Any mention of communism in Russia has to start with a discussion of Vladimir Lenin. Here is an overview of Lenin, an undeniably important historical figure.
Lenin and His Role In Bringing Communism to Russia
Vladimir Lenin was born on April 22, 1870, as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He is known as the father of Russian Communism, as well as the first Communist leader of the Soviet Union. His rise to fame and power brought him through several revolutions and the end of imperial power in Russia, and he will forever be known as the man who changed Russia's entire course of history. His early history shows why he started on this path of revolutionary thinking.
Lenin has a rough childhood. His father died when he was young, and his brother, Alexander, was hung the next year because of his plot to cause the death of Czar Alexander III. His sister was with her brother at the time of his arrest, and she was also punished – banished to the small town of Kokuchinko. These episodes made Vladimir Lenin ready for action. He started his belief in Marxism, deciding that a revolution that focused on a group instead of individual radicals would work better.
Lenin was first arrested and exiled in 1895, after he had been distributing Marxist propaganda. In 1898, he met and married his wife, who was a socialist activist. This is also the period in time where he started using the alias, Lenin, which he decided on from reading many books. He became active in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) , and then in the Bolshevik party when it broke from the rest of the group, a fraction that he helped enact with his pamphlet writing. He was elected to the Presidium of the RSDLP in 1906, and moved to Finland in 1907 for security reasons.
When the start of World War I happened, other Marxist parties throughout Europe began to support the war, which shocked Vladimir Lenin. He took an “unpatriotic” approach and thought that the only goal of the World War should be to remove the Czarist government. After the February Revolution in 1917, Lenin was eager to get back to Russia, as he knew he would be needed. He ended up stranded in neutral Switzerland, however, because WWI was still in progress. He did not make it back to Russia until April 16, 1917.
From 1917 onward, Vladimir Lenin was considered the leader of the Communist/Bolshevik party, until his untimely death on January 21, 1924. He had suffered several strokes and had become paralyzed, partly from an assassination attempt. The bullet left lodged in his neck eventually caused his death, at which time he was bedridden and unable to speak.
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Richard Monk is with FactsMonk.com - a site with facts about Russia.
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