change. In contemporary Russia, legitimized by the
Great Patriotic War and antifascism, there is little
political will to bury Lenin. In 2010 Putin again
argued against the removal of Lenin’s body from
Red Square. During his presidential campaign in
2012 he linked the preservation of Lenin’s body to
traditions within the Orthodox Church (Birnbaum
2013, Ponomareva 2012). In his speech, Putin
echoed the sentiment of the leader of Russia’s
Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, who argued
that the preservation of Lenin’s body ‘complies
with Orthodox canons and traditions.’ Appealing
to the immense loss of continuity after the fall of
the Soviet Union, Putin called for a return ‘to our
historic roots.’ (Putin quoted in Ponomareva).
Lenin’s venerated remains sustain the
continuity of the Russian state throughout its
References
Birnbaum, Michael (2013). «Lenin’s Tomb should stay in Red Square,
Putin says», Washington Post, 12 January 2013. https://www.washing-
tonpost.com/world/europe/lenins-tomb-should-stay-in-red-square-putin-
says/2013/01/12/670c9fbe-5b53-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html.
Derrida, Jacques (1994). Specters of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work
of Mourning and the New International. Trans. Peggy Kamuf. London/ New
York: Verso.
Etkind, Alexander (2013). Warped Mourning. Stories of the Undead in the
Land of the Unburied. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Mitscherlich, Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich (1975). The Inability to
Mourn. Trans. Beverly R. Placzek. New York: Grove Press.
Ponomareva, Yulia. (2012). «Putin says Lenin should stay on Red Square»
Russia behind the headlines. 11 December 2012. http://rbth.com/arti-
cles/2012/12/11/putin_says_lenin_should_stay_on_red_square_21027.html.
Ruin, Hans. 2019. Being with the Dead: Burial, Ancestral Politics and the
Roots of Historical Consciousness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
various permutations as tsarist, Soviet and sovereign
democracy. As a place of warped mourning, his open
coffin is a reminder of his political presence and
mythical role in the Russian Revolution. Lenin’s
Mausoleum merges the functions of gravesite, place
Tumarkin, Nina (1997 [1983]). Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Yurchak, Alexei (2015). «Bodies of Lenin: The Hidden Science of Communist
Sovereignty» Representations 129, Winter 2015, 116-157.
of memory and symbol of Soviet state power. While
there is indeed official recognition of repression
during the Soviet Union, as long as his Mausoleum
remains open, Lenin’s role in this state-sponsored
violence is played down. His physical and spectral
presence near the Kremlin highlights veneration
rather than critical reflection. Lenin’s Mausoleum
demonstrates that the past is not at all past, but has
been rearranged according to contemporary political
interests. If Soviet leaders could bury Stalin in 1961,
they could not bury Lenin because of his founding
role in the 1917 Revolution and the canonization of
Leninism as a doctrine. The first leader of the Soviet
Union has an unusual afterlife. He is undead.
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