The tradition of overthrowing idols is not new. After the XX Congress of the CPSU in the USSR, monuments continued to stand on the party leader who died in 1953, but after 2-3 years the Soviet leadership realized it and ordered them to be demolished. And they were different - from the simplest typical patterns to huge statues and bas-reliefs carved by prisoners on the rocky Kolyma shores. But the most important monument to the deceased tyrant was in the capital, Moscow, in its very heart. Stalin in the Mausoleum was lying next to the unshakable, indestructible and cornerstone shrine, the mummy of the creator of the world's first socialist state, where he himself placed it. For the champion of the Leninist norms of leadership of the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, N. S. Khrushchev, this neighborhood was unbearable.
Mausoleum and Lenin
In order to deal with Soviet relic symbolism, some retrospection is needed at the beginning of 1924, the events following the death of V.I. Lenin should be analyzed.
Since the leader of the Bolshevik party was an atheist, he also related to the ritual side of life accordingly, that is, almost nothing.
Of course, during the years of the Civil War, a certain set of rituals was formed that accompanied farewell to the fallen fighters for national happiness. The funeral procedure included, as a rule, the declination of red banners, the performance by the orchestras of the party anthem - the "International", speeches (sometimes politically illiterate) of various military (and not so) comrades (not always sober), accompanied by oaths of fidelity and promises to avenge the "counter" .
In the case of such a magnificent figure as Lenin, this was clearly not enough. And then, a specialist with an incomplete seminary education, Comrade Stalin, joined the organization of the mourning ceremony. A coffin was put in the Mausoleum, first knocked together from the boards, and everyone could see the deceased leader of all the proletarians of the world. Since there were a lot of such people, the time of people's access to the body was extended, and then a decision was made to preserve the corpse by embalming. This was done very late.
Mausoleum science
During the stay of the body of Lenin in the Mausoleum, Soviet science made a massive breakthrough in a unique direction. And before that there were cases of successful embalming of corpses, in some countries in ancient times people sought to preserve the bodily membranes of their rulers and prominent figures, but these skills, having reached the level of art, were kept secret, and partly for this reason were lost.
In recent history, a case is known involving embalming according to the technology developed by the great surgeon Pirogov and applied to it after his death. However, this method, apparently, had many subtleties, it turned out to be difficult to reproduce. Therefore, Soviet anatomists had to invent their own method, which included not only the operation to preserve tissues, but also their partial restoration. Stalin had been lying in the Mausoleum for almost nine years, his corpse was also embalmed, and specialists working in a special laboratory dealing with the preservation of Lenin's mummy reasonably believe that even today, after decades of lying in an ordinary grave, it is possible that the body of the second Soviet leader is in very good shape. Although with some reservations.
Relics forever?
The question of whether it is advisable to expose a dead body to the masses today is more likely to be morally ethical than political. The number of people for whom the name of Lenin remains holy is not very large today, although it is also impossible to say that there are none at all.
No less significant relic for many Soviet people was the body of Joseph Vissarionovich. From 1953 to 1962, they knew that both great rulers, comrade-in-arms and revolutionary Lenin and Stalin were in the Mausoleum. Photos of their bodies were almost never published, but anyone who came to Moscow and stood a long line could look at them. It seemed that now it will always be so.
Excesses
During the years of Stalin's rule, the “new man” necessary for the complete victory of communism was never created. But then another type appeared, personifying the leader of the Soviet type. This character always agreed with the opinion of the head of the party, and if hesitated, then certainly along with the general line.
Ironically, it was the Stalinist methods of control that were applied when deciding on the exclusion of the corpse of the secretary general who violated Leninist norms from the list of official Soviet shrines. Not all Kirovsky factory workers who supported this initiative were in internal agreement with him. When Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, some members of the reburial commission burst into tears. Several handfuls of earth were thrown into the open mouth of the grave. It was bold, but before the protest, let alone rebellion, it was not enough. The officers included in the funeral team were much more courageous. They refused to cut off buttons made of gold from JV Stalin’s tunic, which the First himself insisted on, and were demoted. Other excesses did not happen.
“Initiative from below”
The first secretary of the Leningrad regional party organization comrade is considered the formal initiator of the removal of Stalin's body from the Mausoleum. Spiridonov I.V. But he acted according to the pattern familiar to the nomenclature, according to which the Communists simply supported the impulse of the working masses and, of course, led it.
Most likely, the meeting of the Kirov workers took place, but the agenda and decision were, without a doubt, prepared in advance and approved "at the very top." The historical background on which Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum is important.
