More than 100 have signed a petition protesting at the place where the Soviet leaders Lenin, Stalin, and Brezhnev, and the pioneer cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, lie buried in Moscow being used for a rock concert which carries, they say, "a covert political meaning".

The parliament passed a resolution on April 18 demanding that the concert on Saturday week should be held somewhere else.

Yesterday a group of the MPs appealed directly to Sir Paul to call it off, telling him: "You may find yourself in the very centre of a serious political scandal."

Asked why he and his fellow MPs did not oppose a recent concert in the square by the tenor Placido Domingo, Alexei Mitrofanov said: "We don't have anything personal against McCartney.

"An opera concert in a cemetery is different, and can be considered more appropriate than a rock concert. We think that such a concert could damage his reputation. We await his answer and hope he will change his mind."

Sir Paul has never performed in Russia. The Beatles were censored by Brezhnev's government, which would only let the Soviet press criticise rock music, derided as the "belch of western culture".

Party members were obliged to oppose the worst manifestations of the west's permissive society.

But The Beatles' music was not actually banned and their dress and appearance were enthusiastically copied by communist workers.

Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones also faced problems. Elvis's face often appeared in Soviet publications captioned "the grimace of western culture".

Sir Paul's second group, Wings, was also criticised, but perhaps because Soviet musical tastes had improved.

It is 35 years since The Beatles recorded Back in the USSR, which contained the premature lines:

" Well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out

"They leave the West behind

"And Moscow girls make me sing and shout

"That Georgia's always on my mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind. "