Lenin’s body was embalmed in secret and placed in a mausoleum on Red Square in 1925. Visitors were monitored by armed guards, and Stalin’s body was briefly buried there. Lenin’s body is still on display, but it is unclear if it is the original or a wax substitute.
In 1924, Russia’s revered political leader Vladimir Lenin died, apparently from the effects of several severe strokes. A public outcry over the preservation of Lenin’s corpse spurred the Bolshevik government to create a mausoleum suitable for public display. While the architects rushed to complete the mausoleum itself, several specialists worked under top-secret conditions to embalm the body. The results of their work are said to be one of the finest examples of conservation ever attempted on a human body.
Lenin’s corpse was placed on public display in 1925, in a fairly small but stately mausoleum located on Red Square, the public courtyard outside the Kremlin in Moscow. Thousands of Russians filed through the mausoleum to get a quick look at the corpse as it lay in state. Under the communist regime, visitors to Lenin’s mausoleum were constantly monitored by armed guards. Any sign of disrespect or inappropriate behavior in the presence of Lenin’s body would not be tolerated.
During World War II, the preserved corpse was removed from Red Square for safe keeping, but was returned within a few years. For a short time, in the mid-1950s, the less preserved body of Josef Stalin was also buried in the mausoleum. This may have been seen as a cruel joke to Lenin’s supporters, since Lenin had tried to remove Stalin from power as early as 1950. Stalin’s body was later removed from Lenin’s mausoleum and cremated elsewhere.
Since the fall of communism in 1989, some have questioned the need to keep Lenin’s corpse as a symbol of a repressive system. Many elderly Russians and tourists still visit the body as part of a larger pilgrimage to the Kremlin and Red Square, but visiting hours have been reduced in recent years. Lenin’s corpse is periodically removed for inspection and repairs, and some visitors have noted a wax-like quality to his visible parts, primarily his head and hands. This could indicate that the actual corpse has been replaced with a wax sculpture, or that embalmers have made a number of significant modifications to the original body.
Indeed, Lenin’s corpse is still on display in his mausoleum in Red Square and visitors continue to parade during visiting hours. Whether or not they are seeing the actual body of Vladimir Lenin or a wax substitute is still up for debate, although the preservation technique used to stabilize him has also been used to preserve the bodies of other communist leaders such as China’s Mao Zedong and Kim North Korea’s Il Sung.
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