Difference between revisions of "Vladimir Lenin"

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[[Image:Khvhkgfiy.jpg|right|thumb|Vladimir Lenin]]
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{{Short description|Russian politician, communist theorist, and founder of the Soviet Union (1870–1924)}}
'''Vladimir Lenin''' (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov <ref>"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" (Russian: Владимир Ильич Улянов, Ленин) was the pseudonym he used after 1900 to disguise his identity.</ref>) (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924) was the leader of Russian [[Communism]] and an important theoretician of [[Marxism]]. Coming to power in 1917, he became dictator of the [[Soviet Union]]. All over the Soviet Union and even to some extent some Western countries, there were statues and paintings honoring his memory; some were removed when Communism collapsed in 1991. Lenin repudiated and tried to stop his successor [[Joseph Stalin]], who was an even worse tyrant.
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{{redirect-multi|3|Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov|other uses of "Lenin"|Lenin (disambiguation)|the poem by Mayakovsky|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (poem)}}
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{{family name hatnote|Ilyich|Ulyanov|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
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{{use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
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{{use British English|date=January 2014}}
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{{Infobox officeholder
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| name            = Vladimir Lenin
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| native_name      = {{lang|ru|Владимир Ленин}}
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| native_name_lang = ru
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| image            = Vladimir Lenin.jpg
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| image_size      =
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| caption          = Lenin in July 1920
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| office          = [[List of heads of government of the Soviet Union|Chairman]] of the [[Government of the Soviet Union|Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union]]
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| term_start      = 6 July 1923
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| term_end        = 21 January 1924
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| predecessor      = Office established
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| successor        = [[Alexei Rykov]]
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| 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]]
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| term_start2      = 8 November 1917
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| term_end2        = 21 January 1924
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| predecessor2    = Office established
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| successor2      = [[Alexei Rykov]]
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| office3          = Member of the [[Russian Constituent Assembly]]
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| alongside3      = [[Pavel Dybenko]]
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| constituency3    = [[Baltic Fleet electoral district (Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917)|Baltic Fleet]]
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| term_start3      = 25 November 1917
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| term_end3        = 20 January 1918{{efn|The Constituent Assembly was declared dissolved by the Bolshevik-Left SR Soviet government, rendering the end the term served.}}
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| predecessor3    = Constituency established
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| successor3      = Constituency abolished
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| birth_date      = {{OldStyleDate|22 April|1870|10 April}}
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| birthname        = Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
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| birth_place      = [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]], [[Russian Empire]]
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| death_date      = {{death date and age|1924|1|21|1870|4|22|df=yes}}
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| death_place      = [[Gorki Leninskiye|Gorki]], [[Moscow Governorate]], [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], [[Soviet Union]]
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{{labeldata|Buried|[[Lenin's Mausoleum]], Moscow, [[Russian Federation]]}}
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| nationality      = Russian<br />[[Soviet people|Soviet]]
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| party            = {{unbulleted list |[[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] {{font|size=95%|(1898–1903)}} |[[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] ([[Bolsheviks]]) {{font|size=95%|(1903–12)}} |[[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik Party]] {{font|size=95%|(1912–18)}}}} [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)]] {{font|size=95%|(1918–24)}}
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| otherparty      = [[League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class]] {{font|size=95%|(1895–1898)}}
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| spouse          = {{marriage|[[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]|1898}}
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| relations        = {{unbulleted list |[[Aleksandr Ulyanov]] {{font|size=95%|(brother)}} |[[Anna Ulyanova]] {{font|size=95%|(sister)}} |[[Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov]] {{font|size=95%|(brother)}} |[[Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova]] {{font|size=95%|(sister)}} and three other siblings}}
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| parents          = {{unbulleted list|[[Ilya Ulyanov|Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov]]|[[Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova|Maria Alexandrovna Blank]]}}
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| signature        = Lenin - signature.png
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| alma_mater      = [[Saint Petersburg State University|Saint Petersburg Imperial University]]
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| footnotes        = {{collapsible list|titlestyle = background-color:#FCF;text-align:center;|title = Central institution membership|bullets = on
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|1917–1924: Full member, [[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]] Politburo
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|1917–1924: Full member, [[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]] Central Committee
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|1905–1907: Full member, [[1st–3rd Central Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|3rd]] Central Committee
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}}
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----
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{{Collapsible list
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|titlestyle = background-color:#FCF;text-align:center;
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|title = Military offices held
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|bullets = on
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|1918–1920: Chairman, [[Council of Labour and Defence]]
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}}
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<div style="text-align: center;">'''[[Leader of the Soviet Union]]'''<br />
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{{flatlist|
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* First holder
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* [[Joseph Stalin|Stalin]] {{big|'''→'''}}
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}}
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</div>
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}}
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<!--Basic introduction; name, dates, why he was notable-->
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'''Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov'''{{efn|{{lang-rus|Владимир Ильич Ульянов|Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov|vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr ɨˈlʲjitɕ ʊˈlʲjanəf}}.}} ({{OldStyleDateNY|22 April|10 April}} 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias '''Lenin''',{{efn|{{IPAc-en|lang|ˈ|l|ɛ|n|ɪ|n}};{{sfn|''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''}} {{lang-rus|Ленин||ˈlʲenʲɪn}}.}} was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding [[Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union|head of government]] of [[Soviet Russia]] from 1917 to 1924 and of the [[Soviet Union]] from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a [[one-party]] [[socialist state]] governed by the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet Communist Party]]. A [[Marxist]], he developed a variant of this [[Communism|communist]] ideology known as [[Leninism]].
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<!--Early life and revolutionary activity-->
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Born to a [[Petite bourgeoisie|moderately prosperous middle-class]] family in [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]], Lenin embraced [[Revolutionary socialism|revolutionary socialist]] politics following [[Aleksandr Ulyanov|his brother's]] 1887 execution. Expelled from [[Kazan (Volga region) Federal University|Kazan Imperial University]] for participating in protests against the [[Russian Empire]]'s [[Tsarist autocracy|Tsarist government]], he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to [[Saint Petersburg]] in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for [[sedition]] and exiled to [[Shushenskoye]] for three years, where he married [[Nadezhda Krupskaya]]. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik faction]] against [[Julius Martov]]'s [[Mensheviks]]. Following Russia's failed [[Revolution of 1905]], he campaigned for the [[First World War]] to be transformed into a Europe-wide [[proletarian revolution]], which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of [[Capitalist mode of production (Marxist theory)|capitalism]] and its replacement with [[Socialist mode of production|socialism]]. After the 1917 [[February Revolution]] ousted the [[Nicholas II of Russia|Tsar]] and established a [[Russian Provisional Government|Provisional Government]], he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the [[October Revolution]] in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime.
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<!--October Revolution and Lenin's government-->
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[[Council of People's Commissars|Lenin's Bolshevik government]] initially shared power with the [[Left Socialist Revolutionaries]], elected [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets|soviets]], and a multi-party [[Russian Constituent Assembly|Constituent Assembly]], although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk|treaty]] conceding territory to the [[Central Powers]], and promoted [[world revolution]] through the [[Communist International]]. Opponents were suppressed in the [[Red Terror]], a violent campaign administered by the [[Cheka|state security services]]; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated [[Right-wing politics|right]] and [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] anti-Bolshevik armies in the [[Russian Civil War]] from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the [[Polish–Soviet War]] of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, [[Russian famine of 1921|famine]], and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the market-oriented [[New Economic Policy]]. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from the Russian Empire after 1917, but three were [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR|re-united]] into the new [[Treaty on the Creation of the USSR|Soviet Union]] in 1922. His health failing, Lenin died in [[Gorki Leninskiye|Gorki]], with [[Joseph Stalin]] succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.
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<!--Reception and legacy-->
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Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive [[personality cult]] within the Soviet Union until [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|its dissolution]] in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind [[Marxism–Leninism]] and a prominent influence over the international [[communist movement]]. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by supporters as a champion of socialism and the [[working class]] while critics have emphasised his role as founder and leader of an [[authoritarian]] regime responsible for [[Political repression in the Soviet Union|political repression and mass killings]].
  
 
==Early life==
 
==Early life==
Lenin was born on April 22, 1870 (first [[Earth Day]] was established on what would have been his 100th birthday) to a middle-class Russian family; his parents Ilya Ulyanov and Maria Ulyanova were school teachers.  In 1889, he became a [[Marxist]] after his older brother Aleksandr was hanged for the attempted murder of Tsar Aleksandr III.  Lenin obtained a law degree shortly afterward, and hints at his more callous nature, including his intention of using starvations to foster his Marxist agenda, started showing itself by 1891 during the Volga famine. Acting as a high ranking member of the socialist intelligentsia at that time, he was the one voice who opposed supplying any relief aid to them, even going as far as to ruin the Samara charity committee in the process, citing that starving the peasantry would bring death to the old peasant economy and hasten their goal of Marxist revolution, or as he put it, "one shouldn’t improve [the peasants'] lives, but instead let them become bestial and unleash monstrous violence."<ref>https://canadafreepress.com/article/vladimir-lenin-russias-original-cold-blooded-communist-revolutionary</ref><ref>https://www.rferl.org/amp/lenin-at-150-even-without-covid-19-russia-was-set-to-snub-the-soviet-union-s-founder/30568383.html?fbclid=IwAR2s0upNQ-WaEeeXyJBcVF3mL1InW2ynJmOoqg7PkC7Y9OzPSL2X5bXaMDY</ref> By 1895, Lenin was a [[subversion (political)|subversive]] who was arrested and sent to a prison in [[Siberia]] as punishment.  He was in exile 1900-1917, during which time he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. He collaborated with Georgy Plekhanov and others to set up the clandestine newspaper ''Iskra'' (The Spark), designed to "ignite" radical consciousness.  In the pages of ''Iskra'', Lenin denounced any alliance with liberals or other elements of the bourgeoisie because they would keep power in the hands of the middle class. He emphasized social democracy—equality of condition, rather than political democracy, as the basis for individual freedom.  His major theoretical publication was the pamphlet "What Is to Be Done?"  (1902). In 1903 he organized and controlled the '''"Bolshevik"''' wing of the Russian Social Democratic Labor party, fighting the opposition "Mensheviks." Lenin, like his populist predecessors in the Russian radical movement, stressed the need for a small elite vanguard to lead the revolution
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{{Main|Early life of Vladimir Lenin}}
  
Despite the disapproval of the Mensheviks, Lenin's followers continued to raise money through a mixture of bank robberies, kidnapping, extortion, terrorism, and murder. Unlike the leaders of other Marxist organizations, Lenin did not spend the money on his own lifestyle and carefully strengthened his movement.
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===Childhood: 1870–1887===
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[[File:Dom ulyanovyh.jpg|thumb|Lenin's childhood home in [[Ulyanovsk|Simbirsk]]]]
  
With German help, he returned to Russia after the [[Tsar]] abdicated in March 1917 and a short-lived liberal democracy allowed for free elections. At the time, most Bolsheviks were more interested in using the ballot box to gain political power. Lenin rejected elections, and declared, "History will not forgive us if we do not take power now." In addition, he did attempt to use the ballot box later on, although the Bolsheviks ended up losing in a landslide, causing him to take over via a coup.
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Lenin's father [[Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov]] was from a family of [[Serfdom in Russia|serfs]]; his ethnic origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was of [[Russians|Russian]], [[Chuvash people|Chuvash]], [[Mordvins|Mordvin]], or [[Kalmyks|Kalmyk]] ancestry.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=1–2|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=12–13|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=7|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=21–23|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=13–15|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=6|7a1=Schmermund|7a2=Edwards|7y=2016|7p=9}} Despite this lower-class background, Ilya had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at [[Kazan (Volga region) Federal University|Kazan Imperial University]] before teaching at the [[Institute for Nobles|Penza Institute for the Nobility]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=1–2|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=12–13|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=21–23|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=13–15|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=6}} Ilya married [[Maria Alexandrovna Blank]] in mid-1863.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=5|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=13|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=23}} Well educated, she was the daughter of a wealthy [[History of Germans in Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union|German]]–[[Swedish diaspora|Swedish]] [[Lutheran]] mother, and according to some sources a [[Russian Jewish]] father who had [[Apostasy in Judaism|converted to Christianity]] and worked as a physician.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=2–3|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=12|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=16–19, 23|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=15–18|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=5|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=20}} According to historian [[Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern|Petrovsky-Shtern]], it is likely that Lenin was unaware of his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by his sister Anna after his death.{{sfn|Petrovsky-Shtern|2010|pp=66–67}} 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. His dedication to education earned him the [[Order of St. Vladimir]], which bestowed on him the status of [[Russian nobility|hereditary nobleman]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=6|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=13–14, 18|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=25, 27|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=18–19|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=4, 8|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=21}}
  
==Revolution==
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[[File:Vladimir Lenin 3 years old.jpg|thumb|left|upright|An image of Lenin (left) at the age of three]]
In 1917 Lenin opposed Russia's continued participation in World War I and advocated proceeding directly to a socialist revolution, bypassing bourgeois rule. He rejected cooperation with the Provisional Government and drove some old Bolsheviks out of the party, while co-opting many younger, more radical members. [[Joseph Stalin]], [[Grigori Zinoviev]], and others rallied to Lenin's side during the elections to the party's Central Committee during the 7th Party Conference in April 1917 and became the new leadership. The Bolsheviks were allowed free expression of disagreements until a decision by the Central Committee was reached, and then no opposition or disagreement was permitted. Lenin now ruled the Bolsheviks from his base in Petrograd (St. Petersburg).
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In October 1917, Lenin masterminded a [[coup d'état]] which overthrew the [[Provisional Government]] which had replaced the [[Russian Empire]]. In what historian [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]] has described as a comedy of errors, the Winter Palace was shelled and the Provisional Cabinet was placed under arrest by a mixture of Red Guards and radical sailors from the Kronstadt Naval Base.  
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Lenin was born in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now [[Ulyanovsk]], on 22 April 1870, and [[Infant baptism|baptised]] six days later;{{sfnm|1a1=Sebestyen|1y=2017|1p=33}} as a child, he was known as ''Volodya'', a diminutive of Vladimir.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=6|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=12|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=13}} He was the third of eight children, having two older siblings, [[Anna Ulyanova|Anna]] (born 1864) and [[Aleksandr Ulyanov|Alexander]] (born 1866). They were followed by three more children, Olga (born 1871), [[Dmitri Ilyich Ulyanov|Dmitry]] (born 1874), and [[Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova|Maria]] (born 1878). Two later siblings died in infancy.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=6|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=12, 14|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=25|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=19–20|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=4|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6pp=21, 22}} Ilya was a devout member of the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] and baptised his children into it, although Maria, a Lutheran by upbringing, was largely indifferent to [[Christianity]], a view that influenced her children.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=3, 8|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=14–15|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=29}}
==Dictator==
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Lenin ruled the [[Soviet Union]] under Marxism–Leninism, until 1922, when he had a debilitating stroke and retired.
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{{Cquote|A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, [[Nomenklatura|managers]]' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by [[firing squad]] or [[concentration camp]] or forced labour battalion.<ref>James Burnham, ''The Managerial Revolution'', (1940).</ref> }}
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Both parents were [[monarchists]] and [[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.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=8|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=27|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=19}} Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in [[Lenino-Kokushkino|Kokushkino]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=18|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=26|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=20|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=7|5a1=Petrovsky-Shtern|5y=2010|5p=64}} Among his siblings, Lenin was closest to his sister Olga, whom he often bossed around; he had an extremely competitive nature and could be destructive, but usually admitted his misbehaviour.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=7|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=16|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=32–36}} 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.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=7|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=17|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=36–46|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=20|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=9}}
  
In 1918 Lenin ordered to kill all prostitutes.<ref>http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/aug/09gff.htm</ref> One of his more infamous orders was the 1918 Hanging Order where he ordered the Cheka in Penza to find and publicly hang at least 100 kulaks, and derogatorily referred to them as "bloodsuckers".<ref>Translation of 'hanging order' by Robert Service, p. 365, ''Lenin a Biography'' (2000). London: Macmillan </ref>
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In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died of a [[brain haemorrhage]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=6, 9|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=19|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=48–49|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=10}} Subsequently, his behaviour became erratic and confrontational and he renounced his belief in God.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=9|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=50–51, 64|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=16|4a1=Petrovsky-Shtern|4y=2010|4p=69}} At the time, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at [[Saint Petersburg State University|Saint Petersburg University]]. Involved in political agitation against the [[absolute monarchy]] of the [[reactionary]] Tsar [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]], Alexander studied the writings of banned leftists and organised anti-government protests. He joined a revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tsar and was selected to construct a bomb. Before the attack could take place, the conspirators were arrested and tried, and Alexander was executed by hanging in May.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=10–17|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=20, 22–24|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=52–58|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=21–28|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=10|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6pp=23–25}} Despite the emotional trauma of his father's and brother's deaths, Lenin continued studying, graduated from school at the top of his class with a gold medal for exceptional performance, and decided to study law at Kazan University.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=18|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=25|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=61|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=29|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=16|6a1=Theen|6y=2004|6p=33}}
  
==Mass murderer==
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===University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893===
{{Main|Atheism and Mass Murder}}
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Like Stalin and Mao, and despite his more positive reputation among Leftists, Lenin also wished to exterminate the peasant class, even orchestrating famines to do so, in order to force his will on Socialism. This also proves that Communism, despite the PR, never cared at all for the poor.<ref name="Russia's Original Cold-Blooded Communist Revolutionary">http://canadafreepress.com/article/vladimir-lenin-russias-original-cold-blooded-communist-revolutionary</ref>
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Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into a nearby flat.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=18|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=26|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=61–63}} There, he joined a ''[[zemlyachestvo]]'', a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=26–27|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=64–68, 70|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=29}} This group elected him as its representative to the university's ''zemlyachestvo'' council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the [[Ministry of Internal Affairs (Russia)|Ministry of Internal Affairs]] exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=18|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=27|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=68–69|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=29|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=15|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=32}} There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with [[Nikolay Chernyshevsky]]'s 1863 pro-revolutionary novel ''[[What Is to Be Done? (novel)|What Is to Be Done?]]''{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=18|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=28|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=30|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=12|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5pp=32–33}}
  
The [[Russian Civil War]] was fought between the [[Bolshevik]] lead [[Red Army]] and the [[White Army]], which had many factions. As both sides committed gross atrocities, the White Army had only a small one wanted to restore the [[monarchy]].
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Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of [[Kazan]], but not the university.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=18|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=310|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=71}} On his return, he joined [[Nikolai Fedoseev]]'s revolutionary circle, through which he discovered [[Karl Marx]]'s 1867 book ''[[Capital: Critique of Political Economy|Capital]]''. This sparked his interest in [[Marxism]], a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from [[class struggle]], and that [[capitalism|capitalist society]] would ultimately give way to [[Socialist mode of production|socialist society]] and then [[communist society]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=19|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=32–33|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=72|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=30–31|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=18|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=33}} Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in Alakaevka village, [[Samara Oblast]], in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=33|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=74–76|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=31|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=17}}
  
==Death==
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[[File:Karl Marx 001.jpg|thumb|upright|Lenin came under the influence of [[Karl Marx]].]]
Lenin, a workaholic who avoided vacations and downtime, died in 1924 following a series of progressively more serious strokes.  [[Joseph Stalin]] was his even more brutal successor.
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==Interpretations==
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===Lenin on revolution===
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Before 1917, Lenin thought that revolution was more likely to break out in Russia than in any other country on the continent, and he expected the outbreak of other revolutions in Europe, or at least in Central Europe, after the Russian Revolution. During the Civil War, he considered a short period of War Communism as an extension of the revolutionary situation from which a direct path might open toward socialism. However, after the failure of War Communism he returned to his earlier viewpoint, that is, to the necessity of a transition period. This was reflected in the New Economic Policy (NEP) - which meant a transition including both private enterprise and a market economy. Stalin deemed the transition favored by Lenin to be too dangerous, because it carried with it the threat of a defeat and an eventual restoration of capitalism. In addition, Lenin advocated perpetual civil war to eliminate all "class enemies", with this being in effect with brief pauses until 1953. He also wrote that "Revolutions are the locomotive of history…Revolutions are the holiday of the oppressed and exploited."<ref name="Russia's Original Cold-Blooded Communist Revolutionary" />
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===Dictatorship of the proletariat===
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In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of [[Samara, Russia|Samara]], where Lenin joined [[Alexei Sklyarenko]]'s socialist discussion circle.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=34|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=78|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=31}} There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced a Russian language translation of Marx and [[Friedrich Engels]]'s 1848 political pamphlet, ''[[The Communist Manifesto]]''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=34|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=77|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=18}} He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist [[Georgi Plekhanov]], agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from [[feudalism]] to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the [[proletariat]], or urban working class, rather than the [[peasant]]ry.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=34, 36–37|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=55–55, 80, 88–89|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=31|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=37–38|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5pp=34–35}} This Marxist perspective contrasted with the view of the [[agrarian socialism|agrarian-socialist]] [[Narodniks|Narodnik]] movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the [[Narodnaya Volya|People's Freedom Party]] and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=23–25, 26|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=55|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=11, 24}} Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument, but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like [[Pyotr Tkachev]] and [[Sergei Nechaev]], and befriended several Narodniks.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=79, 98}}
see also [[Dictatorship of the proletariat]]
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Lenin saw the Marxist concept of the "Dictatorship of the proletariat" in terms of a dictatorship exercised not by a democratically chosen majority but by a [[Revolutionary Vanguard|vanguard minority revolutionary party]], ruthlessly controlled by a few leaders like himself. He eventually accepted the need for a state bureaucracy, and his more extreme opposition to the bourgeoisie led him to favor their exclusion and disenfranchisement to the benefit of the urban working class.  
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==Leninism as a religion==
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In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams [[External degree|externally]] at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of [[typhoid]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=34–36|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=82–86|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=31|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=18, 19|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5p=40}} Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=21|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=36|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=86|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=31|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=18|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=40}} He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=21|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=36, 37}} He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal ''[[Russkaya Mysl|Russian Thought]]''.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=21|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=38|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=93–94}}
Lenin's utopian design of a revolutionary community of virtuosi was a typical political religion of an intelligentsia longing for an inner-worldly salvation, a socialist paradise without exploitation and alienation, to be implanted in the backward Russian society at the outskirts of the industrialized and modernized Western Europe. The Russian Revolution of October 1917 accomplished the institutionalization of a political religion combining a political and sacral monopoly of power and belief. Consequently, the Leninist policy of social extermination of political opponents, ideological rivals, and stigmatized social classes became a sacral obligation to be fulfilled by the new ideological orthodoxy. The beginning iconography of a Leninist sacral tradition praised Lenin as a messianic and numinous leader. This process of iconographic work in progress culminated after Lenin's death in the sacral Lenin cult. The Lenin mausoleum served as the monumental centerpiece of sacral rites and practices to be enacted by the Stalinist orthodoxy. Joseph Stalin's invention of a sacral tradition of Marxism–Leninism qualified him as the only true disciple of Lenin. Therefore, Stalin claimed the monopoly of the infallible interpretation of the holy scriptures, summarized in his own dogmatic performances. In this sense, Stalin's Leninism became itself the religion of the Soviet state.<ref>Klaus-Georg Riegel, "Marxism-Leninism as a Political Religion," ''Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions'' 2005 6(1): 97-126 in [[EBSCO]]</ref>
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==Identity Politics==
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==Revolutionary activity==
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{{Main|Revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin}}
  
Lenin turned Russia into autonomous republics so not one ethnic group will have too much power; Communist theory denies the existence of race but the adherents flip flop to favor one group over another. [[Rules for Radicals]] by [[Saul Alinsky]], whose disciples include Democrats like [[Hillary Clinton]] and [[Barack Obama]], borrowed his approach to identity politics. The first Ukrainians were Carpathian Russians in [[Austria-Hungary]] who denounced [[Orthodox Christianity]] for [[Roman Catholicism]] in 1893, and then when the Ukrainian People's Republic gained independence after the first Russian Revolution in 1917, he retook the country the next year and expanded it's territory, making it an artificial state in the style of the [[EU]].<ref>https://russophile.org/is-ukraine-an-artificial-state-popular-youtuber-says-yes/</ref><ref>https://orientalreview.org/2017/08/21/ukraines-misunderstanding-lenin-helps-explain-americas-fight-re-invented-historical-statues/</ref><ref>https://russian-faith.com/persecution/struggle-russian-christian-faith-europe-carpatho-russians-n1122</ref><ref>https://www.sott.net/article/391652-The-history-of-Ukraine-as-an-artificial-state</ref> As a consequence, Ukraine became a second [[Yugoslavia]].<ref>https://orientalreview.org/2014/09/15/eight-reasons-why-ukraine-is-new-yugoslavia/</ref> In 1948, the CIA report NSC 20/1, section 4: “US objectives with respect to Russia” warned that separating Ukraine from Russia will not work.<ref>http://www.sakva.ru/Nick/NSC_20_1.html</ref> When splitting the Transcaucasian republics in 1922, he gave the [[Armenian]] territory of [[Nagorno-Karabakh]] to [[Azerbaijan]]. In addition, Lenin and his Bolshevik followers created Central Asian republics, some of which never existed before, like [[Kazakhstan]], gave them many Russian lands that did not belong to them, like Orenburg and other territories populated by Ural Cossacks and provided for building their infrastructure, hospitals, schools etc., by those in the Russian workforce, with Russians being qualified specialists.
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===Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900===
  
