Dictator deathporn
I went to see Mao when I was 15, and Lenin when I was 17. They both looked waxen and altogether... dead.

I've also been to the Killing Fields at Cheung Ek. There's a stupa there filled with skulls. Like a good little tourist, I took a photograph of them - pretty much exactly the same photograph that every other fucking honky takes.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:27, 4 replies)

Mao & Lenin
There is a story about the undertakers who prepared Mao managing to botch the job and the body bloating severely. Apparently it took them all night crafting with wax and makeup to make Mao's face presentable.

Lenin died of a brain disorder that apparently left it a quarter of it's normal size. Had Lenin chosen not to die, he could have qualified for a job as a Labour MP.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:31, closed)

Moreover...
Lenin wished to be buried near his home - and was. Then he was disinterred on Stalin's orders. Niiiice.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:34, closed)

Didn't know that
Makes sense though.

The Stalinesque cult of personality hoped to gain a great deal of credibility by rewriting history to move Stalin much closener Lenin, politically. A revered dead man cannot set the record straight - much like Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in N Korea today.

NB Stalin's undertakers had arguably the hardest job of all to prepare the body for public mourning, for Stalin had been dead some considerable time before anyone dared check his vital signs for fear of being "purged".
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Thu 28 Feb 2008, 15:44, closed)

Cheung Ek
I couldn't bring myself to photograph it. It just felt wrong.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 28 Feb 2008, 16:06, closed)