Vladimir I. Lenin

Source

• Born: 22 April 1870
• Birthplace: Simbirsk, Volga
• Died: 21 January 1924
• Best Known As: Founder of Bolshevism and the force behind the Russian revolution

Name at birth: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

Vladimir I. Lenin was a driving force behind the Russian Revolution of 1917 and became the first great dictator of the Soviet Union. After his brother was executed in 1887 (for plotting to kill the Czar), Lenin gave up studying law and became a full-time revolutionary. He studied Karl Marx and formed workers' groups, but was arrested and exiled to Siberia in 1895. In 1900 he went to Europe, and in 1903 he led the Bolsheviks in the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' party. When revolution broke out in Russia in 1917, he led the Bolsheviks to control the government. Lenin had complete political control over the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) until his death, and is remembered as the man who put Marx's ideas to practical use.

For decades after his death, Lenin's well-preserved body was on public display in a special mausoleum in Red Square... Lenin was born on 10 April under the old (Julian) calendar, on 22 April under the modern (Gregorian) calendar; Russia didn't adopt the modern calendar until after the Revolution.

(b. Simbirsk, Russia, 22 Apr. 1870; d. Gorki, near Moscow, 21 Jan. 1924) Founder and leader of the Bolshevik Party, chair of Council of People's Commissars 1917 – 24 Vladimir Ul'yanov came from a provincial middle-class family of mixed ancestry (Russian-Kalmyk and Jewish-German), his father being a school inspector (hence in the minor nobility). Soon after his father's death in 1886 Lenin's elder brother Alexander, a student, was hanged for participating in a plot by a revolutionary populist group to assassinate Alexander III. This event made a deep impression on the younger Ul'yanov and, after passing his final school exams with distinction, he too joined a populist group when he began studying at Kazan University, for which he was rusticated. His mother bought an estate in Samara province, but there too he joined a populist group, although he became increasingly interested in Marxism. He completed a first class degree in law at St Petersburg University as an external student in 1891. After a period as an assistant advocate in Samara he moved in 1893 to St Petersburg, where he joined the Marxists. In 1895 he was sent to Geneva to make contact with Plekhanov's group. Soon after he returned he was imprisoned and in 1897 sentenced to Siberian exile. While in Siberia he married Nadezhda Krupskaya and completed, in 1899, his first major work The Development of Capitalism in Russia in which he argued that Russia had irrevocably embarked on the capitalist road and rejected populism (though his ideas on revolutionary organization remained influenced by it). After his release in 1900 he joined Plekhanov in Switzerland and, now using the pseudonym Lenin, with him launched the newspaper Iskra ("The Spark"), in which they attacked the "Economists" (supporters of incremental reform). In 1902 Lenin published his notorious pamphlet What is to be done? in which he argued that a successful revolutionary party in Russian conditions had to be a highly centralized and conspiratorial organization of "professional revolutionaries" to be an effective vanguard of the workers who would not spontaneously develop revolutionary consciousness. This novel view of the Marxist Party provoked considerable opposition. At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, held in Brussels and London in 1903, Martov's more moderate views on the party won the day, but Lenin's group, with the support of Plekhanov, won the elections to the central party bodies. Lenin termed his group the "Majoritarians" (Bolsheviki) and Martov's group "Minoritarians" (Mensheviki) and increasingly treated his group as the real party.

The revolutionary events of 1905 in Russia caught Lenin unawares, like most other exiled socialists, and he returned to Russia only in November. In his work Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution he argued that the workers would have to take a leading role in the bourgeois revolution, co-operating with revolutionary elements in the peasantry. This latter point was unusual in Marxist thinking, perhaps showing underlying populist influence on Lenin. He made some moves towards reconciliation with the Mensheviks, putting forward the idea of "democratic centralism", in which his 1902 model of the party was modified by emphasis on the democratic electivity and accountability of the leadership. But, once in exile again in 1907, he resumed his policy of promoting schisms, designed to strengthen the revolutionary vanguard. Differences with the Mensheviks continued to widen, now reflecting disagreement on the whole approach to revolution, and the split became final in 1912. He spent the war years mainly in Switzerland, arguing for turning the imperialist war into a revolutionary civil war. In Imperialism (written 1916) he argued that the capitalist powers were driven into territorial imperialism by capital export and used the "super-profits" derived from colonial exploitation to bribe the working class into quiescence by wage increases and social benefits, but that Russia, though less developed, could be the "weakest link" from which general revolution might develop.

Lenin, like other socialists, was surprised by the February Revolution in Russia and the consequent abdication of the Tsar. He obtained German permission to travel across Germany in a sealed train to Russia (where the Germans hoped his anti-war propaganda would help undermine the Russian war effort). Arriving in Petrograd (as St Petersburg had been renamed) in April 1917, he brought out his April Theses in which he disconcerted the more gradualist domestic Bolsheviks by urging non-cooperation with the Provisional Government, rejection of any participation in the war, and active propaganda work in the soviets to achieve a Bolshevik-dominated soviet government which would create a revolutionary state. It took some months before these tactics paid off, but gradually the effectiveness of Bolshevik propaganda (with slogans like "Bread", "Peace", "Land") combined with the ineffectiveness of the provisional government and its continuance of the war compromised the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries who took part in it and increased Bolshevik support in the Soviets. After a near catastrophic premature uprising in July (as a result of which Lenin was forced to go into hiding in Finland) Bolshevik fortunes rose again because of their role in foiling Kornilov's attempted coup in August. In his work The State and Revolution, which appeared in the summer of 1917, Lenin argued that the bourgeois state had to be smashed and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" established which would move rapidly to create a new order, though this was not considered an immediate prospect. However, by October the popular revolutionary mood was intensifying, the Bolsheviks gained majorities in many of the town and military soviets, and Trotsky and his group had come over to the Bolsheviks. Lenin returned on 10 October and urged an immediate armed uprising against the provisional government. Masterminded by Trotsky, the seizure of power was effected on the night of 25 – 6 October in the name of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, to which Lenin announced the setting up of a Council of People's Commissars, led by himself. However, contrary to the expectations of many, Lenin refused to share power with other socialists, though a few left-wing socialist revolutionaries were given minor posts. Some revolutionary decrees were quickly issued: the Decree on Peace withdrew Russia from the war; the Decree on Land sanctioned the peasant takeover of the estates; other decrees separated church and state and established workers' control in the factories (soon to be reversed); the armed forces were disbanded and a voluntary militia established. However, opposition soon made itself felt and Lenin was forced in December to create the Cheka, a secret police force, and to place "temporary" bans on non-Bolshevik newspapers and parties. Elections were held for the Constituent Assembly on universal suffrage in November, in which the Bolsheviks gained 24 per cent of the votes and the Socialist Revolutionaries 40 per cent. When the Assembly met in January and voiced strong criticisms of the Bolshevik government, it was not allowed to reconvene, an important symbolic act in the creation of the one-party state. In March 1918 Lenin was forced to sign the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, a separate peace with Germany and Austria, ceding huge amounts of territory, including the Ukraine. The Left SRs then resigned from the government and started resistance, soon afterwards foreign forces intervened and the civil war started. There developed a highly authoritarian and centralized system of rule known as "War Communism": all industrial enterprises were nationalized, all non-Bolshevik activity treated as counter-revolution, the economy run by central command, and military and civilian conscription employed. By 1920 the war was over, but with the economy in a state of collapse and millions dead. Following Trotsky's suggestion, Lenin introduced in March 1921 the New Economic Policy, a "breathing-space", though one that he thought could last for "a generation", involving denationalization of small-scale enterprises and restoration of an agricultural market. At the same time political discipline was increased with a ban on factional activity in the party and the maintenance of bans on non-Bolshevik parties and media. This "tactical retreat" rapidly revived the economy. But Lenin's health was now bad: after surviving an assassination attempt in 1918 he had his first stroke in 1921 and was more or less incapacitated from 1922. His last struggles were against the rising tide of bureaucracy (but his solution was a bureaucratic one — still more committees, like Rabkrin) and to prevent Stalin gaining power after his death (but his recommendation for Stalin's removal as General Secretary was suppressed). He died at the age of 53 in January 1924, his weak constitution broken by overwork.

Lenin had been obsessed with achieving socialist revolution in Russia, for which end he considered any means justified, including terror and deceit, and did not appreciate the long-term dangers of such methods. His emphasis on central direction and the party's vanguard role ("We know best what's good for you") never changed, despite the broadening of party membership, and produced the dangers of "substitutism" about which Trotsky warned. Once revolution was achieved he seemed trapped in short-term tactical changes, unclear about long-term strategy. Undoubtedly an outstanding political leader whose personal contribution changed the face of the twentieth century, his dogmatism and ruthlessness, even though partly compensated by approachability and rejection of hero-worship, provided a precedent for the excesses of Stalin.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilych (né Ulyanov) (1870-1924), Russian socialist and architect of November 1917 Russian Revolution. His destiny may have been carved in stone in 1887 when his elder brother Alexander was executed for complicity in a plot against the life of Tsar Alexander III. When Vladimir enrolled in the Legal Faculty of Kazan University the same year he was promptly arrested for taking part in student revolutionary activity and expelled. He moved to St Petersburg in 1893 but two years later he was arrested again and sent to Siberia where he produced some 30 polemical works including Tasks of Russian Social-Democrats and The Development of Capitalism in Russia.

In July 1900 he went into exile and founded the Marxist newspaper Iskra (Spark), in which in December 1901 he published his first article under the pseudonym by which he would be known to history. In 1903, the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) resolved that it would become a Marxist revolutionary party. From the beginning, Lenin's views were sharply at variance with the orthodox Marxists, who foresaw a need to ally with bourgeois parties to bring about a democratic revolution, which would then be followed in due course by a proletarian socialist revolution. Lenin was adamant that the proletariat had no allies except the peasantry, and that the RSDWP must play a leading role in both revolutions, exacerbating contradictions during the first and leading the second. After the revolutionary events of 1905, he went further and argued that if the western European industrial proletariat, which he saw as far more ripe for revolution, should proceed to the second stage, then Russia could omit the bourgeois democratic stage altogether and proceed directly to the dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry. It was a vision from which he would not waver, and it is important to remember that he maintained his views over a prolonged period when the rest of European socialism departed from its commitment to social revolution. WW I revealed this clearly, as the socialist parties in general expressed nationalist solidarity with the governments leading Europe into what, pre-war, they had agreed was an imperialist conflict to be opposed and exploited to bring about the revolution.

Not Lenin. Even before the war he had split the RSDWP irrevocably by his doctrinal rigidity. The factions, which became in effect rival parties each with their own organizations, were the Mensheviks (which means the minority, which they were at the 1912 Prague conference where the split occurred, but not in the membership) and the Bolsheviks (the majority). The latter founded the newspaper Pravda (Truth), with Lenin as editor, and the one consistent feature of the publication over the next 80 years was that it rarely published a truthful word. However, it did provide a platform for Lenin, and although his intensity emanates from his writings, even in translation, it cannot convey the personal authority that accrued to him as almost the only man in Europe who lived the revolution 24 hours a day. He had a mesmeric effect on people: some would go away convinced, others repelled, none indifferent.

WW I not only split European socialism into majority pro- and minority anti-war factions, it divided the latter into the merely pacifist and a tiny minority within a minority, which included Liebnecht, Luxemburg, Lenin, and a few others, that advocated transforming the imperialist war into civil war. His views were set out in his (later) most influential work, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1917). That it might have been convincing at the time is understandable, but to this day there are still those who believe that it represents an accurate analysis and illustrates Lenin's gift for tapping into the human need for simple, Manichaean explanations for complex realities. The war, he wrote, was a product of the expansionist nature of imperialism, the final stage of monopoly capitalism. Thus he held that colonialism, in fact an economically insignificant by-product of world dominance by the industrially developed West, was essential for the survival of capitalism. He completely missed the significance of the cosy cartels into which the world's largest industrial and financial institutions had settled and, more damningly, failed to see that even though presided over by kings and emperors, WW I owed both its ferocity and duration to the fact that it was a bourgeois war par excellence. The majority socialists were not, as he declared, a ‘labour aristocracy’ bribed by the imperialists to betray the proletariat at home and the even more exploited sub-proletariat abroad, but true representatives of their own super-patriotic lower middle class. Mussolini, another prominent socialist editor, perceived this far more accurately and rode the bandwagon to power and eventual infamy. Lenin required the prior services of the imperial German army, not only to put him in Petrograd (formerly and now St. Petersburg) at the opportune moment in the famous ‘sealed train’, but also to atomize Russian society to such an extent that his tiny faction was able to seize power in the coup d'état of 7-8 November 1917.

Thereafter there is no denying that his ruthless clarity of purpose affirmed the Russian Revolution. Others might say the words ‘peace at any price’ but he saw the absolute objective need for it, threatening to resign unless the Bolsheviks accepted the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, surrendering 60 per cent of European Russia and one third of the pre-war population. His realpolitik certainly saved the Bolsheviks from going the way of the tsar and the bourgeois Kerensky government, which had persisted in the war beyond all reason. Thereafter his enemies did as much to consolidate his dictatorship, the ‘White’ Russians seeking to impose traditional landownership on a peasantry that would otherwise have turned against the harsh impositions of the Bolsheviks, and foreign invasions reawakening the great power of Russian patriotism. Operationally, Trotsky was both the architect of the coup d'état and of victory in the civil war that followed, as well as being the father of what became the Red Army; but strategically, both in the mobilization of at times barely enough resources to survive and later in launching a disastrous offensive into Poland, Lenin's will was paramount.

