Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1922 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party communist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed a variant of it known as Leninism.

Early life

Born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree and to radical politics, becoming a Marxist.

Revolutionary activities

In 1893, he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he became a senior figure in the illegal Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).

Role in Russian Revolution

In 1917, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new Provisional Government. Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party.

Death and legacy

Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the World War I by signing a peace treaty with the Central Powers and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned.

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