what kind of lawyer was lenin

by Beverly Jenkins 10 min read

Lenin remained in Samara for several years, working first as a legal assistant for a regional court and then for a local lawyer. He devoted much time to radical politics, remaining active in Sklyarenko's group and formulating ideas about how Marxism applied to Russia.

Was Lenin a lawyer or a Marxist?

 · Lenin - The Young Lawyer When Vladimir Ulyanov became a law student at Kazan University, his intention was to become a lawyer. He had not the slightest intention of pursuing a revolutionary career, knew no revolutionaries, and had read no books with revolutionary tendencies. To his sister and others he declared that Alexander had followed “the…

Who was Lenin and what did he do?

 · Vladimir Lenin, also called Vladimir Ilich Lenin, original name Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, (born April 10 [April 22, New Style], 1870, Simbirsk, Russia—died January 21, 1924, Gorki [later Gorki Leninskiye], near Moscow), founder of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), inspirer and leader of the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and the architect, builder, and first head …

Did Vladimir Lenin go to Law School?

 · He was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, Russia, which was later renamed Ulyanovsk in his honor. In 1901, he adopted the last name Lenin while doing underground party ...

What happened to Lenin after he was sentenced to death?

 · In 1889, Lenin declared himself a Marxist. He later finished college and received a law degree. Lenin practiced law briefly in St. Petersburg in the mid-1890s. He soon was arrested for engaging in...

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Leadership in the. Russian Revolution. of Vladimir Lenin. By 1917 it seemed to Lenin that the war would never end and that the prospect of revolution was rapidly receding. But in the week of March 8–15, the starving, freezing, war-weary workers and soldiers of Petrograd (until 1914, St. Petersburg) succeeded in deposing the Tsar.

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Did the Soviet Union have lawyers?

The Soviet Bar (Advokatura) had mostly survived (in a changed form) since the Tsarist days, and a jurist who was admitted to the bar would be allowed to represent as a lawyer (Advokat), aside from special restrictions on which advocates could defend in political trials.

What are 3 interesting facts about Vladimir Lenin?

9 Things You May Not Know About Vladimir LeninLenin's brother was hanged for plotting to kill the czar. ... Lenin was kicked out of college. ... Lenin was exiled to Siberia for three years. ... Lenin was not his real name. ... Lenin hoped Russia would lose World War I. ... Lenin quickly did away with an experiment in democracy.More items...•

What was Lenin's ideology?

Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party, as the political prelude to the establishment of communism.

Why was Lenin so successful?

The main reasons were: the effects of World War One on the people and the monarchy of Russia; the weaknesses and failures of the Provisional Government and the strengths of the Bolsheviks. All of these factors contributed to the rise of the Bolsheviks, even if some were significantly more important than others.

What did Lenin promise?

The Second Revolution: 'Peace, bread and land' Vladimir Lenin knew how unhappy the people of Russia were. He promised them lots of things that they wanted - his slogan was peace, bread and land. This promise made him very popular.

What is Leninism in simple terms?

Leninism is a way of thinking about how the communist party should be organized. It says it should be a dictatorship of the proletariat (the working class holds the power). It is thought to be one of the first steps towards socialism (where the workers own the factories, etc.).

How did Lenin change Russia?

Ruling by decree, Lenin's Sovnarkom introduced widespread reforms confiscating land for redistribution among the permitting non-Russian nations to declare themselves independent, improving labour rights, and increasing access to education.

What are Marxist Leninist principles?

Marxist-Leninist states have been marked by a high degree of centralised control by the state and communist party, political repression, state atheism, collectivisation, and use of forced labour and labour camps, as well as free universal education and healthcare, low unemployment and lower prices for certain goods.

Who was more important Lenin or Trotsky?

So in general it is fair to argue that Trotsky did the immediate organisational work, leading to the revolution, although Lenin did his part mainly beforehand through working out the ideological basis for the revolution and gaining the support of the masses through his writings from exile, which were red by many ...

Is Stalin a Bolshevik?

Joseph Stalin started his career as a student radical, becoming an influential member and eventually the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

How did Lenin win the Civil War?

In short, the Bolsheviks were able to win the Russian Civil War because the Whites failed to secure the support of the different national groups, key foreign powers, and the peasantry, while Bolsheviks enjoyed much more authority within Russia and were therefore able to assert their power over the Whites.

Where was Vladimir Lenin born?

Vladimir Lenin was born in Simbirsk, Russia.

Where was Vladimir Lenin educated?

Lenin studied law at Kazan University but was expelled after just three months. In spite of this, he achieved top ranking in law examinations and w...

When was Vladimir Lenin married?

Lenin married Nadezhda Krupskaya on July 22, 1898. Krupskaya served as Lenin’s personal secretary and played a key organizational role in the socia...

How did Vladimir Lenin change the world?

As founder of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and leader of the Bolshevik coup d'Ă©tat (1917), Vladimir Lenin created the Soviet Union....

When did Vladimir Lenin die?

Vladimir Lenin died on January 21, 1924, in Gorki, Russia.

Who was Lenin in Russia?

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [ O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin, 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 ...

What is the patronymic of Lenin?

For other uses of "Lenin", see Lenin (disambiguation). For the poem by Mayakovsky, see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (poem). In this Eastern Slavic naming convention, the patronymic is Ilyich and the family name is Ulyanov. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [ O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin, ...

Where did Lenin live?

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.

How did Lenin's father die?

In January 1886, when Lenin was 15, his father died of a brain haemorrhage. Subsequently, his behaviour became erratic and confrontational and he renounced his belief in God. At the time, Lenin's elder brother Alexander, whom he affectionately knew as Sasha, was studying at Saint Petersburg University.

Who were Lenin's supporters?

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 ).

What did Lenin believe about the European Revolution?

After the Armistice on the Western Front, Lenin believed that the breakout of the European revolution was imminent. Seeking to promote this, Sovnarkom supported the establishment of BĂ©la 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. 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. 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, while further east it led to the creation of communist governments in Outer Mongolia. 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.

Did Lenin question old scripture?

[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.

Who was Vladimir Lenin?

ico_print. Vladimir Lenin was founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution and architect and first head of the Soviet state.

Who was Lenin's wife?

His fiancée and future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, joined him. Following his release from exile and then a stint in Munich, where Lenin and others co-founded a newspaper, Iskra, to unify Russian and European Marxists, he returned to St. Petersburg and stepped up his leadership role in the revolutionary movement.

Why was Lenin's brother killed?

The more significant and more tragic situation came in 1887, when Lenin’s older brother, Aleksandr, a university student at the time, was arrested and executed for being a part of a group planning to assassinate Emperor Alexander III. With his father already dead, Lenin now became the man of the family.

Why was Lenin expelled from Kazan University?

His time there was cut short, however, when, during his first term, he was expelled for taking part in a student demonstration.

Where did Lenin move to?

He moved to the city of Samara, where his client base was largely composed of Russian peasants. Their struggles against what Lenin saw as a class-biased legal system only reinforced his Marxist beliefs. In time, Lenin focused more of his energy on revolutionary politics.

What did Lenin call for in 1917?

Lenin instead called for a Soviet government, one that would be ruled directly by soldiers, peasants and workers.

What happened to Lenin in 1923?

On March 10, 1923, Lenin’s health was dealt another severe blow when he suffered an additional stroke, this one taking away his ability to speak and concluding his political work.

Where did Lenin go to?

Lenin was exiled to Siberia for three years. Lenin published his first Marxist essay in 1894, and the following year he traveled to France, Germany and Switzerland in order to meet with like-minded revolutionaries. Upon returning to Russia, he was arrested while working on the inaugural issue of a Marxist newspaper.

Why was Lenin's brother hanged?

1. Lenin’s brother was hanged for plotting to kill the czar. Lenin’s older brother, Alexander, a university zoology student, was arrested in March 1887 for participating in a bombing plot to assassinate Czar Alexander III. Some of his co-conspirators begged for clemency and therefore had their sentences reduced.

Why was Lenin expelled from Kazan University?

He was expelled that December, however, for taking part in a student protest. Though numerous attempts at readmission failed, he later enrolled as an external student at St. Petersburg University.

What was Lenin's nickname?

Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, Lenin tried out a number of pseudonyms, including “K. Tulin” and “Petrov,” prior to settling on “Lenin” by 1902. Historians believe it may have been a reference to the Lena River in Siberia. Other Russian revolutionaries likewise used pseudonyms, in part to confuse the authorities.

What happened in 1917?

In March 1917, with inflation rampant, food supplies low and the army in tatters, Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. A sealed railroad car provided by Germany brought Lenin back to Russia the following month.

Where did Lenin practice law?