Like any successful revolutionary, Lenin was an opportunist. Circumstances, unimaginable at the time he formulated his political philosophy, made it possible for him to preside over a sequence of events that permit one, in retrospect, to perceive a guiding principle. There was none except survival. However influential his views were to become, especially among the colonized peoples of the world, they were tactical in nature and related to seizing power. What he did with it embodied the worst of the Russian political tradition, with appalling consequences not only for Russia but also for the second Russian empire won in blood and maintained in cruelty and savage repression by his successor.

Bibliography

• Szamuely, Tibor, The Russian Tradition (London, 1974)

— Hugh Bicheno

The Russian statesman Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924) was the creator of the Bolshevik party, the Soviet state, and the Third International. He was a successful revolutionary leader and an important contributor to revolutionary socialist theory.

Few events have shaped contemporary history as profoundly as the Russian Revolution and the Communist revolutions that followed it. Each one of them was made in the name of V. I. Lenin, his doctrines, and his political practices. Contemporary thinking about world affairs has been greatly influenced by Lenin's impetus and contributions. From Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points to today's preoccupation with wars of national liberation, imperialism, and decolonization, many important issues of contemporary social science were first raised or disseminated by Lenin; even some of the terms he used have entered into everyone's vocabulary. The very opposition to Lenin often takes Leninist forms.

Formative Years

V. I. Lenin was born in Simbirsk (today Ulianovsk) on April 10 (Old Style), 1870. His real family name was Ulianov, and his father, Ilia Nikolaevich Ulianov, was a high official in the czarist educational bureaucracy who had risen into the nobility. Vladimir received the conventional education given to the sons of the Russian upper class but turned into a radical dissenter. One impetus to his conversion doubtless was the execution by hanging of his older brother Alexander in 1887; Alexander and a few associates had conspired to assassinate the Emperor. Lenin graduated from secondary school with high honors, enrolled at Kazan University, but was expelled after participating in a demonstration. He retired to the family estate but was permitted to continue his studies in absentia. He obtained a law degree in 1891.

When, in 1893, he moved to St. Petersburg, Lenin was already a Marxist and a revolutionary by profession, joining like-minded intellectuals in study groups, writing polemical pamphlets and articles, and seeking to organize workers. The St. Petersburg Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of Labor, which Lenin helped create, was one of the important nuclei of the Russian Marxist movement. The most important work from this period is a lengthy pamphlet, "What Are the 'Friends of the People,' and How Do They Fight against Social-Democracy?" In it Lenin presents the essentials of his entire outlook.

In 1897 Lenin was arrested, spent some months in jail, and was finally sentenced to 3 years of exile in the Siberian village of Shushenskoe. He was joined there by a fellow Marxist, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, whom he married in 1898. In his Siberian exile he produced a major study of the Russian economy, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, in which he sought to demonstrate that, despite its backwardness, the economy of his country had definitely transformed itself into a capitalist one. If Lenin had produced nothing else than this learned though controversial work, he would today be known as one of the leading Russian economists of his period.

Emigration to Europe

Not long after his release from Siberia in the summer of 1900, Lenin moved to Europe, where he spent most of the next 17 years, moving from one country to another at frequent intervals, periods of feverish activity alternating with those of total frustration. His first step was to join the editorial board of Iskra (>The Spark), then the central newspaper of Russian Marxism, where he served together with the top leaders of the movement. After parting from Iskra, he edited a succession of papers of his own and contributed to other socialist journals. His journalistic activity was closely linked with organizational work, partly because the underground organizational network within Russia to some extent revolved around the distribution of clandestine literature.

Organizational activity, in turn, was linked with the selection and training of personnel. For some time Lenin conducted a training school for Russian revolutionaries at Longjumeau, a suburb of Paris. A perennial problem was that of financing the movement and its leaders' activities in their European exile. Lenin personally could usually depend on financial support from his mother; but her pension could not pay for his political activities. Much of the early history of Russian Marxism can be understood only in the light of these pressing money problems.

His Thought

A Marxist movement had developed in Russia only during the last decade of the 19th century as a response to the rapid growth of industry, urban centers, and a proletariat. Its first intellectual spokesmen were people who had turned away from populism (narodnichestvo), which they regarded as a failure. Instead of relying on the peasantry, they placed their hopes on the workers as the revolutionary class. Rejecting the village socialism preached by the Narodniks, they opted for industrialization, modernization, and Westernization. Their immediate aim they declared to be a bourgeois revolution which would transform Russia into a democratic republic.

In accepting this revolutionary scenario, Lenin added the important proviso that hegemony in the coming bourgeois revolution should remain with the proletariat as the most consistently revolutionary of all classes.

At the same time, Lenin, more than most Marxists, made a clear distinction between the workers' movement, on the one hand, and the theoretical contribution to be made by intellectuals, on the other. Of the two, he considered the theoretical contribution the more important, the workers' movement being a merely spontaneous reaction to capitalist exploitation, whereas theory was an expression of consciousness, meaning science and rationality. Throughout his life Lenin insisted that consciousness must maintain leadership over spontaneity for revolutionary Marxism to succeed. This implies that the intellectual leaders must prepare the proletariat for its political tasks and must guide it in its action. Leadership and hierarchy thus become key concepts in the Leninist vocabulary, and the role and structure of the party must conform to this conception. The party is seen as the institutionalization of true consciousness. It must turn into the general staff of the revolution, subjecting the working class and indeed all its own members to command and discipline.

Lenin expressed these ideas in his important book What's To Be Done? (1902), the title of the work expressing his indebtedness to Nikolai Chernyshevsky. When, in 1903, the leaders of Russian Marxism met for the first important party congress, formally the Second Congress, these ideas clashed head on with the conception of a looser, more democratic workers' party advanced by Lenin's old friend luli Martov. This disagreement over the nature and organization of the party was complicated by numerous other conflicts of view, and from its first important congress Russian Marxism emerged split into two factions. The one led by Lenin called itself the majority faction (bolsheviki); the other got stuck with the name of minority faction (mensheviki). Lenin's reaction to the split was expressed in his pamphlet "One Step Forward - Two Steps Back," published in 1904.

Mensheviks and Bolsheviks disagreed not only over organizational questions but also over most other political problems, including the entire conception of a Marxist program for Russia and the methods to be employed by the party. Bolshevism, in general, stresses the need for revolution and the futility of incremental reforms; it emphasizes the goals of Marxism rather than the process, with its timetable, by which Marx thought the new order was to be reached; in comparison to menshevism it is impatient, pragmatic, and tough-minded.

The Revolution of 1905 surprised all Russian revolutionary leaders, including the Bolsheviks. Lenin managed to return to Russia only in November, when the defeat of the revolution was a virtual certainty. But he was among the last to give up. For many more months he urged his followers to renew their revolutionary enthusiasm and activities and to prepare for an armed uprising. For some time afterward the technology of revolutionary warfare became the focus of his interest. His militancy was expressed in an anti-Menshevik pamphlet published in 1905, "Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution."

The major impact of the aborted revolution and its aftermath was a decided change in Lenin's attitude toward the peasantry. Lenin came to recognize it as a class in its own right - not just as a rural proletariat - with its own interests, and as a valuable ally for the revolutionary proletariat. His pamphlet "The Agrarian Question in the Russian Revolution of 1905-7" presents these new views in systematic fashion.

Bolshevism as an Independent Faction

In the 12 years between the Revolution of 1905 and that of 1917, bolshevism, which had begun as a faction within the Russian Social-Democratic Workers party, gradually emerged as an independent party that had cut its ties with all other Russian Marxists. The process entailed prolonged and bitter polemics against Mensheviks as well as against all those who worked for a reconciliation of the factions. It involved fights over funds, struggles for control of newspapers, the development of rival organizations, and meetings of rival congresses. Disputes concerned many questions about the goals and strategies of the movement, the role of national liberation movements within the Marxist party, and also philosophic controversies. Lenin's contribution to this last topic was published in 1909, Materialism and Empirio-criticism.

Since about 1905 the international socialist movement had begun also to discuss the possibility of a major war breaking out. In its congresses of 1907 and 1912, resolutions were passed which condemned such wars in advance and pledged the parties of the proletariat not to support them. Lenin had wanted to go further than that. He had urged active opposition to the war effort and a transformation of any war into a proletarian revolution. He called his policy "revolutionary defeatism." When World War I broke out, most socialist leaders in the countries involved supported the war effort. For Lenin, this was proof that he and they shared no aims or views. The break between the two schools of Marxism had become irreconcilable.

During the war Lenin lived in Switzerland. He attended several conferences of radical socialists opposed to the war or even agreeing with Lenin's revolutionary defeatism. He read extensively on the Marxist theory of state and wrote a first draft for a book on the subject, The State and Revolution. He also immersed himself in literature dealing with contemporary world politics and wrote a book which may, in the long run, be his most important one, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916), in which Marxism is effectively made applicable to the 20th century. By the beginning of 1917 he had fits of despondency and wrote to a close friend that he despaired of ever witnessing another revolution. This was about a month before the fall of czarism.

Lenin in 1917

It took a good deal of negotiation and courage for Lenin and a group of like-minded Russian revolutionaries to travel from Switzerland back to Russia through enemy country (Germany). Much has been made of Lenin's negotiations with an enemy power and of the fact that some Bolshevik activities were supported financially by German intelligence agencies. There is no convincing evidence, however, which might show that acceptance of funds from objectionable sources made Lenin an agent of these sources in anyway. And from his point of view the source of aid was immaterial; what counted was the use to which it was put.

The man who returned to Russia in the famed "sealed train" in the spring of 1917 was of medium height, quite bald, except for the back of his head, with a reddish beard. The features of his face were arresting - slanted eyes that looked piercingly at others, and high cheek-bones under a towering forehead. The rest of his appearance was deceptively ordinary: a man of resolute movements clad quite conservatively in a middle-class suit.

Versed in many languages, Lenin spoke Russian with a slight speech defect but was a powerful orator in small groups as well as before mass audiences. A tireless worker, he made others work tirelessly. Self-effacing, he sought to compel his collaborators to devote every ounce of their energy to the revolutionary task at hand. He was impatient with any extraneous activities, including small talk and abstract theoretical discussions. Indeed, he was suspicious of intellectuals and felt most at home in the company of simple folk. Having been brought up in the tradition of the Russian nobility, Lenin loved hunting, hiking, horseback riding, boating, mush-rooming, and the outdoor life in general. He sought to steel himself by systematic physical exercise and generally forbade himself those hobbies which he considered time-wasting or corrupting: chess, music, and companionship. While his life-style was that of a dedicated professional revolutionary, his tastes in art, morals, and manners were rather conventional.

Once he had returned to Russia, Lenin worked feverishly and relentlessly to utilize the revolutionary situation that had been created by the fall of czarism so as to convert it into a proletarian revolution which would bring his own party into power. These were the crucial 6 months of his life, but space does not permit a detailed account of his activities in the period. The result of his activities is well known: Opinions in Russia quickly became more and more polarized. Moderate forces found themselves less and less able to maintain even the pretense of control. In the end, the so-called provisional government, then headed by Kerensky, simply melted away, and power literally fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. As a result of this so-called October Revolution, Lenin found himself not only the leader of his party but also the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (equivalent to premier minister) of the newly proclaimed Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic.

Ruler of Russia

During the first years of Lenin's rule as dictator of Russia, the major task he faced was that of establishing his and his party's authority in the country. Most of his policies can be understood in this light, even though he alienated some elements in the population while satisfying others. Examples are the expropriation of landholdings for distribution to the peasants, the separate peace treaty with Germany, and the nationalization of banks and industrial establishments.

From 1918 to 1921 a fierce civil war raged which the Bolsheviks finally won against seemingly overwhelming odds. During the civil war Lenin tightened his party's dictatorship and eventually eliminated all rival parties from the political arena. A spirited defense of his dictatorship can be found in his "The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (1918), in which he answers criticism from some more moderate Marxists. Lenin had to create an entirely new political system with the help of inexperienced personnel; he was heading a totally exhausted economy and had to devise desperate means for mobilizing people for work. Simultaneously he created the Third (Communist) International and vigorously promoted the spread of the revolution to other countries; and meanwhile he had to cope with dissent among his own party comrades, some of whom criticized him from the left. The pamphlet "Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder" is a response to this criticism.

When the civil war had been won and the regime established firmly, the economy was ruined, and much of the population was bitterly opposed to the regime. At this point Lenin reversed many of his policies and instituted a trenchant reform, called the New Economic Policy. It signified a temporary retreat from the goal of establishing communism at once and a resolve to make do with the social forces available: the Communist party declared itself ready to coexist and cooperate with features of the past, such as free enterprise, capitalist institutions, and capitalist states across the borders. For the time being, the Soviet economy would be a mixture of capitalist and socialist features. The stress of the party's policies would be on economic reconstruction and on the education of a peasant population for life in the 20th century. In the long run, Lenin hoped that both these policies would make the blessings of socialism obvious to all, so that the country would gradually grow into socialism. The wariness, the caution, the fear of excessive haste and impatience which Lenin showed in the years 1921-1923 are expressed only inadequately in the last few articles he wrote, such as "On Cooperation," "How We Must Reorganize the Workers and Peasants Inspectorate," and "Better Less but Better."

