When and why was Stalin taken out of the Mausoleum. When was Stalin taken out of the Mausoleum? Why was Stalin taken out of the Mausoleum? How Stalin was taken out of the mausoleum

More than half a century ago - on October 31, 1961 - the body of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was removed from the Mausoleum on Red Square

We have repeatedly touched on a very controversial and complex figure, talked about his early years, revolutionary career, participation in and other aspects of the personality, perhaps the most famous Secretary General of the USSR. Today we will touch on another important and interesting question: how did his heirs fight with the body of the deceased, once all-powerful Stalin? We will invite the reader to answer the questions himself, why it was necessary to pull out the body of the leader under the cover of night, why such secrecy was needed, and how Soviet citizens reacted to this news.

Death of Stalin

On March 1, 1953, a security guard finds Stalin lying on the floor in his dacha. Doctors who arrived the next day diagnosed him with paralysis on the right side of his body. Until March 4, reports on the state of health of Joseph Vissarionovich were published in newspapers and broadcast on the radio, and on March 5 he died.

Source: navsource.narod.ru

On March 6, farewell began in the House of Unions, which lasted three days. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people went to say goodbye to Stalin. At night, cars with searchlights were on duty in the streets to illuminate the path for huge columns of people. There was no pressure either.

Source: therichest.com

Only on March 9, Stalin's body was placed in the Mausoleum, next to Lenin. Iosif Vissarionovich lay in a casual uniform with awards. Troops and workers lined up on Red Square, top leaders of the USSR, representatives of fraternal communist parties and foreign guests were present. From that day on, the tomb became known as the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin.

Fighting the body and the cult

The lion died of old age. Jackals

The crowd fled to tear the body,

Squealing heart-rendingly with all kagal:

"The lion has been defeated! Everyone should know:

What is it we have it for years

They led to a shameful death!

What is our labors

He's been wiped off the face of the earth forever! ..."

Stalin's body was not destined to lie in the Mausoleum for a long time. Already in 1956, during the so-called discussions to debunk the personality cult of Stalin and during the fateful 20th Congress of the CPSU, former associates and subordinates of Joseph Vissarionovich began to put forward ideas about removing his body from the Mausoleum. A campaign to rewrite history began in the USSR.

Source: ru24ru.net

And so, on the eve of the XXII Congress, groups of Leningrad workers of the Kirov and Nevsky factories came up with a written initiative to transfer the body. Before the Central Committee, their initiative was voiced by the head of the Leningrad regional party committee, Ivan Spiridonov. And the congress delegates happily supported the "inexpediency" of further keeping the sarcophagus with Stalin's body in the Mausoleum. It was October 30, and already on the 31st the military began to carry out the task.

At night, under the pretext of preparing for the November 7 parade, the troops cordoned off Red Square. In an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, under the cover of special wooden shields, a grave was dug near the Kremlin wall; the path from the Mausoleum to it was also covered with shields. Of course, for Soviet people, communists, military and party leaders, this was a very serious step: everyone felt uncomfortable burying a man who a few years ago was called great and extolled, and now, under the cover of night, like thieves, they are pulling out his body.

A simple wooden coffin was made for Stalin in the Arsenal of the Kremlin, covered with a black and red drape, and on the shoulders of 8 officers, he set off on his last journey. The coffin was lowered on ropes into the grave. “According to Russian custom, someone threw a handful of earth, and the soldiers dug up the grave,” recalled the former commandant of the Mausoleum, Colonel K.A. Moshkov.

Slab on the grave of Stalin after the removal of his body

October 31 - exactly 50 years since the day Stalin's body was taken out of the mausoleum. Then, in 1961, the operation was carried out under the cover of darkness: they were afraid of popular discontent. In an atmosphere of absolute secrecy, Red Square was cordoned off. In the evening, military equipment was fired at it, saying that preparations were underway for the November 7 parade. Meanwhile, a grave was dug near the Kremlin wall, into which the remains of the leader were transferred. And after that, the inscription "STALIN AND LENIN" was hastily replaced on the mausoleum with the former one - "LENIN".

