November 7, 1917

February 21, 1920

According to his recommendations December 30, 1922

January 21, 1924

Posthumous "awards"

Works of Vladimir Lenin

Lenin's main works

What to do? (1902)

Marxism and Revisionism (1908)

Socialism and War (1915)

On dual power (1917)

The Great Initiative (1919)

Tasks of youth unions (1920)

About our revolution (1923)

Cult of personality

Image in culture and art

21.01.1924

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich
Ulyanov Vladimir Ilyich

Russian Revolutionary

Creator of the socialist state

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (1923-1924)

Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the USSR (1923-1924)

Chairman of the Council of Labor and Defense of the RSFSR (1920-1923)

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR (1918-1922)

Chairman of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense of the RSFSR (1918-1920)

Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Socialist Republic (1917-1918)

News & Events

Unveiling of the monument to Lenin in Vishnyakovsky Park

In Vishnyakovsky Square in Krasnodar on November 7, 1925, a monument to the leader of the Soviet state was solemnly unveiled, a year after his tragic death. Not only residents of Krasnodar and surrounding villages took part in the event, but also foreign sailors whose ships were stationed in Novorossiysk at that time. The decision to create it was made on January 23, 1924 at a meeting of workers of the Krasnodubinsky district of the city of Krasnodar.

The first Constitution of the USSR was adopted

The first Constitution of the USSR was adopted on January 31, 1924. The Constitution of the USSR is the fundamental law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which has the highest legal force, which legislated the social and state structure, principles of organization, activity, as well as the competence of the bodies of the socialist state, the electoral system, the fundamental rights and responsibilities of citizens.

The opening of the Lenin Mausoleum took place in Moscow

The coffin with Lenin's body was installed in the Mausoleum on January 27, 1924 at 16:00. Over a month and a half, over 100 thousand people visited the Mausoleum. Two months later, the temporary Mausoleum was closed and construction of a new wooden Mausoleum began, which lasted from March to August 1924. Five years later, construction began on the final, stone version of the Mausoleum. The stone Mausoleum practically repeated the wooden one in plan.

The city of Petrograd was renamed Leningrad

St. Petersburg, the cultural capital of Russia and the city of the revolution, was renamed Petrograd after the end of the First World War in the wake of anti-German sentiment. And after the death of the leader of the world proletariat Lenin, on January 26, 1924, by decision of the Bolshevik Central Committee, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad.

The leader of Soviet Russia Vladimir Lenin died

Russian statesman Vladimir Lenin died on January 21, 1924 in the Gorki estate, Moscow region. The official conclusion in the autopsy report stated that the cause of death was increased circulatory disorders in the brain and hemorrhage into the pia mater in the quadrigeminal area. After his death, Vladimir Ilyich’s body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was formed

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was created on December 30, 1922, when the First Congress of Soviets of the USSR approved the Declaration on the Formation of the USSR. Covering an area of ​​22,400,000 square kilometers, the Soviet Union was the largest state in the world. It occupied almost a sixth of the landmass, and its size was comparable to the size of North America.

Lenin proclaimed "The leading role of the Party"

The great leader of the world proletariat, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, on January 21, 1921, in the newspaper Pravda, first used the phrase “The leading role of the party.” By this time, the newspaper Pravda was the main mouthpiece of the Bolshevik Party and its daily central organ.

The Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR “On Air Movements” was issued

On January 17, 1921, Vladimir Lenin signed the decree of the Council of People's Commissariats of the RSFSR “On air movements in the airspace over the territory of the RSFSR and over its territorial waters,” which became the first legislative act of Soviet Russia in the field of air law. Before the revolution, there were only orders about prohibited zones and prohibition of crossing borders.

The first Ilyich Light Bulb lit up in the village of Kashino

On November 14, 1920, in the village of Kashino, Volokolamsk district, near Moscow, the first rural power plant began operating. The Soviet government, despite the devastation and famine after the October Revolution, did not postpone modernization. The plans of the new leaders included electrification of the entire territory under their control. This applied to all settlements - from large cities to small villages.

A decree on the collection of antiques has been issued in Russia

The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars “On the collection and sale of antiques abroad” was issued on October 26, 1920, which, in particular, said: “To propose to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade to organize the collection of antiques selected by the Petrograd Expert Commission, and to establish a premium for the fastest and most profitable sale of them Abroad. Instruct the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Trade to urgently consider the issue of creating a similar commission in Moscow and, if appropriate, organize it.”

Russian revolutionary. A major theorist of Marxism. Soviet statesman. Founder of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks). The main organizer and leader of the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia. The first chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (government) of Russia. Creator of the first socialist state in world history. Marxist. Publicist. Founder of Marxism-Leninism. Ideologist and creator of the Third (Communist) International. Founder of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The first chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The scope of the main political and journalistic works: materialist philosophy, the theory of Marxism, criticism of capitalism and imperialism, the theory and practice of the implementation of the socialist revolution, the construction of socialism and communism, the political economy of socialism.

Vladimir Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870 in the city of Ulyanovsk. The boy was born into the family of an inspector of public schools in the Simbirsk province, Ilya Nikolaevich, and a housewife, Maria Alexandrovna. Until the age of seventeen, the young man studied at the Simbirsk gymnasium and graduated with a gold medal, after which he entered the law faculty of Kazan University.

Before 1887, nothing is known about any revolutionary activities of Vladimir Ulyanov. He accepted Orthodox baptism and belonged to the Simbirsk religious Society of St. Sergius of Radonezh. His grades according to the law of God in the gymnasium were excellent, as in all other subjects. There is only one B in his matriculation certificate: logically. The first award was presented in the gymnasium: a book with gold embossing on the cover: “For good behavior and success” and a certificate of merit.

In 1887, the calm life of the Ulyanov family was disrupted by tragedy. Vladimir's elder brother, Alexander, was executed as a participant in the Narodnaya Volya conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Alexander III. What happened became a deep wound for the Ulyanov family.

After this, at the university, Vladimir joined the illegal student circle of “Narodnaya Volya” led by Lazar Bogoraz. Three months after admission, he was expelled for participating in student riots. According to a student inspector who suffered from student unrest, Ulyanov was in the forefront of the raging students. The next night, Vladimir, along with forty other students, was arrested and sent to the police station. All those arrested, in accordance with the methods of combating “disobedience” characteristic of the reign of Alexander III, were expelled from the university and sent to their “homeland.”

During the police investigation, Ulyanov’s connections with the illegal circle of Bogoraz were revealed, and also due to the execution of his brother, he was included in the list of “unreliable” persons subject to supervision. For the same reason, he was prohibited from reinstatement at the university.

At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich read a lot. The future revolutionary studied “progressive” magazines and books of the 1860s and 1870s, especially the works of Nikolai Chernyshevsky, which, in his own words, had a decisive influence on him. It was a difficult time for all the Ulyanovs: Simbirsk society boycotted them, since connections with the family of an executed terrorist could attract unwanted attention from the police.

It was only in 1890 that the authorities relented and allowed Ulyanov to prepare as an external student for the law exams. In November 1891, Vladimir Ilyich passed the exams as an external student for a course at the Faculty of Law of the Imperial St. Petersburg University.

In 1893, Ulyanov developed a doctrine that was new at that time, declaring contemporary Russia to be a “capitalist” country. The credo was finally formulated in 1894: “the Russian worker, rising at the head of all democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism and lead the Russian proletariat along the straight road of open political struggle to a victorious communist revolution.”

Arriving in St. Petersburg, he got a job as an assistant to a sworn attorney, lawyer Mikhail Volkenshtein. In St. Petersburg, he wrote works on the problems of Marxist political economy, the history of the Russian liberation movement, the history of the capitalist evolution of the post-reform Russian village and industry. Some of them were published legally. At this time, he also developed the program of the Social Democratic Party.

In May 1895, Ulyanov went abroad, where he met with leaders of the international labor movement, and upon returning to St. Petersburg, in 1895, together with Yuli Martov and other young revolutionaries, he united scattered Marxist circles into the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” In December 1895, like many other members of the Union, Ulyanov was arrested and kept in prison for more than a year. In 1897, he was exiled for three years to the village of Shushenskoye, Krasnoyarsk Territory.

In order for his “common-law” wife Nadezhda Krupskaya to follow him into exile, he had to marry her in July 1898. In exile, Vladimir Ilyich wrote a book, “The Development of Capitalism in Russia,” based on the collected material, directed against “legal Marxism” and populist theories. In total, during his exile he wrote over thirty works.

After the end of their exile in February 1900, Ulyanov and Martov traveled around Russian cities, establishing connections with local organizations. Arrived on February 26, 1900 in Pskov, where he was allowed to live after exile. In April 1900, an organizational meeting was held there to create an all-Russian workers' newspaper, Iskra. In April 1900, he made a one-day trip to Riga illegally from Pskov. At the negotiations with the Latvian Social Democrats, issues of transporting the Iskra newspaper from abroad to Russia through the ports of Latvia were considered. The average circulation of the newspaper was 8,000 copies, and some issues up to 10,000 copies. The spread of the newspaper was facilitated by the creation of a network of underground organizations on the territory of the Russian Empire.

