Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. As the founder of the Bolsheviks, Lenin led the October Revolution, which established the world's first communist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.

Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate the Russian tsar. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in student protests, and earned a law degree before moving to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and becoming a prominent Marxist activist. In 1897, Lenin was exiled to Siberia for three years, after which he moved to Western Europe and became a leading figure in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903, the party split between Lenin's Bolshevik faction and the Mensheviks, with Lenin advocating for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat in establishing socialism. Lenin briefly returned to Russia during the Revolution of 1905. During the First World War he campaigned for its transformation into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution. After the February Revolution of 1917 ousted Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin returned to Russia and played a leading role in the October Revolution.

Lenin's government abolished private ownership of land, nationalised major industry and banks, withdrew from the war by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. The Bolsheviks initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, but during the Russian Civil War centralised power in the Communist Party and suppressed opposition in the Red Terror, in which tens of thousands were killed or imprisoned. Responding to famine and popular uprisings, Lenin reversed his policy of war communism in 1921 and stabilised the economy with the New Economic Policy. The Red Army defeated numerous anti-Bolshevik and separatist armies in the civil war, after which some of the non-Russian nations which had broken away from the empire were reunited in the Soviet Union in 1922; others, notably Poland, gained independence. Lenin suffered three debilitating strokes in 1922 and 1923 before his death in 1924, beginning a power struggle which ended in Joseph Stalin's rise to power.

Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. Under Stalin, he became an ideological figurehead of Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive figure, Lenin is praised by his supporters for establishing a revolutionary government which took steps towards socialism, while his critics condemn him for establishing a dictatorship which oversaw mass killings and political repression. He is widely considered one of the most significant figures of the 20th century.

Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, on 22 April 1870, and baptised six days later; as a child he was known as Volodya, the common nickname of Vladimir. He was the third of eight children, having two older siblings, Anna and Alexander. They were followed by three more children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy. His father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although his mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (née Blank), a Lutheran by upbringing, was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children.

Ilya Ulyanov was from a family of former serfs; Ilya's father's ethnicity remains unclear, with suggestions that he was of Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin, or Kalmyk ancestry. Despite a lower-class background, he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility. In mid-1863, Ilya married Maria, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy Swedish Lutheran mother and a Russian Jewish father who had converted to Christianity and worked as a physician. According to historian Petrovsky-Shtern, it is likely that Lenin was unaware of his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by Anna after his death. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the Simbirsk district six years later. Five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. In 1882, his dedication to education earned him the Order of Saint Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman.

Lenin's parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives, committed to the emancipation reform of 1861 introduced by the reformist Tsar Alexander II; they avoided political radicals and there is no evidence that the police ever put them under surveillance for subversive thought. Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in Kokushkino. Among his siblings, Lenin was closest to his sister Olga, whom he often bossed around; he was extremely competitive and could be destructive, but usually admitted his misbehaviour. A keen sportsman, he spent much of his free time outdoors or playing chess, and excelled at school, the disciplinarian and conservative Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium.

In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died of a brain haemorrhage. Subsequently, his behaviour became erratic and confrontational, and he renounced his belief in God. At the time, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at Saint Petersburg University. Involved in political agitation against the absolute monarchy of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III, Alexander studied the writings of banned leftists and organised anti-government protests. He joined a revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tsar and was selected to construct a bomb. Before the attack could take place, the conspirators were arrested, and Alexander was executed in May 1887. Despite the emotional trauma of his father's and brother's deaths, Lenin graduated from school at the top of his class with a gold medal for exceptional performance, and decided to study law at Kazan University.