Lenin was born in Simbirsk on 22nd April 1870. His original name was Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov. His father was a school inspector who died when Lenin was sixteen. After this, his elder brother Alexander was executed for making an attempt to assassinate Tsar Nicholas II. Lenin was influenced by Marxism at an early age and he became a revolutionary. He was arrested in 1895 and later exiled to Siberia, where he wrote a book ‘Development of capitalism in Russia’ in 1899.
Lenin escaped from Siberia and lived in exile in Switzerland. He joined Plekhanov in Geneva in 1900 and planned to launch a newspaper called ‘Iskra’ (Spark). In 1903, he became the leader of an extremist revolutionary group called the Bolshevik party. He continued his fight against the Tsarist regime and supported the revolution of 1905. On 25th October 1917, he overthrew the Menshevik Government of Kerensky. He appealed to soldiers, poor peasants and workers, and promised to provide “Peace, Land, Bread”.
Lenin withdrew from the First World War through the treaty of BrestLitovsk (1917). A new constitution was adopted in 1918. He introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) in March 1921. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was formed on 30th December 1922. He successfully redressed the problems of unemployment, food scarcity and retarded industrial growth.
Trade and commerce, communication, industries, and banking were nationalized; England and France who hated this new ideology supported the Counter-Revolution in Russia. Lenin was successful in crushing the foreign and domestic danger with the help of the Red Army and the ‘Cheka’ the Secret Police. Lenin passed away at Gorky on 21st January 1924
