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Lenin was born into
a family of middle-
class provincials.
When he was 17 his 
brother Alexander,
whom he idolised,
was hanged for a
failed attempt to 
assassinate the
tsar, Alexander III. 
The young Lenin
became convinced
that 'any correctly 
thinking and truly
honest person must
be a  revolutionary.'
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Lenin's views soon
brought him to the
attention of the 
police. Exiled for
his views, he set
up a wide network
of Marxists abroad.
He insisted that the
coming revolution
must be made by a
small core of dedi-
cated professionals,
a tactic adopted by
the majority- or
'bolsheviki' - at 
the congress of
Social Democrats
at London in 1903
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Lenin was in 
Switzerland when 
a revolution broke
in Petrograd. Mass
strikes and angry
demonstrations 
were prompted 
by war weariness,
food shortages, and 
by contempt for 
tsarist autocracy. 
Troops called in to
disperse crowds
of demonstrators
showed them open 
sympathy instead
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The mutiny of the 
Petrograd garrison
swiftly destroyed
tsarist credibility.
The dynasty of the 
Romanovs, which
had lasted 300 
years, was over. 
The autocracy was
replaced by the so-
called Provisional 
Government. The 
Bolsheviks played 
almost no part in 
the revolution
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As a boy, Nicholas II had watched his grandfather, Alexander II, die in agony after 
being blown up by revolutionary assassins. He always knew he might meet a similar
fate. After the first revolution the tsar was placed under house arrest. When the
Bolsheviks took power the whole family was deported beyond the hope of rescue
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Lenin returned to 
Russia in April 
1917 with the
intention of over-
throwing the new
provisional govern-
ment. An attempted
coup by  Bolsheviks
in July failed, and
Lenin fled into 
hiding in Finland.
It seemed that his
vision of a workers'
state was going to
be lost in the chaos
of the headless
Russian state
#
Undetered  by the
July fiasco, Lenin
was determined to
seize power in the
capital. He came
back in disguise
from Finland to
make new plans.  
On the night of
November 7, 1917
(October 25 in the 
Julian calendar),
armed Bolshevik
troops stormed key
sites in Petrograd,
among them the
Winter Palace. The
October revolution,
the pivotal event
of the century,
was under way
#
Kerensky, the head
of the provisional
government fled 
Petrograd after 
the Bolsheviks. 
Lenin tried to win 
over the populace
with the slogan
'Bread, peace and
land and announced:
'We shall create
a proletarian 
socialist state. 
Long live the 
socialist world 
revolution!'
#
Few observers 
expected Lenin's 
infant  regime to 
last for long. The
Bolsheviks soon
signed a peace
treaty to end the
war with Germany,
but civil war broke
out in Russia as
right-wing Whites
clashed with the
Red Army, led by
Lev Trotsky
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Lenin's success in crushing opposition relied heavily on terror and the use of
the Cheka secret police. Felix Dzerzhinsky was the architect of repression,
appointed as head of the Cheka in December 1917. Lenin used the Cheka as
much against the non-Bolshevik left as against the right
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Lenin always 
stood head and 
shoulders above 
his colleagues. His 
authority was so 
great that it was 
never felt 
necessary to 
assign him a post 
in the party. He 
was simply the 
leader. A cult of 
his personality 
began to establish 
itself even while 
he was alive
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Lenin was a 
tireless worker 
for the revolu-
tionary cause both
before and after 
the great victory
of October 1917, 
and his phenomenal 
stamina was part 
of his genius. His 
collected works 
run to dozens of 
volumes of books
articles, pamphlets
and memoranda
#
The Constituent 
Assembly was 
the first Russian 
parliament to be 
elected by a
popular vote. The 
Bolsheviks won 
only 24 per cent 
of the vote and 
forcibly dissolved 
it on the first day 
that it sat. This 
inaugurated the 
'dictatorship of 
the proletariat'
#
The effects of 
civil war were 
worsened by the 
Bolshevik take-
over of factories 
and property and 
the collapse of 
the banking 
system. Lenin's 
new state was in 
constant crisis as 
British, French, 
American and 
Japanese troops 
intervened on the 
side of the Whites
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An assassination 
attempt on Lenin 
in 1918 was used
as a pretext to
widen Red terror
against socialist 
opponents. The 
would-be assassin
was Fanya Kaplan,
a young Socialist 
Revolutionary. The
SRs were a rival
left-wing party
popular with the
Russian peasants. 
Kaplan was shot.
#
The survival of 
Bolshevism was 
in doubt through-
out 1919 as White
armies advanced
on Petrograd and 
Moscow, the new 
capital. Lenin kept
up morale with
parades in Moscow's
Red Square, but
even to many loyal 
Bolsheviks it 
seemed that the
days of the world's
first socialist state
were numbered
#
The inspired leadership of Lev Trotsky, and Bolshevik control of the
Moscow-Petrograd core of European Russia, enabled the Red Army to inflict heavy
defeats on the Whites in1920. In November 1920, the last cohesive White units
were evacuated from Sevastopol
#
Authoritarian 
Bolshevik rule 
combined with 
the rigors of "war 
communism" and 
the banning of 
private enterprise
to produce a series 
of revolts in 1921.
The most serious
was a rising by
sailors previously
loyal to Lenin at
the naval base in
Kronstadt. Troops
marched across the
frozen ice of the
Finnish Gulf and
ambushed the
sailors to put
down the revolt
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In 1921 Lenin 
was forced to
go back on the 
harsh economic
measures which
had created chaos 
and hostility in the
population. In a
'tactical retreat'
from  Marxist
ideology Lenin 
introduced his 'new
economic policy',
which allowed
peasants to sell
surplus grain for
personal profit
and gave rise to a 
culture of small
businesses in
the big cities
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Lenin's health was
undermined by a
series of strokes.
The third, in March 
1923, confined him
to a wheelchair. He
could not decide
whether Trotsky
('too reaching a
self-confidence')
or Stalin ('too rude') 
should succeed him,
and his last letters
and instructions are
full of disillusion
#
Lenin died in 1924.
His corpse was
embalmed and put
on display in a
mausoleum on Red
Square, where it
still lies. Lenin had
shaped the world's
first Communist
state, dominating 
it through personal
charisma and an
unwavering sense
of purpose. The
state he founded
is in tatters, but
Vladimir Lenin
casts his long
shadow over our
century even now
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Leninism had many
inner weaknesses:  
its rank economic
incompetence, its
brutality, the 
moral corruption
implicit in a single
party state. These
things led to the 
collapse of the 
USSR in 1991.
Statues of Lenin
were gleefully
torn from their
pedestals, and
the reputation of
Lenin, an extra-
ordinary but
deeply flawed
man, came down
with them
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