Communist (and One Peronist) Mummies

Many Communist leaders have been turned into mummies following their deaths. Below is an overview of these mummified leaders:

• Vladimir Ilych Lenin
  • Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik revolution. After his death, the Russian government decided to embalm Lenin’s body and display it in a glass sarcophagus. His body is now cared for by a team of embalmers, and tours are available to see his body.
• Ho Chi Minh
  • Minh was the leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. His body was embalmed and is now on display in a glass casket in the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Visiting Minh’s body costs two U.S. dollars.
• Chairman Mao Zedong
  • Zedong was the mastermind of the People’s Republic of China. After his death, Zedong’s embalmed body was place in a crystal coffin in the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. Tourists may still view Mao’s remains.
• King Il Sung
  • After King Il Sung died, the majority of North Korea grieved his death. Now, the Great Leader and Eternal President is displayed in the Kumsusan memorial Palace.
• Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-Koa
  • Kai-shek was the former president of Taiwan, and Koa was his son. After their deaths, their bodies were embalmed. Both men had wished to be buried in their home land of Fenghua, but since the area is under Chinese Communist control, the bodies of these two men went on display in Cihu, Taiwan.
• Stalin
  • Stalin was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee. After his death, Stalin’s body was embalmed and displayed beside Lenin’s body in 1953. In 1961, Lenin was buried next to the Kremlin.
• George Dimitrov
  • Dimitriv was a Communist leader of Bulgaria. His body was put on display following his death. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dimitriv’s body was cremated and then buried in Sofia’s Central Cemetary.
• Klement Gottwald
  • Gottwald, a leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakian, died eight days after attending Stalin’s funeral. After Gottwald’s death, his body was displayed in a mausoleum in Prague’s Jan Zizka Monument. The embalming process was not done correctly, however, and embalmers had to re-embalm Gottwald’s body every eighteen months. In the 1960’s, Gottwald’s body began turning a black color, and he was cremated in 1962.
• Eva Person
  • Peson was the First Lady of Argentina and was married to Juan Peron. Though she was not a Communist, she was a Peronist. Person died in 1952 and her body was displayed in Juan Peron’s home for two years. Juan Peron was sent into exile, and the body of Person went missing for twenty years. In 1971, the Argentine government stated that Peron was entombed in a Milan crypt. Juan Peron had Peron’s body exhumed and displayed it on his dining room table. After Juan Peron’s death, his third wife, Isabel, had Peron’s body buried in the Duarte family plot.

See littlebrumble, Atlas Obsura’s Guide to Communist Mummies, Atlas Obscura, May 25, 2011.