The pseudonym Lenin appeared to the future leader of the proletariat in 1901. He began to sign his published works with this pseudonym. And it was under this name that he went down in history.

From July 17 to August 10, 1903, the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was held in London. Lenin, together with Georgy Plekhanov, worked on a draft party program, which consisted of two parts: a minimum program and a maximum program. The first involved the overthrow of tsarism and the establishment of a democratic republic, the destruction of the remnants of serfdom in the countryside, in particular the return to the peasants of the lands cut off from them by the landowners during the abolition of serfdom, the introduction of an eight-hour working day, the recognition of the right of nations to self-determination and the establishment of equality of nations. The maximum program determined the ultimate goal of the party - the construction of a socialist society and the conditions for achieving this goal - the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The proposed wording was supported by 28 votes to 22, with one abstention. During the elections to the Central Committee of the RSDLP, Lenin's group received a majority. This accidental circumstance forever divided the party into “Bolsheviks” and “Mensheviks.”

The revolution of 1905 found Lenin abroad, in Switzerland. At the III Congress of the RSDLP, held in London in April 1905, Vladimir Ilyich emphasized that the main task of the ongoing revolution was to put an end to autocracy and the remnants of serfdom in Russia.

At the beginning of November 1905, Lenin illegally arrived in St. Petersburg and headed the work of the Central and St. Petersburg Bolshevik Committees elected by the congress. He paid much attention to the management of the newspaper “New Life”. Under his leadership, the party prepared an armed uprising. At the same time, Vladimir Ilyich wrote the book “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” in which he pointed out the need for the hegemony of the proletariat and an armed uprising. In his struggle to win over the peasantry, Lenin wrote the pamphlet “To the Rural Poor.” In December 1905, the First Conference of the RSDLP was held in Tammerfors, where Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin met for the first time.

When World War I began, Lenin lived on the territory of Austria-Hungary. Due to suspicions of spying for the Russian government, he was arrested by Austrian gendarmes and was released from prison only on August 6, 1914. After 17 days in Switzerland, he took part in a meeting of a group of Bolshevik emigrants, where he announced his theses on the war. In his opinion, the war that began was imperialist and unfair on both sides.

In February 1916, Lenin moved to Zurich. Here he completed his work “Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, collaborated with Swiss Social Democrats, and attended party meetings. There I learned from the newspapers about the February Revolution in Russia.

Already on April 3, 1917, Vladimir Ilyich returned to Russia. The Petrograd Soviet organized a ceremonial meeting for him. However, Lenin’s first speech at the Finlyandsky Station immediately after his arrival ended with a call for a “social revolution” and caused confusion even among Lenin’s supporters.

The next day, April 4, he made a report to the Bolsheviks. In this report, Lenin sharply opposed the sentiments that prevailed in Russia among Social Democrats in general and the Bolsheviks in particular, which boiled down to the idea of ​​​​expanding the bourgeois-democratic revolution, supporting the Provisional Government and defending the revolutionary fatherland in a war that changed its character with the fall of the autocracy. He demanded widespread anti-war propaganda, since, according to his opinion, the war on the part of the Provisional Government continued to be imperialistic and “predatory” in nature.

In July 1917, the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of Lenin and a number of prominent Bolsheviks on charges of treason and organizing an armed uprising. Vladimir Ilyich went underground again. During this period he wrote one of his fundamental works: “State and Revolution.”

Arriving illegally on October 20, 1917 from Vyborg to Petrograd, Lenin began leading the uprising in the Smolny Palace, the direct organizer of which was the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Leon Trotsky. On the night of November 7, 1917 The Provisional Government was arrested and already on November 7, 1917, Lenin wrote an appeal for the overthrow of the Provisional Government.

On the same day, at the opening of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets, Lenin’s decrees on peace and land were adopted and a government was formed: the Council of People’s Commissars, headed by Lenin. Two months later, on January 5, 1918, the Constituent Assembly opened, the majority of which was won by the Socialist Revolutionaries, representing the interests of the peasants, who at that time made up 80% of the country's population. With their support, Lenin presented the Constituent Assembly with a choice: ratify the power of the Soviets and the decrees of the Bolshevik government or disperse. The Constituent Assembly, which did not agree with this formulation of the issue, lost its quorum and was forcibly dissolved.

On January 15, 1918, Vladimir Ilyich signed the decree of the Council of People's Commissars on the creation of the Red Army. In accordance with the Peace Decree, it is necessary to withdraw from the world war. Despite the opposition of the left communists and Leon Trotsky, Lenin achieved the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty with Germany on March 3, 1918.

The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, in protest against the signing and ratification of the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, left the Soviet government. Fearing the capture of Petrograd by German troops, at the suggestion of Lenin, on March 10, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the RCP (b) moved to Moscow, which became the new capital of Soviet Russia.

Against the backdrop of these events, on August 30, 1918, an assassination attempt was made on Vladimir Lenin, according to the official version: by the Socialist Revolutionary Fanny Kaplan, which led to serious injury. After the assassination attempt, the leader of the revolution was successfully operated on, and on September 4 the criminal was shot.

Lenin paid significant attention to the development of the country's economy. He believed that in order to restore the economy destroyed by the war, it was necessary to organize the state into a “national, state “syndicate”. Soon after the revolution, Vladimir Ilyich set scientists the task of developing a plan for the reorganization of industry and the economic revival of Russia, and also contributed to the development of the country's science.

After the end of the Civil War, Soviet Russia managed to break through the economic blockade thanks to the establishment of diplomatic relations with Germany and the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo. Peace treaties were concluded with a number of border states: Finland, Estonia, Poland, Turkey, Iran, Mongolia. The most active support came from Turkey, Afghanistan and Iran, which resisted European colonialism.

By decision of the government of the Soviet country, the electrification program GOELRO was developed and created February 21, 1920 State Commission for Electrification of Russia. Restoring the country's national economy was the most important task. The development of industrial enterprises suffered greatly from the lack of electrical energy. The commission included: Ivan Alexandrov, Heinrich Graftio, Alexander Kogan, Karl Krug, Boris Ugrimov, Mikhail Chatelain and others. The State Commission was headed by Gleb Maksimovich Krzhizhanovsky.

The economic and political situation required the Bolsheviks to change their previous policies. In this regard, at the insistence of Lenin, in 1921, at the X Congress of the RCP (b), “war communism” was abolished, food appropriation was replaced by a food tax. The so-called new economic policy was introduced, which allowed private free trade and made it possible for large sections of the population to independently seek the means of subsistence that the state could not give them.

At the same time, Lenin insisted on the development of state-type enterprises, electrification, and the development of cooperation. Vladimir Ilyich believed that in anticipation of the world proletarian revolution, keeping all large industry in the hands of the state, it was necessary to gradually build socialism in one country. All this could, in his opinion, help put the backward Soviet country on the same level with the most developed European countries.

According to his recommendations December 30, 1922 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was created. In 1923, Lenin wrote his last works: “On Cooperation”, “How Can We Reorganize the Workers’ Economy”, “Better Less is Better”, in which he offers his vision of the economic policy of the Soviet state and measures to improve the work of the state apparatus and the party. After this, the revolutionary had to step down from power due to his rapidly deteriorating health.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died January 21, 1924 in the Gorki estate, Moscow region. The official conclusion on the cause of death in the autopsy report stated: 1) increased circulatory impairment in the brain; 2) hemorrhage into the pia mater in the quadrigeminal region.” After his death, Vladimir Lenin's body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum on Red Square near the Kremlin wall.

Results of Vladimir Lenin's activities

Results of activities and transformations carried out under the leadership of V.I. Lenin:

The Soviet state developed its own methods of moral and material stimulation of labor: various social payments, construction of free housing, organization of free healthcare, including the development of a wide network of free sanatoriums for workers, free education, transport, industrial clothing, payments in kind, creation of normal conditions, organization rest, after Lenin’s decree of June 14, 1918 “On Vacations,” all workers for the first time in the history of Russia received a state-guaranteed right to vacation, etc. - all this contributed to increasing labor productivity and convincing the majority of the population that the new government has its main The goal is to care about improving the living conditions of workers. For the first time in Russian history, workers received the right to old-age pensions.

Despite the largely fair accusations of political opponents of the socialist system of excessive equalization of the socialist wage system, this system contributed to the formation of social homogeneity and the constitution of the Soviet people with a common civic identity, although the socialist wage system, in the context of its equalization, was also criticized by senior Soviet officials, it constantly developed and differentiated on the basis of many criteria, where one of the main ones was the assessment of the citizen’s real contribution to the working and social life of the country.

