Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin (Russian: Владимир Ильич Улянов, Ленин) (1870-1924) was the 1st Premier of the USSR. (Lenin's grandfather, Israel Blank, was born about 1804 in Staro-Konstantynov, Ukraine, to Moshke (son of Isaac) Blank, a Jewish businessman, and his wife, Miriam. [1])
Revolution
In November 1917, Lenin, the leader of the Communist Party, led a Proletarian Revolution to overthrew the Provisional Government that had replaced the Russian Empire (His elder brother was hanged for the attempted assassination of Czar Alexander III).
Lenin was one of the most devious persons in all of history. He was a revolutionary, atheist, and mass murderer. In 1889, he became a Marxist (as previously formulated by Karl Marx). He obtained a law degree shortly afterwards, and by 1895 was a subversive who was arrested and sent to Siberia as punishment. Once he served his time he left for Western Europe, where he developed his plans further and became a leader of the Bolsheviks. He returned to Russia after the tsar abdicated in March 1917, and led the Bolsheviks to power in the "October Revolution" (November in the Gregorian calendar) by overthrowing the government. (In the night of July 16-17, 1918, a squad of Bolshevik secret police murdered Russia's last emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, along with his wife, Tsaritsa Alexandra, their 14-year-old son, Tsarevich Alexis, and their four daughters.)[2] He then ruled the Soviet Union under Marxism-Leninism, until 1922, when he retired due to ill health. Lenin's government was notable for placing a woman, Alexandra Kollontai, as Commissar of Social Welfare at a time when positions of authority routinely went to men. Kollontai resigned five years later after joining the Workers' Opposition, a minority faction.[3]. Lenin's government also denounced anti-Semitism by the old Russian government in a speech in March 1919 [4].
Lenin died in 1924.
Lenin used concentration camps and "reeducation" to impose the atheistic ideology upon the population.
| “ | A wide campaign of "education" was undertaken to show the people why "workers' rule" meant, in practice, managers' rule. Where necessary, the education by the word was supplemented with education by firing squad or concentration camp or forced labour battalion. [5] | ” |
The régime of Josef Stalin, the next Premier of the USSR, continued the oppression of the masses initiated by Lenin.
See also
References
- ↑ Lenin and the Search for Jewish Roots NYTimes.com
- ↑ Assessing the Grim Legacy of Soviet Communism
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ [2]
- ↑ James Burnham, The Managerial Revolution, Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.