In 1918 an assassin wounded Lenin; he recovered but may have suffered some lasting damage. On May 26, 1922, he suffered a serious stroke from which he recovered after some weeks, only to suffer a second stroke on December 16. He was so seriously incapacitated that he could participate in political matters only intermittently and feebly. An invalid, he lived in a country home at Gorki, near Moscow, where he died on Jan. 21, 1924. His body was preserved and is on view in the Lenin Mausoleum outside the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.

Further Reading

Numerous collections and selections of Lenin's writings have been published in English. No first-rate biography has as yet been written in English to match Gérard Walter, Lénine (1950). Louis Fischer, The Life of Lenin (1964), was praised highly. It is based on exhaustive research, is fair and comprehensive, but is disorganized and poorly written. Interesting glimpses into Lenin's life are provided by his widow, N. K. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin (trans., 2 vols., 1930-1932); Nikolai Valentinov's studies, Encounters with Lenin (1953; trans. 1968) and The Early Years of Lenin (trans. 1969); Richard Pipes, Social Democracy and the St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885-1897 (1963); Angelica Balabanoff, Impressions of Lenin (1964); and Leon Trotsky, Lenin: Notes for a Biographer (trans. 1971), with a good introduction by Bertram D. Wolfe. See also David Shub, Lenin: A Biography (1948; rev. ed. 1967); Moshe Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle (1967; trans. 1968); and Isaac Deutscher, Lenin's Childhood (1970).

For a survey of Lenin's ideology see Leopold H. Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (1955); Alfred G. Meyer, Leninism (1957); and Adam B. Ulam, The Bolsheviks (1965). A general appraisal of the man and his work is Leonard Schapiro and Peter Reddaway, eds., Lenin: The Man, the Theorist, the Leader (1967). For the broader political background see Arthur Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism (1934); Leonard Schapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1959); Robert V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution (1960); and Theodore I. Dan, The Origins of Bolshevism (1964).

For more information on Vladimir Ilich Lenin, visit Britannica.com.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (1870-1924) Revolutionary leader and principal architect of the success of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. Philosophically Lenin contributed a number of ideas to Marxism: these include emphasis on the role of a professional revolutionary vanguard, drawn from the intelligentsia, the moral absolutism whereby everything may be sacrificed to the revolution, and the association of imperialism with capitalism that partly explained why Russia, which was not a developed capitalist economy, might nevertheless be in the vanguard of the revolution. Influential works by Lenin include The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), What is to be Done? (1902), and Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). His earlier Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (1909) is an attack on what he saw as the subjective idealism of Russian thinkers influenced by Avenarius and Mach.

(1870 - 1924), revolutionary publicist, theoretician, and activist; founder of and leading figure in the Bolshevik Party (1903 - 1924); chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissars of the RSFSR/USSR (1917 - 1924).

The reputation of Vladimir Ilich Lenin (pseudonym of V.I. Ulyanov) has suffered at the hands of both his supporters and his detractors. The former turned him into an idol; the latter into a demon. Lenin was neither. He was born on April 22, 1870, into the family of a successful school inspector from Simbirsk. For his first sixteen years, Lenin lived the life of a child of a conventional, moderately prosperous, middle-class, intellectual family. The ordinariness of Lenin's upbringing was first disturbed by the death of his father, in January 1886 at the age of 54. This event haunted Lenin, who feared he might also die prematurely, and in fact died at almost exactly the same age as his father. Then, in March 1887, Lenin's older brother was arrested for terrorism; he was executed the following May. The event aroused Lenin's curiosity about what had led his brother to sacrifice his life. It also put obstacles in his path: As the brother of a convicted terrorist, Lenin was excluded from Kazan University. He eventually took a law degree, with distinction, by correspondence from St Petersburg University in January 1892. However, his real interests had already turned to serving the oppressed through revolution rather than at the bar.

All the indications suggest that Lenin was initially attracted to populism, and only later came under the sway of Marxism. He joined a number of provincial Marxist study circles, but first began to attract attention when he moved to the capital, St. Petersburg, and engaged in illegal political activities among workers and intellectuals. In February 1894, he met fellow conspirator Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, who became his lifelong companion. After his first visit to Western Europe, in 1895, to meet the exiled leaders of Russian Marxism, Lenin returned to St. Petersburg and helped set up the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. He was arrested in December 1896 and, after prison interrogation in St. Petersburg, was exiled to the village of Shushenskoe, in Siberia. Krupskaya, who was exiled separately, offered to share banishment with him. The authorities agreed, providing they married, which they did in July 1898. Siberian exile, though rigorous in many respects, was an interlude of relative personal happiness in Lenin's life. His lifelong love of nature asserted itself in long walks, observation of social and animal life of the area, and frequent hunting expeditions. He read a great deal, communicated widely by letter with other socialists, and undertook research and writing. Direct political activity was not possible, and Lenin played no part in the formation, in 1898, of the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDLP), to which he at first adhered to but from which he later split. His term of exile ended in February, 1900. In July of that same year, he left Russia for five years.

Up until that point much of Lenin's political writing, from his earliest known articles to his first major treatise, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, written while he was in Siberia, revolved around the dispute between Marxists and populists. The populists had proposed that Russia, given its commune-based peasant class and underdeveloped industry, could pass from its current condition of "backwardness" to socialism without having to first undergo the rigors of capitalist industrialization. Such a notion was an anathema to Lenin, who believed the Marxist axiom that socialist revolution could only follow from the overdevelopment of capitalism, which would bring about its own collapse. Lenin attacked the populist thesis in several articles and pamphlets. The main theme of his treatise on The Development of Capitalism in Russia was that, in fact, capitalism was already well-entrenched in Russia, and therefore the question of whether it could be avoided was meaningless. Nonetheless, it remained obvious that Russia had only a small working class, and much of the rest of Lenin's life could be seen as an attempt to reconcile the actual weakness of proletarian forces in Russia with the country's undoubted potential for some kind of popular revolution, and to ensure Marxist and proletarian dominance in any such revolution.

The Emergence of Bolshevism (1902 - 1914)

Lenin worked to develop theoretical and practical means to accomplish these closely related tasks. The core of Lenin's activity revolved around the organization and production of a series of journals. He frequently described himself on official papers as a journalist, and he did, in fact, write a prodigious number of articles, as well as many longer works. In 1902, Lenin produced one of his most widely read and, arguably most misunderstood, pamphlets, What Is to Be Done?, which has been widely taken to be the founding text of a distinctive Leninist understanding of how to construct a revolutionary party on the basis of what he called "professional revolutionaries." When it was first published, however, it was read as a statement of Marxist orthodoxy. Lenin asserted the primacy of political struggle, opposing the ideas of the economists, who argued that trade union struggle would serve the workers' cause better than political revolution.

It was only in the following year, 1903, that Lenin began to break with the majority of the social-democratic movement. Again, received opinion, which claims Lenin split the party at the 1903 social-democratic party congress, oversimplifies the nature of the break. Lenin's key resolution at the congress, in which he attempted to narrow the definition of party membership, was voted down. Later, by means many have judged foul, he garnered a majority vote on the issue of electing members to the editorial board of the party journal, Iskra, on which Lenin and his supporters predominated. It was from this victory that the terms Bolshevik (majoritarians) and Menshevik (minoritarians) began to slowly come into vogue. However, the split of the party was only fully completed over the next few months, even years, of arid but fierce party controversies. Lenin's bitter polemic One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Crisis in Our Party, published in Geneva in February 1904, marks a clearer division and catalog of contentious issues than did What Is to Be Done. It was criticized not only by its target, Yuli Osipovich Martov, but also by Georgy Valentinovich Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod, Vera Zasulich, Karl Kautsky, and Rosa Luxemburg. Lenin's remaining allies of the time included Alexander Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and Lev Kamenev.

So much energy was involved in the dispute that the development of an actual revolutionary situation in Russia went almost unnoticed by the squabbling exiles. Even after Bloody Sunday (January 22, 1905) Lenin's attention remained divided between the revolution and the task of splitting the social democrats. With the latter aim in view, he convened a Third Party Congress (London, April 25 to May 10) consisting entirely of Bolsheviks. Only in August did Lenin's main pamphlet on revolutionary strategy, Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Russian Revolution, appear. Inevitably, the wrong tactic - the identification of the revolution as bourgeois - was attributed to the Mensheviks. The correct, Bolshevik, tactic, was the recognition of "a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry," which put less reliance on Russia's weak bourgeoisie. It also marked a significant effort by Lenin to incorporate the peasantry into the revolutionary equation. This was another way in which Lenin strove to compensate for the weakness of the working class itself, and the peasantry remained part of his strategy, in a variety of forms, for the rest of his life.

In the atmosphere of greater freedom prevailing after the issuing of the October Manifesto, which was squeezed out of the tsarist authorities under extreme duress and appeared to promise basic constitutional rights and liberties, Lenin returned to Russia legally on November 21, 1905. Even so, by December 17, police surveillance had driven him underground. He supported the heroic but catastrophically premature workers' armed uprising in Moscow in December. As conditions worsened he retreated to Finland and then, in December 1907, left the Russian Empire for another prolonged west European sojourn that lasted until April 1917. Even before the failure of the 1905 revolution, the party split continued to attract an inordinate amount of Lenin's attention. The break with Leon Trotsky in 1906 and Bogdanov in 1908 removed the last significant thinkers from the Bolshevik movement, apart from Lenin himself, who seemed constitutionally incapable of collaborating with people of his own intellectual stature. The break with Bogdanov was consummated in Lenin's worst book, Materialism and Empiriocriticism (1909), a naïve and crudely propagandistic blunder into the realm of philosophy.

Politically, Lenin had wandered into the wilderness as leader of a small faction that was situated on the fringe of Russian radical politics and distinguished largely by its dependence on Lenin and its refusal to contemplate a compromise that might reunite the party. Lenin was also distinguished by a ruthless morality of only doing that which was good for the revolution. In its name friendships were broken, and re-made, at a moment's notice. Later, when in power, he urged occasional episodes of violence and terror to secure the revolution as he understood it, although, like a sensitive war leader, he did so reluctantly and only when he thought it absolutely necessary.

For the next few years Lenin was at his least influential. Had it not been for the backing of the novelist Maxim Gorky, it is unlikely the Bolsheviks could have continued to function. He had close support from Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, Lev Borisovich Kamenev, Inessa Armand (with whom he may have had a brief sexual liaison), and from his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya. He also remained close to his family. When possible, he vacationed with them by the beaches of Brittany and Arcachon, or in the Swiss mountains. Lenin's love of nature, of walking and cycling, frequently counteracted the immense nervous stresses occasioned by his political battles. He was prone to a variety of illnesses, which acted as reminders of his father's early death, convincing him that he had to do things in a hurry. However, the second European exile was characterized by frustration rather than achievement.

From Obscurity to Power (1914 - 1921)

The onset of the First World War began the transformation of political fortune which was to bring Lenin to power. His attitude to the war was characteristically bold. Despite the collapse of the Second International Socialist Movement and the apparent wave of universal patriotism of August 1914, Lenin saw the war as a revolutionary opportunity and declared, as early as September 1914, that socialists should aim to turn it into a Europe-wide civil war. He believed that the basic class logic of the situation, that the war was fought by the masses to serve the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie, would eventually become clear to the troops who, being trained in arms, would then turn on their oppressors. He also wrote a major pamphlet, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. A Popular Outline (1916). Returning to the theme of justifying a Marxist revolution in "backward" Russia, he argued that Russia was a component part of world capitalism and therefore the initial assault on capital, though not its decisive battles, could be conducted in Russia. Within months, just such an opportunity arose.

Lenin's transition from radical outcast to revolutionary leader began after the fall of tsarism in February 1917. A key moment was his declaration, in the so-called April Theses, enunciated immediately on his return to Russia (April 16 - 17, 1917), that the party should not support the provisional government. By accident or design, this was the key to Bolshevik success. As other parties were sucked into supporting the provisional government, they each lost public support. After the Kornilov Affair, when the commander-in-chief, Lavr Kornilov, appeared to be spearheading a counter-revolution in August and September of 1917, it was the Bolsheviks who were the main beneficiaries because they were not tainted by association with the discredited provisional government which, popular opinion believed, was associated with Kornilov's apparent coup. Even so, it took immense personal effort by Lenin to persuade his party to seize their opportunity. Contrary to much received opinion and Bolshevik myth, the October Revolution was not carefully planned but, rather, improvised. Lenin was in still in hiding in Finland following proscription of the party after the July Days, when armed groups of sailors had failed in an attempt to overthrow the provisional government and the authorities took advantage of the situation to move against the Bolsheviks. He had been vague about details of the proposed revolution throughout the crucial weeks leading up to it, suggesting, at different moments, that it might begin in Moscow, Petrograd, Kronstadt, the Baltic Fleet, or even Helsinki. Only his own emergence from hiding, on October 23rd and 29th and during the seizure of power itself (November 6 - 7 O.S.) finally brought his party in line behind his policy. The provisional government was overthrown, and Lenin became Chairman of the Soviet of People's Commissars, a post he held until his death.

October was far from the end of the story. The tragic complexity of the seizure of power soon became apparent. The masses wanted what the slogans of October proclaimed: soviet power, peace, land, bread, and a constituent assembly. Lenin, however, wanted nothing less than the socialist transformation not only of Russia but of the world. Conflict was inevitable. By early 1918, autonomous workers and peasants organizations, including their political parties and the soviets themselves, were losing all authority. Ironically, at this moment one of Lenin's most libertarian, almost anarchist, writings, State and Revolution, written while he was in Finland, was published. In it he praised direct democracy and argued that capitalism had so organized and routinized the economy that it resembled the workings of the German post office. As a result, he wrote, the transition to socialism would be relatively straightforward.

