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Lenin's real name was Vladimir Illych Ulyanov.

He changed it to Lenin while on the run from


the secret police to avoid arrest. Lenin's importance to Russia's history cannot be overstated; in
November 1917, Lenin established the first communist government when he overthrew the
Provisional Government. Russia had the first communist government in the world.

Lenin lead the Russian Communists to power in November 1917. Strictly this should read
Russian Bolsheviks as the party Lenin had joined as a young man split in two in 1903. Those who left
the party were few in number and became known as the Mensheviks. The majority stayed with
Lenin and they became known as the Bolsheviks which means majority in Russian.

Lenin was born in 1870. His family was reasonably well off and Lenin wanted for nothing. At
school, Lenin was a very gifted pupil but bossy. In 1887, Lenin’s elder brother - Alexander - was
arrested for plotting to kill the tsar (king) of Russia. He was hanged. The people where Lenin lived
refused to have anything to do with the family as Alexander had brought great shame on the town.
At this time nearly all Russians saw the tsar as a god. It is claimed that when Lenin heard about the
execution, he said "I’ll make them pay for this. I swear I will." Many years later, Lenin’s wife said that
it was this event that turned Lenin into a revolutionary with a desire to rid Russia of the system that
had been responsible for Alexander’s execution.

In 1887, Lenin was expelled from his university for starting a student riot. In 1890, he got
into another university and got a law degree in one year when the course usually took three years.
He became a lawyer. He also started to visit communists in the city of St. Petersburg.
In 1895, he went on a visit to Europe. When he returned he brought back communist books
and leaflets. This was strictly forbidden in Russia and he was arrested and sent to prison. He was
exiled to an area called Siberia. He had to stay there until 1900. After his release, he spent much of
his time out of Russia living in Europe. He produced a newspaper called "Iskra" (The Spark) which
was smuggled into Russia by supporters of Lenin. He worked very long hours working out the detail
of how to bring down the Russian government.

However, his face was too well known by the secret police for Lenin to have been safe in
Russia. In 1914, he moved to Switzerland still planning how to bring down the Russian government.
So what did Lenin believe in?

He felt that the rich abused the poor and that they should help them; he believed that
anybody making a profit was abusing everybody else; he believed that everybody was equal; he
wanted a government that truly represented the people; he wanted the overthrow of the Russian
government as it supported a system that kept the huge majority of Russian people in misery

His beliefs were developed from those of a man called Karl Marx who is considered the
father of communism. Lenin saw what the Russian government was like in 1905 when 150,000
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protesters peacefully went to the Winter Palace - home of Nicholas II - in St. Petersburg, and were
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fired on by the tsar’s soldiers. A thousand people were killed and the actions of the soldiers was
blamed on Nicholas. All they had been protesting about was the lack of food in Russia.

Lenin realised that the millions of poor Russians were incapable of organising themselves if
only because they had had no education. Therefore, it was his idea to form an elite group of
intellectuals to lead them on their behalf. It was these type of people who gathered around Lenin.
The March 1917 revolution which lead to the fall of Nicholas II took Lenin by surprise. He was still in
Switzerland. By the end of the year he was in charge of Russia. How did this occur?
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870 - 1924)
Early Life
Born on April 10, 1870 this son of a Russian nobleman was to have a profound effect on the
future of Russia and, indeed, the world. His father had been the son of a serf who had risen to post
of inspector of schools in Simbirsk. While his mother was the daughter of land owning physician.
In school he proved himself to be very bright though he suffered alienation because of it. However,
he excelled in his studies. He also enjoyed reading and writings of Goethe and Turgenev would affect
him for the rest of his life.
Two major tragedies occurred which had an acute effect on the young Lenin (then Ulyanov).
In 1886 his father died from a cerebral hemorrhage, the following year his brother, Alexander, was
hung for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Lenin renounced religion and the political system.
Added to this he was the brother of dead revolutionary and found many doors closed to him. He
finally managed to be accepted in a Kazan University where he studied law. This was to be short-
lived as he was expelled for attending a peaceful protest some three months later. He was ostracized
from the academic world. He studied the law on his own and passed the exam, coming first in a class
of 124 in 1891.
Rise to Power
He moved to St. Petersburg in 1893 where he practised law. While there he began
developing a Marxist underground movement. He grouped members into six member cells. By this
means industrial conditions were investigated, statistics compiled and pamphlets written. It was also
through these groups that he met his future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, who he married in 1898.
He travelled to Switzerland to meet like minded Social Democrats in 1895. While there he talked
with Georgi Plekhanov. They argued over the means of bringing about change in Russia. Plekhanov
wanted to include the liberal middle class; Lenin favoured the rise of the proletariat. This
disagreement led to the eventual split of the Social Democratic party into Mensheviks and
Bolsheviks.
When Lenin returned to Russia he carried with him illegal pamphlets, he wanted to start up
a revolutionary paper. On the eve of its publication he and other leaders were arrested. He served
fifteen months in prison. After this term he was exiled to Siberia and it was there that he and
Krupskaya were married. Having finished their period of exile in 1900 they left for Switzerland where
they finally managed to establish their paper, Iskra (Spark). During his years in Switzerland he rose to
a position of power in the Social Democratic party. His uncompromising views were a core cause for
the split in the party.
The 1905 St. Petersburg Massacre spurred Lenin to advocate violent action. The Massacre
itself occurred when Cossacks fired on peaceful protesters led by Father Georgi Gapon. This event
led to several uprisings in Russia. Lenin returned to Russia for two years but the promised revolution
did not happen as the Tsar made enough concessions to mollify the people. Lenin went abroad
again.
1917 was to finally see the revolution in Russia. In fact two revolutions occurred in this year. In
March steelworkers in St. Petersburg went on strike. It grew until thousands of people lined the
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streets. The Tsar’s power collapsed and the Duma, led by Alexander Kerensky, took power. Lenin
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made a deal with the Germans; if they could get him safely back to Russia, he would take power and
pull Russia out of the war. Kerensky was to fall over this same issue. He refused to take Russia out a
war in which they were suffering severe losses and causing brutal hardship at home. Lenin came to
power in October after a nearly bloodless coup.
Lenin in Power
At age forty seven Vladimir Ilich Lenin was named president of the Society of People’s
Commissars (Communist Party). The problems of the new government were enormous. The war
with Germany was ended immediately (his battle cry had been “Bread not War”). Though Russia lost
the bread basket of the Ukraine to Germany this was soon regained when Germany was ultimately
defeated in the war. Land was redistributed, some as collective farms. Factories, mines, banks and
utilities were all taken over by the state. The Russian Orthodox Church was disestablished.
There was opposition and this led to a civil war in 1918 between the Mensheviks (Whites) and the
Bolsheviks (Reds). Despite being supported by Britain and the U.S.A. the whites were defeated after
a bitter struggle.
From 1919 to 1921 famine and typhus ravaged Russia and left over 27 million people dead.
To counter these disasters Lenin put into effect the New Economic Plan. This plan embraced some
capital ideas (limited private industry) in order to revitalise the flagging economy. However he was
never to see the full effect of his measures
Decline and Death
In May 1922 Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes, less than a year later he suffered a
second one. In his two remaining years he tried correct some of the excesses of the regime. He saw
that it would be necessary to learn coexistence with capitalist countries and eliminate the
inefficiency of his bureaucracy. He also tried to ensure that Trotsky and not Stalin succeeded him. In
this endeavour he failed. Stalin was far too clever and astute even for Lenin. 1923 saw him decline
further as he had another stroke which left him paralysed and speechless. He never fully recovered
and died of a cerebral haemorrhage on January 21, 1924.
Founder of the Communist movement, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924) was a very famous Russian
revolutionary. Lenin began early as a revolutionary and always showed his leadership qualities. Karl
Marx, the founder of Marxism, inspired Lenin who, in spite of his youth, soon became known as "the
old one." Lenin’s strong leadership and his wise political strategies were a base for the communist
reign in Russia.

