This text is one of them. What kind of body lies in the mausoleum? Is it Lenin's real body, a doll, or a combination of both? Anthropologist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) Alexey Yurchak spoke about how, at the instigation of the party leadership, the Soviet leader led a double life after death. Lenta.ru publishes fragments of his speech.

Rumors that Lenin’s body was not real began to circulate in the first days after the leader’s death. A few months later, in the late summer of 1924, the Mausoleum opened to its first visitors, and Moscow again began to say that a wax mummy lay there. The rumors did not stop even in the late 1930s, when their repetition was especially dangerous. In a written denunciation to the GPU, a young Muscovite claimed that her friend, in a private conversation, stated that there was only a wax doll in the Mausoleum.

In the early years this was repeated in the foreign press. To dispel rumors, in the mid-1930s, the party leadership invited representatives of Western media to the mausoleum. American journalist Louis Fisher wrote how in their presence Boris Zbarsky, who, together with Vladimir Vorobyov, were the first to embalm Lenin’s body, opened a hermetically sealed glass sarcophagus, took the leader by the nose and turned his head left and right to show that this was not a wax figure.

23 percent

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, rumors that Lenin's body was an artificial replica resumed. In response to them, Ilya Zbarsky, the son of the first embalmer, wrote: “I worked in the mausoleum for 18 years, and I know for sure that Lenin’s body is preserved in excellent condition. All kinds of rumors and fiction about an artificial doll and the fact that only the face and hands have been preserved from the body have nothing to do with reality.”

However, Zbarsky's statement did not stop the spread of rumors. In the late 90s, newspapers published versions of the existence of several bodies of Lenin’s doubles, which from time to time replace the body of the leader. In response to this, Professor Yuri Romakov, a leading expert at the laboratory, explained in an interview with Ekho Moskvy that the body in the mausoleum is Lenin’s real body, is in excellent shape and does not need to be replaced.

In 2008, Vladimir Medinsky, then still a State Duma deputy, said that the leader’s body cannot be considered real, but for a different reason: “Do not be deceived by the illusion that what lies in the mausoleum is Lenin. There's only 10 percent of his real body left there." The weekly magazine “Vlast” decided to check this figure. During the autopsy of Lenin's body and subsequent embalming, internal organs and fluids were removed and replaced with embalming solutions. Having counted the amount of material removed, Vlast came to the conclusion that Deputy Medinsky was somewhat mistaken. The Mausoleum contains not 10 percent of Lenin’s body, but 23.

Two bodies

If we take a closer look at the material composition of Lenin's body, it turns out that statements about its inauthenticity have a real basis. It all depends on how you define it. For the scientists at the Lenin Laboratory, who have been maintaining this body for 92 years, it has always been important to preserve its dynamic form - that is, physical appearance, weight, color, elasticity of the skin, flexibility of the joints. Even today, the joints in Lenin's body bend, the torso and neck rotate. It did not harden, did not turn into a dried mummy, so calling it a mummy, as is constantly done in the media, is wrong.

In order to maintain this body in a flexible state, it has been subjected to unique procedures over the years, as a result of which biological materials are replaced with artificial ones. This process goes slowly, gradually. On the one hand, at the level of dynamic form, the body is certainly real, on the other hand, at the level of the biomaterials it consists of, it is rather a copy - it all depends on the point of view.

During the Soviet years, a special commission consisting of party leaders, doctors and biologists periodically checked the condition of Lenin's body. They studied spots and wrinkles on its surface, the water balance of internal tissues, the elasticity of the skin, the chemical composition of liquids, and the flexibility of joints. Tissues were processed, fluids were replaced with new ones, wrinkles were smoothed out, calcium content in the bones was replenished.

From the point of view of these commissions, Lenin's body condition even gradually improved. But ordinary visitors always saw him motionless, frozen for centuries, in a glass sarcophagus, dressed in a dark suit. Of the open areas, visitors see only the hands and head. No one, except the party leadership and a small group of scientists, saw other parts of Lenin's body, never heard of their condition or the scientific procedures to which the body was subjected.

It exists, as it were, in two modes of vision. The political leadership and close specialists have always seen one body, and ordinary citizens - another. The political role that the body played in Soviet history arguably went far beyond a simple propaganda symbol, supposedly needed to mobilize the popular masses in support of the party and government.

Lenin and Leninism

It seems to me that over the years Lenin’s body began to fulfill another political task. To understand this, let's go back to the early 1920s. In the spring of 1922, Lenin felt sick and tired; at the insistence of the party leadership, he left for several months in Gorki, near Moscow.

Living there under the supervision of doctors, he continued to lead the party and come to meetings in Moscow. But in May 1922 he suffered a stroke, as a result of which he temporarily lost the ability to speak, read and write. The party leadership established strict control over information about the political situation in the country that could reach Lenin.

The new rules reflected not only a real concern for the leader’s health, but also a desire to neutralize a strong political rival. In June 1922, Central Committee Secretary Leonid Serebryakov complained in a letter to a friend that Dzerzhinsky and Smidovich were “guarding Lenin like two bulldogs,” not allowing anyone to come close to him or even enter the house where he lived.

Over the next year and a half, Lenin's condition worsened, briefly improved, and worsened again. In the spring of 1923, after the third blow, he almost completely lost the ability to communicate with others. Meanwhile, political rivalry within the party leadership increased sharply.

In this context, the leader did not disappear from the political arena of the country; his image changed, acquiring a completely new shade. The real Lenin, who continued to live in Gorki and write texts, was isolated from political life. At the same time, a new canonical image was created in the political language. Most of the mythological images of Lenin, which are well known to us from Soviet times, were created precisely during that period of his illness, several years before his death.

In early 1923, the term “Leninism” was introduced into the country’s public language. Soon, rituals of the oath of allegiance to Leninism appeared in party practice. In March 1923, the Institute of Leninism was established in Moscow. In the spring of 1923, Pravda called for any piece of paper on which something was written in Lenin’s hand to be handed over to this institution.

At the same time, what the leader actually thought, said and wrote in 1922-1923 was completely separated from his canonical image. Lenin as a political figure in the last years of his life found himself divided in two: one part of him was excluded from the political life of the country, and the second part was canonized. It was through these two processes of exclusion and canonization that the new doctrine of Leninism was created in the early 1920s.

Since then, every Soviet leader, from Stalin to Gorbachev, has been adjusting this doctrine, inventing his own version, introducing previously unknown Leninist works and introducing others, giving a new interpretation to known materials, quoting Lenin out of the original context, changing the meaning of his statements and facts of life.