Lenin practiced law briefly in St. Petersburg in the mid-1890s. He soon was arrested for engaging in Marxist activities and exiled to Siberia. His fiancée and future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, joined him there. The two would marry on July 22, 1898.

What did Lenin advocate for?

Lenin advocated for Russian defeat in World War I , arguing that it would hasten the political revolution he desired. It was during this time that he wrote and published Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) in which he argued that war was the natural result of international capitalism.

Who was Vladimir Lenin?

Lenin’s Death and Tomb. Sources. Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was a Russian communist revolutionary and head of the Bolshevik Party who rose to prominence during the Russian Revolution of 1917, one of the most explosive political events of the twentieth century. The bloody upheaval marked the end of the oppressive Romanov dynasty and centuries ...

Where was Vladimir Lenin born?

Vladimir Lenin was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov in 1870 into a middle-class family in Ulyanovsk, Russia. The son of Ilya Ulyanov and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, he was the third of six siblings in an educated family and would go on to become first in his class in high school.

Was Lenin a Marxist?

In 1889, Lenin declared himself a Marxist. He later finished college and received a law degree. Lenin practiced law briefly in St. Petersburg in the mid-1890s. He soon was arrested for engaging in Marxist activities and exiled to Siberia. His fiancée and future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, joined him there.

Why was Lenin arrested?

He soon was arrested for engaging in Marxist activities and exiled to Siberia. His fiancée and future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, joined him there. The two would marry on July 22, 1898. Lenin later moved to Germany and then Switzerland, where he met other European Marxists.

Who was Lenin's wife?

His fiancée and future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, joined him there. The two would marry on July 22, 1898. Lenin later moved to Germany and then Switzerland, where he met other European Marxists. During this time, he adopted the pseudonym Lenin and established the Bolshevik Party.

What happened to Lenin in 1917?

By 1917 it seemed to Lenin that the war would never end and that the prospect of revolution was rapidly receding. But in the week of March 8–15, the starving, freezing, war-weary workers and soldiers of Petrograd (until 1914, St. Petersburg) succeeded in deposing the Tsar. Lenin and his closest lieutenants hastened home after the German authorities agreed to permit their passage through Germany to neutral Sweden. Berlin hoped that the return of anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort.

What was Lenin's policy in 1921?

Threatened by mass peasant rebellion, Lenin called a retreat. In March 1921 the government introduced the New Economic Policy, which ended the system of grain requisitioning and permitted the peasant to sell his harvest on an open market.

Who led the Russian Revolution?

Leadership in the Russian Revolution of Vladimir Lenin. By 1917 it seemed to Lenin that the war would never end and that the prospect of revolution was rapidly receding. But in the week of March 8–15, the starving, freezing, war-weary workers and soldiers of Petrograd (until 1914, St. Petersburg) succeeded in deposing the Tsar.

When did Lenin arrive in Petrograd?

Lenin arrived in Petrograd on April 16, 1917, one month after the Tsar had been forced to abdicate. Out of the revolution was born the Provisional Government, formed by a group of leaders of the bourgeois liberal parties. This government’s accession to power was made possible only by the assent of the Petrograd Soviet, ...

Who was the leader of Petrograd?

The Petrograd Soviet was headed by a majority composed of Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary (SR), or peasant party, leaders who regarded the March (February, O.S.) Revolution as bourgeois; hence, they believed that the new regime should be headed by leaders of the bourgeois parties.

Was the Bolsheviks a minority?

From March to September 1917, the Bolsheviks remained a minority in the soviets. By autumn, however, the Provisional Government (since July headed by the moderate Socialist Aleksandr Kerensky, who was supported by the moderate Socialist leadership of the soviets) had lost popular support.

What was Lenin's slogan?

Lenin therefore raised the slogan, “All power to the Soviets!”, even though he had willingly conceded in the spring of 1917 that revolutionary Russia was the “freest of all the belligerent countries.”. To Lenin, however, the Provisional Government was merely a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie” that kept Russia in the imperialist war.

Who was Vladimir Lenin?

The Russian statesman Vladimir Lenin was a profoundly influential figure in world history. As the founder of the Bolshevik political party, he was a successful revolutionary leader who presided over Russia's transformation from a country ruled by czars (emperors) to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), the name of the communist Russian state from 1922 to 1991.

Where did Lenin go to jail?

In 1897 Lenin was arrested, spent some months in jail, and was finally sentenced to three years of exile (forced absence from one's native country or region) in the remote area of Siberia. He was joined there by a fellow Marxist, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (1869–1939), whom he married in 1898.

Where was Vladimir Lenin born?

Early years. Vladimir Ilich Lenin was born in Simbirsk (today Ulianovsk), Russia, on April 10, 1870. His real family name was Ulianov, and his father, Ilia Nikolaevich Ulianov, was a high official in the area's educational system. Because Lenin's father had risen into the ranks of the Russian nobility, Lenin grew up in fairly privileged ...

Who was Lenin's brother?

Russia at this time was ruled by emperors known as czars who inherited their positions, and Lenin's shift to radical views was probably fueled by the execution by hanging of his older brother Alexander in 1887 after Alexander and others had plotted to kill the czar.

What was Lenin's idea?

Lenin's ideas. A Marxist movement had developed in Russia during the last decade of the nineteenth century. It was a response to the rapid growth of industry, cities, and the proletariat (a group of lower-class workers, especially in industry).

Did Lenin speak Russian?

The rest of his appearance was deceptively ordinary. Fluent in many languages, Lenin spoke Russian with a slight speech defect but was a powerful public speaker in small groups as well as before large audiences. A tireless worker, he made others work tirelessly.

What was Lenin's main task?

The major task he faced was establishing this authority for himself and his party in the country. Most of his policies can be understood in this light, even though he angered some elements in the population while satisfying others. Examples of such policies include the government's seizing of land from its owners and redistributing it to the peasants, forming a peace treaty with Germany, and the nationalization (putting under central governmental control) of banks and industry.

Was Lenin a jurist?

Lenin, although a jurist by education, never devoted special attention to problems of law. From this, one could draw the rather hasty conclusion that such a category should receive no attention at all in the systematic study of his immense ideological legacy. However, this would be incorrect. To begin with, a series of isolated observations and thoughts relating to law are scattered throughout his work. They merely need to be extracted, sorted and systematized. Lenin’s contribution to this subject, insufficiently developed by Marxists, can only be evaluated after this task is accomplished. In addition, not all of what Vladimir Ilich wrote in the Soviet period, not directly intended for publication, has yet been published, i.e. his writings relating to the practical problems of constructing the Soviet state which have been preserved in the form of numerous directive notes and letters to individual comrades, as well as every possible type of order, instruction etc. Only when all of this material is systematized and published will we be able to conceive a truly comprehensive idea of what Leninism means for the problems of law.

What was the mistake of the economists and the Mensheviks?

It consisted in the failure to understand the concrete forms of implementing the proletarian class struggle. Moreover, in both situations, their distortion of Marxism was presented as an alleged deepening of Marxist analysis, as the transfer of attention from the “external” (from “form”) to the very “essence”. Much later Vladimir Ilich had to fight with the same kind of mistake at the time of the discussion of the “right to self-determination”.

Was the Petit bourgeois revolutionary an arch-leftist?

The petit bourgeois revolutionary, rejecting the use of the legal method of struggle, may consider himself an arch-leftist, as for example the extreme left Social Revolutionaries considered themselves when they disregarded the example of the Bolsheviks and called for a boycott of the Third State Duma. In fact they were simply paying their respects to a revolutionary phrase. But these gentlemen did not simply reject the outdated legality of the old regime: they adopted revolutionary struggle exclusively as a struggle for a new legality. Thus, formal legality still remains a fetish for them. They proceed not from the interest of the victorious class but from abstract principles; they cannot imagine that the policy of the proletariat (which has taken power and held on to it through a cruel civil war) is only the form of the establishment of a new type of legality which rests upon a correspondingly codified law. It is wen known that the left Social Revolutionary jurists, on the day after they entered into the structure of the Soviet government, were busy drafting “a criminal code of the Revolution”.

What did Lenin do in 1918?

In February 1918 Lenin signed the Basic Law on the Socialisation of the Land, a measure that ratified the transfer of agricultural land to Russia's peasants. In November 1918 he decreed the establishment of state orphanages. Smidovich, Lenin and Sverdlov looking over Marx and Engels monument, 1918.

Who met Lenin in 1920?

A number of prominent Western socialists travelled to Russia, during which they met with Lenin; these included the philosopher Bertrand Russell in summer 1920 and the author H. G. Wells in September 1920, the latter having been introduced to Lenin through Gorky. He was also visited by the anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman in January 1920. In April 1920, the Bolsheviks held a party to celebrate Lenin's fiftieth birthday, with widespread celebrations taking place across Russia and poems and biographies dedicated to him being published. All of this embarrassed and horrified Lenin himself. Between 1920 and 1926, twenty volumes of Lenin's Collected Works were edited by Kamenev and published; that material which was deemed inappropriate for the needs of the Soviet government were omitted. He became increasingly concerned with the illness of his close friend Inessa Armand, who visited him at the Kremlin on several occasions; although she temporarily recovered, she subsequently relapsed. He sent her to a sanatorium in Kislovodsk, Northern Caucusus in order to recover, but there she contracted cholera during a local epidemic and died in September 1920. Her body was transported by train to Moscow, arriving there in October, where Lenin collected the coffin from the train station; observers noted that he was overcome by grief. Her corpse was buried beneath the Kremlin Wall. During his leadership of the Soviet administration, Lenin struggled against the state bureaucracy and the corruption within it, and became increasingly concerned by this in his final years. Condemning such bureaucratic attitudes, he suggested a total overhaul of the Russian system to deal with such problems, in one letter complaining that "we are being sucked into a foul bureaucratic swamp".

What was Lenin's view on war?

His views on civil war were based squarely on a Marxist understanding of class war, and he was particularly influenced by the example of the Paris Commune. Although expecting there to be opposition from Russia's aristocracy and bourgeoisie, he believed that the sheer numerical superiority of the lower classes, coupled with the Bolsheviks' ability to effectively organise them, guaranteed a swift victory in any conflict. As such, he failed to anticipate the intensity of the violent opposition to Bolshevik rule in Russia. Russia's Civil War pitted the pro-Bolshevik Reds against the anti-Bolshevik Whites, but also encompassed ethnic conflicts on Russia's borderlands and conflict between both Red and White armies and local peasant groups throughout the former Empire.

Who was the leader of the Bolsheviks?

Under the leadership of Russian communist Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik Party seized power in the Russian Republic during a coup known as the October Revolution. Overthrowing the pre-existing Provisional Government, the Bolsheviks established a new administration, the first Council of People's Commissars ...

What happened to Russia in 1918?

Angered, the German government expelled Russia's representatives from its country. However, that month Wilhelm II, the German Emperor, resign ed and the country's new administration signed the Armistice of 11 November 1918. As a result, the Sovnarkom proclaimed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk to be devoid of meaning.

What was the purpose of the Red Terror?

The purpose of the Red Terror was to eliminate the bourgeoisie as a class , an aim that was repeatedly called for within the Bolshevik press. However, it was not simply bourgeoise who were executed, but also many others who were deemed to oppose the Bolsheviks. 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. Accordingly, throughout Soviet Russia the Cheka carried out executions, often in large numbers, with the Petrograd Cheka for instance shot 512 people to death over the course of a few days. The cycle of violence was not purely initiated by the Bolsheviks, who were targets of violence as well as its perpetrators.

Who was the leader of the Communist Party in 1923?

Lenin, 4 January 1923. In Lenin's absence, Stalin – by now the General Secretary of the Communist Party – had begun consolidating his power by appointing his supporters to prominent positions, with Lenin being almost unique in recognising that Stalin was likely to dominate the party in future.

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Overview

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known by his alias Lenin, 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 …

Early life

Going back to his great-grandparents, Russian, German, Swedish, Jewish, Chuvash and Kalmyk influences can be discovered. His father Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov was from a family of former serfs; Ilya's father's ethnicity remains unclear, while Ilya's mother, Anna Alexeyevna Smirnova, was half-Kalmyk and half-Russian. Despite this lower-class background, Ilya had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Pen…

Revolutionary activity

In late 1893, Lenin moved to Saint Petersburg. 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. Publicly championing Marxism within the socialist movement, he encouraged the founding of revolutionary cells in Russia's industrial centres. B…

Lenin's government

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. In the constitutional election, the Bolsheviks gained approximately a quarter of the vote, being defeated by the agrarian-focused Socialist-Revolutionaries. Lenin argued that the election was not a fai…

Political ideology

Lenin was a devout Marxist, and believed that his interpretation of Marxism, first termed "Leninism" by Martov in 1904, was the sole authentic and orthodox one. 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, an…

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. 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." Highlighting Lenin's "extraordinary capacity for disciplined work" and "devotion to the revolutionary cause", Pipes noted that he exhibited much c…

Legacy

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." 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…

See also

• Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
• Lenin Peace Prize
• Lenin Prize
• Marxist–Leninist atheism
• National delimitation in the Soviet Union