The Quote Investigator relates this story. “In 1953 an Associated Press reporter described his experiences in Moscow after the death of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. The journalist reported the caustic comment of an unnamed Russian:

I saw Muscovites by the countless thousands shuffle through the cold March days and nights, in long lines that stretched for miles into the suburbs, to see the dead body of the grim dictator.

One Russian whispered to me: “They’ve come to make sure he’s really dead.”

But that isn’t the only account of someone suggesting he or many others had attended a funeral for this purpose. Read on for more.