Vladimir Lenin
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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ? (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин, born Ulyanov (Улья́нов) (Born April 22 (April 10 O.S.),1870 - Died January 21, 1924) was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolsheviks party. He was the first leader of the Soviet Union under Communist control (which used to be called the USSR). He is also known as the maker of Leninism, that later was called Marxism-Leninism by Joseph Stalin.
At school, Lenin was very good at the Latin and Greek languages. But in 1887 he was thrown out from Kazan State University for being too radical and protesting against the Tsar, who was the leader of Russia at that time. In that year, his brother Alexander Ulyanov was hanged for his part in a bomb plot to kill Tsar Alexander III. Lenin continued studying by himself, and in 1891 he got a license to be a lawyer.
While studying Law in the Russian Capital, St Petersburg, he learned about the thoughts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Because Marxism was not allowed in Russia, Lenin was arrested and put in prison for a year, then he was exiled to Siberia.
In July 1898, when he was still in Siberia, Lenin married a socialist woman, Nadezhda Krupskaya. In 1899, he published a book called The Development of Capitalism in Russia. In 1900, Lenin was released from Siberia.
After he was allowed to leave, Lenin travelled around Europe. He began to publish a Marxist newspaper called Iskra, the Russian word for "Spark". He became a leading member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, or RSDLP.
In 1903, Lenin had an argument with another leader of the RSDLP, Julius Martov. This dispute, over the organization of the Party (Lenin wanted a strict, centralised, and disciplined model - Martov a less strict, less centralised one) divided the party in two. Martov's helpers became known as Mensheviks ("those who are less"), Lenin's supporters as Bolsheviks ("those who are more").
Lenin moved to Finland in 1907, because it was safer for Marxists in Finland than in Russia. He travelled around Europe, visiting many socialist meetings and events. During this time he lived in different places like London, Paris and, during World War I, in Geneva. At the outbreak of war, the Second International, that included the Bolsheviks, broke down, when various member Parties helped their countries in the war, going away from the Marxist idea of internationalism. Lenin and the Bolsheviks were one of only a handful of groups and people who stood against the war for Marxist reasons.
[edit] 1917
After Tsar Nicholas II had to stop being Tsar because of the The February Revolution, Lenin went back to Russia. He became an important Bolshevik leader, and published the April Theses about what he said were mistakes of the new middle class government of Kerensky, and he called for a Workers' Revolution to overthrow the government. Lenin also talked about the mistakes of many members of the Bolshevik Central Committee (including Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin) who helped the government to keep fighting the war, against the wishes of the Leninists.
During July 1917, when Lenin was called guilty of being funded by the Germans; he was afraid and had to flee to Finland.
In October 1917, the Bolsheviks under Lenin and Trotsky headed the St Petersburg Soviet and other Soviets all over Russia in a taking of power from Kerensky's Government, known as the October Revolution ended up in the making of the first Marxist Communist State in world history.
On November 8, 1917, Lenin was chosen Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Russian Soviet Congress.
Because he was scared of the German invasion, he signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Russia lost a lot of land, but the Germans stopped invading.
After he became leader, Lenin shut down the Constituent Assembly. He shut down all other political groups that weren't Communist, too. Fanya Kaplan, an anarchist, was very angry at this, shot Lenin three times with a gun.
During the Russian Civil War, Lenin started war communism. But after the war, Lenin brought the New Economic Policy. Some private enterprise was allowed, but not much at all.
After Kaplan shot Lenin, he started having many strokes. By May 1922, he was badly paralysed. After a stroke in March 1923, he could not speak or move. Lenin's fourth stroke killed him in January 1924.
The city of St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad. But after Communism failed in 1991, it was called St. Petersburg again.
Before Lenin died, he said he wanted to be buried beside his mother. When he died, the communists let the people of Russia come to look at him. Because people kept coming, they decided not to bury him. A building was built, in Red Square, Moscow, over Lenin's body, so that people could still see him. It is called the Lenin mausoleum (a mausoleum is a building for dead people). It is a landmark in Russia, and a lot of people go there to see him.
