What did the Russian people do with Vladimir Lenin's body after his death in 1924?

After Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, the Soviet government preserved his body and displayed it publicly in a mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square. His body was first placed in a temporary wooden tomb before a more permanent mausoleum was completed.

Lenin died on January 21, 1924, and his body was taken to Moscow, where enormous crowds viewed it. Although Lenin’s widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, reportedly opposed preserving the body for permanent display, the leadership decided that the revolutionary leader should remain available as a symbolic presence for the Soviet public.

The modern stone mausoleum was completed in 1930. Lenin’s body was embalmed rather than naturally mummified, and specialists have maintained it through carefully controlled preservation procedures. During World War II, it was evacuated to Tyumen in Siberia for safety, then returned to Moscow after the danger passed.