(Mao Zedong, Beijing, AI-modified photo)
When our son was seven years old, we took him to China.
It wasn’t the huge deal you might imagine. We were living in Hong Kong, so it was just a short flight. It was comparable to driving from Indianapolis down to, say, French Lick, Indiana.
Which of these things would you guess made the biggest impression on a seven-year-old boy?
1. The Great Wall
2. The Forbidden City
3. The Temple of Heaven
4. Chairman Mao Zedong’s corpse, in a glass sarcophagus
Exactly. You never forget your first dead despot, even if they won’t let you pose with him or touch him or anything, which they won’t, because the Chinese aren’t much fun.
Somewhere, safely tucked away, we still have the disturbingly detailed crayon rendition Christopher did of the Mao scene for the benefit of his classmates when we got back home. I’m still surprised we didn’t get called in for counseling.
Preserving dead leaders and putting them out there for show seems kind of unusual to us in our country. We wouldn’t stand in line to see Millard Fillmore or Rutherford B. Hayes or any of our dead presidents.
To be fair, we did exhume President Zachary Taylor back in 1991, 140 years after his death, to see whether he died of arsenic poisoning. It turned out he didn’t, so they took some pictures of him and stuck him back in the ground in Kentucky before he could become a tourist attraction.
Former Soviet Premier Vladimir Lenin has been on view in Moscow’s Red Square since 1924, although the mausoleum is currently closed for repairs. It’s supposed to reopen next year, in case you’re interested.
Hey, is it just me, or does it look like Lenin is being levitated?
(Soviet Premier Vladimir Lenin)
Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, was on display from 1953 until 1961, but that show eventually closed when “de-Stalinization” came along.
Speaking of Stalin, Khorloogiin Choibalsan, Mongolia’s communist strongman who was often described as the “Stalin of Mongolia,” was publicly displayed in a mausoleum in Ulaanbaatar until 2005, when he was cremated.
Just as an aside, I have been to Ulaanbaatar, the so-called “coldest capital in the world.” If they kept Choibalsan outside, they probably didn’t even have to embalm him.
I should pause here and encourage you to keep reading, for an important announcement in a few more paragraphs.
Technically speaking, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was briefly on public display after his 1945 execution, long enough for angry mobs to kick him and spit on him. Eventually, they strung Mussolini and his dead girlfriend upside down from the metal framework of an Esso gas station in Milan, but I’ve been to that exact spot and they’re no longer there.
There was an enormous public viewing of Argentine First Lady Eva Perón after she died in 1952, and they were planning a monument for her until her husband was overthrown in 1955. Evita’s corpse was hidden and secretly buried in Italy, under the false name María Maggi de Magistris, but later she was brought home and buried in Argentina.
(Eva Perón, Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina)
Timing is everything in the search for dead dictators. Deposed Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos was displayed in a refrigerated glass-topped coffin in a mausoleum for years, but then he was buried in 2016.
Occasionally, there are near misses. After President Hugo Chávez died in 2013, Venezuela announced plans to preserve and permanently display him, but specialists concluded that the embalming process had begun too late.
(Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh)
If it’s famous corpses you want to see, Asia is definitely the place to go, and I’m partnering with the National Geographic travel people to organize a corpse-themed tour.
I am proud to announce a luxury tour, Dead Despots on Display!
We will probably start in leafy Beijing, with Chairman Mao, then move on to Hanoi for a look at Vietnam’s former President Ho Chi Minh, who has been on display there since 1975.
After that, we’re off to exciting Pyongyang, North Korea, for a twofer. Kim Il-Sung and his son, Kim Jong-il, are both on display at the Kumsusan Palace, so it’s buy one, get one free!
I’m still nailing down the details, but one idea is to focus on the two Kims and Ho Chi Minh and call it the Kim-Chi Tour!
I’m very sorry, I’ll see myself out.
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