Vladimir lenin biography sparknotes the great

Founding leader of the Council Union from 1922 to 1924

"Lenin" and "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" send here. For other uses, affection Lenin (disambiguation). For the verse, see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (poem).

In this name that follows East Slavic naming customs, the patronym is Ilyich and the family term is Ulyanov.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov^[b] (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,^[c] was a Russian revolutionary, mp and political theorist who was the founder and first tendency of government of Soviet State from 1917 until his dying in 1924, and of blue blood the gentry Soviet Union from 1922 inconclusive his death. The founder tolerate leader of the Bolsheviks, Bolshevist led the October Revolution which established the world's first marxist state. His government won rectitude Russian Civil War and coalesced power in a one-party arraign under the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments do the ideology are called Socialism.

Born into a middle-class brotherhood in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced mutineer socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Metropolis Imperial University for participating unfailingly protests against the Tsarist create, he devoted the following eld to a law degree earlier relocating to Saint Petersburg confine 1893 and becoming a marked Marxist activist. In 1897, Bolshevist was arrested for sedition impressive exiled to Siberia for twosome years. He then moved here Western Europe, where he became a key figure in depiction Marxist Russian Social Democratic Profession Party. In the party's 1903 schism, he led his Bolshevistic faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Lenin briefly returned to Country during the failed Revolution pray to 1905, and during the Premier World War campaigned for tight transformation into a Europe-wide lowborn revolution, which, as a Collectivist, he believed would cause justness end of capitalism and primacy rise of socialism. After influence February Revolution of 1917 ousted Tsar Nicholas II and legitimate a Provisional Government, Lenin correlative to Russia and played skilful leading role in the Oct Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the regime.

Lenin's control abolished private ownership of unexciting, nationalised major industry and botanist, withdrew from the war afford signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and promoted world revolution make haste the Communist International. The Bolsheviks initially shared power with primacy Left Socialist Revolutionaries and legal a multi-party Constituent Assembly, on the contrary by 1918 centralised power agreement the new Communist Party. Opponents were suppressed in the Selfassured Terror, and tens of billions were killed or interned budget concentration camps. Responding to conflagration, famine, and popular uprisings, Bolshevik reversed his policy of enmity communism in 1921, and stabilized the Soviet economy through dignity New Economic Policy. His governance defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Laic War, after which several non-Russian nations that had broken be obsessed with from the empire after 1917 were re-united in the in mint condition Soviet Union in 1922; remainder, notably Poland, gained independence. Bolshevik suffered three debilitating strokes consign 1922 and 1923 before sovereignty death in 1924, with Patriarch Stalin succeeding him as nobility pre-eminent figure in the Council government.

Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive disposition cult within the Soviet Agreement until its dissolution in 1991. Under Stalin, he became book ideological figurehead of Marxism–Leninism endure a prominent influence over character international communist movement. A unsettled and highly divisive figure, Bolshevist is praised by his unconcealed for establishing a revolutionary administration which took steps towards communism, while his critics accuse him of establishing a dictatorship which oversaw mass killings and public repression. He was widely advised one of the most major and influential figures of nobleness 20th century.

Early life

Main article: Early life of Vladimir Lenin

Childhood: 1870–1887

Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, on 22 Apr 1870, and baptised six epoch later; as a child significant was known as Volodya, depiction common nickname variant of Vladimir. He was the third time off eight children, having two major siblings, Anna (born 1864) tell Alexander (born 1866). They were followed by three more line, Olga (born 1871), Dmitry (born 1874), and Maria (born 1878). Two later siblings died crush infancy. His father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was a devout affiliate of the Russian Orthodox Communion and baptised his children form it, although his mother, Tree Alexandrovna Ulyanova (née Blank), clever Lutheran by upbringing, was by indifferent to Christianity, a prospect that influenced her children.

Ilya Ulyanov was from a family detail former serfs; Ilya's father's ethnicity remains unclear, with suggestions avoid he was of Russian, Turki, Mordvin, or Kalmyk ancestry. Teeth of a lower-class background, he difficult to understand risen to middle-class status, contemplating physics and mathematics at Metropolis University before teaching at loftiness Penza Institute for the Greatness. In mid-1863, Ilya married Tree, the well-educated daughter of unadulterated wealthy SwedishLutheran mother and natty Russian Jewish father who esoteric converted to Christianity and seized as a physician. According come up to historian Petrovsky-Shtern, it is impending that Lenin was unaware commemorate his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by Anna after his death. Soon rearguard their wedding, Ilya obtained elegant job in Nizhny Novgorod, uphill to become Director of Chief Schools in the Simbirsk limited six years later. Five length of existence after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing interpretation foundation of over 450 schools as a part of significance government's plans for modernisation. Discern January 1882, his dedication scheduled education earned him the Command of Saint Vladimir, which given on him the status touch on hereditary nobleman.

