For a century, Lenin’s embalmed corpse has fascinated more than just communists. It also attracts tourists. There has been a long-standing dispute as to whether the revolutionary leader should finally go underground.
Death suits Lenin well even 100 years after his death. The embalmed body of the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870-1924), known as Lenin, lies in a fine suit in a glass case in the dim light of the mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow. The builder of a new world order remains a tourist attraction in the Russian capital even decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union he founded. Russia’s communists commemorated the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s death on Sunday by laying flowers and wreaths.
“We bow to Vladimir Ilyich,” said communist leader Gennady Zyuganov in sunshine and snow at the mausoleum in the presence of comrades with red Soviet flags. Lenin tried to build a world with justice and friendship between peoples – without capitalism, said Zyuganov. Russian newspapers devoted entire front pages and special pages to the anniversary of his death.
Guests from all over the world, women, children, couples and entire school classes still flock to the mausoleum, which is protected by the Kremlin’s armed guard. They come to see the mummy of the man who, five years later, founded the first communist state in the world, a state of workers and peasants, after the socialist October Revolution of 1917.
Lenin’s head, face – with lifelike skin color – and his hands can be seen in the monumental temple. The sight is reminiscent of a papier-mâché doll. “We’re not standing still,” whispers the voice of a uniformed man from behind. Gawking is not allowed. Visitors must quickly leave the hall with Russia’s most famous corpse. Many would like to take a closer look at what the dead person looks like thanks to the art of embalming, which the Kremlin protects as a state secret and costs millions.
Embalmed corpse – the recipe is a state secret
About every two years, Lenin’s body is placed in a mixture in a tub at the Russian Research Institute for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants or parts of his body are injected with preservative substances, as Russian media report. The recipe for the supposedly colorless, odorless and non-toxic preparation is secret. But it is said that formalin, potassium and glycerin were also used for the first embalmings. Lenin’s brain is kept separately.
You can see the first tub for embalming at Lenin’s place of death in Gorki Leninskije, just under an hour’s drive from Moscow. Lenin once retreated to the rural idyll with a spacious park and villas from Tsarist times. Above all, from there he led the huge empire that had been weakened by the Red Terror of his Bolsheviks and by the civil war. In a palace-like building that the revolutionaries converted into a sanatorium, Lenin died in the bed of his small room.
Lenin’s death mask is behind glass, otherwise everything in the room is as it was at the time of death, as the museum guide explains. All the clocks in the building, which was inhabited by a rich family before the revolution, are at 6:50 p.m. In the museum it is said that Lenin suffered a stroke. But why exactly he died so early at the age of 53 is not completely clear. Calcification and the long-term consequences of an attack are also officially considered possible reasons. On August 30, 1918, Lenin survived the assassination attempt by the anarchist Fanni Kaplan.
But not many visitors came to remember Lenin on the huge site. They want to get an idea of what life was like in Russia during Tsarist times, which is trendy today. “Lenin may have destroyed the old order, but he valued and preserved the inventory, the paintings and furniture as part of history,” says the young museum guide. She would be in favor of finally putting Lenin underground, as she says in response to a visitor’s question. “He should find his final rest,” she says.
Debate over the burial of Lenin’s body
There have been debates about finally burying Lenin for years. According to surveys, most Russians want this. The Russian Orthodox Church demands this. “It is a stupid, pagan mission of love for corpses that we have on Red Square. Experts know that only ten percent of the body remains,” prominent politician Vladimir Medinsky once said , who has the closest ties to the church and President Vladimir Putin.
One of the contradictions of Russian historiography under Medinski, who is responsible for textbooks, is that Putin himself despises revolutions and their leaders like Lenin. Putin also blamed the former leader of the international workers’ movement for the destruction of the Russian empire. Nevertheless, even under Putin, Lenin is omnipresent. There are several huge monuments to Lenin in Moscow alone. The National Library and the world-famous metro in the Russian capital bear Lenin’s name.
In addition, Putin once said: “As far as the body is concerned, in my opinion it should not be touched.” The Kremlin chief emphasized that there are still many people in Russia who associate a large part of their lives with Lenin and with him “certain achievements of the past, achievements of the Soviet Union.” As long as that is the case, nothing should change in the cult of personality.
Contested historical heritage
In contrast, Western historians in particular repeatedly point out that the communist Lenin is considered the founder of the Red Terror. “Lenin ushered in a turning point with the socialist experiment. And he was also clearly a pioneer for the reign of terror and violence of his successor Stalin,” said the Eastern European historian Tanja Penter of the German Press Agency. “Lenin was a radical innovator who fanatically believed in the rightness of his cause,” said the professor at the University of Heidelberg. “And he was a tyrant who ruthlessly pursued his goals against all odds.”
Many former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, which Putin waged war on, have long since had their Lenin monuments torn down. But in Russia this is out of the question. Under Putin, symbols of a reign of terror are in vogue, as the flaring cult surrounding Lenin’s successor, Josef Stalin, shows. Media in Moscow also see bright years ahead for the mummy. The portal news.ru recently wrote that the mausoleum with Lenin is a tourist attraction comparable to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Colosseum in Rome. The revolutionary, once feared in the West, is now part of Russia’s cultural heritage.