In the shadow of Moscow’s Kremlin Walls stands one of the most famous structures in all of Russia: a squat, austere-looking stepped pyramid, built of polished red porphyry. For decades, the balcony or tribune on the pyramid’s roof served as a stage of honour for Soviet and later Russian leaders to observe military parades on Red Square below. But what makes this imposing structure truly special is the macabre relic preserved within: the embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin. For over a century the great revolutionary and Soviet leader has remained on near-continuous public display, lying in a glass sarcophagus for all to see and tended by an elite team of specialists who keep him looking just as fresh - more or less - as the day he died. And he is not alone; around the world, other famous communist leaders have been similarly pickled for posterity, including Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh, China’s Mao Zedong, and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. But why wasn’t Lenin’s body simply entombed in the Kremlin necropolis like other Soviet heroes? How has his corpse been kept so lifelike for over a hundred years? And how did the admittedly bizarre idea of placing these leaders on pickled display spread to other nations?

Well, comrade, line up in front of the firing squad, make sure ample formaldehyde is at hand, and let’s dive into the peculiar and fascinating history, and science, of Communist mummies.

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Author: Gilles Messier

Editor: Daven Hiskey

Host: Daven Hiskey

Producer: Caden Nielsen

0:00 Intro

3:38 The Death (or Murder) of Lenin

7:05 The First Communist Mummy

15:29 Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin will live!

22:30 Stalin’s Mummy

26:11 Dimitrov’s Mummy

32:39 Gottwald's Mummy

34:57 Choibalsan’s Mummy

37:42 Uncle Ho’s Mummy

41:50 Mao’s Mummy

44:49 Neto and Burnham's Mummies

46:57 Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il’s Still Ruling Mummies

48:01 Evita's Mummy and What in the Actual F-

49:34 Marco's Mummy

50:41 Chavez’s Mummy

51:06 Full Circle to Lenin

53:51 Putin

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