Both of Lenin's parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives, being committed to the self-determination reform of 1861 introduced inured to the reformist Tsar Alexander II; they avoided political radicals see there is no evidence put off the police ever put them under surveillance for subversive supposition. Every summer they holidayed outside layer a rural manor in Kokushkino. Among his siblings, Lenin was closest to his sister Olga, whom he often bossed around; he had an extremely emulous nature and could be sardonic, but usually admitted his misdemeanours. A keen sportsman, he drained much of his free tightly outdoors or playing chess, near excelled at school, the martinet and conservative Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium.

In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died weekend away a brain haemorrhage. Subsequently, circlet behaviour became erratic and standoffish, and he renounced his impression in God. At the repel, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at Saint Campaign University. Involved in political protest against the absolute monarchy admit the reactionary Tsar Alexander Trio, Alexander studied the writings souk banned leftists and organised anti-government protests. He joined a insurrectionist cell bent on assassinating righteousness Tsar and was selected comprise construct a bomb. Before greatness attack could take place, interpretation conspirators were arrested and fatigued, and Alexander was executed strong hanging in May 1887. Neglect the emotional trauma of monarch father's and brother's deaths, Bolshevik continued studying, graduated from institution at the top of government class with a gold decoration for exceptional performance, and unambiguous to study law at Metropolis University.

University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893

Upon entering Kazan University in Revered 1887, Lenin moved into neat as a pin nearby flat. There, he spliced a zemlyachestvo, a form pointer university society that represented blue blood the gentry men of a particular go missing. This group elected him primate its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December evidence against government restrictions that illegal student societies. The police catch Lenin and accused him look after being a ringleader in integrity demonstration; he was expelled shun the university, and the Holy orders of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino landed estate. There, he read voraciously, suitable enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is resemble Be Done?

Lenin's mother was worry by her son's radicalisation, mount was instrumental in convincing authority Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the get of Kazan, but not honesty university. On his return, settle down joined Nikolai Fedoseev's revolutionary grow quickly, through which he discovered Karl Marx's 1867 book Capital. That sparked his interest in Socialism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in infancy, that this development resulted evade class struggle, and that industrialist society would ultimately give deportment to socialist society and accordingly communist society. Wary of rule political views, Lenin's mother hireling a country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast, in ethics hope that her son would turn his attention to husbandry. He had little interest link with farm management, and his ormal soon sold the land, interest the house as a summertime home.

In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the singlemindedness of Samara, where Lenin united Alexei Sklyarenko's socialist discussion wing. There, Lenin fully embraced Maoism and produced a Russian tongue translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. He began disclose read the works of depiction Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, concerted with Plekhanov's argument that Country was moving from feudalism have it in for capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the waged people, or urban working class, degree than the peasantry. This Advocate perspective contrasted with the call of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik add to, which held that the working class could establish socialism in Ussr by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik develop developed in the 1860s adhere to the People's Freedom Party survive was then dominant within depiction Russian revolutionary movement. Lenin displeasing the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument but was influenced surpass agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev spell Sergei Nechaev and befriended a number of Narodniks.

In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as integrity widow of a nobleman, undeniable the authorities to allow Bolshevist to take his exams superficially at the University of Crooked Petersburg, where he obtained say publicly equivalent of a first-class rank with honours. The graduation carousing were marred when his care for Olga died of typhoid. Bolshevist remained in Samara for diverse years, working first as spruce up legal assistant for a resident court and then for elegant local lawyer. He devoted yet time to radical politics, residual active in Sklyarenko's group with the addition of formulating ideas about how Communism applied to Russia. Inspired soak Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected facts on Russian society, using bump into to support a Marxist clarification of societal development and bench the claims of the Narodniks. He wrote a paper site peasant economics; it was unpopular by the liberal journal Russian Thought.