In 1990, less than a year before the collapse of the Soviet state, the CPSU Central Committee admitted that all previous versions of Leninism contained a distortion of Lenin’s real thought. In December of the same year, a professor at the department of Marxism-Leninism wrote in the newspaper “Workers' Tribune”: “Our tragedy lies in the fact that we do not know Lenin. We have never read his work in the past and we do not do so now. For decades, we have perceived Lenin through intermediaries, interpreters, popularizers and other distorters.”

The historian complained that the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the main authority on Lenin's legacy, for 70 years performed a special function, giving approval to the publication of those Leninist texts that corresponded to the currently accepted canons, no matter how far they were from the real ones words of the leader, changing or shortening other texts that did not correspond to these canons.

In his speech on the 120th anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1990, Gorbachev declared: "Lenin remains with us as the greatest thinker of the 20th century." Then he added that it is necessary to rethink Lenin’s theoretical and political legacy, get rid of the distortion and canonization of Lenin’s conclusions, and proposed abandoning the term “Leninism.”

Death

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. At first there was no plan to preserve his body for centuries. Immediately after the leader’s death, professor of medicine Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov performed an autopsy and then a temporary embalming procedure in order to preserve the body for 20 days while the public farewell took place.

During the autopsy and temporary embalming process, Abrikosov cut many arteries and large vessels. Subsequently, the professor said that if plans for long-term preservation of Lenin had existed at the time of his death, he would not have done this, since when embalming a body for a long time, these vessels are used to deliver embalming fluid to all parts of the body.

Then the body was exhibited for a public farewell in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Despite the exceptionally cold winter, when the temperature remained below minus 28 for several months in a row, crowds of citizens flocked to the capital from all over the country to pay their last tribute to the leader.

Lenin's funeral was scheduled for January 27. Six days after his death, a wooden mausoleum was built on Red Square next to the graves of the revolutionaries, in which the leader was to be buried. On January 27, Lenin’s body was transferred there, but it was decided not to close the sarcophagus for a while - due to the ongoing procession of those wishing to say goodbye to the leader.

Every three days, the commission for organizing the funeral, consisting of party leaders and close doctors, checked the condition of the body. Due to the low temperature and thanks to high-quality temporary embalming by Abrikosov, no signs of decomposition appeared on the body - it could be left open.

The first obvious signs of decomposition appeared only two months later, in March. Thanks to the unexpectedly long period during which they were absent, the party leadership had the opportunity to delay the burial and simultaneously discuss his possible fate.

Lenin will live

At the endless meetings of the commissions to perpetuate the memory of Lenin, heated debates took place, and it was then that the proposal to preserve the body for a longer period won. At first, many in the party leadership considered this idea not only utopian from a scientific point of view, but also counter-revolutionary. For example, Trotsky, Bukharin and Voroshilov believed that the long-term preservation and public display of Lenin's body turns it into a semblance of religious relics and directly contradicts the materialist principles of Marxism. Bonch-Bruevich agreed that “it is not the body that is important, but the memorial”: Lenin should be buried in a mausoleum that fulfills this task.

But other members of the country's leadership - for example, Leonid Krasin - argued that if it was possible to preserve the body for another period, even if not forever, this would make sense. At the very least, this will allow the working people of the whole world to take part in a long farewell to the leader of the world proletariat.

The meeting of the commission for organizing the funeral on March 5, 1924 was decisive in Lenin’s fate. After another long discussion of possible options with medical scientists, most of whom expressed skepticism about the possibility of long-term preservation, members of the party leadership asked them to leave the room. The participants in the discussion differed in their opinions, and nothing was decided that day. More precisely, the solution was half-hearted: we’ll try to save it, but without the certainty that it is possible and necessary, and without promises that it will last forever.

At the end of March, it was decided to try an experimental method of embalming the body, proposed by Professor Vladimir Vorobyov from Kharkov and biologist-biochemist Boris Zbarsky. The procedure had no analogues, and neither Vorobiev nor Zbarsky were confident of its success. They worked for four months in a special laboratory created right inside the temporary mausoleum. They had to invent and adjust many procedures on the fly.

Lenin is alive

By the end of July 1924, they reported to the party leadership that the work had been completed. If the body was processed and embalmed according to their method, they said, there was a high likelihood that it would be preserved for quite a long time. When members of the commission asked how long they should expect, Vorobyov said: “I allow myself not to answer this question.”

On July 24, an official statement appeared in the Soviet press, reading: “Of course, neither we nor our comrades wanted to create from the remains of Vladimir Ilyich any relics through which we could popularize or preserve his memory. We have attached and continue to attach the greatest importance to preserving the image of this wonderful leader for the younger generation and future generations.”

Photo: Keystone Pictures USA / ZUMA / Globallookpress.com

This statement by the commission revealed the same paradoxical attitude towards Lenin’s body that was present in numerous disputes about his fate. The way party leaders and close scientists spoke about it when it became known that it would not decompose for some time is reminiscent of how the party leadership treated Lenin in the last months of his life. At that time, the still living leader was excluded from political life and hidden in Gorki, near Moscow, and another, canonized Lenin appeared in the public language of the party press and speeches. In the discussions of the commission on organizing the funeral, we are faced with a similar dual attitude, when plans for the burial of the leader were discussed and at the same time plans for keeping him unburied, a closed crypt and public display.

This duality was reflected in the fact that for months, disputes and discussions of Lenin’s body were carried out simultaneously in two different commissions. The first was called the commission for organizing the funeral, and the second was the commission for preserving the body. Many party leaders took part in the work of both. The perception of Lenin among the party leadership was strange: as if there were two bodies in the mausoleum - an ordinary, gradually decomposing human corpse, and the physical embodiment of something greater, grandiose, different from Lenin and superior to him.

Although at the time of embalming these two bodies were still composed of the same biological matter, this state of affairs, as we already know, did not last long. The ambivalent attitude towards Lenin's body among the party leadership was reproduced in subsequent years.

Great Legitimator

In Soviet times, a political model arose that linked the principle of reproduction of sovereign power with the principle of doubling the leader’s body. It arose unexpectedly and unplanned - several conditions simply coincided: a long period of illness, when Lenin was simultaneously isolated from political life and canonized in the image of Leninism. Due to the cold of that winter, the body did not decompose, which made it possible to discuss its fate. It is also important to take into account the features of the socio-cultural organization of the new type of Leninist party - a unique political institution.

