In the USSR, monuments to the leader of the party who died in 1953 continued to stand, but after 2-3 years the Soviet leadership realized it and ordered to start demolishing them. And they were different - from the simplest standard specimens to huge statues and bas-reliefs carved by prisoners on the rocky Kolyma shores. But the most important monument to the deceased tyrant was located in the capital, Moscow, in its very heart. Stalin in the Mausoleum lay next to the unshakable, indestructible and cornerstone shrine, the mummy of the creator of the world's first socialist state, where he himself placed it. For the champion of the Leninist norms of the leadership of the First Secretary N. S. Khrushchev, this neighborhood was unbearable.

Mausoleum and Lenin

In order to deal with the Soviet relic symbols, some retrospection to the beginning of 1924 is necessary, it is necessary to analyze the events that followed the death of V. I. Lenin.

Since the leader of the Bolshevik Party was an atheist, he treated the ritual side of life accordingly, that is, almost in no way.

Of course, over the years civil war a certain set of rituals was formed that accompanied the farewell to the dead fighters for the people's happiness. The funeral procedure included, as a rule, the declining of red banners, the performance of the party anthem by the brass bands - "Internationale", speeches (sometimes politically illiterate) of various combat (and not very) comrades (not always sober), accompanied by oaths of allegiance and promises to take revenge on the "counter" .

In the case of such a majestic figure as Lenin, this was clearly not enough. And then a specialist with an incomplete seminary education, Comrade Stalin, joined in the organization of the funeral ceremony. A coffin was placed in the Mausoleum, which was first knocked together from boards, and everyone could look at the deceased leader of all the proletarians of the world. Since there were a lot of them, the time for people to access the body was extended, and then a decision was made to preserve the corpse by embalming. This was done very late.

mausoleum science

During the stay of Lenin's body in the Mausoleum, Soviet science made a large-scale breakthrough in a unique direction. And before that, there were cases of successful embalming of corpses, in some countries in ancient times people sought to preserve the bodily shells of their rulers and eminent figures, but these skills, having reached the level of art, were kept secret, and partly for this reason were lost.

IN recent history there is a case related to embalming according to the technology developed by the great surgeon Pirogov, and applied to him after his death. However, this method also had, apparently, many subtleties, and it was not easy to reproduce it. Therefore, Soviet anatomists had to invent their own method, which included not only an operation to preserve tissues, but also their partial restoration. Stalin lay in the Mausoleum for almost nine years, his corpse was also embalmed, and specialists working in a special laboratory dealing with conservation issues reasonably suggest that even today, after decades of lying in an ordinary grave, it is possible that the body of the second Soviet leader is in quite tolerable form. Although with some reservations.

Relics forever?

The question of whether it is expedient to expose a dead body to the general public today lies more in the moral and ethical than in the political plane. The number of people for whom the name of Lenin remains sacred is not very large today, although it is also impossible to say that there are none at all.

No less significant relic for many Soviet people was the body of Joseph Vissarionovich. From 1953 to 1962, they knew that both great rulers, comrade-in-arms and revolutionary Lenin and Stalin were in the Mausoleum. Photos of their bodies were almost never published anywhere, but everyone who came to Moscow and stood in a long line could look at them. It seemed like it would always be like this.

excesses

During the years of Stalin's rule, the "new man" necessary for the complete victory of communism was never created. But another type appeared, personifying the leader Soviet type. This character always agreed with the opinion of the head of the party, and if he hesitated, then certainly along with the general line.

Ironically, it was precisely the Stalinist methods of management that were used when deciding to exclude the corpse of the Secretary General who violated Lenin's norms from the list of official Soviet shrines. Not all those who supported the workers of the Kirov Plant internally agreed with him. When Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, some members of the reburial commission shed tears. Several handfuls of earth were thrown into the open mouth of the grave. It was bold, but it fell short of a protest, let alone a riot. The officers who were part of the funeral team behaved much more courageously. They refused to cut the buttons made of gold from I.V. Stalin's tunic, which the First himself insisted on, and were demoted. There were no other incidents.

"Initiative from below"

The formal initiator of the removal of Stalin's body from the Mausoleum is considered the first secretary of the Leningrad Regional Party Organization Comrade. Spiridonov I.V. But he acted according to the usual scheme for the nomenklatura, according to which the communists simply supported the impulse of the working masses and, of course, led it.

A meeting of Kirov workers most likely took place, but the agenda and decision were, no doubt, prepared in advance and approved "at the very top." The historical background against which Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum is important.

The year 1961 was marked by many events in the life of the whole country. The next party congress, XXII, was coming to an end. Internal affairs were not in the best way, prices were rising. The broad masses of working people voluntarily and involuntarily compared the Khrushchev era with the previous era, in which, on the contrary, they were reduced. People remember the good better than the bad. Even the first manned flight into space and the test of the most powerful hydrogen charge could only partially compensate for the lack of meat and sausage in stores.

Night and mystery

The removal of Stalin from the Mausoleum took place immediately after the approval vote of the Congress. It happened simultaneously with the reburial near where the grave had already been dug in advance, under the light of searchlights directed at it.

Plywood shields were also installed ahead of time, fencing off the participants in the process, both living and dead, from prying eyes. The option of a funeral at the Novodevichy Cemetery was rejected in order to avoid unpredictable consequences. Everything was possible, from a demonstrative pilgrimage to the theft of a coffin.

When Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, all the precious elements were nevertheless removed from his uniform in the form of the golden shoulder straps of the Generalissimo, the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the notorious buttons, instead of which brass ones were hastily sewn on. History is silent about who did it.

The militiamen explained the ban on the passage to Red Square by the few passers-by at night by the fact that a parade was being prepared in honor of the 7th of November.

last parade

On the night when Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, he was greeted by the Soviet troops without knowing it. The caterpillars of tanks rumbled along the paving stones, the engines of formidable combat vehicles roared, and the chased step of the infantrymen was reflected from the walls of the Kremlin. The rehearsal actually took place, but for the deceased seven years ago Supreme Commander it was a real parade.

In the meantime, the cladding above the entrance was already being removed, a Stalinist inscription with one name was already being prepared in its place, but it took time to install it, and the empty place was simply covered with a piece of cloth with the word “LENIN”. In the morning, the main tomb of the USSR was planned to be opened to the public. It was difficult to predict the reaction of the population, although the most influential Soviet organization, the KGB, tried to solve this problem.

tombstone

The monument was not there for a long time, only a heavy horizontal slab with laconically embossed letters and numbers, which also indicated the dates of the boundaries of life. A tombstone in the form of a sculpted bust by N. Tomsky appeared almost a decade after Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum.

The year 1970 was a difficult one for Sino-Soviet relations. In the PRC, the Brezhnev leadership was considered revisionist, the deceased leader was revered on a par with Mao and outraged at the disrespectful attitude towards his memory. But in the USSR itself, by the end of the sixties, a critical attitude towards Stalin gave way to a “balanced” approach to history, expressed by the recognition that the cult, of course, was, but the personality also took place.

Murmur

Fears that, having learned about the absence of the ashes of Comrade Stalin in the mausoleum, the people would have to be pacified, turned out to be in vain. Unwanted conversations, of course, went on, but they did not go beyond the usual philistine grumbling.

State security officials noted the appearance of political jokes, the essence of which was reduced to assumptions about the place of the future burial place of First Secretary Khrushchev. “This is Nikita with his cot breaking, Comrade Lenin,” Stalin seemed to be saying to Vladimir Ilyich in his famous Caucasian accent, hearing a roar at the back doors of the Mausoleum.

There were reasons for discontent, they led to many conflicts, the most famous of which was the Novocherkassk uprising, which happened soon, but these unrest had nothing to do with the movement of the dead body, the people took the change in Red Square quite passively. Admirers of harsh methods in the face of "hard-core" communists laid flowers every year on March 5 and December 21 behind the mausoleum, where Stalin's grave was surrounded by other burial places of prominent party figures. This was the end of the protests.

memory and history

From the point of view of an ordinary Russian citizen who has grown up in the past two decades, much of this story may be incomprehensible. For example, what is the fundamental difference between the two inhabitants of the tomb, which still stands today on Red Square?

In the year when Stalin was taken out of the Mausoleum, main idea The idea that the party leadership tried (and not without success) to convey to the consciousness of the broad masses was the idea that Lenin planned everything correctly, but the leaders who came after him distorted his plan. And only now, when dear Nikita Sergeevich has finally come to power, will everything go as it should. Here he is, a real Leninist.

A modern person who knows and understands the nature of communism most often does not understand why Stalin was removed from the Mausoleum, but Lenin was not. The answer is simple, it's all about culture and attitude to the history of one's own country. It is simply necessary to respect the beliefs of those who, due to their advanced years, cannot and do not want to change them. In Russia and abroad live and today very worthy people, committed, however, to the communist ideals. And they must be reckoned with if we want to be respected by our descendants.

The body of Ulyanov-Lenin did not always lie alone in the Mausoleum. In 1953-1961, it coexisted with another body, another red leader.

On March 9, 1953, when the funeral of the second communist genius "of all times and peoples" took place, the body of Dzhugashvili-Stalin was placed in the Lenin Mausoleum. And two inscriptions appeared on the pediment of this party memorial pantheon: Lenin and Stalin.

Khrushchev and Stalin

Dzhugashvili-Stalin did not lie in the Mausoleum for long - not a full eight years. The fate of his transfer to another place was decided at the XXII Congress of the CPSU, five years after Khrushchev's speech about the cult of personality.

Stalin and 1937: Political reforms or the Great Terror

For Khrushchev, this was a time of a rather fierce struggle with his comrades from the Stalinist call for power in the party. The culmination of this struggle, in fact, was the decision of the party to say goodbye to the personality cult of Stalin, up to the visual separation of his posthumous body from the remains of another leader, Ulyanov-Lenin, “idolized” by the party.

Khrushchev wanted to be a direct successor and interpreter of the Ulyanov-Lenin affair, without any aggravating circumstances. With Stalin and the repressions, Khrushchev had too many personal memories that he would like to forget himself and that he would not like to advertise to the rest of the population of the Soviet Union, and indeed the world as a whole.

Nikita Khrushchev. Photo: www.globallookpress.com

To "stormy, prolonged applause" and exclamations from the audience

The idea, of course, long nurtured and prepared, began to be translated into party decisions on October 30, 1961. At the twenty-third meeting of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, the delegates rather quickly and mercilessly discussed the problem of Stalin's body in the Mausoleum in a Bolshevik way.

Various speeches at the congress spoke about repressions, about the cult of personality, but a specific proposal was made by the First Secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee Spiridonov, saying that under Stalin the Leningrad party organization suffered "especially heavy losses", in particular after the assassination of Kirov.

Both the repressions of 1935-1937 and the repressions of the post-war period, 1949-1950, he said, were committed either on the direct orders of Stalin, or with his knowledge and approval.

(Verbatim report of the XXII Congress of the CPSU. Meeting twenty-third. T. 3. P. 114).

The head of the Leningrad Communists ritually referred, as was customary since the Leninist-Stalinist times, to the decisions of the working proletarians of the Leningrad Kirov Plant (formerly Putilov) and the Lenin Nevsky Machine-Building Plant, “ in which Leningraders make a proposal to move the ashes of Stalin to another place. The transcript goes on to say:

Exclamations from the hall "That's right!". Thunderous applause(p. 115).

And only then, already on behalf of the Leningrad party organization and the "workers of Leningrad" Spiridonov proposed to contribute " for considerationXXIICongress proposal - to move the ashes of Stalin from the Mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin to another place and do it as soon as possible. After this proposal, the same exclamations were heard in the meeting room "Right!", but the applause of the assembled communists this time was not only "stormy" but also "long"(p. 115).

Comrade Spiridonov was echoed by Comrade Demichev, First Secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, who supported the proposal " completely”, seeing in the process of eliminating the consequences of Stalinism that“ Soviet sky»became again« cloudless and clear" and removed "from the shoulders of the people crushing his weight", having cleared "the way to move forward faster, to communism". Comrade Demichev's speech also called out " prolonged applause».

After the Leningrad and Moscow, as it turned out, " faithful Leninists"Comrade Dzhugashvili-Stalin, Comrade Javakhishvili spoke:

The Georgian party delegation fully approves and supports the proposals of the Leningrad and Moscow delegations to transfer the ashes of Stalin from the Mausoleum to another place.

After his speech, the dry transcript reflected only not stormy and not lengthy " applause».

Perhaps because Javakhishvili was not the head of the Georgian communists, but was only the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the GSSR. Comrade Mzhavanadze, then First Secretary of the Georgian Communist Party, was apparently a Stalinist, was part of the anti-Khrushchev conspiracy, and already under Brezhnev was removed on charges of supporting underground guild workers.

"Séance" of the faithful Leninist

Further, the party performance unfolded with even greater dramatic brightness. After the party bosses, Comrade Lazurkina, a member of the RSDLP since 1902, who accidentally remained a representative of the "faithful Leninists", spoke. She told how she rose wings from communication with Lenin even before the revolution, in Geneva.

Then she told that, being repressed and being in the Soviet camp, she " all the time I fought for Stalin, who was scolded by prisoners, deportees and campers ... Many argued with me, some were angry with me, but I remained adamant"(p. 120).

What happened next is what conservatives always talk about when they write about communist ideology as a pseudo-religious "faith." The faithful Leninist began to speak directly about the real "spiritualistic meditation."

Photo: Everett Collection / Shutterstock.com

Deputy Lazurkina Dora Abramovna told the CPSU Congress about her experience of "communication with the dead Ilyich."

I,- said a communist with almost sixty years of experience, - I always carry Ilyich in my heart and always, comrades, in the most difficult moments, I survived only because I had Ilyich in my heart, and I consulted him on what to do. (Applause). Yesterday I consulted with Ilyich, as if he stood in front of me as if alive and said: "It is unpleasant for me to be next to Stalin, who brought so much trouble to the party".

Molotov later recalled this speech as follows:

I just think she's some kind of witch. In a dream, he sees Lenin scolding Stalin

(Chuev F.I. One hundred and forty conversations with Molotov. M., 1991. P. 366).

But be that as it may, the words of the party veteran were perceived as a "blessing" of Lenin himself and caused not only "stormy", but also "prolonged applause» congress.

The necessary political plot was played out like clockwork. Everything was here: an initiative from the city of three revolutions, and speeches from the capital's communists, and consent from the communist countrymen, and the final chord from a party member who saw Lenin in Geneva, and then carried the leader in his "heart" all his life and consulted with him. Unity was found even with representatives of the other world.

Decision and final act

Having gone through this well-established path of legitimizing the subsequent decision, flavored with a fair amount of all kinds of applause, the Congress of Communists decided:

To recognize as inexpedient further storage of the sarcophagus with the coffin of I. V. Stalin in the Mausoleum, since Stalin's serious violations of Lenin's precepts, abuse of power, mass repressions against honest Soviet people and other actions during the period of the cult of personality make it impossible to leave the coffin with his body in the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin

(Stormy, prolonged applause) (p. 122).

Further, this proposal, as expected, was put to a vote and unanimously adopted by all the Communist delegates to the congress. Then they stood up and greeted this decision with stormy, prolonged applause, as was due to any disciplined member of the CPSU when the party leadership made any decision.

Since at the party congress it was proposed to solve the case with Stalin's body "as soon as possible", then already on the night of October 31 to November 1, 1961, a grave was dug near the walls of the Kremlin. Stalin's body was removed from the Mausoleum. They removed the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor from him, ripped off the golden buttons (replacing them with brass ones), took the epaulettes of the generalissimo and lowered him into the grave.

The next morning, they wrote about this in the Pravda newspaper, and over time, the inscription on the pediment of the Mausoleum was changed to “Lenin”. The Soviet people continued to calmly go to the Mausoleum, but only to one leader instead of two.

The very removal of Stalin's body from the Mausoleum did not cause any reaction among the people, no unrest and no deep feelings. There will be no reaction even when the second leader lying there is taken out.

Late in the evening of October 31, 1961, when the entire Anglo-Saxon world celebrated Halloween, an event was held on Red Square in Moscow that absolutely fit into the context of the “foreign” holiday. Stalin's body was carried out of the mausoleum.

Why were they in such a hurry?

The decision to remove the body of the leader was made the day before, on October 30, at the closing of the congress communist party. However, it remains a mystery why it was embodied in a record short time– in just a day? Formally, the workers of the Leningrad Kirov Machine-Building Plant acted as the initiators of the removal of the body, and a certain delegate I. Spiridonov, on behalf of the Leningrad Party organization, announced it to the congress.

The decision was taken unanimously. Already in the morning, the information was published in the Pravda newspaper. Probably, the authorities thus warned the negative public reaction, but there was no popular unrest, and it was decided to start reburial in the evening.

Perhaps Nikita Khrushchev, the then head of the party, mindful that "the Russians take a long time to harness," decided to use the moment - before the citizens "went fast." But this is unlikely. Most likely, the decision to remove Stalin from the mausoleum and the exact date of reburial were determined long before the October Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Why on the last day of October?

There may be several versions here. The most exotic is about the connection of the removal of Stalin's body with the Western holiday of Halloween. In 1960, the famous performance of Nikita Khrushchev “with a shoe” took place in the USA, the head of the USSR learned about the Halloween holiday. The inquisitive Nikita Sergeevich simply could not help but notice the pumpkin abundance in New York in mid-October and not take an interest in the nature of the phenomenon. Probably, having learned about the connection of Halloween with evil spirits, he decided to transfer it to Soviet soil - just for one day.

Another version looks more plausible. October 30, 1961, on the eve of the removal of the leader's body from the mausoleum, the most powerful in history was tested in the USSR hydrogen bomb. Most likely, the leaders of the Soviet Union decided to link the two events: in the explosion of the "Tsar Bomb" they saw an excellent symbolic ritual - farewell to the cult of Stalin.

Why were they reburied near the Kremlin wall?

The participants in the operation to remove Joseph Vissarionovich from the mausoleum later recalled that the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent was originally chosen as the place of reburial. This idea was abandoned a few hours before the burial. Allegedly, the authorities were worried that Stalin's ardent admirers of the leader, who numbered millions in the USSR, could later be dug up. However, it is very hard to believe that the main officials of the country were guided by a careful attitude towards the body of the leader. Then what is the reason?

It must be said that the burial of Stalin at the Kremlin wall took place in extreme secrecy - about 30 people participated directly in the operation itself. Moreover, relatives were not invited to the farewell ceremony.

In other words, there is no one to confirm that Joseph Vissarionovich was buried near the Kremlin, except for "secret" soldiers and officers with high officials.

After the reburial, rumors spread around Moscow that Khrushchev buried not the body of the “great helmsman”, but someone else or even an empty coffin near the walls of the Kremlin. The body of Stalin, allegedly, was burned in the crematorium. Of course, it is no longer possible to verify these legends.

Why was the reburial accompanied by a parade?

On the evening of October 31, 1961, Red Square was blocked - a rehearsal of the parade scheduled for November 7 was supposed to take place there.

When the participants in the operation to remove Stalin's body were swarming in the mausoleum, only a few tens of meters away from them, the brave soviet soldiers, heavy military equipment hummed ...

At first glance, it seems that combining a parade rehearsal with a secret reburial operation looks quite logical. Allegedly, as the participants in the removal of the body recall, this was a good reason for the closure of Red Square. This looks a little naive, since Red Square could hardly be called a very busy place late at night - especially at a time when most people went to bed at nine or ten o'clock. And, of course, it is unlikely that people began to get nervous from blocking the main square of the country, even in the daytime. Most likely, the reason was different. Probably, the party bosses of the Soviet Union again resorted to their favorite language of symbolism. The parade became a demonstrative act of strength and power in front of a dead tyrant "expelled" from the pyramid.

Why was all the gold removed from Stalin?

A participant in the reburial operation, the commander of a separate regiment, Fyodor Konev, recalls in his memoirs that in preparation for the reburial, the golden shoulder straps of the Generalissimo, the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor were removed from Stalin and the golden buttons on his uniform were cut off, which were changed to brass. The nature of such a decision is not at all clear - it was not gold that was a pity for the highest officials of the USSR! If the removal of shoulder straps and the order could still be attributed to a kind of act of debunking, but what does the buttons have to do with it? Why create additional fuss with sewing on new, cheap ones? Here we are dealing either with some very strange ritual, understandable only to its participants, or with the fact that the golden buttons from Stalin's jacket were taken away senior officials states as a trophy, a talisman.

Why was the mausoleum opened the next day?

This looks very strange. On the morning of November 1, a traditional queue lined up in front of the mausoleum. True, the inscription “Lenin-Stalin” that adorned the pyramid was covered with a fabric with the lonely name of Vladimir Ilyich.

Why did the country's top officials, accustomed to insuring themselves even in small things, decide to take the risk and let people into the mausoleum with the "lonely" Lenin? Moreover, according to eyewitnesses, Red Square was not even additionally reinforced with security.

Were the party bosses really so sure of the cold-blooded reaction of the people. The absence of Stalin did not actually cause a negative reaction or ferment among the visitors, but who could have predicted this at all then? It wasn’t the hydrogen bomb in the hands of the authorities that so humbled the hearts of Joseph Vissarionovich’s admirers? The motives of statesmen and the secret of the composure of the citizens of the USSR, the majority (and certainly those who were ready to defend the three-hour line to the mausoleum) who revered Stalin as the winner of the Great Patriotic War, we will never know for sure.

Why was the monument erected on Stalin's grave only 10 years later?

Immediately after the burial of Stalin's body, the grave was covered with a heavy marble slab with the years of the leader's life. In such a modest state, she stayed for exactly 10 years, until in 1970 the bust of Joseph Vissarionovich, the work of the sculptor Nikolai Tomsky, replaced the slab. Why then, not earlier and not later? After all, Nikita Khrushchev, the main crusher of the Stalin cult, was removed back in 1964. And here the answer must be sought in the once fraternal China. Since the late 1960s, the USSR and China have been on the brink of a grand war. Chinese dissatisfaction with suppression Soviet troops"Prague Spring", after which the leaders of the Celestial Empire declared that Soviet Union embarked on the path of "socialist imperialism", and three border conflicts between the two superpowers in 1969 forced the Soviet authorities to look for ways to normalize relations. And party leaders saw one of the methods of calming China in the "partial rehabilitation" of Stalin, whose figure in the PRC remained a cult. The head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin even promised the head of the Chinese government to return the name to Stalingrad in exchange for loyalty, and to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Joseph Vissarionovich, but at the last moment the Soviet leadership played back. In the end, the authorities decided to limit themselves to opening a monument on Stalin's grave. True, such half-measures did not satisfy the Chinese, and in the same 1970, a crowd of Red Guards, the "hegemons" of the cultural revolution in China, blockaded the USSR Embassy in Beijing, without stopping chanting for several days: "Long live Comrade Stalin!".

Joseph Stalin died in early March 1953 at his dacha near Moscow. It was decided to embalm the body of the leader of the peoples and place it in a mausoleum next to Vladimir Lenin. What happened next?

Two sarcophagi

Stalin's body was taken to a special laboratory for a procedure similar to the manipulation of Lenin's body. Tissue fixation and a set of embalming procedures were performed.

On March 9, after farewell to the Hall of Columns of the House of the Unions, the sarcophagus with the body of Stalin was installed in the mausoleum next to Lenin. From that moment on, one of the main buildings of the Soviet era became known as the "Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin."

The interior of the building has not changed much. The same dim light, the decoration of the hall in red and black tones. Only now the guard of honor stood at two identical sarcophagi.

Changes in appearance

Even before the sarcophagus with the leader of the peoples was installed in the mausoleum, it was changed appearance a multi-ton monolithic slab on the front facade of the building, where the inscription "Lenin" flaunted in large letters. At that time it was not possible to find a block of the same size, so the old inscription was covered with pink resin, and two - "Lenin" and "Stalin" - were already applied to the resulting layer of black paint.

But it didn't solve the problem. In winter, in severe frost, the original inscription "Lenin" was clearly visible on the slab through a new layer. As a result, the former monolith was replaced only seven years after the death of the leader of the peoples, in 1960. [S-BLOCK]

The block with the inscription "Lenin" was originally intended to be cut for new tombstones, but Colonel Moshkov, who at that time was the commandant of the mausoleum, strongly opposed it. As a result, the slab was taken to Vodniki near Moscow and put in storage in one of the premises of the stone processing plant.

The staff of workers serving the mausoleum was also significantly increased. Before the start of the Great Patriotic War, there were 30 people there, many of them narrow-profile scientists and specialists. Now it was necessary to monitor and maintain in a "conditional" state not only the body of the first, but also the second leader. This required more labor.

Outshine Lenin

Stalin, given his rank of Generalissimo, was placed in a sarcophagus in military uniform. Several medals were attached to the leader's tunic - “ Golden Star» Hero of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor and straps for them. As expert embalmer Yuri Romakov recalled, the leader of the peoples actually eclipsed Vladimir Ilyich, who from that moment appeared to be in the shadow of his “student”.

The fact is that Lenin was in a very modest suit, with a small badge of a member of the Central Executive Committee. Whereas Stalin - in a luxurious uniform with gold buttons and shoulder straps, and besides with awards. Stalin looked great, Romakov noted.

Another curious detail is that during Stalin's stay in the mausoleum, not a single attempt was made on his sarcophagus. At the same time, they raised their hand against Ilyich several times.

To a humble grave

The new Soviet leaders planned to build a special Pantheon, where the bodies of the two leaders would be transferred. But this intention was eventually abandoned. And the de-Stalinization that began under Nikita Khrushchev led to the fact that the party elite seriously raised the question of the advisability of finding Joseph Vissarionovich next to Vladimir Ilyich.

The final decision in the Politburo was made on October 30, 1961 - to take Stalin out of the mausoleum. But they decided to furnish everything as if it were a popular initiative. To this end, the Kirov workers declared in a collective appeal that it would be good to leave Ilyich alone.

Work on the removal of Stalin's body began late in the evening of October 31. The leader of the peoples was stripped, golden buttons and shoulder straps were cut off his uniform, orders and medals were removed. The body was covered with an ordinary dark cloth, the coffin was closed and lowered into a hastily dug grave next to the mausoleum. An unremarkable marble slab was placed on top. The monument at the burial site appeared later. On the same night, the plate with the inscription "Lenin" returned from Vodniki to its original place.

Late in the evening of October 31, 1961, when the entire Anglo-Saxon world celebrated Halloween, an event was held on Red Square in Moscow that absolutely fit into the context of the “foreign” holiday. Stalin's body was carried out of the mausoleum.

Why were they in such a hurry?

The decision to remove the body of the leader was made the day before, on October 30, at the closing of the Congress of the Communist Party. However, it remains a mystery why it was implemented in record time - in just a day? Formally, the workers of the Leningrad Kirov Machine-Building Plant acted as the initiators of the removal of the body, and a certain delegate I. Spiridonov, on behalf of the Leningrad Party organization, announced it to the congress.

The decision was taken unanimously. Already in the morning, the information was published in the Pravda newspaper. Probably, the authorities thus prevented a negative public reaction, but there were no popular unrest, and they decided to start the reburial in the evening.

Perhaps Nikita Khrushchev, the then head of the party, mindful that "the Russians take a long time to harness," decided to use the moment - before the citizens "went fast." But this is unlikely. Most likely, the decision to remove Stalin from the mausoleum and the exact date of reburial were determined long before the October Congress of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Why on the last day of October?

There may be several versions here. The most exotic is about the connection of the removal of Stalin's body with the Western holiday of Halloween. In 1960, the famous performance of Nikita Khrushchev “with a shoe” took place in the USA, the head of the USSR learned about the Halloween holiday. The inquisitive Nikita Sergeevich simply could not help but notice the pumpkin abundance in New York in mid-October and not take an interest in the nature of the phenomenon. Probably, having learned about the connection of Halloween with evil spirits, he decided to transfer it to Soviet soil - just for one day.

Another version looks more plausible. On October 30, 1961, on the eve of the removal of the leader's body from the mausoleum, the most powerful hydrogen bomb in history was tested in the USSR. Most likely, the leaders of the Soviet Union decided to link the two events: in the explosion of the "Tsar Bomb" they saw an excellent symbolic ritual - farewell to the cult of Stalin.

Why were they reburied near the Kremlin wall?

The participants in the operation to remove Joseph Vissarionovich from the mausoleum later recalled that the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent was originally chosen as the place of reburial. This idea was abandoned a few hours before the burial. Allegedly, the authorities were worried that Stalin's ardent admirers of the leader, who numbered millions in the USSR, could later be dug up. However, it is very hard to believe that the main officials of the country were guided by a careful attitude towards the body of the leader. Then what is the reason?

It must be said that the burial of Stalin at the Kremlin wall took place in extreme secrecy - about 30 people participated directly in the operation itself. Moreover, relatives were not invited to the farewell ceremony.

In other words, there is no one to confirm that Joseph Vissarionovich was buried near the Kremlin, except for "secret" soldiers and officers with high officials.

After the reburial, rumors spread around Moscow that Khrushchev buried not the body of the “great helmsman”, but someone else or even an empty coffin near the walls of the Kremlin. The body of Stalin, allegedly, was burned in the crematorium. Of course, it is no longer possible to verify these legends.

Why was the reburial accompanied by a parade?

On the evening of October 31, 1961, Red Square was blocked - a rehearsal of the parade scheduled for November 7 was supposed to take place there.

When the participants in the operation to remove Stalin's body were swarming in the mausoleum, brave Soviet soldiers were marching just a few tens of meters away from them, heavy military equipment was buzzing ...

At first glance, it seems that combining a parade rehearsal with a secret reburial operation looks quite logical. Allegedly, as the participants in the removal of the body recall, this was a good reason for the closure of Red Square. This looks a little naive, since Red Square could hardly be called a very busy place late at night - especially at a time when most people went to bed at nine or ten o'clock. And, of course, it is unlikely that people began to get nervous from blocking the main square of the country, even in the daytime. Most likely, the reason was different. Probably, the party bosses of the Soviet Union again resorted to their favorite language of symbolism. The parade became a demonstrative act of strength and power in front of a dead tyrant "expelled" from the pyramid.

Why was all the gold removed from Stalin?

A participant in the reburial operation, the commander of a separate regiment, Fyodor Konev, recalls in his memoirs that in preparation for the reburial, the golden shoulder straps of the Generalissimo, the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor were removed from Stalin and the golden buttons on his uniform were cut off, which were changed to brass. The nature of such a decision is not at all clear - it was not gold that was a pity for the highest officials of the USSR! If the removal of shoulder straps and the order could still be attributed to a kind of act of debunking, but what does the buttons have to do with it? Why create additional fuss with sewing on new, cheap ones? Here we are dealing either with some very strange ritual, understandable only to its participants, or with the fact that the golden buttons from Stalin's jacket were taken by the highest officials of the state as a trophy, a talisman.

Why was the mausoleum opened the next day?

This looks very strange. On the morning of November 1, a traditional queue lined up in front of the mausoleum. True, the inscription “Lenin-Stalin” that adorned the pyramid was covered with a fabric with the lonely name of Vladimir Ilyich.

Why did the country's top officials, accustomed to insuring themselves even in small things, decide to take the risk and let people into the mausoleum with the "lonely" Lenin? Moreover, according to eyewitnesses, Red Square was not even additionally reinforced with security.

Were the party bosses really so sure of the cold-blooded reaction of the people. The absence of Stalin did not actually cause a negative reaction or ferment among the visitors, but who could have predicted this at all then? It wasn’t the hydrogen bomb in the hands of the authorities that so humbled the hearts of Joseph Vissarionovich’s admirers? The motives of statesmen and the secret of the composure of the citizens of the USSR, the majority (and certainly those who were ready to defend the three-hour line to the mausoleum) who revered Stalin as the winner of the Great Patriotic War, we will definitely never unravel.

Why was the monument erected on Stalin's grave only 10 years later?

Immediately after the burial of Stalin's body, the grave was covered with a heavy marble slab with the years of the leader's life. In such a modest state, she stayed for exactly 10 years, until in 1970 the bust of Joseph Vissarionovich, the work of the sculptor Nikolai Tomsky, replaced the slab. Why then, not earlier and not later? After all, Nikita Khrushchev, the main crusher of the Stalin cult, was removed back in 1964. And here the answer must be sought in the once fraternal China. Since the late 1960s, the USSR and China have been on the brink of a grand war. China's dissatisfaction with the suppression of the Prague Spring by the Soviet troops, after which the leaders of the Celestial Empire declared that the Soviet Union had embarked on the path of "socialist imperialism", and three border conflicts between the two superpowers in 1969, forced the Soviet authorities to look for ways to normalize relations. And party leaders saw one of the methods of calming China in the "partial rehabilitation" of Stalin, whose figure in the PRC remained a cult. The head of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Alexei Kosygin even promised the head of the Chinese government to return the name to Stalingrad in exchange for loyalty, and to coincide with the 90th anniversary of Joseph Vissarionovich, but at the last moment the Soviet leadership played back. In the end, the authorities decided to limit themselves to opening a monument on Stalin's grave. True, such half-measures did not satisfy the Chinese, and in the same 1970, a crowd of Red Guards, the "hegemons" of the cultural revolution in China, blockaded the USSR Embassy in Beijing, without stopping chanting for several days: "Long live Comrade Stalin!".