==Image and memory==
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In late 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=33|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5pp=40, 52}} There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself 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|3a1=Lih|3y=2011|3p=53}} Publicly championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=40, 43|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=96}} By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks, knowing that police spies tried to infiltrate the movement.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=355|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=41–42|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=105|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=22–23}} He began a romantic relationship with [[Nadezhda Krupskaya|Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya]], a Marxist schoolteacher.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=22|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=41|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=20–21}} He also authored the political tract ''What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats'' criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, based largely on his experiences in Samara; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=27|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=42–43|3a1=White|3y=2001|3pp=34, 36|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=25|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5pp=45–46}}
After his death in 1924, Stalin portrayed Lenin as an infallible humanitarian; his writings were viewed as gospel. Museums were devoted to his life and work, cities were named for him, and huge statues and monuments honored his memory. Beginning in 1985, however, the Lenin cult began to crumble. Party chairman [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] was a faithful disciple of Lenin, but he now faced the reality that the economically bankrupt Communist state was rapidly decaying. As the Communist nation unraveled, so did the Lenin personality cult. Leningrad residents voted to restore the St. Petersburg name; the once-crowded museums attracted few visitors; and Lenin's philosophy and actions were found less than perfect. In 1991 as Communism fell, the statues and paintings went into cold storage. By 1995 plans were being made to bury Lenin's corpse, which was finally acknowledged to be putrefying just as the remains of any other mortal, as the cult itself fell into "the dustbin of history."<ref>Trevor J. Smith, "The Collapse of the Lenin Personality Cult in Soviet Russia, 1985-1995," ''Historian'' 1998 60(2): 325-343, in [[EBSCO]]</ref>
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Lenin hoped to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and [[Emancipation of Labour]], a group of Russian Marxist émigrés based in Switzerland; he visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=37|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=26|7a1=Lih|7y=2011|7p=55}} He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law [[Paul Lafargue]] and to research the [[Paris Commune|Paris Commune of 1871]], which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=46|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=103|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=37|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=26}} Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the [[Berlin State Library|Staatsbibliothek]] and met the Marxist activist [[Wilhelm Liebknecht]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=30|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=46|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=103|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=37|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=26}} Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=47–48|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=26}} While involved in producing a news sheet, ''Rabochee delo'' (''Workers' Cause''), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=31|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=355|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=48|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=38|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=26}}
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[[File:Union-de-Lucha.jpg|thumb|left|Lenin (seated centre) with other members of the [[League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class]] in 1897]]
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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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=31|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5p=61}} He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of [[industrial capitalism]] in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop [[class consciousness]], which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow [[tsarism]], the [[aristocracy]], and the [[bourgeoisie]] and 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}}
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In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=38, 45, 47|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=31}} 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 revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the [[Yenisei River]] and to hunt [[duck]] and [[snipe]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=31–32|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=53, 55–56|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=110–113|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=40|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=30, 31}}
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In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to [[Ufa]], but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, claiming that she and Lenin 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=40|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=30|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=63}} Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye 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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=33}} Keen to keep up with 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, Lenin 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|3a1=Rappaport|3y=2010|3p=31}} He also finished ''[[The Development of Capitalism in Russia]]'' (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised the agrarian-socialists and promoted 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|3a1=White|3y=2001|3pp=40–45|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=34, 39|5a1=Lih|5y=2011|5pp=62–63}}
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===Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905===
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[[File:LeninEnSuizaMarzo1916--barbaroussovietr00mcbr.png|thumb|upright|Lenin in 1916, while in Switzerland]]
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After his exile, Lenin settled in [[Pskov]] in early 1900.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=34–35|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=64|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=124–125|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=54|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=43|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6pp=27–28}} There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, ''[[Iskra]]'' (''Spark''), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]] (RSDLP).{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=35|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=357|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=66–65|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=55–56|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=43|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6p=28}} In July 1900, Lenin 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=130–135|5a1=Rappaport|5y=2010|5pp=32–33}} Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, ''Iskra'' was smuggled into Russia,{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=69–70|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=51|3a1=Rappaport|3y=2010|3pp=41–42, 53–55}} becoming the country's most successful [[Underground press|underground publication]] for 50 years.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=69–70}} He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian [[River Lena]];{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=4–5|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=137|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=44|4a1=Rappaport|4y=2010|4p=66}} he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the ''N'' did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented ''Nikolai''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rappaport|1y=2010|1p=66|2a1=Lih|2y=2011|2pp=8–9}} 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=56–62|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=52–54|7a1=Rappaport|7y=2010|7p=62|8a1=Lih|8y=2011|8pp=69, 78–80}}
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His wife Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his personal secretary.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=37|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=70|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=136|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=44|5a1=Rappaport|5y=2010|5pp=36–37}} They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for ''Iskra'' and drafted the RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party]] (SR),{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=37|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=78–79|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=143–144|4a1=Rappaport|4y=2010|4pp=81, 84}} a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=60}} Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly penning the 1903 pamphlet ''To the Village Poor''.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=38|2a1=Lih|2y=2011|2p=80}} To evade [[Kingdom of Bavaria|Bavarian]] police, Lenin moved 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}} He became friends with fellow Russian Marxist [[Leon Trotsky]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=40, 50–51|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=76|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=148–150|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=48|5a1=Rappaport|5y=2010|5pp=82–84}} 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 [[Geneva]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=77–78|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=150|3a1=Rappaport|3y=2010|3pp=85–87}}
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The [[2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|second RSDLP Congress]] was held in London in July 1903.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=360|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=79–80|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=151–152|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=62|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=60|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6p=92|7a1=Lih|7y=2011|7p=81}} 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 over the party.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=81–82|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=154–155|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=63|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=60–61|7a1=Rappaport|7y=2010|7p=93}} Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" (''bol'sheviki'' in Russian; [[Bolsheviks]]); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" (''men'sheviki'' in Russian; [[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|4p=61|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=64|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6p=95}} Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=83|2a1=Rappaport|2y=2010|2p=107}} 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|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=65|4a1=Rappaport|4y=2010|4pp=97–98}} The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he went on a hiking holiday in rural Switzerland.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1pp=158–159, 163–164|2a1=Rappaport|2y=2010|2pp=97, 99, 108–109}} The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by the spring,<!-- which spring? prefer a date --> 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 ''Vpered'' (''Forward'').{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=41|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=85|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=165|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=70|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=64|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6p=114}}
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===Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath: 1905–1914===
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In January 1905, the [[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]] massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the [[Russian Empire]] 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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=75|5a1=Rappaport|5y=2010|5pp=117–120|6a1=Lih|6y=2011|6p=87}} 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; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the [[Third 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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=78|5a1=Rappaport|5y=2010|5p=124}} 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 Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to [[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|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=79|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6p=131}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|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 on the Revolution of 1905{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=88–89}} }}
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In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar [[Nicholas II]] accepted a series of liberal reforms in his [[October Manifesto]]. In this climate, 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|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=77, 81|6a1=Rappaport|6y=2010|6pp=132, 134–135}} Joining the editorial board of ''Novaya Zhizn'' (''New Life''), a radical legal newspaper run by [[Maria Fyodorovna Andreyeva|Maria Andreyeva]], he used it to discuss issues facing the RSDLP.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=94–95|2a1=White|2y=2001|2pp=73–74|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=81–82|4a1=Rappaport|4y=2010|4p=138}} 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}} Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of [[Leonid Krasin]], a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of [[Joseph Stalin]] committed [[1907 Tiflis bank robbery|an armed robbery of the State Bank]] in [[Tiflis]], Georgia.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=70–71|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=369–370|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=104}}
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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}} Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the [[Fourth RSDLP Congress]], held in [[Stockholm]] in April 1906.{{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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=76}} Lenin was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in [[Repino, Saint Petersburg|Kuokkala]], [[Grand Duchy of Finland]], which was at the time a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Empire, before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its [[5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Fifth Congress]], held in London in May 1907.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=103–105|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=180–182|3a1=White|3y=2001|3pp=77–79}} As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the [[Second Duma]], and by ordering its [[secret police]], the [[Okhrana]], to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=105–106|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=184–186|3a1=Rappaport|3y=2010|3p=144}} There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them.{{sfn|Brackman|2000|pp=59, 62}}
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[[Alexander Bogdanov]] and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris; 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 while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=67–68|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=111|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=188–189}} Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture in order to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would 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 independent of human observation.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=64|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=109|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=189–190|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=89–90}} Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at [[Maxim Gorky]]'s villa in [[Capri]] in April 1908;{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=63–64|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=110|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=190–191|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=83, 84}} 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|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=91}}
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[[File:British Museum from NE 2.JPG|thumb|Lenin undertook research at the British Museum in London.]]
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In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the [[British Museum]] [[British Museum Reading Room|Reading Room]] to write ''[[Materialism and Empirio-criticism]]'', an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=64–67|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=110|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=192–193|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=84, 87–88|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=90}} Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close 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 exploited his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, [[Roman Malinovsky]], to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky 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|4p=206|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=102|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=96–97}}
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In August 1910, Lenin attended the [[International Socialist Congress, Copenhagen 1910|Eighth Congress]] of the [[Second International]], an international meeting of socialists, 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]]; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912.{{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|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=103}} Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, ''Proletari''.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=115|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=196|3a1=White|3y=2001|3pp=93–94}} 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=96–97|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=95}}
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Moving to [[Kraków]] in the [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria]], a culturally Polish part of the [[Austro-Hungarian Empire]], he used [[Jagellonian University]]'s library to conduct research.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=72|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=118–119|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=209–211|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=100|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=104}} He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=98–99}} In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=122|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=100}} Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of [[Biały Dunajec]],{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=216|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=103|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=105}} before heading to [[Bern]] for Nadya to have surgery on her [[goitre]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=73–74|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=122–123|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=217–218|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=105}}
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===First World War: 1914–1917===
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{{Quote box|width=25em|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 on his interpretation of the First World War{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=85}} }}
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Lenin was in [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] when the [[First World War]] broke out.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=127|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=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=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=377–378|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=127–128|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=223–225|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=104|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=105}} 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=104|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=127}} before relocating to [[Zürich]] 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, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's [[International Socialist Congress, Stuttgart 1907|Stuttgart resolution]] that socialist parties would oppose the conflict, and 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=103–104}} He attended the [[Zimmerwald Conference]] in September 1915 and the [[Kienthal 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=113–114, 122–113|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=132–134}} urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted 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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=111}} 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|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=130}} Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=135|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=235}}
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In September 1917, Lenin published ''[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'', which 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=White|4y=2001|4pp=118–121|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=116–126}} He spent much of this time 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}} This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=243}} He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about 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 an intermediate revolution.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=238–239}}
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===February Revolution and the July Days: 1917===
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In February 1917, the [[February Revolution]] broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed [[Petrograd]] at the beginning of the First World War, 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 abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the [[Russian Provisional Government]] and converting the Empire into a new [[Russian Republic]].{{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 into 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 [[sealed 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=127–128}} The group travelled by train from Zürich to [[Sassnitz]], proceeding by ferry to [[Trelleborg]], Sweden, and from there to the [[Haparanda]]–[[Tornio]] border crossing and then to [[Helsinki]] before taking the final train to Petrograd in disguise.{{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}}
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[[File:The locomotive M-293, which in August 1917 Lenin went to Finland.JPG|thumb|left|upright|The engine that pulled the train on which Lenin arrived at Petrograd's [[Finland Station]] in April 1917 was not preserved. So Engine #293, by which Lenin escaped to Finland and then returned to Russia later in the year, serves as the permanent exhibit, installed at a platform on the station.{{sfn|Merridale|2017|p=ix}}]]
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Arriving at Petrograd's [[Finland Station]] in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=131–132}} 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|3a1=White|3y=2001|3pp=132–135|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=143, 146–147}} 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 just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1pp=266–268, 279|2a1=White|2y=2001|2pp=134–136|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=147, 148}} Over the coming months, he campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper ''[[Pravda]]'', and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1pp=267, 271–272|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2pp=152, 154}}
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Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=282|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=157}} Amid deteriorating health, 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|3pp=276, 283|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=140|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=157}} 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 and called 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|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=140–141|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=157–159}} Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=141|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=161}} 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]] escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to [[Razliv]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=436, 467|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=287|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=141|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=165}} There, Lenin began work on the book that became ''[[The State and Revolution]]'', an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=142–143|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=166–172}} He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but 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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=165}}
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===October Revolution: 1917===
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{{Main article|October Revolution}}
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[[File:Brodskiy's Lenin.jpg|thumb|Painting of Lenin in front of the [[Smolny Institute]] by [[Isaak Brodsky]]]]
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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, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=439–465|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=150–151|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=299|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=143–144|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=173}} Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressurising the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=465}} Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=465–467|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=144|3a1=Lee|3y=2003|3p=17|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=174}} 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|2pp=151–152|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=180}}
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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|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=179}} There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won 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|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=146–147}} Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the 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|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=147}} 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 largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=14–15|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=1–3|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=466|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4p=155}}
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In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did 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}} Bolsheviks besieged the government in the [[Winter Palace]], and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser ''[[Russian cruiser Aurora|Aurora]]'', controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired on the building.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=492–493, 496|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=311|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=182}} During the insurrection, 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}} The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the [[Council of People's Commissars]], or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of [[Premier of the Soviet Union|Chairman]], suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted 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]] on 26 and 27 October, and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=496–497|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=159–161|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=314–315|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=183}} In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=504|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=315}} Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=316}}
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==Lenin's government==
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{{Main|Government of Vladimir Lenin}}
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===Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918===
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The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; against Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom agreed for the vote to take place as scheduled.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=314|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=317}} In the [[1917 Russian Constituent Assembly election|constitutional election]], the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=315|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=540–541|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=164|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=173|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=331|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=192}} Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=176|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=331–332|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=156|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=192}} Nevertheless, the newly elected [[Russian Constituent Assembly]] convened in Petrograd in January 1918.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=164}} Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=546–547}} The Bolsheviks presented the Assembly with a motion that would strip it of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected the motion, Sovnarkom declared this as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature and forcibly disbanded it.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=552–553|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=165|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=176–177|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=332, 336–337|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=192}}
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Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=158|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=301–302|3a1=Rigby|3y=1979|3p=26|4a1=Leggett|4y=1981|4p=5|5a1=Pipes|5y=1990|5pp=508, 519|6a1=Service|6y=2000|6pp=318–319|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7pp=189–190}} Although refusing a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sovnarkom partially relented; they allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five posts in the cabinet in December 1917. This coalition only lasted four months until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries pulled out of the government over a disagreement about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War.{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=166–167|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=20–21|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=533–534, 537|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=171|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=322–323|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=159|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7p=191}} At their [[7th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|7th Congress]] in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasise its ultimate goal, that of a communist society.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=219, 256, 379|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=374|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=355|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=159|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=219}}
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[[File:Kremlin birds eye view-1.jpg|thumb|left|The Moscow Kremlin, which Lenin moved into in 1918]]
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Although ultimate power officially rested with the country's government in the form of Sovnarkom and the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee|Executive Committee]] (VTSIK) elected by the [[All-Russian Congress of Soviets]] (ARCS), the Communist Party was ''de facto'' in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time.{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=160–164|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2pp=374–375|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=377}} By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, claiming a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalised,{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=74|2a1=Rigby|2y=1979|2pp=168–169}} so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=432}} During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=316|2a1=Lee|2y=2003|2pp=98–99}} Russia had become a [[one-party state]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=160–161|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=21|3a1=Lee|3y=2003|3p=99}}
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Within the party was established a [[Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Political Bureau]] (Politburo) and [[Orgburo|Organisation Bureau]] (Orgburo) to accompany the existing [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]; the decisions of these party bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the [[Council of Labor and Defense|Council of Labour and Defence]].{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=388|2a1=Lee|2y=2003|2p=98}} Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure as well as being the Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, and on the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=388}} The only individual to have anywhere near this influence was Lenin's right-hand man, [[Yakov Sverdlov]], who died in March 1919 during a [[1918 flu pandemic|flu pandemic]].{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=168, 170|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=388}} In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month they left for a brief holiday in Halila, Finland.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=325–326, 333|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=211–212}} In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; [[Fritz Platten]], who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=361|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=548|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=229|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=335–336|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=198}}
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Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, in March 1918 Sovnarkom relocated to Moscow, initially as a temporary measure.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=156|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=350|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=594|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=185|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=344|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=212}} There, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the [[Kremlin]], where Lenin lived with his wife and sister Maria in a first floor apartment adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=320–321|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=377|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=94–595|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=187–188|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=346–347|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=212}} Lenin disliked Moscow,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=345}} but rarely left the city centre during the rest of his life.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=466|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=348}} He survived a second assassination attempt, in Moscow in August 1918; he was shot following a public speech and injured badly.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=280|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=361–362|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=806–807|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=219–221|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=367–368|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=155}} A Socialist-Revolutionary, [[Fanny Kaplan]], was arrested and executed.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=282–283|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=362–363|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=807, 809|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=222–228|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=155}} The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=222, 231}} As a respite, he was driven in September 1918 to the [[Gorki Leninskiye|Gorki estate]], just outside Moscow, recently acquired for him by the government.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=369}}
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===Social, legal, and economic reform: 1917–1918===
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|bgcolor=|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&nbsp;... Long live the revolution!|source=—Lenin's political programme, October 1917{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=161}} }}
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Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a [[Decree on Land]], which declared that the [[landed estate]]s of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for [[Collective farming|agricultural collectivisation]] but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=252–253|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=499|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=341|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=316–317|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=149|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=194–195}} In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter-revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising [[freedom of the press]].{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=310|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=5–6, 8, 306|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=521–522|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=317–318|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=153|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6pp=235–236}}
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In November 1917, Lenin issued the [[Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia]], which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to secede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=249|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=514|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=321}} Many nations declared independence ([[Finnish Declaration of Independence|Finland]] and [[Act of Independence of Lithuania|Lithuania in December 1917]], Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, [[Estonian Declaration of Independence|Estonia in February 1918]], [[Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic|Transcaucasia in April 1918]], and [[Second Polish Republic|Poland in November 1918]]).{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=249|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=514|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=219}} Soon, the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states,{{sfn|White|2001|pp=159–160}} while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918 a constitution was approved that reformed the Russian Republic into the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]].{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=249}} Seeking to modernise the country, the government officially converted Russia from the [[Julian calendar]] to the [[Gregorian calendar]] used in Europe.{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=84|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=211}}
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In November 1917, Sovnarkom issued a decree abolishing Russia's legal system, calling on the use of "revolutionary conscience" to replace the abolished laws.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1pp=172–173|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=796–797|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=242}} The courts were replaced by a two-tier system, namely the [[Revolutionary tribunal (Russia)|Revolutionary Tribunals]] to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes,{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=172|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=798–799|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=121}} and the [[People's Court (Soviet Union)|People's Courts]] to deal with civil and other criminal offences. They were instructed to ignore pre-existing laws, and base their rulings on the Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice."{{sfnm|1a1=Hazard|1y=1965|1p=270|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=172|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=796–797}} November also saw an overhaul of the armed forces; Sovnarkom implemented [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] measures, abolished previous ranks, titles, and medals, and called on soldiers to establish committees to elect their commanders.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=170}}
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[[File:Dyadya lenin.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Bolshevik [[political cartoon]] poster from 1920, showing Lenin sweeping away monarchs, clergy, and capitalists; the caption reads, "Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth"]]
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In October 1917, Lenin issued a decree limiting work for everyone in Russia to eight hours per day.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=321}} He also issued the Decree on Popular Education that stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=321}} and a decree establishing a system of state orphanages.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=260–261}} To combat mass illiteracy, a [[Likbez|literacy campaign]] was initiated; an estimated 5&nbsp;million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=174}} Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=554–555|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=83}} [[Zhenotdel]], a Bolshevik women's organisation, was established to further these aims. {{sfn|Sandle|1999|pp=122–123}} Under Lenin, Russia became the first country to legalize abortion on demand in the first trimester.{{sfn|David|1974|p=417}} Militantly atheist, Lenin and the Communist Party wanted to demolish organised religion.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=552|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=308|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=126|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=238–239|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5pp=176, 182}} In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state, and prohibited religious instruction in schools.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=373|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=308|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=177}}
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In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=709|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=321}} That month they also issued an order requisitioning the country's gold,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=171}} and nationalised the banks, which Lenin saw as a major step toward socialism.{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1pp=45–46|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=682, 683|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=321|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=153}} In December, Sovnarkom established a [[Supreme Council of the National Economy]] (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade.{{sfnm|1a1=Rigby|1y=1979|1p=50|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=689|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=64|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=321|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=231}} The factory committees were subordinate to the trade unions, which were subordinate to VSNKh; the state's centralised economic plan was prioritised over the workers' local economic interests.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=437–438|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=709|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3pp=64, 68}} In early 1918, Sovnarkom cancelled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest owed on them.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=263–264|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=672}} In April 1918, it nationalised foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=264}} In June 1918, it decreed nationalisation of public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, although often these were state-owned in name only.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=681, 692–693|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2pp=96–97}} Full-scale nationalisation did not take place until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=692–693|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=97}}
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A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "[[Left communism|Left Communists]]" criticised Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalisation of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=236|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=351–352}} Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage and that the government should only nationalise Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalised.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=236|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=351–352}} Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about the economic organisation; in June 1918, he argued that centralised economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a [[syndicalism|syndicalist]] approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=259, 444–445}}
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Adopting a [[left-libertarian]] perspective, both the Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=120}} Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=354–355}} In late 1918, the Czech-Austrian Marxist [[Karl Kautsky]] authored an [[anti-Leninist]] pamphlet condemning the anti-democratic nature of Soviet Russia, to which Lenin published a vociferous reply.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=307–308|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2pp=178–179|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=156|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=252–253|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5pp=123–124}} German Marxist [[Rosa Luxemburg]] echoed Kautsky's views,{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=329–330|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=385|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=156|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=253–254|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5p=125}} while Russian [[anarchist]] [[Peter Kropotkin]] described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=383}}
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===Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918===
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.|source=—Lenin on peace with the Central Powers{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=193–194}} }}
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Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the [[Central Powers]] of Germany and Austria-Hungary.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=331|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=567}} He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=151|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=567|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=338}} By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=190–191|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=337|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=567|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4p=166}}
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Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his [[Decree on Peace]] of November 1917, which was approved by the [[Second Congress of Soviets]] and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=151–152|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=571–572}} The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the [[Western Front (World War I)|Western Front]] and stave off looming defeat.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=154|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=572|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=166}} In November, armistice talks began at [[Brest-Litovsk]], the headquarters of the German high command on the [[Eastern Front (World War I)|Eastern Front]], with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and [[Adolph Joffe]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=161|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=331|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=576}} Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=162–163|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=576}} During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and [[Courland]], whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=171–172, 200–202|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=578}} Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=166|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=338}} On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=338}}
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[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R92623, Brest-Litowsk, Waffenstillstandsabkommen.jpg|thumb|left|Signing of the armistice between Russia and Germany on 15 December 1917]]
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In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=195|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=334, 337|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=338–339, 340|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=199}} On 18 February, the German Army launched [[Operation Faustschlag]], advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering [[Dvinsk]] within a day.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=206, 209|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=337|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=586–587|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=340–341}} At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=587|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=166–167|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=341|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=199}} On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine, or face a full-scale invasion.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=338|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=592–593|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=341}}
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On 3 March, the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] was signed.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=211–212|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=339|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=595|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4p=167|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=342|6a1=White|6y=2001|6pp=158–159}} It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=595|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=342}} Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=213–214|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=596–597}} and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=344}} After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=313–314|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=387–388|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=667–668|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=193–194|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=384}} The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor [[Wilhelm II, German Emperor|Wilhelm II]] [[Abdication of Wilhelm II|abdicated]] and the country's new administration signed the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|Armistice]] with the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]]. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=303–304|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=668|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=194|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=384}}
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===Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922===
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{{see also|Decossackization{{!}}Decossackisation}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=[The bourgeoisie] practised terror ''against the workers, soldiers and peasants'' in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices ''in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants''.|source=—Lenin on the Red Terror{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=182}} }}
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By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=236|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=558, 723|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=170|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=190}} Lenin blamed this on the [[kulaks]], or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of [[Committees of Poor Peasants]] to aid in requisitioning.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=236–237|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=353|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=560, 722, 732–736|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4p=170|5a1=Volkogonov|5y=1994|5pp=181, 342–343|6a1=Service|6y=2000|6pp=349, 358–359|7a1=White|7y=2001|7p=164|8a1=Read|8y=2005|8p=218}} This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=254|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=728, 734–736|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=197|4a1=Ryan|4y=2012|4p=105}} A prominent example of Lenin's views was his [[Lenin's Hanging Order|August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza]], which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=277–278|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=737|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=365|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=155–156|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5p=106}}
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Requisitioning disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=450|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=726}} A booming [[black market]] supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy,{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=700–702|2a1=Lee|2y=2003|2p=100}} and Lenin called on [[Speculation|speculators]], black marketeers and [[looting|looters]] to be shot.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=195|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=794|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=181|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=249}} Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=237}} Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=385|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=164|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=218}}
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Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=344|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=790–791|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=181, 196|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=247–248}} Speaking to the [[All-Russian Central Executive Committee]] of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want&nbsp;[...] to organise violence in the interests of the people."{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=312}} He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=435–436}} Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the [[Cheka|Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage]], or Cheka, a political police force led by [[Felix Dzerzhinsky]].{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=345–347|2a1=Rigby|2y=1979|2pp=20–21|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=800|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=233|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=321–322|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=153|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7pp=186, 208–209}}
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[[File:Lenin Krupskaya and Ulyanova in car at Red Army parade full photo 19180501.jpg|thumb|left|Lenin with his wife and sister in a car after watching a Red Army parade at Khodynka Field in Moscow, May Day 1918]]
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In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the [[Red Terror]], a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=174|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2pp=233–234|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=112|4a1=Ryan|4y=2012|4p=111}} Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie,{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=366|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=112}} Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=116}} The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration;{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=821|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2pp=114–115}} others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=366|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=113|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=210|4a1=Ryan|4y=2012|4pp=114–115}} The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1pp=173–174|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=801}} Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1pp=199–200|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=819–820|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=107}} For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=364|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2p=114}} There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror;{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=837}} later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=114}} and 50,000 to 140,000.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=834}}
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Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand,{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=202|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=247}} and publicly distanced himself from it.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=796}} His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=202}} Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=825|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2pp=117, 120}} The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official [[martial law]], but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1pp=174–175, 183|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=828–829|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=121}} By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=829–830, 832}}
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A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of [[concentration camps]], which were entrusted to the Cheka,{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1pp=176–177|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=832, 834}} later administered by a new government agency, [[Gulag]].{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=835|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=235}} By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=178|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=836}} Those interned in the camps were used as [[slave labour]].{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=176|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=832–833}} From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1pp=358–360|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2pp=172–173, 175–176}} In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1pp=376–377|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=239|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=179}} The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also impacted on [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] and [[Protestant]] churches, [[Jewish]] synagogues, and [[Islamic]] mosques.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=381}}
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===Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920===
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.|source=—Lenin on war{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=610}} }}
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Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, but he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=357}} In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=357}} The ensuing [[Russian Civil War]] pitted the pro-Bolshevik Reds against the anti-Bolshevik [[White movement|Whites]] but also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders and conflict between both Red and White armies and local peasant groups, the [[Green armies]], throughout the former Empire.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=391–392}} Accordingly, various historians have seen the civil war as representing two distinct conflicts: one between the revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionaries, and the other between different revolutionary factions.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=84, 88}}
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The White armies were established by former Tsarist military officers,{{sfn|Read|2005|p=205}} and included [[Anton Denikin]]'s [[Volunteer Army]] in [[South Russia (1919–1920)|South Russia]],{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=355|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=204|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=173, 175|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=198|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=357, 382|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=187}} [[Alexander Kolchak]]'s forces in Siberia,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=334, 343, 357|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2p=204|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=382, 392|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=205–206}} and [[Nikolai Yudenich]]'s troops in the newly independent Baltic states.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=204|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=206}} The Whites were bolstered when 35,000 members of the [[Czechoslovak Legion|Czech Legion]], who were [[prisoners of war]] from the conflict with the Central Powers, turned against Sovnarkom and allied with the [[Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly]] (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government established in Samara.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=288–289|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=624–630|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=360|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=161–162|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=205}} The Whites were also backed by Western governments who perceived the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of the Allied war effort and feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=262–263}} In 1918, the United Kingdom, France, United States, Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in [[Murmansk]], seizing [[Kandalaksha]], while later that year British, American, and Japanese forces landed in [[Vladivostok]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=291|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=354}} Western troops soon pulled out of the civil war, instead only supporting the Whites with officers, technicians and armaments, but Japan remained because they saw the conflict as an opportunity for territorial expansion.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=331, 333}}
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Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a [[Red Army|Workers' and Peasants' Red Army]], and with his support, Trotsky organised a [[Revolutionary Military Council]] in September 1918, remaining its chairman until 1925.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=610, 612|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=198}} Recognising their valuable military experience, Lenin agreed that officers from the old Tsarist army could serve in the Red Army, although Trotsky established military councils to monitor their activities.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=337|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=609, 612, 629|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=198|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=383|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=217}} The Reds held control of Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of [[Great Russia]], while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=248, 262}} The latter were therefore hindered by being both fragmented and geographically scattered,{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=651|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=200|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=162|4a1=Lee|4y=2003|4p=81}} and because their ethnic Russian supremacism alienated the region's national minorities.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=251|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=163|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=220}} Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the [[White Terror (Russia)|White Terror]], a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters which was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=201|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=792|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=202–203|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=250}} Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of [[anti-Semitism]], blaming prejudice against Jews on [[capitalist propaganda]].{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=201|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2pp=203–204}}
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[[File:VictimOfInternational.jpg|thumb|left|A White Russian anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster, in which Lenin is depicted in a red robe, aiding other Bolsheviks in sacrificing Russia to a statue of Marx (c. 1918–1919)]]
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In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the [[Execution of the Romanov family|execution of the former Tsar and his immediate family]] in [[Yekaterinburg]] to prevent them from being rescued by advancing White troops.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=357–358|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=781–782|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=206–207|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=364–365}} Although lacking proof, biographers and historians like [[Richard Pipes]] and [[Dmitri Volkogonov]] have expressed the view that the killing was probably sanctioned by Lenin;{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=763, 770–771|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=211}} conversely, historian James Ryan cautioned that there was "no reason" to believe this.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=109}} Whether Lenin sanctioned it or not, he still regarded it as necessary, highlighting the precedent set by the [[execution of Louis XVI]] in the [[French Revolution]].{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=208}}
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After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution.{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=635}} In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary [[Yakov Blumkin]] assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, [[Wilhelm von Mirbach]], hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=244|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=355|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3pp=636–640|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=360–361|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=159|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=199}} The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then [[Left SR uprising|launched a coup in Moscow]], shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=242|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2pp=642–644|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=250}} The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned, but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=244|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=644|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=172}}
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By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.{{sfnm|1a1=Leggett|1y=1981|1p=184|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=402|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=206}} Although Sovnarkom were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=83}} In some cases, such as the north-eastern European nations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland, the Soviets recognised their independence and concluded peace treaties.{{sfn|Goldstein|2013|p=50}} In other cases, the Red Army suppressed secessionist movements; by 1921 they had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the [[Caucasus]], although [[Basmachi movement|fighting]] in [[Central Asia]] lasted until the late 1920s.{{sfn|Hall|2015|p=84}}
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After the German [[Ober Ost]] garrisons were withdrawn from the Eastern Front following the Armistice, [[Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19|both Soviet Russian armies]] and Polish ones moved in to fill the vacuum.{{sfn|Davies|2003|pp=26–27}} The newly independent Polish state and the Soviet government each sought territorial expansion in the region.{{sfn|Davies|2003|pp=27–30}} Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919,{{sfn|Davies|2003|pp=22, 27}} with the conflict developing into the [[Polish–Soviet War]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=389|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=182|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=281|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=407|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=161|6a1=Davies|6y=2003|6pp=29–30}} Unlike the Soviets' previous conflicts, this had greater implications for the export of revolution and the future of Europe.{{sfn|Davies|2003|p=22}} Polish forces pushed into Ukraine and by May 1920 [[Kiev Offensive (1920)|had taken Kiev]] from the Soviets.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=389|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=182|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=281|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=407|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=161}} After forcing the [[Polish Army]] back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland itself, believing that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russian troops and thus spark European revolution. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were sceptical, but agreed to the invasion. The Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the [[Battle of Warsaw (1920)|Battle of Warsaw]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=391–395|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=396|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=182–183|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=408–409, 412|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=161}} The Polish armies pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace; the war culminated in the [[Peace of Riga]], in which Russia ceded territory to Poland.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=183|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=388|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=412}}
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===Comintern and world revolution: 1919–1920===
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{{Main|Revolutions of 1917–23}}
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[[File:19190501-lenin speech red square.jpg|thumb|upright|Photograph of Lenin on 1 May 1919, taken by Grigori Petrovich Goldstein]]
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After the Armistice on the Western Front, Lenin believed that the breakout of the European revolution was imminent.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=387|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=173}} Seeking to promote this, Sovnarkom supported the establishment of [[Béla Kun]]'s [[Hungarian Soviet Republic|soviet government in Hungary]] in March 1919, followed by the [[Bavarian Council Republic|soviet government in Bavaria]] and [[Revolutions of 1917–23|various revolutionary socialist uprisings]] in other parts of Germany, including [[Spartacist uprising|that of the Spartacus League]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=333|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=388|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=173|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=395}} During Russia's Civil War, the Red Army was sent into the newly independent national republics on Russia's borders to aid Marxists there in establishing soviet systems of government.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=385–386}} In Europe, this resulted in the creation of new communist-led states in [[Commune of the Working People of Estonia|Estonia]], [[Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic|Latvia]], [[Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (1918–19)|Lithuania]], [[Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia|Belarus]], and [[Ukrainian Soviet Republic|Ukraine]], all of which were officially independent of Russia,{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=385–386}} while further east it led to the creation of communist governments in [[Mongolian People's Republic|Outer Mongolia]].{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=531, 536}} Various senior Bolsheviks wanted these absorbed into the Russian state; Lenin insisted that national sensibilities should be respected, but reassured his comrades that these nations' new Communist Party administrations were under the ''de facto'' authority of Sovnarkom.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=386}}
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In late 1918, the [[Labour Party (UK)|British Labour Party]] called for the establishment of an international conference of socialist parties, the [[Labour and Socialist International]].{{sfn|Shub|1966|pp=389–390}} Lenin saw this as a revival of the Second International, which he had despised, and formulated his own rival international socialist conference to offset its impact.{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=390}} Organised with the aid of Zinoviev, [[Nikolai Bukharin]], Trotsky, [[Christian Rakovsky]], and [[Angelica Balabanoff]],{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=390}} the [[1st Congress of the Comintern|First Congress]] of this [[Communist International]] (Comintern) opened in Moscow in March 1919.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=525|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=390|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=174|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=390|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=386|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=160|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7p=225}} It lacked global coverage; of the 34 assembled delegates, 30 resided within the countries of the former Russian Empire, and most of the international delegates were not recognised by any socialist parties in their own nations.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=525|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=390–391|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=174|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=386|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=160}} Accordingly, the Bolsheviks dominated proceedings,{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=387|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=160}} with Lenin subsequently authoring a series of regulations that meant that only socialist parties endorsing the Bolsheviks' views were permitted to join Comintern.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=525|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=398|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=225–226}} During the first conference, Lenin spoke to the delegates, lambasting the parliamentary path to socialism espoused by revisionist Marxists like Kautsky and repeating his calls for a violent overthrow of Europe's bourgeoisie governments.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=387}} While Zinoviev became Comintern's president, Lenin retained significant influence over it.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=395|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=391}}
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The [[2nd World Congress of the Comintern|Second Congress of the Communist International]] opened in Petrograd's [[Smolny Institute]] in July 1920, representing the last time that Lenin visited a city other than Moscow.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=397|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=409}} There, he encouraged foreign delegates to emulate the Bolsheviks' seizure of power and abandoned his longstanding viewpoint that capitalism was a necessary stage in societal development, instead, encouraging those nations under colonial occupation to transform their pre-capitalist societies directly into socialist ones.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=409–410}} For this conference, he authored ''[["Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder]]'', a short book articulating his criticism of elements within the British and German communist parties who refused to enter their nations' parliamentary systems and trade unions; instead he urged them to do so to advance the revolutionary cause.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=415–420|2a1=White|2y=2001|2pp=161, 180–181}} The conference had to be suspended for several days due to the ongoing war with Poland,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=410}} and was relocated to Moscow, where it continued to hold sessions until August.{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=397}} Lenin's predicted world revolution did not materialise, as the Hungarian communist government was overthrown and the German Marxist uprisings suppressed.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=341|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=396|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=174}}
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===Famine and the New Economic Policy: 1920–1922===
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Within the Communist Party, there was dissent from two factions, the [[Group of Democratic Centralism]] and the [[Workers' Opposition]], both of which accused the Russian state of being too centralised and bureaucratic.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=437–438|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=406|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=183|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=419|5a1=White|5y=2001|5pp=167–168}} The Workers' Opposition, which had connections to the official state trade unions, also expressed the concern that the government had lost the trust of the Russian working class.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=406|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=419|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=167}} They were angered by Trotsky's suggestion that the trade unions be eliminated. He deemed the unions to be superfluous in a "[[workers' state]]", but Lenin disagreed, believing it best to retain them; most Bolsheviks embraced Lenin's view in the 'trade union discussion'.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=436, 442|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=183–184|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3pp=104–105|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=422–423|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=168|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=269}} To deal with the dissent, at the [[10th Congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)|Tenth Party Congress]] in February 1921, Lenin introduced a ban on factional activity within the party, under pain of expulsion.{{sfn|White|2001|p=170}}
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[[File:Victims of the 1921 famine in Russia.jpg|thumb|left|Victims of the famine in [[Buzuluk River (Volgograd Oblast)|Buzuluk]], [[Volga region]], next to [[Saratov]]]]
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Caused in part by a drought, the [[Russian famine of 1921–22]] was the most severe that the country had experienced since [[Russian famine of 1891–92|that of 1891–92]],{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=507–508|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=185–186}} resulting in around five million deaths.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=164}} The famine was exacerbated by government requisitioning, as well as the export of large quantities of Russian grain.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=343, 347}} To aid the famine victims, the US government established an [[American Relief Administration]] to distribute food;{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=508|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=414|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=345|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=172}} Lenin was suspicious of this aid and had it closely monitored.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=346}} During the famine, [[Patriarch Tikhon]] called on Orthodox churches to sell unnecessary items to help feed the starving, an action endorsed by the government.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=374–375}} In February 1922 Sovnarkom went further by calling on all valuables belonging to religious institutions to be [[1922 confiscation of Russian Orthodox Church property|forcibly appropriated and sold]].{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1pp=375–376|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=251|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3pp=176, 177}} Tikhon opposed the sale of items used within the [[Eucharist]] and many clergy resisted the appropriations, resulting in violence.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=376|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2p=178}}
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In 1920 and 1921, local opposition to requisitioning resulted in anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings breaking out across Russia, which were suppressed.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=467|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=406|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=343|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=425|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=168|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=220|7a1=Ryan|7y=2012|7p=154}} Among the most significant was the [[Tambov Rebellion]], which was put down by the Red Army.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=459|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=330–333|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=423–424|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=168|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5pp=154–155}} In February 1921, workers went on strike in Petrograd, resulting in the government proclaiming martial law in the city and sending in the Red Army to quell demonstrations.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=406–407|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=324–325|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=184|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=220|5a1=Ryan|5y=2012|5p=170}} In March, the [[Kronstadt rebellion]] began when sailors in [[Kronstadt]] revolted against the Bolshevik government, demanding that all socialists be allowed to publish freely, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly and that peasants be allowed free markets and not be subject to requisitioning. Lenin declared that the mutineers had been misled by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign imperialists, calling for violent reprisals.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=469–470|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=405|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3pp=325–326|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4p=184|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=427|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=169|7a1=Ryan|7y=2012|7p=170}} Under Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army put down the rebellion on 17 March, resulting in thousands of deaths and the internment of survivors in labour camps.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=470–471|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=408–409|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3pp=327–328|4a1=Rice|4y=1990|4pp=184–185|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=427–428|6a1=Ryan|6y=2012|6pp=171–172}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=You must attempt first to build small bridges which shall lead to a land of small peasant holdings through State Capitalism to Socialism. Otherwise you will never lead tens of millions of people to Communism. This is what the objective forces of the development of the Revolution have taught.|source=—Lenin on the NEP, 1921{{sfn|Shub|1966|pp=412–413}} }}
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In February 1921, Lenin introduced a [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP) to the Politburo; he convinced most senior Bolsheviks of its necessity and it passed into law in April.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=411|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=185|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=421, 424–427, 429|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=264}} Lenin explained the policy in a booklet, ''On the Food Tax'', in which he stated that the NEP represented a return to the original Bolshevik economic plans; he claimed that these had been derailed by the civil war, in which Sovnarkom had been forced to resort to the economic policies of [[war communism]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=479–480|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=155|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=430|4a1=White|4y=2001|4pp=170, 171}} The NEP allowed some private enterprise within Russia, permitting the reintroduction of the wage system and allowing peasants to sell produce on the open market while being taxed on their earnings.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=411|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2pp=153, 158|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=430|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=169|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5pp=264–265}} The policy also allowed for a return to privately owned small industry; basic industry, transport and foreign trade remained under state control.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=412|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=430|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=266|4a1=Ryan|4y=2012|4p=159}} Lenin termed this "[[state capitalism]]",{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=479|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=412|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=155|4a1=Ryan|4y=2012|4p=159}} and many Bolsheviks thought it to be a betrayal of socialist principles.{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=151|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=422|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=171}} Lenin biographers have often characterised the introduction of the NEP as one of his most significant achievements and some believe that had it not been implemented then Sovnarkom would have been quickly overthrown by popular uprisings.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=421, 434}}
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In January 1920, the government brought in universal labour conscription, ensuring that all citizens aged between 16 and 50 had to work.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=703–707|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=103|3a1=Ryan|3y=2012|3p=143}} Lenin also called for a mass electrification project, the [[GOELRO plan]], which began in February 1920; Lenin's declaration that "communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" was widely cited in later years.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=423, 582|2a1=Sandle|2y=1999|2p=107|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=165|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=230}} Seeking to advance the Russian economy through foreign trade, Sovnarkom sent delegates to the [[Genoa Conference (1922)|Genoa Conference]]; Lenin had hoped to attend but was prevented by ill health.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=567–569}} The conference resulted in a [[Treaty of Rapallo (1922)|Russian agreement with Germany]], which followed on from an earlier [[Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement|trade agreement with the United Kingdom]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=574, 576–577|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=432, 441}} Lenin hoped that by allowing foreign corporations to invest in Russia, Sovnarkom would exacerbate rivalries between the capitalist nations and hasten their downfall; he tried to rent the oil fields of [[Kamchatka]] to an American corporation to heighten tensions between the US and Japan, who desired Kamchatka for their empire.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=424–427}}
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===Declining health and conflict with Stalin: 1920–1923===
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[[File:Ленин в Горках (1923).jpg|thumb|upright|Lenin in 1923, in a wheelchair]]
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To Lenin's embarrassment and horror, in April 1920 the Bolsheviks held a party to celebrate his fiftieth birthday, which was also marked by widespread celebrations across Russia and the publication of poems and biographies dedicated to him.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=414|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=177–178|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=405|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4pp=260–261}} Between 1920 and 1926, twenty volumes of Lenin's ''Collected Works'' were published; some material was omitted.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=283}} During 1920, several prominent Western figures visited Lenin in Russia; these included the author [[H. G. Wells]] and the philosopher [[Bertrand Russell]],{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=404–409|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2pp=178–179|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=440}} as well as the anarchists [[Emma Goldman]] and [[Alexander Berkman]].{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=409–411}} Lenin was also visited at the Kremlin by Armand, who was in increasingly poor health.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=433–434|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=380–381|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=181|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4pp=414–415|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=258}} He sent her to a sanatorium in [[Kislovodsk]] in the Northern Caucasus to recover, but she died there in September 1920 during a [[cholera]] epidemic.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=434|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=381–382|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=181|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=415|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=258}} Her body was transported to Moscow, where a visibly grief-stricken Lenin oversaw her burial beneath the Kremlin Wall.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1pp=181–182|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=416–417|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=258}}
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Lenin was seriously ill by the latter half of 1921,{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=426|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2p=33|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=187|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=409|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=435}} suffering from [[hyperacusis]], [[insomnia]], and regular headaches.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=426|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=187|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=435}} At the Politburo's insistence, in July he left Moscow for a month's leave at his Gorki mansion, where he was cared for by his wife and sister.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=436|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=281|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=187}} Lenin began to contemplate the possibility of suicide, asking both Krupskaya and Stalin to acquire [[potassium cyanide]] for him.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1pp=420, 425–426|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=439|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=280, 282}} Twenty-six physicians were hired to help Lenin during his final years; many of them were foreign and had been hired at great expense.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=443|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=437}} Some suggested that his sickness could have been caused by metal [[oxidation]] from the [[bullet]]s that were lodged in his body from the 1918 assassination attempt; in April 1922 he underwent a surgical operation to remove them.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=598–599|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=426|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=443|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=172|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=258}} The symptoms continued after this, with Lenin's doctors unsure of the cause; some suggested that he was suffering from [[neurasthenia]] or [[cerebral arteriosclerosis]]; others believed that he had [[syphilis]],{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=444–445}} an idea endorsed in a 2004 report by a team of neuroscientists, who suggested that this was later deliberately concealed by the government.{{sfn|Lerner|Finkelstein|Witztum|2004|p=372}} In May 1922, he suffered his first stroke, temporarily losing his ability to speak and being paralysed on his right side.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=600|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=426–427|3a1=Lewin|3y=1969|3p=33|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=443|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=173|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=258}} He convalesced at Gorki, and had largely recovered by July.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=427–428|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=446}} In October he returned to Moscow; in December he suffered a second stroke and returned to Gorki.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=634|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=431–432|3a1=Lewin|3y=1969|3pp=33–34|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=173}}
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[[File:LeninDistrictMO Gorki estate 05-2017 img2.jpg|thumb|left|Lenin spent his final years largely at the Gorki mansion.]]
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Despite his illness, Lenin remained keenly interested in political developments. When the Socialist Revolutionary Party's leadership was found guilty of conspiring against the government in a trial held between June and August 1922, Lenin called for their execution; they were instead imprisoned indefinitely, only being executed during the [[Great Purges]] of Stalin's leadership.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=600–602|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=428–430|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3p=318|4a1=Sandle|4y=1999|4p=164|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=442–443|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=269|7a1=Ryan|7y=2012|7pp=174–175}} With Lenin's support, the government also succeeded in virtually eradicating Menshevism in Russia by expelling all Mensheviks from state institutions and enterprises in March 1923 and then imprisoning the party's membership in concentration camps.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=310|2a1=Leggett|2y=1981|2pp=320–322|3a1=Aves|3y=1996|3pp=175–178|4a1=Sandle|4y=1999|4p=164|5a1=Lee|5y=2003|5pp=103–104|6a1=Ryan|6y=2012|6p=172}} Lenin was concerned by the survival of the Tsarist bureaucratic system in Soviet Russia,{{sfnm|1a1=Lewin|1y=1969|1pp=8–9|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=176|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=270–272}} particularly during his final years.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=578|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=189}} Condemning bureaucratic attitudes, he suggested a total overhaul to deal with such problems,{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=192–193}} in one letter complaining that "we are being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=578}}
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During December 1922 and January 1923, Lenin dictated "[[Lenin's Testament]]", in which he discussed the personal qualities of his comrades, particularly Trotsky and Stalin.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=638–639|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=433|3a1=Lewin|3y=1969|3pp=73–75|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=417|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=464|6a1=White|6y=2001|6pp=173–174}} He recommended that Stalin be removed from the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, deeming him ill-suited for the position.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=647|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=434–435|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=192|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=273|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=469|6a1=White|6y=2001|6pp=174–175|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7pp=278–279}} Instead he recommended Trotsky for the job, describing him as "the most capable man in the present Central Committee"; he highlighted Trotsky's superior intellect but at the same time criticised his self-assurance and inclination toward excess administration.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=640|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=434–435|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=249, 418|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=465|5a1=White|5y=2001|5p=174}} During this period he dictated a criticism of the bureaucratic nature of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, calling for the recruitment of new, working-class staff as an antidote to this problem,{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=666–667, 669|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2pp=120–121|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=468|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=273}} while in another article he called for the state to combat illiteracy, promote punctuality and conscientiousness within the populace, and encourage peasants to join co‑operatives.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=650–654|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=470}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=Stalin is too crude, and this defect which is entirely acceptable in our milieu and in relationships among us as communists, becomes unacceptable in the position of General Secretary. I therefore propose to comrades that they should devise a means of removing him from this job and should appoint to this job someone else who is distinguished from comrade Stalin in all other respects only by the single superior aspect that he should be more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc.|source=—Lenin, 4 January 1923{{sfn|Service|2000|p=369}} }}
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In Lenin's absence, Stalin had begun consolidating his power both by appointing his supporters to prominent positions,{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1pp=426, 434|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2pp=34–35}} and by cultivating an image of himself as Lenin's closest intimate and deserving successor.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=263–264}} In December 1922, Stalin took responsibility for Lenin's regimen, being tasked by the Politburo with controlling who had access to him.{{sfnm|1a1=Lewin|1y=1969|1p=70|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=191|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=273, 416}} Lenin was increasingly critical of Stalin; while Lenin was insisting that the state should retain its monopoly on international trade during mid-1922, Stalin was leading other Bolsheviks in unsuccessfully opposing this.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=635|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2pp=35–40|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=451–452|4a1=White|4y=2001|4p=173}} There were personal arguments between the two as well; Stalin had upset Krupskaya by shouting at her during a phone conversation, which in turn greatly angered Lenin, who sent Stalin a letter expressing his annoyance.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=637–638, 669|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=435–436|3a1=Lewin|3y=1969|3pp=71, 85, 101|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=273–274, 422–423|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=463, 472–473|6a1=White|6y=2001|6pp=173, 176|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7p=279}}
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The most significant political division between the two emerged during the [[Georgian Affair]]. Stalin had suggested that both Georgia and neighbouring countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia should be merged into the Russian state, despite the protestations of their national governments.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=607–608|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2pp=43–49|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=190–191|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=421|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=452, 453–455|6a1=White|6y=2001|6pp=175–176}} Lenin saw this as an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Stalin and his supporters, instead calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he suggested be called the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=608|2a1=Lewin|2y=1969|2p=50|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3p=354|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=421|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5p=455|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=175}} After some resistance to the proposal, Stalin eventually accepted it but, with Lenin's agreement, he changed the name of the newly proposed state to the [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics]] (USSR).{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=455, 456}} Lenin sent Trotsky to speak on his behalf at a Central Committee plenum in December, where the plans for the USSR were sanctioned; these plans were then ratified on 30 December by the Congress of Soviets, resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union.{{sfnm|1a1=Lewin|1y=1969|1pp=40, 99–100|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=421|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=460–461, 468}} Despite his poor health, Lenin was elected chairman of the new government of the Soviet Union.{{sfn|Rigby|1979|p=221}}
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===Death and funeral: 1923–1924===
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{{Main|Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin}}
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[[File:Lenin's funerals by I.Brodsky (1925) detail 01.jpg|thumb|300px|Lenin's funeral, painted by [[Isaac Brodsky]], 1925]]
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In March 1923, Lenin suffered a third stroke and lost his ability to speak;{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=671|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=436|3a1=Lewin|3y=1969|3p=103|4a1=Leggett|4y=1981|4p=355|5a1=Rice|5y=1990|5p=193|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=176|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7p=281}} that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting [[sensory aphasia]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=671|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=436|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=425|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=474|5a1=Lerner|5a2=Finkelstein|5a3=Witztum|5y=2004|5p=372}} By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=672|2a1=Rigby|2y=1979|2p=192|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=193–194|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=429–430}} In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=672|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=437|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=431|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=476|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=281}} In his final weeks, Lenin was visited by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin; the latter visited him at his Gorki mansion on the day of his death.{{sfnm|1a1=Rice|1y=1990|1p=194|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=299|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=477–478}} On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=673–674|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=438|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3p=194|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4p=435|5a1=Service|5y=2000|5pp=478–479|6a1=White|6y=2001|6p=176|7a1=Read|7y=2005|7p=269}} His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=435|2a1=Lerner|2a2=Finkelstein|2a3=Witztum|2y=2004|2p=372}}
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The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=7}} On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried aloft in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks.{{sfn|Rice|1990|pp=7–8}} Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the [[House of Trade Unions]], where the body [[Lying in state|lay in state]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=674|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=439|3a1=Rice|3y=1990|3pp=7–8|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=479}}
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Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=9}} On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=9}} Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time.{{sfn|''History'', April 2009}} Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to [[Red Square]], accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=439|2a1=Rice|2y=1990|2p=9|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3pp=479–480}} Despite the freezing temperatures, tens of thousands attended.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=440}}
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Against Krupskaya's protestations, Lenin's body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in the Red Square mausoleum.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=674|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=438|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3pp=437–438|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=481}} During this process, Lenin's brain was removed; in 1925 an institute was established to dissect it, revealing that Lenin had suffered from severe [[sclerosis (medicine)|sclerosis]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=625–626|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=446}} In July 1929, the Politburo agreed to replace the temporary mausoleum with a permanent one in granite, which was finished in 1933.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=444, 445}} His sarcophagus was replaced in 1940 and again in 1970.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=445}} For safety amid the [[Second World War]], from 1941 to 1945 the body was temporarily moved to [[Tyumen]].{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=444}} As of 2021, the body remains on public display in [[Lenin's Mausoleum]] on Red Square.{{sfn|Moscow.info}}
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==Political ideology==
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===Marxism and Leninism===
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{{Main|Leninism|Marxism–Leninism}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=We do not pretend that Marx or Marxists know the road to socialism in all its concreteness. That is nonsense. We know the direction of the road, we know what class forces will lead it, but concretely, practically, this will be shown by ''the experience of the millions'' when they undertake the act.|source=—Lenin, 11 September 1917{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=150}} }}
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Lenin was a devout Marxist,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=18}} and believed that his interpretation of Marxism, first termed "Leninism" by Martov in 1904,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=409}} was the sole authentic and orthodox one.{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=35|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=237}} According to his Marxist perspective, humanity would eventually reach pure communism, becoming a stateless, classless, egalitarian society of workers who were free from [[Exploitation of labour|exploitation]] and [[Marx's theory of alienation|alienation]], controlled their own destiny, and abided by the rule "[[from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs]]."{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=41}} According to Volkogonov, Lenin "deeply and sincerely" believed that the path he was setting Russia on would ultimately lead to the establishment of this communist society.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=206}}
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Lenin's Marxist beliefs led him to the view that society could not transform directly from its present state to communism, but must first enter a period of socialism, and so his main concern was how to convert Russia into a socialist society. To do so, he believed that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" was necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and develop a socialist economy.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=35}} He defined socialism as "an order of civilized co-operators in which the [[means of production]] are socially owned",{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=432}} and believed that this economic system had to be expanded until it could create a [[Post-scarcity economy|society of abundance]].{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=41}} To achieve this, he saw bringing the Russian economy under state control to be his central concern, with "all citizens" becoming "hired employees of the state" in his words.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|pp=42–43}} Lenin's interpretation of socialism was centralised, planned, and statist, with both production and distribution strictly controlled.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=41}} He believed that all workers throughout the country would voluntarily join together to enable the state's economic and political centralisation.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=38}} In this way, his calls for "workers' control" of the means of production referred not to the direct control of enterprises by their workers, but the operation of all enterprises under the control of a "workers' state."{{sfn|Sandle|1999|pp=43–44, 63}} This resulted in what some perceive as two conflicting themes within Lenin's thought: popular workers' control, and a centralised, hierarchical, coercive state apparatus.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=36}}
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[[File:Lenin 1919-03-18.jpg|thumb|left|Lenin speaking in 1919]]
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Before 1914, Lenin's views were largely in accordance with mainstream European Marxist orthodoxy.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=18}} Although he derided Marxists who adopted ideas from contemporary non-Marxist philosophers and sociologists,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=203}} his own ideas were influenced not only by Russian Marxist theory but also by wider ideas from the Russian revolutionary movement,{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=29|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=1}} including those of the Narodnik agrarian-socialists.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=173}} He adapted his ideas according to changing circumstances,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=13}} including the pragmatic realities of governing Russia amid war, famine, and economic collapse.{{sfnm|1a1=Sandle|1y=1999|1p=57|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=151}} As Leninism developed, Lenin revised the established Marxist orthodoxy and introduced innovations in Marxist thought.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=18}}
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In his theoretical writings, particularly ''Imperialism'', Lenin discussed what he regarded as developments in capitalism since Marx's death; in his view, it had reached the new stage of [[state monopoly capitalism]].{{sfn|Sandle|1999|p=34}} He believed that although Russia's economy was dominated by the peasantry, the presence of monopoly capitalism in Russia meant that the country was sufficiently materially developed to move to socialism.{{sfn|White|2001|pp=150–151}} Leninism adopted a more absolutist and doctrinaire perspective than other variants of Marxism,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=18}} and distinguished itself by the emotional intensity of its [[Emancipation|liberationist]] vision.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=19}} It also stood out by emphasising the role of a vanguard who could lead the proletariat to revolution,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=19}} and elevated the role of violence as a revolutionary instrument.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=3}}
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===Democracy and the national question===
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=[Lenin] accepted truth as handed down by Marx and selected data and arguments to bolster that truth. He did not question old Marxist scripture, he merely commented, and the comments have become a new scripture.|source=—Biographer [[Louis Fischer]], 1964{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=213}} }}
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Lenin believed that the [[representative democracy]] of capitalist countries gave the illusion of democracy while maintaining the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"; describing the representative democratic system of the United States, he referred to the "spectacular and meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties", both of whom were led by "astute multimillionaires" that exploited the American proletariat.{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=121}} He opposed liberalism, exhibiting a general antipathy toward [[liberty]] as a value,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=471}} and believing that liberalism's freedoms were fraudulent because it did not free labourers from capitalist exploitation.{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=443}}
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Lenin declared that "Soviet government is many millions of times more democratic than the most democratic-bourgeois republic", the latter of which was simply "a democracy for the rich."{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=310|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=442}} He regarded his "dictatorship of the proletariat" as democratic because, he claimed, it involved the election of representatives to the [[Soviet (council)|soviets]], workers electing their own officials, and the regular rotation and involvement of all workers in the administration of the state.{{sfn|Sandle|1999|pp=36–37}} Lenin's belief as to what a proletariat state should look like nevertheless deviated from that adopted by the Marxist mainstream; European Marxists like Kautsky envisioned a democratically elected parliamentary government in which the proletariat had a majority, whereas Lenin called for a strong, centralised state apparatus that excluded any input from the bourgeois.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=19}}
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Lenin was an [[internationalism (politics)|internationalist]] and a keen supporter of [[world revolution]], deeming national borders to be an outdated concept and nationalism a distraction from class struggle.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=54|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=423|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=352}} He believed that in a socialist society, the world's nations would inevitably merge and result in a single [[world government]].{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=88–89}} He believed that this socialist state would need to be a centralised, [[unitary state|unitary one]], and regarded [[federalism]] as a bourgeois concept.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=87|2a1=Montefiore|2y=2007|2p=266}} In his writings, Lenin espoused [[anti-imperialist]] ideas and stated that all nations deserved "the right of self-determination."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=87}} He 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]], because socialist states are not "holy or insured against mistakes or weaknesses."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=91, 93}}
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Prior to taking power in 1917, he was concerned that ethnic and national minorities would make the Soviet state ungovernable with their calls for independence; according to the historian [[Simon Sebag Montefiore]], Lenin thus encouraged Stalin to develop "a theory that offered the ideal of autonomy and the right of secession without necessarily having to grant either."{{sfn|Montefiore|2007|p=266}} On taking power, Lenin called for the dismantling of the bonds that had forced minority ethnic groups to remain in the Russian Empire and espoused their right to secede but also expected them to reunite immediately in the spirit of proletariat internationalism.{{sfnm|1a1=Page|1y=1948|1p=17|2a1=Page|2y=1950|2p=354}} He was willing to use military force to ensure this unity, resulting in armed incursions into the independent states that formed in Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states.{{sfn|Page|1950|p=355}} Only when its conflicts with Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland proved unsuccessful did Lenin's government officially recognise their independence.{{sfn|Page|1950|p=342}}
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==Personal life and characteristics==
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Lenin saw himself as a man of destiny and firmly believed in the righteousness of his cause and his own ability as a revolutionary leader.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1pp=159, 202|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=207}} Biographer [[Louis Fischer]] described him as "a lover of radical change and maximum upheaval", a man for whom "there was never a middle-ground. He was an either-or, black-or-red exaggerator."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=47, 148}} Highlighting Lenin's "extraordinary capacity for disciplined work" and "devotion to the revolutionary cause", Pipes noted that he exhibited much [[charisma]].{{sfn|Pipes|1990|pp=348, 351}} Similarly, Volkogonov believed that "by the very force of his personality, [Lenin] had an influence over people."{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=246}} Conversely, Lenin's friend Gorky commented that in his physical appearance as a "baldheaded, stocky, sturdy person", the communist revolutionary was "too ordinary" and did not give "the impression of being a leader."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=57}}
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{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|bgcolor=|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.
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|source=—Biographer Louis Fischer, 1964{{sfn|Fischer|1964|pp=21–22}}}}
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Historian and biographer [[Robert Service (historian)|Robert Service]] asserted that Lenin had been an intensely emotional young man,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=73}} who exhibited strong hatred for the Tsarist authorities.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=44|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=81}} According to Service, Lenin 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 described himself as being "in love" with Marx and Engels.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=232|2a1=Lih|2y=2011|2p=13}} According to Lenin biographer James D. White, Lenin treated their writings as "holy writ", a "religious dogma", which should "not be questioned but believed in."{{sfn|White|2001|p=88}} In Volkogonov's view, Lenin accepted Marxism as "absolute truth", and accordingly acted like "a religious fanatic."{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=362}} Similarly, Bertrand Russell felt that Lenin exhibited "unwavering faith—religious faith in the Marxian gospel."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=409}} Biographer Christopher Read suggested that Lenin was "a secular equivalent of theocratic leaders who derive their legitimacy from the [perceived] truth of their doctrines, not popular mandates."{{sfn|Read|2005|p=262}} Lenin was nevertheless an [[atheist]] and a [[Criticism of religion|critic of religion]], believing that socialism was inherently atheistic; he thus considered [[Christian socialism]] a contradiction in terms.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=40–41|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=373|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=149}}
 +
 
 +
Service stated that Lenin could be "moody and volatile",{{sfn|Service|2000|p=116}} and Pipes deemed him to be "a thoroughgoing misanthrope",{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1996|1p=11|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=287}} a view rejected by Read, who highlighted many instances in which Lenin displayed kindness, particularly toward children.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=259}} According to several biographers, Lenin was intolerant of opposition and often dismissed outright opinions that differed from his own.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=67|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=353|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=207, 212}} He could be "venomous in his critique of others", exhibiting a propensity for mockery, ridicule, and ''ad hominem'' attacks on those who disagreed with him.{{sfn|Petrovsky-Shtern|2010|p=93}} He ignored facts that did not suit his argument,{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=353}} abhorred compromise,{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=69}} and very rarely admitted his own errors.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=244|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=153}} He refused to change his opinions, until he rejected them completely, after which he would treat the new view as if it was just as unchangeable.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=59}} Lenin showed no sign of [[sadistic personality disorder|sadism]] or of personally desiring to commit violent acts, but he endorsed the violent actions of others and exhibited no remorse for those killed for the revolutionary cause.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=45|2a1=Pipes|2y=1990|2p=350|3a1=Volkogonov|3y=1994|3p=182|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=177|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=208|6a1=Ryan|6y=2012|6p=6}} Adopting an [[amorality|amoral]] stance, in Lenin's view the end always justified the means;{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=415|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=422|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3p=247}} 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}}
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 +
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|bgcolor=|quote=The Lenin who seemed externally so gentle and good-natured, who enjoyed a laugh, who loved animals and was prone to sentimental reminiscences, was transformed when class or political questions arose. He at once became savagely sharp, uncompromising, remorseless and vengeful. Even in such a state he was capable of [[black humour]].|source=—Biographer Dmitri Volkogonov, 1994{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=200}}}}
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 +
Aside from Russian, Lenin spoke and read French, German, and English.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=242}} Concerned with physical fitness, he exercised regularly,{{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}} and also developed a passion for mountain walking in the Swiss peaks.{{sfn|Read|2005|pp=20, 64, 132–37}} He was also fond of pets,{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=423}} in particular cats.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=367}} Tending to eschew luxury, he lived a spartan lifestyle,{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=368}} and Pipes noted that Lenin was "exceedingly modest in his personal wants", leading "an austere, almost ascetic, style of life."{{sfn|Pipes|1990|p=812}} Lenin despised untidiness, always keeping his work desk tidy and his pencils sharpened, and insisted on total silence while he was working.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=99–100, 160}} According to Fischer, Lenin's "vanity was minimal",{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=245}} and for this reason he disliked the [[cult of personality]] that the Soviet administration began to build around him; he nevertheless accepted that it might have some benefits in unifying the communist movement.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1pp=349–350|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2pp=284, 259–260}}
 +
 
 +
Despite his revolutionary politics, Lenin disliked revolutionary experimentation in literature and the arts, expressing his dislike of [[expressionism]], [[futurism]], and [[cubism]], and conversely favouring [[Realism (arts)|realism]] and Russian [[Classic book|classic literature]].{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1pp=489, 491|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2pp=420–421|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=125|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=237}} Lenin also had a conservative attitude towards sex and marriage.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=79|2a1=Read|2y=2005|2p=237}} Throughout his adult life, he was in a relationship with Krupskaya, a fellow Marxist whom he married. Lenin and Krupskaya both regretted that they never had children,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=199}} and they enjoyed entertaining their friends' offspring.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=424|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=213|3a1=Rappaport|3y=2010|3p=38}} Read noted that Lenin had "very close, warm, lifelong relationships" with his close family members;{{sfn|Read|2005|p=19}} he had no lifelong friends, and Armand has been cited as being his only close, intimate confidante.{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=515|2a1=Volkogonov|2y=1994|2p=246}}
 +
 
 +
Ethnically, Lenin identified as Russian.{{sfn|Petrovsky-Shtern|2010|p=67}} Service described Lenin as "a bit of a snob in national, social and cultural terms."{{sfn|Service|2000|p=453}} The Bolshevik leader believed that other European countries, especially Germany, were culturally superior to Russia,{{sfn|Service|2000|p=389}} describing the latter as "one of the most benighted, medieval and shamefully backward of Asian countries."{{sfn|Rice|1990|p=121}} He was annoyed at what he perceived as a lack of conscientiousness and discipline among the Russian people, and from his youth had wanted Russia to become more culturally European and Western.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1996|1p=11|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=389–400}}
  
 
==Legacy==
 
==Legacy==
His transformation of Russia into the Soviet Union ultimately led to Communism being exported throughout most of the world, and leading to well over tens of millions of death. In addition, there is evidence to suggest the anti-cop violence during the 2010s often encouraged by [[Barack Obama]] were derived from similar rhetoric by Lenin.<ref>http://dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/3365/Lenin-Crush-Smash-the-Police.aspx</ref><ref>[http://www.marx.be/sites/default/files/documents/EN/texts/sr_and_sq.PDF The State and Revolution] by Vladimir Lenin<br />"...at a certain stage in the development of democracy, it first welds together the class that wages a revolutionary struggle against capitalism -- the proletariat -- and enables it to crush, smash to smithereens, wipe off the face of the earth the bourgeois, even the republican-bourgeois, state machine -- the standing army, the police and the bureaucracy -- and to substitute for it a more democratic state machine, but a state machine nevertheless, in the shape of the armed masses of workers who develop into a militia in which the entire population takes part."</ref><ref>[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/iii.htm What Is To Be Done?] by Vladimir Lenin<br />"...the Social-Democrat’s [Communist's] ideal should not be the trade union secretary, but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects; who is able to generalise all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat."</ref>
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{{See also|List of places named after Vladimir Lenin|List of statues of Vladimir Lenin|Leniniana}}
  
== Quotes from Lenin ==
+
Volkogonov claimed that "there can scarcely have been another man in history who managed so profoundly to change so large a society on such a scale."{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=326}} Lenin's administration laid the framework for the system of government that ruled Russia for seven decades and provided the model for later Communist-led states that came to cover a third of the inhabited world in the mid-20th century.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=391}} As a result, Lenin's influence was global.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=259}} A controversial figure, Lenin remains both reviled and revered,{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=3}} a figure who has been both idolised and demonised.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=284}} Even during his lifetime, Lenin "was loved and hated, admired and scorned" by the Russian people.{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=414}} This has extended into academic studies of Lenin and Leninism, which have often been polarised along political lines.{{sfn|Liebman|1975|pp=19–20}}
* "We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth... We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us."
+
  
* "The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses."
+
[[File:Lenin-statue-in-Berlin.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Statue of Lenin erected by the East German Marxist–Leninist government at Leninplatz in [[East Berlin]], [[East Germany]] (removed in 1992)]]
  
* "The best revolutionary is youth devoid of [[moral]]s."
+
The historian [[Albert Resis]] suggested that if the October Revolution is considered the most significant event of the 20th century, then Lenin "must for good or ill be considered the century's most significant political leader."{{sfn|''Encyclopedia Britannica''}} White described Lenin as "one of the undeniably outstanding figures of modern history",{{sfn|White|2001|p=iix}} while Service noted that the Russian leader was widely understood to be one of the 20th century's "principal actors."{{sfn|Service|2000|p=488}} Read considered him "one of the most widespread, universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century",{{sfn|Read|2005|p=283}} while Ryan called him "one of the most significant and influential figures of modern history."{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=5}} ''Time'' magazine named Lenin one of the [[Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century|100 most important people of the 20th century]],{{sfn|''Time'', 13 April 1998}} and one of their top 25 political icons of all time.{{sfn|''Time'', 4 February 2011}}
  
* "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."
+
In the Western world, biographers began writing about Lenin soon after his death; some such as [[Christopher Hill (historian)|Christopher Hill]] were sympathetic to him, and others such as Richard Pipes and [[Robert Gellately]] expressly hostile. Some later biographers such as Read and Lars Lih sought to avoid making either hostile or positive comments about him, thereby evading politicised stereotypes.{{sfnm|1a1=Lee|1y=2003|1p=14|2a1=Ryan|2y=2012|2p=3}} Among sympathisers, he was portrayed as having made a genuine adjustment of Marxist theory that enabled it to suit Russia's particular socio-economic conditions.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=14}} The Soviet view characterised him as a man who recognised the historically inevitable and accordingly helped to make the inevitable happen.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=123}} Conversely, the majority of Western historians have perceived him as a person who manipulated events in order to attain and then retain political power, moreover considering his ideas as attempts to ideologically justify his pragmatic policies.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=123}} More recently, [[Historical revisionism|revisionists]] in both Russia and the West have highlighted the impact that pre-existing ideas and popular pressures exerted on Lenin and his policies.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=124}}
  
* "The goal of [[socialism]] is [[communism]]."
+
Various historians and biographers have characterised Lenin's administration as [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]],{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=516|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=415|3a1=Leggett|3y=1981|3p=364|4a1=Volkogonov|4y=1994|4pp=307, 312}} and as a [[police state]],{{sfn|Leggett|1981|p=364}} and many have described it as a one-party dictatorship.{{sfnm|1a1=Lewin|1y=1969|1p=12|2a1=Rigby|2y=1979|2pp=x, 161|3a1=Sandle|3y=1999|3p=164|4a1=Service|4y=2000|4p=506|5a1=Lee|5y=2003|5p=97|6a1=Read|6y=2005|6p=190|7a1=Ryan|7y=2012|7p=9}} Several such scholars have described Lenin as a dictator;{{sfnm|1a1=Fischer|1y=1964|1p=417|2a1=Shub|2y=1966|2p=416|3a1=Pipes|3y=1990|3p=511|4a1=Pipes|4y=1996|4p=3|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=247}} Ryan stated that he was "not a dictator in the sense that all his recommendations were accepted and implemented", for many of his colleagues disagreed with him on various issues.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=1}} Fischer noted that while "Lenin was a dictator, [he was] not the kind of dictator Stalin later became."{{sfn|Fischer|1964|p=524}} Volkogonov believed that whereas Lenin established a "dictatorship of the Party", it would only be under Stalin that the Soviet Union became the "dictatorship of one man."{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=313}}
  
* "There are no morals in [[politics]] there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."  
+
Conversely, various Marxist observers, including Western historians Hill and [[John Rees (activist)|John Rees]], argued against the view that Lenin's government was a dictatorship, viewing it instead as an imperfect way of preserving elements of democracy without some of the processes found in liberal democratic states.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=120}} Ryan contends that the leftist historian [[Paul Le Blanc (historian)|Paul Le Blanc]] "makes a quite valid point that the personal qualities that led Lenin to brutal policies were not necessarily any stronger than in some of the major Western leaders of the twentieth century."{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=191}} Ryan also posits that for Lenin revolutionary violence was merely a means to an end, namely the establishment of a socialist, ultimately communist world—a world without violence.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=184}} Historian [[J. Arch Getty]] remarked, "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."{{sfn|''Biography''}} Some left-wing intellectuals, among them [[Slavoj Žižek]], [[Alain Badiou]], Lars T. Lih, and [[Fredric Jameson]], advocate reviving Lenin's uncompromising revolutionary spirit to address contemporary global problems.{{sfnm|1a1=Ryan|1y=2012|1p=3|2a1=Budgen|2a2=Kouvelakis|2a3=Žižek|2y=2007|2pp=1–4}}
  
* "Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a [[Bolshevik]] forever." (see [[Public school values]] and [[Professor values]])
+
===Within the Soviet Union===
 +
[[File:Russia-2007-Moscow-Kremlin Senate at night.jpg|thumb|Lenin's Mausoleum in front of the Kremlin, 2007]]
  
* "Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of [[atheism]]."
+
In the Soviet Union, a cult of personality devoted to Lenin began to develop during his lifetime, but was only fully established after his death.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=327|2a1=Tumarkin|2y=1997|2p=2|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=185|4a1=Read|4y=2005|4p=260}} According to historian Nina Tumarkin, it represented the world's "most elaborate cult of a revolutionary leader" since that of [[George Washington]] in the United States,{{sfn|Tumarkin|1997|p=2}} and has been repeatedly described as "quasi-religious" in nature.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1990|1p=814|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=485|3a1=White|3y=2001|3p=185|4a1=Petrovsky-Shtern|4y=2010|4p=114|5a1=Read|5y=2005|5p=284}} Busts or statues of Lenin were erected in almost every village,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=328}} and his face adorned postage stamps, crockery, posters, and the front pages of Soviet newspapers ''Pravda'' and ''[[Izvestia]]''.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=486}} The places where he had lived or stayed were converted into museums devoted to him.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=328}} Libraries, streets, farms, museums, towns, and whole regions were named after him,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=328}} with the city of Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" in 1924,{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1p=437|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=482}} and his birthplace of Simbirsk becoming Ulyanovsk.{{sfn|Lih|2011|p=22}} The [[Order of Lenin]] was established as one of the country's highest decorations.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=486}} All of this was contrary to Lenin's own desires, and was publicly criticised by his widow.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=440}}
  
* "It matters not if 90% of the Russian people perish so long as 10% bring about a world revolution."<ref>http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,717663,00.html</ref>
+
Various biographers have stated that Lenin's writings were treated in a manner akin to [[holy scripture]] within the Soviet Union,{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=439|2a1=Pipes|2y=1996|2p=1|3a1=Service|3y=2000|3p=482}} while Pipes added that "his every opinion was cited to justify one policy or another and treated as gospel."{{sfn|Pipes|1996|p=1}} Stalin systematised Leninism through a series of lectures at the [[Sverdlov University]], which were then published as ''Questions of Leninism''.{{sfnm|1a1=Service|1y=2000|1p=484|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=185|3a1=Read|3y=2005|3pp=260, 284}} Stalin also had much of the deceased leader's writings collated and stored in a secret archive in the [[Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute]].{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|pp=274–275}} Material, such as Lenin's collection of books in Kraków, were also collected from abroad for storage in the institute, often at great expense.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=262}} During the Soviet era, these writings were strictly controlled and very few had access.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=261}} All of Lenin's writings that proved useful to Stalin were published, but the others remained hidden,{{sfn|Volkogonov|1994|p=263}} and knowledge of both Lenin's non-Russian ancestry and his noble status was suppressed.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=486}} In particular, his Jewish ancestry was suppressed until the 1980s,{{sfnm|1a1=Petrovsky-Shtern|1y=2010|1p=99|2a1=Lih|2y=2011|2p=20}} perhaps out of Soviet antisemitism,{{sfn|Read|2005|p=6}} and so as not to undermine Stalin's Russification efforts,{{sfn|Petrovsky-Shtern|2010|p=108}} and perhaps so as not to provide fuel for anti-Soviet sentiment among international antisemites.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=6}} After the discovery of Lenin's Jewish ancestry, this aspect was repeatedly emphasised by the Russian far-right, who claimed that his inherited Jewish genetics explained his desire to uproot traditional Russian society.{{sfn|Petrovsky-Shtern|2010|pp=134, 159–161}} Under Stalin's regime, Lenin was actively portrayed as a close friend of Stalin's who had supported Stalin's bid to be the next Soviet leader.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=485}} During the Soviet era, five separate editions of Lenin's published works were published in Russian, the first beginning in 1920 and the last from 1958 to 1965; the fifth edition was described as "complete", but in reality had much omitted for political expediency.{{sfnm|1a1=Pipes|1y=1996|1pp=1–2|2a1=White|2y=2001|2p=183}}
  
== See also ==
+
[[File:URSS 1 rublo centenario nascita Lenin.JPG|thumb|left|Commemorative [[Soviet rouble|one rouble]] coin minted in 1970 in honour of Lenin's centenary]]
* [[Karl Marx]]
+
 
* [[Joseph Stalin]]
+
After Stalin's death, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] became leader of the Soviet Union and began a process of [[de-Stalinization|de-Stalinisation]], citing Lenin's writings, including those on Stalin, to legitimise this process.{{sfnm|1a1=Volkogonov|1y=1994|1pp=452–453|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2pp=491–492|3a1=Lee|3y=2003|3p=131}} When [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] took power in 1985 and introduced the policies of ''[[glastnost]]'' and ''[[perestroika]]'', he too cited these actions as a return to Lenin's principles.{{sfn|Service|2000|pp=491–492}} In late 1991, amid the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], Russian President [[Boris Yeltsin]] ordered the Lenin archive be removed from Communist Party control and placed under the control of a state organ, the [[Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History]], at which it was revealed that over 6,000 of Lenin's writings had gone unpublished. These were declassified and made available for scholarly study.{{sfn|Pipes|1996|pp=2–3}} Yeltsin did not dismantle the Lenin mausoleum, recognising that Lenin was too popular and well respected among the Russian populace for this to be viable.{{sfn|Service|2000|p=492}}
* [[Dictatorship]]
+
 
** [[List of dictators]]
+
In Russia in 2012, a proposal from a deputy belonging to the [[Liberal Democratic Party of Russia]], with the support of some members of the governing [[United Russia]] party, proposed the removal of all Lenin monuments. The proposal was strongly opposed by the [[Communist Party of the Russian Federation]].{{sfn|''The Moscow Times'', 24 October 2013}} In 2012, the last statue of Lenin still standing in the Mongolian capital, [[Ulaanbaatar]], was removed, with city mayor [[Bat-Uul Erdene]] calling him a "murderer."{{sfn|BBC, 14 October 2012}} In Ukraine, during and after the 2013–14 [[Euromaidan]] protests, thousands of Lenin statues were [[Demolition of monuments to Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine|damaged or destroyed]] by protesters who viewed them as a symbol of Russian imperialism,{{sfn|BBC, 22 February 2014}} and in April 2015 the Ukrainian government ordered that all others be dismantled to comply with [[Decommunization in Ukraine|decommunisation laws]].{{sfn|BBC, 14 April 2015}}
** [[Dictatorship of the proletariat]]
+
 
** [[List of Communist States]]
+
===In the international communist movement===
** [[Death toll of communism]]
+
[[File:Detalle de Lenin.jpg|thumb|Detail of ''[[Man, Controller of the Universe]]'', fresco at [[Palacio de Bellas Artes]] in [[Mexico City]] showing Vladimir Lenin]]
* [[Cult of personality]]
+
According to Lenin biographer [[David Shub]], writing in 1965, it was Lenin's ideas and example that "constitutes the basis of the Communist movement today."{{sfn|Shub|1966|p=10}} Socialist states following Lenin's ideas appeared in various parts of the world during the 20th century.{{sfn|Ryan|2012|p=5}} Writing in 1972, the historian [[Marcel Liebman]] stated that "there is hardly any insurrectionary movement today, from Latin America to Angola, that does not lay claim to the heritage of Leninism."{{sfn|Liebman|1975|p=22}}
* [[Single-party state]]
+
 
* [[Mobocracy]], [[Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution]], [[Anti-Semitism]], [[Communist Racism]], [[Genocide]], [[Holocaust]]
+
After Lenin's death, Stalin's administration established an ideology known as [[Marxism–Leninism]], a movement that came to be interpreted differently by various contending factions in the communist movement.{{sfnm|1a1=Shub|1y=1966|1p=9|2a1=Service|2y=2000|2p=482}} After being forced into exile by Stalin's administration, Trotsky argued that Stalinism was a debasement of Leninism, which was dominated by bureaucratism and Stalin's own personal dictatorship.{{sfn|Lee|2003|p=132}} Marxism–Leninism was adapted to many of the 20th century's most prominent revolutionary movements, forming into variants such as [[Stalinism]], [[Maoism]], [[Juche]], [[Ho Chi Minh Thought]], and [[Politics of Fidel Castro|Castroism]].{{sfn|Read|2005|p=283}} Conversely, many later Western communists, such as [[Manuel Azcárate]] and Jean Ellenstein, who were involved in the [[Eurocommunist]] movement, expressed the view that Lenin and his ideas were irrelevant to their own objectives, thereby embracing a Marxist but not Marxist–Leninist perspective.{{sfn|Lee|2003|pp=132–133}}
* [[Nazi Party|National Socialist German Workers' Party]] (Nazi Party)
+
 
* [[National Socialism]] - the Nazis were elitist [[Police state]] [[liberals]] not [[conservative]]s
+
==See also==
* [[Big government]] [[Welfare state]] leads to [[Nanny state]], leads to [[Police state]]: [[Globalist]]-[[Statist]]-[[Socialist]]-[[Communist]]
+
{{Portal|Biography|Communism|Politics|Soviet Union}}
* [[Liberal totalitarianism]]
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{{cols}}
** [[Leninthink]] - a specific subset of liberal totalitarianism coined by its founder Vladimir Lenin.
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* [[Foreign relations of the Soviet Union]]
 +
* [[Lenin Peace Prize]]
 +
* [[Lenin Prize]]
 +
* [[Marxist–Leninist atheism]]
 +
* [[National delimitation in the Soviet Union]]
 +
* [[Tampere Lenin Museum]]
 +
* [[Vladimir Lenin bibliography]]
 +
{{colend}}
 +
 
