Note the order of popularity of Russian leaders. Apr 21 2004 7:59PM Young people differ on Lenin's role in history - poll MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) - Forty-percent of respondents aged 18 to 24, polled by ROMIR monitoring on April 15-20, 2004, said Vladimir Lenin played a positive role in history, and the same percentage of respondents said his role in history was negative.
Twelve percent of the respondents were undecided. Lenin's popularity appears to have declined from 2003, when Lenin was named the third most popular person to have been at the helm in Russia since 1917. In 2004, he was ranked the fourth most popular person (after Putin, Stalin and Brezhnev). Lenin's popularity is the highest among people over the age of 60. The poll, which surveyed 1,600 people, showed that 63% of Russia's population are positive about Lenin's role in history and 30% are negative. This figure has changed gradually over the past three years. In 2001, 66% of respondents said their attitude towards Lenin was positive and 24% said it was negative, while in 2003 these numbers were 65% and 24% respectively. Despite the fact that these changes are not very dramatic, it seems that the younger the people are, the less loyal they are to Lenin, sociologists said. <>