The year 1961 was marked by many events in the life of the whole country. The next party congress, XXII, was ending. Internal affairs were not in the best way, prices were rising. The broad masses of working people voluntarily and involuntarily compared Khrushchev's time with the previous era, in which they, on the contrary, were reduced. People remember the good better than the bad. Even the first manned flight into space and testing the most powerful hydrogen charge could compensate for the lack of meat and sausages in stores only partially.
Night and mystery
The removal of Stalin from the Mausoleum took place immediately after the Congress approved the vote. It happened simultaneously with the reburial near the Kremlin wall, where a grave had already been dug before, in the light of the searchlights directed at it.
Ahead of them, plywood shields were also installed, fencing off the participants in the process, both living and dead, from prying eyes. The funeral option at the Novodevichy cemetery was rejected in order to avoid unpredictable consequences. Everything was possible, from a demonstrative pilgrimage to the abduction of a coffin.
When Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, all his precious elements were nevertheless removed from his uniform in the form of gold uniforms of the Generalissimo, the stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the notorious buttons, instead of which brasses were sewn in haste. History is silent about who did this.
The police explained the prohibition of passage to Red Square to a few night passersby by the fact that a parade was being prepared in honor of November 7th.
Last parade
On the night when Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, he, unknowingly, was greeted by Soviet troops. Caterpillars of tanks rumbled across the cobblestones, motors of formidable combat vehicles growled, and the chased foot of the foot soldiers reflected off the Kremlin walls. The rehearsal actually took place, but for the Supreme Commander who died seven years ago, it was a real parade.
Meanwhile, the cladding above the entrance was already removed, in its place the Stalinist inscription with the same name was still being prepared, but it took time to install it, and the empty space was simply covered with a piece of cloth with the word “LENIN”. In the morning, it was planned to open the main tomb of the USSR for visiting. It was difficult to predict the reaction of the population, although the most influential Soviet organization, the KGB, tried to solve this problem.
Gravestone
There was no monument for a long time, only a heavy horizontal slab with laconic embossed letters and numbers, meaning the name, party pseudonym and the dates of the boundaries of life. The tombstone in the form of a sculptural bust by N. Tomsky appeared almost a decade after Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum.
The year 1970 was difficult for Sino-Soviet relations. In China, the Brezhnev leadership was considered revisionist, the deceased leader was revered along with Mao and was indignant at the disrespectful attitude to his memory. But in the USSR itself, towards the end of the sixties, critical attitude to Stalin gave way to a “balanced” approach to history, expressed by the recognition that the cult, of course, existed, but also the personality also took place.
Grumble
Fears that, having learned about the absence of the dust of Comrade Stalin in the mausoleum, the people will have to pacify, were in vain. Unwanted conversations, of course, started, but they did not go beyond the usual philistine murmur.
State security officials noted the emergence of political anecdotes, the essence of which boiled down to assumptions about the location of the future burial of First Secretary Khrushchev. “This is Nikita breaking with her cot, comrade Lenin,” Stalin said to Vladimir Ilyich with his famous Caucasian accent, hearing a roar at the back doors of the Mausoleum.
There were reasons for dissatisfaction, they led to many conflicts, the most famous of which was the Novocherkassk uprising, which happened soon, but these unrest had nothing to do with the displacement of the dead body, people took the change in Red Square rather passively. Fans of tough methods in the person of “hard-headed” communists laid flowers every year on March 5 and December 21 at the mausoleum, where Stalin’s grave was surrounded by other graves of prominent party figures. This protest was limited.
Memory and history
From the point of view of an ordinary citizen of Russia, who grew up in the last two decades, much in this story may be incomprehensible. For example, what is the fundamental difference between the two inhabitants of the tomb, standing today on Red Square?
The year that Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, the main idea that the party leadership tried (and not without success) to convey to the masses was the idea that Lenin had everything in mind, but the leaders who came after him distorted his plan. And only now, when dear Nikita Sergeyevich finally came to power, everything will go as it should. Here he is, a real Leninist.
The modern man, who knows and understands the nature of communism, most often does not understand why Stalin was removed from the Mausoleum, but not Lenin. The answer is simple, it is all about culture and attitude to the history of one’s own country. It is simply necessary to respect the beliefs of those who, due to their advanced years, cannot and do not want to change them. Very worthy people still live in Russia and beyond its borders, nevertheless committed to communist ideals. And we must reckon with them if we want our descendants to respect us too.