“Whoever proposes to embalm the body of our leader, the great Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, is doing something fundamentally wrong. After all, this is anti-Marxist Social Revolutionaryism, which has a bad influence on the peasants, who will say: “They defeated our gods, they sent workers of the Central Committee to smash the relics; and now they create their own relics.
These words belong not to anyone, but to Kliment Voroshilov himself, the "red marshal" of the revolution. And this opinion was by no means isolated. Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, and some other high-ranking leaders of the Soviet state spoke out against embalming. Disputes about whether to embalm Lenin's body or to bury it were also among the closest associates of the leader. But in the end, the commission for organizing the funeral (later, for obvious reasons, renamed the “commission for perpetuating the memory of V. I. Lenin”), chaired by Felix Dzerzhinsky, decided to embalm the leader’s body and put it on public display. First, temporarily, to give everyone the opportunity to say goodbye to Lenin, and then permanently. For centuries, as they thought then ...
On January 21, 1924, at 6:50 p.m., Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died at a dacha near Moscow in Gorki. The next day, Alexei Ivanovich Abrikosov, professor at the Department of Pathological Anatomy at Moscow University, performed temporary embalming of the body (an injection of a mixture of alcohol, formaldehyde and glycerin was made through the aorta). “Will he lie in a crypt for two months?” - Abrikosov was asked at a meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. "I think yes. If it's dry and cool." The well-known architect Alexei Viktorovich Shchusev was invited to the same meeting, and he was entrusted with the construction of a temporary crypt for Lenin's coffin. Interestingly, until 1917, Shchusev built churches, and mainly in Ukraine. His first independent work was the design of the iconostasis of the Assumption Cathedral of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. According to his designs, a monastery complex was built in Ovruch, the Trinity Cathedral of the Pochaev Lavra, and several other churches. Among the others famous works Shchusev - Kazansky railway station in Moscow, the building of the hotel "Moscow", he took part in the development of the project for the post-war restoration and reconstruction of Khreshchatyk. But his most famous work, of course, was the Lenin Mausoleum ...
Three days later, the crypt for the body of Lenin, built on Red Square near the Senate Tower of the Kremlin, was ready. “The whole structure was made of wood and sheathed with wooden boards,” Shchusev wrote about the first version of the Mausoleum. - The layout of the mausoleum was calculated in such a way as to create a traffic schedule that ensures the continuous passage of significant masses of people without the formation of an oncoming flow. For this, two doors were made in the mausoleum - one entrance, the other exit. Entering, the people had to go down the stairs leading to the central hall with the coffin of Vladimir Ilyich, and, going around it, climb the same stairs leading to the exit door. To insulate the mausoleum, it was decided to pave the floor, walls and ceiling central hall double boards with a layer of clean sawdust between them. The stairs were cold. The hall was decorated with printed fabric made in black and red according to the drawings of the artist Nivinsky.
At 4 p.m. on January 27, 1924, telegraph devices Soviet Union They transmitted an official message: “Get up, comrades, Ilyich is being lowered into the grave!”. To the sounds of mourning music, volleys of artillery guns and the horns of factories and plants, the coffin with the body of Lenin was transferred to the Mausoleum.
Until the 20th of February, there were no problems with the safety of the body. The weather was frosty, the temperature inside the Mausoleum did not rise above zero degrees. However, then warming came, and it became clear that Lenin's body would not be preserved for a long time under such conditions. Pigmentation and drying of tissues began, eye sockets sunk, in general, what happened to the body of the great leader was the same as with the body of a mere mortal. Some decision had to be made, but no one wanted to take responsibility. People's Commissar for Foreign Trade Leonid Krasin behaved most resolutely in this situation. Moreover, Krasin (who, by the way, had a very adventurous character) did not just want to save Lenin's body, he looked much further. “I am convinced that the time will come when science will become so powerful that it will be able to restore the dead organism. I am convinced that the time will come when it will be possible to reconstruct the physical person with the help of the elements of human life, ”Krasin said and ordered several heavy-duty refrigeration units to be purchased in Germany. However, the German factory delayed the delivery of refrigerators for some reason, and besides, there were frequent power outages in Moscow, which also did not guarantee the safety of the body. Every day the situation got worse and worse...
Now it is hardly possible to reliably establish whether Felix Dzerzhinsky found Boris Zbarsky, or whether Boris Zbarsky himself came to Felix Dzerzhinsky. But one way or another, the chairman of the almighty Cheka (and part-time head of the commission to perpetuate the memory of V. I. Lenin) and the famous biochemist met in March 1924. Dzerzhinsky, like the entire Soviet leadership, had serious problem, and Boris Ilyich Zbarsky proposed its solution. I must say that, by offering a plan for embalming Lenin's body, the scientist put a lot at stake. Boris Ilyich was a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, was a member of the dispersed in 1918 Constituent Assembly. So, under the new government, as they say, nothing shined for him.
To work on the embalming of the body of Lenin, Zbarsky attracted the professor of the department of anatomy of Kharkov medical institute Vladimir Petrovich Vorobyov. Boris Ilyich did not accidentally turn to a professor from Kharkov for help. First, Vorobyov used in his practice the method of conservation of fragments human bodies, proposed back in the 19th century by the pathologist N.F. Melnikov-Razvedenko, and believed that this method could also be used to embalm the body as a whole. And secondly, Vorobyov, like Zbarsky, was a “unreliable” person from the point of view of the Soviet regime. During the occupation German troops Kharkov in 1918, he signed the conclusion that the corpses of civilians found in the vicinity of the city were the work of the Bolsheviks. So both scientists had quite reasonable grounds for undertaking a complex operation to preserve the body of the leader of the world proletariat and thus earn the trust of the Soviet authorities. However, the risk was considerable. Zbarsky and Vorobyov, before starting work, secured Dzerzhinsky’s promise not to touch them in case of failure, but the “iron Felix” would keep his word ...
