On 23 January, the coffin with Lenin's body was transported by train from Gorki to Moscow and displayed at the Hall of Columns in the House of the Unions, and it stayed there for three days.

There assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches delivered by Mikhail Kalinin, Grigory Zinoviev, and Joseph Stalin, but notably not Leon Trotsky, who had been convalescing in the Caucasus.

[6] French historian Pierre Broue also cited the Moscow archives which documented written correspondence between Stalin and the secretary of the Abkhazian party, Nestor Lakoba, as evidence of Stalin's efforts to keep Trotsky in Sukhumi during Lenin's funeral.

[13] The commander of the Moscow Garrison issued an order to place the guard of honour at the mausoleum, whereby it was colloquially referred to as the "Number One Sentry".

[16][17] Similarly, Old Bolshevik Grigory Sokolnikov reported Stalin making disparaging remarks about Lenin's passing with the words that he "couldn’t die like a real leader!”.