Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [
O.S. 10 April]
1870 –
21 January 1924) was a
Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the
Russian Republic from
1917 to
1918, of the
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, and of the
Soviet Union from
1922 to 1924. Under his administration,
Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the
Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his political theories are known as Leninism.
Born to a wealthy middle-class family in
Simbirsk,
Lenin gained an interest in revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887.
Expelled from
Kazan State University for participating in protests against the
Russian Empire's
Tsarist regime, he devoted the following years to a law degree. In 1893 he moved to
Saint Petersburg and became a senior figure in the Marxist
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (
RSDLP). Arrested for sedition and exiled to
Shushenskoye for three years, there he married
Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile he moved to
Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP schism over ideological differences, leading the
Bolshevik faction against
Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Encouraging insurrection during Russia's failed
Revolution of 1905, he later campaigned for the
First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would result in the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917
February Revolution ousted the
Tsar and established a
Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to campaign for the new regime's removal by a Bolshevik-led government of the soviets.
Lenin played a leading role in the
October Revolution of 1917, overthrowing the Provisional Government and establishing a one-party state under the new
Communist Party. His government abolished Russia's elected
Constituent Assembly, withdrew from the First World War by signing a punitive treaty with the
Central Powers, and granted temporary independence to non-Russian nations under Russian control.
Ruling by decree, it redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalized banks and large-scale industry. Opponents were suppressed in the
Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the
Cheka; tens of thousands were killed and many others interned in
Gulag labor camps. Lenin's government proved victorious over anti-Bolshevik armies in the
Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922. Responding to famine and peasant rebellions, in
1921 Lenin introduced a mixed economic system with the
New Economic Policy. Creating the
Communist International and waging the
Polish–Soviet War to promote world revolution, Lenin's government also united Russia with neighboring territories to form the Soviet Union in 1922. In increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor,
Joseph Stalin, before dying at his dacha in
Gorki.
Recognised as one of the most significant and influential historical figures of the
20th century, Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Admirers view him as a champion of working people's rights and welfare whilst critics see him as the founder of a totalitarian dictatorship responsible for civil war and mass human rights abuses.
The subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in
1991, he remains an ideological figurehead behind
Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement.
- published: 23 Jan 2016
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