In 1888 Lenin became a full-time revolutionary, devoting all of his time to studying Marxism.
Lenin’s interpretation of Marxism in Russia was based on the assumption that the peasantry and the
factory workers of Russia would soon become tired of the low wages and poor working conditions
and would eventually overthrow the monarchy of Czar Nicholas II. The revolutionists also believed
that they could take control when this event occurred. However, unlike the commonly held opinions,
Lenin’s idea was that he did not believe that the revolution would ever come without the help of the
Marxists.
Contradicting Lenin’s beliefs in 1905, Russia broke into a revolution spurred by Russia’s
losing ground to Japan. Many peasants were against the war; and with Russia facing defeat, the
people revolted. Lenin, living in Switzerland at the time, heard news of the revolt but arrived too late
to participate. Because the revolution did not have enough support, it failed. In 1912 following the
revolution, the Marxists held another conference where Lenin had another disagreement with the
Marxists about the value of war. He felt that war would aid in their dreams of a revolution and went
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on to say that Russia’s defeat in such a war could also prove helpful. This idea was not very popular
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with the other Marxists; therefore, Lenin officially broke away from them in 1905. Lenin then
attended two more meetings, one in Zimmerwald and one in Kienthal, gaining more and more
support at each meeting. By the end of the second meeting, Lenin showed his exceptional leadership
by gaining the support he needed to have his own party, the Bolsheviks.

As the leader, Lenin still did not feel that a revolution was soon to come. He started to worry
that he would never see the overthrow of the monarchy in his lifetime. However, only a few weeks
later in Petrograd, peasants started a "bread riot" that soon turned into the March Revolution, which
succeeded in overthrowing Czar Nicholas II and his monarchy. Again Lenin did not get to the
revolution in time, and Alexander Kerensky had already taken control of the government, which he
called the Provisional Government. Lenin then called for a complete overthrow of Kerensky. Through
his successful attempt, Lenin again had control. Lenin also stated that the Bolsheviks would hand
over control of the government to the factory workers and to the peasants whom he named the
communists. Kerensky, trying anything to regain power, released papers of dubious worth stating
that Lenin and his followers were German spies. With this information the communists arrested
many of the Bolsheviks while Lenin fled to Finland. After a short period of time the communists
realized that they did not trust Kerensky. They again overthrew him in the November Revolution.
Lenin gained complete control during the November Revolution as his Bolsheviks along with the Red
Guard again took control of Petrograd. Inspired by the ease of taking Petrograd, they went on to
take Moscow after a week of fighting. Then, Lenin quickly called for an end to the war with Germany.
Although Lenin had a great deal of support, a small group of people, the Whites, still wanted war
with Germany. The Whites’ first move, which was unsuccessful, was to try to assassinate Lenin. After
this assassination attempt Lenin established his own secret police to guard him and initiated the Red
Terror, in which he killed over 1000 people that he believed to be enemies of the communists. This
Red Terror in turn caused a civil war in 1921 in which Lenin’s Red Army defeated the Whites.

After the civil war ended, Lenin began to concentrate more on his running of the
government. Showing his powerful influence, he introduced the "New Economic Policy" (NEP) which
gave the land and the industries back to individuals. The NEP also exiled any person that the
government believed to be its enemy. However, this power that Lenin had created for himself
became of little use to him. In 1922 after suffering two strokes he became very ill. These strokes
effectively ended Lenin’s career as a revolutionary. As Lenin faded from the spotlight as a leader of
the Soviet Union, Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin both tried to work their way up to the position.
Soon after Lenin died in 1924, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin based his
leadership on the strength of the government that Lenin had created. The people of Russia,
however, knew Vladimir Lenin as an extraordinary leader. They put Lenin’s body on display in the
center of Red Square in Moscow to remember him as a symbol of strength and as a symbol of the
communist government that he had created. To this day Lenin’s body is still in Red Square where
millions of Russians can observe it.
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