In the Soviet political system, the culture of sovereign power resembled a mixture of two models: absolute monarchy and liberal democracy, where the role of the body is played by absolute truth. Unlike a sovereign monarchy, no leader of the party or state after Lenin could take his place, located outside the political space. The truth in this system was expressed in the language of Leninism.

Any leader of the USSR, including Stalin, was obliged to appeal to Leninism to legitimize his power and could not question this doctrine or replace it with another truth. Each of them could lose the reins of power if it turned out that he was distorting Leninism. This thesis is illustrated by two of the most important phenomena of power in the Soviet system: the emergence of the exclusive personality cult of Stalin and his complete debunking after his death.

Now it becomes clear what role Lenin’s body played in the political system of the USSR. It functioned as the material embodiment of the heroic depersonalized subject, the Soviet sovereign. It was doubled, being a combination of mortal and immortal bodies. The way Lenin's body was maintained over the decades reflected the combination of these two themes. The mortal body of the sovereign was the corpse of a specific person, and the immortal body was a funerary doll, which was reproduced through special procedures and rituals.

The persistent rumors that Lenin's body is just a copy are to some extent false and to some extent true. It is real, but it is constantly changing. Its biological materials are replaced with new ones, but as a result its form remains unchanged. This project emerged gradually - as part of a complex cosmology, the meaning of which for the party system, including its leadership, was never completely clear.

Work on Lenin's body was always carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, behind closed doors. The same thing happened with Lenin’s texts, statements and biographical facts. Thanks to this approach, Leninism always looked like something fundamental, unchanging and eternal, while in reality it was imperceptibly changing, being adjusted by the party leadership to the needs of the current moment. This doctrine, in this approach, looked like the source of party action, and not the product of party manipulation, and the same applied not only to the texts, but also to Lenin’s body.

Photo: CHROMORANGE / Bilderbox / Globallookpress.com

With the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, Lenin's body found itself excluded from it. The post-Soviet Russian state did not close the mausoleum, but sharply reduced its funding. Over the past 25 years, no clear decision has been made about the fate of Lenin’s body. Today it remains in the mausoleum for public access, and the laboratory continues to operate. The end of the Soviet system did not lead to the automatic destruction of this body, did not turn it into a frozen, decaying corpse, but at the same time it did not turn it into an artificial doll.

Address: Russia, Moscow, Red Square
Start of construction: 1929
Completion of construction: 1930
Architect: A.V. Shchusev
Coordinates: 55°45"13.2"N 37°37"11.7"E
Object of cultural heritage of the Russian Federation

The place where the embalmed body of V.I. has rested since 1924. Lenin, has long ceased to be just a ritual tomb. It is considered a monument to a bygone socialist era and has the status of a museum. This is one of the main attractions of Red Square, which has already been visited by more than 120 million people. Many tourists, regardless of political beliefs, specially come to the center of the Russian capital to walk past the sarcophagus with the body of the communist leader.

View of the Mausoleum, Red Square, Spasskaya and Senate towers of the Kremlin

How did the idea of ​​building a mausoleum come about?

The leader of the Soviet communists died on January 21, 1924. According to the official version, the idea to preserve his body belonged to the workers and peasants, who sent many telegrams to the government. In them, ordinary people asked not to carry out a regular burial.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky opposed preserving the body, but he was in the Caucasus and did not have time to return to Moscow for the funeral, which was scheduled for January 27. Researchers consider the version of the “popular will” unlikely, since the idea of ​​embalming the leader’s body was not discussed in any way in the press, and not one of the “numerous” letters was ever published anywhere.

According to another assumption, the idea of ​​preserving the body appeared because not everyone had time to say goodbye to the deceased. Delegations from different parts of Russia and from abroad came to the capital one after another, so Lenin’s widow N.K. Krupskaya agreed to place the body in the crypt until the end of the farewell ceremony. However, she repeatedly spoke out against embalming.

Whatever the true reason, the country's leadership wanted to turn Lenin's body into a “red shrine” so that it would become an object of worship and a source of communist faith. Just two days after his death, the state leaders firmly decided to preserve Ilyich’s body for as long as possible. Almost immediately, the famous architect Alexei Viktorovich Shchusev received an order for the mausoleum project. And the work of embalming the deceased was entrusted to academicians Vladimir Petrovich Vorobyov and Boris Ilyich Zbarsky.

View of the Mausoleum from GUM

History of the Kremlin tomb

The tomb was planned to be placed on Red Square. By that time, its site near the Kremlin wall was already a necropolis. The dead participants of the October armed uprising of 1917 lay here, and some party leaders were buried. When the Civil War was going on, Red Army soldiers took an oath in front of their graves, and in peacetime parades and demonstrations were held on the square.

The first mausoleum was built on the day of the official funeral - January 27. It was bitterly cold, so the frozen ground had to be blasted with dynamite. The building was erected in great haste, and there is evidence that the last nails were driven in just before the ceremony of removing the body into the Funeral Hall. The tomb was never completed, and it stood in a semi-finished state until the spring of 1924.

The second mausoleum was also made on a wooden frame and covered with varnished oak. It was ready by August 1924 and served for six years. And then it was replaced by a stone mausoleum, which has survived to this day.

When the Great Patriotic War began, the tomb building was disguised as a residential building. These precautions were necessary to preserve the monument during fascist air raids. In the summer of 1941, when German troops were advancing on all fronts, the body of the communist leader was evacuated to Tyumen. It was stored in the building of the Agricultural Academy, and in April 1945 it was returned to the capital.

From 1953 to 1961, Stalin's embalmed body lay next to Lenin's body. And in the 1980s, an extension with an escalator was built behind the mausoleum building, with the help of which the country’s elderly leaders climbed to the podium.

View of the Mausoleum from Red Square

Architectural features

The mausoleum fits perfectly into the architectural ensemble of Red Square and looks harmonious against the backdrop of the jagged Kremlin wall. The building has a width of 24 m and a height of 12 m. It is similar to an Egyptian pyramid and is composed of five steps, built from strong and durable reinforced concrete structures and bricks. Granite, porphyry (crimson quartzite), marble and black labradorite were used in the decoration of the tomb. And above the entrance the name of the communist leader is written in red letters.

During parades, heavy equipment often passes through Red Square. To prevent the architectural structure from experiencing serious problems from shaking, the pit where the reinforced concrete foundation slab is located is filled with clean sand. The last reconstruction of the building was carried out in 2013 - the builders strengthened its foundation.

