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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist who was the founder and first leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1917 until his death in 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. He was the founder and leader of the Bolsheviks, which led the October Revolution that established the world's first socialist state. During the Russian Civil War, Lenin's government centralised power in a one-party state ruled by the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments of Marx's theories of party, imperialism, the state, and revolution are called Leninism. Born to an upper-middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's 1887 execution. He was expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the tsarist government, and devoted the following years to a law degree before moving to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and emerging as a senior Marxist activist. In 1897, Lenin was arrested for sedition and exiled for three years to Siberia. He moved to Western Europe after his release and became a prominent figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1903, he played a key role in the party's ideological schism, leading his Bolshevik faction against the Mensheviks. He briefly returned to Russia during the failed 1905 Revolution, and during the First World War campaigned for its transformation into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution to overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. After the February Revolution of 1917 ousted the tsar and established a Provisional Government, Lenin returned to Russia, issued his "April Theses", and led the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the regime. Lenin's government redistributed land to the peasantry, nationalised banks and industry, withdrew from the war by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, and promoted world revolution via the Communist International. The Bolsheviks initially shared power with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and allowed elections to the multi-party Constituent Assembly, but by 1918 centralised power in the Communist Party. Amid the civil war, Lenin's government implemented economic policies known as "war communism", including forced requisitioning of grain from peasants, and carried out the Red Terror, a violent campaign administered by state security services in which tens of thousands of opponents were killed or interned in concentration camps. Responding to economic devastation, a major famine in 1921–22, and revolts such as the Tambov and Kronstadt rebellions, in 1921 Lenin introduced the New Economic Policy. Some non-Russian nations of the former empire were re-united in the Soviet Union in 1922, while others (notably Poland) gained independence. Lenin suffered three debilitating strokes in 1922 and 1923 and died the following year, 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. Under Stalin's leadership, he became a figurehead of the state ideology of Marxism–Leninism, which served as a major influence on the international communist movement. A controversial figure with a highly divisive legacy, Lenin is praised by his supporters for establishing soviet democracy and a "dictatorship of the proletariat" which took steps towards socialism, while critics accuse him of overseeing mass killings and political repression of dissidents and either leading or preparing the way for a totalitarian dictatorship. Early life Childhood: 1870–1887 Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in Streletskaya Ulitsa, Simbirsk, now Ulyanovsk, on 22 April 1870, and baptised six days later; as a child, he was known as Volodya the common nickname variant of Vladimir. 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. His father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although his mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (née Blank), a Lutheran by upbringing, was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Ilya Ulyanov was from a family of former serfs; Ilya's father's ethnicity remains unclear, with suggestions that he was of Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin, or Kalmyk ancestry. Despite a lower-class background, he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility. In mid-1863, Ilya married Maria, the well-educated daughter of a wealthy Swedish Lutheran mother, and a Russian and possibly Jewish father who worked as a physician and may have converted to Christianity. Historians disagree on if Maria's father was originally Jewish and, according to historian Petrovsky-Shtern, it is likely that Lenin was unaware of his mother's possible half-Jewish ancestry, which was only discovered by Anna after his death. 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. In January 1882, his dedication to education earned him the Order of Saint Vladimir, which bestowed on him the status of hereditary nobleman. Both of Lenin's 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. Every summer they holidayed at a rural manor in Kokushkino. 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. A keen sportsman, he spent much of his free time outdoors or playing chess, and excelled at school, the disciplinarian and conservative Simbirsk Classical Gymnasium. 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. Involved in.... Discover the V I Lenin Paul Le Blanc popular books. Find the top 100 most popular V I Lenin Paul Le Blanc books.