alexei yurchak, bodies of lenin: the hidden science of communist sovereignty

ALEXEI YURCHAK

Bodies of Lenin: The Hidden

Science of Communist Sovereignty

The Form

DURING DISCUSSIONS A FEW YEARS ago in the Duma about thefate of Lenin’s body, which is displayed in the Lenin Mausoleum on RedSquare, Vladimir Medinsky, then a Duma deputy (and now Russia’s ministerof culture), suggested that it was time to take this body out of the mauso-leum and bury it in the ground. ‘‘Do not fool yourselves,’’ he explained,‘‘with the illusion that what is lying in the mausoleum is Lenin. What’s leftthere is only 10 percent of his body.’’ The respected political weekly Vlast’decided to check this figure. During the autopsy in January 1924, wrote theweekly, Lenin’s brain and organs had been removed. When Lenin wasembalmed, his internal liquids were replaced with embalming fluids. Sinceorgans constitute about 17 percent of human body mass, and liquids about60 percent, Lenin’s body had lost 77 percent of its original matter. There-fore, concluded the weekly, the Duma deputy had gotten it wrong: what islying in the mausoleum is 23 percent of Lenin’s body, not 10 percent asMedinsky had suggested.1

Such half-ironic calculations point to a widespread misconception aboutthe nature of the body lying in the mausoleum. It is assumed that theauthenticity of this body can be measured in terms of the percentage of itsoriginal biological flesh. The generations of scientists who have worked onpreserving Lenin’s body for the past ninety years, however, have measuredits authenticity differently. They have been concerned with maintaining notthe body’s biological flesh, but its physical form. This form includes thebody’s look, shape, weight, and color, as well as its dynamic characteristics—its overall suppleness, elasticity of skin, flexibility of joints, internal pressurein muscle tissues, and so on. For decades, scientists have worked on main-taining this dynamic form intact, while letting the original biological matter

abstract This essay analyzes the project of maintaining the body of V. I. Lenin in the LeninMausoleum in Moscow for the past ninety years. It focuses on the materiality of this particular body,the unique biological science that developed around the project, and the peculiar political role this bodyhas performed. Representations 129. Winter 2015 The Regents of the University of California.ISSN 0734-6018, electronic ISSN 1533-855X, pages 116–57. All rights reserved. Direct requests forpermission to photocopy or reproduce article content to the University of California Press at http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/rep.2015.129.5.116.116

http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp

http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp

of the body change and even actively substituting it with new materials.I will refer to the research institute that has conducted this work as theMausoleum Lab or the Lab, as the scientists call it, although in fact itconsists of several labs and scientific groups. The actual activities of thisresearch institute today, as in the past, are disguised behind a euphemisti-cally cumbersome name: ‘‘Center for Scientific Research and TeachingMethods in Biochemical Technologies’’ (fig. 1).2

The Lab has worked to preserve the dynamic form of every part ofLenin’s body, including parts that have never been visible to the public orintended for display. Scientists have maintained not only the features ofLenin’s face but also the shape of his heels, the pigmentation around hisarmpits, the strength of hair attachment on his chest, and the flexibility ofhis knee joints, for example. What bodily preservation amounts to in thiscase is different from that in other cases of preservation, both natural (bod-ies preserved in permafrost, ice, salt, sandy soil) and artificial (bodies sub-jected to mummification, cryogenics, plastination).3 In these other cases theform of the body changes in multiple ways: mummified bodies dry up,stiffen, change color, become unrecognizable; frozen and plastinated bod-ies may preserve their external appearance but lose flexibility and elasticity.Unlike those bodies, Lenin’s continues to maintain its dynamic form, whichincludes but is not limited to its external appearance. This means that the

figure 1. ‘‘Center forScientific Research andTeaching Methods inBiochemical Technologies,’’Krasin Street, Moscow(part of VILAR Institute).Author’s photo.

Bodies of Lenin: The Hidden Science of Communist Sovereignty 117

work on the body can never cease; the body cannot be allowed simply to liethere in an embalmed state. It must be continuously examined, fixed, re-sculpted, and reembalmed.

The extraordinary results of this project have never been known to thepublic; in fact, they have been actively hidden from public view. Visitors tothe mausoleum see Lenin lying in a glass sarcophagus dressed in a dark suit;only his head and hands are uncovered and visible (figs. 2, 3). They neverlearn that the body’s joints remain flexible, the internal pressure of its skin ismaintained, and its invisible surfaces are painstakingly and continually re-sculpted. No one has ever been able to appreciate these extraordinaryachievements. No one, that is, with the exception of a small group of scien-tists and state leaders.

Why has Lenin’s body been maintained in this way? What is the signif-icance of the effort to preserve its dynamic form and not its biological flesh?Why have its invisible parts been maintained with such precision? What kindof science has emerged around the project, and why have its remarkableresults been kept secret? To answer these questions we must understand the

figure 2. Sarcophagus in theLenin Mausoleum on RedSquare, Moscow. Photo:http://www.comtourist.com/history/lenin-mausoleum/photos-lenin-mausoleum/page/2/.

figure 3. Lenin lying in thesarcophagus. Photo: http://

www.n-tv.de/panorama/Lenin-soll-unter-die-Erde-

article2419961.html.

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http://www.comtourist.com/history/lenin-mausoleum/photos-lenin-mausoleum/page/2/




http://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Lenin-soll-unter-die-Erde-article2419961.html




complex political role that Lenin’s body played during the Soviet periodand, to some extent, continues to play today. This paper attempts such anunderstanding by analyzing the unique materiality of Lenin’s body, thescientific procedures that developed as part of this work, and the politicaldebates that accompanied the project from its inception.4

Despite appearances, the political role of Lenin’s body is anything butobvious. Of course, it is well known that during the Soviet period this bodyfunctioned as a central propaganda symbol of the Communist system andthat its public display was supposed to inspire devotion to the Communistproject. However, settling for this interpretation does not explain the emer-gence of the unique scientific practice focused on maintaining this body’sdynamic parameters and invisible parts. In fact, the political role of Lenin’spreserved body goes far beyond that of propaganda. To understand thisextended role we must first travel to the past—to the last years beforeLenin’s death, when the divergence between Lenin and his cult began.

Leninism

In spring 1922, feeling quite ill and exhausted, Lenin relocated tothe Gorki estate outside Moscow to improve his health. He continued to beactive in the party leadership, wrote a few theoretical articles, and partici-pated in occasional political decisions. But his medical condition was wors-ening, and inMay 1922 he had a stroke, which resulted in the temporary lossof his ability to speak, read, and write.5 The politburo of the party reacted byintroducing strict rules designed to isolate Lenin from political life. Thisdecision was partially dictated by the real concern for Lenin’s health. Thestrictness with which it was imposed, however, made some witnesses suspectthat the party leadership was also trying to eliminate a powerful politicalrival. For example, a secretary of the party’s Central Committee (CC) wrotein a personal letter on June 10, 1922: ‘‘Things with [Vladimir] Ilyich [Lenin]are so bad that even we can’t get any access to him. Dzerzhinsky and Smi-dovich guard him like two bulldogs and don’t let anyone come close to himor even into the building where he is staying.’’6 In late summer 1922,Lenin’s condition somewhat improved and his speech gradually returned.7

In the fall, he felt so much better that he returned to Moscow to engage inpolitical work and gave several speeches at the meetings of the CC. However,in December 1922 his condition again sharply deteriorated, and the partyleadership insisted that he move back to Gorki. From that moment Lenin’scomplete isolation from political life began.8

On December 24, the leading group in the politburo instructed themedical doctors who looked after Lenin: ‘‘All meetings are forbidden. . . .


Neither friends nor family members should communicate to Vladimir Ilyichanything about political life to avoid provoking any thought or anxiety.’’9

The order ‘‘was extended to the staff at the Gorki estate—the cook, servants,gardeners, technical workers and guards.’’10 Lenin was allowed ‘‘to dictatefrom 5 to 10 minutes a day,’’ but only on the condition that ‘‘these textsshould not be treated as correspondence and Vladimir Ilyich should notexpect any response to them.’’11 Lenin experienced his isolation as ‘‘impris-onment,’’ complaining to his closest friends and relatives: ‘‘I haven’t diedyet, but under Stalin’s supervision they are already trying to bury me.’’12

Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and a few members of the staff whoremained faithful to him continued passing occasional notes and texts ofLenin’s to trusted people outside the Gorki estate. In late December 1922and early January 1923, sensing that the end was near, Lenin dictated severalsubstantial texts and letters that later became collectively known as ‘‘Lenin’spolitical testament.’’13 Among them was Lenin’s now-famous ‘‘Letter to theCongress’’ addressed to the delegates of the Thirteenth Congress of theRussian Communist Party, which was scheduled to meet in late spring1924. These were highly sensitive documents in which Lenin criticallyassessed the political views and moral traits of several leading figures in theparty: Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Lev Kamenev, andGeorgy Piatakov. He reserved his strongest critique for Joseph Stalin, thecurrent first secretary of the party. Stalin had a dangerous tendency to beauthoritarian, intolerant of the opinions of others, and rude in privateinteractions, all of which made him inappropriate for the position of theparty leader, wrote Lenin.14

Lenin gave strict instructions about these documents to his secretary,L. A. Fotieva, and to his wife. They were to be hidden for the time being andonly made available to the party congress if Lenin died. Lenin did notrealize that Fotieva was serving as an informer for ‘‘the troika’’ (the party’stop three leaders, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin, who opposed the otherleader, Trotsky).15 She promptly communicated to them the contents ofLenin’s ‘‘Letter to the Congress.’’16 In May 1924, four months after Lenin’sdeath, his ‘‘Letter’’ was indeed read to the delegates of the Thirteenth PartyCongress. However, it was soon after suppressed by Stalin and omitted fromthe final published transcript of the congress that appeared a few monthslater.17 Starting from the early 1930s, when Stalin emerged as the party’ssingle leader, the letter was officially described as a forgery produced by theenemies of the party to undermine its unity. Possessing a copy was nowtreated as evidence of one’s participation in antiparty activities, which atthe height of the Stalinist purges could mean a death sentence.18

The ‘‘Letter to the Congress’’ was temporarily rehabilitated in 1956,three years after Stalin’s death, when it was read in closed sessions to the

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delegates of the Twentieth Party Congress. However, this documentremained unknown to the wider Soviet public, and under Leonid Brezhnevit was again suppressed. The letter was finally published in widely circulatingSoviet papers only at the end of Perestroika.19 As the fate of this letter andother important documents that Lenin dictated at the end of his life demon-strates, starting in fall 1922 and until the end of Soviet history, Lenin’s voicewas effectively censored by the party leadership.

In spring 1923, Lenin’s condition turned for the worse. A third stroke, inMarch, caused almost complete loss of speech, reading, writing, and basicmotor functions.20 Lenin’s progressing disabilities led to the intensificationof the political rivalry among party leaders.21 Lenin was now completelyisolated from the world, and, in the words of Professor Viktor Osipov, a doc-tor on Lenin’s medical team, ‘‘During that final period of his illness, fromspring 1923, [Lenin] saw himself as a person who had been deleted from thelist of active political figures of the USSR.’’22 The Soviet public read aboutLenin’s health problems regularly in Soviet newspapers, but these reportswere selective and tightly controlled by the politburo, and in the finalmonths they disappeared altogether. To the public it seemed that Leninremained politically active and in close communication with party leader-ship. His name was frequently invoked, but not in relation to his actualcondition.23

While the politburo was isolating the living Lenin from the politicalworld, it was simultaneously engaged in canonizing Lenin’s public image.‘‘It was at that time, [from 1922 and] until Lenin’s death in January 1924,that most mythological images and institutions that were formed aroundLenin’s cult were created. A precondition for this was the loss by Lenin atthat time of his unmatched personal aura.’’24 More than a year prior toLenin’s death, and in spite of his active protestations, the party leadershipintroduced the term ‘‘Leninism’’ into public circulation.25

‘‘From early 1923, the leading party propagandists started insisting onthe necessity to pledge party allegiance to ‘Leninism.’’’26 On March 31,1923, nine months prior to Lenin’s death, the party established the ‘‘LeninInstitute’’ inMoscow.27 In the summer of 1923, Pravda appealed to its readers:‘‘‘Every scrap of paper’ bearing an inscription or mark made by Lenin couldprovide an important contribution to an understanding of the great man.’’28

Later the newspaper added: ‘‘‘Any bit of paper typed on a typewriter,’ if itcarried the signature of V. I. Lenin, should be sent in to the Institute.’’29

The party leadership was now actively constructing ‘‘Lenin’’ as ‘‘a partic-ular object of political iconography that was not connected in any way withthe real living Lenin.’’30 While ‘‘Lenin’s every word’’ from the past waspublicly collected, much of what Lenin was in fact saying and writing afterthe fall of 1922 was pointedly erased from that image. Now Lenin was not


allowed to edit his own earlier texts, change his earlier positions, or protestagainst misinterpretations of his statements. Now it was the politburo thatcontrolled what Lenin was ‘‘really’’ saying—not Lenin himself. Lenin thepolitical figure was now doubled—into one Lenin banished from the polit-ical world, and another Lenin canonized within it. The double process wasprojected into many areas of political practice, including party discourse. InNovember 1923, Pravda wrote that Lenin was not just ‘‘the name of a belovedleader’’ but something bigger—‘‘a program,’’ ‘‘a tactic,’’ ‘‘a philosophicalworld view’’—in a word, Leninism.31 Leninism as a teaching was bigger thanthe flesh-and-blood person called ‘‘Lenin’’ and could therefore even bedifferent from the ideas of Lenin (the person).

The banishment of the ‘‘real Lenin’’ extended not only to the writings ofthe final two years of his life but also to much of his legacy and the facts of hispersonal life.32 When, in the mid-1930s, the famous Soviet writer MariettaShaginian tried to include into her acclaimed trilogy some previouslyunknown facts of the ethnic origins of Lenin’s family, which she learnedfrom Lenin’s widow, the CC not only stopped the work from being pub-lished but also, remarkably, adopted a resolution in which Shaginian andKrupskaya were harshly criticized for turning the important ‘‘publicendeavor of composing works about Lenin’’ into a ‘‘private and even familyaffair’’ designed ‘‘to control how the life and work of Lenin and his familyare interpreted—something that the Central Committee has never allowedanyone to do.’’33

The doctrine of ‘‘Leninism’’ was the result of these banishments, omis-sions, and alternations of Lenin’s ideas and the facts of his life and thecanonization of other facts and ideas. In 1924 Trotsky warned the CC thatLeninism had little to do with Lenin and was at risk of becoming a collectionof ‘‘dead quotes’’ that would be used out of context to legitimate all decisions,even diametrically opposing ones. It was not just ‘‘Lenin’s immortality’’—hiscult status—that preceded his death, as Nina Tumarkin suggests, but ratherthe substitution of Lenin with ‘‘Leninism’’ that went on through the simul-taneous canonization of the ideal and banishment of the man.34 In the1920s, these two processes transformed the Russian revolutionary state intoa Leninist polity.35

From that time until the end of Soviet history Leninism, as the unques-tionable doctrine, became a central element of the Soviet political system.The doctrine was not static; it was constantly being reshaped to fit thecurrent political context by canonizing and censoring Lenin, reinterpretinghis previously published texts and criticizing their earlier interpretations,omitting facts of his life and inventing new ones. Every Soviet leader, fromStalin to Mikhail Gorbachev, produced his own version of Leninism. Thisprocess was possible because every version of the doctrine, regardless of its

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current meaning, occupied the position of the unquestionable, founda-tional truth of the Soviet political system. The central unquestionable tenetof this truth was the understanding that all human history would inevitablyarrive at Communism. The truth was articulated outside and beyond theSoviet system. No Soviet leader, not even Stalin during the height of hispower, could occupy that external position; it could be occupied only by theconstructed voice of Leninism.

In 1990, less than two years before the Soviet state collapsed, theCommunist Party publicly admitted that Lenin’s works had always beendistorted. A professor of Marxist-Leninist philosophy complained in a cen-tral newspaper: ‘‘Our tragedy is that we do not know Lenin. We never readhis original texts in the past, and we still do not do this today. For decades wehave perceived Lenin through mediators, interpreters, popularizers, andother distorters.’’36 A party historian bitterly remarked in a widely read dailythat Nikita Khrushchev and Brezhnev ‘‘were obviously not Leninists.’’ Forthem Lenin was only ‘‘an icon’’ behind which they could hide.37 Anotherhistorian wrote in a popular monthly that even the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow, the country’s definitive authority on Lenin’s work,‘‘for seventy years since its founding has been fulfilling an absurd func-tion . . . legitimizing for publication those [Lenin’s] texts that matched thecanon [of the day], however different from the real Lenin’s words they were,and altering or modifying those [Lenin’s] texts that did not fit thatcanon.’’38 Gorbachev began his April 1990 speech at the celebrations forthe one-hundred-twentieth anniversary of Lenin’s birth with the words:‘‘Lenin still remains with us as the greatest thinker of the twentieth century.’’But he quickly added: ‘‘We must rethink Lenin and his theoretical andpolitical work, and we must rid ourselves of the distortions and canoniza-tions of his conclusions. . . . It is time to end the thoughtless and absurdmanipulation of Lenin’s name and image that turns him into an ‘icon.’’’In fact, suggested Gorbachev, to preserve the ‘‘real Lenin’’ we must abandonthe concept of ‘‘Leninism’’ altogether, because it reduces Lenin’s complexthought to a collection of canonized statements. This unprecedented claimby the party leader put the audience at the meeting into a visible state ofshock.39

In a revealing publication in 1990, Fyodor Burlatsky, a former advisorand speechwriter to Khrushchev and Yuri Andropov, described how Lenin’squotes were manipulated in the politburo. In the Kremlin office of thepowerful Secretary of Ideology Mikhail Suslov, wrote Burlatsky, there wasa large file cabinet with little drawers that contained thousands of quotesfrom Lenin. The quotes were organized by themes and were written on smalllibrary cards. When the politburo introduced a new political campaign, eco-nomic measure, or international policy Suslov found an appropriate phrase


from Lenin to support it, ensuring that even incompatible policies and cam-paigns appeared equally legitimate. Once, in the early 1960s, Burlatskyshowed Suslov a draft of a speech he had prepared for Khrushchev thatcontained a discussion of reforms. Suslov read it carefully and in one placesaid, ‘‘It would be good to illustrate this point with a quote from VladimirIlyich [Lenin].’’ When Burlatsky replied that he would look for an appropri-ate quote, Suslov responded: ‘‘No, I will do this myself.’’ Burlatsky writes:

Suslov dashed to the corner of his office, pulled out one drawer and put it on thetable. With his long, thin fingers he started very rapidly flipping through the cards.He pulled out one card and read it. No, that’s not it. Then he pulled out anotherone. No, still not right. Finally he took another card out and exclaimed with satis-faction, ‘‘Ok, this one will do.’’40

These admissions by party ideologues, advisors, and historians at the end ofSoviet history exposed something that had been the case from the early1920s: that the doctrine of ‘‘Leninism’’ had been produced continuously,as much by drawing on Lenin’s thought as by distorting it. In 1924, the dualprocess by which Lenin was transformed into Leninism became crucial to thefinal decision to preserve the man’s body for posterity. To understand howthis happened, let me return to the time of Lenin’s death.

Preservation

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. There was no longer a need tobanish the real Lenin from the political world to prevent him from inter-fering with his canonized image. The banished Lenin and the canonizedLenin were now reunited in one dead body. It is clear from discussionsbetween the party leaders and medical doctors in the weeks followingLenin’s death that the decision to preserve his body forever was not plannedbeforehand but emerged gradually and somewhat unexpectedly. Immedi-ately after Lenin’s death, Professor Alexei Abrikosov conducted an autopsyand performed the usual short-term embalming procedure to preserve thebody temporarily, allowing it to be publicly displayed for a few days beforethe funeral. Because no plan to preserve Lenin’s body for posterity existed,Abrikosov cut major arteries and blood vessels in Lenin’s body during theautopsy. Later Abrikosov explained that had the plans for long-term pres-ervation existed at the time, he would not have cut the arteries, because theyare crucial for delivering embalming liquids to all corners of the bodyduring long-term preservation.41

For the first six days after Lenin’s death his body lay in state in the Houseof Trade Unions in Moscow; huge crowds of people from all over the countrywaited for hours in extra-cold temperatures to bid farewell to the leader.42

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Then, on January 27, the body was officially buried in a grand ceremony. Infact, the funeral amounted to moving the body to a temporary wooden mau-soleum built on Red Square, where it was to lie for a few weeks longer ina glass sarcophagus, allowingmore people to see it before its burial. The bodywas in an intermediate state: the burial that began on January 27 had not yetbeen completed, its final stage still pending. Temperatures in Moscow con-tinued to be extremely cold, and themedical commissions that examined thebody every several days between late January and lateMarch found no signs ofdecomposition.43 But in late March the weather turned warmer, and onMarch 26, 1924, the examination commission noticed the first threateningsigns—the ‘‘drying and softening of body parts and a sharp change in thecolor of the head, hands and shins.’’44 Irreversible changes would not be faraway.

The extended period of almost two months when the body remainedintact gave the Soviet leadership a chance to discuss the body again andagain. It was during these discussions that the plan to preserve it for poster-ity gradually emerged. Although the idea itself had been voiced earlier inthe press and among laypeople, many party leaders considered it scientifi-cally unrealistic and contradictory to the materialist worldview of Commu-nism.45 For Trotsky and Bukharin, preserving Lenin’s body was comparableto treating it as a religious relic—unthinkable for communists.46 KlimentVoroshilov similarly claimed that if Lenin’s body was preserved, ‘‘we willcease to be Marxists-Leninists.’’47 Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich suggested creat-ing a closed tomb, which would function as a public memorial but withouta publicly displayed body. The majority in the politburo supported thisidea.48

In the meantime it was decided that the temporary preservation of thebody should be extended to allow more people to bid farewell to theleader.49 But there was no consensus among the leadership on how topreserve Lenin or for how long. This fact was reflected in the remarkablecacophony of opinions voiced by the party leadership and scientists duringthe meeting of the Commission for the Organization of Lenin’s Funeral onMarch 5, 1924. At the meeting, Leonid Krasin, a Central Committee mem-ber with an engineering degree, suggested placing the coffin containingLenin’s body inside a metal box with a glass top and ‘‘filling it all the wayup to the brim with embalming liquid [that] would be absolutely transpar-ent and invisible from outside.’’50 But the powerful Felix Dzerzhinsky, chair-man of the funeral commission and the OGPU (future KGB), disagreed:instead of submerging the body in liquid, ‘‘as though it were some kind ofdead meat,’’ he said, it would be better to freeze it.51 Several members of thecommission pointed out, however, that freezing had its problems too—itwould preserve not only the body but also its current defects, while liquid


embalming might allow one to fix the latter. Moreover, added GrigoryBelen’ky, a recent experimental freezing of a human body demonstratedthat ‘‘as soon as the temperature changed just a little, the body turnedblack. So, if something breaks down—say, the freezer is not working forhalf an hour—it will all turn black and everything will be lost.’’ CentralCommittee member Vyacheslav Molotov opposed both freezing the bodyand submerging it in liquid but had no alternative suggestions. DoctorMaksimilian Savel’ev proposed putting the body in a transparent capsulefilled with pure nitrogen—neutral gas that would prevent biological pro-cesses and stop decomposition, he argued. But Krasin was skeptical:‘‘I have my doubts. . . . As far as I know, apart from the bacteria that livein oxygen there are also anaerobic bacteria that successfully function innitrogen.’’ Having listened to these opinions, Avel Enukidze, member ofthe Central Executive Committee, summarized: ‘‘We should certainlyunderstand that we will not be able to preserve Vladimir Ilyich for a longtime. . . .We will freeze the body without promising to anyone that this isdone for posterity. If disaster strikes and it continues changing even whenit’s frozen, we will have to enclose it.’’ Then Kliment Voroshilov, memberof the Revolutionary Military Council, made the final suggestion: ‘‘I pro-pose doing nothing. If the body holds up for another year without change,this is already good enough.’’52

Members of the Commission for the Organization of Lenin’s Funeralwere clearly not of one mind on whether the preservation was possible oreven necessary, so no decision was reached that day. However somethingimportant emerges from this and other discussions in March 1924. Themanner in which the party leaders spoke about Lenin’s body when theywere given a chance to discuss it for an extended period of time was rem-iniscent of how Lenin was treated during the final two years of his life, whenhe was simultaneously banished from political life and canonized as a cultfigure. The discussions from January to March 1924 also focused simulta-neously on burying Lenin’s body and preserving it, closing it and display-ing it, embalming it for posterity and denying that posterity was important(the final remarks by Enukidze and Voroshilov on March 5 drove thatparadoxical point home). Even the fact that these discussions were regu-larly conducted in two different commissions reflected this duality: one ofthem was called ‘‘Commission for the Organization of Lenin’s Funeral,’’the other,—‘‘Commission for the Preservation of Lenin’s Body.’’53 Manyparty leaders took part in the work of both commissions. This dualityreflected the two different views of Lenin’s body between which the lead-ership was oscillating—from the decomposing corpse of a flesh-and-bloodperson called Lenin to the embodiment of something that was differentfrom and bigger than Lenin the man. And although at that moment these

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two bodies were still ‘‘made out’’ of the same biological flesh, they wouldnot, as we will see, continue to be the same much longer.

In late March, after endless discussions and disagreements, it wasdecided to subject Lenin’s body to an experimental embalming procedureproposed by Professor of Medicine Vladimir Vorobiev and the biochemistBoris Zbarsky. No one was certain whether the experiment would succeedand, if it did, how long the body could be displayed after that. The plan wasto attempt to preserve it for as long as possible.54 Vorobiev and Zbarskyworked nonstop for four months, moving slowly and carefully and inventingmuch of their method in the process. In late July 1924 they reported theirsuccess to the leadership, claiming that if Lenin’s body was continuouslytreated according to their method it might remain in its current state fora long time. For how long they did not specify. When, following Vorobiev’sreport, Nikolai Semashko asked him, ‘‘How long can we expect Lenin’s bodyto hold up according to this method?’’ Vorobiev responded: ‘‘I will allowmyself not to answer this question.’’55

Vorobiev and Zbarsky did not simply embalm the body once and for all,but developed a dynamic method of preservation that required regularreembalming, submerging the body in baths with special solutions for longperiods of time, filling it with new liquids and substances, substituting itsoriginal organic materials with artificial ones, and regularly resculpting itsshapes and surfaces. On July 24, 1924, the commission, now renamed for theoccasion ‘‘The Commission for the Immortalization of Lenin’s Memory,’’issued a public statement, explaining in retrospect why it had been decidedto preserve Lenin’s body. The statement was read by Enukidze—the sameperson who four and a half months earlier, before the experiment began,had suggested, ‘‘We will freeze the body without promising to anyone thatthis is done for posterity.’’ Now he said:

We did not want to turn the body of Vladimir Ilyich into some kind of ‘‘relic,’’ bymeans of which we could popularize and preserve his memory. He had alreadyimmortalized himself enough with his brilliant teaching and revolutionary activi-ties. . . .We wanted to preserve the body of Vladimir Ilyich . . . [because] it is of greatimportance to preserve the fizicheskii oblik [physical guise, physical appearance] ofthis remarkable leader for the next generation and all the future generations.56

It is clear again from this explanation that the party leadership sawLenin’s body in a dual way: as the biological remains of an actual personand as a physical entity that had transcended individual biology. Considerthe difference between this kind of dual body and a Christian relic: in thecase of the relic it is crucial that the authentic biological substance of theperson (saint) is preserved.57 But in the case of Lenin’s body, whether or notthe authentic biological trace is preserved is not pivotal. As Enukidze put it,


‘‘We did not want to turn the body . . . into some kind of ‘relic.’’’ In otherwords, it is more important to maintain the form of this body (its ‘‘physicalappearance’’) than its individual biology. The distinction between the biol-ogy and the form of a body is like that between a person and the represen-tation of a person—in the same way that a sculpture or a doctrine mightrepresent an individual.

How Enukidze described this task in 1924 is strikingly similar to how theLab scientists talk about it today. According to academician Valery Bykov, thedirector of VILAR Institute (Russian Institute of Medicinal and AromaticPlants), the task of this work is to preserve Lenin’s ‘‘anatomical image’’ (ana-tomicheski obraz).58 ‘‘Anatomical image,’’ like ‘‘physical appearance,’’ impliesa specific focus on the body—one in which the body’s particular form is moreimportant than its particular biological matter. A veteran scientist of the Lab,academician Yuri Lopukhin, uses the phrase ‘‘living sculpture’’ (zhivaia skul’p-tura), which he coined to convey a number of ambiguities.59 After years ofreembalming, resculpting, and substituting, this body today contains so manyartificial materials and has changed so much from its original biologicalcomposition that in some sense it is closer to a wholly constructed represen-tation of Lenin’s dead body than to the original, once living man.60 At thesame time, says Lopukhin, this is different from external representation, as insculpture, because it is the actual body itself. This body both is and is nota representation. The phrase ‘‘living sculpture’’ is meant to convey this par-adox, as if to say this is a sculpture of the body that is constructed out of the body itself.

The work directed at achieving this goal over the years led to the emer-gence of a unique quasi-biological science that is different from other knownapproaches to embalming and bodily preservation. In fact, the practitionersof this science insist that the terms ‘‘preservation’’ and ‘‘embalming’’ do notadequately describe their work because they refer to static dead bodies,whose forms are fixed, static, and therefore inevitably distorted. But Lenin’sbody is different—its form is dynamic, flexible, emergent. To remain undis-torted its form must constantly change. ‘‘Preservation’’ in this case is nota state but a never-ending process. It is synonymous not with conservation,but with cultivation. And its criteria are not just scientific but also artistic.

Twinned Beings

The political reasons for this peculiar kind of preservation can beilluminated by comparing the treatment of Lenin’s body with those of rulersin other cultural and historical contexts. An obvious place to start is with thebodies of Western European kings famously analyzed by Ernst Kantorowicz,whose work focused on the late medieval and early modern legal theories

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linking monarchic sovereignty and the king’s body.61 Sovereign power isabsolute, not only spatially, within sovereign borders, but also temporally.62

By perpetually reproducing itself, it survives the demise of any concreteagent of sovereignty. But what is the mechanism of this reproduction, andwhat form does the temporal dimension take in practice?

With the shift toward an increasingly secularized institution of monar-chy, writes Kantorowicz, the legitimation of the king was no longer depen-dent on the ‘‘approval or consecration on the part of the Church,’’ but waspurely ‘‘dynastic.’’63 The king’s legitimacy was now grounded not in gracebut in nature (kinship, familial biology). While the ritual of royal successionstill referred to the Holy Spirit as the source of legitimation, in practice thatspirit had become naturalized, ‘‘seated in the royal blood itself,’’ makingroyals biologically different from others—a ‘‘royal species of man.’’64

According to this doctrine, the physical body of the king, unlike that ofother mortals, was doubled, consisting of a mortal body (body of nature)and immortal body (body of grace). The king’s death was the demise of themortal body; but the immortal body survived and, after the interregnum,reinhabited the flesh of the next king.

In European monarchies this corporeal doubling was understood inexplicitly material terms, which came to be reflected, for example, in theconstruction of an effigy of the king upon his death. The effigy was a full-sizemodel that looked uncannily similar to the dead king. While sculptures andimages of the dead are common in many funeral ceremonies around theworld, they usually function as external representations of the dead—that is,as substitutes for the corpse. But the effigy functioned differently from theseother sculptures and images—instead of substituting for the corpse of theking, the effigy appeared alongside it, coexisting with the corpse in time andspace.65 The corpse and the effigy together functioned as the twinned mate-riality of the king’s body.

Great artistic efforts were summoned for the production of effigies.They were made with extreme realism, using wax, leather, and wood; theirfaces were modeled on the death mask of the monarch, carefully chiseledand painted to look as lifelike as possible (figs. 4, 5, 6).66 Often real hair andeyelashes were used to add a natural look; the fingers and limbs had movingjoints, and the torso was supple, allowing it to acquire different positions(sitting, lying, holding a scepter) in different contexts.67 In sixteenth- andseventeenth-century France and England, during preparations for theking’s funeral the effigy was dressed in the king’s clothes and seated on thethrone in the Hall of Honor. Medics pretended to take its pulse and listen toits breath; food and wine were placed in front of it; and after meals stewardswashed its hands and wiped its mouth.68 During royal funeral processions,members of the French Parliament walked close to the effigy, and courtiers


jostled with each other for the position nearest to it, practically ignoring thecorpse of the king’s real body.69 The latter ‘‘lay naked in the coffin, while theeffigy was attired in royal robes, crowned with an imperial crown, and holdingthe sceptre and hand of justice.’’70 At that moment the effigy represented the‘‘king in splendor,’’ in contrast to ‘‘the mortal remains’’ of the dead king,which had lost much of their relevance.71 Proximity to the effigy symbolizeda closer connection to perpetual sovereign power as such. But after the kingwas buried and the next king crowned, the king’s two bodies became onceagain reunited in one living body; the effigy could no longer be publiclydisplayed and was usually hidden in the royal crypt or a distant abbey.72

figure 4. Effigy of Charles II (d. 1685), waxand wood. Westminster Abbey Museum.

figure 5. Effigy of Frances, Duchess ofRichmond (d. 1702), wax and wood.

Westminster Abbey Museum.

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But is the theory of the king’s two bodies relevant to the Soviet politicalsystem? This question should be divided into two. First, is this theory uniqueto Western European monarchies, or have comparable theories emergedelsewhere? Second, when the absolutist monarchies in Europe were disman-tled by modern revolutions or reforms, did this doctrine survive in somealtered form, and if so, how might it be manifested today?

Kantorowicz seems to suggest that the theory of the king’s two bodieswas specific to late medieval–early modern Christian Europe. However, asanthropologists and historians have demonstrated, remarkably similarrituals of the perpetual regeneration of sovereign power have developedin many other sociocultural and historical contexts. One of the earliestaccounts is provided in Sir James Frazer’s 1890 The Golden Bough: A Studyin Comparative Religion.73 In the third edition of the book, in 1916, Frazerincluded a detailed description of the rituals of royal succession in theShilluk kingdom of South Sudan, including rituals that performed a ‘‘dou-bling’’ of the royal body using a wooden effigy, which are remarkably rem-iniscent of those described by Kantorowicz.74 Comparable doctrines andrituals have been described in many other parts of the world and peri-ods—from South Sudan and East India to premodern Japan; from ancientImperial Rome to the modern Vatican.75 It appears that a general diver-gence between the impermanence of the mortal sovereign’s body and thepermanent perpetuity of the sovereign office has led to the development ofcomparable cosmologies and rituals.

The case explored by Kantorowicz was just one significant instance amongcomparable cultural models. In the Leninist system, I will argue, a distinctpolitical cosmology that linked a doubling of the foundational body with

figure 6. Effigy of William III of Orange (d.1702), wax and wood. Westminster AbbeyMuseum.


sovereign perpetuity had also emerged. Importantly, this political cosmologynot only influenced the decision to preserve Lenin’s body for posterity butalso shaped the peculiar scientific practice according to which this body hasbeen treated ever since. The Leninist model of sovereign perpetuity did notdevelop as a direct genealogical transformation from the previous Russianmonarchy. In fact, according to Michael Cherniavsky, a student of Kantoro-wicz, a doctrine comparable to that of the king’s two bodies in France andEngland never existed in the Russian tsarist state.76This fact, however, did notprevent the emergence of a comparable model of sovereign perpetuity in theBolshevik Communist state after Lenin’s death. The development of thismodel was encouraged not by the previous institutional structures of theRussian monarchy or religious rituals of the Russian orthodoxy, but bythe general revolutionary ethos of modern European states that focused onthe sovereign body as the central site of their democratic transformation. TheBolsheviks imagined themselves heirs to the French Revolution who hadcreated the ultimate modern state, severing all links to Russia’s traditionalpast and opening itself completely to the future. Liberal democratic revolu-tions in Europe and North America influenced the political imagination ofthe Bolshevik state far more than did those of the Russian monarchy andorthodoxy.

Neotraditional Sovereignty

As Claude Lefort demonstrated in his Democracy and Political The-ory, the political institution of sovereign perpetuity in modern liberaldemocracies is indeed directly related to that institution as it existed in theabsolutist monarchies that liberal democracies replaced.77 In Europeanmonarchies, the sovereign’s legitimacy was guaranteed by his or her linkto ‘‘another place’’—a place that was external to the political world of themonarchy, where the eternity of the sovereign power was anchored. It was inthat external place that the physical body of eachmonarch was located—butonly temporarily, until he or she died.78 In contemporary liberal democra-cies, according to Lefort, the locus of sovereign power continues to beanchored in that external ‘‘other place’’; however, now that place is‘‘empty.’’ No one in a liberal democracy can occupy it, as the absolutistmonarch once did, but every democratically elected official must serve inthe name of that empty place and must refer to it for legitimacy.79 Thefoundational truth of liberal democracy, on which its legitimacy is based,emanates from that ‘‘empty place.’’

Recently Eric Santner has also argued that, with the disappearance of‘‘the body of the king . . . as the primary incarnation of the principle and

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functions of sovereignty,’’ the locus of sovereignty in liberal democracy‘‘‘migrate[d]’ into a new location.’’80 However, unlike Lefort, who definesthat location as an ‘‘empty place,’’ Santner defines it as a particular kind of‘‘flesh’’ of the people or nation, which remains after the monarchy is gone.This flesh inhabits the body of every member of ‘‘the people,’’ existing asa sublime, immortal, extrapersonal surplus to his or her mortal biology. Thisleads, Santner argues, to the state’s obsessive management of that flesh ofthe population through techniques of biopolitics.

Despite the seeming difference in Lefort’s and Santner’s arguments,they should be united into one model as its two different parts: the locusof sovereignty is not in one or the other of these locations, but in theirtwinned coexistence. Santner’s ‘‘flesh’’ of the people and Lefort’s ‘‘emptyplace’’ together constitute the very duality of perpetual sovereign power inliberal democracy that was once manifested in the king’s twinned body.Santner’s extrapersonal flesh is the modern equivalent of the uninterruptedsuccession of kings’ mortal bodies that in the monarchy constituted theperpetual ‘‘dynasty’’ and in modern liberal democracy constitutes the undy-ing ‘‘nation,’’ the perpetual ‘‘we, the people.’’ And Lefort’s empty place isthe modern equivalent of the immortal body of the king—the politicalsystem’s foundational truth, which is located outside of and prior to thesystem, legitimizing it from that external place. In different modern systems,the foundational truth varies—for example: the truth of the FoundingFathers and the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the doc-trine of Communism, and so on.81

Let us now return to the Leninist polity, where the structural organiza-tion of sovereignty differed from both absolutist monarchy and liberaldemocracy. Comparing the Soviet case with both systems will be helpful.Lefort even offers such a comparison, arguing that if the leader in a liberaldemocracy reoccupied the ‘‘empty place’’ of sovereign power, democracywould slide into ‘‘totalitarianism,’’ which is what happened, according tohim, in Germany after 1934 and in the Soviet Union under Stalin. However,while Lefort is right about the Nazi German state, where the Fuhrer’s bodyindeed coincided with the center of sovereign power, his assessment of theleader’s position in the Soviet Union is inaccurate.

No Soviet leader could occupy the locus of sovereign power, because therelation of every leader to that power was mediated by the figure of ‘‘Lenin-ism.’’ Every Soviet leader—including Stalin at the height of his powers—hadto refer to Leninism for legitimacy. Any political idea or individual in Soviethistory could be granted legitimacy if their loyalty to Leninism could bedemonstrated; and any idea or individual could be delegitimized in an instantif they were shown to violate Leninism.82 Two striking phenomena of Soviethistory—first, the emergence of Stalin’s unique power and personality cult


and, second, the complete collapse of Stalin’s cult after his death, which didnot lead to the collapse of the party—demonstrate this point. At first, Stalinwas celebrated as the most faithful Leninist, a leader who had unique accessto the truth of Leninism.83 But after his death in 1953, he was accused ofprecisely the opposite—of having distorted the truth of Leninism. The pro-cess of de-Stalinization that followed was framed as a return to the true,undistorted Leninism, which allowed the party to be disconnected from Sta-lin, survive the critique, and even re-emerge stronger than before his rise topower.84 In other words, Stalin (like any other leader in the Soviet system, butunlike Hitler) did not occupy the locus of sovereign power.

Ken Jowitt, in an insightful analysis of Leninism, argues that what madethe Leninist system qualitatively different from both absolutist monarchy(traditional) and liberal democracy (modern) is that in Leninism the center ofsovereign power was located neither in the traditional charismatic leadernor in depersonalized modern bureaucracy, but in an institution that isconstructed as a combination of the two. This institution—the so-calledparty of the new type—Jowitt calls neotraditional, because it emerged whentwo seemingly incompatible principles were absorbed into one organiza-tional structure: the traditional principle of ‘‘individual heroism’’ and themodern principle of ‘‘organizational impersonalism.’’85 Both Leninism andNazism emphasized a ‘‘heroic ethic,’’ argues Jowitt, but what agent eachsystem designated as heroic was different. In the Nazi case that agent wasthe individual charismatic leader—the Fuhrer. Nazism was based on theFuhrerprinzip—that is, on the personal charisma of the leader, who ‘‘claimsauthority because he incorporates the idea in his person.’’86 In the Leninistsystem that agent was not an individual, but the Communist Party of the‘‘Leninist’’ type (henceforth, ‘‘Leninist party’’), whose ‘‘heroism is definedin organizational, not individual, terms,’’ and therefore its principle of orga-nization is ‘‘charismatic impersonalism.’’87

The Leninist party was founded upon and held together by what wascalled the ‘‘correct line’’ (the foundational truth mentioned earlier). Everyleader in the Leninist system claimed authority on the basis of his or herknowledge of the ‘‘correct line,’’ and no leader could question it. AfterLenin’s death the correct line became articulated as the doctrine of ‘‘Lenin-ism.’’ Stalin’s unique power and cult of personality were founded on thesuccessful and often violent claim that, as the alleged ‘‘chosen heir,’’ he hadthe best command of Leninism.88 Since that doctrine was impersonal (noone could claim it as their own or question it, but everyone had to refer toit), however, differing interpretations proliferated.89 This is why the Leni-nist party always generated many more internal factions than the NaziParty.90 And this is also why the Leninist party always had a legitimate poten-tial to criticize any leader, including the general secretary, if a group in the

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party leadership made a successful claim that that leader had violated Lenin-ism. This was what Khrushchev claimed when he attacked Stalin’s cult ofpersonality at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956.91 And Khrushchev wasaccused of the same violation when he was deposed by the politburo in1964.92

The center of sovereign power in the Leninist polity, then, was locatednot in the body of the current party leader, but in the body of the party. Butwhat kind of a ‘‘body’’ was it? That body was twinned between mortal andimmortal parts. The first quasi-biological mortal body of the party trans-cended the individual biology of every party member and leader, becomingperpetually renewed in every new incarnation of the party throughoutSoviet history. This was the Soviet equivalent of Santner’s undying peoplein a liberal democracy and of the perpetual succession of the mortal bodiesof kings in a monarchy. The second immortal body of the party was theexternal foundational truth of Leninism. This was the Soviet equivalent ofLefort’s ‘‘empty place’’ in a liberal democracy and of the king’s immortalbody in a monarchy. Thematerial body of Lenin lying in themausoleum wasone side of this twinned party-sovereign—its immortal body.

In liberal democracy the foundational truth is located outside and priorto the polity (for example, the US Constitution had to be written by theFounding Fathers before the nation could be constituted). The truth ofLeninism was also external and prior to the Soviet ‘‘Leninist’’ system. Butin practice, Leninism was not only produced after Lenin himself died (orwhen he became incapacitated in the early 1920s) but was even continuouslyrefashioned and reinterpreted by others throughout subsequent Soviet his-tory, although as a foundational truth it was presented as Lenin’s own word.While Leninism occupied the position of the external unquestionable truth,what that meant in practice changed somewhat from period to period (fromStalin’s Short Course, to Khrushchev’s anti-Stalinist Thaw, to Brezhnev’s con-servative turn, to Gorbachev’s attempt to return to the ‘‘unknown Lenin,’’and so on).93

To elaborate the function of Lenin’s body in this model, let us considerthe doubling of Lenin in the canonized and banished versions that pro-duced ‘‘Leninism.’’ This doubling involved not only constantly manipulat-ing and reinterpreting Lenin’s texts and the facts of his life but alsoconstantly resculpting and reconstructing Lenin’s physical body. That bodywas maintained at the level of anatomical form (its shape, weight, color,mechanical characteristics, moving joints, liquid balances), but changed atthe level of biological matter (with its biological substance continuallysubstituted). In this process Lenin’s body was itself doubled into mortal andimmortal bodies. Lenin’s ‘‘immortal’’ body was reminiscent of the king’seffigy. This body-effigy of Lenin was visible only to the gaze of the Soviet


political regime that ‘‘looked’’ at it from the external point of sovereignperpetuity. It was this gaze of the polity that the scientific and party commis-sions performed over the years when they examined the body and describedits condition in secret reports. It was in relation to this gaze that the body’sexaminations were conducted, defects were corrected, and scientific proce-dures were invented. But to the common public this body-effigy was invisi-ble—any information about it or the procedures to which it was subjectedwas always ‘‘top secret.’’ What members of the Soviet public saw when theyvisited the mausoleum was Lenin’s other, banished, ‘‘mortal’’ body, which isakin to the king’s corpse. The body-corpse they saw appeared fixed, immo-bile, unchanged, as if it had been embalmed at the moment of death andremained intact ever since.94

Lenin’s physical body was literally doubled—into a dynamic body-effigyvisible only to the gaze of the political regime and a static body-corpselooked at by millions of visitors to the mausoleum. But there is an importantdifference between Lenin’s body and the doubled bodies of medieval kings.The physical doubling of the king into two separate bodies—the corpse andthe effigy—occurred only during the short period of the interregnum. Con-versely, a comparable doubling of Lenin’s body was produced inside thatbody itself and as a perpetually renewed condition. As in the case of thecanonization and banishment of Lenin’s written works, the material dou-bling of his body was produced through regular procedures of reembalmingand reconstruction. These procedures can be compared with the regularalternation of kings on the throne—both function as mechanisms of sover-eign perpetuity.

The precise regularity, complexity, and secrecy of the procedures per-formed upon Lenin’s body are striking. Some procedures are repeateddaily, some weekly, and the most complex and lengthy (taking about twomonths) are repeated every one and a half years. They are part of an elab-orate science of the body that is located between art and biology. It is to thispeculiar science that I now turn.

Between Art and Biology

Recollect the way in which Lopukhin’s description of Lenin’sbody as a ‘‘living sculpture’’ invokes its numerous ambiguities. One suchambiguity—that Lenin’s body both is and is not a sculpture—suggests that itis suspended between the two modes of art and biology. To continuouslyresculpt its form and dynamic properties, explains Lopukhin, ‘‘onemust notonly know the basics of anatomy, physical chemistry, and how to maintainthe water balance. . . .One must also possess an artistic sense. This is very

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important. This is why not everyone is capable of doing this work.’’95

Another veteran scientist of the Lab, Professor V. L. Kozel’tsev, elaborates:‘‘Every new wrinkle, cavity or protrusion must be fixed. We are talking abouttiny dimensions. Some amount of artificial substitutes has to be introduced[in these places], which is quite difficult. One needs experience and artisticsense to perform this work.’’96

What this ‘‘artistic sense’’ might entail is illustrated by several problemsposed by Lenin’s body in different periods. During the initial embalmingconducted by Vorobiev and Zbarsky, Lenin’s eyelashes were inadvertentlydestroyed. For the few first years the body had no eyelashes. To regularvisitors, who can never come too close to the body, this fact was not obvious;however, it was ‘‘still a clear aberration,’’ says Lopukhin, and needed to beaddressed:

We had a very good histologist. He was buying artificial eyelashes, which were sold inregular [cosmetic] shops. And he managed to slide them under [the eyelids], sothat there were at least some kind of eyelashes.97 Without eyelashes it did not lookgood.98

The story of the eyelashes may remind us of the techniques for constructingkings’ effigies described earlier. Similar quasi-artistic work has been con-ducted on the parts of the body that are invisible to the public. For example,Lenin’s feet: during the original experiment in spring 1924, Vorobiev andZbarsky covered the feet with large amounts of gelatin in an attempt to fixtheir shape and position, which had changed after their exposure to thecold. However, ‘‘it later turned out,’’ explains Lopukhin, that with timegelatin changes color, becoming dark. As a result the feet no longer lookedso good.’’ In addition, Zbarsky and Vorobiev covered them with very hotgelatin, ‘‘which made things even worse, creating additional deformation.Later these defects had to be corrected, and the surfaces of the feet had tobe rebuilt.’’99 This was done with the help of artificial materials that wereapplied to the surface or injected under the skin. Suggesting that the feet‘‘no longer looked so good,’’ Lopukhin refers to the gaze of the politicalregime (the scientists and party leaders involved in the project) on theimmortal ‘‘body-effigy’’ that would never be seen by the public.

By the mid-1930s, when it became clear that Lenin’s body could bemaintained for an indefinite period of time, the medical team around theproject expanded, and in 1939 a special laboratory was created. There wasnew funding; new equipment; new, well-educated personnel. The Labstarted working on more nuanced problems, which Lopukhin calls the ‘‘ill-nesses of embalming’’ (bolezni bal’zamirovania), again animating the body,stressing its emergent nature. These included the changing of pigmentation,stiffening of joints, decalcification of bones, hydrolysis of fats, fluctuation of


liquid ratios and bodily weight, changing ‘‘landscape’’ of skin surfaces, and soon. In the early years, solutions for such problems were developed as eachnew problem arose. With the establishment of the Lab, however, it becamepossible to develop new methods before they were needed. The work now nolonger focused exclusively on Lenin’s body but also included basic researchon human postmortem anatomy. By the early 1950s, the Lab was transformedinto a large research institute, which at its peak between the 1960s and 1980s,employed a couple of hundred scientists, researchers, and technicians whowere organized into several research departments, labs, and teams.100

During the Soviet period party commissions regularly examined Lenin’sbody and issued detailed reports on its condition.101 As the science devel-oped, the reports show that greater attention was increasingly paid to indi-vidual parts of the body. On January 19, 1939, a ‘‘Commission of thePeople’s Commissariat of Health for the Examination of Lenin’s Body’’reported that persistent problems with Lenin’s nose (which had lost itsoriginal form in the first month after Lenin’s death, after exposure toextreme cold) were finally solved. The nose was completely rebuilt and wasnow ‘‘in a very good condition.’’ The report also stressed that ‘‘the elasticityof the eyelids is quite impressive,’’ and ‘‘the face makes a complete impres-sion of a sleeping person, rather than a corpse.’’102

But there were also some problems. Alexei Busalov (Director of theMedical Administration of the Kremlin) remarked: ‘‘On the soles and toesthere are some signs of mummification. In the pelvic area there are hints ofwrinkling and thinning [of the skin]. They should be photographed anddescribed.’’103 Professor of Medicine Nikolai Burdenko pointed to newspots that had appeared ‘‘on the outer side of the left forearm’’ and ‘‘in thelower part of the body, especially in the pelvic area.’’ He added: ‘‘I amparticularly interested in the origin of these spots. They are not located inthe places where pressure is applied, whichmeans that they are likely to haveappeared due to [internal] change in the tissues or in the chemical[embalming] agent, or, perhaps, under the influence of light.’’104

Lab scientists worked around the clock to address these problems. OnJuly 19, 1942,105 the body was again inspected by a high-ranking Commis-sion of the Soviet of People’s Commissars. The commission reported thatmost of the problems mentioned earlier had been successfully fixed, ‘‘thecolor of the skin’’ in various parts of the body, compared to 1939, ‘‘has muchimproved. The spots that had earlier appeared on the closed parts of thebody,’’ especially on the back and sides, ‘‘have been successfully removed.The elasticity of the tissues and the flexibility of small and large joints, hasimproved,’’ and the ‘‘remarkable flexibility of the shoulder and elbowjoints’’ has been successfully maintained.106 The report also stressed that‘‘the wrinkles that were previously observed on the skin, especially in those

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areas where limbs bend and under the armpits . . .have been smoothedout,’’ and ‘‘the development of parchment skin (pergamentatsiia) on bothfeet had been interrupted.’’107The loss of weight, which had been a constantproblem due to the evaporation and outflow of liquids, and which in 1940‘‘amounted to almost two kilos,’’ had been finally stopped by successfullymaintaining the liquid balance in different tissues.108

Another source of constant headache for the scientists was hydrolysis—the process by which solid lipids (fats) in skin and muscle tissues graduallyliquefy and flow out of their areas, causing noticeable changes in the profileof the skin’s surface and creating new wrinkles, cavities, and folds. To avoidhydrolysis the Lab developed special materials to substitute for organic fats.These have physical characteristics similar to those of fats (they are soft andmalleable and can be sculpted) but are chemically neutral (they do notundergo hydrolysis). In the early 1940s, Zbarsky explained this work to thepolitburo:

After many experiments we developed a mix of paraffin, glycerin, and carotene withthe melting point of 57 degrees Celsius. This mix in liquefied form can be injectedunder the skin, where it quickly hardens into a solid mass that can be easily shaped.After experiments in the lab it became possible to substitute hydrolyzed fats withthis new mass. From the chemical point of view this mass is inert and can bepreserved without change. . . .Two years of experiments in this area produced suchgood results that they could be applied to fixing defects in Lenin’s body.109

The material is applied by microinjections to different parts of the body toreconstruct the landscape of its surfaces. ‘‘The places of depression orchange of volume in the hands and other parts of the body,’’ continuedZbarsky, ‘‘were injected with the mixture that we developed as a substitutionfor the fatty materials that underwent hydrolysis.’’110 The process was ongo-ing; original fat cells were continually replaced with artificial ones all overthe body, and the surfaces were manually reconstructed. When the body wasexamined in November 1943, Georgii Miterev (people’s commissar ofhealth) turned to Zbarsky for clarification: ‘‘So, you insert artificial massinstead of them [natural fats]. Does this mean that after a period of timeall fats [in the body] will be replaced with this new artificial mass?’’111 ‘‘Yes,’’nodded Zbarsky. Miterev was satisfied and the commission continued itsinspection. The total substitution of the original biological cells with artifi-cial ones did not bother the commission. It was concerned more with main-taining the nuanced form of the body, including a detailed profile of its skinsurfaces in visible and invisible places. In the case of Lenin’s face, this workproceeded on a microscopic scale. Zbarsky explained:

At first, to identify the exact area and volume of the necessary injection we appliedour mass, a colored mix of wax and paraffin, to a given place [on the surface of the


face] and took a photograph. Changing the outlines and volumes of these patcheswe compared the photographs with the pictures of Vladimir Ilyich’s face during hislife and on his deathbed. Only after identifying in this way the exact boundaries andvolumes of the necessary injections did we carefully carry them out. As a result ofthese injections facial resemblance greatly improved.112

Between 1952 and 1962, under Sergei Mardashev, the second director afterZbarsky, the Lab grew further. Mardashev introduced new areas of research.The problem of hydrolysis remained urgent. As years went by, it becamenecessary to combat the hydrolysis in deeper tissues that could not be easilyreached using the existing methods. Lopukhin explains: Mardashev, ‘‘asa major biochemist[,] understood better than most the magnitude of theproblem caused by the hydrolysis and oxidation of fats that inevitably goeson in fat cells. He identified that problem as among the most urgent.’’113

Every deviation of form anywhere in the body had to be addressed,which often meant developing unique new materials. But in February1945 a major crisis struck. OnMarch 9, Lavrentii Beria, the dreaded directorof the NKVD (later KGB), who also supervised the Lab, sent an alarmedletter to Vyacheslav Molotov, the chairman of the Council of People’s Com-missars (fig. 7). Beria reported that on February 15 and 16, Zbarsky and hisassistants Rafail Sinel’nikov and Sergei Mardashev conducted

experimental work saturating with gelatin the right foot of V. I. Lenin’s body for thepurpose of strengthening its epidermis [outer layer of skin]. The foot was placed ina special rubberized pouch filled with the solution. The work lasted about twentyhours. In that time the solution was changed twice. After the work was finished ateight in the morning on February 16 of this year, when the foot was released fromthe pouch with the solution, Com. Sinel’nikov and Mardashev discovered thata piece of skin of this shape (in actual size) went missing from the foot’s back side.

Beria drew the missing piece. ‘‘No trace of themissing piece of skin has beenfound yet,’’ he added. Zbarsky’s team received a strict order ‘‘to conducta thorough medical investigation to identify the reasons for the disappear-ance of the aforementioned piece of skin and to report the results of theirinvestigation.’’114

The piece of skin was never found. It was probably inadvertently dis-solved in the experimental procedure the group had conducted. To replacethe missing piece, the Lab developed special materials with the same flex-ibility, color, and liquid absorption as the skin on the soles of the feet, anda patch of that material was applied to the area. Today even a close exami-nation does not easily reveal the substitution. In his letter Beria mentionedthe measures that had been taken to avoid such incidents in the future:Zbarsky’s team received strict orders that ‘‘forbid anyone to conduct anyexperimental work on Lenin’s body in the future without first checking itsmethods and means on appropriate objects.’’115 What Beria called ‘‘objects,’’

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and what scientists today call ‘‘experimental objects’’ (eksperimental’nye ob’’ekty),comprise a bank of about two dozen anonymous bodies of different sizes,shapes, and ages that were embalmed according to the same method asLenin’s (figs. 8, 9).

Once every eighteen months Lenin’s body is subjected to ‘‘big proce-dures’’ lasting twomonths, when it is thoroughly examined, tested, and thencompletely reembalmed. All embalming liquids are drained from the body,which is then submerged in a bath with a new embalming solution, where itspends a couple of weeks. Then the body is examined and submerged ina new bath of a different solution. And so on. Various solutions are designedto affect different body parts—the skin, bones (which require calcium),muscle tissue, and so on. All liquids that are drained from the body undergoa variety of biochemical, anatomical, and physical tests to identify any micro-changes in their composition (the presence of mildew and other microor-ganisms, biological and chemical processes).116 Similar procedures are

figure 7. Letter from L. P. Beria to V. M. Molotov describing the disappearance ofa piece of skin from the back side of Lenin’s right foot, with a one-to-one scaledrawing of the missing piece. March 9, 1945. RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2s, ed. khr. 56, str.120–21.


performed on anonymous ‘‘experimental’’ bodies (figs. 10–12). ‘‘We takesamples [from the internal tissues] . . . and study their microstructure,’’explains another scientist. ‘‘Our research shows multiple changes that takeplace all the time, especially in those tissues that were kept under bad con-ditions in the past’’ (that is, in the early years of the project, when not allprocedures had been fully developed).117 Hundreds of microphotographsof the body’s surfaces are taken with precision cameras. Specially designedequipment compares these with the pictures taken during the previoussession, and any changes in the form are corrected.118

Speaking with the scientists and reading reports of the examinationcommissions one is struck with the level of attention paid to the invisibleparts of the body. In July 1942, a party commission pointed out the ‘‘remark-able mobility in the shoulder and elbow joints’’ as well as in the ‘‘neck andwrist’’ joints, which led to the conclusion that ‘‘the head, neck, elbows,forearms, and wrists remain mobile.’’119 In 1943, the report of anothercommission emphasized that the flexibility of ‘‘the system of joints andtendons of the spine area’’ in fact improved due to new treatments.120

If preserving the skeletal bone structure is crucial for the preservation ofthe body as a whole, then maintaining functional joints has an additionalimportance. They allow the body to remain flexible and supple, to changeposes. Such a body can be examined from a variety of angles, bent to undergocomplex procedures, painstakingly resculpted and reshaped in specific areaswithout the risk of damage to the whole. Perhaps more important, on the

figure 8. A bank of ‘‘experimental objects’’ in the institute on Krasin Street.Photo from I. B. Zbarsky, ‘‘Ot Rossii do Rossii,’’ in Pod ‘‘kryshei’’ Mavzoleia, ed. E. E.Zaitseva.

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level of form the body appears during examinations as authentic andunchanged, a perpetually regenerating body, not a stiff corpse. (Recollectthe kings’ effigies with their flexible torsos, moving limbs, and bendingjoints.) In these examinations, reports, and procedures, the gaze of the polit-ical regime sees a body that transcends the public space of ideology and therole of a popular propaganda symbol. This is the immortal body of Lenin—the body-effigy that is constantly emerging, inhabiting a perpetual sovereignunfolding.

figure 9. ‘‘Experimentalobjects’’ in the Institute. Photofrom Zbarsky, ‘‘Ot Rossii doRossii.’’


figure 10. During a ‘‘big procedure’’ on an‘‘experimental object’’ (not Lenin’s body),

V. L. Kozel’tsev is leaning over the bath.Photo from the private archive of Professor

Kozel’tsev.

figure 11. During a ‘‘big procedure’’ a body is submerged in a bath. Photo fromZbarsky, ‘‘Ot Rossii do Rossii.’’

figure 12. An ‘‘experimental object’’ taken outof a bath during a ‘‘big procedure.’’ Photo from

Zbarsky, ‘‘Ot Rossii do Rossii.’’

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Conclusion:

The Afterlife of an Afterlife

Lenin’s body has been displayed in the mausoleum for ninetyyears. Of them, the last twenty-five have been marked by a heated publicdebate about that body’s future. Attitudes are split between those who con-sider it a sacred symbol of the heroic revolutionary past, an evil emblem ofa criminal regime, or a neutral monument of national history. Some arguethat the body should remain in the mausoleum on Red Square, some that itshould be buried elsewhere with state honors, and some that it should bepublicly disgraced.121

Most government officials, however, have avoided making categoricalstatements about its fate. Instead they try to make the body appear ‘‘nor-mal.’’ One way of doing this is to compare it with the bodies of religioussaints common to both the Christian and non-Christian worlds, and whichtend to have a positive connotation. In December 2012, President Putin wasasked what sounded like a rehearsed question: does he agree that having anunburied corpse in the center of the country violates Russian religioustraditions? His response sounded equally rehearsed: Lenin’s body does notviolate any traditions because the dead bodies of saints have been publiclydisplayed in Orthodox monasteries for centuries—from Kiev-Pechora Mon-astery in the Ukraine, to Pskov-Pechora Monastery in Russia, to Mount Athosin Greece. The preservation of Lenin’s body in fact continues this practice,‘‘although the Soviet Communist regime undeniably used this tradition inits own interests,’’ added Putin with a smile.122 The main point of thiscommentary was to suggest that Soviet history should be seen as part ofnormal human history, and that critiquing it from the position of a differentepoch or a different nation is inappropriate. This is why, the presidentsuggested, there is only one unbiased approach to the question—to leaveLenin’s body as is. When asked whether the government plans to buryLenin’s body, Putin’s press secretary responded: ‘‘At the present momentthis question is not on the agenda. It is irrelevant.’’123

Of course, there is nothing new about linking Lenin’s body with reli-gious relics. In her study of the Lenin cult, Nina Tumarkin suggested thatthe Bolshevik leadership could have preserved Lenin’s body as a ‘‘sacredrelic’’ that would ‘‘continue to legitimate Soviet power and mobilize thepopulation,’’ which was deeply Orthodox, largely illiterate, and familiar withsaints.124However, the problem with this suggestion is that the party leaders,during their discussions of Lenin’s body, never linked its preservation to therelic tradition and in fact explicitly tried to distance it from religious con-notations.125 Others have also suggested that the decision to preserve Lenincould have been influenced by Nikolai Fedorov’s philosophy of ‘‘common


cause,’’ in the early years popular among some Bolshevik intellectuals,which ‘‘sought human salvation in the physical resurrection of the flesh.’’126

This argument, however, is also problematic. As I have argued, the methodof preserving Lenin’s body has included constant substitution of Lenin’sflesh with new inorganic substances. The result of such manipulations isa kind of matter that is profoundly altered and would be quite incompatiblewith the ‘‘flesh’’ that Fedorov sought to resurrect.

To understand the political meaning of Lenin’s body in the Soviet pastand the role it plays today, analysis of its symbolic representation is insuffi-cient. Its materiality—its tissues, cells, and joints; its visible and invisibleparts; the scientific procedures to which they have been subjected; and theexaminations that have focused on them over the years—is equally impor-tant. By way of summing up, I will make the link between the symbolic andthe material explicit. The uniqueness of the Leninist polity lay in the novelway in which the sovereignty of that regime was organized. Sovereignty herewas vested neither in the figure of the ruler (as in the premodern absolutistmonarchy or Nazi state) nor in the abstract populace (as in the modernliberal democracy), but in the party. This model was not simply differentfrom the other two but also functioned as their peculiar combination. Theparty was a collective agent that was neotraditional (in Jowitt’s terms)—itwas institutionally organized according to the principle of ‘‘charismaticimpersonalism.’’ This agent transcended every one of its members, includ-ing its current leader—each member could turn out to be wrong and ille-gitimate, but the party was always already legitimate and right. Thecorrectness and legitimacy of this agent was guaranteed by the foundationaltruth of Leninism—a truth that was external and prior to the party and towhich the party had unique access.

But the party was not only a collective, charismatic, impersonal agent—itwas also the sovereign of the Soviet system. Every utterance or opinionexpressed by the party not only transcended any utterance or opinion ofindividual party members, including the party leader, but was also equiva-lent to the expression of the eternal, foundational truth. The immortal bodyof this party-sovereign also transcended the individual bodies of every partymember, including the body of the leader. The material form of this immor-tal body was the perpetually reconstructed body of Lenin lying in themausoleum.

From this perspective, the ongoing practice of constructing, recon-structing, and cultivating Lenin’s body—as a combination of body-effigy(visible only to the political regime) and body-corpse (displayed to thepopulation)—acquires a new significance. This practice was nothing otherthan the material cultivation of the immortal, infallible, perpetuallyrenewed body of the sovereign-party—the body that transcended individual

146 Representations

mortal bodies of its every member and leader. Cultivating this body wasparallel to the practices of biopolitics in liberal democracy, where it wasdirected at cultivating the perpetually renewed ‘‘flesh’’ of the population(the sovereign) that transcends the individual bodies of its constitutivemembers.127 It was also parallel to the practice of constructing an effigy ofthe king’s body (the sovereign) in absolutist monarchy, where it wasdesigned to maintain the perpetuity of the immortal sovereign form thattranscends the individual mortal bodies of kings.

As in these other cases, the underlying political meaning of the workdirected at Lenin’s body was to ensure that the party-sovereign remainedperpetually embodied and anchored in foundational truth despite all inter-nal crises of the party organization, purges of its members, denunciation ofits leaders, and turns in its policy. In that process, preservation of the orig-inal biological remains of Lenin’s body (as opposed to the perpetual re-sculpting of its form) was not only unimportant but also problematic. Thisapproach to Lenin’s body meant that it could not be reduced to a mortalindividual biology. Instead, it literally transcended every individual body ofparty members, leaders, and even Lenin himself; it was, in fact, the immortalbody of the sovereign.

The party leadership never clearly articulated, either internally or pub-licly, beyond general statements, why Lenin’s body was preserved in thisparticular way, why so much attention was paid to its invisible parts and itsdynamic form, and why this project was kept in such secrecy. The projectemerged and took shape gradually, as part of a complex political cosmologythat most actors who lived it could not see in full. To some degree this is thecase with all models of sovereign power. Rituals of sovereign perpetuity varyfrom regime to regime, and to external observers they may seem irrationaland bizarre. One state is constructing effigies of its ‘‘kings,’’ another iscultivating the extrapersonal flesh of its ‘‘nation,’’ and the third is resculpt-ing the form of ‘‘Lenin’s body.’’ More so than in most regimes, however, thecultivation of the sovereign body in the Leninist polity was performed instrict secrecy, behind closed doors, visible only to the abstract gaze of thepolitical regime but never explicitly analyzed by this regime either. Thereason for this secrecy and lack of analysis was the same as the reason partyleaders attempted to make invisible the perpetual manipulation of Lenin’swords and thoughts and the facts of his life. This secret approach allowedthe truth of ‘‘Leninism’’ to appear to be the source rather than the productof the party’s actions and policies. It also made it possible to present everynew version of ‘‘Leninism’’ as the same, unchanging, consistent teaching ofa genius, and to represent the party, to itself and others, as its unwaveringimplementer—not its arbitrary creator.


With the demise of the party, the Communist project, and the Sovietpolity in 1991, Lenin’s body was severed from this complex political struc-ture and lost its role as the immortal body of the party-sovereign. The newstate neither closed the mausoleum nor paid much attention to it. In the1990s, the Lab lost much of its state funding and survived on private dona-tions to the new Mausoleum Fund and by selling its expertise to foreignclients (for example, for embalming the body of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyangand maintaining the body of Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi).128 In the past severalyears, state funding has improved but never reached its Soviet level. How-ever, Lenin’s body remains on display and the Lab continues its work. Muchof this work has been going on by inertia—inertia of state institutions,political ideology, historical imagination, and scientific practice. The Rus-sian state, it seems, cannot decide how to treat Lenin’s legacy. Leninism wasnot just a personal creation of Lenin, and the body in the mausoleum is notjust his personal body. Both are complex productions of many people anda long history; reducing them to the body and actions of one person, as domany politicians and journalists today, is historically, politically, and ethi-cally problematic.

Without the Soviet political context, one thing has become clear: formany scientists of the Mausoleum Lab this project has long constituted, firstand foremost, a unique scientific experiment.129 Some of them say it has ledto a greater understanding of the nature of human tissues, creation ofartificial replacements, and even inventions in other areas of medicine.130

More important, the unprecedented nature of this project means that fordecades scientists have amassed knowledge that is thoroughly unique andinvaluable, even if no alternative application exists for it today. If this projectis never made public but simply vanishes, they argue, this knowledge will belost and nothing of the sort will ever be repeated. With these political,scientific, and historical dilemmas in mind, the decision on the fate ofLenin’s body continues to be deferred. Which brings me to my final point.The dynamic science of reembalming and resculpting this body hasendowed it with a future-oriented, emergent, perpetual momentum. Thecollapse of the Soviet project and the end of Communist history has notautomatically resulted in the end of that embodied momentum, has notdestroyed the body’s emergent nature, has not turned it into a corpse.

No t e s

1. Vladimir Medinsky, quoted in Vlast’ 29, July 28, 2008, 782. Unless otherwisenoted, all translations are my own.

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2. Administratively, this institute (Center for Scientific Research and Teach-ing Methods in Biochemical Technologies) has functioned since the 1990sunder the auspices of VILAR (Russian Institute of Medicinal and AromaticPlants).

3. Anya Bernstein, Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism(Chicago, 2013); Anya Bernstein, ‘‘The Post-Soviet Treasure Hunt: Time,Space, and Necropolitics in Siberian Buddhism,’’ Comparative Studies in Societyand History 53, no. 3 (2011): 623–53; Justin Buck Quijada, ‘‘Soviet Scienceand Post-Soviet Faith: Etigelov’s Imperishable Body,’’ American Ethnologist 39,no. 1 (2012): 138–54; Ichori Hori, ‘‘Self-Mummified Buddhas in Japan: AnAspect of the Shugen-Do (‘Mountain Asceticism’) Sect,’’ History of Religions 1,no. 2 (Winter 1962): 222–42. See also a 1997 BBC documentary: Ice Mummies:The Ice Maiden, part of the Horizon series, season 33, episode 9 (scientists of theLenin Lab were involved in the attempts to conserve the body of an ancientprincess found in the permafrost). Uli Linke, ‘‘Touching the Corpse: TheUnmaking of Memory in the Body Museum,’’ Anthropology Today 21, no. 5(2005): 13–19; Tony Walter, ‘‘Plastination for Display: A New Way to Disposeof the Dead,’’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10, no. 3 (2004):603–27.

4. In this discussion I draw on my own ethnographic research at the institute thathas worked on Lenin’s body for many decades, interviews with the scientists ofMausoleum Lab and with other people connected to the mausoleum, andarchival research in four historical archives in Moscow: Russian State Archiveof Social and Political History (RGASPI), State Archive of the Russian Federa-tion (GARF), Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (RGANI), andCentral Moscow Archive-Museum of Personal Collections (TsMAMLS).

5. Boris Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni’’ [A history of one illness], Znanie-sila 4(April 1990).

6. Felix Dzerzhinsky, People’s Commisar of Internal Affairs and Chairman of theMain Political Administration (GPU), predecessor of the KGB; Petr Smidovich,member of the Central Executive Committee of the Bolshevik party. Letter ofthe Central Committee (CC) secretary L. P. Serebriakov to People’s Commissaron Social Welfare A. N. Vinokurov, July 10, 1922, quoted in Yu. G. Fel’tishinskii,‘‘Taina smerti Lenina’’ [The enigma of Lenin’s death], Rossiia i sovremennyi mir 4,no. 21 (1998). Reprinted in Voprosy Istorii 1 (1999), see http://lib.ru/HISTORY/FELSHTINSKY/f4.txt.

7. Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni.’’8. Ibid.9. Quoted in ibid., 62.

10. Because of the nature of their work at the estate, these people ‘‘often foundthemselves in the vicinity of Lenin. . . .As soon as they noticed that he wasapproaching, they would leave, hide or fall silent’’; ibid.

11. A. I. Zevelev, ‘‘Po povodu stat’i Yu. G. Fel’shtinskogo ‘Taina smerti Lenina,’’’[Response concerning Fel’shtinsky’s article ‘‘the enigma of Lenin’s death’’],Voprosy Istorii 8 (1999).

12. V. I. Lenin quoted in V. Lel’chuk and V. Startsev, ‘‘Uroki dvukh publikatsii’’[Lessons of two publications], Znanie-sila 11 (November 1990): 50–52, 51.

13. Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni,’’ 26.14. For a description of the ‘‘Letter to the Congress,’’ see RIA Novosti, ‘‘Istoriia

raboty Lenina ‘Pis’mo k s’’ezdu’. Spravka,’’ December 16, 2010, http://ria.ru/history_spravki/20101216/309403217.html.


http://lib.ru/HISTORY/FELSHTINSKY/f4.txt

http://lib.ru/HISTORY/FELSHTINSKY/f4.txt

http://ria.ru/history_spravki/20101216/309403217.html

http://ria.ru/history_spravki/20101216/309403217.html

15. L. A. Fotieva’s role as an informer became known only after the partial openingof the party archives in the post-Soviet period. See: Zevelev, ‘‘Po povodu stat’iYu. G. Fel’shtinskogo ‘Taina smerti Lenina.’’’

16. Trying to protect herself, a few days later Fotieva wrote a note to Lev Kamenev,explaining that she was not told by Lenin’s transcriber about his will to keep theletter sealed. See Izvestiya TsK KPSS 12 (1989): 157.

17. ‘‘Istoriia raboty Lenina ‘Pis’mo k s’’ezdu’. Spravka.’’18. Ibid.19. In 1990 it appeared in a widely read weekly, Ogonek, whose circulation during

that time reached 3.5 million. See N. K. Gul’binskii, ‘‘K 120-letiiu so dniarozhdeniia Vladimira Il’icha Lenina’’ [To the 120th Anniversary of VladimirIlyich Lenin], Ogonek 17 (1990): 3.

20. Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni,’’ 21–22.21. L. E. Gorelova, ‘‘Istoricheskoe rassledovanie’’ [Historical investigation], Russkii

meditsinskii zhurnal 13, no. 7 (April 2005), http://www.rmj.ru/articles_3695.htm.

22. Victor Osipov, quoted in Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni,’’ 66.23. Benno Ennker, Formirovanie kul’ta Lenina v Sovetskom Soiuze [The Formation of

Lenin Cult in the Soviet Union] (Moscow, 2011), 73.24. Ibid., 66.25. According to Tumarkin the term ‘‘Leninism’’ was first used publicly on January

3, 1923; Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia (Cambridge,MA, 1997), 120. However, in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of theCPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), argued that ‘‘Leninism’’ was usedeven earlier—it was coined by the Mensheviks to ridicule Lenin’s ideas; ‘‘A WordAbout Lenin, by the President of the USSR, the General Secretary of the CentralCommittee of the CPSU, M. S. Gorbachev,’’ Pravda, April 21, 1990, 1.

26. Ennker, Formirovanie kul’ta Lenina v Sovetskom Soiuze, 75.27. Later it became known as the ‘‘Institute of Marxism-Leninism.’’ It was closed

down in 1991, when the Soviet state collapsed.28. Quoted in Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 123.29. Ibid., 124.30. Ennker, Formirovanie kul’ta Lenina v Sovetskom Soiuze, 84.31. Quoted in Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 132.32. See Richard Pipes with David Brandenberger, Unknown Lenin: From the Secret

Archive (New Haven, 1996). Alexei Yurchak, ‘‘Esli by Lenin byl zhiv, on by znalchto delat’: Golaia zhizn’ vozhdia,’’ Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 83 (2007); AlexeiYurchak, ‘‘If Lenin Were Alive Today, He Would Know What to Do,’’ in IrinaProkhorova, ed., 1990: Russians Remember a Turning Point (London, 2013).

33. Marietta Shaginian, Sem’ia Ul’ianovykh [Ulyanov’s Family], part 1 of the trilogyBilet po istorii [History Exam]. Part 1 was eventually published in 1938 in a short-ened and censored form. Shaginian’s discussion of Lenin’s grandparents wasomitted from the publication. (In the omitted parts Shaginian wrote thatLenin’s grandmother was Kalmyk and his grandfather was maloros [Ukrainian],which was a veiled reference to the ‘‘dangerous’’ fact that Lenin’s grandfather,Alexandr Blank, was Jewish, a fact Shaginian could not mention for fear ofbeing persecuted. This was publicly discussed only in 1991, before the SovietUnion collapsed). See Yurchak, ‘‘Esli by Lenin byl zhiv,’’ and Yurchak, ‘‘If LeninWere Alive Today.’’ The CC resolution was adopted on August 5, 1936. See A. N.Yakovlev, ed., Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsia: dokumenty TsK RKP(b) –VKP(b) – VChK/OGPU/NKVD o kul’turnoi politike 1917–1953 [Power and creative

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http://www.rmj.ru/articles_3695.htm

http://www.rmj.ru/articles_3695.htm

intelligentsia: documents of the CC RKP(b) – VKP(b) – VChK/OGPU/NKVDon cultural policy from 1917 to 1953] (Moscow, 1999).

34. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 130.35. This polity was a departure from Lenin-style party leadership; eventually it

evolved into high Stalinism.36. V. Melnichenko, ‘‘Vera, nadezhda, Lenin’’ [Belief, hope, Lenin], Rabochaia

tribuna, December 4, 1990.37. R. Kosolapov, ‘‘Ostorozhno martyshizm’’ [Beware of monkey business], Lenin-

gradskaia Pravda, December 22, 1990.38. Ravdin, ‘‘Istoriia odnoi bolezni,’’ 20.39. ‘‘A Word About Lenin,’’ 1.40. F. Burlatski, Vozhdi i sovetniki [Leaders and advisors] (Moscow, 1990).41. Comment by Vladimir Vorobiev: ‘‘Protokol zasedaniia Meditsinskoi Komissii po

sokhraneniiu tela V. I. Lenina ot 12 marta 1924 g’’ [Protocol of the meeting ofthe medical commission for the preservation of V. I. Lenin’s body of March 12,1924]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 52, papka 1, ‘‘Dokumenty k voprosu obal’zamirovanii tela V. I. Lenina,’’ str. 134. The absence of undamaged arteriesandmajor blood vessels in Lenin’s body constituted a substantial problem for theMausoleum Lab in the following years, forcing the scientists to develop alterna-tive methods of delivering embalming liquids to remote parts of the body.

42. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 140.43. E.g., ‘‘Akt N. 7 vneshnego osmotra tela V. I. Lenina/Ul’ianova/, 21-e fevralia

1924 g’’ [Act n. 7 of the external examination of the body of V. I. Lenin/Ul’ianov/February 21, 1924]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 52, str. 23.

44. ‘‘Protokol osmotra tela V. I. Lenina ot 26 marta 1924 g’’ [‘‘Protocol of the exam-ination of Lenin’s body, March 26, 1924’’]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 52.

45. This was how the leadership treated numerous proposals to preserve Lenin’sbody that laypeople sent to the Central Committee. In a letter dated January 22,1924 two rank-and-file party members proposed freezing Lenin’s body ‘‘insidea transparent block of ice,’’ putting it in a state ‘‘analogous to anabiosis thatwould prevent it from decomposing for an indefinitely long period’’; ‘‘Pere-piska po voprosu sokhraneniia tela V. I. Lenina’’ [Correspondence on thequestion of preserving V. I. Lenin’s body], RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 54,papka 5 and 6. In a letter dated February 19, an amateur chemist from Simbirskproposed covering Lenin’s body with ‘‘transparent stone’’; ‘‘Zasedanie Tsen-tral’noi Komissii Prezidiuma TsIK SSSR po organizatsii pokhoron V. I. Lenina’’[Meeting of the Central Commission of the Presidium of TsIK of the USSR forthe organization of V. I. Lenin’s funeral], March 5, 2014]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c,ed. khr. 52. These proposals were never seriously considered, but they demon-strate that the idea of preserving Lenin’s body for posterity had been circulatingin the public discourse.

46. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 174.47. Ennker, Formirovanie kul’ta Lenina v Sovetskom Soiuze, 191.48. Ibid.49. Ibid., 200.50. ‘‘Zasedanie tsentral’noi Komissii Prezidiuma Tsentral’nogo Ispolnitel’nogo’’

[Meeting of the Central Commission of the Presidium of CEC (Central Exec-tutive Committee) of the USSR for the organization of Lenin’s funeral]. March5, 2014; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 52.

51. OGPU:UnitedStatePoliticalAdministration(prototypeofNKVDand laterKGB).52. Ibid.


53. Ibid. E.g., ‘‘Protokol zasedaniia Meditsinskoi Komissii po sokhraneniiu tela V. I.Lenina ot 12-go marta 1924 g.’’ [Protocol of the meeting of the medical com-mission for the Preservation of V. I. Lenin’s Body. March 12, 1924]; RGASPI, f.16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 52 str. 123; italics added.

54. Statement of the ‘‘Commission for the Organization of Lenin’s Funeral,’’March 25, 1924 (quoted in Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 185).

55. ‘‘Stenograficheskii otchet zasedaniia Komissii TsIK Soiuza SSR po uvekove-cheniiu pamiati V.I. Ul’ianova/Lenina. 26-go iiulia 1924 g. (prilozhenie kprotokolu N. 18) [Stenographic report of the meeting of the commission ofthe CEC of the USSR for the Immortalization of V. I. Ul’ianov/Lenin’s mem-ory July 26, 1924 (appendix to protocol n. 18) RGASPI, f. 16, op 2c, ed. khr.48, papka 3, str. 73.

56. ‘‘Istoriia bal’zamirovaniia tela V. I. Lenina’’ [History of the embalming of thebody of V. I. Lenin], July 24, 1924; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 1, plenka 522.

57. See Alexei Yurchak, ‘‘Netlennost’ formy: Leninism i material’nost’ mavzolei-nogo tela’’ [Incorruptibility of form: Leninism and the materiality of the mau-soleum body], Neprikosnovennyi zapas 89, no. 3 (2013). The Catholic church,according to Caroline Bynum, has usually insisted that dead bodies should notbe disturbed (changed, dismembered, fitted with new materials), since it is theoriginal biological matter of the body that would rise to heaven; CarolineBynum, ‘‘Why All the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective,’’ CriticalInquiry 22 (1995): 23. The same was the case in the Russian Orthodox church:even though dismemberment of sacred relics was tolerated, the original bio-logical substance of the body was not supposed to be disturbed; S. A. Ivanov,‘‘Blagochestivoe raschlenenie: paradoks pochitaniia moshchei v vizantiiskoiagiografii’’ [Graceful dismemberment: a paradox of relic veneration in Byzan-tine hagiography], in Vostochnoevropeiskie relikvii [Eastern European relics], ed.A. M. Lidov (Moscow, 2003), 123.

58. ‘‘Mavzolei Lenina snova otkroetsia dlia poseshcheniia 9 ianvaria 2007 goda’’[Lenin’s Mausoleum will open again to the visiting public on January 9,2007], Newsru.com, December 25, 2006, www.newsru.com/russia/25dec2006/lenin.html.

59. Author’s interview with Mikhail Lopukhin, August 2009, Moscow. Lopukhinworked in the Lab from the late 1940s to the late 1980s and today, despite oldage, remains one of the Lab’s regular consultants. For twenty years he alsooccupied the posts of rector of the Second Medical Institute in Moscow anddirector of the Research Institute of Physical and Chemical Biology.

60. This is why occasional speculations in the media of the supposed fantastic plansof the Soviet leadership to ‘‘revive’’ Lenin one day in the future produce noth-ing but laughter among the scientists of the Lab. This body is missing many vitalorgans, including the brain, and most of its tissues are partially artificial. ‘‘Whatis there to revive?’’ they ask; ibid.

61. Ernst Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies (1957; reprint, Princeton, 1996).62. Sovereignty is something about which we have heard much in recent years, e.g.,

Carl Schmitt, ‘‘Definition of Sovereignty,’’ in Political Theology: Four Chapters on theConcept of Sovereignty (1922; reprint, Chicago, 2004), chap. 1.; Giorgio Agamben,Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford,1998).

63. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 330.64. Ibid., 331.

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www.newsru.com/russia/25dec2006/lenin.html

www.newsru.com/russia/25dec2006/lenin.html

65. This point was made by Elias Bickermann in his discussion of the imperialfunerals in ancient Rome; Elias Bickermann, ‘‘Consecratio,’’ in Le culte des souver-ains dans l’empire romain, ed. E.J. Bickerman and W. den Boer, XIX (Geneva,1972), quoted in Agamben, Homo Sacer, 95, and Ralph E. Giesey, The RoyalFuneral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneva, 1960), 151.

66. The face of the effigy for Henry VII (d. 1509) was modeled on his death maskwith such precision that even ‘‘the slightly drooping left side of the mouthfaithfully reproduce[d] the physical contortions of the king’s fatal stroke’’;Julian Litten, ‘‘The Funeral Effigy: Its Function and Purpose,’’ in AnthonyHarvey and Richard Mortimer, eds., The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey(Woodbridge, 1994), 3–19: 7. When Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, the faceof the effigy modeled on her death mask contained meticulously reproduced‘‘wrinkles and other features of ageing’’; Jennifer Woodward, The Theatre ofDeath: The Ritual Management of Royal Funerals in Renaissance England, 1570–1625 (Woodbridge, 1997), 90.

67. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France, 115–17; Woodward,Theatre of Death, 163–64; Monica Brito Vieira, The Elements of Representation inHobbes (Leiden, 2009), 45. When Elizabeth of York died in 1502, her effigy wasmade flexible and supple to allow ‘‘for naturalistic posturing which, with thelife-like head, must have made a deep impression on the crowds who saw it onits progress through the streets’’; Litten, ‘‘The Funeral Effigy,’’ 7.

68. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, 426; Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony inRenaissance France, 144; Ralph Giesey, ‘‘Funeral Effigies as Emblems of Sover-eignty: Europe, 14th to 18th Centuries,’’ lecture delivered to the College deFrance, June 10, 1987, 9, 17, www.regiesey.com/Lectures/Funeral_Effigies_as_Emblems_of_Sovereignty_Lecture_[English]_College_de_France.pdf.

69. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France, 123.70. Ibid., 118–19.71. Ibid., 40.72. Richard Mortimer, ‘‘The History of the Collection,’’ in Harvey and Mortimer,

The Funeral Effigies of Westminster Abbey, 21–28.73. Frazer’s book still remains influential to a large degree due to important critical

engagements with it over the years, among them those by Wittgenstein andEvans-Pritchard: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough (1931;reprint, Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1979); Edward Evans-Pritchard, ‘‘The Intellec-tualist (English) Interpretation of Magic,’’ Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, King Fuad1st University 1, pt. 2 (1933): 1–21.

74. In Frazer’s account the Shilluk’s king, known as reth, was believed ‘‘to embodya divine being—a god or at least a semi-god—in the person of Nyikang, thelegendary founder of the Shilluk nation. Every king was Nyikang.’’ However,when the king died, ‘‘Nyikang’s spirit left him and entered a wooden effigy.Once a new reth was elected, the candidate had to raise an army and fight amockbattle against the effigy’s army in which he was first defeated and captured,then, having been possessed by the spirit of Nyikang, which passed from effigyback into his body, emerged victorious again’’ and became the next king; DavidGraeber, ‘‘The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk: On Violence, Utopia, and theHuman Condition, or, Elements for an Archaeology of Sovereignty,’’ HAU:Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1, no. 1 (2014): 3.

75. W. Arens, ‘‘The Demise of Kings and the Meaning of Kingship: Royal FuneraryCeremony in the Contemporary Southern Sudan and Renaissance France,’’Anthropos 79 (1984): 355–67; Burkhard Schnepel, Twinned Beings: Kings and


www.regiesey.com/Lectures/Funeral_Effigies_as_Emblems_of_Sovereignty_Lecture_[English]_College_de_France.pdf

www.regiesey.com/Lectures/Funeral_Effigies_as_Emblems_of_Sovereignty_Lecture_[English]_College_de_France.pdf

Effigies in Southern Sudan, East India and Renaissance France (Goteborg, 1995);Graeber, ‘‘The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk.’’ The body of Japan’s emperorwas viewed as ‘‘a ‘receptacle’ (iremono) for the immutable ‘imperial spirit’ (ten-norei) that attached itself to each new emperor and was the source of theemperor’s extraordinary authority’’; Takashi Fujitani, Splendid Monarchy: Powerand Pageantry in Modern Japan (Berkeley, 1996), 157. The wax effigy used duringthe funeral of the Roman Emperor Antonius (2nd century AD) was made in theemperor’s likeness, wore his clothes, and lay in his official bed. The emperor’slife was ‘‘transferred to the wax doll by means of . . .magic rites’’; Bickermann,‘‘Consecratio,’’ quoted in Agamben, Homo Sacer, 95.The principle of papal sover-eignty, unlike that of monarchy, is not dynastic, which is why, despite somestructural similarities between them, the theory of a twinned body never devel-oped in this case. This is also why the ‘‘absent presence’’ of eternal papacy thatsurvives each pope is invested not in an effigy, but in special objects and ritualsthat exist only during the novena (the nine days between the popes). See Agos-tino Paravicini-Bagliani, The Pope’s Body (Chicago, 1994); Gilbert O. Nations,Papal Sovereignty: The Government Within Our Government (Cincinnati, 1917).

76. Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven,1961).

77. Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory (Minneapolis, 1988). At least onereason for this was that the Russian monarchy did not experience the samedegree of secularization in the medieval and early modern periods as did thoseof Western Europe. Although Lefort does not consider non-European exam-ples, they may shed additional light on the principles of sovereign perpetuityand their genealogical transformation in modern times.

78. Every king was ‘‘temporarily immortal,’’ in Schnepel’s nice formulation inTwinned Beings. See also Graeber, ‘‘The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk.’’

79. Claude Lefort, ‘‘The Question of Democracy,’’ in Democracy and Political Theory,9–20; Claude Lefort, ‘‘The Image of the Body and Totalitarianism,’’ in ThePolitical Forms of Modern Society: Bureaucracy, Democracy, Totalitarianism (Cam-bridge, MA, 1986), 292–306. See also an excellent discussion in Bernard Flynn,introduction to The Philosophy of Claude Lefort: Interpreting the Political (Evanston,2005), xiii–xxx.

80. Eric Santner, The Royal Remains: The People’s Two Bodies and the Endgames ofSovereignty (Chicago, 2011), 33–34.

81. In the United States, for example, that unquestionable foundational truth isarticulated in the voices of the Founding Fathers, who are located in the ‘‘otherplace’’ (which predates the actual polity they founded), and in the words of theDeclaration of Independence, which refers to the foundational ‘‘truths’’ that,according to the declaration, ‘‘we hold . . . to be self-evident’’ (i.e., to be prior toany proof). To be seen as legitimate, any politician in the United States mustimply that this truth is unquestionably right.

82. In the Nazi political system there was no external figure of truth that could beused to delegitimize Hitler in the name of ‘‘true Nazism.’’ As ChristopherHitchens wrote, ‘‘There were no dissidents in the Nazi Party, risking their liveson the proposition that the Fuhrer has betrayed the true essence of NationalSocialism’’; Christopher Hitchens, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Pub-lic Sphere (London, 2000), 281; see also Slavoj Zizek, ‘‘Barbarism with a HumanFace,’’ London Review of Books 36, no. 9 (May 8, 2014): 36–37.

83. See chap. 2 in Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: TheLast Soviet Generation (Princeton, 2006).

154 Representations

84. Yurchak, ‘‘If Lenin Were Alive,’’ and Yurchak, ‘‘Esli by Lenin byl zhiv.’’85. Ken Jowitt, New World Disorder: The Leninist Extinction (Berkeley, 1992), 1–6.86. Ibid., 6–7.87. Ibid., 3–4, 8, 10.88. Stalin was considered ‘‘the Great continuer of Lenin’s cause’’ rather than the

originator of a different cause. Contrary to Jan Plamper’s argument, Stalindepended on ‘‘Lenin’’ as the source of his own legitimacy and could not super-sede ‘‘Lenin’’ as the locus of truth; see Jan Plamper, The Stalin Cult: A Study in theAlchemy of Power (New Haven, 2012), 85. See discussion in chap. 2, Yurchak,Everything Was Forever.

89. For a major shift in the interpretation of the doctrine after Stalin’s deathsee Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, on the ‘‘performative shift’’ of ideology(chap. 2).

90. Joseph Nyomarkey, ‘‘Factionalism in the National Socialist German Workers’Party, 1925–1926: TheMyth andReality of the ‘Northern Faction,’’’Political ScienceQuarterly 80, no. 1 (March 1965): 45; see also note 82 and Jowitt, New WorldDisorder 7–8 and Slavoj Zizek, ‘‘The Two Totalitarianisms,’’ London Review of Books27, n. Kern 6 (March 17, 2005).

91. In his ‘‘Secret Speech’’ at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 Khrushchevsaid, ‘‘We sharply criticize today the cult of the individual which was so wide-spread during Stalin’s life and . . .which is so alien to the spirit of Marxism-Lenin-ism’’; Nikita S. Khrushchev, ‘‘The Secret Speech—On the Cult of Personality,1956,’’ in Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham University, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.html, italics added.

92. The short text of the ‘‘Decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of theCPSU of October 14, 1964,’’ laconically subtitled, ‘‘On Comrade KhrushchevN. S.,’’ stated: ‘‘As a result of the mistakes and wrong actions of Comrade Khrush-chev, which violate the Leninist principle of collective leadership, an utterlyunhealthy situation has developed in the Presidium of the CC’’; RGANI (RussianState Archive of ContemporaryHistory), f. 2, op. 1, d. 749, l. 78, italics added. Thestatement was as unsubstantiated as it was damning—the Presidium of the CChad ruled that Khrushchev had violated Leninism. After that, every sentence inthe decision was superfluous.

93. See Yurchak,‘‘If Lenin Were Alive,’’ and Yurchack, ‘‘Esli by Lenin byl zhiv.’’94. Not surprisingly, in popular slang Lenin’s body is called a ‘‘mummy,’’ which

connotes a stiff, dried-up corpse. But the Lenin Lab scientists frequently pointout that this is a gross misrepresentation.

95. Author’s interview with Mikhail Lopukhin, October 22, 2009, Moscow.96. Author’s interview with V. L. Kozel’tsev, July 2009, Moscow.97. The eyelashes were replaced during every major reembalming procedure,

once every year and a half.98. Author’s interview with Lopukhin, October 22, 2009, Moscow.99. They melted gelatin at a temperature much higher than room temperature in

order to increase the gelatin’s density after it cooled and hardened.100. ‘‘Shtatnoe raspisanie’’ (Personnel chart) of the ‘‘Research and Scientific Lab

of V.I. Lenin’s Mausoleum,’’ GARF, f. 8009, op. 51, ed. khr. 873.101. The commissions included 10 to 20 people, members of the party leadership

and leading medics and biochemists.102. Comments by Nikolai Burdenko and A. A. Deshin; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2, d. 110.

As this comment suggests, one objective for the maintainance of Lenin’s body


is to avoid an appearance of a corpse. This reminds us of the emergent qualityof this body and of Lopukhin’s phrase ‘‘living sculpture.’’

103. ‘‘Protokol zasedaniia komissii Narkomzdrava Soiuza SSR po osmotru tela V. I.Lenina, sostoiavshegosia 19-go ianvaria 1939 goda v Mavzolee’’ [Protocol ofthe Meeting of the Commission of the People’s Commisariat of Health Care ofthe USSR on the examination of V. I. Lenin’s Body that took place on August19, 1939 in the mausoleum]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2, d. 110.

104. Ibid.105. By that time, during WWII, Lenin’s body had been evacuated from Moscow to

the town of Tyumen in the Urals.106. Comment by Burdenko, ‘‘Protokol zasedaniia Komissii, obrazovannoi

soglasno rasporiazheniiu SNK SSSR, N 12115/s, 29.06.42, po osmotru telaV. I. Lenina, sostoiavshemusia 13 i 14 iiulia 1942 g. v gorode Tiumeni’’ [Pro-tocol of the meeting of the commission formed in accordance with the direc-tive of Soviet of People’s Commisars of the USSR, N 12115/s, of June 29, 1942,on the examination of V. I. Lenin’s body that took place on July 13 and 14,1942 in the town of Tiumen]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, papka 5, ed. khr. 54.

107. The loss of underlying connective and elastic tissues or rapid loss of water fromthe skin’s horny layer gave it a glossy appearance.

108. Comment by Burdenko, ‘‘Protokol zasedaniia Komissii.’’109. ‘‘Doklad zasluzhennogo deiatelia nauki professora B. I. Zbarskogo 29 noiabria

1943 goda’’ [Report of the honored scientist Professor B. I. Zbarsky on Novem-ber 29, 1943]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2s, papka 5, ed. khr. 54.

110. Ibid.111. Ibid.112. Ibid.113. Yu. M. Lopukhin, Bolezn’, smert’ i bal’zamirovanie V. I. Lenina. Pravda i mify

[Illness, Death and Embalming of V. I. Lenin] (Moscow, 1997), 126.114. ‘‘Sovershenno sekretno. Tovarishchu Molotovu I. M.’’ [Top secret. To Com-

rade Molotov I. M.]; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2s, ed. khr. 56, str. 120–21.115. Ibid.116. Some tests occur in the ‘‘Center for Scientific Research’’ on Krasin Street,

others are conducted in medical institutes around Moscow. A whole networkof research institutes is regularly involved in this ongoing work. Author’sinterview with Lopukhin, October 22, 2009.

117. Ibid.118. Ibid. See also interview with a photo technician in Pavel Lobkov’s film Mavzo-

lei, shown on NTV television, Moscow, 1999.119. Comments by Burdenko (who in late 1939 was promoted to the rank of Aca-

demician, partly in recognition of his work in the Mausoleum), ‘‘Protokolzasedaniia komissii.’’

120. Comment by Nikolai Burdenko, ‘‘Acts and Conclusions of the GovernmentCommission for the Examination of Lenin’s Body in the Town of Tyumen,November 29–December 3, 1943’’; RGASPI, f. 16, op. 2c, ed. khr. 56, str. 7.

121. For a number of opinions see, e.g., ‘‘Medinskii predlagaet pokhoronit’Lenina’’ [Medinskii proposes to bury Lenin], Interfax, June 9, 2012; http://www.interfax.ru/russia/249940.

122. S. Bychkov, ‘‘Putin i ‘moshchi’ Lenina’’ [Putin and Lenin’s relics], Moskovskiikomsomolets, December 11, 2012, http://www.mk.ru/politics/article/2012/12/11/785670-putin-i-moschi-lenina.html.

123. Ibid.

156 Representations

124. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 179. This argument is also made in a number of otherstudies: e.g., G. Graeme, ‘‘The Soviet Leader Cult: Reflections on the Structureof Leadership in the Soviet Union,’’ British Journal of Political Science 10 (1980):167–86.

125. See Ennker, Formirovanie kul’ta Lenina, 371.126. See also Tumarkin, Lenin Lives!, 179. See also George M. Young, The Russian

Cosmists: The Esoteric Futurism of Nikolai Fedorov and His Followers (Oxford, 2012);V. A. Kozhevnikov, Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (opyt izlozheniia uchenia) [NikolaiFedorovich Fedorov (an attempt to present the teaching)] (Moscow, 1908).

127. As discussed by Santner.128. Author’s interview with historian Aleksei Abramov, director of the Mausoleum

Fund, Moscow, September 9, 2008. Recently it has been reported that in the1990s the Lenin Lab funded itself by performing temporary embalmings ofmembers of Russian organized crime slain in criminal wars. These rumorswere probably started after the publication of two books by Ilya Zbarsky (BorisZbarsky’s son and himself a one-time member of the mausoleum group): IlyaZbarsky, Ob’’ekt N. 1. (Moscow, 2000); Ilya Zbarsky and Samuel Hutchinson,Lenin’s Embalmers (London, 1998). However, these reports are inaccurate.Lenin Lab was never involved in such projects and would not be the rightplace for them, since the work it performs is different from the temporaryembalming of bodies that are prepared for burial. Several junior scientists whoworked in the institute where Lenin Lab is located, but who themselves werenot members of the Lab, left the institute in the late 1980s to form two largeprivate companies in Moscow that offer ‘‘funerary services.’’ One service istemporary embalming (which in the 1990s was indeed frequently commis-sioned by organized crime members). The work of these anatomists is differ-ent from the scientists of the Lenin Lab, and the two groups have not beenaffiliated; author’s interview with Alexandr Tkachenko, currently of the RitualMedical-Embalming Service (Moscow) and formerly a Junior Medical Scientistin the mausoleum. Moscow, August 5, 2009.

129. One also heard open criticism of this project from at least one leading scien-tist, Ilya Zbarsky; I. B. Zbarsky, ‘‘Ot Rossii do Rossii’’ [From Russia to Russia], inPod ‘‘kryshei’’ Mavzoleia [Under the roof of the mausoleum], ed. E. E. Zaitseva(Tver’, 1998). Russian word krysha (roof) is used here in two senses—to mean,first, ‘‘inside’’ the mausoleum and, second, ‘‘under the protection of’’ themausoleum (the latter referring to ‘‘protection rackets’’ of the mafia); Zbarskyand Hutchinson, Lenin’s Embalmers.

130. For example, the Soviet technique of kidney transplantation (which Lopukhindeveloped with scientists of the Institute of Surgery in Moscow in the 1960s)was influenced by Lopukhin’s work on Lenin’s body. This work also led to thedevelopment of a noninvasive ‘‘three-drop test’’ designed to measure choles-terol levels in the skin of living patients. The test was patented in the UnitedStates in 2002 and its variants are widely used in US medicine; Alexei Yurchak,unpublished manuscript.


alexei yurchak, bodies of lenin: the hidden science of communist sovereignty

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