Zbarsky and Vorobyov worked day and night in the Mausoleum; a separate tram line was built especially for them on Red Square by order of Dzerzhinsky. The work was completed on May 26, 1924. The first persons of the state and relatives of Vladimir Ilyich were invited to the first "show". What they saw in the Mausoleum made a strong impression on everyone. Nadezhda Krupskaya, who had previously been an ardent opponent of embalming, told Boris Zbarsky: “Here, I am so old, and he is so young.” And Lenin's brother, Dmitry Ulyanov, ran out of the Mausoleum into strong excitement. “It's amazing, I can't say anything right now, I'm very excited,” he said. “He is as I saw him immediately after death.” Indeed, Zbarsky and Vorobyov managed not only to save the body, but to significantly improve its appearance. It is no coincidence that the conclusion of the government commission, which was read out by the People's Commissar of Health Nikolai Semashko, read: “ General form greatly improved in comparison with what was observed before embalming, and approaches to a large extent the appearance of the recently deceased. For their work, Zbarsky and Vorobyov received huge money for those times - 40 and 30 thousand gold chervonets, respectively. Scientists were repeatedly awarded orders and medals, became laureates state awards. But this, perhaps, is not the most important thing. A special mixture, which included glycerin, potassium acetate, water and chlorquinine, saved not only the body of the leader from decay, but also the scientists themselves. Denunciations were repeatedly written against Zbarsky and Vorobyov, but Stalin always gave the command: “Do not touch!”. Professor Vorobyov died a natural death in 1937, but Boris Ilyich Zbarsky in 1952, during the period of the “struggle against cosmopolitanism” (calling a spade a spade - during the period of the persecution of Jews in the USSR), nevertheless, they imprisoned. The scientist died two years later.
For the “new” body of Lenin, a new Mausoleum was needed, the project of which was again entrusted to the architect Shchusev. Construction was completed in August 1924. IN ancient Mesopotamia once built iconic towers called ziggurats. They were massive structures made of brick in the shape of a truncated pyramid. Coincidentally or not, but the project of the Mausoleum, proposed by Alexei Shchusev, practically repeated the shape of ziggurats. True, the new Mausoleum was built of wood, not of brick, in all other respects it was very reminiscent of a ziggurat - a large structure in the form of a truncated pyramid 9 meters high and 18 meters long. For durability, the wood was covered with oil varnish, which is why the building had a light brown color. Wooden paneling was fastened to the frame with large forged nails with figured hats. The mausoleum was fenced with an iron fence, inside which flower beds were laid out.
The second Mausoleum stood for five years. In the summer of 1929, by decision of the Politburo, a competition was announced for the development of a project for a new Mausoleum, this time made of stone. There were many entries in the competition. interesting works, but the preference was again given to the architect Shchusev, although his project practically repeated the wooden version of the Mausoleum. The dimensions of the structure increased slightly (length along the facade - 24 meters, height - 12 meters), the pyramid of the new Mausoleum was composed of five ledges of different heights (there were six in the wooden version).
To avoid shaking the Mausoleum when tanks and other heavy equipment passed through Red Square during the parades, a thick reinforced concrete slab was installed in the foundation, covered with clean sand. The frame of the Mausoleum was made of durable reinforced concrete, the outer cladding was made using various breeds granite and labradorite. Materials for the construction of the Mausoleum were supplied from all over the country, including Ukraine. A 60-ton labradorite monolith, on which the inscription “Lenin” was engraved with red porphyry inlay, was cut down at the Golovinsky quarry in the Zhytomyr region. The coffin in which Lenin's body rests was originally made of ordinary glass. However, after an “assassination attempt” was made on Lenin in 1960 (an unknown person threw a hammer into the coffin, as a result the glass broke and the fragments damaged the body), the glass was replaced with armored one and the Mausoleum was equipped with metal detectors. The face and hands of the leader were illuminated by special lamps with pale pink diffusers, which created the illusion of living skin. The construction of the Mausoleum was completed in August 1930. This third Mausoleum became the permanent resting place of the leader.
True, there was a fourth "mausoleum" in which Lenin spent 1360 days. Four days after the German attack on the USSR, on June 26, 1941, at a meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the issue of evacuating Lenin's body to the rear was considered. When this was reported to Professor Zbarsky, he was shocked. After all, before that, work to preserve the body took place in one place, in “greenhouse” conditions, and still, from time to time, scientists had to face serious problems. And here - shaking, change in humidity and temperature, lack of necessary equipment! But the Politburo was adamant - prepare everything you need in a day and leave for Tyumen. True, in the end, it took a week to assemble and prepare the special car. Late in the evening of July 3, 1941, the train with the leader's body set off east.
It was probably one of the most guarded trains in the history of the Soviet Union. Directly, the special train itself was accompanied by a platoon of NKVD and NKGB officers, another guard platoon rode on trains that went in front and behind the main train. All railroad arrows along the route of the train were locked. As long as a special train with Lenin's body was moving along the section of the highway, not a single train could go to this section.
On the morning of June 7, the letter train arrived in Tyumen. The building of an agricultural technical school, located in the center of Tyumen on Republic Street, 7, was chosen as a "temporary" Mausoleum. A special bath with embalming solution was installed in one of the rooms on the second floor, where Lenin's body was placed. Lived in the same building scientists and security. The people of Tyumen spoke only in whispers about what was going on in the building on Republic Street. People understood that something superimportant and mysterious was happening, otherwise how to explain such an amount of protection. But hardly anyone guessed that the “great leader of the world proletariat” himself was in the building - after all, according to the official version, Lenin was still lying in the Mausoleum in Moscow. The leader's mummy successfully "survived" the evacuation and returned to Moscow in March 1945.