However, reality was to prove less tractable. Lenin began to talk of "iron discipline" as an essential for future progress, and in The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government (March - April 1918) proclaimed the concept of productionism - the maximization of economic output as the preliminary to building socialism - to be a main goal of the Soviet government. Productionism was an ideological response to Russia's Marxist paradox, a worker revolution in a "backward" peasant country. Indeed, the weakness of the proletariat was vastly accentuated in the first years of Soviet power, as industry collapsed and major cities lost up to two-thirds of their population through disease, hunger, and flight to the countryside.

Like the events of October, early Soviet policy was also improvised, though within the confines of Bolshevik ideology. Lenin presided over the nationalization of all major economic institutions and enterprises in a crude attempt to replace the market with allocation of key products. He also over-saw the emergence of a new Red Army; the setting up of a new state structure based on Bolshevik-led soviets; and a system of direct appropriation of grain from peasants, as well as the revolutionary transformation of the country. This last entailed the taking over of land by peasants and the disappearance from Soviet territory of the old elites, including the aristocracy, army officers, capitalists, and bankers. To the chaos of the early months of revolution was added extensive protest within the party from its left wing, which saw productionism and iron discipline as a betrayal of the libertarian principles of 1917. The survival of Lenin's government looked improbable. However, the out-break of major civil war in July 1918 gave it a new lease of life, forcing people to choose between imperfect revolution, represented by the Bolsheviks, or out-and-out counter-revolution, represented by the opposition (called the Whites). Most opted for the former but, once the Whites were defeated in 1920, tensions re-emerged and a series of uprisings against the Soviet government took place.

The Final Years (1922 - 1924)

Lenin's solution to the post - civil war crisis was his last major intervention in politics, because his health began to fail from 1922 onwards, exacerbated by the bullet wounds left after an assassination attempt in August 1918. The key problem in the crisis was peasant disaffection with the grain appropriation system. Lenin replaced requisitioning by a tax-in-kind, which in turn necessitated the partial restoration of market relations. Nonetheless, the state retained the commanding heights of the economy, including large factories, transport, taxation, and foreign trade. The result was known as the New Economic Policy. It was Lenin's third attempt at a form of transition. The first, outlined in the April Theses, was based on "Soviet supervision of production and distribution," a system that had collapsed within the first months of Bolshevik power. The second, later called war communism, was based on iron discipline, state control of the economy, and grain requisitioning. Lenin believed his third solution was the correct one, arrived at through the test of reality. It was accompanied by intellectual and political repression and the imposition of a one-party state on the grounds that concession to bourgeois economic interests gave the revolution's enemies greater power that had to be counteracted by greater political and intellectual control by the party. Lenin remained enthusiastic about the NEP, and did not live to see the complications that ensued in the mid-1920s.

In his last writings, produced during his bouts of convalescence from a series of increasingly severe strokes beginning in May 1922, Lenin laid down a number of guidelines for his successors. These included a cultural revolution to modernize the peasantry (On Co-operation, January 1923) and a modest reorganization of the bureaucracy to get it under control ("Better Fewer but Better," March 1923, his last article). In his "Testament" (Letter to the Congress, December 1922), Lenin argued that the party should not, in future, antagonize the peasantry. Most controversially, however, he summed up the candidates for succession without clearly supporting any one of them. His criticism of Stalin - that he had accumulated much power and Lenin was not confident that he would use it wisely - was strengthened in January of 1923, after Stalin argued with Krupskaya. Lenin called for Stalin to be removed as General Secretary, a post to which Lenin had only promoted him in 1922. There was no suggestion that Stalin should be removed from the Politburo or Central Committee. In any case, Lenin was too ill to follow through on his suggestions, thereby opening up vast speculation as to whether he might have prevented Stalin from coming to power had he lived longer.

Lenin's last year was spent at his country residence near Moscow. In the company of Nadezhda Krupskaya and his sisters, he lived out his last months being read to and taken on walks in his wheelchair. In October 1923 he even had enough energy to return for a last look around his Kremlin office, despite the guard's initial refusal to admit him because he did not have an up-to-date pass. However, his health continued to deteriorate, and he died on the evening of January 21, 1924.

Bibliography

Carrère d'Encausse, Hélène. (1982). Lenin: Revolution and Power. London: Longman.

Claudin-Urondo, Carmen. (1977). Lenin and the Cultural Revolution. Sussex and Totowa, New Jersey: Harvester Press/Humanities Press.

Harding, Neil. (1981). Lenin's Political Thought. 2 vols. London: Macmillan.

Harding, Neil. (1991). Leninism. London: Macmillan.

Krupskaya, Nadezhda. (1970). Memories of Lenin. London: Panther.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (1960-1980) Collected Works. 47 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. (1967). Selected Works. 3 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

Lewin, Moshe. (1968). Lenin's Last Struggle. New York: Random House.

Pipes, Richard. (1996). The Unknown Lenin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Read, Christopher. (2003). Lenin: A Revolutionary Life. London: Routledge.

Service, Robert. (1994). Lenin: A Political Life. 3 vols. London: Macmillan.

Service, Robert. (2000). Lenin: a Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Shub, David. (1966). Lenin. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Ulam, Adam. (1969). Lenin and the Bolsheviks. London: Fontana/Collins.

Volkogonov, Dmitril. (1995). Lenin: Life and Legacy, ed. Harold Shukman. London: Harper Collins.

Weber, Gerda, and Weber, Hermann. (1980). Lenin: Life and Work. London: Macmillan.

White, James. (2000). Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution. London: Palgrave.

Williams, Beryl. (2000). Lenin. London: Harlow Long-man.

—CHRISTOPHER READ

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin founded the Russian Communist party and led the 1917 Russian Revolution, which placed the Bolshevik party in charge of the government. The establishment of the Soviet Union can be traced to Lenin's study of revolution and the ruthless imposition of a one-party state based on Lenin's interpretation of Marxism. The Russian Revolution also profoundly affected U.S. society and politics.

Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, a town on the Volga River. The son of a government official, Lenin was a bright student. He entered Kazan University at Kazan in 1887. That same year his brother Alexander Ulyanov was hanged for taking part in an unsuccessful plot to kill Czar Alexander III, of Russia. Lenin was deeply influenced by his brother's actions. Within three months, he was expelled from school for protesting the lack of freedom in the university. He moved to St. Petersburg and entered St. Petersburg University, from which he graduated with a law degree in 1891.

During his academic period, Lenin studied the works of Karl Marx and his political philosophy, Marxism. In 1893 Lenin joined the Social Democratic group, which believed in Marxist principles. A gifted writer and speaker, Lenin soon traveled to Western Europe to meet with other Marxists. He was arrested by the czar's police in 1896 for revolutionary activities and sent into Siberian exile in 1897. During his exile Lenin wrote one of his most important works, The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899).

Lenin was allowed to leave Russia in 1900. He traveled to Germany, where he began writing for a revolutionary newspaper called Zarya (Dawn), which was smuggled into Russia. He took the pen name Lenin at this time, hoping to confuse the police. In 1902 he wrote what is considered a masterpiece of revolutionary organization, What Is to Be Done? In this work Lenin advocated the use of a highly disciplined party of professional revolutionaries to lead the masses in an uprising against czarist Russia. This revolutionary party would serve as the "vanguard of the proletariat." It would also assume supreme control during this revolutionary period.

Disputes within Russian revolutionary circles over Lenin's ideas led to a split in 1903 between Lenin's Bolshevik party and the Menshevik party, which favored moderation. Bolsheviks followed Lenin's instructions to commit acts of terrorism within Russia. They also worked hard to organize trade union members and Russian sailors and soldiers.

During most of World War I, Lenin stayed in Switzerland. When revolution broke out in Russia in March 1917, Lenin returned with the aid of Germany, which hoped he would gain power and agree to a peace treaty. Accused of being a German agent by the provisional government, Lenin fled to Finland. He returned to Russia secretly in October 1917 and led the October Revolution, which toppled the provisional government and placed the Bolsheviks in charge.

Once in power Lenin moved quickly to eliminate all political opposition. He organized the Red Army (named after the color of the flag of the world Communist movement). The Red Army fought a civil war with the Whites, who opposed one-party and one-man rule by Lenin. The civil war ended in 1922, with the defeat of the White Army. During this period the U.S. government supported the Whites, fearing that the Russian Revolution was a prelude to further Communist revolutions in Europe. This fear seemed confirmed in 1919 when Lenin formed the Communist International to export revolution to the rest of the world.

In 1919 and 1920, U.S. anxiety about the Russian Revolution and the dictatorship of Lenin produced a national hysteria that has come to be known as the first Red scare. President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer created an antiradicalism unit and appointed J. Edgar Hoover to run it. In late 1919 and early 1920, Palmer raided suspected revolutionaries and subversives. Most of these suspects were not U.S. citizens. The largest "Palmer raid" occurred on January 2, 1920, when six thousand people were arrested. Palmer's agents abused the constitutional rights of these people, searching homes without warrants, holding individuals without giving specific charges, and refusing access to legal counsel. Many aliens were deported because of their radical political views.

Lenin's revolutionary zeal was tempered by the need to defeat the Whites and to establish a national government in the wake of the loss of lives and resources in World War I. Faced with economic ruin, Lenin instituted in March 1921 his New Economic Policy. This policy abandoned many socialist measures and permitted the growth of small businesses. Lenin also tried to get the United States and Europe to invest in the Soviet Union, but was refused because the Soviets had repudiated all foreign debts. The United States did, however, through its Commission for Relief, provide large amounts of food that may have helped save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Lenin's last years were marked by failing health and a concern about the direction of the Communist party and the Soviet Union. He worried about the increasing strength of the political bureaucracy and about Joseph Stalin's plottings to succeed him. In May 1922 he suffered a stroke, then returned to work against his doctor's advice. He suffered additional strokes in November 1922 and March 1923, the last one destroying his ability to speak clearly. Lenin died January 24, 1924, physically unable to appoint his successor. His body was preserved using special chemicals and placed in a tomb on Red Square in Moscow.

See: communism.

A Russian revolutionary leader of the early twentieth century, highly honored in the former Soviet Union as the founder of the modern Soviet state. Lenin, a founder of the Bolshevik party, contributed much to the success of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Lenin held that a dedicated group of intellectuals had to spearhead the revolution. He became chief of government of the Soviet Union after the revolution and served until his death in 1924. Joseph Stalin succeeded him. Lenin's real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

Quotes:

"Despair is typical of those who do not understand the causes of evil, see no way out, and are incapable of struggle. The modern industrial proletariat does not belong to the category of such classes."

"It is true that liberty is precious. So precious that it must be rationed."

"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners."

"When one makes a Revolution, one cannot mark time; one must always go forward -- or go back. He who now talks about the freedom of the press goes backward, and halts our headlong course towards Socialism."

"Any cook should be able to run the country."

"All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else."

See more famous quotes by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Владимир Ильич Ленин
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
In office 8 November 1917 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by	Alexander Kerensky (as President of the Provisional Government)
Succeeded by	Alexei Rykov (Joseph Stalin as Supreme Leader)
Leader of the Bolshevik Party
In office 17 November 1903 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Joseph Stalin (as General Secretary)
Born	22 April 1870(1870-04-22) Simbirsk, Russian Empire as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
Died	21 January 1924 (aged 53) Gorki, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Russian
Political party	Bolshevik Party
Spouse	Nadezhda Krupskaya
Profession	Politician, Revolutionary, Lawyer
Religion	None (Atheist[1])
Signature

"Lenin" redirects here. For other uses, see Lenin (disambiguation).

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Владимир Ильич Ленин) (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924), born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and commonly known by the names V. I. Lenin or simply Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, Bolshevik leader, communist politician, principal leader of the October Revolution and the first head of the Soviet Union. In 1998, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.^[2] His contributions to Marxist theory are commonly referred to as Leninism.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Revolutionary activity, travel and exile 3 Return to Russia 4 Head of the Soviet State 4.1 Creation of the Soviet state security organization 4.2 Assassination attempts 4.3 Lenin against Anti-Semitism 4.4 Social reforms 4.5 Red Terror 4.6 Russian Communist Party and Civil War 5 Later life and death 6 After death 6.1 Censorship of Lenin in the Soviet Union 7 Writings 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Notes 9.2 Further reading 10 External links 10.1 Selected works

Early life

Lenin's Room in Simbirsk, 1878 to 1887 by Vladimir Gavrilovich Krikhatzkij

At age three

c. 1887

Born in Simbirsk – later renamed Ulyanovsk after its most famous son – beside the Volga River in the Russian Empire, Lenin was the son of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov and Maria Alexandrovna Blank.^[3]

Lenin's father worked as an inspector, and later as the Director of the public schools in the Simbirsk Gubernia (Province). His mother was a house-wife. His father eventually became a successful Russian official in public education who wanted democracy. The family was of mixed ethnicity, his ancestry being "Russian, Mordovian, Kalmyk, Jewish (see Blank family), Volgan German, and Swedish, and possibly others" according to biographer Dmitri Volkogonov.They imparted to their children a hostility toward all violations of human rights, an active hatred for servile psychology and an active readiness to struggle for higher ideals, free society and equal rights. Subsequently all the Ulyanov children except for Olga (she died at age 19) set out on the path of revolutionary struggle. ^[4] Lenin was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church. In January 1886, Lenin's father, a schoolmaster, died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and, in May 1887, when Lenin was 17 years old, his eldest brother Alexander was arrested and hanged for participating in a terrorist bomb plot threatening the life of Tsar Alexander III.^[5]

His sister Anna, who was with Alexander at the time of his arrest, was banished to his family estate in the village of Kokushkino, about 40 km (25 mi) from Kazan.