From the rostrum of the mausoleum, Soviet leaders and leaders of the Communist Party spoke to the people for many years. However, this practice has been stopped since 1996. Today, when mass holidays are held on Red Square, the mausoleum is fenced with shields.

The Kremlin tomb is considered an integral part of the main square of the Russian capital. It is protected by UNESCO and included in the World Heritage List.

Entrance to the Mausoleum

What can you see inside

The tomb is always quiet. Visitors follow one another along the same route and stay in the mausoleum for about a minute. There is twilight inside the building.

The funeral hall, where the sarcophagus is installed, is a square room 10 m by 10 m. It is decorated in black and red and has a stepped granite ceiling. Opposite the entrance to it there is a stone coat of arms of the USSR, model 1930, carved from stone. However, due to the dim lighting, it is almost impossible to see small details.

Lenin's body rests on a raised platform in a bulletproof glass sarcophagus, which is framed by granite railings. Such precautions were taken in 1973. Lenin is wearing a black suit, and on the left you can see the badge of a member of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. The figure of the communist leader is specially illuminated so that those passing by can see his facial features. It contrasts sharply with the dark surroundings and therefore appears like a hologram.

In addition to the Funeral Hall, there is a black columbarium room in the mausoleum, in the niches of which they planned to store the ashes of other deceased. But this room was never used, and visitors are not allowed there.

Tourist information

The mausoleum is open on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 10.00 to 13.00. During restoration work, the schedule usually changes, but this will be announced in advance. You can enter the mausoleum for free through the checkpoint in the Nikolskaya Tower, located on the side of the Alexander Garden. Standing in line usually takes about 30-40 minutes.

View of the Mausoleum from the Spasskaya Tower

Bulky bags, backpacks, containers with liquids and large metal objects cannot be brought into the mausoleum. If tourists have such luggage, they hand it over to a paid storage room, which is located in the Alexander Garden, near the Kutafya Tower. Anyone wishing to enter the mausoleum must pass through a metal detector.

You cannot take photos or shoot videos inside the tomb. You are also required to hand over mobile phones and gadgets upon entry. If they remain for the duration of the visit, security staff have the right to review the latest footage, and, as a rule, ask visitors to delete these files. Near the sarcophagus, men must remove their hats.

It should be borne in mind that the entire area around the Moscow Kremlin and especially Red Square is under 24-hour surveillance by video cameras. Tourists who come here are advised to have a passport or other identification document with them.

What kind of body lies in the mausoleum? Is it Lenin's real body, a doll, or a combination of both? Anthropologist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) Alexey Yurchak spoke about how, at the instigation of the party leadership, the Soviet leader led a double life after death.

Rumors that Lenin’s body was not real began to circulate in the first days after the leader’s death. A few months later, in the late summer of 1924, the museum opened to its first visitors, and Moscow again began to say that there was a wax mummy there. The rumors did not stop even in the late 1930s, when their repetition was especially dangerous. In a written denunciation to the GPU, a young Muscovite claimed that her friend, in a private conversation, stated that there was only a wax doll in the Mausoleum.

In the early years this was repeated in the foreign press. To dispel rumors, in the mid-1930s, the party leadership invited representatives of Western media to the mausoleum. American journalist Louis Fisher wrote how in their presence Boris Zbarsky, who, together with Vladimir Vorobyov, were the first to embalm Lenin’s body, opened a hermetically sealed glass sarcophagus, took the leader by the nose and turned his head left and right to show that this was not a wax figure.

23 percent

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, rumors that Lenin's body was an artificial replica resumed. In response to them, Ilya Zbarsky, the son of the first embalmer, wrote: “I worked in the mausoleum for 18 years, and I know for sure that Lenin’s body is preserved in excellent condition. All kinds of rumors and fiction about an artificial doll and the fact that only the face and hands have been preserved from the body have nothing to do with reality.”

However, Zbarsky's statement did not stop the spread of rumors. In the late 90s, newspapers published versions of the existence of several bodies of Lenin’s doubles, which from time to time replace the body of the leader. In response to this, Professor Yuri Romakov, a leading expert at the laboratory, explained in an interview with Ekho Moskvy that the body in the mausoleum is Lenin’s real body, is in excellent shape and does not need to be replaced.

Soviet biochemist academician Boris Ilyich Zbarsky and his son in the laboratory

In 2008, Vladimir Medinsky, then still a State Duma deputy, said that the leader’s body cannot be considered real, but for a different reason: “Do not be deceived by the illusion that what lies in the mausoleum is Lenin. There's only 10 percent of his real body left there." The weekly magazine “Vlast” decided to check this figure. During the autopsy of Lenin's body and subsequent embalming, internal organs and fluids were removed and replaced with embalming solutions. Having counted the amount of material removed, Vlast came to the conclusion that Deputy Medinsky was somewhat mistaken. The Mausoleum contains not 10 percent of Lenin’s body, but 23.

Two bodies

If we take a closer look at the material composition of Lenin's body, it turns out that statements about its inauthenticity have a real basis. It all depends on how you define it. For the scientists at the Lenin Laboratory, who have been maintaining this body for 92 years, it has always been important to preserve its dynamic form - that is, physical appearance, weight, color, elasticity of the skin, flexibility of the joints. Even today, the joints in Lenin's body bend, the torso and neck rotate. It did not harden, did not turn into a dried mummy, so calling it a mummy, as is constantly done in the media, is wrong.

In order to maintain this body in a flexible state, it has been subjected to unique procedures over the years, as a result of which biological materials are replaced with artificial ones. This process goes slowly, gradually. On the one hand, at the level of dynamic form, the body is certainly real, on the other hand, at the level of the biomaterials it consists of, it is rather a copy - it all depends on the point of view.

During the Soviet years, a special commission consisting of party leaders, doctors and biologists periodically checked the condition of Lenin's body. They studied spots and wrinkles on its surface, the water balance of internal tissues, the elasticity of the skin, the chemical composition of liquids, and the flexibility of joints. Tissues were processed, fluids were replaced with new ones, wrinkles were smoothed out, calcium content in the bones was replenished.

From the point of view of these commissions, Lenin's body condition even gradually improved. But ordinary visitors always saw him motionless, frozen for centuries, in a glass sarcophagus, dressed in a dark suit. Of the open areas, visitors see only the hands and head. No one, except the party leadership and a small group of scientists, saw other parts of Lenin's body, never heard of their condition or the scientific procedures to which the body was subjected.