In 1953, the Mausoleum for all Soviet people became a "shrine in the square." After Stalin's death, few had doubts that his body should also be placed in the Mausoleum, so strong was the people's grief (namely, people's; the party elite, as it became known many years later, in those days was preoccupied with the division of power, and not mourning " beloved leader). Before the employees of the Department of Biochemistry of the Moscow Medical Institute, who carried out the embalming of the body, there was a very difficult task. The population of the country knew Stalin from posters and film shots, where the radiant "father of peoples" appeared in all its glory. In fact, it was an old man with an expressionless face, pitted with smallpox, and a withered hand. So scientists had to not only save the body, but actually make plastic surgery, though not on a living person, but on a corpse.
Iosif Vissarionovich did not stay long as a neighbor of Vladimir Ilyich. In 1956, at the famous XX Congress of the CPSU, for the first time, something was expressed that no one had dared to speak about before. "Cult of personality", " mass repression”, “Serious violations of Lenin’s precepts by Stalin” - after these words, the opinion began to sound more and more often that Stalin had no place in the Mausoleum. However, the fear even of the dead Master was so strong that they did not dare to take the “father of peoples” out of the Mausoleum for a long time. And when they finally decided, they did it in a completely Stalinist way - hiding behind the opinion of the people, and secretly, under the cover of darkness ...
On the eve of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, in the fall of 1961, the workers of the Kirov and Nevsky Machine-Building Plants signed an appeal in which they proposed to transfer the ashes of Stalin from the Mausoleum to another place. On October 30, 1961, at one of the last meetings of the congress, this initiative was voiced by the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU, Ivan Spiridonov. The congress delegates almost unanimously supported the removal of Stalin's body. The resolution adopted by the congress read: “To recognize as inexpedient the further preservation of the sarcophagus with the coffin of I. V. Stalin in the Mausoleum.” It is clear that decisions of such historic magnitude were made at the very top and that the whole scenario was planned in advance.
On the evening of October 31, police units, under the pretext of holding a parade rehearsal by November 7, blocked all entrances to Red Square. Mausoleum and dug near Kremlin wall the grave was fenced with wooden shields. At 9 pm, a funeral commission consisting of five people arrived at the Mausoleum. In addition to her, a funeral team and representatives of the Kremlin commandant's office were on site. “The officers transferred Stalin's body to a wooden coffin covered with black and red crepe,” recalled an eyewitness of those events, the former commandant of the Mausoleum, Colonel Moshkov. - The body was covered with a veil dark color, leaving open face and half chest. Shanin, the head of the carpentry workshop, under whose leadership the coffin was made in the Arsenal, was given the command to close the coffin with a lid and nail it. Eight officers carried the coffin out of the Mausoleum, brought it to the grave and placed it on wooden supports. After a short pause, the soldiers carefully, on ropes, lowered the coffin into the grave. According to Russian custom, some of those present threw a handful of earth, and the soldiers dug up the grave. By about 23:00, everything was finished. In the morning, people who came to Red Square saw that only one surname remained on the Mausoleum ... In general, the population reacted quite calmly to the reburial of Stalin, although the authorities were very afraid of serious unrest and a split in society.
With the beginning of perestroika, heated debates broke out in the country about the fate of the Mausoleum. Supporters of the burial of Lenin's body believe that holding parades, concerts and festivities on the grave and making an exhibit for tourists out of a corpse is simply immoral. For others, the body of Lenin is a shrine, a memory of the Soviet era, they believe that it is impossible to take out the body of the leader from the Mausoleum in any case. For scientists, the preservation of Lenin's body is an interesting scientific experiment, and the Mausoleum is a well-equipped unique laboratory.
Despite all the changes that have taken place in the country in Lately, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin still rests in the Mausoleum, and the Mausoleum still stands on Red Square. Now the Mausoleum is open to visitors on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm, so any Muscovite or guest Russian capital can see with his own eyes the "leader of the world proletariat." As long as there is still a possibility...
Myth #1. Legend of the cunning Jew Blank
IN AND. Lenin was born in the Simbirsk province, in the city of Simbirsk (Ulyanovsk). But if on his father’s side he was Russian Ulyanov, he remained so (his father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was an inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province, and was also considered a nobleman), then on his mother’s side, who was nee Blank, we can see completely different roots. However, these roots were not Jewish! Vladimir Ilyich's mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was of Swedish-German origin on her mother's side.
M. Bychkova, a researcher at the Institute of Russian History, who studied this topic in detail, wrote the following about this: “I managed to work in the Kazan archive with the funds of the provincial noble assembly and establish that there really were two Alexander Blanks, whose biographies were deliberately mixed.
Lenin's grandfather, Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, came from an Orthodox merchant family. Having begun his service in 1824, in the 40s he rose to the rank of court adviser with seniority (lieutenant colonel), which gave him the right to hereditary nobility. In this sense, his biography is very similar to the biography of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov. These were people from the same environment, to whom the conditions of the 19th century made it possible to quickly move up the career ladder and leave their children the right to be considered nobles ... "
What propagandists do to turn people away from socialism! What kind of means are not used! And even such shameful things as anti-Semitism, chauvinism, and nationalism openly enter the battle against the dead leader of the working class. But will they win? Hardly!
Myth #2. german spy
Another of the main myths revolves around the fact that Lenin was supposedly a "German spy". A kind of "James Bond" of the 20th century, who tried to ruin "Holy Tsarist Rus'", and who managed to do it. Insidious and bloodthirsty! But firstly, before citing a historical fact, we will quote Comrade Stalin himself on this subject:
"In all bourgeois countries, slanderous accusations of treason were brought against the revolutionary leaders of the proletariat. In Germany, Liebknecht; in Russia, Lenin. they openly said that they consider their leaders impeccable, they stand in solidarity with them and consider themselves participants in their cause "- I.V. Stalin, Speeches at an emergency conference of the Petrograd organization of the RSDLP (Bolsheviks), June 16-20, 1917.
And Lenin himself, in the open press, directly accused Parvus of working for German agents. However, better than Lenin's notes, the quotation of the same Stalin, which the dear reader could read above, testifies. For the first time, the "information stuffing" was made by the Provisional Government in June 1917. Then the Kronstadt sailors, led by Yarchuk (an anarchist), staged a mass strike, which the Bolsheviks tried to turn into a peaceful demonstration. The result - the mass execution of the strikers, the pogrom of the printing houses of the Bolsheviks, as well as their persecution and arrest.
The testimony of one of the accusers of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in espionage, ensign Yermolenko, was cut off immediately. They wanted to refer to the commercial operations of Ganetsky in Russia, who was familiar with Lenin and Parvus - but nothing came of it either, because Ganetsky exported finances from Russia, and did not import them. The Bolsheviks had to be released on symbolic bail...
Edgar Sisson, the head of the American Foreign Department of the Committee of Public Information (in fact, the Ministry of Propaganda), invested a lot in this myth. These "documents", for which Sisson paid so generously, were considered forgeries in Europe, and the US State Department was inclined to this. Denials were issued by the New York Evening Post and the Nation. Despite numerous protests from representatives of the Committee, who accused the opponents of these "documents" of "Bolshevism", in 1956 George Kennan proved that the documents were fakes.
There are denials by Robert Lockhart, a career diplomat and intelligence officer.
And even the United States (!) in the 50s completely denied Lenin's involvement in German money, because the documents turned out to be forgeries, and all the institutions behind which the documents were signed - non-existent.
Myth #3. Was there a "shameful illness"?
A few years ago, the program “Kremlin Funeral” was released on NTV, which insisted that Lenin still had syphilis. But, as we know, television is also a source of propaganda, therefore, I would like to refute another false and dirty myth.
There are several examinations - this is a foreign examination, completely independent of the Soviet authorities, and ours, domestic. Max None, German specialist, author of the reference book "Syphilis and nervous system", refuted the diagnosis, although, initially, Lenin was given medicines intended for the treatment of syphilis ....
And in the 70s, Brezhnev himself instructed medical specialists to deal with this myth. And again, as noted by Soviet doctors, no signs of syphilis were found ...
In our time, academician B.V. Petrovsky also refutes the fiction about syphilis: "B.V. Petrovsky:" The very history of V.I. Lenin's illness, the original protocols for the autopsy of his body and microscopic studies absolutely accurately determine the diagnosis of the disease - atherosclerosis of the left carotid arteries and, as a climax, a hemorrhage in the area of the vital centers of the brain. All the clinical symptoms of this tragedy, observed by Soviet and foreign medical scientists at the patient's bedside, confirm this."
But in fact, the real problems and the subsequent illness of Vladimir Ilyich occurred due to the attack of the Social Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, who inflicted several bullet wounds on the leader ...
Myth number 4. Ilyich's wealth.
When the anti-Soviet arguments run out, they begin to shout about a certain bourgeoisness of Lenin, who had fabulous accounts in foreign banks, expensive hotel rooms, and chic breakfasts in bed. However, they are all obviously false. The main source of income for Lenin was his own works. Also, having non-poor parents, Ilyich sometimes asked his mother for money for books and petty expenses. In 1917, in a letter to a certain Shlyapnikov, a party comrade, he wrote at all that from lack of money "you have to die."
If we touch on the Swiss adventures of Lenin in more detail, we can cite the following facts: notebooks with reports - how much and on what the members of the foreign bureau of the Central Committee spent. There were three of them there - Lenin, Kamenev and Zinoviev - and Shlyapnikov, a member of the Russian bureau of the Central Committee. They received from the party treasury the so-called diet - 200 rubles. It was translated into francs. Plus, they, as editors-in-chief, of their newspapers still received about 100 rubles each. Everyone had literary earnings, everyone collaborated with newspapers. And Lenin at that time wrote immortal works- "Marxism and agrarian questions", "Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism". All of them also came out in Russia, due to which the leader lived.
Vladimir Ilyich died, not leaving behind any bank accounts, but instead, a nascent, great country.
Myth number 5. And the car is sealed!
But let's get back to German espionage, and let's break another myth - that the Germans sent Lenin in a sealed wagon in order to destroy Russia. This myth is now extremely widespread through information channels. However, none of the channels recalls that with the fall of the tsarist regime and the establishment of the power of the Provisional Government, political emigrants were allowed to return to their homeland. Lenin seized the opportunity. But, as we can sum up, not only Lenin. A whole group of left-wing revolutionaries was traveling through Germany. RSDLP, with all this had more migrants. However, we forget that in addition to the Bolsheviks, there were also Mensheviks ...
In itself, Lenin's return was not something out of the ordinary - he was one of those who rode with many. The method was incredible - but it concerned more diplomatic relations. After all, they rode in a carriage - opponents of the First World War. And that means the car was sealed, primarily for the safety of its passengers ...
