Shared Library/Transcript
{{Redirect|Lenin}}
{{pp-move-indef}}
{{pp-semi|small=yes}}
{{Eastern Slavic name|Ilyich|Ulyanov}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2012}}
{{Use British English|date=January 2014}}
{{Infobox officeholder
|name = Vladimir Lenin
|native_name = {{small|Владимир Ленин}}
|image = Lenin.jpg
|image_size =
|caption = Lenin in 1920
|office= Chairman of the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union]]<br /><small>([[Premier of the Soviet Union]])</small>
|term_start = 30 December 1922
|term_end = 21 January 1924
|predecessor = Position created
|successor = [[Alexei Rykov]]
|office2 = [[List of heads of government of Russia |Chairman]] of the [[Government of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR]]
|term_start2 = 8 November 1917
|term_end2 = 21 January 1924
|predecessor2 = Position created
|successor2 = [[Alexei Rykov]]
|office3 = Full member of the [[Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Politburo]]
|term_start3 = 10 October 1917
|term_end3 = 21 January 1924
|5blankname3 = Term(s)
|5namedata3 = [[6th Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)|6th]], [[7th Bureau and the 7th Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|7th]], [[8th Politburo and the 8th Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|8th]], [[9th Politburo and the 9th Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|9th]], [[10th Politburo and the 10th Secretariat of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|10th]], [[11th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|11th]], [[12th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|12th]]
|office4 = Full member of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]
|term_start4 = 3 August 1917
|term_end4 = 21 January 1924
|5blankname4 = Term(s)
|5namedata4 = [[6th Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks)|6th]], [[7th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|7th]], [[8th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|8th]], [[9th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|9th]], [[10th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|10th]], [[11th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|11th]], [[12th Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|12th]]
|term_start5 = 27 April 1905
|term_end5 = 19 May 1907
|5blankname5 = Term(s)
|5namedata5 = [[1st–3rd Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|3rd]]
|birth_date = {{birth date|1870|4|22|df=y}}
|birthname = Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ({{lang|ru|Владимир Ильич Ульянов}})
|birth_place = [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]], [[Russian Empire]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1924|1|21|1870|4|22|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Gorki Leninskiye|Gorki]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russia]], [[Soviet Union|USSR]]
|resting_place = [[Lenin's Mausoleum]], Moscow, [[Russian Federation]]
|occupation = [[Revolutionary]], politician
|party = [[League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class]]<ref>{{cite web|title=League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/l/e.htm|website=Marxists.org}}</ref><br /><small>(1895–1898)</small><br />[[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] ([[Bolsheviks]])<br /><small>(1898–1912)</small><br />[[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party]]<br /><small>(1912–1924)</small>
|spouse = [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]<br />(married 1898–1924)
|relations = [[Aleksandr Ulyanov]] (older brother)<br>[[Anna Ulyanova]] (older sister)<br>[[Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov]] (younger brother) and 5 other siblings
|children = none
|profession = Lawyer
|residence =
|parents = [[Ilya Ulyanov]] (father)<br>[[Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova]] (mother)
|alma_mater = [[Saint Petersburg State University]]<br>[[Kazan Federal University]]
|blank1 = Other names
|data1 = Lenin, Nikolai, N. Lenin, V. I. Lenin, Peterburzhets, Starik, Ilyin, Frei, Petrov, Maier, Iordanov, Jacob Richter, Karpov, Mueller, Tulin
|nationality =[[Soviet Union|Soviet]]<br />[[Russian Empire|Russia]]n
|signature = Unterschrift_Lenins.svg
}}
'''Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov''' ({{lang-rus|Влади́мир Ильи́ч Улья́нов|a=Ru-Lenin.ogg|p=vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr ɪˈlʲitɕ ʊˈlʲanəf}}), alias '''Lenin''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|ɛ|n|ɪ|n}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lenin "Lenin"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|Ле́нин|p=ˈlʲenʲɪn}}) ({{OldStyleDate|22 April|1870|10 April}} – 21 January 1924) was a Russian [[Communism|communist]] revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as head of government of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]] from 1917, and of the [[Soviet Union]] from 1922 until his death. Under his administration, the [[Russian Empire]] was dissolved and replaced by the Soviet Union, a [[single-party state|one-party]] [[socialist state]]; all land, natural resources, and industry were confiscated and nationalized. Ideologically a [[Marxism|Marxist]], his political theories are known as [[Leninism]].
Born to a wealthy middle-class family in [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]], Lenin gained an interest in revolutionary leftist politics following the execution of his brother [[Aleksandr Ulyanov|Aleksandr]] in 1887. Expelled from [[Kazan (Volga region) Federal University|Kazan State University]] for participating in anti-Tsarist protests, he devoted the following years to a law degree and to radical politics, becoming a Marxist. In 1893 he moved to [[Saint Petersburg]] and became a senior figure in the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (RSDLP). Lenin was arrested for sedition and exiled to [[Shushenskoye]] for three years, during which he married [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]. After his exile ended he fled to Western Europe, where he became known as a prominent party theorist through his various publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP schism over ideological differences, leading the [[Bolshevik]] faction against [[Julius Martov]]'s [[Menshevik]]s. Briefly returning to Russia during the failed [[Revolution of 1905]], he encouraged violent insurrection and later campaigned for the [[First World War]] to be transformed into a Europe-wide [[proletariat revolution]], which as a Marxist he believed would result in the overthrow of [[capitalism]] and its replacement with [[socialism]]. After the 1917 [[February Revolution]] ousted the Tsar and established a [[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]], he returned to Russia to campaign for the new government's removal in place of a Bolshevik-led government of the [[soviet (council)|soviets]].
Lenin played a senior role in leading the [[October Revolution]] of 1917, which overthrew the Provisional Government and established a new administration, the [[Council of People's Commissars]], with Lenin as its chairman. Introducing radical land reform and permitting non-Russian nations to cede from the Empire, they transformed the country into the [[Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]]. Lenin was elected to the position of the head of government by the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets]]. Fierce opposition to Bolshevik rule resulted in the [[Russian Civil War]] from 1917 to 1922, in which the Bolsheviks proved victorious, partly through the use of [[Red Terror]]. Lenin supported [[world revolution]] and immediate peace with the [[Central Powers]], agreeing to a [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|punitive treaty]] that turned over a significant portion of the former Russian Empire to Germany. The treaty was voided after the Allies won the war. In 1921 Lenin proposed the [[New Economic Policy]], a [[Mixed economy|mixed economic]] system of [[state capitalism]] that started the process of industrialisation and recovery from the Civil War. In 1922, the Russian SFSR [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR|joined]] former territories of the Russian Empire in becoming the Soviet Union, with Lenin as its head of government. In increasingly poor health, Lenin died at his home in [[Gorki Leninskiye|Gorki]].
Recognised as one of the most significant and influential historical figures of the 20th century, Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Admirers view him as a champion of working people's [[Labor rights|rights]] and [[Well-being|welfare]] whilst critics see him as the founder of a [[Dictatorship of the proletariat|dictatorship]] responsible for civil war and mass human rights abuses. Held in high esteem as a founding father of the Soviet Union until its [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|dissolution in 1991]], he remains an ideological figurehead behind [[Marxism-Leninism]] and a prominent influence over the international communist movement.
==Early life==
{{Main|Early life of Vladimir Lenin}}
===Childhood: 1870–87===
[[File:Lenin Age 4.jpg|thumb|upright|"Volodya", aged four.]]
Lenin's father, [[Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov]], was a former [[Serfdom in Russia|serf]]'s son but studied physics and mathematics at [[Kazan (Volga region) Federal University|Kazan State University]], later teaching at the [[Institute for Nobles|Penza Institute for the Nobility]]. His ethnic background is ambiguous: while very much [[Russification|Russified]], his father Nikolay may have been [[Chuvash people|Chuvash]] or [[Mordvin]], and his mother Anna Alexeevna Smirnova is often cited as a [[Kalmyk people|Kalmyk]], though possibly a [[Kyrgyz people|Kyrgyz]] or even Russian.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|pp=1–2}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=12–13}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=21–23}}.</ref> Ilya married [[Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova|Maria Alexandrovna Blank]] in the summer of 1863.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=5}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=13}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=23}}.</ref> Hailing from a relatively prosperous background, she was the daughter of an [[Apostasy in judaism|apostate]] [[Russian Jews|Russian Jewish]] physician, Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, and his [[History of Germans in Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union|German]]-[[Swedish diaspora|Swedish]] wife, Anna Ivanovna Grosschopf. Dr. Blank had insisted on providing his children with a good education, ensuring that Maria learned Russian, German, English and French, and that she was well versed in [[Russian literature]].<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|pp=2–3}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=12}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=16–19, 23}}.</ref> Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in [[Nizhny Novgorod]], rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]] district six years later. Five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the government's plans for modernisation. Awarded the [[Order of St. Vladimir]], he became a [[Russian nobility|hereditary nobleman]].<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=6}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=13–14, 18}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=25, 27}}.</ref>
The couple, now nobility, had two children, Anna (born 1864) and Alexander (born 1868), before Vladimir "Volodya" Ilyich was born on 10 April 1870, and baptised in St. Nicholas Cathedral several days later. They would be followed by three more children, Olga (born 1871), Dmitry (born 1874) and Maria (born 1878). Another brother, Nikolai, had died in infancy in 1873.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=6}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=12, 14}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=13, 25}}.</ref> Ilya was a devout member of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|pp=3, 8}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=14–15}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=29}}.</ref> Both parents were [[monarchism|monarchists]] and [[liberal conservatism|liberal conservatives]], being committed to the [[emancipation reform of 1861]] introduced by the reformist Tsar [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]]; they avoided political radicals and there is no evidence that the police ever put them under surveillance for subversive thought.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=8}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=27}}.</ref> Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in [[Lenino-Kokushkino|Kokushkino]].<ref>{{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=26}}.</ref> Among his siblings, Vladimir was closest to his sister Olga, whom he bossed around, having an extremely competitive nature; he could be destructive, but usually admitted his misbehaviour.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=7}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=16}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=32–36}}.</ref> A keen sportsman, he spent much of his free time outdoors or playing chess, and excelled at school, the disciplinarian and conservative Simbirsk Classical Gimnazia.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=7}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=17}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=36–46}}.</ref>
Ilya Ulyanov died of a [[brain haemorrhage]] in January 1886, when Vladimir was 16.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|pp=6, 9}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=19}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=48–49}}.</ref> Vladimir's behaviour became erratic and confrontational, and shortly thereafter he renounced his belief in God.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=9|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=50–51, 64}} At the time, Vladimir's elder brother [[Aleksandr Ulyanov|Aleksandr (Sacha) Ulyanov]] was studying at [[Saint Petersburg State University|Saint Petersburg University]]. Involved in political agitation against the [[absolute monarchy]] of reactionary Tsar [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] which governed the Russian Empire, he studied the writings of banned leftists like [[Dmitry Pisarev]], [[Nikolay Dobrolyubov]], [[Nikolay Chernyshevsky]] and [[Karl Marx]]. Organising protests against the government, he joined a socialist revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tsar and was selected to construct a bomb. Before the attack commenced, the conspirators were arrested and tried. On 25 April 1887, Sacha was sentenced to death by hanging, and executed on 8 May.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|pp=10–17}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=20, 22–24}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=52–58}}.</ref> Despite the emotional trauma brought on by his father and brother's deaths, Vladimir continued studying, leaving school with a gold medal for his exceptional performance, and decided to study law at Kazan University.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=25}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=61}}.</ref>
===University and political radicalism: 1887–93===
Entering Kazan University in August 1887, Vladimir and his mother moved into a flat, renting out their Simbirsk home.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=26}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=61–63}}.</ref> Interested in his late brother's radical ideas, he joined an [[agrarian socialism|agrarian-socialist]] revolutionary cell intent on reviving the [[Narodnaya Volya|People's Freedom Party]] (''Narodnaya Volya''). Joining the university's illegal Samara-Simbirsk ''[[zemlyachestvo]]'', he was elected as its representative for the university's ''zemlyachestvo'' council.<ref>{{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=26–27}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=64–68, 70}}.</ref> In December he took part in a demonstration demanding the abolition of the 1884 statute and the re-legalisation of student societies, but was arrested by the police. Accused of being a ringleader, the university expelled him and the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia)|Ministry of Internal Affairs]] placed him under surveillance, exiling him to his Kokushkino estate.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=27}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=68–69}}.</ref> Here, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Chernyshevsky's 1863 novel ''[[What Is to Be Done? (novel)|What is to be Done?]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=28}}.</ref> Disliking his radicalism, in September 1888 his mother persuaded him to write to the Interior Ministry to request permission for studying abroad; they refused, but allowed him to return to [[Kazan]], where he settled on the Pervaya Gora with his mother and brother Dmitry.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=18}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=31}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=71}}.</ref>
[[File:Lenin-circa-1887.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Lenin, {{circa|1887}}.]]
In Kazan, he joined another revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's ''[[Das Kapital]]'' (1867). It exerted a strong influence on him, and he grew increasingly interested in [[Marxism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=19}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=32–33}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|p=72}}.</ref> Wary of his political views, his mother bought an estate in Alakaevka village, [[Samara Oblast]] – made famous in the work of poet [[Gleb Uspensky]], of whom Lenin was a great fan – in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. However, he had little interest in farming or farm management and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.<ref>{{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=74–76}}.</ref>
In September 1889, the Ulyanovs moved to [[Samara, Russia|Samara]] for the winter. Here, Vladimir contacted exiled dissidents and joined [[Alexei P. Skliarenko]]'s discussion circle. Both Vladimir and Skliarenko adopted Marxism, with Vladimir translating Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]]' 1848 political pamphlet, ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]'', into Russian. He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist [[Georgi Plekhanov]], a founder of the [[Black Repartition]] movement, concurring with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from [[feudalism]] to [[capitalism]]. Becoming increasingly sceptical of the effectiveness of militant attacks and assassinations, he argued against such tactics in a December 1889 debate with M.V. Sabunaev, an advocate of the People's Freedom Party. Despite disagreeing on tactics, he made friends among the Party, in particular with Apollon Shukht, who asked Vladimir to be his daughter's [[Legal guardian|godfather]] in 1893.<ref>{{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=34}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=77–80}}.</ref>
In May 1890, Mariya convinced the authorities to allow Vladimir to undertake his exams externally at a university of his choice. Choosing the [[Saint Petersburg State University|University of St Petersburg]] and obtaining the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours, celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of [[typhoid]].<ref>{{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=34–36}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=82–86}}.</ref> Vladimir remained in Samara for several years, in January 1892 being employed as a legal assistant for a regional court, before gaining a job with a local lawyer. Embroiled primarily in disputes between peasants and artisans, he devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Skylarenko's group and formulating ideas about Marxism's applicability to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Vladimir collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and increasingly rejecting the claims of the People's Freedom Party.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=21}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|pp=36–37}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=86–90}}.</ref> In the spring of 1893, Lenin wrote a paper, "New Economic Developments in Peasant Life"; submitted to the liberal journal ''Russian Thought'', it was rejected and only published in 1927.<ref>{{harvnb|Fischer|1964|p=21}}; {{harvnb|Rice|1990|p=38}}; {{harvnb|Service|2000|pp=93–94}}. Published as V. I. Lenin, "New Economic Developments in Peasant Life" contained in the ''Collected Works of V. I. Lenin: Volume 1'' (Progress Publishers: Moscow, 1972) pp. 11-73.</ref>
==Revolutionary activity==
{{Main|Revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin}}
===Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900===
In autumn 1893, Lenin moved to [[Saint Petersburg]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=354|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=38–39|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=90–92}} There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell calling themselves the "Social Democrats" after the Marxist [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=354|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=39–40}} Publicly championing Marxism among the socialist movement,{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=40}} he encouraged the foundation of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=43|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=96}} He befriended Russian Jewish Marxist [[Julius Martov]],{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=104–105}} and began a relationship with Marxist schoolteacher [[Nadezhda Krupskaya|Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=22|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=41}} By autumn 1894 he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and was meticulous in covering his tracks, knowing that police spies were trying to infiltrate the revolutionary movement.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=355|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=41–42|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=105}} Although he was influenced by agrarian-socialist [[Pyotr Tkachev|Pëtr Tkachëvi]],{{sfn|Service|2000|p=98}} Lenin's Social-Democrats clashed with the [[Narodnik]] agrarian-socialist platform of the [[Socialist–Revolutionary Party]] (SR). The SR saw the peasantry as the main force of revolutionary change, whereas the Marxists believed peasants to be sympathetic to private ownership, instead emphasising the revolutionary role of the proletariat.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=23–25}} He dealt with some of these issues in his first political tract, ''What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats''; based largely on his experiences in Samara, around 200 copies were illegally printed.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=42–43}}
{{double image|left|Lenin-1895-mugshot.jpg|135|KrupskayaPhoto.png|170|Lenin (left) in December 1895 and his wife Nadezhda.}}
Lenin hoped to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and [[Emancipation of Labour]], a group of Russian Marxist emigres based in Switzerland, soon visiting Switzerland to meet group's members Plackhanov and [[Pavel Axelrod]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=30|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=354|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=44–46|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=103}} He proceeded to Paris to meet [[Paul Lafargue]] and to research the [[Paris Commune|Paris Commune of 1871]], which he saw as an early prototype for a proletarian government.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=46|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=103}} Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before traveling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the [[Staatsbibliothek]] and met [[Wilhelm Liebknecht]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=30|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=46|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=103}} Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he traveled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers in Saint Petersburg.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=47–48}} Involved in producing a news sheet, ''The Workers' Cause'', he was among 40 activists arrested and charged with sedition.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=31|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=355|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=48}}
Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=31|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=48–51|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=107–108}} He spent this time theorising and writing, focusing his attention on the revolutionary potential of the working-class; acknowledging that the rise of [[industrial capitalism]] in Russia had led large numbers of [[peasantry|peasants]] to move to the cities, where they became [[proletariat]], from a Marxist perspective he argued that they would gain [[class consciousness]] and then violently overthrow [[Tsarism]], the [[aristocracy]], and the [[bourgeoisie]] to establish a [[Dictatorship of the proletariat|proletariat state]] that would move toward socialism.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=31|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=48–51|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=107–108}}
In February 1897, he was sentenced without trial to 3 years exile in eastern Siberia, although given a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order, and in this time met with the Social-Democrats, who had been renamed the [[League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=31|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=52–55|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=109–110}} His journey to eastern Siberia took 11 weeks, for much of which he was accompanied by his mother and sisters. Deemed only a minor threat to the government, he was exiled to a peasant's hut in [[Shushenskoye]], [[Minusinsky District]], where he was kept under police surveillance; he was nevertheless able to correspond with other subversives, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to hunt duck and snipe and to swim in the [[Yenisei River]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=31–32|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=53, 55–56|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=110–113}}
In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. Although initially posted to [[Ufa]], she convinced the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, claiming that she and Ulyanov were engaged; they married in a church on 10 July 1898.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=33|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=356|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=114, 140}} Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=33–34|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=53, 55–56|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=117}} Keen to keep abreast of the developments in German Marxism – where there had been an ideological split, with [[Revisionism (Marxism)|revisionists]] like [[Eduard Bernstein]] advocating a peaceful, electoral path to socialism – Ulyanov remained devoted to violent revolution, attacking revisionist arguments in ''A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=61–63|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=124}} He also finished ''[[The Development of Capitalism in Russia]]'' (1899), his longest book to date, which offered a well-researched and polemical attack on the Social-Revolutionaries and promoting a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of "Vladimir Ilin", upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=57–58|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=121–124, 137}}
===Munich, London and Geneva: 1900–05===
[[File:Iskra.jpg|thumb|300px|The first issue of ''Iskra'' ("Spark"), official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Edited by Lenin from his base in Geneva, Switzerland, copies would be smuggled into Russia, where it would prove successful in winning support for the Marxist revolutionary cause.]]
His exile over, Ulanov settled in [[Pskov]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=34–35|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=64|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=124–125}} There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, ''[[Iskra]]'' (''The Spark''), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (RSDLP). In July 1900, Ulyanov left Russia for Western Europe; in Switzerland he met other Russian Marxists, and at a [[Corsier]] conference they agreed to launch the paper from [[Munich]], where Lenin relocated in September.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=35|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=357|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=64–69|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=129–135}} Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists [[Rosa Luxemburg]], [[Karl Kautsky]], and [[Leon Trotsky]], ''Iskra'' was smuggled into Russia illegally, becoming the most successful underground publication for 50 years.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=69–70}} Ulyanov adopted the ''[[nom de guerre]]'' of "Lenin" in December 1901, possibly taking the [[River Lena]] as a basis.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=4–5|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=137}} Under this pseudonym, he published the political pamphlet ''[[What Is to Be Done?]]'' in 1902; his most influential publication to date, it dealt with Lenin's thoughts on the need for a [[vanguard party]] to lead the proletariat to revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=39|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=359|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=73–75|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=137–142}}
Nadya joined Lenin in Munich, becoming his personal secretary.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=37|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=70|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=136}} They continued their political agitation, with Lenin writing for ''Iskra'' and drafting the RSDLP program, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the SR.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=37|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=78–79|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=143–144}} Despite remaining an orthodox Marxist, he came to accept the SR's views on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, penning the 1903 pamphlet ''To the Village Poor''.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=38}}
To evade Bavarian police, Lenin relocated to London with ''Iskra'' in April 1902,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=38–39|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=75–76|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=147}} here becoming good friends with Trotsky.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=40, 50–51|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=76|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=148–150}} While in London, Lenin fell ill with [[erysipelas]] and was unable to take such a leading role on the ''Iskra'' editorial board; in his absence the board moved its base of operations to Switzerland.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=77–78|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=150}}
The [[2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|2nd RSDLP Congress]] was held in London in July.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=360|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=79–80|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=151–152}} At the conference, a schism emerged between Lenin's supporters and those of [[Julius Martov]]. Martov argued that party members should be able to express themselves independently of the party leadership; Lenin disagreed, emphasising the need for a strong leadership with complete control.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=81–82|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=154–155}} Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and Lenin termed them the "majoritarians" (''bol'sheviki'' in Russian; thus [[Bolsheviks]]); in response, Martov termed his followers the minoritarians (''men'sheviki'' in Russian; thus [[Mensheviks]]).{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=39|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=82|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=155–156|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=60–61}} Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked any discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=83}} Enraged at the Mensheviks, Lenin resigned from the ''Iskra'' editorial board and in May 1904 published the anti-Menshevik tract ''One Step Forward, Two Steps Back''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=83–84|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=157}} The stress made Lenin ill,{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=158–159}} and to recuperate he went on a rural holiday.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=163–164}} The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by the spring, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik,{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=85|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=163}} and in December they founded the newspaper ''[[Vperëd]]'' (''Forward'').{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=41|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=85|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=165}}
===The 1905 Revolution and its aftermath: 1905–14===
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote="The uprising has begun. Force against Force. Street fighting is raging, barricades are being thrown up, rifles are cracking, guns are booming. Rivers of blood are flowing, the civil war for freedom is blazing up. Moscow and the South, the Caucasus and Poland are ready to join the proletariat of St. Petersburg. The slogan of the workers has become: Death or Freedom!"|source=Lenin, 1905{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=88–89}} }}
In January 1905, the [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]] massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparking a spate of civil unrest known as the [[Revolution of 1905]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=44|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=86–88|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=167}} Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=44–45|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=362–363|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=88–89}} In doing so he adopted SR slogans regarding "armed insurrection", "mass terror", and "the expropriation of gentry land", resulting in Menshevik accusations that he had deviated from orthodox Marxism.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=170–171}} In turn he insisted that the Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks, although many Bolsheviks refused and both groups attended the [[3rd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|3rd RSDLP Congress]], held in London in April 1905.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=363–364|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=89–90|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=168–170}} Lenin presented many of his ideas in the pamphlet ''Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution'', published in August 1905. Here, he predicted that the liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a [[constitutional monarchy]] and thus betray the revolution; instead he argued that the proletariat would have to build an alliance with the peasantry to overthrow the Tsarist regime and establish the "provisional revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry".{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=60|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=367|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=90–91|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=179}}
After Tsar [[Nicholas II]] accepted a series of liberal reforms in his [[October Manifesto]], Lenin felt it safe to return to St. Petersburg.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=51|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=94|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=175–176|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=81}} Joining the editorial board of ''Novaya Zhizn'' (''New Life''), a radical legal newspaper run by [[Maria Andreyeva]], he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=94–95}} He encouraged the party to seek out a much wider membership, and advocated the continual escalation of violent confrontation, believing both to be necessary for a successful revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=96–97|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=176–178}} Although he briefly supported the idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=95|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=178–179}} at the [[4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|4th Party Congress]] in [[Stockholm]], Sweden in April 1906 the Mensheviks condemned Lenin for supporting bank robberies and violence.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=53|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=364|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=99–100|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=179–180}}
A Bolshevik Centre was set up in [[Repino|Kuokkala]], [[Grand Duchy of Finland]], which was then a semi-autonomous part of the Empire,{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=103|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=180–181}} before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its [[5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|5th Congress]], held in London in May 1907.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=103–105|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=181–182}} However, as the Tsarist government disbanded the [[Second Duma]] and the Okhrana cracked down on revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=105–106|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=184–186}}
{{double image|left|MartovW.jpg|124|A A Bogdanov.jpg|140|Lenin's factionalism led him to split with [[Julius Martov]] (left) and the Mensheviks, and then [[Alexander Bogdanov]] (right) within the Bolshevik faction}}
[[Alexander Bogdanov]] and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris, France; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=186–187}} Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike while there.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=67–68|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=111|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=188–189}}
Here, Lenin revived his polemics against the Mensheviks,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=189}} who objected to his advocacy of violent expropriations and thefts such as the [[1907 Tiflis bank robbery]], which the Bolsheviks were using to fund their activities.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=71|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=369–370|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=108}} Lenin also became heavily critical of Bogdanov and his supporters; Bogdanov believed that a socialist-oriented culture had to be developed among Russia's proletariat for them to become a successful revolutionary vehicle, whereas Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who could lead the working-classes in revolution. Furthermore, Bogdanov – influenced by [[Ernest Mach]] – believed that all concepts of the world were relative, whereas Lenin stuck to the orthodox Marxist view that there was an objective reality to the world, independent of human observation.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=64|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=109|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=189–190}} Although Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Gorky's villa in [[Capri]], Italy, in April 1908,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=63–64|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=110|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=190–191}} on returning to Paris, Lenin encouraged a split within the Bolshevik faction between his and Bogdanov's followers, accusing the latter of deviating from Marxism.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=110–111|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=191–192}}
In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the [[British Museum]] library to write ''[[Materialism and Empirio-criticism]]'', an attack on Bogdanov's relativist perspective, which he lambasted as a "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood".{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=64–67|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=110|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=192–193}} Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including close Lenin supporters [[Alexei Rykov]] and [[Lev Kamenev]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=69|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=111|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=195}} The Okhrana decided to exploit his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, [[Roman Malinovsky]], to become a vocal supporter and ally of Lenin within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions regarding Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used him to feed false information to the Okhrana.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=81–82|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=372–375|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=120–121|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=206}}
In August 1910 Lenin attended the 8th Congress of the Second International in [[Copenhagen]] as the RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=70|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=114–116}} With his wife and sisters he then moved to France, settling first in [[Bombon, Seine-et-Marne|Bombon]] and then Paris.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=68–69|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=112|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=195–196}} Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik [[Inessa Armand]]; their friendship continued until 1912, with some biographers suggesting that they had an extra-marital affair.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=75–80|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=112|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=384|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=197–199}} Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911 the RSDLP Central Committee decided to draw the focus of operations from Paris and back to Russia; they ordered the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, ''Proletari''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=115|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=196}} Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for [[Prague Party Conference|a party conference]] to be held in [[Prague]] in January 1912, and although 16 of the 18 attendants were Bolsheviks, he was heavily criticised for his factionalist tendencies and failed to boost his status within the party.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=71–72|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=116–117|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=204–206}} Then moving to [[Krakow]] in the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]], a culturally Polish part of the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]], he made use of [[Jagellonian University]]'s library to conduct his ongoing research.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=72|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=118–119|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=209–211}} There, he was able to stay in close contact with the RSDLP operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=93–94|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=376|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=121|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=214–215}} In January 1913, Stalin – whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian" – visited him, with the pair discussing the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=122}} Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural area of [[Biały Dunajec]],{{sfn|Service|2000|p=216}} before heading to [[Bern]], Switzerland for Nadya to have surgery on her [[goiter]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=73–74|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=122–123|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3Fpp=217–218}}
===First World War: 1914–17===
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote="The [First World] war is being waged for the division of colonies and the robbery of foreign territory; thieves have fallen out–and to refer to the defeats at a given moment of one of the thieves in order to identify the interests of all thieves with the interests of the nation or the fatherland is an unconscionable bourgeois lie."|source=Lenin{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=85}} }}
Lenin was in [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] when the [[First World War]] broke out.{{sfnm|1a1=Solzhenitsyn|1y=1976|1p=12|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=127|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=222–223}} The war pitted the Russian Empire against the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and due to his Russian citizenship, Lenin was arrested and briefly imprisoned until his anti-Tsarist credentials were explained.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=94|2a1=Solzhenitsyn|2y=1976|2pp=13–15|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=377–378|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4pp=127–128|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=223–225}} Lenin and his wife returned to Bern,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=94|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=378|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=128|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=225}} before relocating to [[Zurich]] in February 1916.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=107|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=236}} Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort – a direct contravention of the [[Second International]]'s [[International Socialist Congress, Stuttgart 1907|Stuttgart resolution]] that socialist parties would oppose the conflict – and thus saw the Second International as defunct.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=85|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=378–379|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=127|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=225}}
Lenin attended the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] in September 1915 and the [[Kiental]] conference in April 1916,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=94|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=130–131|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=382–383|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=245}} urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=85|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=129|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=227–228}}
In September 1917, Lenin published ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'', in which he argued that [[imperialism]] was a product of [[monopoly capitalism]], as capitalists sought to increase their profits by extending into new territories where wages were lower and raw materials cheaper. He believed that competition and conflict would increase and that war between the imperialist powers would continue until they were overthrown by proletariat revolution and socialism established.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=95–100, 107|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=132–134|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=245–246|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=116–126}} At this time, he devoted much time to reading the works of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]], [[Ludwig Feuerbach]], and [[Aristotle]], all of whom had been key influences on Marx.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=241–242}} In doing so he rejected his earlier interpretations of Marxism; whereas he had once believed that policies could be developed on the basis of predetermined scientific principles, he now believed that the only test of whether a practice was right or not was through practice.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=243}} Although still perceiving himself as an orthodox Marxist, he began to divert from some of Marx's predictions regarding societal development; whereas Marx had believed that a "bourgeoisie-democratic revolution" of the middle-classes had to take place before a "socialist revolution" of the proletariat, Lenin believed that in Russia, the proletariat could overthrow the Tsarist regime without the intermediate revolution.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=238–239}} In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=380|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=230–231}} Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he would not live long enough to witness the socialist revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=135|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=235}}
===The February Revolution and the July Days: 1917===
In February 1917, the [[February Revolution]] broke out in St. Petersburg – recently renamed [[Petrograd]] – as industrial workers went on strike over food shortages and deteriorating factory conditions. The unrest spread to other parts of Russia, and fearing that he would be violently overthrown, Tsar [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing a [[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=136–138|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=253}} When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=254–255}} He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks, but found that most passages in to the country were blocked due to the ongoing conflict. He organised a plan with other dissidents to negotiate a passage for them through Germany, with whom Russia was then at war. Recognising that these dissidents could cause problems for their Russian enemies, the German government agreed to permit 32 Russian citizens to travel in a train carriage through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=109–110|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=139|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=386, 389–391|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=255–256}} The group traveled by train from Zurich to [[Sassnitz]], proceeding by ferry to [[Trelleborg]], Sweden, and from there to [[Helsinki]], Finland, before taking the final train to Petrograd.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=110–113|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=140–144|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=391–392|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=257–260}}
[[File:Lenin 05d.jpg|upright|left|thumb|Lenin in disguise, Finland, August 1917]]
On arriving at Petrograd's [[Finland Station]], Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a Europe-wide proletariat revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=113, 124|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=144|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=392|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=261}} Over the following days he spoke at Bolshevik meetings, lambasting those who wanted reconciliation with the Mensheviks and revealing his ''[[April Theses]]'', an outline of his plans for the Bolsheviks which he had written on the journey from Switzerland.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=393–394|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=266}} He publicly condemned both the Mensheviks and the Social Revolutionaries – who dominated the influential [[Petrograd Soviet]] – for supporting the Provisional Government, denouncing them as traitors to socialism. Considering the government to be as equally imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany, rule by [[Soviet (council)|soviet]]s, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. The Mensheviks conversely believed Russia to be insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the Empire into civil war.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=266–268, 279}} Over the coming months he campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for ''Pravda'', and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=267, 271–272}}
Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=282}} However, amid deteriorating health,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=276}} he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of [[Neivola]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=421|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=147|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=283}}
The Bolsheviks' armed demonstration, the [[July Days]], took place while Lenin was away, but upon learning that demonstrators had violently clashed with government forces he returned to Petrograd, there calling upon Bolshevik supporters for calm.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=422–425|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=147–148|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=283–284|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=158–61}} Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent members of the Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German ''[[agent provocateur]]''.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=431–434|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=148|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=284–285}} Evading arrest, Lenin hid in a series of Petrograd [[safe house]]s.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=125|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=148–149|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=285}}
Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik [[Grigory Zinoviev]] then escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to [[Razliv]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=436, 467|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=287}} It was here that Lenin began work on the book that became ''[[The State and Revolution]]'', an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop following the proletariat revolution, and how from that point on the state would gradually wither away leaving a [[Pure communism|pure communist society]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=468–469|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=149|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=289}} He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, although at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected.{{Sfn|Service|2000|p=288}} Lenin then headed by train and by foot to Finland, arriving at Helsinki on 10 August, where he hid away in safe houses belonging to Bolshevik sympathisers.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=468|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=150|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=289–292}}
===The October Revolution: 1917===
{{Main|October Revolution}}
[[File:Brodskiy's Lenin.jpg|thumb|Painting of Lenin in front of the [[Smolny Institute]] by [[Isaak Brodsky]]]]
In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, [[Lavr Kornilov|General Lavr Kornilov]], the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a [[Kornilov Affair|military coup attempt]] against the Provisional Government. Premier [[Alexander Kerensky]] turned to the Petrograd Soviet – including its Bolshevik members – for help, allowing the revolutionaries to organise workers as [[Red Guards (Russia)|Red Guards]] to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, however the events' primary beneficiers had been the Bolsheviks, whose return to the open political arena it permitted.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=439–465|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=150–151|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=299}} Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries who then dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressurising the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=465}} However, both the Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war, with the Bolsheviks capitalising on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=465–467}} In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=471|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|1pp=151–152}}
Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=473, 482|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=152|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=302–303}} There, he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued his case that the party should lead an armed insurrection of their supporters to topple the Provisional Government. This time, he was successful in his argument, and the motion was ratified with ten votes against two.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=482–484|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=153–154|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=303–304}} Those critical of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, expressed the view that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the existing regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=471–472|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=304}} The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the [[Smolny Institute]] on 24 October.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=306–307}} This was the base of the [[Military Revolutionary Committee]] (MRC), an armed militia that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet with the Provisional Government's support during the Kornilov Affair; the MRC comprised largely of those loyal to the Bolsheviks.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=466|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=155}}
In October, the MRC were given the order to seize control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, doing so without bloodshed.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=485–486, 491|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=157, 159|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=308}} While the insurrection was taking place, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=491|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=309}} However, at this point the government had yet to surrender, instead being under siege from armed Bolsheviks within the [[Winter Palace]]; when a Bolshevik ship, the ''[[Russian cruiser Aurora|Aurora]]'', sailed along the palace and opened fire on it the government eventually surrendered, with the ministers being imprisoned.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=492–493, 496|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=311}} The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the [[Council of People's Commissars]] or "Sovnarkom"; although Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, the other Bolsheviks refused to accept this and ultimately Lenin relented.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=499|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=314–315}} Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets#Second Congress|Second Congress of Soviets]], held over 26 and 27 October and dominated by Bolshevik-controlled urban soviets rather than their rural counterparts. There they announced the creation of the new government, but were condemned by Menshevik attendees, who lambasted the Bolshevik seizure of power as illegitimate and warned that it could lead to civil war.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=496–497|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=159–161|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=314–315}} In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in explicitly Marxist and socialist phraseology, fearing that in doing so he might alienate much of Russia's population, and instead he focused on talking about the establishment of a new form of government in which the country was controlled by the workers.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=504|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=315}}
At this point, Lenin and many other Bolsheviks were expecting proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe, either in the coming days or, at most, in the coming months.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=316}}
==Lenin's Government==
{{Main|Government of Vladimir Lenin}}
===Consolidating power: 1917–18===
{{Quote box|width=246px|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quote="To All Workers, Soldiers and Peasants. The Soviet authority will at once propose a democratic peace to all nations and an immediate armistice on all fronts. It will safeguard the transfer without compensation of all land – landlord, imperial, and monastery – to the peasants' committees; it will defend the soldiers' rights, introducing a complete democratisation of the army; it will establish workers' control over industry; it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly on the date set; it will supply the cities with bread and the villages with articles of first necessity; and it will secure to all nationalities inhabiting Russia the right of self-determination... Long live the revolution!"|source=Lenin's political program, October 1918{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=161}} }}
[[File:Lenin-office-1918.jpg|thumb|Lenin in his office, 1918]]
[[File:Sztálin Lenin és Kalinyin.jpg|300px|thumbnail|[[Josef Stalin]], Lenin and [[Mikhail Kalinin]] (detail of a photo from the [[8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party]], March 1919). Part of much larger photo showing other Congress members.]]
Lenin had argued in a newspaper article in September 1917:<blockquote>The peaceful development of any revolution is, generally speaking, extremely rare and difficult ... but ... a peaceful development of the revolution is possible and probable if all power is transferred to the Soviets. The struggle of parties for power within the Soviets may proceed peacefully, if the Soviets are made fully democratic<ref>V. I. Lenin, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/29.htm 'The Russian Revolution And Civil War: They Are Trying To Frighten Us With Civil War'], ''Rabochy Put'' ('The Workers' Path') No. 12 (29 September 1917), [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/ Lenin Internet Archive].</ref></blockquote>The October Revolution had been relatively peaceful. The revolutionary forces already had ''de facto'' control of the capital thanks to the defection of the city garrison. Few troops had stayed to defend the Provisional Government in the [[Winter Palace]].<ref>Orlando Figes, ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924'', London: Pimlico (1996), pp. 481, 491.</ref> Most citizens had simply continued about their daily business while the Provisional Government was actually overthrown.<ref name="Sheila Fitzpatrick 2008 p. 60">Sheila Fitzpatrick, ''The Russian Revolution'', Oxford: Oxford University Press (2008), p. 60.</ref>
It thus appeared that all power had been transferred to the Soviets relatively peacefully. On the evening of the October Revolution, the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets|Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets]] met, with a Bolshevik-[[Left SR]] majority, in the [[Smolny Institute]] in Petrograd. When the left-wing Menshevik [[Julius Martov|Martov]] proposed an all-party Soviet government, the Bolshevik [[Anatoly Lunacharsky|Lunacharsky]] stated that his party did not oppose the idea. The Bolshevik delegates voted unanimously in favour of the proposal.<ref>Orlando Figes, ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924'', London: Pimlico (1996), pp. 489–90.</ref>
However, not all Russian socialists supported transferring all power to the Soviets. The [[Socialist–Revolutionary Party|Right SRs]] and [[Mensheviks]] walked out of this very first session of the Congress of Soviets in protest at the overthrow of the Provisional Government, of which their parties had been members.<ref>Orlando Figes, ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924'', London: Pimlico (1996), p. 490.</ref>
The next day, on the evening of 26 October [[Old Style|O.S.]], Lenin attended the Congress of Soviets: undisguised in public for the first time since the July Days, although not yet having regrown his trademark beard. The American journalist [[John Reed (journalist)|John Reed]] described the man who appeared at about 8:40 pm to "a thundering wave of cheers":
<blockquote>A short, stocky figure, with a big head set down in his shoulders, bald and bulging. Little eyes, a snubbish nose, wide, generous mouth, and heavy chin; clean-shaven now, but already beginning to bristle with the well-known beard of his past and future. Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him. Unimpressive, to be the idol of a mob, loved and revered as perhaps few leaders in history have been. A strange popular leader—a leader purely by virtue of intellect; colourless, humourless, uncompromising and detached, without picturesque idiosyncrasies—but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms, of analysing a concrete situation. And combined with shrewdness, the greatest intellectual audacity.<ref>John Reed, ''Ten Days That Shook the World'', London: Penguin (1977), p. 128. (Available [http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/ch5.htm online], courtesy of the [http://www.marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive].)</ref></blockquote>[[File:Lenin and Sverdlov looking over Marx and Engels monument.jpg|thumb|Lenin and [[Yakov Sverdlov|Sverdlov]] looking over Marx and Engels monument, 1918]]
According to Reed, Lenin waited for the applause to subside before declaring simply: "We shall now proceed to construct the Socialist order!" Lenin proceeded to propose to the Congress a [[Decree on Peace]], calling on "all the belligerent peoples and to their Governments to begin immediately negotiations for a just and democratic peace", and a [[Decree on Land]], transferring ownership of all "land-owners' estates, and all lands belonging to the Crown, [and] to monasteries" to the Peasants' Soviets. The Congress passed the Decree on Peace unanimously, and the Decree on Land faced only one vote in opposition.<ref>John Reed, ''Ten Days That Shook the World'', London: Penguin (1977), pp. 129–137. (Available [http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/ch5.htm online], courtesy of the [http://www.marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive].)</ref>
Having approved these key Bolshevik policies, the Congress of Soviets proceeded to elect the Bolsheviks into power as the [[Council of People's Commissars (Russia)|Council of People's Commissars]] by "an enormous majority".<ref name="online">John Reed, ''Ten Days That Shook the World'', London: Penguin (1977), p. 143. (Available [http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/ch5.htm online], courtesy of the [http://www.marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive].)</ref> The Bolsheviks offered posts in the Council to the [[Left SRs]]: an offer that the Left SRs at first refused,<ref name="Ronald W. Clark 1988 p. 279">Ronald W. Clark, ''Lenin: The Man Behind the Mask'', London: Faber and Faber (1988), p. 279.</ref> but later accepted, joining the Bolsheviks in coalition on 12 December [[Old Style|O.S]].<ref>Orlando Figes, ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924'', London: Pimlico (1996), p. 512.</ref> Lenin had suggested that Trotsky take the position of Chairman of the Council—the head of the Soviet government—but Trotsky refused on the grounds that his Jewishness would be controversial, and he took the post of Commissar for Foreign Affairs instead.<ref name="Ronald W. Clark 1988 p. 279"/> Thus, Lenin became the head of government in Russia.