He was not even buried as a leader. "God is dead," Nietzsche was quoted. The death of Stalin then, in 1953, plunged the entire great power into a stupor. It seemed that everyone individually and all together seemed to be orphaned in an instant. A grandiose farewell is taking place on Red Square, it is almost impossible to get on it, a terrible crush begins a few kilometers away. The country is massively and almost hysterically mourning.

The funeral meeting is opened by a man who, a few years later, will dig a grave for both the deceased and his cult. But in these moments, Khrushchev does not skimp on tears and with mournful solemnity brings the body of Stalin into the mausoleum. It was assumed that he would not lie there for long - until a separate pantheon was built for the leader. But already after 3 years, the mood of the political elite, which seems to have been cured of total fear, will change exactly the opposite.

“The only person who condemned the Stalin regime was my father. criticized the regime, and then there was Khrushchev's report," recalls Anastas Mikoyan's son, test pilot Stepan Mikoyan.

Mikoyan and his former boss had their own scores: he fell into disgrace, and only Stalin's death saved him. Be that as it may, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers sets the political tone: after Khrushchev reads his famous report on the debunking of the personality cult, and after another congress, they decide to take Stalin out of the mausoleum.

“Under the cover of night, in fact, secretly, like a thief, the body of Stalin was taken out. A grave was dug nearby, a coffin was lowered there, everything was covered with earth and at the same time the sign on the Mausoleum was changed,” says historian Yury Zhukov.

Someone prudently kept the plates, where there was only the name of Lenin. It supplanted the words "Lenin" and "Stalin" in a few minutes. The soldiers of the Kremlin regiment became gravediggers. They later recalled for a long time how they were ordered to rip off all the orders and even the golden buttons from the tunic of the Generalissimo. The order could not be obeyed. And in the morning the country accepted the news as if nothing had happened.

And only in the homeland of Stalin, in Georgia, they could not come to terms with the overthrow of the national hero. According to some reports, about 200 people died in the Georgian capital in those days, but the people did not let them near the monument. It was removed after a while with the help of helicopters, and then the Stalin Garden itself was renamed, now it bears the name of Prince Alexander. But the echoes of those events still make themselves felt.

The significance of the reburial of the leader and everything that followed is only beginning to be re-evaluated. “Stalin thought: they made an atomic bomb, they prepared a hydrogen bomb - that’s it, guys. To destroy humanity and the globe, this is enough. Let’s deal with consumer goods. Create refrigerators, radios, cars for people,” says historian Yuri Zhukov. “And Nikita said: no, guys, we need to fight rotten capitalism - we will bury it; and for this, all means are for defense.

Historians are increasingly coming to the conclusion that on the last day of October 1961, they not only took a significant step towards debunking the cult of an individual, but turned the path of the whole country, which eventually led to a dead end.

Few people know, but according to Khrushchev's original plan, Stalin's body should not just be taken out of the mausoleum, but taken away from the Kremlin. In the last days of October, Nikita Sergeevich arrived at the Novodevichy cemetery, walked for a long time, passed the grave of Alliluyeva, went into the very depths, stopped and said: "Dig a grave for him here." Ironically, his predecessor, whom Khrushchev loved and hated so much, will be left to rest at the Kremlin wall, and 10 years later he himself will be buried in this very 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 fit into the context of this terrible "holiday". Stalin's body was carried out of the mausoleum.

1. 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, bearing in mind that "the Russians take a long time to harness", decided to use the moment - until 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.

2. 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 connect two events: in the explosion of the "Tsar Bomb" they saw an excellent symbolic ritual - farewell to the cult of Stalin.

3. 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? I must say 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.

4. 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 the parade rehearsal with the 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 the dead tyrant "expelled" from the pyramid.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Why was the monument erected on Stalin's grave 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!”.

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 of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, this neighborhood was unbearable.

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, during the years of the 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 declination of red banners, the performance of the party anthem by the brass bands - "The 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 prominent 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 associated with 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 the preservation of Lenin's mummy reasonably assume 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 on the moral and ethical than on 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 of the 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 the workers of the Kirov Plant who supported this initiative were inwardly in agreement with it. 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 not up to a protest, much less 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.