All the myths cited this moment actively used by anti-Soviet of all stripes. All this lies from time to time reminds of itself, convincing of its truthfulness. But what do we really see? Quite the opposite...
Probably, it is worth breaking one more, the last widespread myth - about "Lenin the usurper". There is a wonderful quote by Krzhizhanovsky, Lenin's party member, who says literally "everything" about him as a person:
“Someone correctly said that the greatest happiness for a person is a meeting and the opportunity to communicate with a person who is both higher and better than others. The happiness of such a meeting was felt with particular brightness by all of us precisely when communicating with Vladimir Ilyich.
All of us who walked different life paths having diverse life experience behind us, we will all testify in different ways, but about the same thing: meeting and working with him is a powerful and warm Ilyichevsk wing that was spread over us, this was our most precious happiness.
We all knew that while he was alive, there was such a center, such strong point in which not only wisely, but also with deep human insight, they will think and take care of us in order to uplift us and help us to be better and more useful to others. Approaching him and looking at him, we not only all looked up, but, sometimes even imperceptibly for ourselves, pulled ourselves up to be better and more worthy.
Never before in history human personality was not legitimately raised so high. But not for a moment did Vladimir Ilyich's head spin from this power, and not the slightest speck fell on him from the practice of this power.
He will go down in history as the most formidable enemy of any power of man over man, as the most selfless friend of calloused hands, fearless thought and consistent inflexibility in the struggle for communism.
Four big lies about Lenin's burial
Lie 1
The main propaganda blow is concentrated on instilling in public opinion the idea of Lenin's burial. And here the vile calculation is obvious - what normal person will object to the burial of the remains of the deceased. Although in the case of Lenin we are talking about reburial.
It seemed obvious to everyone that Lenin was buried. As founder Russian Federation and the USSR Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was buried with the highest state honors on January 27, 1924.
By the way, even contemporaries had no doubts that Lenin was buried. Newspaper articles and notes in January-March 1924 were full of headlines: "Lenin's grave", "At the grave of Ilyich", "At Lenin's grave", etc.
And the form of burial was determined by the highest authority of the country - II All-Union Congress Soviets - in the ground, at a depth of three meters in the crypt, over which the Mausoleum was erected. By the way, the Congress delegate, Lenin's widow Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, also voted for this decision.
Even considering the burial place of V.I. modern laws Russian Federation. The embalmed body of Lenin rests in a coffin-sarcophagus at a depth of three meters underground, which fully complies with the norms federal law"On burial and funeral business" dated 01/12/1996
Article 3 of this law states: "Burial may be carried out by committing the body (remains) of the deceased to the earth (burial in a grave, crypt)". And the body of Lenin, we recall once again, was buried in a crypt (a vaulted tomb buried in the ground).
It is difficult for an ordinary citizen to notice the substitution of the concepts of "burial" and "reburial" in the massive information flow: after all, the level of directing is very high - all state media, including television, even "independent" news agencies and liberal opposition publications write only about "burial", carefully hiding the substitution concepts.
It is very unprofitable for the political initiators of the reburial to appear in the face of the public in the guise of grave-diggers. Hence the lie about the need for burial, which does not exist.
Lie 2
The body of Lenin is put on display, resting un-Christianly, not interred.
Let us recall the public statement of Lenin's niece Olga Dmitrievna Ulyanova: “I have repeatedly stated and will repeat once again that I am categorically against the reburial of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. There are no grounds for this. Even religious ones. The sarcophagus in which he lies is three meters below ground level, which corresponds to burials according to Russian custom and the Orthodox canon.”
Olga Dmitrievna has more than once rebuffed gravediggers who claim that allegedly Lenin was buried not in accordance with folk traditions, outside the framework of the Orthodox cultural tradition.
Regarding the fact that the body is not interred, the answer has already been given on the basis of the provisions of the Federal Law "On Burial and Funeral Business": burial in a crypt is a form of burial in the ground. In Poland, for example, there are no graves in cemeteries. Only crypts.
And now about the review of the buried body. Is this really such an exceptional case in the practice of burying great, famous people in countries with a strong Christian cultural tradition?
Most famous example burial in the sarcophagus of the great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, open for viewing, near Vinnitsa. The sarcophagus with the coffin of the great scientist was placed in a crypt, which is one of the forms of burial in the ground and has been on display for almost 130 years. As it is written in the definition of the Holy Synod in St. Petersburg, “so that the disciples and successors of the noble and charitable deeds of the servant of God N.I. Pirogov could see his bright appearance.
And here is an excerpt from the conclusion of the Chairman of the Commission on the funeral of V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) F. Dzerzhinsky: Lenin) decided to take the measures available modern science for the longest possible preservation of the body.
Than in this case the decision of the state body Russian Empire, which was the Holy Synod, which allowed his students and admirers to “behold the bright image” of the deceased scientist Pirogov, differs from the same decision supreme body state power represented by the Congress of Soviets and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR? Nothing? Then why is everything calm on the first occasion, and on the second occasion there is universal hubbub?
As you can see, in the case of the noise around the form of Lenin's burial, political cunning, covered up by some pseudo-religious incantations, is on the face.
After all, no one, neither in the case of Pirogov, nor even more so in the case of Lenin, raises the question of copying the practice of treating the relics of saints canonized by the Church. Nobody carries the bodies of Pirogov or Lenin around the country for veneration by believers, as the Church does with the relics of saints. No one is applied to the embalmed bodies of the deceased great people.
Everyone understands that their incorruptibility is the recognition of their merits before people (the state, society, various communities, etc.). Only citizens who revere such great statesmen and scientists, entering the crypt, get the opportunity to "behold the bright face."