These events radicalized Lenin, and his official Soviet biographies describe them as being central to the revolutionary track of his life. It is also significant, perhaps, that this emotional upheaval transpired in the same year he enrolled at the Kazan State University.

As Lenin became interested in Marxism, he was involved in student protests and was subsequently arrested. He was then expelled from Kazan University for his political ideals. He continued to study independently, however, and it was during this period of exile that he first familiarized himself with Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

Lenin was later permitted to continue his studies, this time at the University of Saint Petersburg, and, by 1891, had been admitted to the Bar.^[6]

In January 1892, Lenin was awarded a first class degree in law by the University.^[7] He also distinguished himself in Latin and Greek, and learned German, French and English, although his knowledge of the latter two languages was limited: he relied on Inessa Armand to translate an article into French and into English in 1917. In the same year he also wrote to S. N. Ravich in Geneva, "I am unable to lecture in French."^[8]

Revolutionary activity, travel and exile

Lenin's mug shot, December 1895

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Lenin practiced as a lawyer for some years in Samara, a port on the Volga river,^[9] before moving to St Petersburg in 1893. Rather than pursuing a legal career, he became increasingly involved in revolutionary propaganda efforts, joining the local Marxist group. This group was called the "League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class", founded by Lenin in 1895 on the basis of the unification of all Marxist circles in St. Petersburg. The "League of Struggle" was the embryo of the revolutionary party of the proletariat. It was closely associated in its activities with workers' circles in other cities in Russia. On 7 December 1895, Lenin was arrested, detained by authorities for 14 months, in cell 193 of the St Petersburg Remand Prison. V.I. Lenin was held in solitary confinement for those 14 months after his arrest in December 1895. In February 1897 V.I.Lenin was exiled from St. Petersburg to village Shushenskoye in the Minusinsk district of the Yenisei Gubernia (Province) in Eastern Siberia. At the time this was the very remotest depths of the provinces, hundreds of miles from a railroad. Here he mingled with such notable Marxists as Georgy Plekhanov, who had introduced socialism to Russia.Lenin wrote more than 30 theoretical works during his years of exile. One of these, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, was worked on during these years in exile and finished in Shushenskoye. It was published in 1899 under the pseudonym "Vladimir llyin".^[10]

In July 1898, Lenin married socialist activist Nadezhda Krupskaya and published the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia in April 1899.^[11] In 1900, his exile ended, and he began travels throughout Russia and Europe. He lived in Zurich, Geneva (where he lectured and studied at Geneva University), Munich, Prague, Vienna, Manchester and London. During this time, he co-founded the newspaper Iskra ("Spark") with Julius Martov, who later became a leading opponent. He also wrote several articles and books related to the revolutionary movement, striving to recruit future Social Democrats. He began using various aliases, finally settling upon "Lenin"—"N. Lenin" in full. (The Western press often called him "Nikolai Lenin", perhaps on the mistaken assumption that N. stood for Nikolai; however, he was virtually never referred to by this name in Russia or the Soviet Union, and Lenin himself never used it as a pseudonym.)

Lenin was active in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; РСДРП in Russian) and, in 1903, led the Bolshevik faction after a split with the Mensheviks. The names "Bolshevik", or "Majority", and "Menshevik", or "Minority", referred to the narrow outvoting of the Mensheviks in the decision to limit party membership to revolutionary professionals, rather than including sympathizers. The division was inspired partly by Lenin's book What Is to Be Done? (1901–02), which focused on his revolutionary strategy. It is said to have been one of the most influential books in pre-revolutionary Russia, with Lenin himself claiming that three out of five workers had either read it or had had it read to them.^[12]

1920 photo of Lenin's rented house in Zurich, Switzerland

2008 photo of the house

Memorial plate

In November 1905, Lenin returned from exile to Russia to support the 1905 Russian Revolution.^[13] In 1906, Lenin was elected to the Presidium of the RSDLP. At this time he shuttled between Finland and Russia but, in December 1907, with the revolution crushed by the Tsarist authorities, he returned to exile.^[14] Until the revolutions of 1917, he spent most of his time in Europe, where, despite relative poverty, he managed to continue his political writings.^[15]

In response to philosophical debates on the proper course of a socialist revolution, Lenin completed Materialism and Empirio-criticism in 1909—a work which became fundamental in the Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Lenin continued to travel in Europe and participated in many socialist meetings and activities, including the Prague Party Conference of 1912. When Inessa Armand left Russia and settled in Paris, she met Lenin and other Bolsheviks living in exile, and it is believed that she was Lenin's lover during this time. But, as writer Neil Harding points out, although much has been made of this relationship, despite the "slender stock of evidence ... we still have no evidence that they were sexually intimate".^[16]

When World War I began in 1914, the large Social Democratic parties of Europe (at that time self-described as Marxist, and including luminaries such as Karl Kautsky) supported their various countries' war efforts. This absolutely stunned Lenin, and at first he refused to believe that the German Social Democrats had voted for war credits. This led him to a final split with the Second International, which was composed of these parties. Lenin opposed the war, believing that the peasants and workers were fighting the battle of the bourgeoisie for them. He adopted the stance that what he described as an "imperialist war" ought to be turned into a civil war between the classes. As war broke out, Lenin was briefly detained by the Austrian authorities in the town of Poronin, where he resided at the time. On 5 September 1914, Lenin moved to neutral Switzerland, residing first at Berne and then Zurich.^[17] In 1915, he attended the anti-war Zimmerwald Conference, convened in the Swiss town of that name. Lenin was the main leader of the minority Zimmerwald Left, who unsuccessfully urged against the majority pacifists that the conference should adopt Lenin's stance of converting the imperialist war into a class war. Lenin and the Zimmerwald Left urged a similar resolution at the next anti-war conference, also held in Switzerland at Kienthal (24-30 April 1916), but in the end settled for a compromise manifesto.^[18]

It was in Zurich in the spring of 1916 that Lenin wrote the notable theoretical work Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which ironically popularized Kautsky's take in the 1900s.^[19] In this work Lenin argues that the merging of banks and industrial cartels give rise to finance capital. According to Lenin, in the last stage of capitalism, in pursuit of greater profits than the home market can offer, capital is exported. This leads to the division of the world between international monopolist firms and to European states colonizing large parts of the world in support of their businesses. Imperialism is thus an advanced stage of capitalism, one relying on the rise of monopolies and on the export of capital (rather than goods), and of which colonialism is one feature.^[20]

Return to Russia

Locomotive of Lenin's train, on which he arrived at Finland Station, Petrograd in April 1917

After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin realized that he must return to Russia as soon as possible, but this was problematic because he was isolated in neutral Switzerland as the First World War raged throughout neighboring states. The Swiss communist Fritz Platten nonetheless managed to negotiate with the German government for Lenin and his company to travel through Germany by rail, on the so-called "sealed train". The German government clearly hoped Lenin's return would create political unrest in Russia, which would help to end the war on the Eastern front, allowing Germany to concentrate on defeating the Western allies. Once through Germany, Lenin continued by ferry to Sweden; the remainder of the journey through Scandinavia was subsequently arranged by Swedish communists Otto Grimlund and Ture Nerman.

On 16 April 1917, Lenin arrived by train to a tumultuous reception at Finland Station, in Petrograd.^[21] He immediately took a leading role within the Bolshevik movement, publishing the April Theses,^[22] which called for an uncompromising opposition to the Provisional Government. Initially, Lenin isolated his party through this lurch to the left. However, this uncompromising stand meant that the Bolsheviks were to become the obvious home for all those who became disillusioned with the provisional government, and with the "luxury of opposition" the Bolsheviks did not have to assume responsibility for any policies implemented by the government.^[23]

Lenin disguised as "Vilén", wearing a wig and his goatee shaved off. Finland, 11 August 1917

Meanwhile, Aleksandr Kerensky, Grigory Aleksinsky and other opponents of the Bolsheviks accused them and Lenin in particular of being paid German agents.^[24] In response Leon Trotsky, a prominent new Bolshevik leader, made a defensive speech on 17 July, saying:

An intolerable atmosphere has been created, in which you as well as we are choking. They are throwing dirty accusations at Lenin and Zinoviev. Lenin has fought thirty years for the revolution. I have fought twenty years against the oppression of the people. And we cannot but cherish a hatred for German militarism. ... I have been sentenced by a German court to eight months' imprisonment for my struggle against German militarism. This everybody knows. Let nobody in this hall say that we are hirelings of Germany.^[25]

After the turmoil of the July Days, when workers and soldiers in the capital clashed with government troops, Lenin had to flee to Finland for safety, to avoid arrest by Kerensky. The Bolsheviks had not arranged the July Uprising. The time was still not ripe for revolution, claimed Lenin: the workers in the city were willing, but the Bolsheviks still needed to wait for the support of the peasants. During his short time in Finland, Lenin finished his book State and Revolution,^[26] which called for a new form of government based on workers' councils, or soviets, elected and revocable at all moments by the workers. After an abortive coup attempt by General Kornilov in late August, the masses rallied to the Bolsheviks and their programme of "peace, land, bread".^[27] Imprisoned Bolshevik leaders were released and Lenin returned to Petrograd in October, inspiring the October Revolution with the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!". Lenin directed the overthrow of the Provisional Government from the Smolny Institute between 6 and 8 November 1917. The storming and capitulation of the Winter Palace on the night of the 7th to 8th of November marked the beginning of Soviet rule.

Head of the Soviet State

Lenin and his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, in 1919

On 8 November 1917, Lenin was elected the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Russian Congress of Soviets.

"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country,"^[28] Lenin said, emphasizing the importance of bringing electricity to all corners of Russia and modernizing industry and agriculture:

We must show the peasants that the organisation of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism.^[29]

He initiated and supervised the devising and realisation of the GOELRO plan, the first-ever Soviet project for national economic recovery and development. He was very concerned about creating a free universal health care system for all, the rights of women, and teaching the illiterate Russian people to read and write.^[30] But first, the new Bolshevik government needed to take Russia out of the World War.

Faced with the imposing threat of a continuing German advance eastwards, Lenin argued that Russia should immediately sign a peace treaty. Other Bolshevik leaders, such as Bukharin, advocated continuing the war as a means of fomenting revolution in Germany. Trotsky, who led the negotiations, advocated an intermediate position, of "No War, No Peace", calling for a peace treaty only on the conditions that no territorial gains on either side be consolidated. After the negotiations collapsed, the Germans renewed their advance, resulting in the loss of much of Russia's western territory. As a result, Lenin's position gained the support of the majority in the Bolshevik leadership. On 3 March 1918, Lenin removed Russia from World War I by agreeing to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, under which Russia lost significant territories in Europe.

Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Kalinin, 1919

The Russian Constituent Assembly was shut down during its first session 19 January and the Bolsheviks in alliance with the left Socialist Revolutionaries then relied on support from the soviets. The Bolsheviks had formed a coalition government with the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries. However, their coalition collapsed after the Social Revolutionaries opposed the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and joined other parties in seeking to overthrow the Bolshevik government. Lenin responded by a policy of wholesale persecution, which included jailing some of the members of the opposing parties.

From early 1918, Lenin campaigned for putting a single individual, accountable to the state, in charge of each enterprise. Workers could ask the state for measures, but would have to obey this individual until this was changed by the state. This was contrary to most conceptions of workers' self-management, but essential for efficiency and expertise, according to Lenin. Most proponents of self-management argued that this move was intended to strengthen state control over labour, and that the failures of self-management were mostly due to lack of resources—a problem the government could not solve, as proved by Lenin's licensing for a month of all workers of most factories. As S.A. Smith wrote: "By the end of the civil war, not much was left of the democratic forms of industrial administration promoted by the factory committees in 1917, but the government argued that this did not matter since industry had passed into the ownership of a workers' state."

Lenin had a certain admiration for the Irish socialist revolutionary James Connolly, and the Soviet Union was the first country to recognize the Irish Free State which fought a war of independence against Britain. He would often meet with the famous revolutionary's son, Roddy Connolly and developed a close friendship with him.

Creation of the Soviet state security organization

Lenin in his Kremlin office, 1918

Main article: Cheka

To protect the newly-established Bolshevik government from counterrevolutionaries and other political opponents, the Bolsheviks created a state security organization, the "Cheka" (Extraordinary Commission), in December 1917.^[31]

The Bolsheviks had planned to hold a trial for the former tsar, Nicholas II. But in July 1918, the White Army advanced on Yekaterinburg where the former royal family was being held. So, Yakov Sverdlov acceded to the request of the local Soviet to execute the Tsar right away, rather than having him freed by the Whites. The Tsar and the rest of his immediate family were executed. Whether this was a decision of the central government or the local Soviet is disputed by historians. According to King and Wilson in The Fate of the Romanovs (2003), Lenin was informed about the execution only after it had taken place, but did not criticize it.^[32] But according to Orlando Figes in A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924 (1997) and Dmitri Volkogonov in Lenin: A New Biography (1994), the order to execute the Romanovs came from the Party leadership in Moscow.^[33][34]

Censorship was quickly imposed, and it was up to the Cheka to confiscate the literature of dissident workers: "[On] 17 November the Central Executive Committee passed a decree giving the Bolsheviks control over all newsprint and wide powers of closing down newspapers critical of the regime..." (Leonard Shapiro, The Communist Party of the Soviet Union). Workers were re-forming independent soviets; the Cheka broke them up. Independent newspapers criticized Lenin's government; the Cheka closed them down, until the Bolshevik-controlled Pravda and Izvestia had a monopoly on the supply of news. Shapiro asserts that "The refusal to come to terms with the socialists and the dispersal of the Constituent assembly led to the logical result that revolutionary terror would now be directed not only against traditional enemies, such as the bourgeoisie or right-wing opponents, but against anyone, be he socialist, worker or peasant, who opposed Bolshevik rule."

