David Remnick was Moscow correspondent for the Washington Post between 1988 and 1991 and later a staffer at the New Yorker. While with The Post he covered events the emergence of perestroika, the taking of power by democrats, the failed Communist counter-coup of August 1991 and beyond. His gripping personal account of that historic period is filled with vivid sketches of people. He writes with passion of the twofold nature of the crimes of Stalinist communism--"murder and the unending assault against memory." His powerful literary style is suggested in the title, the mausoleum holding Lenin's body being a central image in his book for the construction and maintenance of the dead culture of communism. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994.