What is it about socialists that they feel the need to stuff their heroes and put them on display like a relic of the true cross or something?

VOA:

Venezuela's Vice President Nicolas Maduro has announced that the late President Hugo Chavez will be embalmed and his body displayed forever in a Caracas military museum.

Mr. Maduro compared the late president to other revolutionary leaders whose bodies also have been preserved, including Russia's Lenin and China's Mao. He said President Chavez will lie in state for seven more days to give more Venezuelans the chance to pay their respect.

President Chavez will be honored at a state funeral Friday, attended by 30 heads of state. The United States is sending a diplomatic delegation.

Thousands of grieving Venezuelans waited for as long as 10 hours to look at Mr. Chavez's body in Caracas.

Mr. Maduro will be formally sworn in as acting president late Friday. He will likely face off in elections to be called within 30 days against opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Mr. Chavez in the October presidential polls.

Lenin has been on display since 1924 - a feat of embalming that is recognized as one of the finest in history. But Hugo's mortal remains being displayed in a museum? Somehow, I don't think that arrangement is going to last as long as the one for Lenin. Perhaps the next president, if he's in opposition to the Chavistas, will close the display down and bury him. This sort of veneration is silly - especially in a country that purports to want to live up to democratic ideals.

H/T: Dave Paulin