Assassination attempts

Lenin and Fritz Platten in 1919

On 14 January 1918, an assassination attempt on Lenin was made in his car in Petrograd by unrecognizable gunmen. Lenin and Fritz Platten were in the back of the car together, after having given a public speech. When the shooting started, "Platten grabbed Lenin by the head and pushed him down. ... Platten's hand was covered in blood, having been grazed by a bullet as he was shielding Lenin."^[35]

On 30 August 1918, Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, approached Lenin after he had spoken at a meeting and was on the way to his car. He had his foot on the running board. She called out to Lenin, who turned to answer. She allegedly immediately fired three shots hitting Lenin twice: one bullet, relatively harmless, lodged in the arm; the second round, more seriously entering at the juncture of Lenin's jaw and neck, the third shot striking a woman who was talking with Lenin when the shooting began.^[36] Lenin fell to the ground, unconscious. He was taken to his apartment in the Kremlin, refusing to venture to a hospital since he believed that other assassins would be waiting there. Doctors were summoned but decided that it was too dangerous to remove the bullets. While Lenin began his slow recovery, Pravda ridiculed Kaplan as a latter-day Charlotte Corday; assuring its readers that immediately after the shooting: "Lenin, shot through twice, with pierced lungs, spilling blood, refuses help and goes on his own. The next morning, still threatened with death, he reads papers, listens, learns, and observes to see that the engine of the locomotive that carries us towards global revolution has not stopped working..."^[37] Although Lenin had no "pierced lungs", the potentially fatal neck-jaw wound had allowed blood to enter one of his lungs, which is still a very serious condition.^[38]

Other than similar exhortation by the press, little was revealed to the Russian public – either about the attempted assassination, the suspect, or Lenin's condition. Richard Pipes, Professor Emeritus at Harvard wrote, "The impression one gains ... is that the Bolsheviks deliberately underplayed the event to convince the public that whatever happened to Lenin, they were firmly in control."

Popular reaction to the assassination attempt was described at the time by Leonid Krasin, who wrote to his wife on 7 Sept 1918:

As it happens, the attempt to kill Lenin has made him much more popular than he was. One hears a great many people who are far from having any sympathy with the Bolsheviks, saying that it would be an absolute disaster if Lenin had succumbed to his wounds, as it was first thought he would. And they are quite right, for in the midst of all this chaos and confusion he is the backbone of the new body politic, the main support on which everything rests."^[39]

A personal cult of Lenin, which he himself tried to discourage, began with this incident.^[40] Lenin's health declined from this point. Some believe that the incident contributed to his later strokes.

Lenin against Anti-Semitism

Lenin was intrigued with technology, and in 1919 recorded eight of his speeches on gramophone records. Seven were later re-recorded and put on sale in the Khrushchev era. Significantly, the one which was suppressed outlined Lenin's feelings on anti-Semitism:^[41]

The Tsarist police, in alliance with the landowners and the capitalists, organized pogroms against the Jews. The landowners and capitalists tried to divert the hatred of the workers and peasants who were tortured by want against the Jews. ... Only the most ignorant and downtrodden people can believe the lies and slander that are spread about the Jews. ... It is not the Jews who are the enemies of the working people. The enemies of the workers are the capitalists of all countries. Among the Jews there are working people, and they form the majority. They are our brothers, who, like us, are oppressed by capital; they are our comrades in the struggle for socialism. Among the Jews there are kulaks, exploiters and capitalists, just as there are among the Russians, and among people of all nations... Rich Jews, like rich Russians, and the rich in all countries, are in alliance to oppress, crush, rob and disunite the workers... Shame on accursed Tsarism which tortured and persecuted the Jews. Shame on those who foment hatred towards the Jews, who foment hatred towards other nations.^[42]

Social reforms

Alexandra Kollontai and fellow feminist revolutionary Inessa Armand in 1919 together established the Zhenotdel (Женотдел), the first government department for women in the world. Lenin's administration was also one of the first governments to decriminalize homosexuality in 1917. The Russian Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws. The initial Soviet criminal code kept these liberal sexual policies in place.^[43] But a decade later Stalin reversed this, and homosexuality remained illegal under Article 121 until the Yeltsin era.

Red Terror

Main article: Red Terror

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Lenin with Trotsky and soldiers in Petrograd, 1921

After the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917, Anti-Communists grouped themselves loosely into the "White Movement". In 1918, fighting, known as the Russian Civil War, erupted between the White Movement and the revolutionary regime, the newly created Russian SFSR. It carried out mass arrests and summary executions that became known as the White Terror. The Red Terror was claimed to be introduced in reply to the White Terror. Following the assassination attempt on Lenin and the assassination of Petrograd chief of secret police Moisei Uritsky, Stalin, in a telegram argued that a policy of "open and systematic mass terror" be instigated against "those responsible". The other Bolsheviks agreed, and instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky, whom Lenin had appointed to head the Cheka in 1917, to commence a "Red Terror", which was officially announced to the public on 1 September 1918, by the Bolshevik newspaper, Krasnaya Gazeta.^[44] According to Christopher Read, at this time, due to the assassination attempt by Kaplan, Lenin was lying severely wounded in the hospital and was too ill to advise retaliatory measures.^[45] But, according to MI5's official historian at the University of Cambridge, Christopher Andrew, and Richard Pipes, while recovering from his wounds, Lenin instructed: "It is necessary - secretly and urgently to prepare the terror."^[46][47] According to Pipes, Lenin's Hanging Order, which was translated and published by Robert Service Professor of history at Oxford ^[48] claims that Lenin himself ordered terror on 11 August 1918, before he was fired on.^[49]

The Cheka killed and abused their victims without mercy, says historian Robert Gellately. In his book, Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe,^[50] Gellately, Earl Ray Beck Professor of History at Florida State University, claims that suspected enemies could expect brutal torture, flogging, maiming or execution. Some were shot, others drowned, frozen, buried alive, or hacked to death by swords, and quite often those about to be executed were forced to dig their own graves, Gellately claims.^[51] Many lurid and often embellished accounts of these atrocities were produced. A British observer claimed that "The evidence of wholesale executions...of the cold-blooded and refined tortures carried out by Chinese experts and of the revolting sadism of young Jewesses is irrefutable".^[52] Historians Serge Petrovich Melgunov, who supported the armed overthrow of the Bolsheviks, W. Bruce Lincoln and George Leggett also claim that these atrocities occurred.^[53][54][55] Orlando Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck College and who has also written extensively against communism, claims the torture practiced by the Chekas was matched only by the Spanish Inquisition.^[56]

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The only published Soviet statistics regarding Cheka executions are the semi-official ones provided by the Chekist Martin Latsis, limited to RSFSR over the period 1918–1920, giving the grand total of 12,733 executed, including 3,082 for taking part in rebellions, 2,024 for membership of counter-revolutionary organisations, 643 for gangsterism, 455 for incitement to revolution, 206 for corruption, 102 for desertion and the same number for espionage.^[57] These statistics are considered by many scholars to be understatements, as they do not embrace the war zones of the Ukraine or the Crimea.^[58] In the latter at least 50,000 people were shot or hanged after General Wrangel was put down at the end of 1920, according to Robert Gellately.^[59] Some historians estimate that between 1917 and 1922 up to 280,000 people were killed by the Chekas, of which about half perished through summary executions and the other half through the suppression of rebellions (e.g. Tambov Rebellion).^[60] Orlando Figes goes so far as to assert that it is possible more people were killed by the Cheka than died in battle.^[61] Professor R.J. Rummel blames Lenin for a total of over 4 million "democides."^[62]

According to the Black Book of Communism, in May 1919 there were 16,000 people in labour camps based on the old Tsarist katorga labour camps, and in September 1921 there were more than 70,000.^[63] Conditions in these camps led to high mortality rates, and there were "repeated massacres"^[64] Occasionally, entire prisons were "emptied" of inmates via mass shootings prior to abandoning a town to White forces.^[65][66]

According to Figes, Lenin had always been an advocate of "mass terror against enemies of the revolution" and was open about his view that the proletarian state was a system of organized violence against the capitalist establishment. Figes also claims that the terror, while encouraged by the Bolsheviks, had its roots in a popular anger against the privileged.^[67] When Kamenev and Bukharin tried to curb the "excesses" of the Cheka in late 1918, it was Lenin who defended it.^[68] In 1921, the Politboro, chaired by Lenin, expanded the Cheka's use of the death penalty.^[69]

Lenin remained an advocate of mass terror, according to Richard Pipes. In a letter of 19 March 1922, to Molotov and the members of the Politburo, following an uprising by the clergy in the town of Shuia, Lenin outlined a brutal plan of action against the clergy and their followers, who were defying the government decree to remove church valuables: "We must (...) put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades. (...) The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing (...) the better."^[70] Estimates of the numbers of the clergy killed vary. According to Figes^[71] and The Black Book of Communism,^[72] 2,691 priests, 1,962 monks and 3,447 nuns were executed as a result of Lenin's aforementioned directives. Historian Christopher Read estimates from the records that a grand total of 1,023 clergy were killed in the whole period 1917-23.^[73] However, the late Alexander Yakovlev, the architect of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) and later head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, cites documents that confirm that nearly 3,000 were shot in 1918 alone.^[74] Yakovlev stated that Lenin was "By every norm of international law, posthumously indictable for crimes against humanity."^[75]

In September 1918, during the Red Terror, 25 former tsarist ministers and high civil servants, along with 765 so-called White Guards, were shot in Moscow. Lenin personally signed the execution lists, which, according to historian Robert Gellately, "invented another tradition that was carried out under Stalin."^[76] David Remnick, pulitzer prize winning author of Lenin's Tomb, writes in a Time Magazine piece that Lenin paved the way not only for his successor, but also for Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot.^[2]

"Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth", a Communist poster from 1920

During the Civil War, atrocities were carried out by both Reds and Whites.^[77] According to historian Christopher Read, the numbers killed by the White forces were on a comparable scale to the Bolsheviks and probably numbered hundreds of thousands.^[78] For instance, the Whites killed 115,000 Ukrainian Jews in 1919 alone.^[79] But, according to The Black Book of Communism, the two types of terror were not on the same level. The Red Terror, which was official policy, was more systematic, better organized, and targeted at whole social classes (i.e. Decossackization). The White Terror was never systematized in such a way, and was almost invariably the work of detachments that were taking measures not authorized by the military command.^[80] Professor Donald Rayfield asserts that only Roman Ungern von Sternberg, Nestor Makhno and some Cossack forces used terror on a scale comparable to the Red Terror.^[81] However, according to historian Evan Mawdsley, the White general Anton Denikin "deserves criticism" for not fully condemning anti-Jewish pogroms.^[82] According to Lenin critic Robert Conquest, "Lenin's terror was the product of years of war and violence, of the collapse of society and administration, of the desperate acts of rulers precariously riding the flood, and fighting for control and survival. Stalin, on the contrary, attained complete control at a time when general conditions were calm."^[83]

The late Australian historian and leftist intellectual Manning Clark described Lenin as "Christ-like, at least in his compassion."^[84] Some of Lenin's own writings tend to contradict this view; like in "How to Organize the Competition," which proclaimed the common, united purpose of purging the Russian land of all kinds of "vermin, of fleas—the rogues, of bugs—the rich, and so on" and that "one out of every ten idlers will be shot on the spot,"^[85] although it should be noted that this essay, despite the appearance of having been written with the intent of being circulated among the Bolshevik ranks, was not circulated among the Bolsheviks, and remained in Lenin's drawers until following his death. In response to why Lenin chose to withhold it from publication, the historian Robert C. Tucker suggests that the article, composed around the time of the organization of the counterrevolutionary armies and just prior to the attempt on Lenin's life in January 1918, was a product of momentary excess: conceivably, Tucker proceeds to submit, it was Lenin "himself [who] was taken aback by its extremism when he reread it on returning from the brief vacation in Finland during which he wrote the essay."^[86] However, some of the telegrams he did send demanded terror, deportations, and executions. For example, to Fyodorov in Nizhny Novgorod (August 9, 1918): "We must make every effort, form a triumvirate of dictators (you, Markin, and someone else), impose mass terror immediately, shoot and deport hundreds of prostitutes who have been getting soldiers, former officers, and so on drunk. Not a minutes delay . . . We must take all out action: mass searches, executions for concealing weapons, mass deportations of Mensheviks and the unreliable."^[87] Christopher Hitchens, an ex-Marxist and former Trotskyist, also describes Lenin as "a great man."^[88] According to Hitchens: "One of Lenin's great achievements, in my opinion, is to create a secular Russia. The power of the Russian Orthodox Church, which was an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition, is probably never going to recover from what he did to it." ^[89] Some social democratic Marxists from Lenin's time, such as Yuliy Osipovich Martov and Karl Kautsky, were highly critical of his regime's prolific use of capital punishment, which Kautsky described as "terrorism".^[90][91] Russian Provisional Government minister Viktor Chernov described Lenin as "a virtual Robespierre."^[92]

Russian Communist Party and Civil War

Lenin giving a speech

Further information: On the Allies invasion of Russia: Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War Polar Bear Expedition, North Russia Campaign, American Expeditionary Force Siberia

In March 1919, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders met with revolutionary socialists from around the world and formed the Communist International. Members of the Communist International, including Lenin and the Bolsheviks themselves, broke off from the broader socialist movement. From that point onwards, they would become known as communists. In Russia, the Bolshevik Party was renamed the "Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)," which eventually became the CPSU.