Trotsky announced the composition of the new Soviet Central Executive Committee: with a Bolshevik majority, but with places reserved for the representatives of the other parties, including the seceded Right SRs and Mensheviks. Trotsky concluded the Congress: "We welcome into the Government all parties and groups which will adopt our programme."<ref name="online"/>
Lenin declared in 1920 that "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the entire country" in modernising Russia into a 20th-century country:<ref>Lenin "Collected Works", vol. 31, p. 516.</ref>
{{quote|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.<ref>Lenin "Collected Works", vol. 30, p. 335.</ref>}}
Yet the Bolshevik Government had to first withdraw Russia from the [[First World War]] (1914–18). Facing continuing [[German Army (German Empire)|Imperial German]] eastward advance, Lenin proposed immediate Russian withdrawal from the West European war; yet, other, doctrinaire [[Bolshevik]] leaders (e.g. [[Nikolai Bukharin]]) advocated continuing in the war to foment revolution in Germany. Lead peace treaty negotiator Leon Trotsky proposed ''No War, No Peace'', an intermediate-stance Russo–German treaty conditional upon neither belligerent annexing conquered lands; the negotiations collapsed, and the Germans [[Operation Faustschlag|renewed their attack]], conquering much of the (agricultural) territory of west Russia. As a result, Lenin's withdrawal proposal then gained majority support, and, on 3 March 1918, Russia withdrew from the First World War via the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]], losing much of its European territory. Because of the German threat, Lenin moved the Soviet Government from Petrograd to Moscow on 10–11 March 1918.<ref>[[#Rea05|Read 2005]]. p. 212.</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9A02E0DF103BEE3ABC4E52DFB5668383609EDE |title=Lenine's Migration a Queer Scene: Premier in Moscow, Capitalism's Stronghold, Serene Amid His Tattered Baggage |author=Arthur Ransome |newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 March 1918 |accessdate=6 January 2012}}</ref>
On 19 January 1918, relying upon the [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], the Bolsheviks, allied with anarchists and the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionaries]], dissolved the [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] thereby consolidating the Bolshevik Government's political power. Yet, that [[Left wing politics|left-wing]] coalition collapsed consequent to the Social Revolutionaries opposing the territorially expensive [[Brest-Litovsk treaty]] the Bolsheviks reached an accord with [[German Empire|Imperial Germany]]. The anarchists and the Socialist Revolutionaries then joined other political parties in attempting to depose the Bolshevik Government, who defended themselves with persecution and jail for the anti-Bolsheviks.
To initiate the Russian economic recovery, on 21 February 1920, he launched the [[GOELRO plan]], the ''State Commission for Electrification of Russia'' (Государственная комиссия по электрификации России), and also established free [[universal health care]], [[free education]] systems, promulgated the politico-civil [[feminism|rights of women]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/subject/women/index.htm |title=Women and Marxism – Lenin |publisher=Marxists.org |date=14 November 2003 |accessdate=2012-05-22}}</ref>
Homosexuality and abortion were legalized.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hazard|1965|pp=277, 279}}.</ref><ref>http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/leaders/vladimir-lenin/</ref> A number of Soviet leaders were openly homosexual, and Lenin personally signed the decree legalizing homosexuality, making the Soviet Union the first modern nation to so so.<ref name=krausz>{{cite book|last1=Krausz|first1=Tamás|title=Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography|date=2015|publisher=NYU Press|page=71|accessdate=28 June 2015}}</ref> No-fault divorce was also legalized, along with universal free healthcare<ref>Women's Health in Post-Soviet Russia: The Politics of Intervention. Michele R. Rivkin-Fish. Page 70</ref> and free education being established.<ref>Communism. Sue Vander Hook. Page 28.</ref>
===Establishing the Cheka===
{{Main|Cheka}}
On 20 December 1917, "The Whole-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage", the [[Cheka]] (''Chrezvychaynaya Komissiya'' – Extraordinary Commission) was created by a decree issued by Lenin to defend the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]].<ref>{{cite book |title=The Impact of Stalin's Leadership in the USSR, 1924–1941 |authorlink=John Laver |year=2008 |publisher=Nelson Thornes |isbn=978-0-7487-8267-3 |page=3}}</ref> The establishment of the Cheka, [[secret police|secret service]], headed by [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]], formally consolidated the censorship established earlier, when 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 régime. . . .";<ref>Leonard Shapiro, ''The Communist Party of the Soviet Union''</ref> non-Bolshevik soviets were disbanded; anti-soviet newspapers were closed until ''[[Pravda]]'' (''Truth'') and ''[[Izvestia]]'' (''The News'') established their communications monopoly. According to [[Leonard Schapiro]] the Bolshevik "refusal to come to terms with the [Revolutionary] socialists, and the dispersal of the [[Russian Constituent Assembly|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 politics|right-wing]] opponents, but against anyone, be he socialist, worker, or peasant, who opposed Bolshevik rule".<ref>Leonard Bertram Schapiro. ''The Communist Party of the Soviet Union''. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1970. ISBN 0-413-27900-6 p. 183. See also: [http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/his1e.htm Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, V]</ref> On 19 December 1918, a year after its creation, a resolution was adopted at Lenin's behest that forbade the Bolshevik's own press from publishing "defamatory articles" about the Cheka.<ref name="Black Book 79">[[Black Book of Communism]], p. 79</ref> As Lenin put it: "A Good Communist is also a good [[Chekism|Chekist]]."<ref name="Black Book 79"/>
===Failed assassinations===
Lenin survived two serious assassination attempts. The first occasion was on 14 January 1918 in [[Saint Petersburg|Petrograd]], when assassins ambushed Lenin in his automobile after a speech. He and [[Fritz Platten]] were in the back seat when assassins began shooting, and "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".<ref>{{cite book |last=Volkogonov |first=Dimitri |title=Lenin{{spaced ndash}}A New Biography |publisher= Free Press|page=229 |isbn=0-02-933435-7 |location=New York}}</ref>
The second event was on 30 August 1918, when the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionary]] [[Fanya Kaplan]] approached Lenin at his automobile after a speech; he was resting a foot on the running board as he spoke with a woman. Kaplan called to Lenin, and when he turned to face her she shot at him three times. The first bullet struck his arm, the second bullet his jaw and neck, and the third missed him, wounding the woman with whom he was speaking; the wounds felled him and he became unconscious.<ref>Pipes, Richard, ''The Russian Revolution'' (Vintage Books, 1990) p. 807</ref> Kaplan said during her interrogation that she considered Lenin to be "a traitor to the Revolution" for dissolving the Constituent Assembly and for outlawing other leftist parties.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/09/03/1918-fanya-kaplan-lenins-would-be-assassin/ | title=1918: Fanya Kaplan, Lenin’s would-be assassin| publisher=ExecutedToday.com| date=September 3, 2009}}</ref>
''[[Pravda]]'' publicly ridiculed Fanya Kaplan as a failed assassin, a latter-day [[Charlotte Corday]] (the murderess of [[Jean-Paul Marat]]) who could not derail the Russian Revolution, reassuring readers that, immediately after surviving the assassination: "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..."; despite unharmed lungs, the neck wound did spill blood into a lung.<ref>Dr. V. Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin's attending physician, ''Tri Pokusheniia na V. Lenina'', 1924.</ref>
Historian [[Richard Pipes]] reports that "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".{{citation needed|date=June 2015}} Moreover, in a letter to his wife (7 September 1918), [[Leonid Krasin|Leonid Borisovich Krasin]], a Tsarist and Soviet régime diplomat, describes the public atmosphere and social response to the failed assassination attempt on 30 August and to Lenin's survival:
{{quote|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.<ref>Krassin, Lubov, ''Leonid Krassin: His Life and Work, by his wife'' (1929) Skeffington: London</ref>}}
===Red Terror===
{{Main|Red Terror}}
[[File:Tov lenin ochishchaet.jpg|thumb|upright|Bolshevik propaganda poster from 1920, showing Lenin sweeping away monarchists and capitalists; the caption reads, "Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth"]]
The Bolsheviks instructed [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]] to commence a [[Red Terror]], an organized program of arrests, imprisonments, and killings.<ref>{{cite book|author=Anne Applebaum|title=Gulag: A History|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=fCurJRhH-GgC&pg=PT45|year=2007|publisher=Knopf Doubleday|page=45|isbn=9780307426123}}</ref> At Moscow, [[execution warrant|execution lists]] signed by Lenin authorised the shooting of 25 former ministers, civil servants, and 765 [[White Movement|White Guards]] in September 1918.<ref>{{cite book |last = Gellately |first = Robert |title = Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe |publisher = [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]] |year = 2007 |page = 57 |isbn = 1-4000-4005-1}}</ref>
Earlier, in October, [[Lev Kamenev]] and cohort, had warned the Party that terrorist rule was inevitable<ref>[[Orlando Figes]]. ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924.'' [[Penguin Books]], 1997 ISBN 0-19-822862-7 p. 630</ref> In late 1918, when he and [[Nikolai Bukharin]] tried curbing Chekist excesses, Lenin overruled them; in 1921, via the [[Politburo]], he expanded the Cheka's discretionary death-penalty powers.<ref>{{cite book |last = Figes |first = Orlando |title = [[A People's Tragedy]]: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924 |publisher = Penguin |year = 1998 |page = 649
|isbn = 0-14-024364-X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Volkogonov |first=Dimitri |title=Lenin{{spaced ndash}}A New Biography|publisher= Free Press|page=238 |isbn=0-02-933435-7 |location=New York}}</ref>
The [[White Movement|White Russian]] counter-revolution failed for want of popular support and bad coordination among its disparate units. Meanwhile, Lenin put the Terror under a centralized secret police ("Cheka") in summer 1918.<ref>{{cite book |last=Figes |first=Orlando |title=A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924 |publisher=Penguin |year=1998 |pages=524–25 |isbn=0-14-024364-X}}</ref> By May 1919, there were some 16,000 [[enemy of the people|"enemies of the people"]] imprisoned in the Cheka's [[katorga]] [[labor camp|labour camps]]; by September 1921 the prisoner populace exceeded 70,000.<ref>[[Robert Gellately]]. ''Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe.'' [[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]], 2007 ISBN 1-4000-4005-1 [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q8bTWCJMqAQC&pg=PT81 p. 65]</ref><ref>[[Sergei Melgunov|Melgunov, Sergei]], ''Red Terror in Russia'' (1975) Hyperion Pr, ISBN 0-88355-187-X. See: [http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/redterror.pdf The Record of the Red Terror]</ref><ref>[[W. Bruce Lincoln|Lincoln, W. Bruce]], ''Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War'' (1999) [[Da Capo Press]].[http://books.google.com/books?id=R6HAJIJhNp4C&pg=PA383 pp. 383–385] ISBN 0-306-80909-5</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Leggett |first=George |title=The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=1987 |pages=197–198 |isbn=0-19-822862-7}}</ref><ref>[[Orlando Figes]]. ''A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891–1924.'' [[Penguin Books]], 1997 ISBN 0-19-822862-7 p. 647</ref><ref>[[Black Book of Communism]], p. 80</ref>
During the Civil War both the Red and White Russians committed "atrocities against each other" as well by attacking their supporters. The [[Red Terror]] was Lenin's policy (e.g. [[Decossackisation]] i.e. repressions against the [[Kuban Cossacks|Kuban]] and [[Don Cossacks]]) against given social classes, while the counter-revolutionary [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]] was [[antisemitism|racial]] and political, against Jews, anti-monarchists, and Communists, (cf. [[White Movement]]).<ref>''Black Book of Communism'', p. 82</ref> Such numbers are recorded in cities controlled by the Bolsheviks:
<blockquote>
In [[Kharkov]] there were between 2,000 and 3,000 executions in February–June 1919, and another 1,000–2,000 when the town was taken again in December of that year; in [[Rostov-on-Don]], approximately 1,000 in January 1920; in [[Odessa]], 2,200 in May–August 1919, then 1,500–3,000 between February 1920 and February 1921; in [[Kiev]], at least 3,000 in February–August 1919; in [[Ekaterinodar]], at least 3,000 between August 1920 and February 1921; In [[Armavir, Russia|Armavir]], a small town in [[Kuban]], between 2,000 and 3,000 in August–October 1920. The list could go on and on.<ref>Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Panne, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stephane Courtois, ''Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'', [[Harvard University Press]], 1999, hardcover, page 106, ISBN 0-674-07608-7. Chapter 4: ''The Red Terror'' ''Black Book''</ref>
