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Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin born Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov; April 22 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Communist
revolutionary of Russia, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the
first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the main theorist of what
has come to be called Leninism, which is described in socialist
literature as an adaptation of Marxism to "the age of
imperialism."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian communist
revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as the
leader of the Russian SFSR from 1917, and then concurrently as
Premier of the Soviet Union from 1922, until his death. Politically
a Marxist, his theoretical contributions to Marxist thought are
known as Leninism, which coupled with Marxian economic theory have
collectively come to be known as Marxism–Leninism.
Born to a wealthy middle-class family in
Simbirsk, Lenin gained an interest in revolutionary leftist
politics following the execution of his brother in 1887. Briefly
attending the Kazan State University, he was ejected for his
involvement in anti-Tsarist protests, devoting the following years
to gaining a law degree and to radical politics, becoming a
Marxist. In 1893 he moved to Saint Petersburg, becoming a senior
figure within the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the
Working Class. Arrested for sedition and exiled to Siberia for
three years, he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, and fled to Western
Europe, living in Germany, England and Switzerland. Following the
February Revolution of 1917, in which the Tsar was overthrown and a
provisional government took power, he returned home.
As the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, he took a senior role in
orchestrating the October Revolution in 1917, which led to the
overthrow of the Russian Provisional Government and the
establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic,
the world´s first constitutionally socialist state. Immediately
afterwards, the new government under Lenin´s leadership proceeded
to implement socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates
and crown lands to workers´ soviets. Faced with the threat of
German invasion, he argued that Russia should immediately sign a
peace treaty—which led to Russia´s exit from the First World
War. In 1921 Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of
state capitalism that started the process of industrialisation and
recovery from the Russian Civil War. In 1922, the Russian SFSR
joined former territories of the Russian Empire in becoming the
Soviet Union, with Lenin elected as its leader.
After his death, Marxism–Leninism
developed into a variety of schools of thought, namely Stalinism,
Trotskyism and Maoism. Lenin remains a controversial and highly
divisive world figure. Detractors label him a dictator whose
administration oversaw multiple human rights abuses, while
supporters cite limitations on his power, and promote him as a
champion of the working class. Lenin had a significant influence on
the international Communist movement and was one of the most
influential figures of the 20th century.
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