Meanwhile, the civil war raged across Russia. A wide variety of political movements and their supporters took up arms to support or overthrow the Soviet Government. Although many different factions were involved in the civil war, the two main forces were the Red Army (communists) and the White Army (traditionalists). Foreign powers such as France, Britain, the United States and Japan also intervened in this war (on behalf of the White Army). Eventually, the more organisationally proficient Red Army, led by Leon Trotsky, won the civil war, defeating the White Russian forces and their allies in 1920. Smaller battles continued for several more years, however.

Trotsky, Lenin and Kamenev at the II Party Congress in 1919

The civil war has been described as "unprecedented for its savagery," with mass executions and other atrocities committed by both sides. Between battles, executions, famine and epidemics, many millions perished.^[93]

In late 1919, successes against the White Russian forces convinced Lenin that it was time to spread the revolution to the West, by force if necessary. When the newly independent Second Polish Republic began securing its eastern territories annexed by Russia in the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, it clashed with Bolshevik forces for dominance in these areas, which led to the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet War in 1919. With the revolution in Germany and the Spartacist League on the rise, Lenin viewed this as the perfect time and place to "probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army." Lenin saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to link up the Russian Revolution with the communist supporters in the German Revolution, and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe. However the defeat of Soviet Russia in the Battle of Warsaw invalidated these plans.

Lenin was a harsh critic of imperialism.^[94] In 1917, he declared the unconditional right of separation for national minorities and oppressed nations. However, when the Russian Civil War was won, he used military force to assimilate the newly independent states of Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.^[95] He argued that the inclusion of those countries in the newly emerging Soviet government would shelter them from capitalist imperial ambitions.^{[citation needed]}

Lenin with Stalin. Lenin warned that Stalin was becoming too powerful and called for him to be removed. This is a famously doctored photo. Stalin produced it while Lenin was ill in 1922-23 to establish his credentials as a communist leader.^[96]

During the civil war, the Bolsheviks adopted the policy of War Communism as an attempt to maintain food supply to the cities and the army in the conditions of economic collapse. That involved "requisitioning" supplies from the peasantry for little or nothing in exchange. This led the peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. Additionally, according to the official Bolshevik view which is still shared by some Marxists,^[97] rich peasants (kulaks) withheld grain in order to increase their profits  – statistics indicate that most of the grain and the other food supplies passed through the black market.^[98] Then, the Bolshevik requisitions came to affect the food that peasants had grown for their own subsistence and their seed grain. The resulting conflicts began with the Cheka and the army shooting hostages, and, according to The Black Book of Communism, ended with a second full-scale civil war against the peasantry, including the use of poison gas, death camps, and deportations. The same source emphasizes that in 1920, Lenin ordered increased emphasis on the food requisitioning from the peasantry, at the same time as the Cheka gave detailed reports about the large scale famine.^[99] The long war and a drought in 1921 also contributed to the famine. Estimates on the deaths from this famine are between 3 and 10 million.^[100][101]

The long years of war, the Bolshevik policy of War Communism, famine and the encirclement of hostile governments took their toll on Russia, and much of the country lay in ruins. There were many peasant uprisings, the largest being the Tambov rebellion. After an uprising by the sailors at Kronstadt in March 1921, Lenin replaced the policy of War Communism with the New Economic Policy (NEP), in a successful attempt to rebuild industry and especially agriculture. The new policy was based on recognition of political and economic realities, though it was intended merely as a tactical retreat from the socialist ideal. The whole policy was later reversed by Stalin.

Later life and death

Kamenev and Lenin at Gorki Leninskiye, 1922

Lenin paralyzed in a wheelchair, 1923

Lenin's health had already been severely damaged by the strains of revolution and war. The assassination attempt earlier in his life also added to his health problems. The bullet remained lodged in his neck until 24 April 1922, when a German doctor surgically removed it.^[102] In May 1922, Lenin had his first stroke. He was left partially paralyzed on his right side, and his role in government declined. After the second stroke in December of the same year, he resigned from active politics. In March 1923, he suffered his third stroke and was left bedridden for the remainder of his life, no longer able to speak.

After his first stroke, Lenin dictated to his wife several papers regarding the government. Most famous of these is Lenin's Testament, which was partially inspired by the 1922 Georgian Affair and among other things criticized top-ranking communists, including Joseph Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky. Of Stalin, who had been the Communist Party's general secretary since April 1922, Lenin said that he had "unlimited authority concentrated in his hands". He suggested that "comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post" because his rudeness would become "intolerable in a Secretary-General". Upon Lenin's death, his wife mailed his Testament to the central committee, to be read at the 13th Party Congress in May 1924. However, the committee and especially the ruling "triumvirate" – Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev – had a vested interest in not releasing the will to the wider public. Lenin's Testament was first officially published in 1925 in the United States by Max Eastman. In the same year, Trotsky wrote an article that downplayed its significance, stating that Lenin's notes should not be regarded as a "will" and had neither been concealed nor violated.^[103] He did invoke it in his polemic against Stalin on later occasions, while in exile.^[104][105]

Lenin died at 18:50 Moscow time on 21 January 1924, aged 53, at his estate in Gorki Leninskiye. Over 900,000 people passed through the Hall of Columns during the four days and nights that Lenin lay in state. Large sections of the population in other countries expressed their grief at the death of Lenin. Speaking at a memorial meeting, Chinese premier Sun Yat-sen said:

The last photo of Lenin, 1924

Through the ages of world history thousands of leaders and scholars appeared who spoke eloquent words, but these remained words. You, Lenin, were an exception. You not only spoke and taught us, but translated your words into deeds. You created a new country. You showed us the road of joint struggle... You, great man that you are, will live on in the memories of the oppressed people through the centuries.^[106]

Winston Churchill, who had supported the British interventionist forces which, in league with the Whites, had tried to suppress the Bolsheviks, later commented that:

He alone could have found the way back to the causeway...The Russian people were left floundering in the bog. Their worst misfortune was his birth...their next worst his death.^[107]

The city of Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor three days after Lenin's death. This remained the name of the city until the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, when it reverted to its original name, St. Petersburg, even though its administrative area kept the name (Leningrad Oblast)

During the early 1920s the Russian movement of cosmism was so popular that Leonid Krasin and Alexander Bogdanov proposed to cryonically preserve Lenin's body in order to revive him in the future.^[108] Necessary equipment was purchased abroad, but for a variety of reasons the plan was not realized.^[109] Instead his body was embalmed and placed on permanent exhibition in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow on 27 January 1924.

After death

The Lenin Mausoleum at Red Square, Moscow

Lenin's preserved body is on permanent display at the Lenin Mausoleum.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the level of reverence for Lenin in post-Soviet republics has declined considerably, though he is still considered an important figure by generations who grew up during the Soviet period.^[110] Most statues of Lenin have been torn down in Eastern Europe, but many still remain in Russia and ex-Soviet Central Asia. (One such statue was notably transferred from Poprad, Slovakia to Seattle, United States, where it now resides.) In 1991, following a close vote and political battles between communists and liberals, the city of Leningrad returned to its original name, St Petersburg, whilst the surrounding Leningrad Oblast retained Lenin's name.^[111] The citizens of Ulyanovsk, Lenin's birthplace, have so far resisted all attempts to revert its name to Simbirsk. The subject of interring Lenin's body has been a recurring topic for the past several years in Russia.

Vladimir Lenin, cartoon by Nikolai Bukharin, 1927

Censorship of Lenin in the Soviet Union

Lenin's writings were carefully censored under the Soviet state after his death. In the early 1930s, it became accepted dogma under Stalin to assume that neither Lenin nor the Central Committee could ever be wrong. Therefore, it was necessary to remove evidence of situations where Lenin and Stalin had actually disagreed, since in those situations it was impossible for both to have been right at the same time.^[112] Later, even the fifth "complete" Soviet edition of Lenin's works (published in 55 thick volumes between 1958 and 1965) left out parts that either contradicted dogma or showed their author in an unfavorable light.^[113]

Trotsky was a vocal critic of these practices, which he saw as a form of deification of a human being, something which went against the principles of Marxism.

Writings

Among the most significant of Lenin's writings are:

• The State and the Revolution" (1917) - Lenin exposes his interpretation of Marx and Engels writings, showing the base theory for the October Russian Revolution, and also makes strong opposition to social-democratic tendency.
• April Theses (1917) – Lenin claimed in his April Theses that a Socialist Revolution was necessary.
• What is to be done? (1903) – This detailed Lenin's vision for a "Vanguard" revolutionary party.
• Imperialism, the highest stage of Capitalism (1916) – Lenin believed that World War I was a capitalist affair that involved capitalist nations in competition for land and resources, as well as cheap labour.

See also

Anti-Leninism Enemy of the people Lenin's stance on anti-Semitism Human rights in the Soviet Union Lenin's Hanging Order Decossackization Lenin's national policy Leninade

Leninism List of statues of Lenin Russian Civil War Russian Revolution of 1917 Leningrad Ulyanovsk

References

Notes

1. ^ Chivers, C.J. "Russia Weighs What to Do With Lenin's Body" New York Times (October 5, 2005)
2. ^ ^{a b} Time 100: V.I. Lenin by David Remnick, 13 April 1998.
3. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin. Abingdon: Routledge: 4
4. ^ Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994). Lenin – A New Biography. Free Press. p. 8. ISBN 0-02-933435-7. 
5. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 16
6. ^ Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. London: Pan. ISBN 0-330-49139-3. 
7. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 18
8. ^ Danilov, Eugene (Moscow, 2007). Lenin: Secrets of Life and Death. Zebra E. p. 181. ISBN 978-5-17-043866-2. 
9. ^ J. Brooks and G. Chernyavskiy (2007) Lenin and the Making of the Soviet State. Bedford/St Martin's: Boston and New York
10. ^ Elizabeth Mauchline Roberts (1966) Lenin and the Downfall of Tsarist Russia: 28-9
11. ^ Lenin, V.I. (Written in 1896–1899; First printed in book form in March 1899; Published according to the text of the second edition, 1908). "The Development of Capitalism in Russia: The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale Industry". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/devel/index.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-16. 
12. ^ "What is to be done?". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/index.htm. 
13. ^ Christopher Read (1905) Lenin: 81
14. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 81
15. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 86
16. ^ Neil Harding, Lenin's Political Thought (1986), p250
17. ^ Ronald W. Clark (1988) Lenin: the Man Behind the Mask: 154
18. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 132-4
19. ^ V.I. Lenin (2000) Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. New Delhi: LeftWord Books: 34
20. ^ Paul Bowles (2007) Capitalism. Pearson: Harlow: 93
21. ^ Alan Moorehead, The Russian Revolution. New York: Harper (1958), pp. 183–187
22. ^ "April Theses". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04.htm. 
23. ^ Read, Christopher (1996). From Czar to Soviets: The Russian People and Their Revolution, 1917–21. Oxford University Press. pp. 151–153. ISBN 0-19-521241-X. 
24. ^ (Russian) Biography of Grigory Aleksinsky at Hrono.ru
25. ^ Trotsky, Leon. "The Month of The Great Slander". The History of the Russian Revolution; Volume 2,Chapter 27. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1930-hrr/ch27.htm. 
26. ^ Lenin, Vladimir (1917). "The State and Revolution". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm. 
27. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 174
28. ^ Lenin "Collected Works", vol. 31, p. 516.
29. ^ Lenin "Collected Works", vol. 30, p. 335.
30. ^ "Archive of Lenin's works". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/subject/women/index.htm. 
31. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: 186
32. ^ King, Greg and Wilson, Penny (2003). The Fate of the Romanovs. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-20768-3. http://thefateoftheromanovs.com/. 
33. ^ Figes, Orlando (1997). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. Penguin Books. p. 638. ISBN 0198228627. 
34. ^ Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994). Lenin: A New Biography. Free Press. pp. 211–212. ISBN 0029334357. 
35. ^ Volkogonov, Dimitri. Lenin – A New Biography. New York: Free Press. p. 229. ISBN 0-02-933435-7. 
36. ^ Pipes, Richard, The Russian Revolution,(Vintage Books, 1990) p.807
37. ^ Ibid. p. 809
38. ^ Dr. V. Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin's attending physician, in Tri Pokusheniia na V. Lenina 1924.
39. ^ Lubov Krassin (1929) Leonid Krassin: His Life and Work, by his wife. Skeffington: London
40. ^ Ronald Clark (1988) Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask: 373
41. ^ Ronald Clark (1988) Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask: 456
42. ^ Lenin, Vladimir (1919). "Anti-Jewish Pogroms". Speeches On Gramophone Records. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x10.htm. 
43. ^ Hazard, John N. "Unity and Diversity in Socialist Law".
44. ^ "Red Terror". http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSterror.htm. 
45. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: A Revolutionary Life: 250
46. ^ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin (2000). The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West. Gardners Books. ISBN 0-14-028487-7, p. 34.
47. ^ Bernstein, Richard (30 October 1996). "Lenin Paints Himself Black With His Own Words". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9504EEDD1239F933A05753C1A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all. 
48. ^ Service, Robert (2007). Comrades!: A History of World Communism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-02530-X. 
49. ^ Pipes, Richard (1996). The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive. Yale University Press. pp. 50–52. ISBN 0-300-06919-7. 
50. ^ Barry Ray. FSU professor's 'Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler' sheds new light on three of the 20th century's bloodiest rulers. Florida State University
51. ^ Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. p. 65. ISBN 1400040051. 
52. ^ Evan Mawdsley (2008). The Russian Civil War. Birlinn, Edinburgh: 264
53. ^ Serge Petrovich Melgunov, Red Terror in Russia, Hyperion Pr (1975), ISBN 0-88355-187-X. See also: The Record of the Red Terror
54. ^ Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. Da Capo Press, 1999. pp. 383-385 ISBN 0-306-80909-5
55. ^ Leggett, George (1987). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press. pp. 197–198. ISBN 0198228627. 
56. ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin. p. 646. ISBN 0-14-024364-X. 
57. ^ Ronald Clark (1988) Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask: 356
58. ^ Leggett, George (1987). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 0198228627. 
59. ^ Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. p. 72. ISBN 1400040051. 
60. ^ Leggett, George (1987). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press. pp. 466–467. ISBN 0198228627. 
61. ^ Figes, Orlando (1997). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924. Penguin Books. p. 649. ISBN 0198228627. 
62. ^ Rummel, R.J. (1994) Death by Government. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 1560009276 pg 8. See also: This Century's Bloodiest Dictators
63. ^ Black Book of Communism, p. 80
64. ^ Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. pp. 58–59. ISBN 1400040051. 
65. ^ Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. p. 59. ISBN 1400040051. 
66. ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin. p. 647. ISBN 0-14-024364-X. 
67. ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin. pp. 524–525. ISBN 0-14-024364-X. 
68. ^ Figes, Orlando (1998). A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924. Penguin. p. 649. ISBN 0-14-024364-X. 
69. ^ Volkogonov, Dimitri. Lenin – A New Biography. New York: Free Press. p. 238. ISBN 0-02-933435-7. 
70. ^ Pipes, Richard (1996). The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive. Yale University Press. pp. 152–154. ISBN 0-300-06919-7. 
71. ^ Figes, Orlando (27 October 1996). "Censored by His Own Regime". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E1DB1230F934A15753C1A960958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2. 
72. ^ Courtois, Stephane (1999). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press. p. 126. ISBN 0674076087. 
73. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: A Revolutionary Life: 251
74. ^ Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-08760-8 pg 156
75. ^ Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-08760-8 pg 15
76. ^ Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. p. 57. ISBN 1400040051. 
77. ^ "Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls". http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Russian. 
78. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: A Revolutionary Life: 250
79. ^ Christopher Read (2005) Lenin: A Revolutionary Life: 250
80. ^ Black Book of Communism, p. 82
81. ^ Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him by Donald Rayfield, pg 84
82. ^ Evan Mawdsley (2008) The Russian Civil War: 291
83. ^ Robert Conquest (1990) The Great Terror - A Reassessment: 251
84. ^ Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "Timeframe", 1997
85. ^ How to Organise Competition?
86. ^ Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941. W. W. Norton & Company, 1992 ISBN 0-393-30869-3, ISBN 978-0-393-30869-3. Pp. 89-90;.
87. ^ Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev. A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia. Yale University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-300-08760-8 pg 21
88. ^ Amis, Martin (2002). Koba the Dread. Miramax. p. 25. ISBN 0786868767. 
89. ^ Christopher Hitchens, 2005 interview
90. ^ Down with the Death Penalty! by Yuliy Osipovich Martov, June/July 1918
91. ^ Karl Kautsky, Terrorism and Communism Chapter VIII, The Communists at Work, The Terror
92. ^ Volkogonov, Dimitri. Lenin – A New Biography. New York: Free Press. p. 343. ISBN 0-02-933435-7. 
93. ^ Lincoln, W. Bruce (1999). Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80909-5. 
94. ^ Lenin, Vladimir (1915). "The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination". http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/oct/16.htm. 
95. ^ Pipes, Richard (1994). Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime. Vintage. pp. 141–166. ISBN 0679761845. 
96. ^ Gilbert, Felix and David Clay Large: "The End of the European Era:1890 to the Present," 6th edition, 213
97. ^ "An exchange of letters on the BBC documentary Lenin's Secret Files". World Socialist Web Site. 1998-03-06. http://fr.wsws.org/correspo/1998/mar1998/leni-m06.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-03-16. 
98. ^ Carr, E.H. (1966). The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923, Part 2. pp. 233.  Chase, W.J. (1987). Workers, Society and the Soviet State: Labour and Life in Moscow 1918–1929. pp. 26–27.  Nove, A. (1982). An Economic History of the USSR. p. 62.  "Flewers, Paul, War Communism in Retrospect". http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext5/Warcomm.html. 
99. ^ Black Book of Communism p. 92–97, 116–121.
100. ^ "Twentieth Century Atlas – Death Tolls". http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Russian. 
101. ^ "Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, VII". http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/his1g.htm. 
102. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9400E6D91739EF3ABC4E51DFB2668389639EDE
103. '^ Trotsky, L.D.: Concerning Eastman's Book 'Since Lenin Died', in: 'Bolshevik', 16; 1 Sept, 1925; p. 68.Concerning Eastman's Book 'Since Lenin Died that downplayed its significance. "In several parts of his book Eastman says that the Central Committee concealed from the Party a number of exceptionally important documents written by Lenin in the last period of his life (it is a matter of letters on the national question, the so-called 'will', and others); there can be no other name for this than slander against the Central Committee of our Party. ... Vladimir Ilyich did not leave any "will", and the very character of his attitude towards the Party, as well as the character of the Party itself, precluded any possibility of such a 'will'. What is usually referred to as a 'will' in the émigré and foreign bourgeois and Menshevik press (in a manner garbled beyond recognition) is one of Vladimir Ilyich's letters containing advice on organisational matters. The 13th Congress of the Party paid the closest attention to that letter, as to all of the others, and drew from it the conclusions appropriate to the conditions and circumstances of the time. All talk about concealing or violating a 'will' is a malicious invention."
104. ^ Trotsky, Leon. 1930. My Life. The Marxists Internet Archive
105. ^ Trotsky, Leon (1932). On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin. The Marxists Internet Archive. http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-16. 
106. ^ Vadim Gorin, Lenin: A Biography, Progress Publishers, 1983, pp.469-70
107. ^ Winston Churchill quoted in Elizabeth Mauchline Roberts (1966) Lenin and the Downfall of Tsarist Russia: 92
108. ^ See the article: А.М. и А.А. Панченко «Осьмое чудо света», in the book Панченко А.М. О русской истории и культуре. St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2003. p. 433.
109. ^ Ibidem.
110. ^ Pipes, Richard (May/June 2004). "Flight From Freedom: What Russians Think and Want". Foreign Affairs. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501facomment83302-p20/richard-pipes/flight-from-freedom-what-russians-think-and-want.html. 
111. ^ http://www.sos.state.md.us/International/MDSS/RussiaHistory.htm. St Petersburg/Leningrad Oblast
112. ^ Trotsky, Leon (1930). Volume Three: The Triumph of the Soviets; Appendix No. 1. 
113. ^ Figes, Orlando (27 October 1996). "Censored by His Own Regime". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E1DB1230F934A15753C1A960958260. 

Further reading

• Cliff, Tony (1986). Building the Party: Lenin, 1893–1914. Haymarket Books. ISBN 1-931859-01-9. 
• Hill, Christopher (1971). Lenin and the Russia Revolution. Pelican Books Ltd.. ISBN 978-0140212976. 
• Fischer, Louis (2001). The Life of Lenin. Orion Publishing Co.. ISBN 1-84212-230-4. 
• Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. Knopf. ISBN 1400040051. 
• Gooding, John (2002). Socialism In Russia: Lenin and His Legacy, 1890–1991. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-97235-X. 
• Leggett, George (1987). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198228627. 
• Lenin, Vladimir (2002). Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917 by V. I. Lenin. Verso Books. ISBN 1-85984-661-0. 
• Kolakowski, Leszek and Falla, P. S. (2005). Main Currents of Marxism. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-06054-3. 
• Pannekoek, Anton, and Richey, Lance Byron (2003). Lenin as Philosopher. Marquette University Press. ISBN 0-87462-654-4. 
• Payne, Robert (1967). The Life And Death Of Lenin. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-41640-5. 
• Pipes, Richard (1999). The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-07662-2. 
• Read, Christopher (2005). Lenin: A Revolutionary Life. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-20649-9. 
• Service, Robert (2002). Lenin: A Biography. Belknap Press. ISBN 0-674-00828-6. 
• Shub, David (1965). Lenin: A Biography. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-020809-7. 
• Toynbee, Arnold (July 1970). "A Centenary View of Lenin". International Affairs 46 (3): 490–500. doi:10.2307/2613225. 
• Trotsky, Leon (1971). On Lenin: Notes Towards a Biography. Harrap Publishing. ISBN 0-245-50302-1. 
• Tucker, Robert C. (1975). The Lenin Anthology. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-09236-4. 
• Volkogonov, Dmitri (2006). Lenin: A New Biography. Free Press. ISBN 0-02-933435-7. 

External links

Find more about Vladimir Lenin on Wikipedia's sister projects: Definitions from Wiktionary

Textbooks from Wikibooks
Quotations from Wikiquote
Source texts from Wikisource
Images and media from Commons
News stories from Wikinews

Learning resources from Wikiversity

• Marxists.org Lenin Internet Archive – Extensive compendium of writings, a biography, and many photographs
• Marx2Mao.org – Lenin Internet Library
• Article on Lenin written by Trotsky for the Encyclopedia Britannica
• Reminiscences of Lenin by N. K. Krupskaya
• Impressions of Soviet Russia  by John Dewey
• Information on Lenin's Grave
• The Lenin Museum in Tampere, Finland
• Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions
• Lenin Internet Archive Biography includes interviews with Lenin and essays on the leader
• Mirrors of Moscow: Nikolai Lenin by Louise Bryant
• Nicolai Lenin His Life and Work by G. Zinovieff
• The Personality and Power of Nikolai Lenin From Raymond Robins' Own Story by William Hard (1920)
• TIME 100: V.I. Lenin by David Remnick, 13 April 1998
• Statues and portraits of Lenin
• Re: Lenin in color - HIGH QUALITY EDITION at YouTube
• The Ghosts of Lenin Abound by The Moscow News Weekly, January 15 2009

Selected works

• The Development of Capitalism in Russia
• What is to be Done? [1]
• One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
• Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution
• Materialism and Empirio-Criticism
• The Right of Nations to Self-Determination
• Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism
• The State and Revolution [2]
• The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky
• Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder [3]
• Lenin's Testament
• Lenin's last letter to Stalin
• Reply by N. Lenin to Rosa Luxemburg
• How to Organise Competition?

Political offices
Preceded by Aleksandr Kerensky (as Head of the Provisional Government of 1917)	Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars 1917–1924	Succeeded by Alexey Ivanovich Rykov

v • d • e Prime Ministers of Russia Russian Empire Witte · Goremykin · Stolypin · Kokovtsov · Goremykin · Stürmer · Trepov · Golitsyn Provisional Government Lvov · Kerensky Russian SFSR/ Soviet Union Lenin · Rykov · Molotov · Stalin · Malenkov · Bulganin · Khrushchev · Kosygin · Tikhonov · Ryzhkov · Pavlov · Silayev Russia as a part of the Soviet Union Syrtsov · Sulimov · Bulganin · Vakhrushev · Khokhlov · Pamfilov* · Kosygin · Rodionov · Chernousov · Puzanov · Yasnov · Kozlov · Polyansky · Voronov · Solomentsev · Vorotnikov · Vlasov · Silayev · Lobov* Russian Federation Gaidar* · Chernomyrdin · Kiriyenko · Chernomyrdin* · Primakov · Stepashin · Putin · Kasyanov · Khristenko* · Fradkov · Zubkov · Putin * denotes acting.

v • d • e Leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Vladimir Lenin · Joseph Stalin · Nikita Khrushchev · Leonid Brezhnev · Yuri Andropov · Konstantin Chernenko · Mikhail Gorbachev

v • d • e Works by Lenin The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899) · What Is to Be Done? (1902) · One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904) · Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Social Revolution (1905) · Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909) · The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914) · Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) · State and Revolution (1917) · The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky · "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)

v • d • e Russian Revolution of 1917 February Revolution · July Days · Kornilov affair  · October Revolution · Russian Civil War Major groups Provisional Committee of the State Duma  · Russian Provisional Government  · Petrograd Soviet · Council of the People's Commissars · Military Revolutionary Committee · Russian Constituent Assembly (elections)  · Red Guards · Tsentralna Rada and Ukrainian People's Republic Political parties Kadets  · Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) · Socialist-Revolutionary Party Major figures Nicholas II of Russia · Georgy Lvov · Vladimir Lenin · Alexander Kerensky · Lev Kamenev · Grigory Zinoviev · Leon Trotsky

Persondata
NAME	Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Vladimir Illyich Ulyanov, Владимир Ильич Ульянов (Ленин) (Russian)
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Russian politician, led October Revolution
DATE OF BIRTH	22 April 1870(1870-04-22)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Simbirsk, Russia
DATE OF DEATH	21 January 1924
PLACE OF DEATH	Moscow, Russia

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