The removal of Stalin from the Mausoleum took place at night, immediately after the approval vote of the Congress. It happened simultaneously with the reburial near the Kremlin wall, where a 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 removed from his uniform in the form of the golden epaulettes 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 did take place, but for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who died seven years ago, it was a real parade.

In the meantime, the cladding above the entrance was already being removed, a Stalinist inscription with the same name, which was still preserved, 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 indicating the name, party pseudonym and 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 future burial place of First Secretary Khrushchev. “This is Nikita with his folding bed, Comrade Lenin,” Stalin seemed to be saying to Vladimir Ilyich with 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 person of "hard-stoned" 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, the main idea that the party leadership tried (and not without success) to convey to the consciousness of the broad masses was the idea that Lenin had 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. Very worthy people still live in Russia and beyond its borders, nevertheless committed to communist ideals. And they must be reckoned with if we want to be respected by our descendants.

On October 30, 1961, the delegates of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, at the suggestion of the Leningrad and Moscow party organizations, as well as the Georgian and Ukrainian Communist Parties, unanimously decided to remove the body of Joseph Stalin from the mausoleum and bury it. The initiators of this idea referred to the numerous requests of the workers and even the dissatisfaction of the spirit of Lenin.

A widely popular stereotype is that de-Stalinization in the USSR began in 1956, immediately after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, at which Stalin's personality cult was criticized by Nikita Khrushchev. A few years later, at the 21st Congress of the CPSU in 1959, Khrushchev again delivered a speech about Stalin, only this time he did not scold him, but praised him as an outstanding Marxist and organizer. He noted the merits of Stalin during the war.

Photo © TASS / Vasily Egorov

Khrushchev decided to use the policy of Mao Zedong, who outlined his tactics in government as follows: 70 percent of victories and 30 percent of mistakes. In a similar way, in the Khrushchev USSR, the Stalin era was also evaluated. Such caution was due to the fact that the debunking of the cult of personality in 1956 caused a split in all European communist parties, where Stalinists and anti-Stalinists appeared. Even within the CPSU, two opposite trends emerged. The de-Stalinizers insisted on the public condemnation of all crimes and the punishment of those responsible. The Stalinists wanted the return of the old order.

The strengthening of one of the parties could pose a danger to Khrushchev's power. So he tried not to anger either one or the other.

At the request of workers

But by 1961 the situation had changed. Khrushchev's position was now stronger than ever. All competitors were dismissed or honorably exiled to unimportant positions, he successfully repelled an attempted removal in 1957. Added to this were the successes in the space program, the massive relocation of citizens to individual apartments, the construction of the largest hydroelectric power station in the world and GDP growth. The 22nd Congress of the CPSU turned out to be an ideal moment to finally deal with the ghosts of the past.

The beginning of a new wave of debunking the cult of personality was set by the head of the KGB, Alexander Shelepin, who uncompromisingly criticized the period of the cult of personality for numerous crimes against innocent members of the party. All subsequent delegates spoke in the same spirit.

Photo © Express / Archive Photos / Getty Images

The climax took place on the penultimate day of the CPSU Congress, October 30, 1961. The first secretary of the Leningrad regional committee, Ivan Spiridonov, was the first to propose that Stalin's body be removed from the mausoleum. According to Spiridonov, the regional committee repeatedly received resolutions from meetings of workers of city factories, which contained a demand to remove the body of the late general secretary from the mausoleum, since he had stained himself with great injustice.

This idea was supported by the first secretary of the capital's party organization, Pyotr Demichev, who also referred to the demands of the Moscow workers. Demichev stressed that after it became known about the crimes of the Stalin era, leaving his body in the mausoleum would be blasphemy.

Considering that Stalin was a cult figure in Georgia and the main national hero, it was especially important to demonstrate that the Georgian Communist Party also supported the decision of the center. This was the greatest difficulty of the entire campaign, since not a single Georgian leader wanted to encroach on the name of Stalin. The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Georgia, Vasily Mzhavanadze, was a great admirer of the leader and did not agree to vilify him even under the threat of party penalties. Instead, on the day of the performance, he came wrapped in a scarf and croaked that he had caught a cold the day before and lost his voice. Givi Javakhishvili, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Georgian SSR, was sent to speak instead, and limited himself to a couple of sentences, while other delegates made long and emotional speeches.

