Kremlin Again Refers to Monument on Red Square as 'Mausoleum of Lenin and Stalin'

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 6 – The mausoleum on Red Square is now scheduled to be closed for renovations set to take two years. Many think that this may finally be the time when that monument to Lenin is torn down and the body of founder of the Bolshevik state buried near the Kremlin wall. But there is another and more disturbing possibility.

            The Russian government’s announcement of the contract for the repair work describes the site as “an object of cultural heritage of federal importance, ‘the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin and I.V. Stalin” even though Stalin’s body was removed more than half a century ago (zakupki.gov.ru/epz/contract/contractCard/common-info.html?reestrNumber=1770585133125000076).

            In calling attention to this, journalist Oleg Pshenichny notes that “in the centuries’ long traditoins of the Russian bureaucracy not only each word but even each letter plays a fateful legal and practical role” (moscowtimes.ru/2025/06/06/s-chego-nachinaetsya-rodina-ili-o-odna-strochka-v-kartochke-goszakupok-a165482).

            Thanks to this announcement, the journalist says, “we have once again become convinced that the mausoleum of the Bolshevik pharaoh is not only carefully looked after under any state system …  but also that two bloody dictators are quietly registered there, one simply remains at the place of registration while the other has been moved nearby.”

            Indeed, Pshenichny says, “let’s not forget about the all-powerful legal bureaucracy because according to quiet and silent Russian documents, Stalin never left the mausoleum.” That opens the door to the possibility that Putin plans more steps to return Stalin to more places, including quite possibly the mausoleum on Red Square.

            How far he will go and especially how fast will depend to a large degree on how much he thinks he can get away with in that direction, and that in turn will depend on how Russians and others respond. So far, negative reaction to the return of Stalin in the regions and in the Moscow metro has been limited; and Putin seems prepared to test the waters for yet another.