Vladimir Lenin
(1870-1924)
BIRTH
April 22, 1870
PLACE
Ulyanovsk, Russia
NAME
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
DEATH
January 21, 1924
PLACE
Gorki Leninskiye, Russia
FAMILY
FATHER
Ilya Ulyanov
(1831–1886)
MOTHER
Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova
(1835–1916)
WIFE
Nadezhda Krupskaya
(1869-1939)
HOMES
NICKNAMES
Volodya
POLITICAL VIEWS
COMMUNIST, MARXIST, SOCIALIST
BOLSHEVIK, RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY BOLSHEVIKS, RUSSIAN SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC LABOUR PARTY
RELIGIOUS VIEWS
ATHEIST
NOT YET RESEARCHED
MEMBERSHIPS
COUNCIL OF PEOPLES COMMISSARS CHAIRMAN, RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE MEMBER, RUSSIAN COMMUNIST PARTY POLITBURO MEMBER
AWARDS
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary who led the Bolsheviks to power in 1917 and headed the new Soviet government. He withdrew Russia from the First World War and directed the party through civil war, using coercion and the Red Terror against opponents. In 1921 he introduced the New Economic Policy, allowing limited private trade after collapse. His writings and party model shaped world communism. Strokes curtailed his authority before his death.
EARLY LIFE
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, on the Volga River, the son of Ilya Ulyanov, a school inspector who had risen into the hereditary nobility, and Maria Blank. He was an excellent student at the Simbirsk gymnasium. In 1887 his elder brother Alexander was executed for taking part in a plot to kill Tsar Alexander III, and that year Vladimir was expelled from Kazan University for joining student protests. He studied law on his own, passed the examinations at St. Petersburg University in 1891, and practiced briefly in Samara while turning to Marxism.
Vladimir Lenin combined Marxist theory with clandestine organization before becoming the leader of a revolutionary government. After qualifying in law, he moved to St. Petersburg in 1893 and worked among socialist intellectuals and industrial workers. Arrest in 1895 was followed by imprisonment and Siberian exile. There he continued writing and married Nadezhda Krupskaya in 1898. After exile he worked abroad on the newspaper Iskra, seeking to unite Russian Marxists through a disciplined political organization.
The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's split in 1903 made Lenin the central leader of the Bolshevik faction. Arguments over party membership, strategy, and relations with other socialist groups developed into a lasting division. During the First World War he rejected support for the belligerent governments and urged turning imperial war into revolution.
After the February Revolution of 1917, Lenin returned through Germany to Russia and called for an end to support for the Provisional Government. His April Theses advanced the transfer of power to the soviets and withdrawal from the war. In October, according to the Russian calendar then in use, the Bolsheviks overthrew the government. Lenin became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars. His administration decreed land redistribution and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, accepting major territorial losses to leave the war. It also dissolved the Constituent Assembly and consolidated one-party power.
Civil war brought nationalization, coercive grain requisitioning, and the Cheka's repression of opponents. Lenin supported the Red Terror and measures that made political violence integral to the new state. The Bolsheviks defeated major rival forces, but war, economic collapse, and famine devastated the population. In 1921 he introduced the New Economic Policy, allowing limited private trade and enterprise while retaining state control of key sectors. The Soviet Union was established in 1922 as his health deteriorated after strokes. His final writings criticized bureaucracy and questioned Stalin's suitability for leadership, without reversing the political system Lenin had helped create. He died in January 1924. His theories and revolutionary strategy influenced movements worldwide, while the dictatorship and repression established under his government remain central to his historical record.
CAREER
DEATH
In March 1923, Lenin had a third stroke and lost his ability to speak; that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting sensory aphasia. By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills. In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin. On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died at age 53. His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels. The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day. On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks. Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the House of Trade Unions, where the body lay in state. Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions. On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin. Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time. Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum.
Lenin Mausoleum, Red Square
Red Square, Moscow, Russia
GRAVE
POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES
1. Lenin: The Man, the Dictator, and the Master of Terror — Victor Sebestyen. Find on Amazon
2. Lenin: A Biography — Robert Service. Find on Amazon
3. Lenin: A New Biography — Dmitri Volkogonov. Find on Amazon
4. The Life of Lenin — Louis Fischer. Find on Amazon
5. Lenin: A Revolutionary Life — Christopher Read. Find on Amazon
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