By the way, in such an ardently Catholic country, a similar approach was taken at the burial of the “head of state”, the founding father of the Second Rzeczpospolita, Marshal Pilsudski, whose relationship with the official church was also far from cloudless. He changed from Catholicism to Protestantism, then back to Catholicism. Yes, and the May coup of 1926, arranged by the founder of the state, was very bloody.
Yes, and in the creation of concentration camps, Pilsudski distinguished himself very well. But… the founder of the state. Although the Catholic Church was even engaged after the burial in dragging his remains across the Wawel crypts, which provoked a conflict between the episcopate and President Mostitsky.
Recall that Pilsudski was buried in 1935 in the Wawel Castle, in a crypt in a glass coffin. But embalming proved ineffective. As a result, only a small window was left, which is currently closed.
The original glass coffin of Marshal Piłsudski, founding father of the Second Commonwealth, before being transferred to the crypt under the Silver Bells tower in Wawel.
Lie 3
Attempts continue to be made to convince society that it is necessary to fulfill the last will of Lenin, who allegedly bequeathed to bury himself next to his mother at the Volkovo cemetery in Leningrad. This lie has been going around the world since it was first voiced at one of the meetings of the Congress people's deputies USSR, broadcast on live, a certain Karyakin. Then the fable was picked up by the pope of the current socialite and Putin's mentor Anatoly Sobchak.
From the statements of Olga Dmitrievna Ulyanova it is unambiguously clear: “Attempts to prove that there is a will that he should be buried at the Volkovo cemetery are untenable. There is no such document and could not be; our family also never had conversations on this topic. Vladimir Ilyich died at a fairly young age - at 53, and naturally, he thought more about life than about death.
In addition, given the historical era in which Lenin lived, his nature, the character of a true revolutionary, I am sure that he would not have written a testament on this topic. Vladimir Ilyich was very humble person who cared least for himself. Most likely, he would have left a testament to the country, to the people – how to build a perfect state.”
Scientist and publicist A.S. Abramov, Chairman of the Board of the Charitable public organization(Foundation) for the Preservation of the Lenin Mausoleum more than once cited in the media the response of the RTSKhIDNI (this is the former Central Party Archive) to the request of the Yeltsin administration regarding Lenin's will.
The official response to the President of the Russian Federation said that “there is not a single document of Lenin, his relatives or relatives regarding last will Lenin to be buried in a certain Russian cemetery.
A.S. Abramov is right, arguing that even from an everyday point of view, the arguments about the Volkovo cemetery are completely false. After all, Lenin is already resting next to the widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and sister Maria Ulyanova, whose ashes are in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall.
Lie 4
It is necessary to remove the Mausoleum and the Necropolis of the heroes of the Soviet era, since Red Square cannot be turned into a cemetery. The historical illiteracy of the authors of this argument is obvious. The territory of St. Basil's Cathedral or the "Cathedral of the Intercession on the Moat" is also an ancient cemetery.
What, United Russia gentlemen, are you going to blow up the cathedral and dig up the graves so that it would be more comfortable for you to organize skating rinks and variety shows? Do other sovereign burials in the Kremlin cathedrals prevent you from having fun?
Red Square in its current form is a place of power formed in the RSFSR and the USSR. Here is the concentration of symbols of all historical eras- from Muscovite Rus' (the role of the place of power here was played by Place of execution) to the USSR (the state tribune and the burial places of the founding father of the current Russian Federation and the heroes of the Soviet era). And the current rulers of the Russian Federation, organizing parades in honor of the Victory Day of the USSR in World War II, de facto recognize this highest status Red Square.
On a large marketplace, which Red Square was before Lenin and Stalin, Victory parades are not held. For some reason, state ceremonies will obviously not look at the Cherkizovsky market.
Therefore, how uncomfortable and unpleasant for you, temporary gentlemen from " United Russia”, will have to endure when performing rituals of power on Red Square and Lenin in the Mausoleum, and the grave of Stalin, and all the burial places of the heroes of the era of the RSFSR and the USSR. Without this, the current government does not even have the appearance of historical legitimacy.
In general, the barbarism and denseness of modern Russian Western liberals are striking. They would have tried to hint at destruction or grave-digging in any of the NATO countries, say, in the mausoleum of President Grant in New York (a symbol of the triumph in the Civil War of the North over the South), the mausoleum of the founding father of modern secular Turkey, Ataturk. Or talk about the “tradition to the earth” of the founding father of the Second Commonwealth, Marshal Pilsudski or Emperor Napoleon, whose tombs are on display.
As you can see, the entire argumentation of the necrophobes from United Russia and its liberals sang along with white thread. There is an attempt to settle historical scores with the great Soviet era against the background of the worthlessness of the current government, which is increasingly showing its state failure against the background of the real achievements of the USSR.
For comparison.
Other burial places of great statesmen
Burials of Moscow sovereigns in the Archangel Cathedral of the Kremlin I
This is how the tomb of Kozma Minin originally looked in Nizhny Novgorod
NY. USA. Triumph of the North over the South. Mausoleum american president Ulysses Grant (1897) in Manhattan's Riverside Park. World War I photograph of warships sailing past Grant's mausoleum.
Mausoleum of the founding father of modern Republic of Turkey Ataturk.
As seen, in NATO countries with civilization and mausoleums everything is in order.
It is located on Red Square at the foot of the southern wall of the Kremlin, next to the Senate Tower. Today's Mausoleum is already the third in a row. Originally, there were two wooden buildings on this site, which were replaced by a stone structure in 1930.
