The topic of today's post is this quote which argues that the reason Lenin's body was preserved in state indefinitely was because of fears that his body not decomposing in the dead of winter would be seen as a miracle. The truth is actually quite the opposite.
When Lenin died in 1924, there was a flurry of activity to try and decide whether or not to preserve him. Lenin had expressed the desire to be buried next to his mother, but for the Soviet leadership, this came with a host of potential problems. With Lenin's death, the question of the survival of the Soviet Union itself came into play, with some believing that Lenin's death would lead to its collapse. Others feared that if Lenin had a state funeral, no one would come because Moscow in January is bloody cold. However, even as these debates raged on, thousands of people queued up outside where Lenin's body was being stored to pay their respects, leaving Soviet leaders to extend how long he could be viewed to forty days, and moving him to more and more complex refrigerated coffins.
The forty day decision was made partly due to the logistics of wanting as many people as possible to be able to view Lenin and participate in the mourning process, but also tapped into Orthodox tradition to try and bolster the legitimacy of the Soviet government. Forty days, for instance, is the traditional mourning period in Eastern Orthodoxy, and there is an orthodox belief that the body of a saint doesn't decay, something which could be exploited to once again further the idea that the Soviet government was the legitimate one.
However, as spring approached and temperatures began to rise, the refrigerated coffins the Soviets had been using became less and less capable of actually preventing Lenin's decay, which led to more drastic measures. A special super refrigerator was ordered from Germany, but there were fears that it would arrive too late to be able to preserve Lenin. Instead, Vladimir Vorobiev and Boris Zbarsky, two leading experts in embalming in Russia, were brought in to preserve Lenin's body. While the technique of embalming an entire body was experimental at best - both men thought it could theoretically be done even if they had no practical experience with it - they soaked Lenin in a solution of glycerine and acetate, and polished off mould spots with acetic acid. It worked, more or less, and the Soviet government built an ornate mausoleum to display Lenin in in perpetuity.
Ultimately, the reason behind Lenin's preservation did partly reflect religious fears, but also thoroughly exploited them. Lenin represented the beginning of the Soviet Union, and so was preserved as its "saint." As time went on, being able to see his body made him a more real presence in Soviet politics and for the citizens of the Soviet Union. While part of his original preservation was due to luck and accident, the decision to preserve him, once it had been made, was a stroke of genius.
Sources!
This is a good article about Lenin's death and the mystery surrounding it.
Here's another article talking about the tradition of leaders getting embalmed, and how Lenin's embalming was not without controversy.
And another good article about embalming
Submitted August 29, 2015 at 01:38AM by Quouar http://ift.tt/1NYBHtE badhistory
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