Vladimir Lenin Biography

Vladimir Lenin was originally named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanova is famously known as the revolutionary of Russia, a political theorist and an eminent politician. He was the founder of the Russian communist party and served as the first chief of the government of Soviet Russia from the year 1917 to 1924 and successfully established the Soviet Union from the year 1922 to 1924. He administered and led many revolutionary movements, primarily, Bolshevik Revolutionary and architect the Soviet union. Under his leadership, Russia later became famous as the Soviet Union converted into a single-party socialist state that was administered by the Soviet Communist Party of Russia. As a believer of Marxism, he developed many political ideologies throughout his revolutionary movements and political journey that later became famous as Leninism. The main characteristics of this great leader are his unmatched capability of disciplined work and his great devotion to revolutionary causes. He had always been a lover of radical change and Vladimir Lenin biography elaborates that he was never a man of a middle-ground and always believed in black or red, either or exaggeration. He is a man of the personality that had a great impact on common people that actually helped to establish him as a great leader and founder of the Soviet Union of his time.

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Image: Illustration of Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin Early Life

He was born in a well established middle-class family as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanova on April 22, 1870, in one of the Russian states named Simbirsk. He was the third child of his parents among eight siblings and had an older brother Alexander and an older sister named Anna. he was very competitive in nature and was a keen sports lover, he spent most of his daytime in outdoor sports and loved playing chess. He was excellent in his school days in academics. After losing his father he stopped believing in God and after the traumatic experience of losing his elder brother who was executed in May for revolting against the escalating monarchy of Tsar Alexander lll with his anti-government writing of banned-leftist and anti-government protests. Still, he continued his studies and graduated from his school as a gold medalist and decided to further study Law at Kazan University.

He quickly became a part of the student society that represented certain men of a particular religion and was arrested in December because of taking part in the demonstration against the government policies that resulted in the banning of the student societies. After his release, he convinced the internal ministry to allow him in Kazan but was not allowed in the University. Soon he became a part of Nikolai Fedoseev’s revolutionary circle where he first learned about Karl Marx’s book named capital in the year 1876 according to Nikolai Lenin biography. He soon developed a keen interest in the socio-political theory that challenged and questioned the class struggle and how the capitalist society must be reformed to socialist society and communist society.

Though he remained in Samara for several years from where he took an external examination from st. Petersburg University in law where he scored a first-class degree with Honours. He initially worked for local lawyers and served regional courts as a legal assistant but devoted a lot of his time to study radical politics and the activities of the Skylarenko’s group that worked on developing ideas to establish marxism in Russia. He was inspired by the work of Plekhanov and collected much information about Russian society and related them to support the Marxist ideology of social development and augmenting the claims of Narodniks. The paper he wrote on peasant economics was rejected by the Liberal journal known as Russian thoughts. 

Revolutionary Movements

According to the Vladimir Lenin biography, he declared himself as a follower of Marxism in the year 1889. He was arrested and exiled to Siberia for participating in Marxist activities where he was joined by his future wife named Nadezhda Krupskaya. They got married in the year 1898 on 22nd July. he then moved to Switzerland and Germany to associate with more Marxists. During the same time, he established the Bolshevik Party for the first time.

Russia and The World War l

Russia entered world war l in support of the Serbs and their other allies like France and British. But the military of Russia could not survive the modern Germany that was hugely industrialized. The participation of Russia in the year 1914 turned out to be the biggest disaster with the severity and the massive casualties that no other nations have suffered to the extent Russia did.

Lenin strongly advocated the defeat arguing that it might speed up the political revolution that he is struggling to establish in Russia. He strongly believed that the main epicentre of world war l was the desire for international capitalism that he even mentioned in one of these books named Imperialism, The highest stage of capitalism in the year 1916. In order to bring change in the political hemisphere and that Lenin is the one who can destabilize the enemies of Germany, they arranged to bring back Lenin with other Marxists who were in Exile back to Russia.

Russian Revolution

When Lenin returned to Russia in 1917, he witnessed the coming up of the Russian revolution. The general people started to revolt and forced the abduction of the Czar Nicholas ll due to massive shortage of food and fuel post the world war turning into a pandemonium. This has bought the long-living Imperial rule in Russia from centuries to an end. Soon Russia came under the direct governance of the Provisional Government that instantly opposed any violent social reforms and continued their participation in world war l.

Lenin started making strategic and practical moves to overthrow the provisional government. He looked at the provisional government as an extension of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and advocated for the implementation of direct rule by the peasants and the workers of Russia.

By mid-1917, Russians became more worn out because of the war and the soldiers, workers and peasants started revolting and demanding immediate change in the policies that became popular as the October revolution.

As he was aware of the scarcity of governance and leadership, Lenin secretly started a movement in bringing together the peasants, workers and sailors into a voluntary paramilitary force in order to seize the power of the ruling government. On the 7th and 8th of November of the same year, the red paramilitary force captured the building of the Provisional government without any bloodshed. The Bolsheviks were finally successful in establishing the soviet rule by seizing all the powers of the provisional government.  Lenin thus became the leader of the first communist state of the world. As the ruling power, they immediately ended the involvement of Russia in world war l and signed the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Communism War

With the Bolsheviks revolution, it faced three civil wars where the red army in support of Vladimir Lenin’s formed Russian communist party fought against the white army that backed monarchists, capitalists and advocates of democratic socialism. At this time, Lenin had implemented some economic reform policies that were named “ War communism”.  These were the temporary measures to support the red army to defeat the white army. In this war communism, he nationalised all the manufacturing as well as core industries in Soviet Russia and directed requisition of the grains directly from the farmers to support the red army.

This has resulted in a huge loss for both farmers and the industries under the new economic reform policies and about five million farmers died of massive famine in the year 1921. The overall living standards of Russia are driven into abject poverty. The soviet ruling came under threat with mass unrest resulting in the retreat of the new economic policies of Lenin and reforming it into more liberal economic policies that withdrew the complete nationalization of the war communist and a free market as well capitalism both incorporated under state control.

Cheka

It was a secret policy that was silently and secretly incorporated as the Russian first secret policy that was taken in order to suppress the revolts from the opponents and within the party. Under this campaign, there was the mass execution of the supporters of the Czarist regime, the upper class and the socialists who were not honest in supporting the Russian communist party that was governed by Lenin. Thus that period was termed as red terror.

Establishment of USSR

Finally, after winning the civil war, a treaty was signed among Russia, Ukraine and Transcaucasus which is now known as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the year 1922. This was the pillar of the formation of the Union of Soviet Republic (USSR) and Lenin became the first head of the USSR.

Late Years and Death

The demise of a great leader was on 21st January of 1924. He died in Gorki Leninskiye, which is situated near Moscow. He died at the age of 53. It became public after Lenin died in January of 1924 and by that time Stalin already was in power in the USSR. Millions of people stood in the freezing winter days to pay tribute and Respect Lenin for hours. He was laid in Moscow at the union trade house of Moscow. His emblem was displayed on Lenin’s tomb in Red Square Moscow.

Lenin Short Biography at a Glance

Vladimir Lenin was the revolutionary and the founder of the Communist Party of Russia and established the USSR after a long battle with the  Czarist regime for the rights of the peasants and the farmers. He belonged to a middle-class family and was born in a well established middle-class family as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanova on April 22, 1870, in one of the Russian states named Simbirsk. He completed his law and got associated with Nikolai Fedoseev’s revolutionary circle where he first learned about Karl Marx’s book named capital in the year 1876. He initially worked for local lawyers and served regional courts as a legal assistant in Samara. He finally left the place and declared himself Marxist and was arrested and exiled for years for participating in anti-government movements. After he came back to Russia during the first world war, he secretly started a red revolution by gathering all the other Marxists from Britain and Switzerland and finally gathered all the workers and peasants to be in a red army and serve as a volunteer paramilitary force. Finally, he was able to bring down the rule of the Provisional government and establish the first Soviet communist state ever in the world and later established the USSR.