The most important element in overcoming social inequality and building a new society for V. Lenin was the development of education, ensuring equal access to education for all workers, regardless of their national origin and gender differences. In October 1918, at the suggestion of V.I. Lenin, the “Regulations on the Unified Labor School of the RSFSR” were introduced, which introduced free and cooperative education for school-age children. Modern researchers note that the communist attack on the system of distribution of scientific statuses began in 1918 and the matter ended not so much in the “re-education of the bourgeois professors”, but in the establishment of equal access to education and the destruction of class privileges, which included the privilege of being educated.

Lenin's policy in the field of education, ensuring its accessibility for all groups of workers served as the basis for the fact that in 1959, political opponents of the USSR believed that the Soviet education system, especially in engineering and technical specialties, occupied a leading position in the world.

Lenin's policy in the field of healthcare, based on the principles of free and equal access to medical care for all social groups of the population, contributed to the fact that medicine in the USSR was recognized as one of the best in the world.

Awards and Recognition of Vladimir Lenin

The only official state award awarded to V.I. Lenin was the Order of Labor of the Khorezm People's Socialist Republic.

In 1919, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, Vladimir Lenin was accepted as an honorary Red Army soldier of the 1st squad of the 1st platoon of the 1st company of the 195th Yeisk Infantry Regiment.

Posthumous "awards"

Lenin's secretary, Nikolai Gorbunov, on January 22, 1924, took the Order of the Red Banner (No. 4274) from his jacket and pinned it to the jacket of the already deceased Lenin. This award was on Lenin’s body until 1943, and Gorbunov himself received a duplicate of the order in 1930. Nikolai Podvoisky did the same, standing on the guard of honor at Lenin’s tomb. Another Order of the Red Banner was laid at Lenin’s coffin along with a wreath from the Military Academy of the Red Army. Currently, the orders are kept in the Lenin Museum in Moscow.

Works of Vladimir Lenin

In the USSR, five collected works of Lenin and forty “Lenin collections” were published, compiled by the Lenin Institute, specially created by decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for the study of Lenin’s creative heritage. However, even the last, 5th, collected works in 55 volumes, called “complete,” could not claim either objectivity and academic quality, or completeness. Many of the works included in it were edited and corrected before publication, many of Lenin's works were not included in it at all.

During Soviet times, a collection of selected works was periodically published in two to four volumes. In addition, “Selected Works” were published in 10 volumes (11 books) in 1984-1987.

Lenin's main works

What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats? (1894)

"On the Characteristics of Economic Romanticism", (1897)

What inheritance are we giving up? (1897)

The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899)

What to do? (1902)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (1904)

Party organization and party literature (1905)

Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution (1905)

Marxism and Revisionism (1908)

Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909)

Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism (1913)

On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914)

On the breakdown of unity covered by cries for unity (1914)

Karl Marx (a short biographical sketch outlining Marxism) (1914)

Socialism and War (1915)

Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism (popular essay) (1916)

State and Revolution (1917)

Tasks of the proletariat in our revolution (1917)

The Impending Catastrophe and How to Deal with It (1917)

On dual power (1917)

How to Organize a Competition (1918)

The Great Initiative (1919)

The childhood disease of “leftism” in communism (1920)

Tasks of youth unions (1920)

About the food tax (1921)

Pages from a diary, About cooperation (1923)

About the pogrom persecution of Jews (1924)

What is Soviet power? (1919, publ.: 1928)

On leftist childishness and petty-bourgeoisism (1918)

About our revolution (1923)

Letter to the Congress (1922, read out: 1924, published: 1956)

Speeches recorded on gramophone records

In 1919-1921 V.I. Lenin recorded 16 speeches on gramophone records - among them “The Third Communist International”, “Appeal to the Red Army” and the especially popular “What is Soviet power?”, which was considered the most successful in technical terms.

During the next recording session on April 5, 1920, 3 speeches were recorded - “On work for transport,” part 1 and part 2, “On labor discipline” and “How to forever save workers from the oppression of landowners and capitalists.” Another recording, most likely dedicated to the outbreak of the Polish war, was damaged and lost in the same 1920.

The asteroid (852) Vladilena is named after Lenin.

Lenin's name is present in the first message to extraterrestrial civilizations - “Peace”, “Lenin”, “USSR” - by 2014 it had covered a distance of 51 light years.

Several pennants with a bas-relief of Lenin were delivered to Venus, as well as to the Moon.

Already in the post-Soviet period, Leninia, a species of ichthyosaur, was named after Lenin.

Cult of personality

An extensive cult arose around the name of Lenin during the Soviet period. The former capital Petrograd was renamed Leningrad. Cities, towns and streets were named after Lenin, and in every city there was a monument to Lenin. Quotes from Lenin were used to prove statements in journalism and scientific works.

Monuments to Lenin became part of the Soviet tradition of monumental art. After the collapse of the USSR, many monuments to Lenin were dismantled and repeatedly vandalized, including being blown up.

Image in culture and art

A lot of memoirs, poems, short stories, novellas, and films about Lenin have been published. In the USSR, the opportunity to play Lenin in films or on stage was considered for an actor a sign of high trust shown by the leadership of the CPSU. Among the documentaries: “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” (1948) by Mikhail Romm, “Three Songs about Lenin” (1934) by Dziga Vertov. Among the feature films are “Lenin in October” (1937), “Man with a Gun” (1938).

Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov (1874-1943);
Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova (1878-1937).

Wife - Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya (1869-1939). Marriage from 1898 until his death.

Page 1 of 15

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
Biography.

Chapter first

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. THE BEGINNING OF REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES

We stand entirely on the basis of Marx's theory: it was the first to transform socialism from a utopia into a science.

V.I.Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born on April 10 (22), 1870 in the city of Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk), located on the banks of the great Volga River. His parents belonged to the advanced Russian common intelligentsia. Lenin's father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, came from poor townspeople in the city of Astrakhan.

Recently, documents were found that contain important information about V.I. Lenin’s grandfather, N.V. Ulyanov: a list of peasants who arrived in the Astrakhan province before 1793. The list contains the entry: “Nikolai Vasilyev, son of Ulyanin (this surname was written both as Ulyanin, Ulyaninov, and as Ulyanov - Author)... In the Nizhny Novgorod province of the Sergachev district of the village of Androsov, the landowner Stepan Mikhailov Brekhov, the peasant exiled himself in 701.” Consequently, Lenin’s grandfather came from serf peasants in the Nizhny Novgorod province and was himself a serf. Before arriving in Astrakhan, N.V. Ulyanov lived in the Novopavlovsk village of the Astrakhan province. Later he was listed as a state peasant, and then was assigned to the petty bourgeois class as a tailor; died in great poverty.

Vladimir Ilyich’s father had to overcome many difficulties that were associated with obtaining an education for people from the people under tsarism. In early childhood he lost his father, and only the help of his older brother gave him the opportunity to receive secondary and then higher education.

Thanks to persistent work and outstanding abilities, overcoming poverty, I. N. Ulyanov managed to graduate from Kazan University and soon became a teacher of mathematics and physics in secondary schools in Penza and then Nizhny Novgorod. The appointment of Ilya Nikolaevich to this position was signed by the famous mathematician N.I. Lobachevsky, who at that time was an assistant trustee of the Kazan educational district. At his own suggestion, I.N. Ulyanov was entrusted with the responsibility of conducting meteorological observations at the Penza meteorological station.

I. N. Ulyanov was loved by his students. One of them, P. F. Filatov, the father of the famous doctor B. P. Filatov, remembered Ilya Nikolaevich as a bright personality, as a person who belonged to those few teachers “who brought an honest look and high moral principles into our lives.. ... aversion to careerism and material gain.”

The pedagogical views of Ilya Nikolaevich are clearly characterized by the surviving documents. So. speaking at a meeting of the pedagogical council in the Nizhny Novgorod men's gymnasium on the issue of the educational activities of the teacher in the classroom, I. N. Ulyanov said that “he constantly takes care of teaching students to work independently through amateur activities.”

In connection with the proposal to introduce the teaching of the basics of topography in gymnasiums, Ilya Nikolaevich wrote: “It’s a wonderful thought; the application of knowledge to business, the application of scientific information in life revives science itself and gives it practical significance" 1 .

I. N. Ulyanov was close to the views of Russian enlighteners of the 60s of the 19th century. Prompted by high ideals, he devoted his life to serving the people and their enlightenment. In 1869, Ilya Nikolaevich left his job as a teacher and became an inspector and then director of public schools in the Simbirsk province.

Due to his length of service, he was repeatedly awarded orders and medals. The order he was awarded in 1882 entitled him to the nobility.

An enthusiast of public education, a teacher by vocation, he passionately loved his work and devoted himself entirely to it. I. N. Ulyanov had deep faith in the people and the forces hidden in them.

