The death of Vladimir Ilich Lenin in January 1924 was a terrible blow to the beleaguered people of communist Russia. So great was their loss that death was not allowed to claim Lenin: his mortal body was preserved against the ravages of nature and his every word and deed became sanctified. Under the direction of the Soviet leadership, a quasi-religious cult of personality evolved, which transformed Lenin into an ‘immortal’, by placing his body on display in Red Square like some holy artefact. As the years passed, the historic Lenin was replaced by a largely fictional, god-like figure who served to legitimise both the state and those who claimed to be carrying on his original mission. I visited Lenin’s tomb in the fall of 1991, a few months after some communist hard-liners had staged a military coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. The Russians were by then confused, as documents had being released that implicated Lenin in countless acts of revolutionary terror and barbarity, including the aggressive war against the clergy and the bloody campaign against the kulaks. His mausoleum no longer represented the qualities of eternity and immortality, but rather it had become the relic of a bygone era, a symbol of the hopes and ambitions of a proud people who mistakenly thought they might provide a better life for their people.