Vladimir Lenin: Encyclopedia - Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин listen ▶ (help·info)), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) (April 22 (April 10 (O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Communist revolutionary of Russia, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the main theorist of Leninism, which he described as an adaptation of Marxism to "the age of imperialism."

"Lenin" was one of his revolutionary pseudonyms. There are various theories on its origin and he himself is not known to have ever stated exactly why he chose it. It is likely to relate to the River Lena, in parallel to leading Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov who used the pseudonym Volgin, after the Volga River. It has been suggested that Lenin picked the Lena as it is longer and flows in the opposite direction, but Lenin was not opposed to Plekhanov at that time in his life. However, it does most certainly not relate to the Lena execution, because the pseudonym predates this event.

He is sometimes referred to as Nikolai Lenin by Western anti-Communists and by the reporters of his time. This was his original pseudonym, as shown in this article by John Reed, [1] but he was not known as such in the USSR subsequently. Walter Duranty's obituary of Lenin in the New York Times also referred to "Nikolai Lenin."

Vladimir Lenin - Early life

Born in Simbirsk, Russia, Lenin was the son of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831 - 1886), a Russian civil service official who worked for increased democracy and free universal education in Russia, and his liberal wife Maria Alexandrovna Blank (1835 - 1916). Lenin was of mixed ethnic ancestry. In addition to being Russian, he also had Kalmyk ancestry through his paternal grandparents, Volga German ancestry through his maternal grandmother (who was a Lutheran), and Jewish ancestry through his maternal grandfather (who converted to Christianity). The matter of Lenin's nationality became relevant not long before and after the disintegration of the USSR, whereby the neo-nationalistic policy of some newly independent republics advertised him as a "Russian" terrorist, which was one of the reasons for the persecution of Russian commonages by the misguided local public. In fact, Lenin was only fractionally Russian and directly disdained the root nationality of Russia in his works. Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) himself was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church.

Vladimir distinguished himself in the study of Latin and Greek. Two tragedies occurred early in his life. The first, in 1886, occurred when his father died of a cerebral haemorrhage. The following year, in May of 1887, his eldest brother Alexander Ulyanov was hanged for participation in a plot threatening the life of Tsar Alexander III. This radicalized Vladimir. His official Soviet biographies have this event as central to Lenin's revolutionary exploits. A famous painting by Belousov, We will follow a different path, reprinted in million Soviet textbooks depicted young Lenin and his mother grieving the loss of elder brother Alexander. The phrase "We will follow a different path" meant that Lenin chose the right way to succeed in the revolution, which was based on a Marxist approach. Indeed, at that time Lenin became interested in Marxism, got involved in student protests and later that year was arrested. He was then expelled from Kazan University. He continued to study independently and by 1891 had earned a license to practice law. ^{[citation needed]}

Vladimir Lenin - Revolutionary

Upon graduation, Lenin took on a job as an assistant to a lawyer. He worked for a couple of years in Samara, Russia, then in 1893 moved to St. Petersburg. Rather than settling into a legal career, he became more involved in revolutionary propaganda efforts and the study of Marxism. On December 7, 1895, he was arrested and held by authorities for fourteen months, then exiled to the village of Shushenskoye in Siberia.

In July 1898, he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was a socialist activist. In April 1899, he published the book The Development of Capitalism in Russia [2]. In 1900, his exile ended. He travelled in Russia and elsewhere in Europe. Lenin lived in Zurich, Geneva, Munich, Prague, Vienna and London and during his exile founded the newspaper Iskra. He also wrote a number of articles and books related to the revolutionary movement. At this period, he started using various aliases, finally settling upon Lenin.

He was active in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP; РСДРП in Russian), and in 1903 he led the Bolshevik faction after a split with the Mensheviks that was partly inspired by his pamphlet What is to be Done? [3]. In 1906 he was elected to the Presidium of the RSDLP. In 1907 he moved to Finland for security reasons. He continued to travel in Europe and participated in many socialist meetings and activities, including the Prague Party Conference of 1912 and the Zimmerwald Conference of 1915. When Inessa Armand left Russia and settled in Paris, she met Vladimir Lenin and other Bolsheviks living in exile, and is believed to have become Lenin's partner during this time. Lenin later moved to Switzerland.

When the First World War began in 1914, and the large Social Democratic parties of Europe (at that time self-described as Marxist), comprising luminaries such as Karl Kautsky, supported their various countries' war efforts, Lenin was shocked, at first refusing to believe that the German Social Democrats had voted for war credits. This led him to a final split with the Second International, which was composed of these parties. Lenin himself adopted an 'unpatriotic' position, stating the goal as the defeat of the Tsarist government in the war.

After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia and the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin knew Russia waited for him. But he was isolated in the neutral Switzerland as the first World War was raging and it would not have been easy to travel through Europe. But the Swiss Communist Fritz Platten managed to negotiate with the German government so that Lenin and his company would be allowed to travel through Germany in a sealed train. Kaiser Wilhelm II himself is thought to have expected Lenin to cause political unrest back in Russia and end the war on the Eastern front. While on German territory, Lenin was not allowed outside the train. Once past Germany, Lenin continued by ferry to Sweden and the rest of the trip was arranged through Scandinavia by the Swedish Communists Otto Grimlund and Ture Nerman.

On April 16, 1917, he returned to Petrograd and took a leading role within the Bolshevik movement, publishing the April Theses [4]. The April theses called for an uncompromising opposition to the provisional government. Initially by this lurch to the left Lenin isolated his party. However, this uncompromising stand meant that the Bolsheviks were to become the obvious home for the masses as they became disillusioned with the provisional government, and with the luxury of opposition the Bolsheviks were freed of the responsibility for any consequences from the implementation of their policies (Christopher Read: From Tsar to Soviets pp151-3).

Kerensky and other enemies of the Bolsheviks accused Lenin for being a paid German agent. On this allegation Trotsky held a defense speech on July 17, saying: "An intolerable atmosphere has been created, in which you as well as we are choking. They are throwing dirty accusations at Lenin and Zinoviev. … Lenin has fought thirty years for the revolution. I have fought twenty years against the oppression of the people. And we cannot but cherish a hatred for German militarism. . . . I have been sentenced by a German court to eight months’ imprisonment for my struggle against German militarism. . . . This everybody knows. Let nobody in this hall say that we are hirelings of Germany." [5]

After a failed workers' rising in July, Lenin fled to Finland for safety. He returned in October, inspiring an armed revolution with the slogan "All Power to the Soviets!", against the Provisional Government. His ideas of government were expressed in his essay "State and Revolution" [6], which called for a new form of government based on the workers' councils, or soviets. In this work he also claimed that ordinary workers should, in principle, be capable of running a factory or a government. He emphasized, though, that to be able to govern the state, a worker should "learn communism." He insisted that a member of the government should be paid no more than the salary of an average worker.

Vladimir Lenin - Head of the Soviet state

On November 8, Lenin was elected as the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Russian Soviet Congress. Faced with the threat of German invasion, Lenin argued that Russia should immediately sign a peace treaty. Other Bolshevik leaders, such as Bukharin, advocated continuing the war as a means of fomenting revolution in Germany. Trotsky, who led the negotiations, advocated an intermediate position, of "No War, No Peace", calling for a peace treaty only on the conditions that no territorial gains on either side be consolidated. After the negotiations collapsed, Germany launched an invasion that resulted in the loss of much of Russia's western territory. As a result of this turn of events, Lenin's position consequently gained the support of the majority in the Bolshevik leadership. On March 3, 1918, Lenin removed Russia from World War I by agreeing to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Under this treaty, Russia lost Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic states, and large areas to Poland.

After the Bolsheviks lost the elections for the Russian Constituent Assembly, Lenin became very skeptical and used his military guards to close the first session of the Assembly on January 19th. Later, the Bolsheviks organized a counter-Assembly, the third Congress of Soviets, giving themselves and their allies over 90% of the seats. [7]. They formed a coalition government with the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries. However, their coalition collapsed after the Social Revolutionaries opposed the Brest-Litovsk treaty, and they joined other parties in seeking to overthrow the government of the soviets. The situation degenerated, with non-Bolshevik parties (including some of the socialist groups) actively seeking the overthrow of the soviet government. Lenin responded to this threat against the workers' state by shutting down their activities and jailing or shooting the members of the opposing parties.

Even though Lenin supported and helped to form a Soviet democracy, it is often argued that Lenin countermanded proletarian emancipation and democracy (workers' control through the soviets or workers' councils) and that this paved the road to Stalinism. However, Trotsky, for example, argued that this perspective ignores other factors and that a "river of blood" separated Lenin from Stalin's actions. On the other hand, libertarian socialist Emma Goldman went further and also accused Trotsky himself of violating both human rights and the principles of socialism during his time as Commissar for War [8].

The Leninist vision of revolution demanded a professional revolutionary cadre that would both lead the working masses in their conquest of power and centralize economic and administrative power in the hands of a workers' state. From the spring of 1918, Lenin campaigned for a single individual to be put in charge of each enterprise (contrary to most conceptions of workers' self-management). As S.A. Smith wrote: "By the end of the civil war, not much was left of the democratic forms of industrial administration promoted by the factory committees in 1917, but the government argued that this did not matter since industry had passed into the ownership of a workers' state." During the civil war, democracy would become concentrated within the Bolshevik party and later the politburo of the CPSU.

In August 1918 Lenin insisted on the decision to execute the tsar and his whole family, arguing that the royal family would have been a banner for the White Movement.

On August 30, 1918, Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, approached Lenin after he had spoken at a meeting and was on the way to his car. She called out to Lenin, and when he turned to answer, fired three shots, two of which struck him in the shoulder and lung. Lenin was taken to his private apartment in the Kremlin, and refused to venture to a hospital, believing other assassins would be waiting there. Doctors were summoned, but decided that it was too dangerous to remove the bullets. Lenin eventually recovered, though his health declined from this point, and it is believed that the incident contributed to his later strokes.

The Communist government responded to the assassination attempt with the "Red Terror," whereby tens of thousands of perceived enemies of the people and the Revolution were put in labor camps and thousands were executed.

In March, 1919, Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders met with revolutionary socialists from around the world and formed the Communist International. Members of the Communist International, including Lenin and the Bolsheviks themselves, broke off from the broader socialist movement. From that point onwards, they would be known as communists. In Russia, the Bolshevik Party was renamed the "Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)", which eventually became the CPSU.

Meanwhile, a civil war raged across Russia. A wide variety of political movements and their supporters took up arms to support or overthrow the Soviet government. Although many different factions were involved in the civil war, the two main forces were the Red Army (communists) and the White Army (tsarist). Foreign powers such as France, Britain, the United States and Japan also intervened in this war (on behalf of the White Army). Eventually, the more organizationally proficient Red Army, led by Leon Trotsky, won the civil war, defeating the White Russian forces and their allies in 1920 (although smaller fights remained for several more years).

In the later months of 1919, successes against the White Russian forces convinced Lenin that it was time to spread the revolution to the West, by force if necessary. When the newly independent Second Polish Republic began securing its eastern territories annexed by Russia in the partitions of Poland in late 18th century, it clashed with Bolshevik forces for dominance in these areas, which led to the outbreak of the Polish-Soviet War in 1919. With the revolution in Germany and the Spartacist League on the rise, Lenin viewed this as the perfect time and place to "probe Europe with the bayonets of the Red Army." Lenin saw Poland as the bridge that the Red Army would have to cross in order to link up the Russian Revolution with the communist supporters in the German Revolution, and to assist other communist movements in Western Europe. However the defeat of Soviet Russia in the Polish-Soviet War invalidated these plans.

The long years of war, the policy of War communism, and the encirclement of the first workers' state by hostile capitalist governments took their toll on Russia, however, and much of the country lay in ruins. After an uprising by Lenin's long-time allies, the sailors at Kronstadt in March of 1921, Lenin replaced the policy of War Communism with the New Economic Policy (NEP), in an attempt to rebuild industry and especially agriculture.

Vladimir Lenin - Premature death

Lenin's health had already been severely damaged due to the intolerable strains of revolution and war. The assassination attempt earlier in his life also added to his health problems. The bullet was still lodged in his neck, too close to his spine for medical techniques of the time to remove. In May 1922, Lenin had his first stroke. He was left partially paralyzed (on his right side) and his role in government declined. After the second stroke in December of the same year, he resigned from active politics. In March 1923 he suffered the third stroke and was left bedridden and no longer able to speak.

After his first stroke, Lenin published a number of papers regarding the government. Most famous of these is Lenin's Testament, which among other things criticised top-ranking communists such as Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin. Of Stalin, who had been the Communist Party's general secretary since April 1922, Lenin said that he had "unlimited authority concentrated in his hands" and suggested that "comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post." Lenin's wife discovered the paper in Lenin's study, and read it to the central committee. However, because the will criticised all of the most prominent figures in the central committee: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Trotsky and Stalin, the committee had a vested interest in not releasing the will to the wider public. The central committee justified this by claiming that Lenin had been mentally ill in his final years and, as such, his final judgments were not to be trusted. Disregarding the words of Lenin proved to be a fatal error, however, as he was apparently the only one to recognize the danger of allowing Stalin to take over party control.

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. Rumors of Lenin's syphilis sprang up shortly after his death. The official cause given for Lenin's death was cerebral arteriosclerosis, or a stroke (his fourth), but out of the 27 physicians who treated him, only eight signed onto that conclusion in his autopsy report. Therefore, several other theories regarding his death have been put forward. For example, a posthumous diagnosis by two psychiatrists and a neurologist recently published in the European Journal of Neurology claimed to show that Lenin died from syphilis.

Documents released after the fall of the U.S.S.R, along with memoirs of Lenin's physicians, suggest that Lenin was treated for syphilis as early as 1895. Documents also suggest that Alexei Abrikosov, the pathologist in charge of the autopsy, was ordered to prove that Lenin did not die of syphilis. Abrikosov did not mention syphilis in the autopsy; however, the blood-vessel damage, the paralysis and other incapacities he cited are typical of syphilis. Upon a second release of the autopsy report, none of the organs, major arteries, or brain areas usually affected by syphilis were cited.

In 1923, Lenin's doctors treated him with Salvarsan, the only drug at the time specifically used to treat syphilis, and potassium iodide, which was also customary at the time in treating the disease.

Although he might have had syphilis, so did a large percentage of Russians at this time. Also, he had no visible lesions on his body that accompany the last stages of the disease. Most historians still agree that the most likely cause of his death was a stroke induced by the bullet still lodged in his neck from the assassination attempt.

The city of Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor three days after Lenin's death; this remained the name of the city until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when it reverted to its original name, St Petersburg.

At his funeral, Lenin's body was wrapped in the remains of a red flag preserved from the Paris Commune, an event that he described as an example of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat".

During the early 1920s the Russian movement of cosmism was quite popular and there was an intent to cryogenically preserve Lenin's body in order to revive him in the future. Necessary equipment was purchased abroad, but for a variety of reasons the plan was not realised. Instead his body was embalmed and placed on permanent exhibition in the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow on January 27, 1924.

Vladimir Lenin - After death

Lenin's preserved body is on permanent display in Moscow.

Due to Lenin's unique role in the creation of the first Communist state, and despite his expressed wish shortly before his death that no memorials be created for him, his character was elevated over time to the point of near religious reverence. By the 1980's, every major city in the Soviet Union had a statue of Lenin in its central square, either a Lenin street or a Lenin square near the center, and often 20 or more smaller statues and busts throughout its territory. Collective farms, medals, hybrids of wheat, and even asteroids (#852 - Wladilena) were named after him. Children were taught stories about "granddaddy Lenin" while they were still in kindergarten, quite similar to the adulation accorded to the Founding Fathers in US schools.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the level of reverence for Lenin in post-Soviet republics has gone down considerably, but he's still considered an important figure by the people who grew up during the Soviet period. Many statues of Lenin have been torn down. The city of Leningrad was returned to its original name, St. Petersburg. On the other hand, citizens of Ulyanovsk, Lenin's birthplace, have so far resisted all attempts to revert its name to Simbirsk. The subject of interring Lenin's body has been a recurring topic for the last 16 years in Russia.

Vladimir Lenin - Lenin's brain study

Lenin's brain was removed before his body was embalmed. The Soviet government commissioned the well-known German neuroscientist Oskar Vogt to study Lenin's brain and to locate the precise location of the brain cells that are responsible for genius^{[citation needed]}. The study was performed in Vladimir Bekhterev's Institute of the Brain. Vogt published a paper on the brain in 1929 where he reported that some pyramidal neurons in the third layer of Lenin's cerebral cortex were very large. However the conclusion of its relevance to genius was contested. Vogt's work was considered unsatisfactory by the Soviets. Further research was continued by the Soviet team, but the work on Lenin's brain was no longer advertised.

Contemporary anatomists are no longer convinced that morphology alone can determine the functioning of the brain^{[citation needed]}.

Vladimir Lenin - Trivia

• Lenin was ranked #84 on Michael H. Hart's list of the most influential figures in history.
• Lenin liked to play chess and considered himself a good player. However, he really hated to be defeated in this game.
• Once Lenin's automobile was stopped by robbers. Lenin readily gave them all his possessions and the car, and later used this episode as an example of a reasonable compromise in the article "About Compromises".

See also

• List of places named after Lenin
• List of statues of Lenin
• Russian Revolution of 1917

Vladimir Lenin - Notes

^  See V. Lerner, Y. Finkelstein and E. Witztum. "The enigma of Lenin's (1870–1924) malady" in European Journal of Neurology, June 2004, available online for a review of the evidence.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Vladimir Lenin", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki