How and why was Lenin embalmed?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin looks like a kind grandfather from faded posters, he rises with old monuments in almost every city in Russia, and, of course, lies in the Mausoleum. Year after year, politicians raise another languid debate about whether to bury Lenin or leave everything as it is, then everything calms down to start again in a few years.

And Lenin continues to lie in the Mausoleum, dressed in a suit, but fewer and fewer people, more and more - a chemical compound: now about 20% of his body is left, the rest is embalming liquids and substances.

How is it that the restless politician, after his death, took on such a strange form of eternal peace? And how did the scientists Boris Zbarsky and Vladimir Vorobyov manage to keep the leader of the proletariat so well? Most of all, this story is similar to an action-packed political and medical thriller.

Bolshevik dies

Lenin died long and painfully. Having recovered with difficulty from the first bout of illness that struck him in 1922, the hyperactive politician and indefatigable author turned into a disabled person who was able to return to work for only a few months. At the end of 1922, his condition worsened again, and from December of this year until his death in January 1924, Lenin sat practically non-stop in Gorki near Moscow, under the supervision of his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya and a council of thirty Soviet and German doctors. The best doctors of that time were thrown into the rescue of the Soviet leader, but to no avail. On January 21, 1924, Lenin died of a cerebral hemorrhage.

What exactly Lenin was ill with is still not known for certain. "Diary of medical history", unofficial records of his doctors, remain classified. The autopsy report, carried out by a commission headed by Professor Alexei Abrikosov, contains an official diagnosis - vascular arteriosclerosis - but raises questions from specialists.

So the neurologist Valery Novoselov emphasizes that "the final part of the act does not correspond to the narrative part." Novoselov himself suggests that the cerebral hemorrhage was caused by neurosyphilis - this point of view is shared by some experts: it easily explains why the Soviet authorities tried to hide the true diagnosis. Despite the fact that syphilis is not only transmitted sexually, such a diagnosis was too dissonant.

Other specialists, such as the surgeon Yuri Lopukhin, author of the monograph Illness, Death and Embalming of V. I. Kaplan in August 1918

There are many versions, and it is practically impossible for a person without medical education to understand the intricacies of the disease, which first turned one of the brightest and most active politicians of the era into a vegetable, and then destroyed him.

One thing is clear - on the day he died, the myth of Lenin was born, the cult of the communist prophet, in whose name and under whose banner Soviet people will build a bright future. Alive Vladimir Ilyich no longer had anything to do with this, from a subject of politics to become its object. An object so important that even his corpse was immediately called upon to serve communism.

Canonization

Lenin died in a cold winter. The frosts were so severe that the decomposition of the body after the embalming operation carried out by Professor Abrikosov (still temporary) could not have been worried for at least several weeks. A long farewell began - the coffin with the body was brought from Gorki to Moscow and installed in the Column Hall of the House of Soviets.“A continuous stream of people in two columns from 7 pm on January 23 to January 27 passed by Lenin's coffin. There were at least fifty thousand people in the queue for the Hall of Columns,”writes Lopukhin.

Not only Moscow - the whole country turned into mourning and crying, which in the modern world could only be seen in the DPRK after the death of Kim Jong Il. Grown people cried like children, people on the streets of cities and in villages, not quite accustomed to Soviet atheism, offered prayers for the newly reposed "servant of God Vladimir".

Nina Tumarkin, the author of a book about the cult of Lenin, explains such a surge of grief by the general exhaustion of the nation, which survived the terrible years of the First World War and the Civil War, as well as hunger and epidemics: “The death of Lenin became the reason for the first nationwide ritual of mourning after all the hardships of the past years. A wave of hysterical grief swept through society."

Together with Lenin, they mourned all the deaths, all the unhappy, bitter life of the late 1910s - early 1920s, and therefore the Bolshevik leadership hit the mark, cementing the grief for Lenin with the myth around his personality, which for decades will become one of the main precepts of the Soviet regime.

Protracted goodbye

Lenin lay in his grave, "meeting" more and more delegations of mourners. The low temperature - about seven degrees below zero - and the embalming carried out by Abrikosov allowed the body to survive well. But time passed, and the Bolsheviks faced a choice: to bury the leader or somehow preserve his body, putting it on public display.

As a result, they chose the latter - Joseph Stalin became one of the main supporters of this idea. The quiet Georgian, who held the post of general secretary (then - technical and organizational), gradually concentrated in his hands more and more power and played on the death of an older comrade, uttering at the funeral one of the brightest mourning speeches - "the oath at the coffin of Lenin." But his main competitor, Leon Trotsky, stayed on treatment in Abkhazia and, as a result, missing the farewell ceremony, lost several important political points.

Stalin understood well how important it was to preserve Lenin in the form of communist powers. “After a while, you will see the representatives of millions of working people go on a pilgrimage to the grave of Comrade Lenin,” he wrote in 1924, quite possibly keeping in mind that the “almost alive” Lenin, whom the followers of his ideas will be able to see with their own eyes, will look much more spectacular a banal headstone.

Stalin near Lenin's coffin

His wife and faithful assistant Nadezhda Krupskaya fiercely opposed the transformation of Lenin's body into a sacred cow. “I have a big request to you, do not let your sorrow for Ilyich go into the external veneration of his personality. Do not arrange monuments to him, palaces named after him, magnificent celebrations in his memory, etc. “He attached so little importance to all this during his lifetime, was so burdened by all of this,” she wrote to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, but no one listened to her.

The dead leader no longer belonged to himself, let alone Krupskaya. It was officially announced that "at the numerous requests of the working people" Lenin's body should be preserved intact. The State Funeral Commission headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky was in charge of such an important matter. Question number one for the commission sounded simple - how exactly can you stop decay and make Lenin truly eternal?

At first, the priority option was to freeze the body of the leader - this was supported by Leonid Krasin, an engineer by training, for aristocracy and intellect, nicknamed in the West "the red lord". One of the most prominent figures of the Bolshevik Party, before the revolution he was engaged in, as they would say today, fundraising, collecting money for the socialist movement, sometimes persuading, then blackmailing, then deceiving rich "sponsors". Krasin believed that by lowering the temperature of Lenin's body and placing him in a special sarcophagus with double glass, it would be best to save the leader.

When in late January - early February 1924 the project received the approval of the commission, Professor Abrikosov conducted a series of experiments with freezing corpses. Time was running out: with the beginning of spring in Moscow it became warmer, Lenin could begin to decompose at any moment. We were waiting for the last signal to start. The construction of a powerful refrigeration stop according to Krasin's project was underway, but suddenly everything stopped. The "Red Lord" was overtaken with an alternative project by a little-known chemist Boris Zbarsky.

Chemist and Anatomist

Deputy Director of the Institute of Chemistry, 39-year-old Zbarsky heard about the project to freeze Lenin's body by accident. Krasin, his good friend, came to visit and told about his plans. The chemist did not like the idea of freezing, he began to object to Krasin, saying that decomposition would continue at low temperatures. “The objections are far from correct,” notes Yuri Lopukhin in his book. Nevertheless, after a conversation with Krasin, Zbarsky fired up the idea - to bypass Krasin with another plan to preserve Lenin's relics.

He himself, however, despite his remarkable energy, did not possess the necessary skills - the chemist had never had to work with corpses before. Then Zbarsky immediately remembered his acquaintance with Vladimir Vorobyov, one of the best anatomists of his time, who then lived in Kharkov and studied the issues of long-term embalming. It was together with Vorobyov that Zbarsky could succeed in preserving the body of the leader. The only problem was that Vorobyov did not feel the slightest desire to approach such a risky task.

You could understand him. Vorobyov's position in the Soviet Union was precarious: during the Civil War, when Kharkov repeatedly passed from hand to hand, he participated in the investigation into the execution of white officers and signed a document confirming that they were shot without trial by the Red Army.

The authorities "forgot" about this sin of Vorobyov, but, as the scientist himself rightly believed, they could remember at any moment. Therefore, the 48-year-old professor preferred to head the department of anatomy at Kharkov University and did not at all strive for publicity, especially if it involved working on a commission under the leadership of Dzerzhinsky.

Nevertheless, the case decided for him. After reading an interview with Professor Abrikosov in February 1924, where he spoke about the impossibility of long-term embalming of Lenin's body, Vorobyov, who had human bodies preserved with the help of embalming liquids in his department for years, thoughtfully dropped: “Abrikosov is not right. Some experiments should be carried out on corpses."

The phrase reached the authorities and Vorobyov was immediately sent to Moscow, where he stayed with his friend Zbarsky. So, almost by accident, a duet was formed, which will preserve Lenin's body for many decades.

Fuss around the body

The tandem of Zbarsky and Vorobyov was somewhat reminiscent of classic pairs of cops from Hollywood action films like Lethal Weapon. The ambitious Zbarsky played the role of a young and brazen rebel adventurer, and Vorobyov, nine years older than his partner, looked like a tired "I'm-too-old-for-this-shit" veteran who most dreamed of peace. At the same time, they perfectly complemented each other - Vorobyov knew everything about embalming, and Zbarsky had the necessary connections at the top of the party and incredible penetrating power.

It all started on a bad note. On March 3, after examining Lenin's body, Vorobyov was frightened by dark spots on his forehead and crown of the head, as well as sunken eye sockets, and firmly decided that he would not participate in any project. “You are crazy,” he told Zbarsky, “there can be no question of that. In no case will I go to such an obviously risky and hopeless business, and becoming a laughing stock among scientists is unacceptable for me."

But all the same, Zbarsky's persuasion and the scientist's excitement had their effect. Speaking at the meetings of the commission, which lasted from March 3 to March 10, Vorobyov spoke in favor of preserving the body in an embalming liquid as the best option and criticized Krasin's version with freezing. Discussing with other scientists, Vorobyov put forward his own program: to remove all fluid from the body, rinse the vessels to remove blood from them, pour alcohol into the vessels, cleanse the internal organs - in general, turn Lenin into a skin shell, inside which powerful embalming drugs act …

Zbarsky goes all-in

Doubts remained - they criticized Krasin's plan with a freeze, and Vorobyov's version, and other projects, so the chairman of the commission, Dzerzhinsky, did not make a final decision. Vorobyov left for Kharkov on March 12, before that he wrote a letter to Zbarsky, where he indicated: "If you are on the commission, continue to insist on the method of processing with liquids." Vorobyov was sure that this was just a formality, but Zbarsky had grandiose plans for this letter.

He achieved an audience with Dzerzhinsky personally, showed him Vorobyov's letter and said that the two of them were ready to take full responsibility and embalm Lenin's body so that it would be perfectly preserved, and the first signs of decomposition that had already appeared on the skin would go away.

Iron Felix liked Zbarsky's confidence: “You know, I like it. After all, it means that there are people who can take on this business and take the risk. After the project received the highest approval, it remained only to call Vorobyov back to Moscow and start embalming. Krasin, whose project was canceled at the last moment, was furious, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Vorobyov, learning about Zbarsky's intrigues, was horrified and told the chemist that he would destroy both him and himself. Despite this, the decision was made, and Vorobyov did not consider it possible to refuse. Having received permission from Dzerzhinsky to carry out any necessary operations on the body, Vorobyov assembled a team of Kharkov doctors and returned to Moscow. On March 26, two months after Lenin's death, embalming work began.

Save the leader from decay

Vorobiev's plan consisted of three points:

Soak the whole body with formalin - formaldehyde fixed proteins in the body, turning them into polymers that prevent decay, and at the same time kills all unnecessary microorganisms;

Desaturate brown spots on the skin with hydrogen peroxide;

Saturate the body with solutions of glycerin and potassium acetate so that the tissues retain moisture and are in equilibrium with the environment.

On paper, the plan looked simple, but many things remained unclear: how to ensure the optimal ratio of substances inside the body so that displacement does not begin, and how to provide all tissues with embalming solutions. Despite Dzerzhinsky's assurances of full support, both Vorobyov and Zbarsky feared that if they failed, not only Lenin's body would suffer, but they themselves. Zbarsky was visibly nervous. Vorobyov even had to shout at him: “Well, I knew it! You were the main ringleader and dragged me into this business, and now you are being touchy. Please do everything with us together."

The work took four months. Zbarsky, Vorobyov and their assistants embalmed Lenin from March to July. During this time, Vorobyov carried out such a number of manipulations with the body that Nadezhda Krupskaya would have had a blow if she had seen at least a tenth of what they were doing with her husband.

Formaldehyde was injected through the arteries, directly into the tissues using injections, and finally, the body was submerged in a bath filled with this substance. To remove cadaveric spots, the skin was cut open and hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid and ammonia were injected. To ensure better penetration of the embalming fluids, the corpse was incised over and over again, holes were drilled in the skull - then these holes were carefully sutured and masked. Eye prostheses were inserted into the eye sockets, the face was fixed with the help of stitches hidden under the mustache and beard. Tissue edema that arose on the face and hands was “treated” with medical alcohol lotions.

These painstaking, exhausting works were supervised by Vorobyov. Zbarsky assisted a senior colleague (together with his team of Kharkiv anatomists), and also took over all the technical tasks and interaction with the authorities: thanks to Dzerzhinsky, at the first request, scientists got everything they needed, including the most complex equipment.

Presentation

In June, a dress rehearsal of Lenin's "return" took place - Dzerzhinsky asked to show the leader to the delegates of the Congress of the Comintern. Vorobiev agreed. Zbarsky went to Krupskaya to take her clothes for Vladimir Ilyich: the widow, as before, was very upset and asked: “What are you doing there? It would have been better to bury him in due time than to maintain some unrealizable hopes for such a long time."

They dressed Lenin, put him in a sarcophagus in the Mausoleum (so far temporary, wooden, built under the leadership of Krasin) and on June 18 a delegation from the family and congress delegates was allowed to visit him. Krupskaya cried, leaving the Mausoleum, but the delegates were impressed.

A month passed, Vorobyov carried out the last cosmetic work, scientists agreed with the organizers exactly how Lenin should lie in the sarcophagus, and completely prepared the funeral hall of the Mausoleum.

A visit to the Mausoleum by members of the government was scheduled for July 26. All night before the fateful day, Vorobyov and Zbarsky did not sleep, being near the body of the leader. Vorobiev was afraid to the last that something would go wrong, scolded Zbarsky and himself, the "old fool", that he allowed himself to be persuaded. Zbarsky was in euphoria, confident that this was a tremendous success, and he was right.

The government delegation from Dzerzhinsky, Molotov, Yenukidze, Voroshilov and Krasin was more than satisfied with the results, as was the medical commission, which noted that after all the work done, Lenin's body could remain unchanged for decades. The government generously awarded the doctors (40,000 gold royal rubles for Vorobiev, 30,000 for Zbarsky, 10,000 each for their assistants). On August 1, 1924, the mausoleum opened its doors to ordinary visitors, who looked in amazement at the dead, but as if alive, Lenin in the sarcophagus.

Epilogue

After completing his work, Vladimir Vorobyov decided not to stay in Moscow for a single extra day, leaving Zbarsky to follow Lenin's body, and he himself went to his native Kharkov, where the local medical community greeted him as a hero, and the government generously allocated money to improve the department. The outstanding anatomist worked there until his death in 1937 - unlike many that year, he died a natural death.

Boris Zbarsky, without whose purposefulness Lenin, most likely, would have been banally buried, watched the body of the leader all his life (periodically, mandatory work has been carried out and is still being carried out to update the embalming fluids inside the body).

In addition, Zbarsky oversaw all matters related to the Mausoleum, and during the Great Patriotic War he was responsible for the secret evacuation of Lenin to Tyumen - it was assumed that the leader would be safe in the deep rear - and his subsequent return. The fate of Zbarsky himself ended harshly: arrested in 1952, he was rehabilitated after Stalin's death in 1953, but did not live long and died a year later.

As for the body, on which Vorobiev and Zbarsky worked so painstakingly and for a long time, it is still in good condition, having, however, no longer anything to do with living Lenin. The man who once turned the world upside down has turned into a museum piece, and he can remain in this state for a very long time - if someone ever does not dare to bury him.

Read also on the topic: