Moscow, December 25, 1991

Lenin’s artifacts from his former Kremlin office down the corridor have long since been removed and are now on display in his dacha at the village of Gorki Leninskiye on the outskirts of Moscow. The immense picture of Lenin’s Speech at the Third Congress, of the Komsomol, which dominated the Great Kremlin Palace for nearly half a century, has been replaced by a panorama of Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod fighting Teutonic Knights in 1242.

For two decades the embalmed body of the founder of the communist system that Gorbachev and Yeltsin in their different ways brought crashing down on December 25, 1991, continues to repose in the Lenin Mausoleum in Red Square, preserved by glycerin and potassium acetate and kept at a temperature of 61 degrees. Queues of Russians form every day to pay their respects, and the jackbooted honor guard still springs to life to march back and forth with the precision of the figures on a Swiss clock, every hour on the hour, at the sound of the chimes from the Savior Tower, as if nothing has changed.

Photographs

AUGUST 19, 1991: Boris Yeltsin, flanked by his security chief Alexander Korzhakov, climbs onto a tank to defy the coup staged by communist hardliners. It is the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union and of Gorbachev’ grip on power. Courtesy of Jim Forest

NOVEMBER 1991: Yeltsin begins giving Gorbachevthe cold shoulder to emphasize hisgrowing ascendancy over him. ALAIN-PIERRE HOVASSE/AFP/Getty Images

A rare picture of Gorbachev with his chief of staff and betrayer, Valery Boldin, on right, taken at Novo-Ogarevo during doomed discussions on a new Union. Alexander Yakovlev is in middle. Courtesy of Gorbachev Foundation

NOVEMBER 1, 1991:Gorbachev’s last internationalevent at Middle EastConference in Madrid, wherehe is regarded by Americandelegates as “already a goner.” Courtesy of George Bush Presidential Library and Museum

DECEMBER 7, 1991: The clock starts ticking towards December 25 as Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk, and Stanislav Shushkevich (three on right) meet in a state hunting lodge in Belarus and decide to break-up the Soviet Union. Novosti

How can we survive? Gorbachev discusses the bleak future for the Soviet Union with aides Anatoly Chernyaev, on right, and Georgy Shakhnazarov. Courtesy of Gorbachev Foundation

DECEMBER 21, 1991: Yeltsin in Alma-Ata with, from left, Kravchuk, Nazarbayev, and Shushkevich, as they celebrate creating the Commonwealth of Independent States to replace the Soviet Union. VITALY ARMAND/AFP/Getty Images

DECEMBER 23, 1991: Coats off as Gorbachev and Yeltsin come together in the Kremlin for a nine-hourdiscussion on transfer of power. They will never meet again. Yeltsin’s security chief Alexander Korzhakov is behind Gorbachev. Courtesy of Gorbachev Foundation

Russian White House: Boris Yeltsin’s power base before his takeover of the Kremlin. Canstockphoto