In conclusion, on behalf of the largest republican organization in the country - the Ukrainian Communist Party - its leader Nikolai Podgorny supported the decision to remove Stalin's body from the mausoleum.

"Witch" and the spirit of Lenin

But the most memorable episode of the congress was the speech of the old Bolshevik Dora Lazurkina. She joined the party in 1902, when many of the congress delegates were not even born yet. She was well acquainted with Lenin and Krupskaya. During the Stalin era, she spent more than 15 years in camps and in a special settlement. By all characteristics - the ideal personification of the old Bolsheviks, who by the beginning of the 60s were almost gone.

Lazurkina was entrusted with the most emotional part. She spoke about her meetings with Lenin, about how fatherly he treated the revolutionaries, how she suffered innocently under Stalin, and finally told the delegates that the day before, the spirit of Lenin had come to her and asked to remove Stalin from the mausoleum.

I always carry Ilyich in my heart. Comrades, in the most difficult moments I survived only because I had Ilyich in my heart and I consulted with him: what to do? Yesterday I also consulted with Ilyich. It was as if he stood in front of me as if alive and said: “It’s unpleasant for me to be next to Stalin, who brought so many troubles to the party,” Lazurkina said to the applause of the delegates.

Later, Molotov, recalling Lazurkina's speech, christened her a witch.

After the speeches of the leaders of the largest party organizations and the representative of the old Bolsheviks, the issue of removing the body of the late leader from the mausoleum could be considered resolved. At the vote, all delegates unanimously supported the proposal to reburial Stalin. Nobody dared to speak out.

secret funeral

Immediately after the vote, a reburial commission was formed. The funeral was more like a special operation and was carried out in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy. The day before, the newspapers reported that the party had decided to rebury Stalin, but did not say when or where.

The most trusted and reliable people from the Kremlin commandant's office were selected to participate in the secret ceremony. The burial place near the mausoleum was pre-fenced with plywood shields on all sides so that no one could see how the soldiers were digging the grave.

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On the evening of October 31, Red Square was cordoned off under the pretext of a rehearsal for the November parade. By 21:00, all participants in the ceremony arrived, with the exception of Mzhavanadze, who sabotaged the party's decision for the second time by sending a sobbing Javakhishvili in his place.

The sarcophagus with the body of Stalin was transferred by the officers of the Kremlin commandant's office to the basement. There they removed the star of the Hero of Socialist Labor from the leader's gymnast and cut off the gold buttons, sewing brass instead. The body was moved from a glass sarcophagus to a wooden coffin. After that, the soldiers carried him out and lowered him into the grave.

At the time of the burial, Nikolai Shvernik, who headed the commission, and Javakhishvili gave vent to their emotions and burst into tears. The rest of the participants of the ceremony showed no feelings. After the grave was buried, all members of the commission signed the act of Stalin's reburial and dispersed.

The burial of Stalin was supposed to close the old era and symbolize the beginning of a new one. It is no coincidence that on the day of Stalin's funeral, the congress delegates adopted a landmark document - the Third Program of the CPSU.

The first was adopted at the dawn of the socialist movement. The second - immediately after the February Revolution of 1917. The third was developed on the personal initiative of Khrushchev. It was she who set the task of creating the material and technical base for the final transition to communism in 20 years. However, Khrushchev overestimated his strength and capabilities. There was no transition to communism in 1980, and he himself did not have long to be at the helm of the party.

At that time, about Halloween - All Saints' Day, which is celebrated annually on October 31 - ordinary citizens in the Soviet Union heard practically nothing. On this day, according to the tradition of the ancient Celtic holiday, it is customary to especially honor the dead. Europeans believe that on the night of November 1, the door to the other world magically opens and the souls of the dead, ghosts, come out to people. In a strange way, events significant for the country coincided with this holiday. According to conspiracy theorists, the removal of the leader's body meant the beginning of a new era, which led to the witches' coven during the period of perestroika and the collapse of the USSR.