Born in 1870 in Simbirsk, Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin (known as Lenin) grew up in a privileged family environment and began a career as a lawyer. Deported to Siberia in 1897 for having halted production activity by supporting workers' strikes, then exiled to Switzerland, he published Que faire? (1902) and thus exposes his doctrinal theories of Marxist influence. According to him, the revolution can only take place on the initiative of a centralized party, bearer of the class consciousness of the proletariat, and under the impetus of professional revolutionaries. He pushes for the split of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Russia between the Bolsheviks (majority) and Mensheviks (minority).
When the Tsar fell, Lenin returned to Russia and led the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 with Trotsky. He became the first leader of Soviet Russia. Object of a mass cult and instigator of state propaganda, he established a political police (the Tcheka), dissolved the constituent assembly and organized the fight against the rich peasants (kulaks). The slowdown in growth due to the civil war forced him to give back a place to the market economy in planning. After creating the USSR in 1922, he tried to warn his comrades against Stalin's brutality and died in 1924.
1870 - 1924
Status
Politician
Theorist
Revolutionary