The nature of the work required Ilya Nikolaevich to constantly travel around the province, villages and villages. He was away from home for weeks and months at a time. At any time of the year - in the harsh frosty winter, in the spring thaw and inclement autumn - he traveled to the most remote places, creating zemstvo schools, helping teachers organize the education of peasant children. It was not an easy task. It cost I. N. Ulyanov a lot of health and strength. It was necessary to fight the resistance of officials, landowners and kulaks, who in every possible way prevented the creation of schools; it was not easy to overcome the darkness and prejudices of the backward part of the peasants, to ensure that they understood the need and benefits of literacy.

Alien to the bureaucratic spirit with its servanthood and careerism, disdain for the people, I. N. Ulyanov was a true democrat. He often communicated with peasants, had friendly conversations with them, he could be seen sitting on the rubble of some hut or speaking at a village gathering.

I. N. Ulyanov paid great attention to the education of non-Russian peoples inhabiting the Volga region. He treated them with a sense of respect and understanding, and took care of organizing public schools for them. The efforts of I. N. Ulyanov bore fruit: over almost 20 years of his work, the number of schools in the Simbirsk province has increased significantly. He trained many advanced national teachers, who were called “Ulyanovsk residents.”

Vladimir Ilyich's mother, Maria Alexandrovna, was the daughter of Alexander Dmitrievich Blank, an educated, talented doctor, a pioneer in the field of physiotherapy. A.D. Blank came from the middle class. He was widowed early and was left with 6 small children. Fate threw him to different corners of Russia: now to the Smolensk wilderness, now to the Olonets province, now to the Urals. A man of direct, independent judgment, he did not get along with the authorities. After retiring, A.D. Blank settled with his large family near Kazan, in the village of Kokushkino (now the village of Lenino), where he lived until his death. Growing up in the village, Maria Alexandrovna was able to receive only home education. Lack of funds did not allow her to study further, which she always regretted. But gifted with great abilities, she mastered several foreign languages, which she later taught to her children, played the piano well, and read a lot. Having prepared independently, Maria Alexandrovna passed the exam for the title of teacher as an external student. Like Ilya Nikolaevich, she was attracted by the cause of public education. But she didn’t have to work at school: caring for a large family, raising children, and housekeeping, which had to be run very economically in order to make ends meet, completely absorbed her time.

Notes:

1 State apxiv of the Gorky region, f. 303, op. 407, units hr. 1066.

In the family and school

Harmony and love always reigned in the Ulyanovs' house. Ilya Nikolaevich was an exemplary family man, a passionately loving husband and father. The family had eight children (two of them died very young). Vladimir Ilyich was the fourth by birth. The remaining Anna, Alexander, Vladimir, Olga, Dmitry and Maria grew up in pairs close in age. Their parents tried to give them a diverse education and raised them to be honest. hardworking, sensitive to the needs of the people and working people. Subsequently, they all became revolutionaries.

The personal example of their parents had a great influence on children. The children saw how much effort their father devoted to the cause of public education, how strictly he treated himself and his responsibilities, and what joy the opening of each new village school brought him. My father’s whole life, his energy, ability to devote himself entirely to his favorite work, attentive attitude towards working people, modesty in everything had enormous educational significance. He was very simple in his dealings with people and in his needs, and in this respect he exerted the most beneficial influence. The strict attitude towards himself and his responsibilities, the high sense of duty, which always distinguished Lenin later, was largely instilled in him from his earliest years by his father. The authority of the father and the love for him in the family were very great.

When raising children, Ilya Nikolaevich proceeded from the pedagogical views of the revolutionary democrat N.A. Dobrolyubov - he forged in them a strong will, developed a desire for knowledge, taught them to understand life, to be demanding in their actions, to be sincere and truthful. He often read in the family circle his beloved poet N. A. Nekrasov, he loved to sing the forbidden poem of the Petrashevsky poet A. N. Pleshcheev, set to music, in which he emphasized the words with particular force:

You and I are brothers in spirit.
We both believe in redemption,
And we will feed until the grave
Enmity towards the scourges of my native country.

The children felt that their father put his whole soul into this song, that its words were sacred to him.

Ilya Nikolaevich rejoiced at the constant success of his children in school, but he could not stand vanity and instilled this feeling in them. Ilya Nikolaevich devoted all his leisure time to his family. He monitored the children's activities, developed their literary and artistic taste, and took an active part in their games and walks. The children felt free in the presence of their father; he never waved away their questions and patiently explained anything incomprehensible. He was a fascinating and funny storyteller.

Maria Alexandrovna had a rare educational talent. Friendly, even-tempered, she never unnecessarily embarrassed the children, but at the same time knew how to maintain discipline. Always neat, organized, thrifty and modest, especially in everything that concerned her personally, she was able to pass on these qualities to her children. Fragile in appearance, Maria Alexandrovna possessed enormous courage, dedication and perseverance, which manifested themselves many times and with such amazing strength during the years of the most difficult trials that subsequently befell the Ulyanov family.

The family environment and upbringing conditions were favorable for the development of the mind and character of children. Parents not only did not suppress, but even encouraged the natural liveliness and playfulness of their children. When little Volodya, living in the summer in the village of Kokushkino, decided to take a shortcut to the street and began to climb out the window, his parents did not scold him. On the contrary, to make it easier for the baby to climb over and to prevent him from hurting himself, the father made wooden steps in the room and outside near the window. At one time, the older children decided to publish a home magazine. Everyone cooperated in it to the best of their ability. How much joy and fun this homemade magazine, handwritten and illustrated with cartoons, the material for which was the funniest incidents from the life of the family, brought them. Parents took an active part in reading and discussing the home magazine.

The Ulyanovs carefully taught their children to work. From a very early age they had to look after themselves and help their elders; The girls made sure that their and the boys' clothes were always in order. Behind the Ulyanovs' house 1 there was a garden, which was lovingly tended by the mother. But all the children helped her with this. In the summer, they had to fill two large tubs with water. One of the guys pumped water, the rest carried it in buckets, watering cans and jugs. They worked cheerfully and amicably. The children greatly enjoyed family tea drinking outdoors in the gazebo. The eldest, Sasha, carried the samovar, the rest carried chairs and dishes. Having finished drinking tea, the girls helped their mother wash the dishes, the boys carried away the chairs. The work was feasible, and everyone did it willingly.

Volodya Ulyanov grew up as a playful, healthy, cheerful child. In appearance, he was very similar to his father, and inherited his cheerful, sociable character from him. He was a tireless instigator of various games and amusements. From the memories of his relatives it is known that he was very fair in games and hated fights. “This is not a game, this is a disgrace, I will not participate in it,” he declared when the game turned into a fight. Curious, he learned to read at the age of five and spent a lot of time reading books.

From nine to seventeen years old, Volodya Ulyanov studied at the Simbirsk classical gymnasium. 2 Already in these years, his behavior showed the self-discipline and organization brought up in his family. Every morning at exactly 7 o’clock he got out of bed, without anyone waking him up, ran to wash himself up to his waist, and made the bed. Before breakfast he always managed to repeat his homework and at half past eight he was at the gymnasium, which had to be walked several blocks away. This happened every day; for eight years the established regime was not violated.

At the gymnasium, Volodya’s abilities and hard work immediately manifested themselves. A lively, inquisitive mind and a serious attitude to his studies made him the best student; Moving from class to class, he received the first awards. He attracted attention with his composure, ability to complete the work he started, sociability, sincerity and simplicity in dealing with his comrades, and willingness to help them prepare difficult lessons. Among young people he was known as a good swimmer, speed skater and chess player.

Note:

1 Nowadays this is the world-famous V.I. Lenin House-Museum.

2 A secondary educational institution in which, along with new languages, ancient languages ​​were studied - Greek and Latin.

Formation of revolutionary views

Vladimir Ulyanov's childhood and teenage years passed in an atmosphere of brutal reaction that reigned in Russia at that time. Any manifestation of free, bold thought was persecuted. Subsequently, Vladimir Ilyich characterized this time as a period of “unbridled, incredibly senseless and brutal reaction” 1. Therefore, the gymnasium could not contribute to the formation of advanced social ideals.

Lenin's views in his youth were formed under the influence of family upbringing, the example of his parents, under the influence of revolutionary democratic literature and contact with the life of the people. His brother Alexander, who was an indisputable authority for him, had a very strong influence on Volodya. The boy tried to be like his brother in everything, and if he was asked what he would do in this or that case, he invariably answered: “like Sasha.” Over the years, the desire to be like his older brother did not go away, but became deeper and more meaningful. From Alexander Volodya learned about Marxist literature, and for the first time saw his “Capital” by K. Marx.