</blockquote>
[[File:VictimOfInternational.jpg|thumb|[[White movement|White Russian]] anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster]]
Professor Christopher Read states that though terror was employed at the height of the Civil War fighting, "from 1920 onwards the resort to terror was much reduced and disappeared from Lenin's mainstream discourses and practices".<ref>[[#Rea05|Read 2005]]. p. 251.</ref>
While the [[Russian famine of 1921]], which left six million dead, was going on, the Bolsheviks planned to capture church property and use its value to relieve the victims.<ref>Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. James Ryan. Page 177. "On 23 February VTsIK decreed, in view of the urgent need to mobilize all the country's resources for famine relief, to remove all valuables of all religions as long as this did not 'affect the interests of these cults', and by agreement with believers."</ref><ref>A History of Russia Volume 2: Since 1855. Walter Moss. Page 371. "The Communists used the famine as an opportunity to demand that the Orthodox Church contribute valuables, including consacred objects, for famine relief."</ref><ref>Religion and the Political Imagination. Ira Katznelson, Gareth Stedman Jones. Cambridge University Press, 7/10/2010. Page 125. "In February 1922 the regime demanded that the church should surrender all its valuables to raise money for famine relief."</ref> About the resistance to this, Lenin said: "we must precisely now smash the Black Hundreds clergy most decisively and ruthlessly and put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades." He also said: "At this meeting pass a secret resolution of the congress that the removal of property of value, especially from the very richest lauras, monasteries, and churches, must be carried out with ruthless resolution, leaving nothing in doubt, and in the very shortest time. The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie that we succeed in shooting on this occasion, the better"<ref>http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ae2bkhun.html</ref> Historian [[Orlando Figes]] has cited an estimate of perhaps 8,000 priests and laymen being executed as a result of this letter.<ref>
{{cite news |last=Figes |first=Orlando |title=Censored by His Own Regime |newspaper=The New York Times |date=27 October 1996
|url=http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/27/books/censored-by-his-own-regime.html}}</ref>
According to historian Michael Kort, "During 1919 and 1920, out of a population of approximately 1.5 million [[Don Cossacks]], the Bolshevik regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000".<ref>Kort, Michael (2001). ''The Soviet Colosus: History and Aftermath'', p. 133. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-0396-8.</ref> And the crushing of the revolts in [[Kronstadt rebellion|Kronstadt]] and [[Tambov Rebellion|Tambov]] in southern Russia in 1921 resulted in large scale executions.<ref>[[Donald Rayfield]]. ''[[Stalin and His Hangmen]]: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him.'' [[Random House]], 2004. ISBN 0-375-50632-2 [http://books.google.com/books?id=Yi3ow3TU8-4C&pg=RA2-PA1915 p. 85]</ref> Estimates for the total number of people killed in the Red Terror range from 50,000 to over a million.<ref name="anatomy" /><ref name="anatomy">The Anatomy of Revolution Revisited: A Comparative Analysis of England, France, and Russia. Bailey Stone. Cambridge University Press, 25/11/2013. p. 335</ref><ref>"The Russian Revolution", Richard Pipes, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 13/7/2011, p. 838</ref><ref>Mastering Twentieth Century Russian History, Norman Lowe</ref><ref>"The Russian Revolution 1917-1921", William Henry Chamberlin, 1935, p. 75</ref><ref>"First Fifty Years: Soviet Russia 1917-67", Ian Grey, 1967, p. 158</ref><ref>Stewart-Smith, D. G. The Defeat Of Communism. London: Ludgate Press Limited, 1964.</ref><ref name="Rummel">Rummel, Rudolph, [http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.TAB2A.GIF Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917] (1990).</ref>
[[File:1919-Trotsky Lenin Kamenev-Party-Congress.jpg|thumb|right|[[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]], Lenin and [[Lev Kamenev|Kamenev]] at the II Party Congress in 1919]]
===Civil War===
{{Main|Russian Civil War}}
In 1917, as an [[imperialism|anti-imperialist]], Lenin said that oppressed peoples had the unconditional right to secede from the Russian Empire; however, at end of the Civil War, the USSR annexed [[Armenia]], Georgia, and [[Azerbaijan]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Pipes, Richard |year=1994 |title=Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime |publisher=Vintage |isbn=0-679-76184-5 |pages=141–166}}</ref> Lenin defended the annexations as, "[[Geopolitics|geopolitical]] protection against capitalist imperial depredations."<ref>{{cite web |last=Lenin |first=Vladimir |title=The Revolutionary Proletariat and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination |year=1915 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/oct/16.htm}}</ref>
To maintain the war-isolated cities, keep the armies fed, and to avoid [[economic collapse]], the Bolshevik government established [[war communism]], via ''[[prodrazvyorstka]]'', food requisitioning from the peasantry, for little payment, which peasants resisted with reduced harvests. The Bolsheviks blamed the ''[[kulak]]''s' withholding grain to increase profits; but statistics indicate most such business occurred in the [[black market]] economy.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://wsws.org/correspo/1998/mar1998/leni-m06.shtml |title=An exchange of letters on the BBC documentary Lenin's Secret Files |publisher=[[World Socialist Web Site]] |date=6 March 1998 |accessdate=16 March 2007 |archiveurl = //web.archive.org/web/20070213155724/http://www.wsws.org/correspo/1998/mar1998/leni-m06.shtml <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archivedate = 13 February 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Carr, E. H. |year=1966 |title=The Bolshevik Revolution 1917–1923, Part 2 |page=233}} {{cite book |author=Chase, W. J. |year=1987 |title=Workers, Society and the Soviet State: Labour and Life in Moscow 1918–1929 |pages=26–27}} {{cite book |author=Nove, A. |year=1982 |title=An Economic History of the USSR |page=62}} {{cite web |url=http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Back/Wnext5/Warcomm.html |title=Flewers, Paul, War Communism in Retrospect}}</ref> Nonetheless, the ''prodrazvyorstka'' resulted in armed confrontations, which the [[Cheka]] and Red Army suppressed with shooting hostages, [[poison gas]], and labour-camp deportation; yet Lenin increased the requisitioning.<ref name="users.erols.com">{{cite web |url=http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Russian |title=Twentieth Century Atlas{{spaced ndash}}Death Tolls}}</ref><ref>[[Black Book of Communism]] pp. 92–97, 116–121.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/his1g.htm |title=Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions, VII |publisher=Gmu.edu |accessdate=2012-05-22}}</ref>
===1920–22===
[[File:Lenin CL.jpg|thumb|upright|Lenin in 1920.]]
After the March 1921 left-wing [[Kronstadt Rebellion]] mutiny, Lenin abolished war communism with its food requisitioning, and tight control over industry with a much more liberal [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP), which allowed private enterprise. The NEP successfully stabilised the economy and stimulated industry and agriculture by means of a market economy where the government did ''not'' set prices and wages. The NEP was his pragmatic recognition of the political and economic realities, despite being a tactical, ideological retreat from the socialist ideal.<ref>Lars T. Lih, "Political Testament of Lenin and Bukharin and the Meaning of NEP," ''Slavic Review'' (1991) 50#2 pp. 241–252 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2500200 in JSTOR]</ref> Politically, Robert Service claims that Lenin "advocated the final eradication of all remaining threats, real or potential, to his state. For Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks he demanded the staging of show trials followed by exemplary severe punishment."{{sfn|Service|2000|p=442}}
In international terms Lenin spoke of world revolution. The stalemate in the war with Poland and the failures of Communist uprisings in Central Europe brought the realisation that the revolution would come slowly. To get it on track Lenin in 1919 set up the Third International, or [[Comintern]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Dmitri Volkogonov|title=Lenin|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=lpcW0c3_uywC&pg=PA312|year=2008|publisher=Simon and Schuster|page=312|isbn=9781439105542}}</ref><ref>Sidney Hook, "Lenin and the Communist International," ''Russian Review'' (1973) 32#1 pp. 1-14 [http://www.jstor.org/stable/128089 in JSTOR]</ref>
==Decline and death==
[[File:Lenin and stalin crop.jpg|thumb|upright|During Lenin's sickness (1922–23), Stalin used this fake photograph (it was a composite of two shots) as part of his claim to be Lenin's successor.<ref>{{cite book|last1= Gilbert |first1= Felix |authorlink1= Felix Gilbert |last2= Large |first2= David Clay |title= The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present |edition= 6th |year= 2008 |page= 213 |publisher= [[W. W. Norton & Company]] |publication-place= New York City |isbn= 978-0393930405 }}</ref>]]
The mental strains of leading a revolution, governing, and fighting a civil war aggravated the physical debilitation consequent to the wounds from the attempted assassinations; Lenin retained a bullet in his neck, until a German surgeon removed it on 24 April 1922.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9400E6D91739EF3ABC4E51DFB2668389639EDE |title=Lenin under the Knife. - Surgeon Extracts a Bullet Which Troubled Him for Three Years. - View Article |work=The New York Times |date=26 April 1922 |accessdate=2012-05-22}}</ref> When in good health Lenin worked fourteen to sixteen hours daily. Around the time of Lenin's death, [[Dmitri Volkogonov|Volkogonov]] said:
{{quote|Lenin was involved in the challenges of delivering fuel into [[Ivanovo|Ivanovo-Vosnesensk]]... the provision of clothing for miners, he was solving the question of dynamo construction, drafted dozens of routine documents, orders, trade agreements, was engaged in the allocation of rations, edited books and pamphlets at the request of his comrades, held hearings on the applications of peat, assisted in improving the workings at the "Novii Lessner" factory, clarified in correspondence with the engineer P. A. Kozmin the feasibility of using wind turbines for the electrification of villages... all the while serving as an adviser to party functionaries almost continuously.<ref>Триумф и Трагедия – И. В. Сталин: политический портрет. (Triumph and Tragedy – I. V. Stalin : A Political Portrait) Дмитрий Волкогонов (Dmitriy Volkogonov). Book 1, Part 1, p. 114. Новости Publications. Moscow. 1989.</ref>}}
In March 1922 physicians prescribed rest for his fatigue and headaches. Upon returning to Petrograd in May 1922, Lenin suffered the first of three strokes, which left him unable to speak for weeks, and severely hampered motion in his right side. By June, he had substantially recovered; by August he resumed limited duties, delivering three long speeches in November. In December 1922, he suffered the second stroke that partly paralysed his right side, he then withdrew from active politics. In March 1923, he suffered a third stroke; it ended his career. Lenin was mute and bed-ridden until his death but officially remained the leader of the Communist Party.<ref name="death">{{cite book|author1=Jean-Michel Rabaté|title=1922|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=9781107040540|page=145}}</ref>
Persistent stories mark [[syphilis]] as the cause of Lenin's death. A "retrospective diagnosis" published in ''The European Journal of Neurology'' in 2004 strengthens these suspicions.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/22/science/a-retrospective-diagnosis-says-lenin-had-syphilis.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|title=A Retrospective Diagnosis Says Lenin Had Syphilis|author=C. J. Chivers |newspaper=The New York Times|date=22 June 2004|accessdate=5 January 2012}}</ref>
[[File:Lenin-last-photo.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Lenin in 1923]]
After the first stroke, Lenin dictated government papers to Nadezhda; among them was ''[[Lenin's Testament]]'' (changing the structure of the soviets), a document partly inspired by the 1922 [[Georgian Affair]], which was a conflict about the way in which social and political transformation within a [[Republics of the Soviet Union|constituent republic]] was to be achieved. It criticised high-rank Communists, including [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Grigory Zinoviev]], [[Lev Kamenev]], [[Nikolai Bukharin]], and [[Leon Trotsky]]. About the Communist Party's General Secretary (since 1922), Joseph Stalin, Lenin reported that the "unlimited authority" concentrated in him was unacceptable, and suggested that "comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post." His phrasing, ''"Сталин слишком груб"'', implies "personal rudeness, unnecessary roughness, lack of finesse", flaws "intolerable in a Secretary-General".
At Lenin's death, Nadezhda mailed his testament to the central committee, to be read aloud to the 13th Party Congress in May 1924. However, to remain in power, the ruling ''[[Troika (Soviet leadership)|troika]]''—Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev—suppressed ''Lenin's Testament''; it was not published until 1925, in the United States, by the American [[intellectual]] [[Max Eastman]]. In that year, Trotsky published an article minimising the importance of ''Lenin's Testament'', saying that Lenin's notes should not be perceived as a will, that it had been neither concealed, nor violated;<ref>Trotsky, L. D., "Concerning Eastman's Book Since Lenin Died", ''Bolshevik'' 16; 1 September 1925; p. 68. Concerning Eastman's Book ''Since Lenin Died'' minimising 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."</ref> yet he did invoke it in later anti-Stalin polemics.<ref>Trotsky, Leon. ''My Life'' (1930) The Marxists Internet Archive</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin|url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1932/12/lenin.htm|author=Trotsky, Leon|year=1932|publisher=The Marxists Internet Archive|accessdate=16 March 2007}}</ref>
Lenin died at 18.50 hrs, Moscow time, on 21 January 1924, aged 53, at his estate at Gorki settlement (later renamed [[Gorki Leninskiye]]). In the four days that the Bolshevik Leader Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [[Lying in state|lay in state]], more than 900,000 mourners viewed his body in the Hall of Columns;<ref name="death"/> among the statesmen who expressed condolences to the Soviet Union was Chinese premier [[Sun Yat-sen]], who said:
{{quote|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.<ref>Gorin, Vadim, ''Lenin: A Biography'' (1983) Progress Publishers, pp. 469–70</ref>}}
[[Winston Churchill]], who encouraged British intervention against the [[Russian Revolution (1917)|Russian Revolution]], in league with the [[White Movement]], to destroy the Bolsheviks and Bolshevism, said:
{{quote|He alone could have led Russia into the enchanted quagmire; he alone could have found the way back to the causeway. He saw; he turned; he perished. The strong illumination that guided him was cut off at the moment when he had turned resolutely for home. The Russian people were left floundering in the bog. Their worst misfortune was his birth: their next worst his death.<ref>Mauchline Roberts, Elizabeth, ''Lenin and the Downfall of Tsarist Russia'' (1966) p. 92.</ref>}}
===Funeral===
[[File:Lenin's funerals by I.Brodsky (1925) detail 01.jpg|thumb|left| Lenin's funeral by [[Isaak Brodsky|I.Brodsky]]]]
The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day, with head of State [[Mikhail Kalinin]] tearfully reading an official statement to delegates of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at 11am, the same time that a team of physicians began a postmortem of the body.<ref>[[#Ric90|Rice 1990]]. p. 7.</ref> On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party Central Committee, the Moscow party organisation, the trade unions and the soviets began to assemble at his house, with the body being removed from his home at about 10am the following day, being carried aloft in a red coffin by Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin, Bukharin, Bubhov and Krasin. Transported by train to Moscow, mourners gathered at every station along the way, and upon arriving in the city, a funerary procession carried the coffin for five miles to the [[House of Trade Unions]], where the body lay in state.<ref>[[#Ric90|Rice 1990]]. pp. 7–8.</ref>
[[File:Pogrzeb Lenina1924.jpg|thumb|Pallbearers carrying Lenin's coffin during his funeral, from [[Paveletsky Rail Terminal]] to the Labour Temple. [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]] at the front with [[Timofei Sapronov]] behind him and [[Lev Kamenev]] on the left.]]
Over the next three days, around a million mourners from across the Soviet Union came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions, with the events being filmed by the government.<ref name="Rice 9">[[#Ric90|Rice 1990]]. p. 9.</ref> On Saturday 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects to the deceased leader, with speeches being made by Kalinin, Zinoviev and Stalin, but notably not Trotsky, who had been convalescing in the Caucasus.<ref name="Rice 9"/> 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 carried into a vault, followed by the singing of the revolutionary hymn, "You fell in sacrifice."<ref name="Rice 9"/>
Three days after his death, Petrograd was renamed [[Saint Petersburg|Leningrad]] in his honour, remaining so until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, when its former name Saint Petersburg was restored, yet the administrative area remains [[Leningrad Oblast]]. In the early 1920s, the Russian [[Cosmism (Russian)|cosmism]] movement proved so popular that [[Leonid Krasin]] and [[Alexander Bogdanov]] proposed to [[Cryonics|cryonically preserve]] Lenin for future resurrection, yet, despite buying the requisite equipment, that was not done.<ref>See the article: А.М. и А.А. Панченко «Осьмое чудо света», in the book Панченко А.М. О русской истории и культуре. Saint Petersburg: Azbuka, 2003. p. 433.</ref> Instead, the body of V. I. Lenin was [[Embalming|embalmed]] and permanently exhibited in [[Lenin's Mausoleum]], in Moscow, on 27 January 1924.
Despite the official diagnosis of death from stroke consequences, the Russian scientist [[Ivan Pavlov]] reported that Lenin died of [[neurosyphilis]], according to a publication by V. Lerner and colleagues in the ''European Journal of Neurology'' in 2004. The authors also note that "It is possible that future DNA technology applied to Lenin's preserved brain material could ultimately establish or disprove neurosyphilis as the primary cause of Lenin's death."<ref>V. Lerner, Y. Finkelstein and E. Witztum, "The enigma of Lenin's (1870–1924) malady". ''European Journal of Neurology'', 2004, 11: 371–376</ref>
In a poll conducted in 2012 by a Russian website, 48 per cent of the people that responded voted that the body of the former leader should be buried.<ref>{{cite web |title=Russians want Bolshevik leader Lenin to be buried|url=http://www.business-standard.com/generalnews/news/russians-want-bolshevik-leader-lenin-to-be-buried/20479/|publisher=Business Standard|accessdate=13 July 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Bennetts|first=Marc|title=Russians mull burying Soviet leader Lenin|url=http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/10/russians-mull-burying-soviet-leader-lenin/|accessdate=13 July 2012|newspaper=The Washington Times|date=July 10, 2012}}</ref>
Lenin's funeral train consisting of the locomotive and funeral van still containing the original wreaths is preserved at the [[Museum of the Moscow Railway]], [[Paveletsky Rail Terminal]] in Moscow.
==Political ideology==
{{Main|Leninism}}
[[File:Lenin.gif|thumb|upright|Lenin giving a speech.]]
Lenin was a Marxist and principally a revolutionary. His revolutionary theory—the belief in the necessity of a violent overthrow of capitalism through communist revolution, to be followed by a [[dictatorship of the proletariat]] as the first stage of moving towards communism, and the need for a vanguard party to lead the proletariat in this effort—developed into [[Marxism–Leninism]], a highly influential ideology.
Although a Marxist, Lenin was also influenced by earlier currents of Russian socialist thought such as [[Narodnik|Narodnichestvo]].{{sfn|Service|2000|p=173}} Conversely, he derided Marxists who adopted from contemporary non-Marxist philosophers and sociologists.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=203}} He believed that his interpretation of Marxism was the sole authentic one.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=237}}
Robert Service noted that Lenin considered "moral questions" to be "an irrelevance", rejecting the concept of [[moral absolutism]]; instead he judged whether an action was justifiable based upon its chances of success for the revolutionary cause.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=80}}
Lenin was an [[internationalism (politics)|internationalist]], and a keen supporter of [[world revolution]], thereby deeming national borders to be an outdated concept and [[nationalism]] a distraction from [[class struggle]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=54|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=352}} He believed that under revolutionary socialism, there would be "the inevitable merging of nations" and the ultimate establishment of "[[world government|a United States of the World]]".{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=88–89}} He opposed [[federalism]], deeming it to be bourgeoisie, instead emphasising the need for a centralised [[unitary state]].{{sfn|Fischer|1990|p=87}}
[[File:Mcita murutsxi.jpg|thumb|left|Lenin the icon: A 1929 [[Laz language]] newspaper featuring Lenin's writing]]
Lenin was an [[anti-imperialism|anti-imperialist]], and believed that all nations deserved "the right of self-determination".{{sfn|Fischer|1990|p=87}} He thus supported [[war of national liberation|wars of national liberation]], accepting that such conflicts might be necessary for a minority group to break away from a [[socialist state]], asserting that the latter were not "holy or insured against mistakes or weaknesses".{{sfn|Fischer|1990|pp=91, 93}}
He also staunchly criticised [[anti-Semitism]] within the Russian Empire, commenting "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."<ref>V. I. Lenin, [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/mar/x10.htm 'Anti-Jewish Pogroms'] (1919), [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/ Lenin Internet Archive].</ref></blockquote>
He believed that revolution in the Third World would come about through an alliance of the proletarians with the rural peasantry.<ref>Триумф и Трагедия – И. В. Сталин: политический портрет. (''Triumph and Tragedy – I. V. Stalin : A Political Portrait'') Дмитрий Волкогонов (Dmitriy Volkogonov). Book 1, Part 1, pp. 95–114. Новости Publications. Moscow. 1989.</ref> In 1923 Lenin said:
:The outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that Russia, India, China, etc,. account for the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe. And during the last few years it is this majority that has been drawn into the struggle for emancipation with extraordinary rapidity, so that in this respect there cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In this sense the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely assured.<ref>Lenin, quoted in Prabhat Patnaik "Introduction" to ''Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Revolution''. New Delhi, Leftward Books, p. 8</ref>
Lenin believed that [[representative democracy]] had simply been used to give the illusion of democracy while maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie; describing the U.S. representative democratic system, he described the "spectacular and meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties", both of whom were led by "astute multimillionaires" who exploited the American proletariat.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=121}}
===Writings===
{{main|Vladimir Lenin bibliography|Category:Works by Vladimir Lenin}}
Lenin was a prolific political theoretician and philosopher who wrote about the practical aspects of carrying out a proletarian revolution; he wrote pamphlets, articles, and books, without a [[shorthand|stenographer]] or secretary, until prevented by illness.<ref>Триумф и Трагедия – И. В. Сталин: политический портрет. (Triumph and Tragedy – I. V. Stalin : A Political Portrait) Дмитрий Волкогонов ([[Dmitri Volkogonov]]). Book 1, Part 1, p. 110. Новости Publications. Moscow. 1989.</ref> He simultaneously corresponded with comrades, allies, and friends, in Russia and world-wide. His ''Collected Works'' comprise 54 volumes, each of about 650 pages, translated into English in 45 volumes by Progress Publishers, Moscow 1960–70.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/index.htm |title=Lenin Collected Works |publisher=Marxists.org |accessdate=2012-05-22}}</ref>
After Lenin's death, the [[Censorship in the Soviet Union|USSR selectively censored]] his writings, to establish the [[dogma]] of the [[infallibility]] of Lenin, Stalin (his successor), and the Central Committee;<ref>
{{cite book |last=Trotsky |first=Leon |authorlink=Leon Trotsky|title=Volume Three: The Triumph of the Soviets; Appendix No. 1 |work=The History of the Russian Revolution |year=1930}}</ref> thus, the Soviet fifth edition (55 vols., 1958–65) of Lenin's ''œuvre'' deleted the Lenin–Stalin contradictions, and all that was unfavourable to the founder of the USSR.<ref>{{cite news |last=Figes |first=Orlando |title=Censored by His Own Regime |newspaper=The New York Times |date=27 October 1996 |url=http://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/27/books/censored-by-his-own-regime.html}}</ref> The historian [[Richard Pipes]] published a documentary collection of letters and telegrams excluded from the Soviet fifth edition, proposing that edition as incomplete.<ref name="unknownlenin_201204">{{cite book | title=The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Pipes, Richard | year=1999 | pages=2–3 | isbn=978-0-300-07662-2 | quote=It has long been known to scholars that the fifth, the "complete" edition was in fact far from complete. The two-volume ''Trotsky Papers'', based on the Trotsky Archive at the Harvard Houghton Library, brought to light a number of previously unpublished documents by Lenin. It was also apparent to Western scholars that in addition to omitting entire documents, the editors of the fifth edition had occasionally tampered with Lenin's texts, censoring passages that for one reason or another they judged unfit of republic consumption. But just how incomplete the fifth edition was did not become known until the breakup of the Soviet Union in late 1991, when President Boris Yeltsin ordered Russian archives to be removed from the control of the Communist Party and placed under the authority of state organs. It then transpired that the Central Party Archive, now renamed the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History, or RTsKhIDNI, held no fewer than 6,724 unpublished Lenin manuscripts—that is, twice the number included in the so-called complete collection!}}</ref>
==Personal life and characteristics==
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|bgcolor=#ACE1AF|quote="[Lenin's collected writings] reveal in detail a man with iron will, self-enslaving self-discipline, scorn for opponents and obstacles, the cold determination of a zealot, the drive of a fanatic, and the ability to convince or browbeat weaker persons by his singleness of purpose, imposing intensity, impersonal approach, personal sacrifice, political astuteness, and complete conviction of the possession of the absolute truth. His life became the history of the Bolshevik movement."
|source=—Biographer Louis Fischer, 1964.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=21–22}}}}
Lenin believed himself to be a man of destiny, having an unshakable belief in the righteousness of his cause,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=159}} and in his own ability as a revolutionary leader.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=202}} Historian [[Richard Pipes]] noted that he exhibited a great deal of [[charisma]] and personal magnetism,{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=348}} and that he had "an extraordinary capacity for disciplined work and total commitment to the revolutionary cause."{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=351}} Aside from Russian, Lenin spoke and read French, German, and English.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=242}}
Lenin had a strong emotional hatred of the Tsarist authorities,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=44|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=81}} with biographer [[Louis Fischer]] describing him as "a lover of radical change and maximum upheaval".{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=47}} Historian and biographer [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]] asserted that Lenin had been an intensely emotional young man,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=73}} who developed an "emotional attachment" to his ideological heroes, such as Marx, Engels and Chernyshevsky; he owned portraits of them,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=118}} and privately asserted that he was "in love" with Marx.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=232}} Lenin was an [[atheist]], and believed that socialism was inherently atheistic; he thus deemed [[Christian socialism]] to be a contradiction in terms.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=40–41|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=149}}
[[File:KrupskayaPhoto.png|thumb|upright|left|Lenin's wife, [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]]]
Concerned with physical fitness, he took regular exercise,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=56|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=106|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=160}} enjoyed cycling, swimming, and hunting,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=56|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=188}} also developed a passion for mountain walking in the Swiss peaks.{{sfn|Read|2005|pp=20, 64, 132–37}} He despised untidiness, always keeping his work desk tidy and his pencils sharpened,{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=99–100, 160}} and insisted on total silence while he was working.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=160}} In personal dealings with others, he was modest, and for this reason disliked the [[cult of personality]] that the Soviet administration had begun to build around him; he nevertheless accepted that it might have some benefits in unifying the movement.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=349–350}}
After an hour's meeting with Lenin, the philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]] asserted that Lenin was "very friendly, and apparently simple, entirely without a trace of hauteur... I have never met a personage so destitute of self-importance."<ref>{{cite book |last=Russell|first=Bertrand|title=The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism|year=1921|publisher=George Allen and Unwin Ltd|location=London|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17350/17350-h/17350-h.htm|authorlink=Bertrand Russell|accessdate=12 November 2012}}</ref> Similarly, Lenin's friend Gorky described him as "a baldheaded, stocky, sturdy person", being "too ordinary" and not giving "the impression of being a leader".{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=57}}
Throughout his adult life, Lenin was in a relationship with [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]], a fellow Marxist whom he married. Lenin and Nadya were both sad that they never had children,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=199}} and enjoyed entertaining the children of their friends.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=213}} Despite his radical politics, he took a conservative attitude with regard to sex and marriage.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=79}}
Lenin was privately critical of Russia, describing it as "one of the most benighted, medieval and shamefully backward of Asian countries".{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=121}} He was similarly critical of the Russian people, informing Gorky that "An intelligent Russian is almost always a Jew or someone with Jewish blood", in other instances admitting that he knew little of Russia, having spent one half of his adult life abroad.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=352}}
According to [[Richard Pipes|Pipes]] and [[Louis Fischer|Fischer]], Lenin was intolerant of opposition and often dismissed opinions that differed from his own outright.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=67|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=353}} He ignored facts which did not suit his argument,{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=353}} abhorring compromise,{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=69}} and very rarely admitting his own errors.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=244}} He refused to bend his opinions, until he rejected them completely, at which he would treat the new view as if it was just as unbendable.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=59}}
Robert Service stated that Lenin was a man who could be "moody and volatile",{{sfn|Service|2000|p=116}} and who exhibited a "virtual lust for violence" although had no desire to personally involve himself in killing.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=177}} Similarly, Fischer asserted that he had "neither an emotional commitment to terror nor a revulsion to terror",{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=45}} while Pipes commented that Lenin had "a strong streak of cruelty" and exhibited no remorse for those killed by the revolutionary cause, asserting that this arose out of indifference rather than [[sadistic personality disorder|sadism]].{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=350}} According to Service, Lenin's "criterion of morality was simple: does a certain action advance or hinder the cause of the Revolution?"{{sfn|Service|2000|p=293}}
In 1922, according to Robert Service, Lenin "advocated the final eradication of all remaining threats, real or potential, to his state. For Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks he demanded the staging of show trials followed by exemplary severe punishment."{{sfn|Service|2000|p=442}}
==Legacy==
[[File:2005-08-16 Nizhyn 364.JPG|thumb|Statue of Lenin in front of a state building in [[Nizhyn]], [[Ukraine]] (demolished by the city council in February 2014).]]
When Lenin died on 21 January 1924, he was acclaimed by Communists as "the greatest genius of mankind" and "the leader and teacher of the peoples of the whole world".<ref name = "1968Encyclopedia">[http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Vladimir_Ilyich_Lenin.aspx Lenin] entry from the ''[[International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences]]'', 1968</ref>
Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure.<ref name = "LeninDoc">[[Biography (TV series)]] – [http://www.newvideo.com/ae/vladimir-lenin-voice-of-revolution/ ''Vladimir Lenin, Voice of Revolution''], [[A&E Network]], 2005, ASIN B000AABKX6</ref> Lenin had a significant influence on the international Communist movement and was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the 20th century. Admirers view him as a champion of working people's [[Labor rights|rights]] and [[Well-being|welfare]] whilst critics see him as a dictator who carried out mass human rights abuses.
Historian [[J. Arch Getty]] has remarked that "Lenin deserves a lot of credit for the notion that the meek can inherit the earth, that there can be a political movement based on [[social justice]] and equality", while one of his biographers, [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]], says he "laid the foundations of dictatorship and lawlessness. Lenin had consolidated the principle of state penetration of the whole society, its economy and its culture. Lenin had practised terror and advocated revolutionary amoralism."<ref>{{cite book|last=Robert Service, "Lenin" in Edward Acton|title=Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=NAZm2EdxKqkC&pg=PA159|year=1997|publisher=Indiana University Press|page=159|author2=and others|displayauthors=1|isbn=0253333334}}</ref> ''Time'' magazine named Lenin one of the [[Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century|100 most important people of the 20th century]],<ref name="TIME 100: Vladimir Lenin">[http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html TIME 100: Vladimir Lenin] by David Remnick, 13 April 1998.</ref> and one of their top 25 political icons of all time; remarking that "for decades, Marxist–Leninist rebellions shook the world while Lenin's embalmed corpse lay in repose in [[Red Square]]".<ref name="Top 25 Political Icons: Lenin">[http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2046285_2045996_2046096,00.html Top 25 Political Icons: Lenin] by Feifei Sun, ''[[Time Magazine|Time]]'', 4 February 2011</ref> Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, reverence for Lenin declined among the post-Soviet generations, yet he remains an important historical figure for the Soviet-era generations.<ref>{{cite news | last=Pipes | first=Richard | title=Flight From Freedom: What Russians Think and Want | journal=work | date=May–June 2004 | url=http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501facomment83302-p20/richard-pipes/flight-from-freedom-what-russians-think-and-want.html}}</ref>
Lenin's reputation inside the Soviet Union and its allies remained high until Communism ended in 1989–91. During the upheavals of the 1960s, Service argues, the reputation of Soviet Communism, and of Lenin himself, started slipping as intellectuals and students on the left turned against dictatorship:[[File:Lenin-statue-in-Kolkata.jpg|thumb|180px|Statue of Lenin in [[Kolkata]]. [[West Bengal]] was ruled by the [[Communist Party of India (Marxist)|Communist Party of India]] till 2011.]]
- Even the Italian and Spanish communist parties abandoned their ideological fealty to Moscow and formulated doctrines hostile to dictatorship. Especially after the USSR-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the number of admirers of Lenin was getting smaller in states not subject to communist leaderships.<ref>{{cite book|author=Robert Service|title=A History of Modern Russia|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=2pSbLV-23HUC&pg=PA398|year=2013|publisher=Harvard UP|page=398|isbn=9780674725584}}</ref>
Historian Stephen Lee states:
:instead of guiding Russian history on to a new highway, Lenin had simply shoved it up a cul-de-sac. This is also the point that seems to have been reached by many recent Russian historians, especially Volkogonov.<ref>{{cite book|author=Stephen J. Lee|title=Lenin and Revolutionary Russia|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=U1iBAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA135|year=2008|publisher=Routledge|page=135|isbn=9781134446018}}</ref><ref>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Lenin: A New Biography'' (1994). [[Dmitri Volkogonov|Volkogonov]], a Colonel-General, was the former head of the Soviet military psychological warfare department, and later the chairman of Russian President [[Boris Yeltsin]]'s commission for examining the Soviet archives.</ref>
According to the article in [[Encyclopædia Britannica]] written by Professor [[Albert Resis]] of [[Northern Illinois University]]:<ref name="EB">{{cite encyclopedia | title=Vladimir Ilich Lenin | encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica | accessdate=11 August 2011 | author=Resis, Albert | url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/335881/Vladimir-Ilich-Lenin}}</ref>
{{cquote|If the Bolshevik Revolution is—as some people have called it—the most significant political event of the 20th century, then Lenin must for good or ill be considered the century's most significant political leader. Not only in the scholarly circles of the former Soviet Union, but even among many non-Communist scholars, he has been regarded as both the greatest revolutionary leader and revolutionary statesman in history, as well as the greatest revolutionary thinker since Marx.}}
There is little question that Lenin did influence revolutionaries, including successful ones in China, Vietnam, and Cuba.
{{Cquote2|As influential as he was in life, Lenin may have been more so in death. Over 100 million have lined up to view [[Lenin's Mausoleum|his mummified body]]. His memory has been used to support every change in Soviet policy and every new regime since his death. His theories inspired the successful revolutions of [[Fidel Castro]], [[Mao Zedong]], and [[Ho Chi Minh]]; as well as countless other revolutionaries in countries full of oppressed and powerless people.| ''Vladimir Lenin: Voice of Revolution'', [[A&E Network|A&E]] [[Biography (TV series)|Biography]], 2005<ref name = "LeninDoc" />}}
===Statues and city names===
{{Main|List of places named after Vladimir Lenin|List of statues of Vladimir Lenin}}
[[File:URSS 1 rublo centenario nascita Lenin.JPG|Commemorative [[Soviet rouble|one rouble]] coin minted in 1970, in honor of Lenin's centenary.|thumb|right]]
During the Soviet period, many statues of Lenin were erected across Eastern Europe. Although many of the statues have subsequently been removed, some remain standing, and a few new ones have been erected.<ref>[http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-312409.html Two Lenin monuments opened in Luhansk Oblast], [[UNIAN]] (April 22, 2008)</ref> During [[Euromaidan]] several were [[List of heritage damaged during Euromaidan|damaged or destroyed]].<ref name="bbc-2014-02-22">{{cite web|title=Ukraine crisis: Lenin statues toppled in protest|url=http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26306737|publisher=BBC|date=2014-02-22|access-date=2015-04-21}}</ref> However, Russian lawmakers from the ruling [[United Russia]] party and the opposition [[LDPR|Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)]] have indicated a proposal to remove all statues of Lenin from Russian cities, with LDPR deputy [[Aleksandr Kurdyumov]] citing high maintenance costs and vandalism concerns as some of the main reasons. The proposal is being strongly opposed by the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]].<ref name="RussiaToday">[http://rt.com/politics/lenin-monuments-removed-squares-131/ "All monuments of Lenin to be removed from Russian cities"], [[Russia Today|RT]] (20 November 2012)</ref>
Many places and entities were named in honor of Lenin. The city of [[Saint Petersburg]], the site where both February and October revolutions started, was renamed ''Leningrad'' in 1924, four days after Lenin's death. In 1991, after a contested vote between Communists and liberals, the Leningrad government reverted the city's name to [[Saint Petersburg]] while the surrounding [[Leningrad Oblast]] remained so named;<ref>[http://www.sos.state.md.us/International/MDSS/RussiaHistory.htm Maryland Government], St Petersburg/Leningrad Oblast{{dead link|date=April 2015}}</ref> like-wise the city of [[Ulyanovsk]] (so-named after Lenin's [[birth name]]) and the [[Ulyanovsk Oblast]] remain so named. [[Gyumri]] in Armenia was named ''Leninakan'' from 1924 to 1990,<ref>{{cite book|author1=Mohammad H. Tamdgidi|title=Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9780230102026|page=237}}</ref> [[Khujand]] in Tajikistan ''Leninabad'' from 1936 to 1991.<ref>{{cite web|title=Khujand|url=http://www.asraresokhan.com/khujand.html|publisher=AS Rare so Khan|accessdate=8 May 2015}}</ref> In space, the [[852 Wladilena]] [[asteroid]] was named in his honor.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Lutz D. Schmadel|title=Dictionary of Minor Planet Names|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=9783662066157|page=123}}</ref>
===In popular culture===
[[File:October film Lenin.jpg|thumb|Lenin as represented in [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s 1927 film ''[[October: Ten Days That Shook the World|October]]''.]]
* [[Sergei Eisenstein]]'s ''[[October: Ten Days That Shook the World]]'' (1927) became an influential celebratory dramatisation of the 1917 [[October Revolution]].
* ''[[Three Songs About Lenin]]'' (1934) is a documentary silent film by Russian filmmaker [[Dziga Vertov]].
* Lenin appeared as the central character in the Soviet films ''Lenin in October'' (1937) and ''[[Lenin in 1918]]'' (1939), both directed by [[Mikhail Romm]].
* Lenin appeared as a friend to the protagonist, Nikolai Orelov, in the graphic novel, [[Assassin's Creed: The Fall]].
* ''[[Tsar to Lenin]]'' (1937) is a documentary film of the Russian Revolution and Civil War by Herman Axelbank.<ref>{{cite web|title=Nackte und Tote|url=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-45140164.html|work=Der Spiegel|accessdate=6 June 2013|language=German}}</ref>
* [[Sergei Yutkevich]] directed a series of films about Lenin, featuring [[Maxim Straukh]]. These include ''[[The Man With the Gun]]'' (1938), ''[[Yakov Sverdlov]]'' (1940), ''[[Stories of Lenin]]'' (1957), ''[[Lenin in Poland]]'' (1966) and ''[[Lenin in Paris]]'' (1981).<ref>David Robinson (1981) ''World Cinema 1895–1980''. London, Methuen: 223</ref>
* ''[[Lenin vivo]]'' (1970) is a short documentary by [[Joaquim Jordà]] and [[Gianni Toti]] that compiles all the known footage about Lenin.
* Lenin was portrayed by [[Michael Bryant (actor)|Michael Bryant]] in the 1971 film ''[[Nicholas and Alexandra]]''.
* ''[[All My Lenins]]'' (1997) is a historical comedy by [[Hardi Volmer]].
* Lenin was portrayed by [[Patrick Stewart]] in the 1974 BBC miniseries ''[[Fall of Eagles]]''.
* Lenin was portrayed by [[Kenneth Cranham]] in the 1983 BBC miniseries ''[[Reilly: Ace of Spies]]''.
* Lenin was portrayed by [[Ben Kingsley]] in the 1988 television film ''[[Lenin: The Train]]''.
* Lenin was portrayed by [[Maximilian Schell]] in the 1992 HBO television film ''[[Stalin (1992 film)|Stalin]]''.
==Selected works==
: Main website [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/index.htm Lenin's Works]
* [http://www.marxists.org/romana/audio/index.htm Lenin's Speeches on Gramophone Records]
* ''[[The Development of Capitalism in Russia]]''
* ''[[What Is to Be Done?]]''
* ''[[One Step Forward, Two Steps Back]]''
* [http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/sep/15a.htm Reply by N. Lenin] to [[Rosa Luxemburg]]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/index.htm Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution]
* ''[[Materialism and Empirio-criticism]]''
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1915/oct/16.htm The Right of Nations to Self-Determination]
* ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]''
* ''[[The State and Revolution]]''
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/dec/25.htm How to Organise Competition?]
* ''The [[April Theses]]''
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/oct/10.htm The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky]
* ''[["Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder]]''
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/index.htm Lenin's ''Testament'']
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/05.htm Lenin's last letter to Stalin]
* [http://politazbuka.ru/biblioteka/marksizm/562-lenin-vladimir-polnoe-sobranie-sochineniy-5-izdanie.html Lenin's ''Complete Collected Works''], in 55 volumes. (Russian)
==See also==
{{Refbegin|2}}
*[[Anti-Leninism]]
*[[Democracy and Totalitarianism (book)]]
*[[Lenin Peace Prize]]
*[[Lenin Prize]]
*[[Marxist‒Leninist atheism]]
*[[National delimitation in the Soviet Union]]
*[[Order of Lenin]]
*[[Vladimir Lenin bibliography]]
{{Refend}}
{{Portal bar|Communism|Politics|Soviet Union}}
==References==
===Footnotes===
{{Reflist|25em}}
===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
- {{cite book |title=The Life of Lenin |last=Fischer |first=Louis |authorlink=Louis Fischer |year=1964 |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=London |isbn=978-1842122303 |ref=harv}}
- {{Cite journal | last = Hazard | first = John N. | authorlink = John N. Hazard | year = 1965 | title = Unity and Diversity in Socialist Law | url = http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3056&context=lcp | journal = [[Law and Contemporary Problems]] | volume = 30 | number = 2 | pages = 270–290 | ref = harv }}
- {{cite book |title=The Russian Revolution: 1899–1919 |last=Pipes |first=Richard |authorlink=Richard Pipes |year=1990 |publisher=Collins Harvill |location=London |isbn=978-0679736608 |ref=harv}}
- {{cite book | title=Lenin: A Revolutionary Life |last=Read |first=Christopher |year=2005 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-415-20649-5 |ref=harv}}
- {{cite book |title=Lenin: Portrait of a Professional Revolutionary |last=Rice |first=Christopher |year=1990 |publisher=Cassell |location=London |isbn=978-0304318148 |ref=harv}}
- {{cite book |title=Lenin: A Biography |last=Service |first=Robert |authorlink=Robert Service (historian) |year=2000 |publisher=Macmillan |location=London |isbn=9780333726259 |ref=harv}}
- {{cite book |title=Lenin in Zürich |last=Solzhenitsyn |first=Alexander |authorlink=Alexander Solzhenitsyn |others=H.T. Willetts <small>(translator)</small> |year=1976 |origyear=1975 |publisher=Faber, Straus & Giroux |location=New York |isbn= |ref=harv}}
{{refend}}
==Further reading==
{{refbegin|30em}}
- {{Cite news
|author =Blackledge, Paul
|date = 3 July 2006
|title = What was done
|work = [[International Socialism (magazine)|International Socialism]]
|issue = 111
|publisher = [[Socialist Workers Party (Britain)]]
|location = London
|issn = 1754-4653
|url = http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=218&issue=111
|accessdate = 2010-06-25
}} A review of Lars T Lih, Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context
- {{cite book | editor1-last = Budgen | editor1-first = Sebastian | editor2 = Stathis Kouvelakis | editor3 = [[Slavoj Žižek]]| title = Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth | year = 2007 | publisher= [[Duke University Press]] |isbn = 0822339412 |url = https://www.dukeupress.edu/Lenin-Reloaded/index-viewby=author&lastname=Jameson&firstname=Fredric&middlename=&sort=newest.html}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Cliff
|first=Tony
|authorlink=Tony Cliff
|title=Building the Party: Lenin, 1893–1914
|publisher=[[Haymarket Books]]
|year=1986
|isbn=1-931859-01-9}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Felshtinsky
|first=Yuri
|authorlink=Yuri Felshtinsky
|title=Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia 1917–1924
|publisher=Enigma Books
|year=2010
|isbn=1-929631-95-2}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Gellately
|first=Robert
|authorlink=Robert Gellately
|title=Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe
|publisher=[[Alfred A. Knopf|Knopf]]
|year=2007
|isbn=1-4000-4005-1}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Gooding
|first=John
|title=Socialism In Russia: Lenin and His Legacy, 1890–1991
|publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]]
|year=2002
|isbn=0-333-97235-X}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Hill
|first=Christopher
|authorlink=Christopher Hill (historian)
|title=Lenin and the Russia Revolution
|publisher=[[Pelican Books|Pelican Books Ltd.]]
|year=1971
|isbn=978-0-14-021297-6}}
- {{Cite book
|author=[[Leszek Kołakowski|Kolakowski, Leszek]] and Falla, P. S.
|title=Main Currents of Marxism
|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]
|year=2005
|isbn=0-393-06054-3}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Leggett
|first=George
|title=The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police
|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]
|year=1987
|isbn=0-19-822862-7}}
* Lewin, Moshe. ''Lenin's Last Struggle'' (1968)
* Lih, Lars T. "How a Founding Document Was Found, or One Hundred Years of Lenin's What is to Be Done?." ''Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History'' (2003) 4#1 pp: 5-49. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/kritika/v004/4.1lih.html online]
- {{Cite book |last1=Lih |first1=Lars T. |title=Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context |year=2008 |origyear=2006 |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |location= Chicago |isbn=978-1-931859-58-5 |lastauthoramp=&}}
- {{cite book |title=Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought |last=Lukács |first=Georg |authorlink=György Lukács |others=Nicholas Jacobs <small>(translator)</small> |year=1970 |origyear=1924 |publisher= |location= |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1924/lenin/ |isbn=}}
* Nimtz, August H. ''Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
- {{Cite book
|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=L89oAAAAMAAJ |last1=Pannekoek |first1=Anton |last2=Richey |first2=Lance Byron
|title=Lenin as Philosopher
|authorlink=Antonie Pannekoek
|publisher=[[Marquette University Press]]
|year=2003
|isbn=0-87462-654-4}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Payne
|first=Robert
|authorlink=Pierre Stephen Robert Payne
|title=The Life And Death Of Lenin
|publisher=[[Simon & Schuster]]
|year=1967
|isbn=0-671-41640-5}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Pipes
|first=Richard
|authorlink=Richard Pipes
|title=The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive
|publisher=[[Yale University Press]]
|year=1999
|isbn=0-300-07662-2}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Rappaport
|first=Helen
|authorlink=Helen Rappaport
|title=Conspirator: Lenin in Exile
|publisher=[[Basic Books]]
|year=2010
|isbn=978-0-465-01395-1}}
* Ryan, James. "Lenin’s The State and Revolution and Soviet State Violence: A Textual Analysis." ''Revolutionary Russia'' (2007) 20#2 pp: 151-172.
* Ryan, James. ''Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence'' (Routledge, 2012)
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Political Life'' (3 vols.(1985, 1991, 1995); a standard scholarly biography
- {{Cite book
|last=Shub
|first=David
|title=Lenin: A Biography
|publisher=[[Penguin Books]]
|year=1965
|isbn=0-14-020809-7}}
- {{Cite journal
|last=Toynbee
|first=Arnold
|authorlink=Arnold J. Toynbee
|title=A Centenary View of Lenin
|journal=[[International Affairs (journal)|International Affairs]]
|volume=46
|issue=3
|pages=490–500
|date=July 1970
|doi=10.2307/2613225|jstor=2613225
|publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing]]}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Trotsky
|first=Leon
|authorlink=Leon Trotsky
|title=On Lenin: Notes Towards a Biography
|publisher=[[Harrap]]
|year=1971
|isbn=0-245-50302-1}}
* Van Ree, Erik. "'Lenin's last struggle' revisited." ''Revolutionary Russia'' (2001) 14#2 pp: 85-122. [http://dare.uva.nl/document/26117 online]
- {{Cite book
|last=Volkogonov
|first=Dmitri
|authorlink=Dmitri Volkogonov
|title=Lenin: A New Biography
|publisher=[[Free Press (publisher)|Free Press]]
|year=2006
|isbn=0-02-933435-7}}
===Historiography===
* Acton, Edward, V. I͡U Cherni͡aev, and William G. Rosenberg, eds. ''Critical companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914-1921'' (Indiana University Press, 1997)
* Daniels, Robert V. "The Soviet Union in Post‐Soviet Perspective" ''Journal of Modern History'' (2002) 74#2 pp: 381-391. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/343412 in JSTOR]
===Primary sources===
- {{Cite book
|last=Lenin
|first=Vladimir
|title=Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917 by V. I. Lenin
|publisher=[[Pelican Books|Verso Books]]
|year=2002
|isbn=1-85984-661-0}}
- {{Cite book
|last=Tucker
|first=Robert C.
|authorlink=Robert C. Tucker
|title=The Lenin Anthology
|publisher=[[W. W. Norton & Company]]
|year=1975
|isbn=0-393-09236-4}}
{{refend}}
==External links==
{{Sister project links|s=Author:Vladimir Lenin|b=no|v=no|n=no|wikt=Lenin|d=Q1394}}
- [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/Index.html Marx2Mao.org]{{spaced ndash}}Lenin Internet Library
- {{YouTube|-l53FPENoAU|Lenin's speech (video)}}{{spaced ndash}}Lenin's speech with subtitles
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/xx/lenin02.html Article on Lenin written by Trotsky for the Encyclopædia Britannica]
*[http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/archive/krupskaya/works/rol/index.htm Reminiscences of Lenin by N. K. Krupskaya]
*[http://www.lenin.fi/uusi/uk/index.htm The Lenin Museum] in [[Tampere]], Finland
*[http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/hisfram1.htm Lenin and the First Communist Revolutions]
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/bio/index.htm Lenin Internet Archive Biography] includes interviews with Lenin and essays on the leader
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/bryant/works/1923-mom/lenin.htm Mirrors of Moscow: Nikolai Lenin] by [[Louise Bryant]]
*[http://debs.indstate.edu/z77n5_1918.pdf Nicolai Lenin] His Life and Work by G. Zinovieff, [[Indiana State University]]
*[http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/memoir/Robins/Robins4.htm The Personality and Power of Nikolai Lenin] From Raymond Robins' Own Story by William Hard (1920)
*[http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html TIME 100: V.I. Lenin] by [[David Remnick]], 13 April 1998
- {{YouTube|6ybDtm93e4c|Re: Lenin in color – high quality edition}}
*[http://mnweekly.ru/local/20090115/55364151.html The Ghosts of Lenin Abound] by ''The Moscow News Weekly'', 15 January 2009
*[http://www.themilitant.com/2010/7416/741650.html Lenin's Fight to Defend Working-class Power and Revolutionary Internationalism] by ''[[The Militant]]''
*[http://www.internationalsteam.co.uk/trains/russia06.htm Lenin's Funeral Train] in its own museum next to [[Paveletsky Rail Terminal]]
- {{Gutenberg author | id=Lenin,+Vladimir+Ilyich}}
- {{Internet Archive author |search=("Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov" OR "Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilyich" OR "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" OR "Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich" OR "Vladimir Lenin" OR "Lenin, Vladimir") |coda=(narrowed results)}}
- {{Internet Archive author |search=("Lenin") |coda=(broad results)}}
- {{Librivox author |id=4372}}
* [http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/musframe.htm Museum of Communists]
** [http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/his1e.htm Vladmir Lenin]
- [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/index.htm Marxists.org Lenin Internet Archive]{{spaced ndash}}Extensive compendium of writings, a biography, and many photographs
*[http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/lenins-popularity-highest-in-years-on-revolutionarys-144th-birthday/498708.html Lenin's Popularity Highest in Years on Revolutionary's 144th Birthday]. ''[[The Moscow Times]],'' April 22, 2014.
*[https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/07/the-lies-we-tell-about-lenin/ The Lies We Tell About Lenin]. Lars T. Lih. ''[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]].'' July 23, 2014.
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{{S-ttl|title=[[List of leaders of the Russian SFSR|Chairman]] of the [[Council of People's Commissars (Russia)|Council of People's Commissars]] of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]]|years=1917–1924}}
{{S-aft|rows=2|after=[[Alexei Rykov]]}}
|-
{{S-bef|before=None}}
{{S-ttl|title=[[Premier of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] of the [[Council of People's Commissars]] of the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]]|years=1922–1924}}
|-
{{S-mil}}
|-
{{S-bef|before=None}}
{{S-ttl|title=Chairman of the [[Council of Labour and Defence]]|years=1918–1920}}
{{S-aft|after=Himself<br /><small>as Chair of the [[Sovnarkom]]</small>}}
|-
{{S-end}}
{{Leaders of CPSU}}
{{USSRpremier}}
{{Prime Ministers of Russia}}
{{Works of Lenin}}
{{Russian Revolution 1917}}
{{Leaders of the Ruling Parties of the Eastern Bloc}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich}}
[[Category:Vladimir Lenin| ]]
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