It exists, as it were, in two modes of vision. The political leadership and close specialists have always seen one body, and ordinary citizens - another. The political role that the body played in Soviet history arguably went far beyond a simple propaganda symbol, supposedly needed to mobilize the popular masses in support of the party and government.

Lenin and Leninism

It seems to me that over the years Lenin’s body began to fulfill another political task. To understand this, let's go back to the early 1920s. In the spring of 1922, Lenin felt sick and tired; at the insistence of the party leadership, he left for several months in Gorki, near Moscow.

Lenin in Gorki, 1922

Living there under the supervision of doctors, he continued to lead the party and come to meetings in Moscow. But in May 1922 he suffered a stroke, as a result of which he temporarily lost the ability to speak, read and write. The party leadership established strict control over information about the political situation in the country that could reach Lenin.

The new rules reflected not only a real concern for the leader’s health, but also a desire to neutralize a strong political rival. In June 1922, Central Committee Secretary Leonid Serebryakov complained in a letter to a friend that Dzerzhinsky and Smidovich were “guarding Lenin like two bulldogs,” not allowing anyone to come close to him or even enter the house where he lived.

Over the next year and a half, Lenin's condition worsened, briefly improved, and worsened again. In the spring of 1923, after the third blow, he almost completely lost the ability to communicate with others. Meanwhile, political rivalry within the party leadership increased sharply.

In this context, the leader did not disappear from the political arena of the country; his image changed, acquiring a completely new shade. The real Lenin, who continued to live in Gorki and write texts, was isolated from political life. At the same time, a new canonical image was created in the political language. Most of the mythological images of Lenin, which are well known to us from Soviet times, were created precisely during that period of his illness, several years before his death.

In early 1923, the term “Leninism” was introduced into the country’s public language. Soon, rituals of the oath of allegiance to Leninism appeared in party practice. In March 1923, the Institute of Leninism was established in Moscow. In the spring of 1923, Pravda called for any piece of paper on which something was written in Lenin’s hand to be handed over to this institution.

At the same time, what the leader actually thought, said and wrote in 1922-1923 was completely separated from his canonical image. Lenin as a political figure in the last years of his life found himself divided in two: one part of him was excluded from the political life of the country, and the second part was canonized. It was through these two processes of exclusion and canonization that the new doctrine of Leninism was created in the early 1920s.

Since then, every Soviet leader, from Stalin to Gorbachev, has been adjusting this doctrine, inventing his own version, introducing previously unknown Leninist works and introducing others, giving a new interpretation to known materials, quoting Lenin out of the original context, changing the meaning of his statements and facts of life.

In 1990, less than a year before the collapse of the Soviet state, the CPSU Central Committee admitted that all previous versions of Leninism contained a distortion of Lenin’s real thought. In December of the same year, a professor at the department of Marxism-Leninism wrote in the newspaper “Workers' Tribune”: “Our tragedy lies in the fact that we do not know Lenin. We have never read his work in the past and we do not do so now. For decades, we have perceived Lenin through intermediaries, interpreters, popularizers and other distorters.”

The historian complained that the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the main authority on Lenin's legacy, for 70 years performed a special function, giving approval to the publication of those Leninist texts that corresponded to the currently accepted canons, no matter how far they were from the real ones words of the leader, changing or shortening other texts that did not correspond to these canons.

In his speech on the 120th anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1990, Gorbachev declared: "Lenin remains with us as the greatest thinker of the 20th century." Then he added that it is necessary to rethink Lenin’s theoretical and political legacy, get rid of the distortion and canonization of Lenin’s conclusions, and proposed abandoning the term “Leninism.”

Death

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. At first there was no plan to preserve his body for centuries. Immediately after the leader’s death, professor of medicine Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov performed an autopsy and then a temporary embalming procedure in order to preserve the body for 20 days while the public farewell took place.

During the autopsy and temporary embalming process, Abrikosov cut many arteries and large vessels. Subsequently, the professor said that if plans for long-term preservation of Lenin had existed at the time of his death, he would not have done this, since when embalming a body for a long time, these vessels are used to deliver embalming fluid to all parts of the body.

Then the body was exhibited for a public farewell in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Despite the exceptionally cold winter, when the temperature remained below minus 28 for several months in a row, crowds of citizens flocked to the capital from all over the country to pay their last tribute to the leader.

Wooden mausoleum, 1924

Lenin's funeral was scheduled for January 27. Six days after his death, a wooden mausoleum was built on Red Square next to the graves of the revolutionaries, in which the leader was to be buried. On January 27, Lenin’s body was transferred there, but it was decided not to close the sarcophagus for a while - due to the ongoing procession of those wishing to say goodbye to the leader.

Every three days, the commission for organizing the funeral, consisting of party leaders and close doctors, checked the condition of the body. Due to the low temperature and thanks to high-quality temporary embalming by Abrikosov, no signs of decomposition appeared on the body - it could be left open.

The first obvious signs of decomposition appeared only two months later, in March. Thanks to the unexpectedly long period during which they were absent, the party leadership had the opportunity to delay the burial and simultaneously discuss his possible fate.

Lenin will live

At the endless meetings of the commissions to perpetuate the memory of Lenin, heated debates took place, and it was then that the proposal to preserve the body for a longer period won. At first, many in the party leadership considered this idea not only utopian from a scientific point of view, but also counter-revolutionary. For example, Trotsky, Bukharin and Voroshilov believed that the long-term preservation and public display of Lenin's body turns it into a semblance of religious relics and directly contradicts the materialist principles of Marxism. Bonch-Bruevich agreed that “it is not the body that is important, but the memorial”: Lenin should be buried in a mausoleum that fulfills this task.

But other members of the country's leadership - for example, Leonid Krasin - argued that if it was possible to preserve the body for another period, even if not forever, this would make sense. At the very least, this will allow the working people of the whole world to take part in a long farewell to the leader of the world proletariat.

The meeting of the commission for organizing the funeral on March 5, 1924 was decisive in Lenin’s fate. After another long discussion of possible options with medical scientists, most of whom expressed skepticism about the possibility of long-term preservation, members of the party leadership asked them to leave the room. The participants in the discussion differed in their opinions, and nothing was decided that day. More precisely, the solution was half-hearted: we’ll try to save it, but without the certainty that it is possible and necessary, and without promises that it will last forever.