About the Mausoleum
The Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow, whose opening hours have changed from year to year, never ceases to collect long lines of people. Basically, of course, these are tourists who, out of curiosity, want to stare at the leader of the world proletariat. Although often ardent followers of this very controversial personality make themselves known.
Lenin's Mausoleum: opening hours and schedule
As already mentioned, the time of visiting the burial-museum changes periodically. Sometimes access to the body of Ilyich can be stopped for several months, as was the case in the spring of 2015. Therefore, it is not surprising why those who intend to visit the Lenin Mausoleum are so interested in the mode of operation. The price also plays last role at the request of the citizens. However, here you need to immediately clarify one thing - visiting the complex is free. By the way, this is one of the few sights of the capital for which no fee is charged, which provides an additional flow of visitors to the Lenin Mausoleum.
The complex is open to visitors on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. The Mausoleum is closed on Monday and Friday. Opening hours: from 10:00 to 13:00. Once again, admission is free.
Queues of visitors to the Mausoleum
A characteristic feature that distinguishes the Lenin Mausoleum is the mode of operation, according to which it is open only three hours a day. And if we add to this the free entrance, it becomes clear why there are such huge queues. Sometimes they can stretch up to the Alexander Garden. The peak hour is observed on Saturday. If it falls on a public holiday or school holidays, then the queue is completely endless. It is possible to stand on such a day in anticipation of a meeting with the legend of the proletariat for several hours in a row. Therefore, it is recommended to arrive on Saturdays forty minutes before the Lenin Mausoleum opens. This will not change the mode of operation, but you will get inside the monument faster, since by noon there will be a whole army of willing visitors.
But in the autumn-winter period, when it is cold outside, and even on a weekday, you can go to the body of Ilyich without any queues at all. But if you still decide not to wait for a favorable time, but to go on an excursion in spring or summer, then it’s better to do it on a weekday. Although there are queues at this time, they are not as big as on weekends.
Passage to the Mausoleum
In order to avoid unpleasant or unforeseen situations, you need to know that it is not so easy to enter the Lenin Mausoleum. The operating mode of this institution is subject to a strict algorithm, according to which anyone wishing to look at the remains of Vladimir Ulyanov must first go through the checkpoint at the Nikolskaya Tower, where they are searched and checked with a metal detector. It is strictly forbidden to bring any photo and video equipment into the Mausoleum. Cell phones with a camera are also prohibited. In addition to equipment, the list of stop items includes any bags, packages, backpacks, knapsacks, large metal objects, bottles of liquid. Before visiting, all these things must be handed over to the storage room located in Historical Museum. This service, by the way, is paid. So you still have to spend some money on a free visit to the main communist of the world.
When entering the Mausoleum, men are required to take off their hats. You can't stay near the coffin. In fact, the entire visit lasts less than a minute: the visitor walks around the crystal sarcophagus with the embalmed body of the leader and exits the Mausoleum from the other side. All that can be gained from this visit is one glimpse of Lenin's body, lying in semi-darkness, surrounded by men in uniform, vigilantly guarding his peace and inviolability. People are allowed inside the complex small groups, approximately twenty people.
It has been 93 years since the hour of death for Vladimir Lenin, and during all these years his corpse is in the Mausoleum in the center of Russia. Why hasn't Lenin been buried to this day? Let's take a closer look at this difficult question.
How it all began
The problem of burial of the leader of the proletariat was first discussed in 1923, during the life of Ulyanov. Why was Lenin buried in the Mausoleum?
Stalin at a meeting of the Politburo said that Ulyanov is not in the best physical form. Iosif Vissarionovich raised the issue of embalming Lenin's body. Trotsky opposed this idea, associating it with Orthodox traditions venerate the relics of saints. Kamenev shared Trotsky's opinion, saying that Lenin would have been against any manifestation of "clergy". Bukharin was also skeptical about the exaltation of the body of the leader, believing that the ashes could hardly consecrate a place near the Kremlin.
When Lenin died, such skeptical thoughts were not voiced. In a few days, a wooden mausoleum was built, where Lenin's body was placed.
Family opinion
Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, publicly expressed her disagreement with such veneration of the leader. Her appeal was published in the Pravda newspaper. Krupskaya warned against erecting magnificent monuments and palaces for her deceased husband, arguing this opinion by the fact that Vladimir Ilyich himself did not attach importance to such things during his lifetime. Nadezhda has never been to the Mausoleum and never mentioned it in her writings and articles. The rest of the family was also against the mummification of the communist leader's body.
Some historians testify that Lenin himself wanted to be buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery in Leningrad, where his mother's grave is located. However, no documentary evidence of this will remains.
Bonch-Bruevich said that much later than Lenin's death, the views of his relatives on the form of burial of the leader changed. The idea of perpetuating the image of Vladimir Ilyich so overwhelmed everyone that all opposing opinions were abandoned for the sake of the necessity of the masses of the proletariat.
post-war period
After the death of Stalin, a congress of the Communist Party was convened, at which it was decided to create a single monument for all the great Soviet people and place the remains of Lenin and Stalin there. However, the construction of the Pantheon stopped with the coming to power of Khrushchev and his policy of de-Stalinization. Khrushchev actively opposed the Stalinist regime as a whole, calling it the "mistake" of the ruler. Stalin's body was taken out of the Mausoleum and buried near the Kremlin wall, where it remains to this day.
perestroika times
Until the perestroika period, the question of why Lenin was not buried was not raised. In 1989, Mark Zakharov for the first time publicly began to talk about the need for burial. In his opinion, every person has the right to be buried after death, and no one can deprive anyone of such an opportunity. And all other phenomena are an imitation of paganism. In 2011, Zakharov once again expressed his opinion on the Dozhd TV channel.
