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- WORLD, Page 47World NotesBULGARIAUp in Smoke
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- He was once revered as a staunch fighter of fascism and the
- founder of communist Bulgaria, but past glories could not save
- Georgi Dimitrov from the ash heap of history. Last week
- Dimitrov's embalmed body was quietly removed from the mausoleum
- in Sofia's main square, where it had been on public display
- since his death in 1949, and cremated in a ceremony attended
- only by a few relatives.
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- The fate of Dimitrov's corpse had been hotly debated since
- the downfall of communist dictator Todor Zhivkov last November.
- The cremation was carried out against the wishes of some party
- members and unbeknown to demonstrators camped outside the
- mausoleum to protest the homage paid to a leader some reviled
- as a Stalinist. Their posters depicted a sphinx above slogans
- reading, WE DON'T NEED ANY PHARAOHS and IT STINKS!
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- Dimitrov was part of a shrinking club of embalmed communist
- leaders. If the trend toward democracy continues, will Lenin,
- Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh also go up in smoke?
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