Alexander Ulyanov was an exceptionally gifted young man. From childhood, he showed strong will and high moral qualities. “Sasha,” recalled Anna Ilyinichna. - was an unusually serious, thoughtful and strict boy about his duties. He was also distinguished not only by his firm, but also by his fair, sensitive and affectionate character, and was greatly loved by all his younger ones. Volodya imitated his older brother..." 2

How Alexander Ulyanov imagined the moral character of a person is clearly shown by one of his surviving gymnasium essays on the topic: “What is required in order to be useful to society and the state.” He wrote:

“To be useful to society, a person must be honest and accustomed to persistent work, and in order for his work to bring as great results as possible, for this a person needs intelligence and knowledge of his business... Honesty and a correct view of his responsibilities in relation to the people around him must be instilled in a person from early youth, since these beliefs determine which branch of work he will choose for himself, and whether he will be guided in this choice by social benefit or an egoistic sense of his own benefit...

Love of work should extend not only to easy and insignificant things, but also to what at first glance seems insurmountable. To be a truly useful member of society, a person must be so accustomed to persistent work that he does not stop at any difficulties and obstacles, neither at the pace that external circumstances present him with, nor at those that present him with his own shortcomings and weaknesses: for all that, he must be able to control one’s will and develop a firm and unshakable character.”3

This was the spiritual appearance of Alexander Ulyanov himself.

Even in his early youth, Vladimir Ilyich began to peer closely at the life around him. Sincere, not tolerating any lies or hypocrisy, he breaks with religion. The impetus for this was a scene that outraged him to the core. Once, in a conversation with a guest, Ilya Nikolaevich said about his children that they do not attend church well. Looking at Vladimir. the guest said: “The whipping, the whipping must be done!” The angry young man ran out of the house and tore off his pectoral cross as a sign of protest.

Observing life, Vladimir Ulyanov saw in what poverty the people lived, what inhumane treatment the workers and peasants were subjected to. He listened carefully to his father's stories about the darkness and ignorance that reigned in the village, about the arbitrariness of the authorities and the plight of the peasantry. Communicating with working people, he also saw how especially powerless and humiliating the position of non-Russian nationalities was: Chuvash, Mordovians, Tatars, Udmurts and others. The young man’s heart was filled with burning hatred for the oppressors of the people.

This fact speaks of naked Lenin’s sympathy for the nationalities oppressed by tsarism. In the last grades of the gymnasium, he taught classes with the Chuvash school teacher I.M. Okhotnikov, preparing him for the matriculation exam. A Chuvash by nationality, a man of great mathematical abilities, Okhotnikov passionately dreamed of receiving a higher education. But to enter the university he needed a matriculation certificate, which he did not have. To obtain a certificate, it was necessary to pass exams in many subjects, including ancient languages. It was difficult for Okhotnikov to study these languages ​​on his own, and he did not have the means to hire a teacher. Having learned about Okhotnikov's hopeless situation. Vladimir Ilyich undertook to prepare him for free and for a year and a half systematically, three times a week, studied with him. Okhotnikov successfully passed the matriculation exam and entered the university.

In search of answers to the questions that worried him, Vladimir Ilyich read a lot. Works by A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. V. Gogol. I. S. Turgeneva, N. L. Nekrasova. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L.N. Tolstoy were his favorite books. He absorbed the revolutionary spirit of the works of V. G. Belinsky, A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky. N. A. Dobrolyubova, D. I. Pisareva. The writings of revolutionary democrats aroused in him hatred for the socio-political system of Tsarist Russia and helped form his revolutionary convictions. Young Lenin was fond of the poems of the poets of the satirical magazine Iskra, one of the prominent press organs of the revolutionary-democratic trend, which opposed the feudal reaction and noble-bourgeois liberalism.

The young man’s revolutionary sentiments were evident even in his class works. Once the director of the gymnasium, F. M. Kerensky (the father of the later notorious Socialist-Revolutionary A. F. Kerensky), who always held Ulyanov’s works as an example to other students, said warningly: “What kind of oppressed classes are you writing about here, what does this have to do with it?”

Already in his youth, Vladimir Ilyich had to endure difficult life trials. In January 1886, at the age of 54, Ilya Nikolaevich died suddenly from a cerebral hemorrhage. The orphaned family was left without a livelihood. Maria Alexandrovna began to apply for a pension, several months passed in anticipation of its appointment.

Before the family had time to recover from one blow, a new misfortune befell it - on March 1, 1887, in St. Petersburg, Alexander Ulyanov was arrested for participating in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander III. Following him, his sister Anna, who studied in St. Petersburg, was arrested.

The family did not know about Alexander Ilyich’s revolutionary activities. He studied brilliantly at St. Petersburg University. His research in the field of zoology and chemistry attracted the attention of prominent scientists such as N. P. Wagner and A. M. Butlerov; each of them wanted to leave him at the university in their own department. One of his works in zoology, completed in the third year, was awarded a gold medal. Alexander Ulyanov was destined to become a professor. During the last summer he spent at home, he devoted all his time to preparing his dissertation and seemed to be completely immersed in science. No one knew that while in St. Petersburg, Alexander Ilyich participated in revolutionary youth circles and conducted political propaganda among the workers. Ideologically, he was on the path from Narodnaya Volya to Marxism.

His comrades loved him for his intelligence and moral purity, dedication and exceptional modesty. Among those who studied with him at the same time were students whose names later became widely known. These include the writer A. S. Serafimovich, the revolutionary poet of Latvia Jan Rainis, one of V. I. Lenin’s comrades - P. I. Stuchka and others.

A relative of the Ulyanovs wrote to Simbirsk about the arrest of Alexander and Anna, but, fearing for Maria Alexandrovna, she sent a letter not to her, but to a close friend of their family - teacher V.V. Kashkadamova. She immediately called Vladimir from the gymnasium and gave him the letter to read. “Ilyich’s eyebrows knitted together tightly, he was silent for a long time...” Kashkadamova recalled. “But this is a serious matter,” he said, “and it could end badly for Sasha” 5. Vladimir had the difficult task of preparing his mother for the sad news and being her moral support in this difficult moment.

News of what had happened quickly spread throughout the city. And immediately everyone who had visited them before, the entire liberal Simbirsk “society”, recoiled from the Ulyanov family. It was then that for the first time young Lenin saw the cowardly face of liberal intellectuals.

Maria Alexandrovna attended the trial of Alexander and his comrades, heard her son’s speech, in which he boldly denounced the tsarist autocracy and spoke about the historical inevitability of the victory of the new social system - socialism.

“I was surprised how well Sasha spoke: so convincingly, so eloquently,” Maria Alexandrovna told her daughter Anna. “I didn’t think he could talk like that.” But it was so incredibly difficult for me to listen to him that I could not sit through the end of his speech and had to leave the hall.”

On May 8, 1887, Alexander Ulyanov, at the age of 21, was executed by the royal executioners in Shlisselburg.

The execution of Alexander Ulyanov excited all honest people and caused their indignation at the arbitrariness of the tsarist autocracy. Newspapers in many countries then wrote about the courage of Alexander Ulyanov. Thus, the English Daily News and Der Sozialdemokrat, published in Switzerland, paid special attention to his speech at the trial; The French newspaper “Cri du People” wrote about his fearlessness during the execution. The Polish newspaper Przedswit published the poem “Ulyanov,” dedicated to his heroism and courage. The death of Alexander Ulyanov was a huge loss for science. No wonder the great Mendeleev was so sorry that the revolution took away from him two of his outstanding students - Kibalchich and Ulyanov.

The execution of his brother shocked young Lenin and at the same time strengthened his revolutionary views. A. I. Ulyanova-Elizarova wrote moving words about the brothers: “Alexander Ilyich died as a hero, and his blood illuminated the path of his next brother, Vladimir, with the glow of a revolutionary fire” 6 .

Bowing to the blessed memory of his brother, his dedication and courage, Vladimir, however, rejected the path of terrorist struggle chosen by Alexander. “No, we won’t go that way,” he decided. “This is not the way to go.”

During the tragic days for the Ulyanov family, the young man’s self-control and perseverance had a profound effect. He saw with what courage his mother endured her inconsolable grief. His mother's example could not help but influence him, and, no matter how hard it was for him, he pulled himself together and brilliantly passed the matriculation exam. The youngest in the class, he, the only one of all who passed the exam, received a gold medal. The gymnasium authorities hesitated whether to give the brother of the executed “state criminal” a medal. But Vladimir Ilyich’s extraordinary abilities and deep knowledge were so obvious that it was impossible not to give him a medal. The description of the director of the gymnasium noted: “Very talented, constantly diligent and neat, Ulyanov was the first student in all classes and at the end of the course was awarded a gold medal as the most worthy in terms of success, development and behavior.” 7

It is characteristic that at a meeting of the board of trustees of the Kazan educational district, which discussed the works of gymnasium graduates, those made by Vladimir Ulyanov from the Simbirsk gymnasium were especially noted.

Note:

1 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 1, p. 295.

2 Memories of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In five volumes. T. 1. M., 1968, p. 22.

4 N.K. Krupskaya. About Lenin. M., 1965, p. 36.

6 Memoirs of V.I. Lenin, vol. 1, 1968, p. 25.

7 “Young Guard”, 1924, No. 1, p. 89.

First revolutionary baptism

At the end of June 1887, the Ulyanov family moved into Simbirsk. She lived for a month in the village of Kokushkino, and then settled in Kazan, where Vladimir Ilyich entered the law faculty of the university. Determined to devote himself to the revolutionary struggle, he sought to study social disciplines: “Now. - he said, - this is the time, you need to study the sciences of law and political economy" 1.

Vladimir Ilyich was not immediately accepted into the university. The university authorities were afraid to take responsibility and enroll him among the students. A resolution was imposed on his petition: “Delay until characterization is received.” And only after he received a brilliant reference from the Simbirsk gymnasium, he was accepted into the university.

At Kazan University, Vladimir Ilyich becomes an active member of the illegal Samara-Simbirsk community. The tsarist authorities, who instilled investigation and espionage and prohibited any student organizations, also persecuted fraternities. The university charter of 1884 punished participation in them with exclusion from higher educational institutions. Having established connections with advanced students, Lenin took an active part in the revolutionary circle, which the police characterized as a circle of “extremely harmful tendencies.”

Students strongly opposed the establishment of a police regime in universities. On December 4, 1887, a meeting of students took place in the assembly hall of Kazan University, demanding the abolition of the reactionary university charter, permission to organize student societies, the return of previously expelled students and the prosecution of those responsible for their expulsion. Vladimir Ilyich was one of the active participants in the student protest. The trustee of the Kazan educational district later reported to the education department that Ulyanov “rushed into the assembly hall in the first batch,” and the university inspector noted him “as one of the most active participants in the gathering, whom he saw in the ranks, very excited, almost with clenched fists." Leaving the meeting. Lenin was one of the first to leave his student entrance card.

The revolutionary uprising of the students seriously alarmed the Kazan authorities. In the courtyard of the building adjacent to the university, a battalion of soldiers was at the ready.

As a sign of protest, Lenin decided to leave the university. On December 5, he writes the following petition to the rector: “Not recognizing it as possible to continue my education at the University under the current conditions of university life, I have the honor to humbly ask Your Excellency to make the appropriate order to remove me from among the students of the Imperial Kazan University.” 2

By order of the Kazan governor, Lenin was arrested and imprisoned. On the way to prison, a remarkable conversation took place between Lenin and the police bailiff accompanying him: “Why are you rebelling, young man, there’s a wall!” - the bailiff said edifyingly. “The wall is rotten, poke it and it will fall apart!” 3 - the young man answered boldly.

In the prison cell, the arrested students shared their opinions and plans for the future. When asked by his comrades what he plans to do after leaving prison. Vladimir Ilyich replied that there was only one road before him, the road of revolutionary struggle. On December 5, Lenin, along with other active participants in the meeting, was expelled from the university. He was forbidden to live in Kazan, and on December 7 he was deported to the village of Kokushkino under the secret supervision of the police 4. The covered wagon in which he was traveling was escorted to the city limits by a policeman.

Thus, as a seventeen-year-old youth, Lenin embarked on the path of revolutionary struggle, and thus he received his first revolutionary baptism.

Having sent the young man to the village, the gendarmes could not calm down. The director of the police department sent an instruction to the head of the Kazan provincial gendarme department: “Order... to establish strict secret surveillance of Vladimir Ulyanov, who was exiled to the village of Kokushkino, Laishevsky district.”

In exile, Vladimir Ilyich diligently studies socio-political, economic and statistical literature. With the help of his relatives, he receives books and magazines from Kazan, selected from libraries. He recalled later: “It seems that never in my life, even in prison in St. Petersburg and in Siberia, have I read as much as in the year after my deportation to a village in Kazan. It was voracious reading from early morning until late” 5 . The young man's activities were strictly systematized. He studied university courses, read the magazines Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski, Vestnik Evropy, Russian Wealth, the newspaper Russian Vedomosti, fiction, especially the works of N. A. Nekrasov. Many times Lenin re-read his favorite authors - N. G. Chernyshevsky and N. A. Dobrolyubov, compiled notes and made extracts from their works. He deeply studied the works of the great Russian revolutionary democrat Chernyshevsky, imbued with the spirit of class struggle, in which the idea of ​​​​a peasant revolution, the idea of ​​​​the struggle for the overthrow of the autocracy and the destruction of serfdom was carried out, his materialist philosophical views and socialist ideas were outlined. Subsequently, Vladimir Ilyich repeatedly emphasized the enormous importance of Chernyshevsky’s works. who knew how to educate real revolutionaries through censored articles.

Young Lenin was reading the novel “What is to be done?” - one of the favorite books of his executed brother. In this novel, Chernyshevsky put his socialist ideas into artistic form; he was the first in Russian literature to create the image of a revolutionary, a selfless fighter for the freedom and happiness of the people. The book "What to do?" Vladimir Ilyich was so captivated that in the summer of 1888 he re-read it five times over the course of several weeks, finding more and more exciting thoughts in it (he first became acquainted with the novel at the age of 14-15). Later, Vladimir Ilyich said that he sent Nikolai Gavrilovich a letter.

Note:

1 N. Veretennikov. Volodya Ulyanov. U., 1967, p. 60.

2 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 1, p. 551.

3 Memoirs of V.I. Lenin, vol. 2, 1969, p. 173.

4 Nowadays, the House-Museum of V.I. Lenin has been created in Kokushkino-Lenino.

5 “Questions of Literature”, 1957, No. 8, p. 133.

In a Marxist circle

Lenin remained in exile for about a year. In the fall of 1888, he was able to move to Kazan 1, but he was not allowed to enter the university. The trustee of the Kazan educational district, objecting to Lenin’s return to the university, wrote to the department of public education: “... with outstanding abilities and very good information, he cannot yet be recognized as a trustworthy person either morally or politically.” The department imposed a resolution: “Isn’t this Ulyanov’s brother. After all, also from the Simbirsk gymnasium?.. It should not be accepted at all.” Deprived of the opportunity to continue his education in Russia, Vladimir Ilyich petitions to be allowed to go abroad to continue his studies. And again he is refused. The Kazan governor received an order from the police department to Vladimir Ulyanov “not to issue a foreign passport....”

Soon Lenin joined one of the Marxist circles organized by N. E. Fedoseev, one of the first revolutionaries in Russia to declare his commitment to Marxism. Due to the conditions of secrecy, members of the circles he organized in Kazan did not communicate with each other, names were not mentioned unless particularly necessary, everyone knew only the members of his own circle. Therefore, Vladimir Ilyich, being a member of one of the circles, never met Fedoseev. In Kazan at that time there were several illegal revolutionary circles in which the works of K. Marx and F. Engels, distributed in illegal publications and handwritten translations, were studied and discussed, and there were heated debates around the works of G. V. Plekhanov, directed against the populists.

This was a time when the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia was under the ideological influence of populism. The idealistic and ahistorical assertions of the populists that capitalism in Russia is a superficial phenomenon, completely accidental, that the country will come to socialism only through the peasant community, their judgments about the appropriateness of the tactics of individual terror as a means of political struggle were very popular among the intelligentsia. Lenin later noted: “Almost everyone in their early youth enthusiastically bowed to the heroes of terror. The rejection of the charming impression of this heroic tradition was worth the struggle, accompanied by a break with people who at all costs wanted to remain faithful to the “People's Will” and whom the young Social Democrats highly respected. The struggle forced me to study and read illegal works of all kinds...” 2

Vladimir Ilyich himself “was never carried away by the idea of ​​populism,” noted his elder sister, “he never sailed along this path... Since the fall of 1888, I remember his heated conversations about Marx, which he was then seriously interested in, and was skeptical about populist illusions » 3.

The views of the populists were in clear contradiction with reality. After the abolition of serfdom in 1861, capitalism began to develop rapidly in Russia. Plants and factories sprang up in St. Petersburg, in the center and south of the country, and in the Urals.

The song was widely known at that time:

The old system was destroyed by overlord capital,
He uprooted noble families,
Men and boys from their native Palestines
Driven to factories, shipyards, factories.

Railway lines stretched from the center to the outskirts. In the person of the working class in Russia, a great revolutionary force grew and strengthened. The working class, not yet aware of its power, was already beginning to fight the landowner-bourgeois system. Strikes broke out spontaneously and the first proletarian organizations were created.

In 1883, the first Russian Marxist organization was created abroad - the “Emancipation of Labor” group, headed by G. V. Plekhanov. The group played a prominent role in spreading the idea of ​​scientific socialism in Russia, Marxist coverage of the economic situation in the country and in the fight against populism. Great was the significance of G. V. Plekhanov’s works, such as “Socialism and the Political Struggle” and “Our Disagreements,” which were read with enthusiasm and hotly discussed in Marxist circles of that time. Published abroad without censorship, they were the first to systematically present the ideas of Marxism as applied to Russia. But the Emancipation of Labor group, according to Lenin's later definition, only theoretically founded social democracy in Russia and took the first step towards the labor movement.

The months of Lenin's stay in Kazan were filled with hard work to master the theory of Marxism and communicate with young Kazan Marxists. He carefully studies the main work of K. Marx “Capital”, in which its brilliant author discovered and scientifically substantiated the economic law of development of capitalist society, gave a deep analysis of the contradictions of capitalism and irrefutably proved the inevitability of its death and the victory of socialism. K. Marx scientifically substantiated the world-historical role of the proletariat as the gravedigger of capitalism and the creator of a new, socialist society.

Vladimir Ilyich was completely captivated by the great ideas of Marx, the irresistible logic and depth of his scientific conclusions. He did not just study Capital, but pondered its ideas in relation to the socio-economic conditions and tasks of the labor movement in Russia. “...With great ardor and enthusiasm,” Anna Ilyinichna later recalled, “he told me about the foundations of Marx’s theory and the new horizons that it opened... There was an air of cheerful faith from him, which was transmitted to his interlocutors. Even then he already knew how to convince and captivate with his words. And then he did not know how, while studying something, finding new ways, not to share it with others, not to recruit supporters for himself.” 4

N.K. Krupskaya noted that Lenin “received as a legacy from the Russian heroic revolutionary movement” an ardent feeling of love for all working people, for all the oppressed. This feeling made him passionately, ardently seek an answer to the question: what should be the ways to liberate the working people? He received answers to his questions from Marx. He did not approach Marx as a scribe. He approached Marx as a man seeking an answer to painful, urgent questions. And he found these answers there” 5.

From the very beginning of his adult life, Lenin became a convinced supporter of the revolutionary Marxist teaching about the transformation of the world, about the great historical mission of the working class. 18-year-old Lenin realized that the most revolutionary class is the working class, that it belongs to the leading role in the struggle against the exploiters.

Vladimir Ilyich was one of the first Russian Marxists, a creative master of revolutionary teaching, an ardent, convinced and fiery propagandist of the great ideas of scientific socialism.

Armed with the theory of Marxism, Lenin was like no other. I clearly saw what a great force would awaken in the working class of Russia if socialist consciousness was introduced into the young workers' movement. Even then, he was firmly, unshakably convinced that neither the tsarist autocracy nor the power of the capitalists could withstand this force.

Note:

1 The house in which the Ulyanov family lived in 1888 - 1889 has now been turned into the V.I. Lenin House-Museum.

2 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 6, pp. 180 - 181.

3 Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, f. 13, units hr. 100.

4 Memoirs of V.I. Lenin, vol. 1, 1968, p. 30.

5 Ibid., p. 598.

Samara period

At the beginning of May 1889, the Ulyanov family left for the Samara province. to a farm near the village of Alakaevka, and in the fall she settled in Samara (now the city of Kuibyshev) 1 . Soon after her departure, the gendarmes managed to pick up the trail of the Kazan revolutionary circles. In July, N. E. Fedoseev was arrested and imprisoned, and some members of the circle that included Lenin were also arrested. Thus, only thanks to a happy accident - his departure from Kazan - Lenin avoided arrest.

In the article “A few words about N. E. Fedoseev” Lenin wrote: “In the spring of 1889 I left for the Samara province, where at the end of the summer of 1889 I heard about the arrest of Fedoseev and other members of the Kazan circles - by the way, and where I took part, I think that I could easily have been arrested if I had stayed in Kazan that summer” 2.

Vladimir Ilyich needed income. During May - June, he placed an advertisement in Samara Gazeta: “A former student wants to have a lesson. I agree to leave. Address: Voznesenskaya St., Saushkina village, Elizarov, for transmission to V.U. in writing.” In the report on persons under police supervision, it was noted that Ulyanov in Samara lives by giving lessons.

Not having the opportunity to go to university either in Russia or abroad. Vladimir Ilyich tried to get permission to take university exams as an external student. He was denied this too. Only in the spring of 1890 did he receive such permission. With all his energy, Lenin set about preparing for the exams. He decided to graduate from university at the same time as his former Kazan classmates. To do this, it was necessary to independently study in a year and a half what others studied during their four-year university studies. Strictly calculating the remaining time, Vladimir Ilyich drew up a plan for his studies, persistently and purposefully carrying out it. In the summer in Alakaevka, in a remote alley of the garden, he set up a kind of “study”. He came here after morning tea, loaded with books and notebooks, and worked until dark.

After hard work, Lenin knew how to rest well. In the evenings, the Alakaevsky house was filled with music and singing. Vladimir Ilyich often sang with his sister Olga, who accompanied him on the piano. He especially loved the song “Swimmer” (“Our sea is unsociable”) based on the words of the poet Yazykov. He sang with enthusiasm:

But the waves carry you there
Only a strong soul!..
Bravely, brothers, the storm is full
My sail is straight and strong.

Relatives noted that there was never sadness in Vladimir Ilyich’s penny; it always sounded like courage and appeal. One morning, when Olga was playing La Marseillaise, Vladimir Ilyich entered the room and offered to sing “The Internationale”. In those years, this anthem was almost unknown in Russia. The brother and sister began to pick a melody and then sang the entire anthem in French 3 . As a child, Vladimir Ilyich studied music, then he stopped and repeatedly recalled it with regret. He loved music very much and understood it subtly.

In 1891, Lenin took external state exams for the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University in the spring and autumn sessions. He is the only one of all examinees who receives the highest marks in all subjects. He is awarded a first degree diploma. Vladimir Ilyich also used trips to St. Petersburg to take exams to contact Marxists in the capital and through them to stock up on Marxist literature.

The addresses of St. Petersburg Marxists were given to Vladimir Ilyich by his close acquaintance A. A. Shukht, 4 who at that time lived in Samara after serving his Siberian exile.

From the end of January 1892, Lenin was enrolled as an assistant sworn attorney and in March began to appear in the Samara District Court. During 1892 - 1898, he appeared in the Samara court about 20 times. Most of his clients were poor peasants and artisans.

But it was not the work of a lawyer that occupied Lenin. All his energy and strength were directed toward studying Marxism and preparing for active revolutionary activity. At that time, several illegal circles of revolutionary-minded, mainly student, youth operated in Samara. Most of these circles adhered to the populist trend. The most active of them was the circle of A.P. Sklyarenko, which printed and distributed illegal publications, conducted propaganda among students, and had connections with individual workers. Through M. T. Elizarov, the husband of his older sister, Lenin met Sklyarenko and soon became close friends with him, contacted members of his circle and other circles.

Many representatives of revolutionary populism of the 70s lived in Samara; By that time, almost all of them had already retired from active political activity. But Lenin, who always strived to learn, to take from everywhere everything that was most valuable and useful, talked for a long time with the veterans of Narodnaya Volya, absorbing and critically processing the experience of the past revolutionary movement. He was keenly interested in their stories about revolutionary work, the conditions of conspiracy, behavior during interrogations and trials. Without sharing their worldview, he had deep respect for these brave, selfless revolutionaries.

The appearance of a widely educated Marxist made a great impression in Samara revolutionary circles. With his characteristic passion, ability to convince people and recruit supporters, Lenin began the propaganda of Marxism here too. His activities were especially active in Sklyarenko’s circle. Under the influence of Marxist propaganda led by Lenin, many members of the circle, including Sklyarenko himself 5, broke with populist views.

In the 90s, the populists turned from revolutionary fighters against tsarism into moderate liberals. Lenin’s consistent struggle against populist ideology, against liberal populists, begins in Samara. He repeatedly gives abstracts (reports) in which he exposes the anti-scientific essence of populist views, their inconsistency and contradiction with reality. Lenin gave an abstract on the topic “On the community, its destinies and the paths of the revolution” to a circle that included workers of the Samara railway depot. In the winter and summer of 1892, he wrote and then read reports in illegal circles against the most prominent ideologists of liberal populism - N.K. Mikhailovsky, V.P. Vorontsov and S.N. Yuzhakov, and also gave reports on the works of K. Marx and F. Engels. His essay on K. Marx’s book “The Poverty of Philosophy” aroused great interest in revolutionary circles. Lenin's speeches took place in an atmosphere of intense ideological polemics. Defending Marxist teaching, he confidently and skillfully repelled the attacks of his opponents.

Members of Sklyarenko’s circle observed strict secrecy in their activities. To read abstracts and discuss theoretical and practical issues, they sometimes made the so-called “around the world” - a trip along the Volga in a boat down to the end of the Samara Luka, then crossing to the river that flows north and flows into the Volga. The trip took several days. During this time, it was possible, without interference or fear that the police would come, to discuss the issues that worried the circle participants. Moreover, the boat ride was a wonderful vacation. Many years later, while living in exile, Vladimir Ilyich warmly recalled how in Samara he and his comrades made a “round the world” trip, and what great pleasure it gave him to get to know new places.