 +
==Notes==
 +
{{notelist}}
  
 
==References==
 
==References==
{{Reflist|colwidth=35em}}
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===Footnotes===
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{{Reflist|25em}}
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===Bibliography===
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{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
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* {{cite book |title = Workers Against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship |last = Aves |first = Jonathan |year = 1996 |publisher = I.B. Tauris |location = London |isbn = 978-1-86064-067-4}}
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* {{cite book | last1 = Brackman | first1 = Roman | title = The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life | publisher = Psychology Press | year = 2000 | location = Portland, Oregon | isbn = 978-0-7146-5050-0}}
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* {{cite book | last1 = Budgen | first1 = Sebastian | last2 = Kouvelakis | first2 = Stathis | last3 = Žižek | first3 = Slavoj | author3-link = Slavoj Žižek | title = Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth | year = 2007 | location = Durham, North Carolina | publisher = Duke University Press | isbn = 978-0-8223-3941-0 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/leninreloadedtow01unse }}
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* {{cite journal |last=David |first=H. P. |title=Abortion and Family Planning in the Soviet Union: Public Policies and Private Behaviour |journal=Journal of Biosocial Science |volume=6 |year=1974 |pages=417–426}}
 +
* {{cite book |last = Davies |first = Norman |year = 2003 |orig-year = 1972 |title = White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919–20 and 'the Miracle on the Vistula' |publisher = Pimlico |location = London |isbn = 978-0-7126-0694-3}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = The Life of Lenin |last = Fischer |first = Louis | author-link = Louis Fischer |year = 1964 |publisher = Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location = London}}
 +
* {{cite journal |last = Hazard |first = John N. |year = 1965 |author-link = John N. Hazard |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 |access-date = 8 August 2016 |jstor = 1190515 |doi=10.2307/1190515 }}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin and Revolutionary Russia |last = Lee |first = Stephen J. |year = 2003 |location = London |publisher = Routledge |isbn = 978-0-415-28718-0}}
 +
* {{Cite book | last = Leggett | first = George | title = The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police | location = Oxford | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 1981 | isbn = 978-0-19-822552-2 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/chekaleninspolit0000legg }}
 +
* {{cite journal |last1 = Lerner |first1 = Vladimir |last2 = Finkelstein |first2 = Y. |last3 = Witztum |first3 = E. |title = The Enigma of Lenin's (1870–1924) Malady |year = 2004 |journal = European Journal of Neurology |volume = 11 |number = 6 |pages = 371–376 |doi = 10.1111/j.1468-1331.2004.00839.x |pmid = 15171732 |s2cid = 14966309}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = The First World War Peace Settlements, 1919–1925 |last = Goldstein |first = Erik |year = 2013 |location = London |publisher = Routledge |isbn = 978-1-31-7883-678}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century |last = Hall |first = Richard C. |year = 2015 |location = Lexington |publisher = University Press of Kentucky |isbn = 978-0-81-3159-959}}
 +
* {{cite book |last=Liebman |first=Marcel |translator=Brian Pearce |year=1975 |orig-year=1973 |title=Leninism Under Lenin |url=https://archive.org/details/leninismunderlen0000lieb_f2h6 |url-access=registration |location=London |publisher=Jonathan Cape |isbn=978-0-224-01072-6}}
 +
* {{cite book |last=Merridale |first=Catherine |year=2017 |title=Lenin on the Train |location=London |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=978-0-241-01132-4}}
 +
*{{Cite book |last=Montefiore |first=Simon Sebag |title=Young Stalin |year=2007 |author-link=Simon Sebag Montefiore |location=London |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |isbn=978-0-297-85068-7}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin's Last Struggle |last = Lewin |first = Moshe | author-link = Moshe Lewin |year = 1969 |publisher = Faber and Faber |location = London |translator-last=Sheridan Smith |translator-first=A. M. |translator-link=Alan Sheridan}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin |last = Lih |first = Lars T. |year = 2011 |series = Critical Lives |publisher = Reaktion Books |location = London |isbn=978-1-86189-793-0}}
 +
* {{cite journal |title = Lenin, the National Question and the Baltic States, 1917–19 |last = Page |first = Stanley W. |journal = The American Slavic and East European Review |volume = 7 |number = 1 |year = 1948 |pages = 15–31 |doi = 10.2307/2492116 |jstor = 2492116 }}
 +
* {{cite journal |title = Lenin and Self-Determination |last = Page |first = Stanley W. |journal = The Slavonic and East European Review |volume = 28 |number = 71 |year = 1950 |pages = 342–358 |jstor = 4204138}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin's Jewish Question | last = Petrovsky-Shtern | first=Yohanan | author-link = Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern |year=2010 |location = New Haven, Connecticut |publisher = Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-15210-4 | jstor = j.ctt1npd80}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = The Russian Revolution: 1899–1919 |last = Pipes |first = Richard |author-link = Richard Pipes |year = 1990 |publisher = Collins Harvill |location = London |isbn = 978-0-679-73660-8 |url-access = registration |url = https://archive.org/details/russianrevolutio00pipe_0 }}
 +
* {{cite book |title=The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive |last=Pipes |first=Richard |author-link = Richard Pipes |year=1996 |publisher=Yale University Press |location=New Haven, Connecticut |isbn=978-0-300-06919-8}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Conspirator: Lenin in Exile |last=Rappaport |first=Helen |author-link=Helen Rappaport |year=2010 |publisher=Basic Books |location=New York |isbn=978-0-465-01395-1}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin: A Revolutionary Life |last = Read |first = Christopher |year = 2005 |series = Routledge Historical Biographies |publisher = Routledge |location = London |isbn = 978-0-415-20649-5}}
 +
* {{cite web |url=http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html |title=TIME 100: Vladimir Lenin |first=David |last=Remnick |date=13 April 1998 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425120012/http://205.188.238.181/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html |archive-date=25 April 2011 |url-status=dead|ref={{harvid|''Time'', 13 April 1998}}}}
 +
*{{cite encyclopedia |title=Vladimir Ilich Lenin |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |first=Albert |last=Resis |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/335881/Vladimir-Ilich-Lenin |access-date=4 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150619112253/http://www.britannica.com/biography/Vladimir-Ilich-Lenin |archive-date=19 June 2015|ref={{harvid|''Encyclopedia Britannica''}}}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin: Portrait of a Professional Revolutionary |last = Rice |first = Christopher |year = 1990 |publisher = Cassell |location = London |isbn = 978-0-304-31814-8}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom 1917–1922 |url = https://archive.org/details/leninsgovernment0000rigb |url-access = registration |last = Rigby |first = T. H. |year = 1979 |publisher = Cambridge University Press |location = Cambridge, England |isbn = 978-0-521-22281-5}}
 +
*{{Cite book |last = Ryan | first = James | title = Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence | publisher = Routledge | location = London | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-1-138-81568-1}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = A Short History of Soviet Socialism |last = Sandle |first = Mark |year = 1999 |publisher = UCL Press |location = London |isbn = 978-1-85728-355-6 |doi = 10.4324/9780203500279}}
 +
* {{cite book | title = Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution | first1 = Elizabeth | last1 = Schmermund | first2 = Judith | last2 = Edwards | year = 2016 | publisher = Enslow Publishing | isbn = 978-0-7660-7414-9}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait |last=Sebestyen |first=Victor |year=2017 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |location=London |isbn=978-1-47460-044-6}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin: A Biography |last = Service |first = Robert |author-link = Robert Service (historian) |year = 2000 |publisher = Macmillan |location = London |isbn = 978-0-333-72625-9 |title-link = Lenin: A Biography }}
 +
* {{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32267075 |title=Goodbye, Lenin: Ukraine moves to ban communist symbols |website=BBC News |date=14 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307200441/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32267075 |archive-date=7 March 2016 |url-status=live|last1=Shevchenko |first1=Vitaly|ref={{harvid|BBC, 14 April 2015}}}}
 +
* {{cite book |title = Lenin: A Biography |edition=revised |last=Shub |first=David |publisher=Pelican |location=London |year=1966}}
 +
* {{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2046285_2045996_2046096,00.html |title=Top 25 Political Icons: Lenin |first=Feifei |last=Sun |website=Time |date=4 February 2011 |access-date=4 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150114032814/http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0%2C28804%2C2046285_2045996_2046096%2C00.html |archive-date=14 January 2015 |url-status=dead|ref={{harvid|''Time'', 4 February 2011}}}}
 +
* {{cite journal|last1=Thatcher|first1=Ian D.|date=April 2009|title=Trotskii and Lenin's Funeral, 27 January 1924: A Brief Note|journal=History|volume=94|issue=2|pages=194–202|doi=10.1111/j.1468-229X.2009.00451.x|jstor=24428587|ref={{harvid|''History'', April 2009}}}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: Genesis and Development of a Revolutionary |last=Theen |first=Rolf |year=2004 |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton, New Jersey |isbn=978-0-691-64358-8}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia |last=Tumarkin |first=Nina |edition=enlarged |year=1997 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-52431-6}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: Life and Legacy |last=Volkogonov |first=Dmitri |author-link=Dmitri Volkogonov |year=1994 |translator-last=Shukman |translator-first=Harold |translator-link=Harold Shukman |publisher=HarperCollins |location=London |isbn=978-0-00-255123-6}}
 +
* {{cite book |title=Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution |last=White |first=James D. |year=2001 |series=European History in Perspective |publisher=Palgrave |location=Basingstoke, England |isbn=978-0-333-72157-5}}
 +
* {{cite dictionary|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/lenin|title=Lenin|dictionary=Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary|access-date=8 January 2021|ref={{harvid|''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''}}}}
 +
* {{cite web|url=http://www.moscow.info/red-square/lenin-mausoleum.aspx|title=Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow|website=www.moscow.info|access-date=7 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110094940/http://www.moscow.info/red-square/lenin-mausoleum.aspx|archive-date=10 January 2019|url-status=dead|ref={{harvid|Moscow.info}}}}
 +
* {{cite news |title=Lenin Statue Beheaded in Orenburg |url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2013/10/24/lenin-statue-beheaded-in-orenburg-a28915 |work=[[The Moscow Times]] |date=24 October 2013|ref={{harvid|''The Moscow Times'', 24 October 2013}}}}
 +
* {{cite news |title=Mongolia capital Ulan-Bator removes Lenin statue |date=14 October 2012 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19940437 |website=BBC News |access-date=17 July 2020|ref={{harvid|BBC, 14 October 2012}}}}
 +
* {{cite web |title=Ukraine crisis: Lenin statues toppled in protest |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26306737 |website=BBC News |date=22 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105123905/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26306737 |archive-date=5 January 2016 |url-status=live|ref={{harvid|BBC, 22 February 2014}}}}
 +
* {{cite episode |title= Vladimir Lenin Biography |url=http://www.biography.com/people/vladimir-lenin-9379007|access-date= 20 May 2016|series= Biography|network= A&E Television Networks|minutes= 42:10|ref={{harvid|''Biography''}}}}
 +
{{refend}}
  
 
==Further reading==
 
==Further reading==
===Biography===
+
{{See also|Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War}}
* Clark, Ronald W. ''Lenin'' (1988). 570 pp.
+
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Service, Robert. ''Lenin: A Biography'' (2002), 561pp; standard scholarly biography; a short version of his 3 vol detailed biography
+
*{{Cite book |last=Ali |first=Tariq | author-link = Tariq Ali |title=The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution. |location=New York/London |publisher=Verso |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-78663-110-7}}
* Volkogonov, Dmitri. ''Lenin: Life and Legacy'' (1994). 600 pp.
+
*{{Cite book |last=Cliff |first=Tony | author-link = Tony Cliff |title=Building the Party: Lenin, 1893–1914 |location=Chicago |publisher=Haymarket Books |year=1986 |isbn=978-1-931859-01-1}}
===Specialized scholarly studies===
+
*{{Cite book |last=Felshtinsky |first=Yuri | author-link = Yuri Felshtinsky |title=Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia 1917–1924 |location=New York |publisher=Enigma Books |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-929631-95-7}}
* Anderson, Kevin. ''Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study'' (1995) 311 pp.
+
*{{Cite book |last=Gellately |first=Robert | author-link = Robert Gellately |title=Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-4000-3213-6}}
* Copleston, Frederick Charles. ''Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev'' (1986). 445pp. by a conservative
+
*{{Cite book |last=Gooding |first=John |title=Socialism in Russia: Lenin and His Legacy, 1890–1991 |location=Basingstoke, England |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2001 |doi=10.1057/9781403913876 |isbn=978-0-333-97235-9}}
* Debo, Richard K. ''Survival and Consolidation: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918-1921'' (1992).
+
*{{Cite book |last=Hill |first=Christopher | author-link = Christopher Hill (historian) |title=Lenin and the Russian Revolution |location=London |publisher=Pelican Books |year=1993 |url=https://archive.org/details/leninrussianrevolution}}
* Marples, David R. ''Lenin's Revolution: Russia, 1917-1921'' (2000) 156pp. short survey
+
*{{cite book |title=Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through |last1=Lenin |first1=V.I. |last2=Žižek |first2=Slavoj |year=2017 |publisher=Verso |isbn=978-1-78663-188-6}}
* Pipes, Richard. ''A Concise History of the Russian Revolution'' (1996) [https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Russian-Revolution/dp/0679745440/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232393501&sr=8-1 excerpt and text search], by a leading conservative
+
*{{Cite book |last1=Lih |first1=Lars T. |title=Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context |year=2008 |orig-year=2006 |publisher=Haymarket Books |location=Chicago |isbn=978-1-931859-58-5}}
* Pipes, Richard. ''Communism: A History'' (2003), by a leading conservative
+
*{{cite book |title=Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought |last=Lukács |first=Georg | author-link = György Lukács | translator-last = Jacobs | translator-first = Nicholas |year=1970 |orig-year=1924 |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1924/lenin/ | access-date = 7 August 2016}}
* Pipes, Richard. ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime.'' (1994). 608 pp.
+
*{{cite book |last=Nimtz |first=August H. |title=Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both |location=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-137-39377-7}}
* Pomper, Philip. ''Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin: The Intelligentsia and Power.'' (1990). 446 pp.
+
*{{Cite book |last1=Pannekoek |first1=Anton | author1-link = Antonie Pannekoek |title=Lenin as Philosopher |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1938/lenin/ |year=1938 |access-date=16 August 2016}}
* Schapiro, Leonard and Reddaway, Peter, eds. ''Lenin: The Man, the Theorist, the Leader - a Reappraisal'' (1987). 317 pp.
+
*{{Cite book |last=Payne |first=Robert | author-link = Robert Payne (author) |title=The Life And Death of Lenin |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1967}}
* White, James D. ''Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution'' (2001) 262pp.
+
*{{Cite journal |last=Ryan |first=James |title=Lenin's ''The State and Revolution'' and Soviet State Violence: A Textual Analysis |journal=Revolutionary Russia |year=2007 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=151–172 |doi=10.1080/09546540701633452 |s2cid=144309851}}
+
* {{cite book |last=Service |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Service (historian) |title=Lenin: A Political Life – Volume One: The Strengths of Contradiction |year=1985 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-33324-7}}
===Primary sources===
+
* {{cite book |last=Service |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Service (historian) |title=Lenin: A Political Life – Volume Two: Worlds in Collision |year=1991 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-33325-4}}
* Desai, Meghnad, ed. ''Lenin's Economic Writings.'' (1989). 363 pp.
+
* {{cite book |last=Service |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Service (historian) |title=Lenin: A Political Life – Volume Three: The Iron Ring |year=1995 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-253-35181-4 }}
* Pipes, Richard, ed. ''The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive.'' (1996). 185 pp.
+
* Wade, Rex A. "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." ''Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography'' 9.1 (2016): 9–38. {{DOI|10.1163/22102388-00900003}}
 +
{{refend}}
 +
 
 +
==External links==
 +
{{Sister project links|s=Author:Vladimir Lenin|b=no|v=no|n=no|wikt=Lenin|d=Q1394}}{{Library resources box}}
 +
* [http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/Index.html Marx2Mao.org]{{spaced ndash}}Lenin Internet Library
 +
* {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/swlenin1|title=Selected Works|author=V.I. Lenin|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|volume=1|year=1975}}
 +
* {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/swlenin2|title=Selected Works|author=V.I. Lenin|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|volume=2|year=1975}}
 +
* {{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/swlenin3|title=Selected Works|author=V.I. Lenin|location=Moscow|publisher=Progress Publishers|volume=3|year=1975}}
 +
*[https://www.net-film.ru/en/found-page-1/?search=1917-1935qvladimir+lenin Newsreels about Vladimir Lenin // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive]
 +
*''[[iarchive:LeninBiography1983|Lenin: A Biography]]'', official Soviet account of his life and work.
 +
* {{YouTube|-l53FPENoAU|Lenin's speech (video)}}{{spaced ndash}}Lenin's speech with subtitles
 +
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/bio/index.htm Lenin Internet Archive Biography] includes interviews with Lenin and essays on the leader
 +
* {{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://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/index.htm Marxists.org Lenin Internet Archive]{{spaced ndash}}Extensive compendium of writings, a biography, and many photographs
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* {{PM20|FID=pe/011242}}
  
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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]]<br />{{nowrap|of the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]]}}|years=1917–1924}}
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{{S-ttl|title=Chairman of the [[Council of Labour and Defence]]|years=1918–1920}}
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|-
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{{Works of Lenin}}
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Revision as of 21:29, April 6, 2021

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Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Lenin in July 1920

In office
6 July 1923 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by Office established
Succeeded by Alexei Rykov

In office
8 November 1917 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by Office established
Succeeded by Alexei Rykov

In office
25 November 1917 – 20 January 1918Template:Efn
Serving with Pavel Dybenko
Preceded by Constituency established
Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Constituency Baltic Fleet

Born Template:OldStyleDate
Simbirsk, Russian Empire
Died Template:Death date and age
Gorki, Moscow Governorate, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union

Template:Labeldata

Birth name Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
Nationality Russian
Soviet
Political party Template:Unbulleted list Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Template:Font
Other political
affiliations
League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class Template:Font
Spouse(s) Template:Marriage
Relations Template:Unbulleted list
Alma mater Saint Petersburg Imperial University
Signature Vladimir Lenin's signature
Template:Collapsible list

Template:Collapsible list

Vladimir Ilyich UlyanovTemplate:Efn (Template:OldStyleDateNY 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin,Template:Efn was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia, and later the Soviet Union, became a one-party socialist state governed by the Soviet Communist Party. A Marxist, he developed a variant of this communist ideology known as Leninism.

Born to a moderately prosperous middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's Tsarist government, he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent theorist in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, he took a key role in the RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Following Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime.

Lenin's Bolshevik government initially shared power with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, elected soviets, and a multi-party Constituent Assembly, although by 1918 it had centralised power in the new Communist Party. Lenin's administration redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry. It withdrew from the First World War by signing a treaty conceding territory to the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution through the Communist International. Opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by the state security services; tens of thousands were killed or interned in concentration camps. His administration defeated right and left-wing anti-Bolshevik armies in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922 and oversaw the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1921. Responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin encouraged economic growth through the market-oriented New Economic Policy. Several non-Russian nations had secured independence from the Russian Empire after 1917, but three were re-united into the new Soviet Union in 1922. His health failing, Lenin died in Gorki, with Joseph Stalin succeeding him as the pre-eminent figure in the Soviet government.

Widely considered one of the most significant and influential figures of the 20th century, Lenin was the posthumous subject of a pervasive personality cult within the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991. He became an ideological figurehead behind Marxism–Leninism and a prominent influence over the international communist movement. A controversial and highly divisive historical figure, Lenin is viewed by supporters as a champion of socialism and the working class while critics have emphasised his role as founder and leader of an authoritarian regime responsible for political repression and mass killings.

Early life

For a more detailed treatment, see Early life of Vladimir Lenin.

Childhood: 1870–1887

File:Dom ulyanovyh.jpg
Lenin's childhood home in Simbirsk

Lenin's father Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov was from a family of serfs; his ethnic origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was of Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin, or Kalmyk ancestry.Template:Sfnm Despite this lower-class background, Ilya had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility.Template:Sfnm Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863.Template:Sfnm Well educated, she was the daughter of a wealthy GermanSwedish Lutheran mother, and according to some sources a Russian Jewish father who had converted to Christianity and worked as a physician.Template:Sfnm According to historian Petrovsky-Shtern, it is likely that Lenin was unaware of his mother's half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by his sister Anna after his death.Template:Sfn Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, rising to become Director of Primary Schools in the 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. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman.Template:Sfnm

File:Vladimir Lenin 3 years old.jpg
An image of Lenin (left) at the age of three

Lenin was born in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, on 22 April 1870, and baptised six days later;Template:Sfnm as a child, he was known as Volodya, a diminutive of Vladimir.Template:Sfnm He was the third of eight children, having two older siblings, Anna (born 1864) and Alexander (born 1866). They were followed by three more children, Olga (born 1871), Dmitry (born 1874), and Maria (born 1878). Two later siblings died in infancy.Template:Sfnm Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria, a Lutheran by upbringing, was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children.Template:Sfnm

Both parents were monarchists and liberal conservatives, being committed to the emancipation reform of 1861 introduced by the reformist Tsar Alexander II; they avoided political radicals and there is no evidence that the police ever put them under surveillance for subversive thought.Template:Sfnm Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in Kokushkino.Template:Sfnm Among his siblings, Lenin was closest to his sister Olga, whom he often bossed around; he had an extremely competitive nature and could be destructive, but usually admitted his misbehaviour.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm

In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died of a brain haemorrhage.Template:Sfnm Subsequently, his behaviour became erratic and confrontational and he renounced his belief in God.Template:Sfnm At the time, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at Saint Petersburg University. Involved in political agitation against the absolute monarchy of the reactionary Tsar Alexander III, Alexander studied the writings of banned leftists and organised anti-government protests. He joined a revolutionary cell bent on assassinating the Tsar and was selected to construct a bomb. Before the attack could take place, the conspirators were arrested and tried, and Alexander was executed by hanging in May.Template:Sfnm Despite the emotional trauma of his father's and brother's deaths, Lenin continued studying, graduated from school at the top of his class with a gold medal for exceptional performance, and decided to study law at Kazan University.Template:Sfnm

University and political radicalisation: 1887–1893

Upon entering Kazan University in August 1887, Lenin moved into a nearby flat.Template:Sfnm There, he joined a zemlyachestvo, a form of university society that represented the men of a particular region.Template:Sfnm This group elected him as its representative to the university's zemlyachestvo council, and he took part in a December demonstration against government restrictions that banned student societies. The police arrested Lenin and accused him of being a ringleader in the demonstration; he was expelled from the university, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs exiled him to his family's Kokushkino estate.Template:Sfnm There, he read voraciously, becoming enamoured with Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is to Be Done?Template:Sfnm

Lenin's mother was concerned by her son's radicalisation, and was instrumental in convincing the Interior Ministry to allow him to return to the city of Kazan, but not the university.Template:Sfnm On his return, he joined Nikolai Fedoseev's revolutionary circle, through which he discovered Karl Marx's 1867 book Capital. This sparked his interest in Marxism, a socio-political theory that argued that society developed in stages, that this development resulted from class struggle, and that capitalist society would ultimately give way to socialist society and then communist society.Template:Sfnm Wary of his political views, Lenin's mother bought a country estate in Alakaevka village, Samara Oblast, in the hope that her son would turn his attention to agriculture. He had little interest in farm management, and his mother soon sold the land, keeping the house as a summer home.Template:Sfnm

File:Karl Marx 001.jpg
Lenin came under the influence of Karl Marx.

In September 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to the city of Samara, where Lenin joined Alexei Sklyarenko's socialist discussion circle.Template:Sfnm There, Lenin fully embraced Marxism and produced a Russian language translation of Marx and Friedrich Engels's 1848 political pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto.Template:Sfnm He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, agreeing with Plekhanov's argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism and so socialism would be implemented by the proletariat, or urban working class, rather than the peasantry.Template:Sfnm This Marxist perspective contrasted with the view of the agrarian-socialist Narodnik movement, which held that the peasantry could establish socialism in Russia by forming peasant communes, thereby bypassing capitalism. This Narodnik view developed in the 1860s with the People's Freedom Party and was then dominant within the Russian revolutionary movement.Template:Sfnm Lenin rejected the premise of the agrarian-socialist argument, but was influenced by agrarian-socialists like Pyotr Tkachev and Sergei Nechaev, and befriended several Narodniks.Template:Sfn

In May 1890, Maria, who retained societal influence as the widow of a nobleman, persuaded the authorities to allow Lenin to take his exams externally at the University of St Petersburg, where he obtained the equivalent of a first-class degree with honours. The graduation celebrations were marred when his sister Olga died of typhoid.Template:Sfnm Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer.Template:Sfnm He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia. Inspired by Plekhanov's work, Lenin collected data on Russian society, using it to support a Marxist interpretation of societal development and counter the claims of the Narodniks.Template:Sfnm He wrote a paper on peasant economics; it was rejected by the liberal journal Russian Thought.Template:Sfnm

Revolutionary activity

For a more detailed treatment, see Revolutionary activity of Vladimir Lenin.