At the end of March, it was decided to try an experimental method of embalming the body, proposed by Professor Vladimir Vorobyov from Kharkov and biologist-biochemist Boris Zbarsky. The procedure had no analogues, and neither Vorobiev nor Zbarsky were confident of its success. They worked for four months in a special laboratory created right inside the temporary mausoleum. They had to invent and adjust many procedures on the fly.

Lenin is alive

By the end of July 1924, they reported to the party leadership that the work had been completed. If the body was processed and embalmed according to their method, they said, there was a high likelihood that it would be preserved for quite a long time. When members of the commission asked how long they should expect, Vorobyov said: “I allow myself not to answer this question.”

On July 24, an official statement appeared in the Soviet press, reading: “Of course, neither we nor our comrades wanted to create from the remains of Vladimir Ilyich any relics through which we could popularize or preserve his memory. We have attached and continue to attach the greatest importance to preserving the image of this wonderful leader for the younger generation and future generations.”

Stalin's funeral, 1953. The mausoleum with a podium, built in 1930, is supplemented with the name of the second leader

This statement by the commission revealed the same paradoxical attitude towards Lenin’s body that was present in numerous disputes about his fate. The way party leaders and close scientists spoke about it when it became known that it would not decompose for some time is reminiscent of how the party leadership treated Lenin in the last months of his life. At that time, the still living leader was excluded from political life and hidden in Gorki, near Moscow, and another, canonized Lenin appeared in the public language of the party press and speeches. In the discussions of the commission on organizing the funeral, we are faced with a similar dual attitude, when plans for the burial of the leader were discussed and at the same time plans for keeping him unburied, a closed crypt and public display.

This duality was reflected in the fact that for months, disputes and discussions of Lenin’s body were carried out simultaneously in two different commissions. The first was called the commission for organizing the funeral, and the second was the commission for preserving the body. Many party leaders took part in the work of both. The perception of Lenin among the party leadership was strange: as if there were two bodies in the mausoleum - an ordinary, gradually decomposing human corpse, and the physical embodiment of something greater, grandiose, different from Lenin and superior to him.

Although at the time of embalming these two bodies were still composed of the same biological matter, this state of affairs, as we already know, did not last long. The ambivalent attitude towards Lenin's body among the party leadership was reproduced in subsequent years.

Great Legitimator

In Soviet times, a political model arose that linked the principle of reproduction of sovereign power with the principle of doubling the leader’s body. It arose unexpectedly and unplanned - several conditions simply coincided: a long period of illness, when Lenin was simultaneously isolated from political life and canonized in the image of Leninism. Due to the cold of that winter, the body did not decompose, which made it possible to discuss its fate. It is also important to take into account the features of the socio-cultural organization of the new type of Leninist party - a unique political institution.

IN AND. Lenin in the mausoleum. 1950s

In the Soviet political system, the culture of sovereign power resembled a mixture of two models: absolute monarchy and liberal democracy, where the role of the body is played by absolute truth. Unlike a sovereign monarchy, no leader of the party or state after Lenin could take his place, located outside the political space. The truth in this system was expressed in the language of Leninism.

Any leader of the USSR, including Stalin, was obliged to appeal to Leninism to legitimize his power and could not question this doctrine or replace it with another truth. Each of them could lose the reins of power if it turned out that he was distorting Leninism. This thesis is illustrated by two of the most important phenomena of power in the Soviet system: the emergence of the exclusive personality cult of Stalin and his complete debunking after his death.

Now it becomes clear what role Lenin’s body played in the political system of the USSR. It functioned as the material embodiment of the heroic depersonalized subject, the Soviet sovereign. It was doubled, being a combination of mortal and immortal bodies. The way Lenin's body was maintained over the decades reflected the combination of these two themes. The mortal body of the sovereign was the corpse of a specific person, and the immortal body was a funerary doll, which was reproduced through special procedures and rituals.

The persistent rumors that Lenin's body is just a copy are to some extent false and to some extent true. It is real, but it is constantly changing. Its biological materials are replaced with new ones, but as a result its form remains unchanged. This project emerged gradually - as part of a complex cosmology, the meaning of which for the party system, including its leadership, was never completely clear.

Work on Lenin's body was always carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, behind closed doors. The same thing happened with Lenin’s texts, statements and biographical facts. Thanks to this approach, Leninism always looked like something fundamental, unchanging and eternal, while in reality it was imperceptibly changing, being adjusted by the party leadership to the needs of the current moment. This doctrine, in this approach, looked like the source of party action, and not the product of party manipulation, and the same applied not only to the texts, but also to Lenin’s body.

With the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, Lenin's body found itself excluded from it. The post-Soviet Russian state did not close the mausoleum, but sharply reduced its funding. Over the past 25 years, no clear decision has been made about the fate of Lenin’s body. Today it remains in the mausoleum for public access, and the laboratory continues to operate. The end of the Soviet system did not lead to the automatic destruction of this body, did not turn it into a frozen, decaying corpse, but at the same time it did not turn it into an artificial doll.

A variety of organizations - from monarchists and nationalists to bikers and Orthodox activists - are now jointly trying to “cleanse” the Mausoleum on Red Square of the mummy of the leader of the world proletariat.

Meanwhile historian Vladimir Lavrov recently proposed to deal with the legacy of the proletarian leader, turning to the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs with a request to check Lenin’s works for extremism. And what now - Lenin will not only be removed from the Mausoleum, but will also be tried under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“inciting hatred or enmity”)?

Traitor to the Motherland

"AiF": - Vladimir Mikhailovich, isn’t it nonsense to judge historical figures by modern laws? So let's reach the point of absurdity. Let's say, for Ivan the Terrible, more than one article of the Criminal Code is also probably crying.

V.L.:- Crimes against humanity have no statute of limitations, and such crimes of Lenin must be given a legal assessment. Even in the USSR, inciting social hatred was considered a criminal offense, and Marxism-Leninism is incitement taken to the absolute - the genocide of entrepreneurs and landowners, priests and the old Russian intelligentsia, the Cossacks... destroyed the working peasantry as a class. Lenin ordered that as many priests as possible be shot and given bonuses for this, he ordered to invade the Baltic countries and hang “officials and rich people” there - according to the laws of any time and any country, this is state terrorism.