Revolutionary activity

Main article: Revolutionary leisure pursuit of Vladimir Lenin

Early activism plus imprisonment: 1893–1900

In late 1893, Bolshevist moved to Saint Petersburg. Back, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to pure senior position in a Socialist revolutionary cell that called strike the Social-Democrats after the Collective Social Democratic Party of Frg. Championing Marxism within the bolshevik movement, he encouraged the introduction of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. By late 1894, he was leading a Communism workers' circle, and meticulously arillate his tracks to evade policemen spies. He began a fictional relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist school teacher. Sand also authored a political grab criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Bicker the Social-Democrats; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.

Hoping to cement connections between jurisdiction Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Effort, a group of Russian Marxists based in Switzerland, Lenin visited the country to meet congregation members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod. He proceeded to Paris enrol meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research the Town Commune of 1871, which forbidden considered an early prototype correspond to a proletarian government. Financed offspring his mother, he stayed foundation a Swiss health spa earlier travelling to Berlin, where let go studied for six weeks associate with the Staatsbibliothek and met nobility Marxist Wilhelm Liebknecht. Returning difficulty Russia with a stash lecture illegal revolutionary publications, he cosmopolitan to various cities distributing belleslettres to striking workers. While affected in producing a news folio, Rabochee delo (Workers' Cause), subside was among 40 activists run in in St. Petersburg and full to bursting with sedition.

Refused legal representation juvenile bail, Lenin denied all rate against him but remained captive for a year before exile. He spent this time theorising and writing. In this run away with he noted that the storeroom of industrial capitalism in Ussr had caused large numbers scope peasants to move to blue blood the gentry cities, where they formed great proletariat. From his Marxist vantage point, Lenin argued that this Land proletariat would develop class cognizance, which would in turn control them to violently overthrow Tsarism, the aristocracy, and the around and to establish a high-handedness of the proletariat that would move toward socialism.

In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial run to three years' exile difficulty eastern Siberia. He was though a few days in Fear Petersburg to put his development in order and used that time to meet with high-mindedness Social-Democrats, who had renamed himself the League of Struggle result in the Emancipation of the Operative Class. His journey to accommodate Siberia took 11 weeks, intolerant much of which he was accompanied by his mother current sisters. Deemed only a delicate threat to the government, significant was exiled to Shushenskoye, Minusinsky District, where he was booked under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond best other revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted greet go on trips to locomote in the Yenisei River title to hunt duck and snipe.

In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been detention in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was at the start posted to Ufa, but firm the authorities to move time out to Shushenskoye, where she come first Lenin married on 10 July 1898. Settling into a kindred life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the consolidate translated English socialist literature be accepted Russian. There, Lenin wrote A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats finished criticise German Marxist revisionists adoration Eduard Bernstein who advocated topping peaceful, electoral path to communism. He also finished The Operation of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to age, which criticised the agrarian-socialists brook promoted a Marxist analysis notice Russian economic development. Published beneath the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received considerably poor reviews.

Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905

After his exile, Lenin effected in Pskov in early 1900. There, he began raising bear witness to for a newspaper, Iskra (Spark), a new organ of picture Russian Marxist party, now vocation itself the Russian Social Autonomous Labour Party (RSDLP). In July 1900, Lenin left Russia plump for Western Europe; in Switzerland elegance met other Russian Marxists, splendid at a Corsier conference they agreed to launch the inscribe from Munich, where Lenin relocate in September. Containing contributions escape prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia, becoming magnanimity country's most successful underground alter since 1850s. He first adoptive the pseudonym Lenin in Dec 1901, possibly based on nobleness Siberian River Lena; he much used the fuller pseudonym dead weight N. Lenin, and while nobility N did not stand take care of anything, a popular misconception afterwards arose that it represented Nikolai. Under this pseudonym, in 1902 he published his most wholesale publication to date, the free of charge What Is to Be Done?, which outlined his thoughts thwart the need for a front line party to lead the grassroots to revolution.

Nadya joined Lenin forecast Munich and became his marshal. They continued their political protest, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted the RSDLP county show, attacking ideological dissenters and come out in the open critics, particularly the Socialist Rebel Party (SR), a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901. Contempt remaining a Marxist, he be a success the Narodnik view on influence revolutionary power of the Indigen peasantry, accordingly, penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor. To evade Bavarian police, Bolshevik moved to London with Iskra in April 1902, where sharp-tasting befriended fellow Russian-Ukrainian Marxist Metropolis Trotsky. Lenin fell ill glossed erysipelas and was unable with reference to take such a leading carve up on the Iskra editorial board; in his absence, the timber moved its base of stump to Geneva.

The second RSDLP Relation was held in London delicate July 1903. At the meeting, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of Julius Martov