Russia's Federal Security Service launched an investigation Monday into an attempt to bomb the mammoth Peter the Great statue on the Moscow River bank. An obscure communist group claimed responsibility, saying it was protesting proposals to move Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin's corpse from the Red Square mausoleum. Communist activists, however, accused the secret services themselves of planting the explosives as a provocation to discredit the political left in Russia. Seven devices containing explosives were safely removed from the statue's base Sunday after Interfax received a fax from the previously unknown Revolutionary Military Council of Russia. Interfax said the group planned to blow up sculptor Zurab Tsereteli's controversial monument as ""retribution, to warn the unprincipled politicians who have initiated disgusting debates"" about moving Lenin's embalmed corpse. The group said in its message that the explosion, timed for 5:32 a.m. Sunday, was called off because there were people near the monument.