After the collapse Soviet state the topic again sounded in society about why Lenin was not buried. There was talk that the body of the leader should be buried underground. Petersburg mayor Sobchak became actively involved in the controversy. He communicated with Yeltsin and urged him to bury the body of the proletarian leader. Sobchak asked Yeltsin to issue a decree on burial, and promised to take on all the other chores. He wanted to hold a magnificent funeral ceremony, emphasizing the special place of the leader in the history of the country. But the head of state did not give consent to the burial.
Many politicians supported Mayor Sobchak in the idea of burial, but believed that it was necessary to wait until the time when there were no ardent communists in the country. They answered Sobchak that the reassurance of Lenin would be connected precisely with the disappearance of inveterate communists.
In 1993, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov approached President Yeltsin in official letter, where he expressed the need to reconstruct the main square of the country. Luzhkov insisted on the burial of Lenin and other personalities buried in the Kremlin. Unfortunately, Yeltsin did not respond to Luzhkov's appeal.
90s
The debated question of why Lenin was not buried continued to excite many Russian minds. In 1994, democrats led by Valeria Novodvorskaya organized a picket in the center of Moscow with a slogan about the need to bury the body of the communist leader. The authorities dispersed the picket and detained the participants.
In 1999, Yeltsin, summing up the results of his reign, in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper emphasized the seriousness of the issue of Lenin's burial. He assured that the body would be buried, but it is not known when this will happen. Yeltsin answered the question of why Lenin was in the Mausoleum and not buried, linking this circumstance with important role this figure in the life of the state as a whole. Yeltsin also supported the Orthodox leader Alexy II in the idea that it was not in Christian tradition to show the body of the deceased. The President promised to detailed work in this direction.
Our days
In 2000, activists of the Union of Right Forces proposed to build a complex on the basis of the Mausoleum in honor of historical figures and bury Ulyanov. Members of the LDPR party liked the initiative, but the State Duma did not accept the idea for consideration, declaring that it was untimely.
In 2005, director Mikhalkov said after General Denikin's funeral that Lenin's funeral should be the next step. However, again, the idea did not materialize.
In 2008, Mikhail Gorbachev also spoke in favor of the idea of Ulyanov's burial, but did not insist on specific dates.
In 2011, Duma member Vladimir Medinsky again raised the question of why Lenin had not yet been buried. He said that the celebration of the anniversary of the death of the leader is a ridiculous event, dating back to pagan necrophilic traditions. Medinsky stressed that no more than 10% of Lenin's body remained. Medinsky was supported by the head of the CEC Andrei Vorobyov, recalling the Orthodox canons and human customs.
Vladimir Putin is very sensitive to this topic. When asked why Lenin has not yet been buried, he tactfully replies that there is no need to take steps that cause division in society. Current president great attention devotes to the consolidation of modern Russian society.
Mausoleums of the world
Mausoleums have been known since ancient times and exist all over the world. In Turkey, in the 4th century BC, the first such building was built. The mausoleum became the tomb of the Carian ruler Mausolus, who became famous for either cruelty or justice. The tomb of the Mausoleum is today considered one of the wonders of the world, however, only ruins remained of it.
Known for a huge mausoleum in Vietnam, where the body of the communist leader Ho Chi Minh is located.
In China, the body of the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen is placed in an octagonal mausoleum. The tomb was built at the expense of citizens.
In Beijing in 1977, the embalmed body of Mao Zedong was preserved in the same way.
famous mausoleums in Iran, North Korea, in Cuba. As you can see, the Moscow mausoleum is by no means a unique creation.
Orthodox canons
Many Orthodox citizens, worried about why Lenin was not buried, justify their opinion with Orthodox traditions of burying the body underground. However, the historian Vladlen Loginov testifies that the repair of the Mausoleum was carried out with the consent of the Russian Church.
Moreover, in the history of Orthodoxy there are many such burials. For example, the body of the surgeon Pirogov after his death was embalmed, laid in a tomb, over which a temple was later erected.
Orthodox history knows many examples of surface burials. These graves are also located in temples. The Church does not deny the possibility of burial in shrines, which can be placed under the floor or stand on the floor. Many metropolitans and Orthodox saints are buried in this way.
In addition to cancer, acrosols were also used - niches in the temple walls. They were made open and closed, sarcophagi with bodies were placed in them. There are such acrosols in Kyiv, in Pereyaslavl-Khmelnitsky, in Vladimir, in Suzdal.
Orthodox burials were carried out not only in cathedrals, but also in special caves. Similar places have been preserved in Kyiv, Chernigov, near Pskov.
Athos monks are still buried without burial. After resting, the bodies are laid underground, after three years the bones are dug up and transferred to special rooms called ossuaries, where they are stored.
Catholic customs
Studying Christian traditions in general, it is worth mentioning the Catholic Church, which also successfully buries the dead not only by burial. So the monks are buried in the Spanish Escorial. In the niches of the cathedral there are sarcophagi with royal remains.
The body of Pope John XXIII was embalmed and placed in a sarcophagus, and later in a transparent coffin. Now it is kept in the Roman Cathedral of St. Peter.
Thus, the customs of Christianity do not at all provide for the obligatory burial of the body underground; options for embalming and burial on the surface of the earth are practiced. So, raising the topic of why Lenin was not buried, but placed in the Mausoleum, it is inappropriate to talk about blasphemy. Embalming the body of the deceased and putting it on public display within the framework of Christian traditions can in no way be considered blasphemy.
So, we have examined why Lenin is in the Mausoleum to this day. There are more questions than answers in this topic. But it remains to be hoped that time will be able to reveal these historical secrets.
