Posted on 09/30/2018 3:02:32 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
It’s not every society whose ideals are embodied by a corpse. But in the Soviet Union, the never-decaying body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was meant to freeze his ideals in time: a promise to citizens that they were on the collective path to the bright communist future.
Opened to visitors on August 1, 1924, his mausoleum became a key symbol of Soviet power, from the saint-like aura around Lenin’s remains to the Politburo’s tradition of standing atop the structure on holidays. Today, the unburied body remains a lingering element of the Soviet legacy, representing Russia’s inability or unwillingness to bury its Soviet past.
With indifference and nostalgia the predominant sentiments toward Lenin, and desire to bury him evenly split, the Kremlin’s most likely next step is nothing at all. This serves the government’s project of using the past to gesture to Russia’s continued greatness.
The prime example of this isn’t Lenin at all; it's Stalin who remains most alive in Russian cultural memory. Although his body was removed from its spot beside Lenin in 1961, the post-Soviet years have seen him remembered with increasing fondness—reaching a historic maximum this past year when he topped Russia’s list of most remarkable historical figures.
Stalin’s return to popularity aligns with growing pageantry around WorldWar II, the Kremlin’s favorite tool for evoking patriotic sentiment.
The continued reliance on Soviet symbols fuels a murky understanding of a period marked by repressions on one hand, and international preeminence on the other. In capitalizing on Russians’ sense of lost greatness, today’s government prevents a true reckoning with the past. The lack of a clear break with Soviet icons—even a 93-years-dead corpse—shows that politics may have changed since the fall of the Soviet Union, but leaders’ reliance on symbols that obfuscate their means of staying in power, remains.
(Excerpt) Read more at kennan-russiafile.org ...
I read an article a few years back that said that Lenin’s corpse in Red Square is kind of like the dead mouse in the kitchen that no one knows exactly what to do with. I LOL’ed at that one.
How much money from tourists would Russia lose, if Lenin’s corpse is, eventually, buried, or destroyed? Is the curiosity factor from tourists wanting to see the body high, or not?
Pada bada bum bum tsssh
Mainly because it’s a tourist attraction I think. They need a UFO sighting to take its place.
> Hey, didja know that Lenin’s tomb is a commie plot?
LOL!! Good one!
I am so stealing that.
He’s basically King Tutankhamun without the bling. It was probably Stalin’s way of making certain that an autopsy didn’t determine the cause of death.
Lots of rumors that Stalin hastened Lenin’s demise.
You are correct. I saw Lenin in 1992 because of curiosity, not ideology.
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