And if we proceed from the laws in force before December 1917, Lenin is guilty of usurpation of power. Moreover, in July 1917, a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of treason: Lenin called for the defeat of the Russian army in the war, collaborated with the German aggressors and received money from them for the revolution (the Germans were defeated in the world war and sought to blow up Russia from the inside) . The former Central Party Archive preserved a Soviet government document dated November 16, 1917, indicating that the leaders of the Council of People's Commissars were destroying traces of their collaboration with the enemy. “All the books of the NIA bank in Stockholm were examined, containing the accounts of Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and others, opened by order of the German Imperial Bank for No. 2754” (RGASPI. F. 2. Op. 2. D. 226)! This is pure treason, which, by the way, was discussed by the President of Russia in the Federation Council on June 27 of this year.

You mentioned Ivan the Terrible. But he was the legitimate head of state, unlike Lenin. And he still understood that he had committed a sin, he even prayed for those whom he had dealt with. But Lenin and Stalin had no such understanding at all! In addition, Ivan the Terrible was condemned by the bearer of legal authority - Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, who repented in writing for his predecessor’s reprisal of the holy Metropolitan Philip, who refused to bless the oprichnina. The Orthodox Tsar understood: in order to rush into the future with a clear conscience, it is necessary to recognize the truth about the past.

“AiF”: - How many people died during the period of Lenin’s rule?

V.L.:- The civil war, which Lenin called for, claimed between 12 and 14 million lives. The war gave rise to devastation and famine, which killed another 3-5 million people. In total, Lenin has more than 15 million ruined souls on his conscience...

“AiF”: - What did you expect when you contacted law enforcement agencies - that the authorities would burn all of Lenin’s collected works at the stake? But this is some kind of Middle Ages...

V.L.:- Bonfires of books burned just under Lenin and Stalin - they burned “ideologically harmful” literature. Lenin's works have been published in tens of millions of copies and should remain in libraries - let historians and everyone interested study them. At the same time, it is necessary to qualify them as extremist literature. This is like a warning to readers about the political and moral danger of what they are picking up.

Krupskaya: “We’ll have to bury”

“AiF”: - Do you think it is necessary to remove Lenin’s body from the Mausoleum?

V.L.:- It will be a shame if we celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty (in 2013) with a regicide on Red Square... At the same time, resolving the issue of the Mausoleum is not easy: we have one election or another, and the authorities did not want to lose the support of part of the electorate . However, when Stalin’s corpse was taken out of the Mausoleum in 1961, not a single Stalinist made a peep. And in August 1991, 17 million communists did not come out to defend the CPSU... Today, the idea of ​​burying Lenin, according to various polls, is supported by 56-67% of the people. Lenin's widow, brother and sisters were against turning the militant atheist into a pagan idol. When B.I. Zbarsky, who carried out the embalming, came to Nadezhda Konstantinovna for Lenin’s underwear, she said: “All the same, then we’ll have to bury Vladimir Ilyich.”

Moreover, the question arises: to what extent is the body exhibited in the Mausoleum a doll? Compare it with the latest photographs of Ilyich. Before leaving, he was a feeble-minded madman with bulging eyes, who mumbled rather than spoke. And Lenin’s face in the Mausoleum looks quite normal. He died on January 21, 1924, but they began to embalm only at the end of March: the corpse had already become badly decomposed, especially the face and hands... Later, in July 1941, the body was hastily transported to Tyumen, where it was kept in the Agricultural Academy for 4 years, at 15 th audience; at the same time, naturally, they could not provide everything that was happening in the capital...

According to Soviet and Russian legislation, experiments on a corpse can only be carried out with the written consent of the deceased. However, Lenin did not give such consent. “He would be against such treatment of himself and anyone else: he always spoke out for ordinary burial or burning,” recalled V.D. Bonch-Bruevich.

Said by Ilyich

“Saratov, [Narkomfood Commissioner] Pikes: “...I advise you to appoint your bosses and shoot conspirators and hesitant ones, without asking anyone and without allowing idiotic red tape” (August 22, 1918).

“As for foreigners, I advise you not to rush into deportation. Wouldn’t it be better to go to a concentration camp…” (June 3, 1919).

“Smilge and Ordzhonikidze. We desperately need oil. Consider a manifesto to the population that we will slaughter everyone if oil and oil fields are burned and spoiled, and vice versa - we will give life to everyone if Maikop and especially Grozny are handed over intact” (February 28, 1920).

“...Take military measures, i.e., try to punish Latvia and Estland militarily (for example, “on the shoulders” of Balakhovich, cross the border somewhere 1 mile and hang 100-1000 of their officials and rich people there)” (August 1920 ).

“...Excellent plan. Finish it together with Dzerzhinsky. Under the guise of the “greens” (we will then blame them on them) we will march 10-20 miles and outweigh the kulaks, priests, and landowners. Prize: 100,000 rub. for a hanged man" (late October - November 1920).

What is Lenin's Mausoleum? This is a reinforced concrete structure lined with granite and trimmed with marble at the foot of the Kremlin wall. During the years of Soviet power, it served as a tomb, monument and tribune. Currently, it is only a tomb and a monument to the dictatorship of the working people that has sunk into oblivion. The body of Lenin, the leader of the world proletariat and the founder of the world’s first state of workers and peasants, rests in the mausoleum.

But Lenin does not lie alone on Red Square. Nearby are the mass graves of Red Army soldiers, prominent figures of the international labor movement and 12 separate graves of leaders of the Soviet state. In addition, in the Kremlin wall near the Senate Tower there is a place for urns with the ashes of prominent people. All this together is a necropolis and a memory of a unique historical period of the Russian state.

History of the Lenin Mausoleum

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov) died on January 21, 1924 at 18:50 Moscow time. Just 4 hours after the heart of the fiery fighter for the freedom of the people stopped, a meeting began in the Kremlin to organize Lenin’s funeral. It was chaired by F. E. Dzerzhinsky. It was decided to bury the remains of the leader at the Kremlin wall on January 26, 1924. However, there were a huge number of people wishing to say goodbye to the head of the Soviet state, so the funeral was postponed to January 27.

As soon as the sad news spread across the country, letters and telegrams from workers, peasants, and Red Army soldiers poured into Moscow. All these messages contained only one request - to preserve Lenin’s body for posterity. Again a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Dzerzhinsky. The question was raised at it: to preserve or not to preserve the body of the leader of the world proletariat?

Dzerzhinsky, Molotov, Krasin spoke out in favor of preserving the body and showing it as much as possible. Voroshilov and Vladimir Ilyich’s relatives opposed it. They insisted on interring the body. But taking into account numerous requests from the workers, a decision was made to preserve the remains of the head of the workers' and peasants' state.