Early activism and imprisonment: 1893–1900

In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg.Template:Sfnm There, he worked as a barrister's assistant and rose to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell that called itself the Social-Democrats after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany.Template:Sfnm Publicly championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres.Template:Sfnm By late 1894, he was leading a Marxist workers' circle, and meticulously covered his tracks, knowing that police spies tried to infiltrate the movement.Template:Sfnm He began a romantic relationship with Nadezhda "Nadya" Krupskaya, a Marxist schoolteacher.Template:Sfnm He also authored the political tract What the "Friends of the People" Are and How They Fight the Social-Democrats criticising the Narodnik agrarian-socialists, based largely on his experiences in Samara; around 200 copies were illegally printed in 1894.Template:Sfnm

Lenin hoped to cement connections between his Social-Democrats and Emancipation of Labour, a group of Russian Marxist émigrés based in Switzerland; he visited the country to meet group members Plekhanov and Pavel Axelrod.Template:Sfnm He proceeded to Paris to meet Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue and to research the Paris Commune of 1871, which he considered an early prototype for a proletarian government.Template:Sfnm Financed by his mother, he stayed in a Swiss health spa before travelling to Berlin, where he studied for six weeks at the Staatsbibliothek and met the Marxist activist Wilhelm Liebknecht.Template:Sfnm Returning to Russia with a stash of illegal revolutionary publications, he travelled to various cities distributing literature to striking workers.Template:Sfnm While involved in producing a news sheet, Rabochee delo (Workers' Cause), he was among 40 activists arrested in St. Petersburg and charged with sedition.Template:Sfnm

File:Union-de-Lucha.jpg
Lenin (seated centre) with other members of the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class in 1897

Refused legal representation or bail, Lenin denied all charges against him but remained imprisoned for a year before sentencing.Template:Sfnm He spent this time theorising and writing. In this work he noted that the rise of industrial capitalism in Russia had caused large numbers of peasants to move to the cities, where they formed a proletariat. From his Marxist perspective, Lenin argued that this Russian proletariat would develop class consciousness, which would in turn lead them to violently overthrow tsarism, the aristocracy, and the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletariat state that would move toward socialism.Template:Sfnm

In February 1897, Lenin was sentenced without trial to three years' exile in eastern Siberia. He was granted a few days in Saint Petersburg to put his affairs in order and used this time to meet with the Social-Democrats, who had renamed themselves the League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.Template:Sfnm 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 revolutionaries, many of whom visited him, and permitted to go on trips to swim in the Yenisei River and to hunt duck and snipe.Template:Sfnm

In May 1898, Nadya joined him in exile, having been arrested in August 1896 for organising a strike. She was initially posted to Ufa, but persuaded the authorities to move her to Shushenskoye, claiming that she and Lenin were engaged; they married in a church on 10 July 1898.Template:Sfnm Settling into a family life with Nadya's mother Elizaveta Vasilyevna, in Shushenskoye the couple translated English socialist literature into Russian.Template:Sfnm Keen to keep up with developments in German Marxism, where there had been an ideological split, with revisionists like Eduard Bernstein advocating a peaceful, electoral path to socialism, Lenin remained devoted to violent revolution, attacking revisionist arguments in A Protest by Russian Social-Democrats.Template:Sfnm He also finished The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), his longest book to date, which criticised the agrarian-socialists and promoted a Marxist analysis of Russian economic development. Published under the pseudonym of Vladimir Ilin, upon publication it received predominantly poor reviews.Template:Sfnm

Munich, London, and Geneva: 1900–1905

File:LeninEnSuizaMarzo1916--barbaroussovietr00mcbr.png
Lenin in 1916, while in Switzerland

After his exile, Lenin settled in Pskov in early 1900.Template:Sfnm There, he began raising funds for a newspaper, Iskra (Spark), a new organ of the Russian Marxist party, now calling itself the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).Template:Sfnm In July 1900, Lenin 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.Template:Sfnm Containing contributions from prominent European Marxists, Iskra was smuggled into Russia,Template:Sfnm becoming the country's most successful underground publication for 50 years.Template:Sfn He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena;Template:Sfnm he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm

His wife Nadya joined Lenin in Munich and became his personal secretary.Template:Sfnm They continued their political agitation, as Lenin wrote for Iskra and drafted the RSDLP programme, attacking ideological dissenters and external critics, particularly the Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR),Template:Sfnm a Narodnik agrarian-socialist group founded in 1901.Template:Sfn Despite remaining a Marxist, he accepted the Narodnik view on the revolutionary power of the Russian peasantry, accordingly penning the 1903 pamphlet To the Village Poor.Template:Sfnm To evade Bavarian police, Lenin moved to London with Iskra in April 1902.Template:Sfnm He became friends with fellow Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky.Template:Sfnm 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 Geneva.Template:Sfnm

The second RSDLP Congress was held in London in July 1903.Template:Sfnm 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 over the party.Template:Sfnm Lenin's supporters were in the majority, and he termed them the "majoritarians" (bol'sheviki in Russian; Bolsheviks); in response, Martov termed his followers the "minoritarians" (men'sheviki in Russian; Mensheviks).Template:Sfnm Arguments between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued after the conference; the Bolsheviks accused their rivals of being opportunists and reformists who lacked discipline, while the Mensheviks accused Lenin of being a despot and autocrat.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm The stress made Lenin ill, and to recuperate he went on a hiking holiday in rural Switzerland.Template:Sfnm The Bolshevik faction grew in strength; by the spring, the whole RSDLP Central Committee was Bolshevik,Template:Sfnm and in December they founded the newspaper Vpered (Forward).Template:Sfnm

Revolution of 1905 and its aftermath: 1905–1914

In January 1905, the Bloody Sunday massacre of protesters in St. Petersburg sparked a spate of civil unrest in the Russian Empire known as the Revolution of 1905.Template:Sfnm Lenin urged Bolsheviks to take a greater role in the events, encouraging violent insurrection.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfn In turn, he insisted that the Bolsheviks split completely with the Mensheviks; many Bolsheviks refused, and both groups attended the Third RSDLP Congress, held in London in April 1905.Template:Sfnm 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 Russia's liberal bourgeoisie would be sated by a transition to 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."Template:Sfnm

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!

—Lenin on the Revolution of 1905Template:Sfn

In response to the revolution of 1905, which had failed to overthrow the government, Tsar Nicholas II accepted a series of liberal reforms in his October Manifesto. In this climate, Lenin felt it safe to return to St. Petersburg.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm Recognising that membership fees and donations from a few wealthy sympathisers were insufficient to finance the Bolsheviks' activities, Lenin endorsed the idea of robbing post offices, railway stations, trains, and banks. Under the lead of Leonid Krasin, a group of Bolsheviks began carrying out such criminal actions, the best known taking place in June 1907, when a group of Bolsheviks acting under the leadership of Joseph Stalin committed an armed robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia.Template:Sfnm

Although he briefly supported the idea of reconciliation between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks,Template:Sfnm Lenin's advocacy of violence and robbery was condemned by the Mensheviks at the Fourth RSDLP Congress, held in Stockholm in April 1906.Template:Sfnm Lenin was involved in setting up a Bolshevik Centre in Kuokkala, Grand Duchy of Finland, which was at the time a semi-autonomous part of the Russian Empire, before the Bolsheviks regained dominance of the RSDLP at its Fifth Congress, held in London in May 1907.Template:Sfnm As the Tsarist government cracked down on opposition, both by disbanding Russia's legislative assembly, the Second Duma, and by ordering its secret police, the Okhrana, to arrest revolutionaries, Lenin fled Finland for Switzerland.Template:Sfnm There, he tried to exchange those banknotes stolen in Tiflis that had identifiable serial numbers on them.Template:Sfn

Alexander Bogdanov and other prominent Bolsheviks decided to relocate the Bolshevik Centre to Paris; although Lenin disagreed, he moved to the city in December 1908.Template:Sfn Lenin disliked Paris, lambasting it as "a foul hole", and while there he sued a motorist who knocked him off his bike.Template:Sfnm Lenin became very critical of Bogdanov's view that Russia's proletariat had to develop a socialist culture in order to become a successful revolutionary vehicle. Instead, Lenin favoured a vanguard of socialist intelligentsia who would 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 independent of human observation.Template:Sfnm Bogdanov and Lenin holidayed together at Maxim Gorky's villa in Capri in April 1908;Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm

File:British Museum from NE 2.JPG
Lenin undertook research at the British Museum in London.

In May 1908, Lenin lived briefly in London, where he used the British Museum Reading Room to write Materialism and Empirio-criticism, an attack on what he described as the "bourgeois-reactionary falsehood" of Bogdanov's relativism.Template:Sfnm Lenin's factionalism began to alienate increasing numbers of Bolsheviks, including his former close supporters Alexei Rykov and Lev Kamenev.Template:Sfnm The Okhrana exploited his factionalist attitude by sending a spy, Roman Malinovsky, to act as a vocal Lenin supporter within the party. Various Bolsheviks expressed their suspicions about Malinovsky to Lenin, although it is unclear if the latter was aware of the spy's duplicity; it is possible that he used Malinovsky to feed false information to the Okhrana.Template:Sfnm

In August 1910, Lenin attended the Eighth Congress of the Second International, an international meeting of socialists, in Copenhagen as the RSDLP's representative, following this with a holiday in Stockholm with his mother.Template:Sfnm With his wife and sisters he then moved to France, settling first in Bombon and then Paris.Template:Sfnm Here, he became a close friend to the French Bolshevik Inessa Armand; some biographers suggest that they had an extra-marital affair from 1910 to 1912.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, at a Paris meeting in June 1911, the RSDLP Central Committee decided to move their focus of operations back to Russia, ordering the closure of the Bolshevik Centre and its newspaper, Proletari.Template:Sfnm Seeking to rebuild his influence in the party, Lenin arranged for 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.Template:Sfnm

Moving to Kraków in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a culturally Polish part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he used Jagellonian University's library to conduct research.Template:Sfnm He stayed in close contact with the RSDLP, which was operating in the Russian Empire, convincing the Duma's Bolshevik members to split from their parliamentary alliance with the Mensheviks.Template:Sfnm In January 1913, Stalin, whom Lenin referred to as the "wonderful Georgian", visited him, and they discussed the future of non-Russian ethnic groups in the Empire.Template:Sfnm Due to the ailing health of both Lenin and his wife, they moved to the rural town of Biały Dunajec,Template:Sfnm before heading to Bern for Nadya to have surgery on her goitre.Template:Sfnm

First World War: 1914–1917

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.

—Lenin on his interpretation of the First World WarTemplate:Sfn

Lenin was in Galicia when the First World War broke out.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm Lenin and his wife returned to Bern,Template:Sfnm before relocating to Zürich in February 1916.Template:Sfnm Lenin was angry that the German Social-Democratic Party was supporting the German war effort, which was a direct contravention of the Second International's Stuttgart resolution that socialist parties would oppose the conflict, and saw the Second International as defunct.Template:Sfnm He attended the Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915 and the Kienthal Conference in April 1916,Template:Sfnm urging socialists across the continent to convert the "imperialist war" into a continent-wide "civil war" with the proletariat pitted against the bourgeoisie and aristocracy.Template:Sfnm In July 1916, Lenin's mother died, but he was unable to attend her funeral.Template:Sfnm Her death deeply affected him, and he became depressed, fearing that he too would die before seeing the proletarian revolution.Template:Sfnm

In September 1917, Lenin published Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, which 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.Template:Sfnm He spent much of this time reading the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Aristotle, all of whom had been key influences on Marx.Template:Sfn This changed Lenin's interpretation of Marxism; whereas he once believed that policies could be developed based on predetermined scientific principles, he concluded that the only test of whether a policy was correct was its practice.Template:Sfn He still perceived himself as an orthodox Marxist, but he began to diverge from some of Marx's predictions about 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 an intermediate revolution.Template:Sfn

February Revolution and the July Days: 1917

In February 1917, the February Revolution broke out in St. Petersburg, renamed Petrograd at the beginning of the First World War, 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 abdicated. The State Duma took over control of the country, establishing the Russian Provisional Government and converting the Empire into a new Russian Republic.Template:Sfnm When Lenin learned of this from his base in Switzerland, he celebrated with other dissidents.Template:Sfn He decided to return to Russia to take charge of the Bolsheviks but found that most passages into 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 sealed train carriage through their territory, among them Lenin and his wife.Template:Sfnm The group travelled by train from Zürich to Sassnitz, proceeding by ferry to Trelleborg, Sweden, and from there to the HaparandaTornio border crossing and then to Helsinki before taking the final train to Petrograd in disguise.Template:Sfnm

File:The locomotive M-293, which in August 1917 Lenin went to Finland.JPG
The engine that pulled the train on which Lenin arrived at Petrograd's Finland Station in April 1917 was not preserved. So Engine #293, by which Lenin escaped to Finland and then returned to Russia later in the year, serves as the permanent exhibit, installed at a platform on the station.Template:Sfn

Arriving at Petrograd's Finland Station in April, Lenin gave a speech to Bolshevik supporters condemning the Provisional Government and again calling for a continent-wide European proletarian revolution.Template:Sfnm 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.Template:Sfnm 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 just as imperialist as the Tsarist regime, he advocated immediate peace with Germany and Austria-Hungary, rule by soviets, the nationalisation of industry and banks, and the state expropriation of land, all with the intention of establishing a proletariat government and pushing toward a socialist society. By contrast, the Mensheviks believed that Russia was insufficiently developed to transition to socialism and accused Lenin of trying to plunge the new Republic into civil war.Template:Sfnm Over the coming months, he campaigned for his policies, attending the meetings of the Bolshevik Central Committee, prolifically writing for the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, and giving public speeches in Petrograd aimed at converting workers, soldiers, sailors, and peasants to his cause.Template:Sfnm

Sensing growing frustration among Bolshevik supporters, Lenin suggested an armed political demonstration in Petrograd to test the government's response.Template:Sfnm Amid deteriorating health, he left the city to recuperate in the Finnish village of Neivola.Template:Sfnm 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 and called for calm.Template:Sfnm Responding to the violence, the government ordered the arrest of Lenin and other prominent Bolsheviks, raiding their offices, and publicly alleging that he was a German agent provocateur.Template:Sfnm Evading arrest, Lenin hid in a series of Petrograd safe houses.Template:Sfnm Fearing that he would be killed, Lenin and fellow senior Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev escaped Petrograd in disguise, relocating to Razliv.Template:Sfnm There, Lenin began work on the book that became The State and Revolution, an exposition on how he believed the socialist state would develop after the proletariat revolution, and how from then on the state would gradually wither away, leaving a pure communist society.Template:Sfnm He began arguing for a Bolshevik-led armed insurrection to topple the government, but at a clandestine meeting of the party's central committee this idea was rejected.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfnm

October Revolution: 1917

Main article: October Revolution
File:Brodskiy's Lenin.jpg
Painting of Lenin in front of the Smolny Institute by Isaak Brodsky

In August 1917, while Lenin was in Finland, General Lavr Kornilov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, sent troops to Petrograd in what appeared to be a 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 to defend the city. The coup petered out before it reached Petrograd, but the events had allowed the Bolsheviks to return to the open political arena.Template:Sfnm Fearing a counter-revolution from right-wing forces hostile to socialism, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who dominated the Petrograd Soviet had been instrumental in pressurising the government to normalise relations with the Bolsheviks.Template:Sfn Both the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had lost much popular support because of their affiliation with the Provisional Government and its unpopular continuation of the war. The Bolsheviks capitalised on this, and soon the pro-Bolshevik Marxist Trotsky was elected leader of the Petrograd Soviet.Template:Sfnm In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority in the workers' sections of both the Moscow and Petrograd Soviets.Template:Sfnm

Recognising that the situation was safer for him, Lenin returned to Petrograd.Template:Sfnm There he attended a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee on 10 October, where he again argued that the party should lead an armed insurrection to topple the Provisional Government. This time the argument won with ten votes against two.Template:Sfnm Critics of the plan, Zinoviev and Kamenev, argued that Russian workers would not support a violent coup against the regime and that there was no clear evidence for Lenin's assertion that all of Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution.Template:Sfnm The party began plans to organise the offensive, holding a final meeting at the Smolny Institute on 24 October.Template:Sfn This was the base of the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC), an armed militia largely loyal to the Bolsheviks that had been established by the Petrograd Soviet during Kornilov's alleged coup.Template:Sfnm

In October, the MRC was ordered to take control of Petrograd's key transport, communication, printing and utilities hubs, and did so without bloodshed.Template:Sfnm Bolsheviks besieged the government in the Winter Palace, and overcame it and arrested its ministers after the cruiser Aurora, controlled by Bolshevik seamen, fired on the building.Template:Sfnm During the insurrection, Lenin gave a speech to the Petrograd Soviet announcing that the Provisional Government had been overthrown.Template:Sfnm The Bolsheviks declared the formation of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars, or Sovnarkom. Lenin initially turned down the leading position of Chairman, suggesting Trotsky for the job, but other Bolsheviks insisted and ultimately Lenin relented.Template:Sfnm Lenin and other Bolsheviks then attended the Second Congress of Soviets on 26 and 27 October, and announced the creation of the new government. Menshevik attendees condemned the illegitimate seizure of power and the risk of civil war.Template:Sfnm In these early days of the new regime, Lenin avoided talking in Marxist and socialist terms so as not to alienate Russia's population, and instead spoke about having a country controlled by the workers.Template:Sfnm Lenin and many other Bolsheviks expected proletariat revolution to sweep across Europe in days or months.Template:Sfn

Lenin's government

For a more detailed treatment, see Government of Vladimir Lenin.

Organising the Soviet government: 1917–1918

The Provisional Government had planned for a Constituent Assembly to be elected in November 1917; against Lenin's objections, Sovnarkom agreed for the vote to take place as scheduled.Template:Sfnm In the constitutional election, the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries.Template:Sfnm Lenin argued that the election was not a fair reflection of the people's will, that the electorate had not had time to learn the Bolsheviks' political programme, and that the candidacy lists had been drawn up before the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries split from the Socialist-Revolutionaries.Template:Sfnm Nevertheless, the newly elected Russian Constituent Assembly convened in Petrograd in January 1918.Template:Sfn Sovnarkom argued that it was counter-revolutionary because it sought to remove power from the soviets, but the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks denied this.Template:Sfn The Bolsheviks presented the Assembly with a motion that would strip it of most of its legal powers; when the Assembly rejected the motion, Sovnarkom declared this as evidence of its counter-revolutionary nature and forcibly disbanded it.Template:Sfnm

Lenin rejected repeated calls, including from some Bolsheviks, to establish a coalition government with other socialist parties.Template:Sfnm Although refusing a coalition with the Mensheviks or Socialist-Revolutionaries, Sovnarkom partially relented; they allowed the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries five posts in the cabinet in December 1917. This coalition only lasted four months until March 1918, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries pulled out of the government over a disagreement about the Bolsheviks' approach to ending the First World War.Template:Sfnm At their 7th Congress in March 1918, the Bolsheviks changed their official name from the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party to the Russian Communist Party, as Lenin wanted to both distance his group from the increasingly reformist German Social Democratic Party and to emphasise its ultimate goal, that of a communist society.Template:Sfnm

File:Kremlin birds eye view-1.jpg
The Moscow Kremlin, which Lenin moved into in 1918

Although ultimate power officially rested with the country's government in the form of Sovnarkom and the Executive Committee (VTSIK) elected by the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (ARCS), the Communist Party was de facto in control in Russia, as acknowledged by its members at the time.Template:Sfnm By 1918, Sovnarkom began acting unilaterally, claiming a need for expediency, with the ARCS and VTSIK becoming increasingly marginalised,Template:Sfnm so the soviets no longer had a role in governing Russia.Template:Sfn During 1918 and 1919, the government expelled Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries from the soviets.Template:Sfnm Russia had become a one-party state.Template:Sfnm

Within the party was established a Political Bureau (Politburo) and Organisation Bureau (Orgburo) to accompany the existing Central Committee; the decisions of these party bodies had to be adopted by Sovnarkom and the Council of Labour and Defence.Template:Sfnm Lenin was the most significant figure in this governance structure as well as being the Chairman of Sovnarkom and sitting on the Council of Labour and Defence, and on the Central Committee and Politburo of the Communist Party.Template:Sfn The only individual to have anywhere near this influence was Lenin's right-hand man, Yakov Sverdlov, who died in March 1919 during a flu pandemic.Template:Sfnm In November 1917, Lenin and his wife took a two-room flat within the Smolny Institute; the following month they left for a brief holiday in Halila, Finland.Template:Sfnm In January 1918, he survived an assassination attempt in Petrograd; Fritz Platten, who was with Lenin at the time, shielded him and was injured by a bullet.Template:Sfnm

Concerned that the German Army posed a threat to Petrograd, in March 1918 Sovnarkom relocated to Moscow, initially as a temporary measure.Template:Sfnm There, Lenin, Trotsky, and other Bolshevik leaders moved into the Kremlin, where Lenin lived with his wife and sister Maria in a first floor apartment adjacent to the room in which the Sovnarkom meetings were held.Template:Sfnm Lenin disliked Moscow,Template:Sfn but rarely left the city centre during the rest of his life.Template:Sfnm He survived a second assassination attempt, in Moscow in August 1918; he was shot following a public speech and injured badly.Template:Sfnm A Socialist-Revolutionary, Fanny Kaplan, was arrested and executed.Template:Sfnm The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity.Template:Sfn As a respite, he was driven in September 1918 to the Gorki estate, just outside Moscow, recently acquired for him by the government.Template:Sfn

Social, legal, and economic reform: 1917–1918

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!

—Lenin's political programme, October 1917Template:Sfn

Upon taking power, Lenin's regime issued a series of decrees. The first was a Decree on Land, which declared that the landed estates of the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church should be nationalised and redistributed to peasants by local governments. This contrasted with Lenin's desire for agricultural collectivisation but provided governmental recognition of the widespread peasant land seizures that had already occurred.Template:Sfnm In November 1917, the government issued the Decree on the Press that closed many opposition media outlets deemed counter-revolutionary. They claimed the measure would be temporary; the decree was widely criticised, including by many Bolsheviks, for compromising freedom of the press.Template:Sfnm

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, which stated that non-Russian ethnic groups living inside the Republic had the right to secede from Russian authority and establish their own independent nation-states.Template:Sfnm Many nations declared independence (Finland and Lithuania in December 1917, Latvia and Ukraine in January 1918, Estonia in February 1918, Transcaucasia in April 1918, and Poland in November 1918).Template:Sfnm Soon, the Bolsheviks actively promoted communist parties in these independent nation-states,Template:Sfn while at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of the Soviets in July 1918 a constitution was approved that reformed the Russian Republic into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.Template:Sfn Seeking to modernise the country, the government officially converted Russia from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar used in Europe.Template:Sfnm

In November 1917, Sovnarkom issued a decree abolishing Russia's legal system, calling on the use of "revolutionary conscience" to replace the abolished laws.Template:Sfnm The courts were replaced by a two-tier system, namely the Revolutionary Tribunals to deal with counter-revolutionary crimes,Template:Sfnm and the People's Courts to deal with civil and other criminal offences. They were instructed to ignore pre-existing laws, and base their rulings on the Sovnarkom decrees and a "socialist sense of justice."Template:Sfnm November also saw an overhaul of the armed forces; Sovnarkom implemented egalitarian measures, abolished previous ranks, titles, and medals, and called on soldiers to establish committees to elect their commanders.Template:Sfn

File:Dyadya lenin.jpg
Bolshevik political cartoon poster from 1920, showing Lenin sweeping away monarchs, clergy, and capitalists; the caption reads, "Comrade Lenin Cleanses the Earth of Filth"

In October 1917, Lenin issued a decree limiting work for everyone in Russia to eight hours per day.Template:Sfn He also issued the Decree on Popular Education that stipulated that the government would guarantee free, secular education for all children in Russia,Template:Sfn and a decree establishing a system of state orphanages.Template:Sfn To combat mass illiteracy, a literacy campaign was initiated; an estimated 5 million people enrolled in crash courses of basic literacy from 1920 to 1926.Template:Sfn Embracing the equality of the sexes, laws were introduced that helped to emancipate women, by giving them economic autonomy from their husbands and removing restrictions on divorce.Template:Sfnm Zhenotdel, a Bolshevik women's organisation, was established to further these aims. Template:Sfn Under Lenin, Russia became the first country to legalize abortion on demand in the first trimester.Template:Sfn Militantly atheist, Lenin and the Communist Party wanted to demolish organised religion.Template:Sfnm In January 1918, the government decreed the separation of church and state, and prohibited religious instruction in schools.Template:Sfnm

In November 1917, Lenin issued the Decree on Workers' Control, which called on the workers of each enterprise to establish an elected committee to monitor their enterprise's management.Template:Sfnm That month they also issued an order requisitioning the country's gold,Template:Sfn and nationalised the banks, which Lenin saw as a major step toward socialism.Template:Sfnm In December, Sovnarkom established a Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh), which had authority over industry, banking, agriculture, and trade.Template:Sfnm The factory committees were subordinate to the trade unions, which were subordinate to VSNKh; the state's centralised economic plan was prioritised over the workers' local economic interests.Template:Sfnm In early 1918, Sovnarkom cancelled all foreign debts and refused to pay interest owed on them.Template:Sfnm In April 1918, it nationalised foreign trade, establishing a state monopoly on imports and exports.Template:Sfn In June 1918, it decreed nationalisation of public utilities, railways, engineering, textiles, metallurgy, and mining, although often these were state-owned in name only.Template:Sfnm Full-scale nationalisation did not take place until November 1920, when small-scale industrial enterprises were brought under state control.Template:Sfnm

A faction of the Bolsheviks known as the "Left Communists" criticised Sovnarkom's economic policy as too moderate; they wanted nationalisation of all industry, agriculture, trade, finance, transport, and communication.Template:Sfnm Lenin believed that this was impractical at that stage and that the government should only nationalise Russia's large-scale capitalist enterprises, such as the banks, railways, larger landed estates, and larger factories and mines, allowing smaller businesses to operate privately until they grew large enough to be successfully nationalised.Template:Sfnm Lenin also disagreed with the Left Communists about the economic organisation; in June 1918, he argued that centralised economic control of industry was needed, whereas Left Communists wanted each factory to be controlled by its workers, a syndicalist approach that Lenin considered detrimental to the cause of socialism.Template:Sfn

Adopting a left-libertarian perspective, both the Left Communists and other factions in the Communist Party critiqued the decline of democratic institutions in Russia.Template:Sfn Internationally, many socialists decried Lenin's regime and denied that he was establishing socialism; in particular, they highlighted the lack of widespread political participation, popular consultation, and industrial democracy.Template:Sfn In late 1918, the Czech-Austrian Marxist Karl Kautsky authored an anti-Leninist pamphlet condemning the anti-democratic nature of Soviet Russia, to which Lenin published a vociferous reply.Template:Sfnm German Marxist Rosa Luxemburg echoed Kautsky's views,Template:Sfnm while Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin described the Bolshevik seizure of power as "the burial of the Russian Revolution."Template:Sfn

Treaty of Brest-Litovsk: 1917–1918

[By prolonging the war] we unusually strengthen German imperialism, and the peace will have to be concluded anyway, but then the peace will be worse because it will be concluded by someone other than ourselves. No doubt the peace which we are now being forced to conclude is an indecent peace, but if war commences our government will be swept away and the peace will be concluded by another government.

—Lenin on peace with the Central PowersTemplate:Sfn

Upon taking power, Lenin believed that a key policy of his government must be to withdraw from the First World War by establishing an armistice with the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary.Template:Sfnm He believed that ongoing war would create resentment among war-weary Russian troops, to whom he had promised peace, and that these troops and the advancing German Army threatened both his own government and the cause of international socialism.Template:Sfnm By contrast, other Bolsheviks, in particular Nikolai Bukharin and the Left Communists, believed that peace with the Central Powers would be a betrayal of international socialism and that Russia should instead wage "a war of revolutionary defence" that would provoke an uprising of the German proletariat against their own government.Template:Sfnm

Lenin proposed a three-month armistice in his Decree on Peace of November 1917, which was approved by the Second Congress of Soviets and presented to the German and Austro-Hungarian governments.Template:Sfnm The Germans responded positively, viewing this as an opportunity to focus on the Western Front and stave off looming defeat.Template:Sfnm In November, armistice talks began at Brest-Litovsk, the headquarters of the German high command on the Eastern Front, with the Russian delegation being led by Trotsky and Adolph Joffe.Template:Sfnm Meanwhile, a ceasefire until January was agreed.Template:Sfnm During negotiations, the Germans insisted on keeping their wartime conquests, which included Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, whereas the Russians countered that this was a violation of these nations' rights to self-determination.Template:Sfnm Some Bolsheviks had expressed hopes of dragging out negotiations until proletarian revolution broke out throughout Europe.Template:Sfnm On 7 January 1918, Trotsky returned from Brest-Litovsk to St. Petersburg with an ultimatum from the Central Powers: either Russia accept Germany's territorial demands or the war would resume.Template:Sfn

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R92623, Brest-Litowsk, Waffenstillstandsabkommen.jpg
Signing of the armistice between Russia and Germany on 15 December 1917

In January and again in February, Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept Germany's proposals. He argued that the territorial losses were acceptable if it ensured the survival of the Bolshevik-led government. The majority of Bolsheviks rejected his position, hoping to prolong the armistice and call Germany's bluff.Template:Sfnm On 18 February, the German Army launched Operation Faustschlag, advancing further into Russian-controlled territory and conquering Dvinsk within a day.Template:Sfnm At this point, Lenin finally convinced a small majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept the Central Powers' demands.Template:Sfnm On 23 February, the Central Powers issued a new ultimatum: Russia had to recognise German control not only of Poland and the Baltic states but also of Ukraine, or face a full-scale invasion.Template:Sfnm

On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed.Template:Sfnm It resulted in massive territorial losses for Russia, with 26% of the former Empire's population, 37% of its agricultural harvest area, 28% of its industry, 26% of its railway tracks, and three-quarters of its coal and iron deposits being transferred to German control.Template:Sfnm Accordingly, the Treaty was deeply unpopular across Russia's political spectrum,Template:Sfnm and several Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries resigned from Sovnarkom in protest.Template:Sfn After the Treaty, Sovnarkom focused on trying to foment proletarian revolution in Germany, issuing an array of anti-war and anti-government publications in the country; the German government retaliated by expelling Russia's diplomats.Template:Sfnm The Treaty nevertheless failed to stop the Central Powers' defeat; in November 1918, the German Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated and the country's new administration signed the Armistice with the Allies. As a result, Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk void.Template:Sfnm

Anti-Kulak campaigns, Cheka, and Red Terror: 1918–1922

See also: Decossackisation|Decossackization|Decossackisation

[The bourgeoisie] practised terror against the workers, soldiers and peasants in the interests of a small group of landowners and bankers, whereas the Soviet regime applies decisive measures against landowners, plunderers and their accomplices in the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants.

—Lenin on the Red TerrorTemplate:Sfn

By early 1918, many cities in western Russia faced famine as a result of chronic food shortages.Template:Sfnm Lenin blamed this on the kulaks, or wealthier peasants, who allegedly hoarded the grain that they had produced to increase its financial value. In May 1918, he issued a requisitioning order that established armed detachments to confiscate grain from kulaks for distribution in the cities, and in June called for the formation of Committees of Poor Peasants to aid in requisitioning.Template:Sfnm This policy resulted in vast social disorder and violence, as armed detachments often clashed with peasant groups, helping to set the stage for the civil war.Template:Sfnm A prominent example of Lenin's views was his August 1918 telegram to the Bolsheviks of Penza, which called upon them to suppress a peasant insurrection by publicly hanging at least 100 "known kulaks, rich men, [and] bloodsuckers."Template:Sfnm

Requisitioning disincentivised peasants from producing more grain than they could personally consume, and thus production slumped.Template:Sfnm A booming black market supplemented the official state-sanctioned economy,Template:Sfnm and Lenin called on speculators, black marketeers and looters to be shot.Template:Sfnm Both the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries condemned the armed appropriations of grain at the Fifth All-Russian Congress of Soviets in July 1918.Template:Sfn Realising that the Committees of the Poor Peasants were also persecuting peasants who were not kulaks and thus contributing to anti-government feeling among the peasantry, in December 1918 Lenin abolished them.Template:Sfnm

Lenin repeatedly emphasised the need for terror and violence in overthrowing the old order and ensuring the success of the revolution.Template:Sfnm Speaking to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets in November 1917, he declared that "the state is an institution built up for the sake of exercising violence. Previously, this violence was exercised by a handful of moneybags over the entire people; now we want [...] to organise violence in the interests of the people."Template:Sfn He strongly opposed suggestions to abolish capital punishment.Template:Sfn Fearing anti-Bolshevik forces would overthrow his administration, in December 1917 Lenin ordered the establishment of the Emergency Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage, or Cheka, a political police force led by Felix Dzerzhinsky.Template:Sfnm

File:Lenin Krupskaya and Ulyanova in car at Red Army parade full photo 19180501.jpg
Lenin with his wife and sister in a car after watching a Red Army parade at Khodynka Field in Moscow, May Day 1918

In September 1918, Sovnarkom passed a decree that inaugurated the Red Terror, a system of repression orchestrated by the Cheka.Template:Sfnm Although sometimes described as an attempt to eliminate the entire bourgeoisie,Template:Sfnm Lenin did not want to exterminate all members of this class, merely those who sought to reinstate their rule.Template:Sfn The majority of the Terror's victims were well-to-do citizens or former members of the Tsarist administration;Template:Sfnm others were non-bourgeois anti-Bolsheviks and perceived social undesirables such as prostitutes.Template:Sfnm The Cheka claimed the right to both sentence and execute anyone whom it deemed to be an enemy of the government, without recourse to the Revolutionary Tribunals.Template:Sfnm Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out killings, often in large numbers.Template:Sfnm For example, the Petrograd Cheka executed 512 people in a few days.Template:Sfnm There are no surviving records to provide an accurate figure of how many perished in the Red Terror;Template:Sfn later estimates of historians have ranged between 10,000 and 15,000,Template:Sfn and 50,000 to 140,000.Template:Sfn

Lenin never witnessed this violence or participated in it first-hand,Template:Sfnm and publicly distanced himself from it.Template:Sfn His published articles and speeches rarely called for executions, but he regularly did so in his coded telegrams and confidential notes.Template:Sfn Many Bolsheviks expressed disapproval of the Cheka's mass executions and feared the organisation's apparent unaccountability.Template:Sfnm The Communist Party tried to restrain its activities in February 1919, stripping it of its powers of tribunal and execution in those areas not under official martial law, but the Cheka continued as before in swathes of the country.Template:Sfnm By 1920, the Cheka had become the most powerful institution in Soviet Russia, exerting influence over all other state apparatus.Template:Sfn

A decree in April 1919 resulted in the establishment of concentration camps, which were entrusted to the Cheka,Template:Sfnm later administered by a new government agency, Gulag.Template:Sfnm By the end of 1920, 84 camps had been established across Soviet Russia, holding about 50,000 prisoners; by October 1923, this had grown to 315 camps and about 70,000 inmates.Template:Sfnm Those interned in the camps were used as slave labour.Template:Sfnm From July 1922, intellectuals deemed to be opposing the Bolshevik government were exiled to inhospitable regions or deported from Russia altogether; Lenin personally scrutinised the lists of those to be dealt with in this manner.Template:Sfnm In May 1922, Lenin issued a decree calling for the execution of anti-Bolshevik priests, causing between 14,000 and 20,000 deaths.Template:Sfnm The Russian Orthodox Church was worst affected; the government's anti-religious policies also impacted on Roman Catholic and Protestant churches, Jewish synagogues, and Islamic mosques.Template:Sfn

Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War: 1918–1920

The existence of the Soviet Republic alongside the imperialist states over the long run is unthinkable. In the end, either the one or the other will triumph. And until that end will have arrived, a series of the most terrible conflicts between the Soviet Republic and the bourgeois governments is unavoidable. This means that the ruling class, the proletariat, if it only wishes to rule and is to rule, must demonstrate this also with its military organization.

—Lenin on warTemplate:Sfn

Lenin expected Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie to oppose his government, but he believed that the numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict.Template:Sfn In this, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia.Template:Sfn The ensuing Russian Civil War pitted the pro-Bolshevik Reds against the anti-Bolshevik Whites but also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borders and conflict between both Red and White armies and local peasant groups, the Green armies, throughout the former Empire.Template:Sfn Accordingly, various historians have seen the civil war as representing two distinct conflicts: one between the revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionaries, and the other between different revolutionary factions.Template:Sfn

The White armies were established by former Tsarist military officers,Template:Sfn and included Anton Denikin's Volunteer Army in South Russia,Template:Sfnm Alexander Kolchak's forces in Siberia,Template:Sfnm and Nikolai Yudenich's troops in the newly independent Baltic states.Template:Sfnm The Whites were bolstered when 35,000 members of the Czech Legion, who were prisoners of war from the conflict with the Central Powers, turned against Sovnarkom and allied with the Committee of Members of the Constituent Assembly (Komuch), an anti-Bolshevik government established in Samara.Template:Sfnm The Whites were also backed by Western governments who perceived the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as a betrayal of the Allied war effort and feared the Bolsheviks' calls for world revolution.Template:Sfn In 1918, the United Kingdom, France, United States, Canada, Italy, and Serbia landed 10,000 troops in Murmansk, seizing Kandalaksha, while later that year British, American, and Japanese forces landed in Vladivostok.Template:Sfnm Western troops soon pulled out of the civil war, instead only supporting the Whites with officers, technicians and armaments, but Japan remained because they saw the conflict as an opportunity for territorial expansion.Template:Sfn

Lenin tasked Trotsky with establishing a Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, and with his support, Trotsky organised a Revolutionary Military Council in September 1918, remaining its chairman until 1925.Template:Sfnm Recognising their valuable military experience, Lenin agreed that officers from the old Tsarist army could serve in the Red Army, although Trotsky established military councils to monitor their activities.Template:Sfnm The Reds held control of Russia's two largest cities, Moscow and Petrograd, as well as most of Great Russia, while the Whites were located largely on the former Empire's peripheries.Template:Sfn The latter were therefore hindered by being both fragmented and geographically scattered,Template:Sfnm and because their ethnic Russian supremacism alienated the region's national minorities.Template:Sfnm Anti-Bolshevik armies carried out the White Terror, a campaign of violence against perceived Bolshevik supporters which was typically more spontaneous than the state-sanctioned Red Terror.Template:Sfnm Both White and Red Armies were responsible for attacks against Jewish communities, prompting Lenin to issue a condemnation of anti-Semitism, blaming prejudice against Jews on capitalist propaganda.Template:Sfnm

File:VictimOfInternational.jpg
A White Russian anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster, in which Lenin is depicted in a red robe, aiding other Bolsheviks in sacrificing Russia to a statue of Marx (c. 1918–1919)

In July 1918, Sverdlov informed Sovnarkom that the Ural Regional Soviet had overseen the execution of the former Tsar and his immediate family in Yekaterinburg to prevent them from being rescued by advancing White troops.Template:Sfnm Although lacking proof, biographers and historians like Richard Pipes and Dmitri Volkogonov have expressed the view that the killing was probably sanctioned by Lenin;Template:Sfnm conversely, historian James Ryan cautioned that there was "no reason" to believe this.Template:Sfn Whether Lenin sanctioned it or not, he still regarded it as necessary, highlighting the precedent set by the execution of Louis XVI in the French Revolution.Template:Sfn

After the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had abandoned the coalition and increasingly viewed the Bolsheviks as traitors to the revolution.Template:Sfn In July 1918, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Yakov Blumkin assassinated the German ambassador to Russia, Wilhelm von Mirbach, hoping that the ensuing diplomatic incident would lead to a relaunched revolutionary war against Germany.Template:Sfnm The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries then launched a coup in Moscow, shelling the Kremlin and seizing the city's central post office before being stopped by Trotsky's forces.Template:Sfnm The party's leaders and many members were arrested and imprisoned, but were treated more leniently than other opponents of the Bolsheviks.Template:Sfnm

By 1919, the White armies were in retreat and by the start of 1920 were defeated on all three fronts.Template:Sfnm Although Sovnarkom were victorious, the territorial extent of the Russian state had been reduced, for many non-Russian ethnic groups had used the disarray to push for national independence.Template:Sfn In some cases, such as the north-eastern European nations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Finland, the Soviets recognised their independence and concluded peace treaties.Template:Sfn In other cases, the Red Army suppressed secessionist movements; by 1921 they had defeated the Ukrainian national movements and occupied the Caucasus, although fighting in Central Asia lasted until the late 1920s.Template:Sfn

After the German Ober Ost garrisons were withdrawn from the Eastern Front following the Armistice, both Soviet Russian armies and Polish ones moved in to fill the vacuum.Template:Sfn The newly independent Polish state and the Soviet government each sought territorial expansion in the region.Template:Sfn Polish and Russian troops first clashed in February 1919,Template:Sfn with the conflict developing into the Polish–Soviet War.Template:Sfnm Unlike the Soviets' previous conflicts, this had greater implications for the export of revolution and the future of Europe.Template:Sfn Polish forces pushed into Ukraine and by May 1920 had taken Kiev from the Soviets.Template:Sfnm After forcing the Polish Army back, Lenin urged the Red Army to invade Poland itself, believing that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support the Russian troops and thus spark European revolution. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks were sceptical, but agreed to the invasion. The Polish proletariat did not rise, and the Red Army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw.Template:Sfnm The Polish armies pushed the Red Army back into Russia, forcing Sovnarkom to sue for peace; the war culminated in the Peace of Riga, in which Russia ceded territory to Poland.Template:Sfnm

Comintern and world revolution: 1919–1920

For a more detailed treatment, see Revolutions of 1917–23.

File:19190501-lenin speech red square.jpg
Photograph of Lenin on 1 May 1919, taken by Grigori Petrovich Goldstein

After the Armistice on the Western Front, Lenin believed that the breakout of the European revolution was imminent.Template:Sfnm Seeking to promote this, Sovnarkom supported the establishment of Béla Kun's soviet government in Hungary in March 1919, followed by the soviet government in Bavaria and various revolutionary socialist uprisings in other parts of Germany, including that of the Spartacus League.Template:Sfnm During Russia's Civil War, the Red Army was sent into the newly independent national republics on Russia's borders to aid Marxists there in establishing soviet systems of government.Template:Sfn In Europe, this resulted in the creation of new communist-led states in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, all of which were officially independent of Russia,Template:Sfn while further east it led to the creation of communist governments in Outer Mongolia.Template:Sfn Various senior Bolsheviks wanted these absorbed into the Russian state; Lenin insisted that national sensibilities should be respected, but reassured his comrades that these nations' new Communist Party administrations were under the de facto authority of Sovnarkom.Template:Sfn

In late 1918, the British Labour Party called for the establishment of an international conference of socialist parties, the Labour and Socialist International.Template:Sfn Lenin saw this as a revival of the Second International, which he had despised, and formulated his own rival international socialist conference to offset its impact.Template:Sfn Organised with the aid of Zinoviev, Nikolai Bukharin, Trotsky, Christian Rakovsky, and Angelica Balabanoff,Template:Sfn the First Congress of this Communist International (Comintern) opened in Moscow in March 1919.Template:Sfnm It lacked global coverage; of the 34 assembled delegates, 30 resided within the countries of the former Russian Empire, and most of the international delegates were not recognised by any socialist parties in their own nations.Template:Sfnm Accordingly, the Bolsheviks dominated proceedings,Template:Sfnm with Lenin subsequently authoring a series of regulations that meant that only socialist parties endorsing the Bolsheviks' views were permitted to join Comintern.Template:Sfnm During the first conference, Lenin spoke to the delegates, lambasting the parliamentary path to socialism espoused by revisionist Marxists like Kautsky and repeating his calls for a violent overthrow of Europe's bourgeoisie governments.Template:Sfn While Zinoviev became Comintern's president, Lenin retained significant influence over it.Template:Sfnm

The Second Congress of the Communist International opened in Petrograd's Smolny Institute in July 1920, representing the last time that Lenin visited a city other than Moscow.Template:Sfnm There, he encouraged foreign delegates to emulate the Bolsheviks' seizure of power and abandoned his longstanding viewpoint that capitalism was a necessary stage in societal development, instead, encouraging those nations under colonial occupation to transform their pre-capitalist societies directly into socialist ones.Template:Sfn For this conference, he authored "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, a short book articulating his criticism of elements within the British and German communist parties who refused to enter their nations' parliamentary systems and trade unions; instead he urged them to do so to advance the revolutionary cause.Template:Sfnm The conference had to be suspended for several days due to the ongoing war with Poland,Template:Sfn and was relocated to Moscow, where it continued to hold sessions until August.Template:Sfn Lenin's predicted world revolution did not materialise, as the Hungarian communist government was overthrown and the German Marxist uprisings suppressed.Template:Sfnm

Famine and the New Economic Policy: 1920–1922

Within the Communist Party, there was dissent from two factions, the Group of Democratic Centralism and the Workers' Opposition, both of which accused the Russian state of being too centralised and bureaucratic.Template:Sfnm The Workers' Opposition, which had connections to the official state trade unions, also expressed the concern that the government had lost the trust of the Russian working class.Template:Sfnm They were angered by Trotsky's suggestion that the trade unions be eliminated. He deemed the unions to be superfluous in a "workers' state", but Lenin disagreed, believing it best to retain them; most Bolsheviks embraced Lenin's view in the 'trade union discussion'.Template:Sfnm To deal with the dissent, at the Tenth Party Congress in February 1921, Lenin introduced a ban on factional activity within the party, under pain of expulsion.Template:Sfn

Caused in part by a drought, the Russian famine of 1921–22 was the most severe that the country had experienced since that of 1891–92,Template:Sfnm resulting in around five million deaths.Template:Sfn The famine was exacerbated by government requisitioning, as well as the export of large quantities of Russian grain.Template:Sfn To aid the famine victims, the US government established an American Relief Administration to distribute food;Template:Sfnm Lenin was suspicious of this aid and had it closely monitored.Template:Sfn During the famine, Patriarch Tikhon called on Orthodox churches to sell unnecessary items to help feed the starving, an action endorsed by the government.Template:Sfn In February 1922 Sovnarkom went further by calling on all valuables belonging to religious institutions to be forcibly appropriated and sold.Template:Sfnm Tikhon opposed the sale of items used within the Eucharist and many clergy resisted the appropriations, resulting in violence.Template:Sfnm

In 1920 and 1921, local opposition to requisitioning resulted in anti-Bolshevik peasant uprisings breaking out across Russia, which were suppressed.Template:Sfnm Among the most significant was the Tambov Rebellion, which was put down by the Red Army.Template:Sfnm In February 1921, workers went on strike in Petrograd, resulting in the government proclaiming martial law in the city and sending in the Red Army to quell demonstrations.Template:Sfnm In March, the Kronstadt rebellion began when sailors in Kronstadt revolted against the Bolshevik government, demanding that all socialists be allowed to publish freely, that independent trade unions be given freedom of assembly and that peasants be allowed free markets and not be subject to requisitioning. Lenin declared that the mutineers had been misled by the Socialist-Revolutionaries and foreign imperialists, calling for violent reprisals.Template:Sfnm Under Trotsky's leadership, the Red Army put down the rebellion on 17 March, resulting in thousands of deaths and the internment of survivors in labour camps.Template:Sfnm

You must attempt first to build small bridges which shall lead to a land of small peasant holdings through State Capitalism to Socialism. Otherwise you will never lead tens of millions of people to Communism. This is what the objective forces of the development of the Revolution have taught.

—Lenin on the NEP, 1921Template:Sfn

In February 1921, Lenin introduced a New Economic Policy (NEP) to the Politburo; he convinced most senior Bolsheviks of its necessity and it passed into law in April.Template:Sfnm Lenin explained the policy in a booklet, On the Food Tax, in which he stated that the NEP represented a return to the original Bolshevik economic plans; he claimed that these had been derailed by the civil war, in which Sovnarkom had been forced to resort to the economic policies of war communism.Template:Sfnm The NEP allowed some private enterprise within Russia, permitting the reintroduction of the wage system and allowing peasants to sell produce on the open market while being taxed on their earnings.Template:Sfnm The policy also allowed for a return to privately owned small industry; basic industry, transport and foreign trade remained under state control.Template:Sfnm Lenin termed this "state capitalism",Template:Sfnm and many Bolsheviks thought it to be a betrayal of socialist principles.Template:Sfnm Lenin biographers have often characterised the introduction of the NEP as one of his most significant achievements and some believe that had it not been implemented then Sovnarkom would have been quickly overthrown by popular uprisings.Template:Sfn

In January 1920, the government brought in universal labour conscription, ensuring that all citizens aged between 16 and 50 had to work.Template:Sfnm Lenin also called for a mass electrification project, the GOELRO plan, which began in February 1920; Lenin's declaration that "communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" was widely cited in later years.Template:Sfnm Seeking to advance the Russian economy through foreign trade, Sovnarkom sent delegates to the Genoa Conference; Lenin had hoped to attend but was prevented by ill health.Template:Sfn The conference resulted in a Russian agreement with Germany, which followed on from an earlier trade agreement with the United Kingdom.Template:Sfnm Lenin hoped that by allowing foreign corporations to invest in Russia, Sovnarkom would exacerbate rivalries between the capitalist nations and hasten their downfall; he tried to rent the oil fields of Kamchatka to an American corporation to heighten tensions between the US and Japan, who desired Kamchatka for their empire.Template:Sfn

Declining health and conflict with Stalin: 1920–1923

File:Ленин в Горках (1923).jpg
Lenin in 1923, in a wheelchair

To Lenin's embarrassment and horror, in April 1920 the Bolsheviks held a party to celebrate his fiftieth birthday, which was also marked by widespread celebrations across Russia and the publication of poems and biographies dedicated to him.Template:Sfnm Between 1920 and 1926, twenty volumes of Lenin's Collected Works were published; some material was omitted.Template:Sfn During 1920, several prominent Western figures visited Lenin in Russia; these included the author H. G. Wells and the philosopher Bertrand Russell,Template:Sfnm as well as the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.Template:Sfn Lenin was also visited at the Kremlin by Armand, who was in increasingly poor health.Template:Sfnm He sent her to a sanatorium in Kislovodsk in the Northern Caucasus to recover, but she died there in September 1920 during a cholera epidemic.Template:Sfnm Her body was transported to Moscow, where a visibly grief-stricken Lenin oversaw her burial beneath the Kremlin Wall.Template:Sfnm

Lenin was seriously ill by the latter half of 1921,Template:Sfnm suffering from hyperacusis, insomnia, and regular headaches.Template:Sfnm At the Politburo's insistence, in July he left Moscow for a month's leave at his Gorki mansion, where he was cared for by his wife and sister.Template:Sfnm Lenin began to contemplate the possibility of suicide, asking both Krupskaya and Stalin to acquire potassium cyanide for him.Template:Sfnm Twenty-six physicians were hired to help Lenin during his final years; many of them were foreign and had been hired at great expense.Template:Sfnm Some suggested that his sickness could have been caused by metal oxidation from the bullets that were lodged in his body from the 1918 assassination attempt; in April 1922 he underwent a surgical operation to remove them.Template:Sfnm The symptoms continued after this, with Lenin's doctors unsure of the cause; some suggested that he was suffering from neurasthenia or cerebral arteriosclerosis; others believed that he had syphilis,Template:Sfn an idea endorsed in a 2004 report by a team of neuroscientists, who suggested that this was later deliberately concealed by the government.Template:Sfn In May 1922, he suffered his first stroke, temporarily losing his ability to speak and being paralysed on his right side.Template:Sfnm He convalesced at Gorki, and had largely recovered by July.Template:Sfnm In October he returned to Moscow; in December he suffered a second stroke and returned to Gorki.Template:Sfnm

File:LeninDistrictMO Gorki estate 05-2017 img2.jpg
Lenin spent his final years largely at the Gorki mansion.

Despite his illness, Lenin remained keenly interested in political developments. When the Socialist Revolutionary Party's leadership was found guilty of conspiring against the government in a trial held between June and August 1922, Lenin called for their execution; they were instead imprisoned indefinitely, only being executed during the Great Purges of Stalin's leadership.Template:Sfnm With Lenin's support, the government also succeeded in virtually eradicating Menshevism in Russia by expelling all Mensheviks from state institutions and enterprises in March 1923 and then imprisoning the party's membership in concentration camps.Template:Sfnm Lenin was concerned by the survival of the Tsarist bureaucratic system in Soviet Russia,Template:Sfnm particularly during his final years.Template:Sfnm Condemning bureaucratic attitudes, he suggested a total overhaul to deal with such problems,Template:Sfn in one letter complaining that "we are being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp."Template:Sfn

During December 1922 and January 1923, Lenin dictated "Lenin's Testament", in which he discussed the personal qualities of his comrades, particularly Trotsky and Stalin.Template:Sfnm He recommended that Stalin be removed from the position of General Secretary of the Communist Party, deeming him ill-suited for the position.Template:Sfnm Instead he recommended Trotsky for the job, describing him as "the most capable man in the present Central Committee"; he highlighted Trotsky's superior intellect but at the same time criticised his self-assurance and inclination toward excess administration.Template:Sfnm During this period he dictated a criticism of the bureaucratic nature of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, calling for the recruitment of new, working-class staff as an antidote to this problem,Template:Sfnm while in another article he called for the state to combat illiteracy, promote punctuality and conscientiousness within the populace, and encourage peasants to join co‑operatives.Template:Sfnm

Stalin is too crude, and this defect which is entirely acceptable in our milieu and in relationships among us as communists, becomes unacceptable in the position of General Secretary. I therefore propose to comrades that they should devise a means of removing him from this job and should appoint to this job someone else who is distinguished from comrade Stalin in all other respects only by the single superior aspect that he should be more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc.

—Lenin, 4 January 1923Template:Sfn

In Lenin's absence, Stalin had begun consolidating his power both by appointing his supporters to prominent positions,Template:Sfnm and by cultivating an image of himself as Lenin's closest intimate and deserving successor.Template:Sfn In December 1922, Stalin took responsibility for Lenin's regimen, being tasked by the Politburo with controlling who had access to him.Template:Sfnm Lenin was increasingly critical of Stalin; while Lenin was insisting that the state should retain its monopoly on international trade during mid-1922, Stalin was leading other Bolsheviks in unsuccessfully opposing this.Template:Sfnm There were personal arguments between the two as well; Stalin had upset Krupskaya by shouting at her during a phone conversation, which in turn greatly angered Lenin, who sent Stalin a letter expressing his annoyance.Template:Sfnm

The most significant political division between the two emerged during the Georgian Affair. Stalin had suggested that both Georgia and neighbouring countries like Azerbaijan and Armenia should be merged into the Russian state, despite the protestations of their national governments.Template:Sfnm Lenin saw this as an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Stalin and his supporters, instead calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union, which he suggested be called the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia.Template:Sfnm After some resistance to the proposal, Stalin eventually accepted it but, with Lenin's agreement, he changed the name of the newly proposed state to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).Template:Sfn Lenin sent Trotsky to speak on his behalf at a Central Committee plenum in December, where the plans for the USSR were sanctioned; these plans were then ratified on 30 December by the Congress of Soviets, resulting in the formation of the Soviet Union.Template:Sfnm Despite his poor health, Lenin was elected chairman of the new government of the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn

Death and funeral: 1923–1924

For a more detailed treatment, see Death and state funeral of Vladimir Lenin.

In March 1923, Lenin suffered a third stroke and lost his ability to speak;Template:Sfnm that month, he experienced partial paralysis on his right side and began exhibiting sensory aphasia.Template:Sfnm By May, he appeared to be making a slow recovery, regaining some of his mobility, speech, and writing skills.Template:Sfnm In October, he made a final visit to the Kremlin.Template:Sfnm In his final weeks, Lenin was visited by Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin; the latter visited him at his Gorki mansion on the day of his death.Template:Sfnm On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day.Template:Sfnm His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels.Template:Sfnm

The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day.Template:Sfn On 23 January, mourners from the Communist Party, trade unions, and Soviets visited his Gorki home to inspect the body, which was carried aloft in a red coffin by leading Bolsheviks.Template:Sfn Transported by train to Moscow, the coffin was taken to the House of Trade Unions, where the body lay in state.Template:Sfnm Over the next three days, around a million mourners came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions.Template:Sfn On 26 January, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects, with speeches by Kalinin, Zinoviev, and Stalin.Template:Sfn Notably, Trotsky was absent; he had been convalescing in the Caucasus, and he later claimed that Stalin sent him a telegram with the incorrect date of the planned funeral, making it impossible for him to arrive in time.Template:Sfn Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was placed into the vault of a specially erected mausoleum.Template:Sfnm Despite the freezing temperatures, tens of thousands attended.Template:Sfn

Against Krupskaya's protestations, Lenin's body was embalmed to preserve it for long-term public display in the Red Square mausoleum.Template:Sfnm During this process, Lenin's brain was removed; in 1925 an institute was established to dissect it, revealing that Lenin had suffered from severe sclerosis.Template:Sfnm In July 1929, the Politburo agreed to replace the temporary mausoleum with a permanent one in granite, which was finished in 1933.Template:Sfn His sarcophagus was replaced in 1940 and again in 1970.Template:Sfn For safety amid the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945 the body was temporarily moved to Tyumen.Template:Sfn As of 2021, the body remains on public display in Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square.Template:Sfn

Political ideology

Marxism and Leninism

For more detailed treatments, see Leninism and Marxism–Leninism.

We do not pretend that Marx or Marxists know the road to socialism in all its concreteness. That is nonsense. We know the direction of the road, we know what class forces will lead it, but concretely, practically, this will be shown by the experience of the millions when they undertake the act.

—Lenin, 11 September 1917Template:Sfn

Lenin was a devout Marxist,Template:Sfn and believed that his interpretation of Marxism, first termed "Leninism" by Martov in 1904,Template:Sfn was the sole authentic and orthodox one.Template:Sfnm According to his Marxist perspective, humanity would eventually reach pure communism, becoming a stateless, classless, egalitarian society of workers who were free from exploitation and alienation, controlled their own destiny, and abided by the rule "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."Template:Sfn According to Volkogonov, Lenin "deeply and sincerely" believed that the path he was setting Russia on would ultimately lead to the establishment of this communist society.Template:Sfn

Lenin's Marxist beliefs led him to the view that society could not transform directly from its present state to communism, but must first enter a period of socialism, and so his main concern was how to convert Russia into a socialist society. To do so, he believed that a "dictatorship of the proletariat" was necessary to suppress the bourgeoisie and develop a socialist economy.Template:Sfn He defined socialism as "an order of civilized co-operators in which the means of production are socially owned",Template:Sfn and believed that this economic system had to be expanded until it could create a society of abundance.Template:Sfn To achieve this, he saw bringing the Russian economy under state control to be his central concern, with "all citizens" becoming "hired employees of the state" in his words.Template:Sfn Lenin's interpretation of socialism was centralised, planned, and statist, with both production and distribution strictly controlled.Template:Sfn He believed that all workers throughout the country would voluntarily join together to enable the state's economic and political centralisation.Template:Sfn In this way, his calls for "workers' control" of the means of production referred not to the direct control of enterprises by their workers, but the operation of all enterprises under the control of a "workers' state."Template:Sfn This resulted in what some perceive as two conflicting themes within Lenin's thought: popular workers' control, and a centralised, hierarchical, coercive state apparatus.Template:Sfn

File:Lenin 1919-03-18.jpg
Lenin speaking in 1919

Before 1914, Lenin's views were largely in accordance with mainstream European Marxist orthodoxy.Template:Sfn Although he derided Marxists who adopted ideas from contemporary non-Marxist philosophers and sociologists,Template:Sfn his own ideas were influenced not only by Russian Marxist theory but also by wider ideas from the Russian revolutionary movement,Template:Sfnm including those of the Narodnik agrarian-socialists.Template:Sfn He adapted his ideas according to changing circumstances,Template:Sfn including the pragmatic realities of governing Russia amid war, famine, and economic collapse.Template:Sfnm As Leninism developed, Lenin revised the established Marxist orthodoxy and introduced innovations in Marxist thought.Template:Sfn

In his theoretical writings, particularly Imperialism, Lenin discussed what he regarded as developments in capitalism since Marx's death; in his view, it had reached the new stage of state monopoly capitalism.Template:Sfn He believed that although Russia's economy was dominated by the peasantry, the presence of monopoly capitalism in Russia meant that the country was sufficiently materially developed to move to socialism.Template:Sfn Leninism adopted a more absolutist and doctrinaire perspective than other variants of Marxism,Template:Sfn and distinguished itself by the emotional intensity of its liberationist vision.Template:Sfn It also stood out by emphasising the role of a vanguard who could lead the proletariat to revolution,Template:Sfn and elevated the role of violence as a revolutionary instrument.Template:Sfn

Democracy and the national question

[Lenin] accepted truth as handed down by Marx and selected data and arguments to bolster that truth. He did not question old Marxist scripture, he merely commented, and the comments have become a new scripture.

—Biographer Louis Fischer, 1964Template:Sfn

Lenin believed that the representative democracy of capitalist countries gave the illusion of democracy while maintaining the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie"; describing the representative democratic system of the United States, he referred to the "spectacular and meaningless duels between two bourgeois parties", both of whom were led by "astute multimillionaires" that exploited the American proletariat.Template:Sfn He opposed liberalism, exhibiting a general antipathy toward liberty as a value,Template:Sfn and believing that liberalism's freedoms were fraudulent because it did not free labourers from capitalist exploitation.Template:Sfn

Lenin declared that "Soviet government is many millions of times more democratic than the most democratic-bourgeois republic", the latter of which was simply "a democracy for the rich."Template:Sfnm He regarded his "dictatorship of the proletariat" as democratic because, he claimed, it involved the election of representatives to the soviets, workers electing their own officials, and the regular rotation and involvement of all workers in the administration of the state.Template:Sfn Lenin's belief as to what a proletariat state should look like nevertheless deviated from that adopted by the Marxist mainstream; European Marxists like Kautsky envisioned a democratically elected parliamentary government in which the proletariat had a majority, whereas Lenin called for a strong, centralised state apparatus that excluded any input from the bourgeois.Template:Sfn

Lenin was an internationalist and a keen supporter of world revolution, deeming national borders to be an outdated concept and nationalism a distraction from class struggle.Template:Sfnm He believed that in a socialist society, the world's nations would inevitably merge and result in a single world government.Template:Sfn He believed that this socialist state would need to be a centralised, unitary one, and regarded federalism as a bourgeois concept.Template:Sfnm In his writings, Lenin espoused anti-imperialist ideas and stated that all nations deserved "the right of self-determination."Template:Sfn He supported wars of national liberation, accepting that such conflicts might be necessary for a minority group to break away from a socialist state, because socialist states are not "holy or insured against mistakes or weaknesses."Template:Sfn

Prior to taking power in 1917, he was concerned that ethnic and national minorities would make the Soviet state ungovernable with their calls for independence; according to the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, Lenin thus encouraged Stalin to develop "a theory that offered the ideal of autonomy and the right of secession without necessarily having to grant either."Template:Sfn On taking power, Lenin called for the dismantling of the bonds that had forced minority ethnic groups to remain in the Russian Empire and espoused their right to secede but also expected them to reunite immediately in the spirit of proletariat internationalism.Template:Sfnm He was willing to use military force to ensure this unity, resulting in armed incursions into the independent states that formed in Ukraine, Georgia, Poland, Finland, and the Baltic states.Template:Sfn Only when its conflicts with Finland, the Baltic states, and Poland proved unsuccessful did Lenin's government officially recognise their independence.Template:Sfn

Personal life and characteristics

Lenin saw himself as a man of destiny and firmly believed in the righteousness of his cause and his own ability as a revolutionary leader.Template:Sfnm Biographer Louis Fischer described him as "a lover of radical change and maximum upheaval", a man for whom "there was never a middle-ground. He was an either-or, black-or-red exaggerator."Template:Sfn Highlighting Lenin's "extraordinary capacity for disciplined work" and "devotion to the revolutionary cause", Pipes noted that he exhibited much charisma.Template:Sfn Similarly, Volkogonov believed that "by the very force of his personality, [Lenin] had an influence over people."Template:Sfn Conversely, Lenin's friend Gorky commented that in his physical appearance as a "baldheaded, stocky, sturdy person", the communist revolutionary was "too ordinary" and did not give "the impression of being a leader."Template:Sfn

[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.

—Biographer Louis Fischer, 1964Template:Sfn

Historian and biographer Robert Service asserted that Lenin had been an intensely emotional young man,Template:Sfn who exhibited strong hatred for the Tsarist authorities.Template:Sfnm According to Service, Lenin developed an "emotional attachment" to his ideological heroes, such as Marx, Engels and Chernyshevsky; he owned portraits of them,Template:Sfn and privately described himself as being "in love" with Marx and Engels.Template:Sfnm According to Lenin biographer James D. White, Lenin treated their writings as "holy writ", a "religious dogma", which should "not be questioned but believed in."Template:Sfn In Volkogonov's view, Lenin accepted Marxism as "absolute truth", and accordingly acted like "a religious fanatic."Template:Sfn Similarly, Bertrand Russell felt that Lenin exhibited "unwavering faith—religious faith in the Marxian gospel."Template:Sfn Biographer Christopher Read suggested that Lenin was "a secular equivalent of theocratic leaders who derive their legitimacy from the [perceived] truth of their doctrines, not popular mandates."Template:Sfn Lenin was nevertheless an atheist and a critic of religion, believing that socialism was inherently atheistic; he thus considered Christian socialism a contradiction in terms.Template:Sfnm

Service stated that Lenin could be "moody and volatile",Template:Sfn and Pipes deemed him to be "a thoroughgoing misanthrope",Template:Sfnm a view rejected by Read, who highlighted many instances in which Lenin displayed kindness, particularly toward children.Template:Sfn According to several biographers, Lenin was intolerant of opposition and often dismissed outright opinions that differed from his own.Template:Sfnm He could be "venomous in his critique of others", exhibiting a propensity for mockery, ridicule, and ad hominem attacks on those who disagreed with him.Template:Sfn He ignored facts that did not suit his argument,Template:Sfn abhorred compromise,Template:Sfn and very rarely admitted his own errors.Template:Sfnm He refused to change his opinions, until he rejected them completely, after which he would treat the new view as if it was just as unchangeable.Template:Sfn Lenin showed no sign of sadism or of personally desiring to commit violent acts, but he endorsed the violent actions of others and exhibited no remorse for those killed for the revolutionary cause.Template:Sfnm Adopting an amoral stance, in Lenin's view the end always justified the means;Template:Sfnm according to Service, Lenin's "criterion of morality was simple: does a certain action advance or hinder the cause of the Revolution?"Template:Sfn

The Lenin who seemed externally so gentle and good-natured, who enjoyed a laugh, who loved animals and was prone to sentimental reminiscences, was transformed when class or political questions arose. He at once became savagely sharp, uncompromising, remorseless and vengeful. Even in such a state he was capable of black humour.

—Biographer Dmitri Volkogonov, 1994Template:Sfn

Aside from Russian, Lenin spoke and read French, German, and English.Template:Sfn Concerned with physical fitness, he exercised regularly,Template:Sfnm enjoyed cycling, swimming, and hunting,Template:Sfnm and also developed a passion for mountain walking in the Swiss peaks.Template:Sfn He was also fond of pets,Template:Sfn in particular cats.Template:Sfn Tending to eschew luxury, he lived a spartan lifestyle,Template:Sfn and Pipes noted that Lenin was "exceedingly modest in his personal wants", leading "an austere, almost ascetic, style of life."Template:Sfn Lenin despised untidiness, always keeping his work desk tidy and his pencils sharpened, and insisted on total silence while he was working.Template:Sfn According to Fischer, Lenin's "vanity was minimal",Template:Sfn and for this reason he disliked the cult of personality that the Soviet administration began to build around him; he nevertheless accepted that it might have some benefits in unifying the communist movement.Template:Sfnm

Despite his revolutionary politics, Lenin disliked revolutionary experimentation in literature and the arts, expressing his dislike of expressionism, futurism, and cubism, and conversely favouring realism and Russian classic literature.Template:Sfnm Lenin also had a conservative attitude towards sex and marriage.Template:Sfnm Throughout his adult life, he was in a relationship with Krupskaya, a fellow Marxist whom he married. Lenin and Krupskaya both regretted that they never had children,Template:Sfn and they enjoyed entertaining their friends' offspring.Template:Sfnm Read noted that Lenin had "very close, warm, lifelong relationships" with his close family members;Template:Sfn he had no lifelong friends, and Armand has been cited as being his only close, intimate confidante.Template:Sfnm

Ethnically, Lenin identified as Russian.Template:Sfn Service described Lenin as "a bit of a snob in national, social and cultural terms."Template:Sfn The Bolshevik leader believed that other European countries, especially Germany, were culturally superior to Russia,Template:Sfn describing the latter as "one of the most benighted, medieval and shamefully backward of Asian countries."Template:Sfn He was annoyed at what he perceived as a lack of conscientiousness and discipline among the Russian people, and from his youth had wanted Russia to become more culturally European and Western.Template:Sfnm

Legacy

See also: List of places named after Vladimir Lenin, List of statues of Vladimir Lenin, and Leniniana

Volkogonov claimed that "there can scarcely have been another man in history who managed so profoundly to change so large a society on such a scale."Template:Sfn Lenin's administration laid the framework for the system of government that ruled Russia for seven decades and provided the model for later Communist-led states that came to cover a third of the inhabited world in the mid-20th century.Template:Sfn As a result, Lenin's influence was global.Template:Sfn A controversial figure, Lenin remains both reviled and revered,Template:Sfn a figure who has been both idolised and demonised.Template:Sfn Even during his lifetime, Lenin "was loved and hated, admired and scorned" by the Russian people.Template:Sfn This has extended into academic studies of Lenin and Leninism, which have often been polarised along political lines.Template:Sfn

File:Lenin-statue-in-Berlin.jpg
Statue of Lenin erected by the East German Marxist–Leninist government at Leninplatz in East Berlin, East Germany (removed in 1992)

The historian Albert Resis suggested that if the October Revolution is considered the most significant event of the 20th century, then Lenin "must for good or ill be considered the century's most significant political leader."Template:Sfn White described Lenin as "one of the undeniably outstanding figures of modern history",Template:Sfn while Service noted that the Russian leader was widely understood to be one of the 20th century's "principal actors."Template:Sfn Read considered him "one of the most widespread, universally recognizable icons of the twentieth century",Template:Sfn while Ryan called him "one of the most significant and influential figures of modern history."Template:Sfn Time magazine named Lenin one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century,Template:Sfn and one of their top 25 political icons of all time.Template:Sfn

In the Western world, biographers began writing about Lenin soon after his death; some such as Christopher Hill were sympathetic to him, and others such as Richard Pipes and Robert Gellately expressly hostile. Some later biographers such as Read and Lars Lih sought to avoid making either hostile or positive comments about him, thereby evading politicised stereotypes.Template:Sfnm Among sympathisers, he was portrayed as having made a genuine adjustment of Marxist theory that enabled it to suit Russia's particular socio-economic conditions.Template:Sfn The Soviet view characterised him as a man who recognised the historically inevitable and accordingly helped to make the inevitable happen.Template:Sfn Conversely, the majority of Western historians have perceived him as a person who manipulated events in order to attain and then retain political power, moreover considering his ideas as attempts to ideologically justify his pragmatic policies.Template:Sfn More recently, revisionists in both Russia and the West have highlighted the impact that pre-existing ideas and popular pressures exerted on Lenin and his policies.Template:Sfn

Various historians and biographers have characterised Lenin's administration as totalitarian,Template:Sfnm and as a police state,Template:Sfn and many have described it as a one-party dictatorship.Template:Sfnm Several such scholars have described Lenin as a dictator;Template:Sfnm Ryan stated that he was "not a dictator in the sense that all his recommendations were accepted and implemented", for many of his colleagues disagreed with him on various issues.Template:Sfn Fischer noted that while "Lenin was a dictator, [he was] not the kind of dictator Stalin later became."Template:Sfn Volkogonov believed that whereas Lenin established a "dictatorship of the Party", it would only be under Stalin that the Soviet Union became the "dictatorship of one man."Template:Sfn

Conversely, various Marxist observers, including Western historians Hill and John Rees, argued against the view that Lenin's government was a dictatorship, viewing it instead as an imperfect way of preserving elements of democracy without some of the processes found in liberal democratic states.Template:Sfn Ryan contends that the leftist historian Paul Le Blanc "makes a quite valid point that the personal qualities that led Lenin to brutal policies were not necessarily any stronger than in some of the major Western leaders of the twentieth century."Template:Sfn Ryan also posits that for Lenin revolutionary violence was merely a means to an end, namely the establishment of a socialist, ultimately communist world—a world without violence.Template:Sfn Historian J. Arch Getty remarked, "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."Template:Sfn Some left-wing intellectuals, among them Slavoj Žižek, Alain Badiou, Lars T. Lih, and Fredric Jameson, advocate reviving Lenin's uncompromising revolutionary spirit to address contemporary global problems.Template:Sfnm

Within the Soviet Union

File:Russia-2007-Moscow-Kremlin Senate at night.jpg
Lenin's Mausoleum in front of the Kremlin, 2007

In the Soviet Union, a cult of personality devoted to Lenin began to develop during his lifetime, but was only fully established after his death.Template:Sfnm According to historian Nina Tumarkin, it represented the world's "most elaborate cult of a revolutionary leader" since that of George Washington in the United States,Template:Sfn and has been repeatedly described as "quasi-religious" in nature.Template:Sfnm Busts or statues of Lenin were erected in almost every village,Template:Sfn and his face adorned postage stamps, crockery, posters, and the front pages of Soviet newspapers Pravda and Izvestia.Template:Sfn The places where he had lived or stayed were converted into museums devoted to him.Template:Sfn Libraries, streets, farms, museums, towns, and whole regions were named after him,Template:Sfn with the city of Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" in 1924,Template:Sfnm and his birthplace of Simbirsk becoming Ulyanovsk.Template:Sfn The Order of Lenin was established as one of the country's highest decorations.Template:Sfn All of this was contrary to Lenin's own desires, and was publicly criticised by his widow.Template:Sfn

Various biographers have stated that Lenin's writings were treated in a manner akin to holy scripture within the Soviet Union,Template:Sfnm while Pipes added that "his every opinion was cited to justify one policy or another and treated as gospel."Template:Sfn Stalin systematised Leninism through a series of lectures at the Sverdlov University, which were then published as Questions of Leninism.Template:Sfnm Stalin also had much of the deceased leader's writings collated and stored in a secret archive in the Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute.Template:Sfn Material, such as Lenin's collection of books in Kraków, were also collected from abroad for storage in the institute, often at great expense.Template:Sfn During the Soviet era, these writings were strictly controlled and very few had access.Template:Sfn All of Lenin's writings that proved useful to Stalin were published, but the others remained hidden,Template:Sfn and knowledge of both Lenin's non-Russian ancestry and his noble status was suppressed.Template:Sfn In particular, his Jewish ancestry was suppressed until the 1980s,Template:Sfnm perhaps out of Soviet antisemitism,Template:Sfn and so as not to undermine Stalin's Russification efforts,Template:Sfn and perhaps so as not to provide fuel for anti-Soviet sentiment among international antisemites.Template:Sfn After the discovery of Lenin's Jewish ancestry, this aspect was repeatedly emphasised by the Russian far-right, who claimed that his inherited Jewish genetics explained his desire to uproot traditional Russian society.Template:Sfn Under Stalin's regime, Lenin was actively portrayed as a close friend of Stalin's who had supported Stalin's bid to be the next Soviet leader.Template:Sfn During the Soviet era, five separate editions of Lenin's published works were published in Russian, the first beginning in 1920 and the last from 1958 to 1965; the fifth edition was described as "complete", but in reality had much omitted for political expediency.Template:Sfnm

File:URSS 1 rublo centenario nascita Lenin.JPG
Commemorative one rouble coin minted in 1970 in honour of Lenin's centenary

After Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev became leader of the Soviet Union and began a process of de-Stalinisation, citing Lenin's writings, including those on Stalin, to legitimise this process.Template:Sfnm When Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985 and introduced the policies of glastnost and perestroika, he too cited these actions as a return to Lenin's principles.Template:Sfn In late 1991, amid the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered the Lenin archive be removed from Communist Party control and placed under the control of a state organ, the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Recent History, at which it was revealed that over 6,000 of Lenin's writings had gone unpublished. These were declassified and made available for scholarly study.Template:Sfn Yeltsin did not dismantle the Lenin mausoleum, recognising that Lenin was too popular and well respected among the Russian populace for this to be viable.Template:Sfn

In Russia in 2012, a proposal from a deputy belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, with the support of some members of the governing United Russia party, proposed the removal of all Lenin monuments. The proposal was strongly opposed by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.Template:Sfn In 2012, the last statue of Lenin still standing in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, was removed, with city mayor Bat-Uul Erdene calling him a "murderer."Template:Sfn In Ukraine, during and after the 2013–14 Euromaidan protests, thousands of Lenin statues were damaged or destroyed by protesters who viewed them as a symbol of Russian imperialism,Template:Sfn and in April 2015 the Ukrainian government ordered that all others be dismantled to comply with decommunisation laws.Template:Sfn

In the international communist movement

According to Lenin biographer David Shub, writing in 1965, it was Lenin's ideas and example that "constitutes the basis of the Communist movement today."Template:Sfn Socialist states following Lenin's ideas appeared in various parts of the world during the 20th century.Template:Sfn Writing in 1972, the historian Marcel Liebman stated that "there is hardly any insurrectionary movement today, from Latin America to Angola, that does not lay claim to the heritage of Leninism."Template:Sfn

After Lenin's death, Stalin's administration established an ideology known as Marxism–Leninism, a movement that came to be interpreted differently by various contending factions in the communist movement.Template:Sfnm After being forced into exile by Stalin's administration, Trotsky argued that Stalinism was a debasement of Leninism, which was dominated by bureaucratism and Stalin's own personal dictatorship.Template:Sfn Marxism–Leninism was adapted to many of the 20th century's most prominent revolutionary movements, forming into variants such as Stalinism, Maoism, Juche, Ho Chi Minh Thought, and Castroism.Template:Sfn Conversely, many later Western communists, such as Manuel Azcárate and Jean Ellenstein, who were involved in the Eurocommunist movement, expressed the view that Lenin and his ideas were irrelevant to their own objectives, thereby embracing a Marxist but not Marxist–Leninist perspective.Template:Sfn

See also

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Notes

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References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Template:Refbegin

Aves, Jonathan (1996). Workers Against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-86064-067-4. 

(2000) The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life. Portland, Oregon: Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-7146-5050-0. 

(2007) Lenin Reloaded: Toward a Politics of Truth. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3941-0. 

  • David, H. P. (1974). "Abortion and Family Planning in the Soviet Union: Public Policies and Private Behaviour". Journal of Biosocial Science 6: 417–426. 

Davies, Norman (2003). White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War 1919–20 and 'the Miracle on the Vistula'. London: Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-0694-3. 

Fischer, Louis (1964). The Life of Lenin. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. 

Lee, Stephen J. (2003). Lenin and Revolutionary Russia. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-28718-0. 

Leggett, George (1981). The Cheka: Lenin's Political Police. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822552-2. 

Goldstein, Erik (2013). The First World War Peace Settlements, 1919–1925. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-31-7883-678. 

Hall, Richard C. (2015). Consumed by War: European Conflict in the 20th Century. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-81-3159-959. 

Liebman, Marcel (1975). Leninism Under Lenin. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 978-0-224-01072-6. 

Merridale, Catherine (2017). Lenin on the Train. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-241-01132-4. 

Montefiore, Simon Sebag (2007). Young Stalin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-297-85068-7. 

Lewin, Moshe (1969). Lenin's Last Struggle. London: Faber and Faber. 

Lih, Lars T. (2011). Lenin, Critical Lives. London: Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-86189-793-0. 

  • Page, Stanley W. (1948). "Lenin, the National Question and the Baltic States, 1917–19". The American Slavic and East European Review 7 (1): 15–31. doi:10.2307/2492116. 
  • Page, Stanley W. (1950). "Lenin and Self-Determination". The Slavonic and East European Review 28 (71): 342–358. 

Petrovsky-Shtern, Yohanan (2010). Lenin's Jewish Question. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15210-4. 

Pipes, Richard (1990). The Russian Revolution: 1899–1919. London: Collins Harvill. ISBN 978-0-679-73660-8. 

Pipes, Richard (1996). The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06919-8. 

Rappaport, Helen (2010). Conspirator: Lenin in Exile. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-01395-1. 

Read, Christopher (2005). Lenin: A Revolutionary Life, Routledge Historical Biographies. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-20649-5. 

Rice, Christopher (1990). Lenin: Portrait of a Professional Revolutionary. London: Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-31814-8. 

Rigby, T. H. (1979). Lenin's Government: Sovnarkom 1917–1922. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22281-5. 

Ryan, James (2012). Lenin's Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-81568-1. 

Sandle, Mark (1999). A Short History of Soviet Socialism. London: UCL Press. DOI:10.4324/9780203500279. ISBN 978-1-85728-355-6. 

(2016) Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution. Enslow Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7660-7414-9. 

Sebestyen, Victor (2017). Lenin the Dictator: An Intimate Portrait. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1-47460-044-6. 

Service, Robert (2000). Lenin: A Biography. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-72625-9. 

Shub, David (1966). Lenin: A Biography, revised, London: Pelican. 

Theen, Rolf (2004). Lenin: Genesis and Development of a Revolutionary. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-64358-8. 

Tumarkin, Nina (1997). Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, enlarged, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-52431-6. 

Volkogonov, Dmitri (1994). Lenin: Life and Legacy. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-255123-6. 

White, James D. (2001). Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution, European History in Perspective. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-72157-5. 

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Further reading

See also: Bibliography of the Russian Revolution and Civil War

Template:Refbegin

Ali, Tariq (2017). The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution.. New York/London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-78663-110-7. 

Cliff, Tony (1986). Building the Party: Lenin, 1893–1914. Chicago: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-931859-01-1. 

Felshtinsky, Yuri (2010). Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia 1917–1924. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-95-7. 

Gellately, Robert (2007). Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-3213-6. 

Gooding, John (2001). Socialism in Russia: Lenin and His Legacy, 1890–1991. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI:10.1057/9781403913876. ISBN 978-0-333-97235-9. 

Hill, Christopher (1993). Lenin and the Russian Revolution. London: Pelican Books. 

(2017) Lenin 2017: Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through. Verso. ISBN 978-1-78663-188-6. 

(2008) Lenin Rediscovered: What is to be Done? in Context. Chicago: Haymarket Books. ISBN 978-1-931859-58-5. 

Lukács, Georg (1970). Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought. 

Nimtz, August H. (2014). Lenin's Electoral Strategy from 1907 to the October Revolution of 1917: The Ballot, the Streets—or Both. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-39377-7. 

(1938) Lenin as Philosopher. 

Payne, Robert (1967). The Life And Death of Lenin. Simon & Schuster. 

  • Ryan, James (2007). "Lenin's The State and Revolution and Soviet State Violence: A Textual Analysis". Revolutionary Russia 20 (2): 151–172. doi:10.1080/09546540701633452. 

Service, Robert (1985). Lenin: A Political Life – Volume One: The Strengths of Contradiction. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33324-7. 

Service, Robert (1991). Lenin: A Political Life – Volume Two: Worlds in Collision. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33325-4. 

Service, Robert (1995). Lenin: A Political Life – Volume Three: The Iron Ring. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35181-4. 

  • Wade, Rex A. "The Revolution at One Hundred: Issues and Trends in the English Language Historiography of the Russian Revolution of 1917." Journal of Modern Russian History and Historiography 9.1 (2016): 9–38. Template:DOI

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External links

Template:Sister project linksTemplate:Library resources box

V.I. Lenin (1975). Selected Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 

V.I. Lenin (1975). Selected Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 

V.I. Lenin (1975). Selected Works. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 

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