Years ago, Donna Moss (a character on the TV show The West Wing) commented that being pushed around in a wheelchair made her feel like one of those Soviet leaders that had secretly been dead for a while (This is a really bad paraphrase, but I can’t find the episode at the moment). Today, /u/hucksire made the assertion that: “In the nineteen-eighties, credible video evidence suggested that the corpse of a Soviet premier was propped upon the reviewing stand for a parade, while his death remained unannounced and the power struggle to succeed him raged.” I’ve done a very cursory search, and can’t find anything, but I’m a relatively young late-19th century Americanist, and this could just be a piece of common knowledge that no one thinks to bring up. So, to ask it plainly, is there any evidence that there were any Soviet leaders (premiers or otherwise) who were paraded around after death as though they were still alive (á la Weekend at Bernie’s)?
This is probably a mistranslation or misunderstanding of common jokes about the poor health of several of the leaders of that time period. Leonid Brezhnev (General Secretary 1964-1982) was in poor health for the last seven years of his reign and appeared publicly increasingly infrequently. His successor, Yuri Andropov, was only in office for 15 months before dying of kidney failure. Andropov was then succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko. My guess is that Chernenko is the subject of this claim. Chernenko was already very ill when he took office - he was suffering from emphysema, heart failure, and cirrhosis of the liver. Notably, he was barely able to stand unassisted at Andropov's funeral, and had difficulty reading the eulogy. He frequently missed Politburo meetings because he was too ill to attend, sending Gorbachev in his place. He died only a year and twenty-six days after his election as General Secretary, and his poor health was obvious in his rare public appearances despite the general level of secrecy about such matters. There was a joke circulating in Moscow around that time which I hope I do not butcher:
"13 Feb 1984, TASS, Moscow: It is with a heavy heart, and many condolences that we must announce that, with fading vitals and without regaining consciousness, Comrade K. U. Chernenko was appointed General Secretary of the CPSU."
I would assume this is the origin of /u/hucksire's statement.