On January 24, Dzerzhinsky commissioned the architect Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev to build a funeral pavilion. On the same day, a sketch of the first Lenin mausoleum was ready and work on its construction began. The work was carried out continuously for three days, and on January 27, the wooden structure, which had the shape of a cube, was ready. The coffin with the leader’s body was transferred to it from the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions.

The first Lenin mausoleum stood for 3 months after the death of the leader, until they began to build the second mausoleum

The initial embalming was done immediately after Ulyanov’s death by Professor Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov. He injected formalin with the addition of zinc chloride into the blood vessels of the deceased. Thus, the body remained incorrupt for 6 days. Then another embalming was carried out, preserving the body for 40 days. During this time, a completely new embalming technique was developed. The government commission entrusted this work to the Kharkov pathologist Vladimir Petrovich Vorobyov and the Moscow biochemist Boris Ilyich Zbarsky.

These specialists have developed a unique solution based on glycerin, chloroquinine and potassium acetate. The embalming itself lasted from March to July 1924. When the government commission headed by Dzerzhinsky came to accept the work, it was convinced that the weight of the deceased, color, flexibility of the limbs, elasticity of the skin were preserved, and the decomposition process stopped.

However, embalming was only part of the job. The sarcophagus was also of great importance, since with its help the necessary microclimate had to be maintained. Its production was entrusted to the architect Konstantin Stepanovich Melnikov. He brought in specialists from the Electrical Engineering Institute to help him. The glass structure was made in 7 days, and it was ready on February 22, 1924.

Thus, Soviet specialists resolved all issues related to the preservation of the incorrupt remains of the leader of the world proletariat. Now it's time to start decorating the exterior of the tomb. Lenin's first wooden mausoleum looked too simple against the majestic backdrop of Red Square. Therefore, the architect Shchusev was commissioned to design a new mausoleum with a more significant appearance.

The second Lenin mausoleum was made of oak; it stood on Red Square until mid-1929

The new structure was similar to the Egyptian pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser and the Mayan pyramids. It was made of oak and opened to visitors on August 1, 1924. He replaced the first mausoleum, which stood for 3 months. The second mausoleum remained on Red Square until mid-1929, when the decision was made to build a third Lenin mausoleum. The party called for the creation of a better project. 170 projects took part in this competition, but the winner was again the project of the architect Shchusev.

This time the tomb was made of reinforced concrete and lined with granite. The most significant places of the building were decorated with marble. The length of the third mausoleum was 24 meters, the height was 12 meters, and the area of ​​the funeral hall was 100 square meters. meters. The third and last Lenin mausoleum was opened to visitors on August 1, 1930. And after that, for almost 60 years, an endless stream of people walked to the sarcophagus with the body of the leader of the world proletariat. A guard of honor was organized near the main entrance, but the most beautiful sight was the changing of the guard. A huge number of citizens flocked to see it.

During the Soviet years, Red Square and the tomb located on it became the main venue for parades and holidays. 15 people climbed to the mausoleum podium. These were the leaders of the Soviet State of Workers and Peasants. People closely watched those who stood on the podium. At the end of the 20s, Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev disappeared from it. In the 1930s, Rykov and Bukharin disappeared. In November 1953, Beria stood on the podium of the mausoleum for the last time, and in 1955, Malenkov. Anastas Mikoyan stood on the podium the longest, almost 40 years.

In the 30s, Red Square was reconstructed. The cobblestones were replaced with paving stones, the tram tracks were removed, the buildings on Vasilyevsky Spusk were demolished, and the monument to Minin and Pozharsky was moved. All these works were supervised by Lazar Kaganovich. His task was to free the area as much as possible from everything that was in the way in order to hold parades and festivities on it.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, a question arose regarding the safety of Lenin's embalmed body. In an atmosphere of absolute secrecy, the sarcophagus with the coffin was loaded onto a special train on July 3, 1941 and taken to Tyumen. Only NKGB officers were on the train. Even the drivers were government officers. security. Among the specialists, the sarcophagus was accompanied by Professor Zbarsky and several assistants.

In Tyumen, the remains of the leader were placed in the school building on the street. Republic 7. They stayed there until March 1945. In addition to the body, Ilyich’s brain, heart and the bullet with which he was wounded were also taken to Tyumen. Almost 4 years of evacuation had no effect on the embalmed remains, since Zbarsky and his assistants carefully monitored them.

During the years of Soviet power, an endless stream of people walked to Lenin’s mausoleum

But as for the Lenin Mausoleum and Red Square, during the war years they were made with plywood boards imitating the roofs of houses. All these works were supervised by the architect Iofan Boris Mikhailovich. He actually turned the mausoleum into a 2-story mansion with mezzanines. In this form, the main tomb of the country stood for many months. The disguise was removed on November 7, 1941, when a 25-minute parade took place on Red Square. It began at 9 o'clock, and by 10 o'clock the center of the capital was again covered with plywood boards. Lenin's mausoleum was opened to visitors after the end of the war on September 12, 1945.

In 1953, Stalin's body was laid in the tomb. The stone block on which the name LENIN was emblazoned was removed and replaced with a block of LENIN and STALIN. Thus, there were two embalmed bodies in the mausoleum. But after the famous 20th Party Congress, when Khrushchev debunked Stalin’s personality cult, the question arose about the advisability of keeping the remains of Joseph Vissarionovich in the main tomb of the country. On October 30, 1961, Stalin’s body was taken out of the mausoleum, and in place of the new block with two names they put the old block, which the far-sighted commandant of the mausoleum Mashkov kept safe and sound.

Conclusion

To this day, Lenin's mausoleum stands on Red Square. It has lost its former significance, but continues to arouse great interest among people. The body of the founder of the first state of workers and peasants is under constant surveillance by specialists. There are no signs of decomposition on it, and therefore the embalmed remains can lie in the center of Moscow for a very long time. However, it is difficult to predict the future fate of both the mausoleum and the body.

There are more and more citizens who believe that Vladimir Ilyich’s body should be buried or cremated. Only in this case will his soul be able to find peace. And now she hovers next to the tomb and experiences terrible torment. So let’s show generosity, which is not typical of the Bolsheviks, and bury Ulyanov according to Christian custom. Let him rest in peace, and not in a bulletproof sarcophagus under the protection and tireless supervision of specialists. This is unnatural for both the living and the dead.