrnshould not be tolerated by Christians,rnwho should heed the prophet Nathan’srnrebuke to David: “You have given thernLord’s enemies cause to blaspheme.”rn—Aaron D. WolfrnT H E LENIN MUMMY, by the timernChronicles readers see this, may alreadyrnhave been spirited from its Red Squarernpyramid, and the Communist Party ofrnRussia (CPRF) may have been banned.rnIn mid-Jidy, rumors of such a scenariornwere circulating among the various pundits,rncrooks, polihcos, cab drivers, and assortedrnhangers-on who usually passrnleaks —sometimes intentional ones —rnfrom die massive red-brick walls on thernMoscow river, July 17 marked the anniversar)’rnof the savage murder of the lastrnRussian czar and his family, and Red stalwartsrnbraced themselves for the worst.rnNo such announcement, however, camernfrom Corky-9, Boris Yeltsin’s dacha,rnwhere he spends most of his time nowadaysrnbetween trips to the Central ClinicalrnHospital and occasional Kremlin ceremonies.rnNevertheless, the CPRFrnsuspects that the Bolshevik pharaoh’s remainsrnmay have been desecrated: Radicalrnconmiunist Viktor Ilyukhin, for instance,rnclaimed that the holy relic hadrnbeen replaced with a wax dummy, andrnIlyukhin and other true believers are stillrnkeeping their guard up as August beginsrnand the official start of the campaign seasonrnapproaches. Elections to the Duma,rnRussia’s lower house of parliament (inrnwhich the CPRF presently has the largestrnsingle faction), are set for December,rnYeltsin and his “family” —the entouragernthat has systematically robbedrnRussia under the banner of “reform”rnsince 1991 —have cause to consider drashcrnmeasures. Come July 2000, Boris I’srnreign will officially terminate: There’s thernrub. If the CPRF is able to retain its influencernin the Duma, the “family” justrnmay wind up in the judicial hot seat nextrnsummer, especially if Yeltsin and thernRussian “elite,” mostly gangsters, shadyrn”businessmen,” and amoral mediarnhatchetmen, can’t find a suitable leaderrnfor the “party of power,” one who will ensurern”stabilit)’,” the “continuity of power,”rnand a “continuation of reform,” Sornfar, none of the aspirants—who includernMoscow mayor and kickback king YurirnLuzhkov; former premier SergeirnStepashin; Stepashin’s successor andrnYeltsin’s designated heir Vladimir Putinrn(since Yeltsin’s blessing is a political kissrnof death, many observers see the namingrnof Putin as a Yeltsin ploy to draw fire awayrnfrom another “hidden” successor); andrn”family” favorites Viktor Chernomyrdinrnand Deputy Premier Nikolai Aksenenkorn—seem to have won the favor ofrnthe crown. Outsider Aleksandr Lebed —rngovernor of the vast Krasnoyarsk region,rntough as nails, and an “unpredictable”rnCossack to boot—gives elites the willies.rnEx-premier Yevgeni Primakov is too honestrnand would have actually defendedrnRussian national interests in the Balkans,rnscuttling the $4.5 billion IMF loanrnStepashin accepted in late July. Meanwhile,rnvarious shenanigans aimed at dividingrnthe communist-nationalist coalitionrnand unifying the “elite” haven’trnpanned out, with the pretenders to thernmantle of Yeltsin’s chosen successor andrntheir minions fighting among themselves,rnthreatening the “continuity ofrnpower” and the future of “reforms.”rnThus the Lenin burial scheme: Yeltsinrnhimself told Komsomolskaya Pravda inrnJidy that Lenin should be buried;rnStepashin subsequently saw fit to float thernidea while in Washington, cashing in onrnYeltsin’s betrayal of Yugoslavia; RussianrnOrthodox Patriarch Aleksei had raisedrnthe whole issue (probably at Yeltsin’srnprompting) back in May. The scheme isrna classic Yeltsin provocation and goesrnsomething like this: spirit the mimimyrnfrom its tomb and either bury it in St. Petersburgrn(as the Bolshevik leader requested)rnor, better still, cremate Lenin andrnscatter his ashes to the winds in imitationrnof the barbaric dismembering and dissolutionrnof the Romanovs in 1918. (Yeltsinrnhas some experience in these matters. AsrnSverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) partyrnboss, he ordered the demolihon of thernIpahev house—the site of the 1918 regicidern—back in the 1970’s, depriving undergroundrn”Wliite guardists” of a monument.)rnThe Communists just may reactrnviolently, giving the Yeltsin-backed “antiextremism”rncommission the grounds tornban the CPRF, or at least prevent the registrationrnas Duma candidates of any of itsrnmembers who are involved in “extremism,”rnIf the CPRF leaders fail to react,rnonce again showing their inclination tornGOP-like self-immolation, they will berndiscredited once and for all, Yeltsin hasrnyet to spring this trap and may opt forrnsome other, even more outlandish, scenariornto ensure “clean and fair” parliamentaryrnelections. It is a long time untilrnDecember. Stay tuned,rn— Denis PetrovrnOBITER DICTA: Two poets are featuredrnin our pages this month. The firstrnis Bradley R. Strahan, who teaches poetryrnat Georgetown University, Over 500 ofrnhis poems have been published in suchrnjournals as America, Christian Century,rnthe Seattle Review, the Christian SciencernMonitor, Orbis, and Poetry Australia. Mr.rnStrahan leads the Washington Poets’rnWorkshop and is the publisher of thernBlack Buzzard Review.rnCharles Edward Eaton, who lives inrnChapel Hill, North Carolina, is our secondrnpoet, Mr, Eaton is the author of 14rncollections of poetry, four volumes ofrnshort stories, and a novel, A Lady of Pleasure.rnHe is the recipient of the NorthrnCarolina Award for Literature, amongrnother prizes, and was awarded an honoraryrnDoctor of Literature degree by St,rnAndrews College,rnChronicles is illustrated this month byrnSt, Petersburg native Anatol Woolf, who,rnin addition to freelance work, has designedrnsets for theaters in Russia and providedrnillustrations for St. Petersburg TextbookrnPublishers, Since coming tornAmerica in 1987, Mr. Woolf has been arnfrequent contributing artist to Chronicles,rnas well as to the Washington Post, thernWashington Times, Policy Review, NationalrnGeographic Traveler, Legal Times,rnand Cricket. Mr. Woolf works with a varietyrnof materials, from watercolors tornpencil to acrylic. Further samples of hisrnwork are available on his website:rnwww.netcom.com/~a.woolf/.rnOCTOBER 1999/9rnrnrn