In Samara, Vladimir Ilyich translated the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” by K. Marx and F. Engels from German into Russian. This handwritten translation passed from hand to hand, it was read in Samara circles and even outside Samara. Unfortunately, the manuscript of Lenin's translation was lost.

Vladimir Ilyich closely followed the events of international life. He rejoiced when, under the pressure of a massive and ever-increasing labor movement in Germany, the exceptional law against socialists introduced in 1878 was repealed.

In 1892, Lenin organized the first circle of Marxists in Samara, which included A. I. Sklyarenko, I. X. Lalayants (since 1893), M. I. Semenov, assistant railway driver I. A. Kuznetsov, student of the paramedic school M I. Lebedeva and A. A. Belyakov. The circle examined the works of K. Marx - “Capital” and F. Engels - “Anti-Dühring”, “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, the works of G. V. Plekhanov and others. Everything that could be obtained from Marxist literature in Samara at that time was studied and discussed. Members of the circle actively promoted Marxism.

Vladimir Ilyich made numerous presentations in the circle on issues of Marxist theory and read articles he had prepared. During his stay in Samara, he wrote several works. Among them, according to the testimony of the circle participants, was, still not found, an article about the book by V. I. Vorontsov “The Fate of Capitalism in Russia” (one of the main works of liberal populism).

Among his like-minded people, Lenin enjoyed exceptional authority. “This 23-year-old man,” recalled I. Kh. Lalayants, “surprisingly combined simplicity, sensitivity, cheerfulness and perkiness, on the one hand, and solidity, depth of knowledge, merciless logical consistency, clarity and precision of judgment and definitions - with another" 6.

Even then, Lenin was characterized by a creative attitude to the issues being studied; the pedantic perception of Marxist theory was alien to him. He did not accept anything as dogma. In theory, he saw the key to understanding the economic and political situation of Russia, and he sought to test each of the conclusions he drew from the books he read in practice.

Armed with the Marxist scientific method, Lenin studied the Russian economy comprehensively. He collected and analyzed a huge amount of material about peasant farming, especially zemstvo statistics. He outlined his analyzes and conclusions first in a report to a circle, and then in the article “New Economic Movements in Peasant Life,” written in the spring of 1893. This is Lenin's first surviving scientific work. It convincingly shows that already in those years the young Lenin was well versed in the theory of Marxism and applied it deeply and correctly to the study of the life of the peasant masses of Russia. Lenin highly appreciated the statistical data presented in V. E. Postnikov’s book “South Russian Peasant Economy” as rich material for analyzing the situation of the Russian village. Using these data, Lenin at the same time criticizes the author of the book for inconsistency and methodological errors and gives a Marxist description of the situation in the countryside, breaking the populist myth about the special, supposedly unchangeable structure of the peasant economy. Contrary to the assertions of the populists, who denied the development of capitalism in Russia, he convincingly proves that capitalism is growing with unstoppable force, that a deep economic stratification is taking place in the peasantry into the poor, middle peasants and kulaks. The data cited by Lenin clearly revealed the presence of antagonistic classes among the “communal” peasantry, idealized by the populists.

V.I. Lenin intended to publish his article in the liberal magazine “Russian Thought,” but the editors rejected it “as not being suitable for the direction of the magazine.” Attaching great importance to the issue raised in the article, Lenin intended to publish it as a separate pamphlet. However, this intention was not fulfilled then. The main materials of the article were used by Lenin in the second chapter of his book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia.” The manuscript of the article “New Economic Movements in Peasant Life” was first published only in 1923.

Lenin carefully studied the life of the Russian village, often talked with peasants, with people who knew the village. Living on a farm in the summer, Vladimir Ilyich often visited A. A. Preobrazhensky, the organizer of a populist agricultural colony, located several miles from Alakaevka. At Preobrazhensky’s, he repeatedly met and talked with peasants, in particular with D. Ya. Kislikov from the village of Gvardeytsy, described by G. Uspensky in the essay “Three Villages.” Kislikov also visited Vladimir Ilyich, who was very interested in this genius peasant, who at the age of 30 began to learn to read and write, began to write poetry, and boldly expressed his opinions. Vladimir Ilyich remembered him for a long time. In 1905, he wrote to Preobrazhensky: “Is that radical peasant whom you took to me alive? What has he become now? And Kislikov, during the revolution of 1905 - 1907, conducted propaganda among the peasants that was close in spirit to social democratic.

In 1893, Lenin invited Preobrazhensky to examine one of the villages and together with him compiled a house card with a list of questions. The results of the examination were then sent to Lenin in St. Petersburg. From Sklyarenko, who served as a secretary to the justice of the peace and therefore often visited the village and communicated with the peasants, he also received valuable material about the situation of the peasantry.

The good knowledge of peasant farming that Lenin acquired while studying the countryside was important for his subsequent theoretical work. It armed him with extensive, indisputable factual data, which gave him rich material for deep scientific generalizations and conclusions, for crushing criticism of populist views.

Leshin’s activities were not limited to Samara; he was associated with a number of cities in the Volga region. Through M. T. Elizarov, he established strong connections with V. A. Ionov and A. I. Eramasov, who lived in Syzran and visited Samara, who, under the influence of Lenin, became Marxists. People came to Samara from Saratov, Kazan and other Volga cities to get acquainted with the new Marxist teaching. Thus, the Volga region then became one of the main centers for the spread of Marxist ideas in Russia.

Vladimir Ilyich established written communication with N. E. Fedoseev. who at that time lived in Vladimir. In their correspondence, they exchanged opinions on issues of Marxist theory, economic and political development of Russia. In 1893, Lenin received a manuscript from Fedoseev (who was again in prison) about the reasons for the fall of serfdom in Russia. The manuscript, with Lenin's notes in the margins, was read and discussed by members of the Marxist circle. Lenin's correspondence with Fedoseev continued for a number of years. but, unfortunately, has not yet been found. Vladimir Ilyich treated his like-minded person with deep sympathy. Many years later, he wrote: “...for the Volga region and for some areas of Central Russia, the role played by Fedoseev was remarkably high at that time, and the public of that time, in its turn to Marxism, undoubtedly experienced the influence of this on a very, very large scale.” an extraordinarily talented and extraordinarily dedicated revolutionary.” 7

The years of life in Kazan and Samara were of great importance for Lenin’s future activities. It was during these years that his Marxist beliefs finally took shape and took shape. The Samara period was a period of accumulation of forces to enter the wide arena of revolutionary struggle. Lenin was drawn to the expanse of revolutionary work, to a large industrial center, to where large masses of the proletariat were concentrated.

In August 1893, Vladimir Ilyich left for St. Petersburg.

Note:

1 In Alakaevka and Kuibyshev, where the Ulyanov family lived, House-Museums of V. I. Lenin were created.

2 V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 45, p. 321.

3 See D.I. Ulyanov. Memories of Vladimir Ilyich. M., 1968, pp. 51 - 52.

4 Vladimir Ilyich was associated with A. A. Shukht and his family until the end of his life. Schucht joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917. In 1918, on Lenin’s recommendation, his daughter was accepted into the party. Another daughter, Schuchta, became the wife of one of the founders of the Italian Communist Party, a prominent figure in the international communist movement, Antonio Gramsci.

He led the country from October 26th Art. Art. 1917 to January 21, 1924 Positions held: Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR
Lenin (Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich (born April 22, 1870, died January 21, 1924) - the greatest genius of mankind, successor to the work and teachings of Marx and Engels, founder of Bolshevism, founder and leader of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Communist International, organizer and leader of the first dictatorship of the proletariat in the history of the state, leader, teacher and friend of the working people of the whole world. Never since Marx has the history of the liberation movement of the proletariat produced such a gigantic figure as Lenin. Lenin's entire life was an example of an irreconcilable struggle against the enemies of the people for the happiness of all working humanity. Lenin was born on April 22 (10), 1870 in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk). His father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, was a teacher, school inspector, and then director of public schools. Lenin's elder brother, revolutionary Alexander Ilyich, was executed in 1887 for his participation in preparing the assassination attempt on Alexander III. After graduating from high school in 1887, Lenin entered the law faculty of Kazan University.

A few months later he was expelled for active participation in student unrest, arrested and exiled to a village near Kazan. (Later, in 1891, after self-study, Lenin passed all the exams for the law faculty at St. Petersburg University.) After staying in the village for about a year, Lenin returned to Kazan, began studying Marx’s “Capital” and joined the Marxist revolutionary circle. In May 1889, Lenin moved to Samara, where he organized the first Marxist circle. Even then, Lenin amazed everyone with his deep knowledge of Marxism. In 1893 he moved to St. Petersburg. Here in 1894 He wrote his brilliant work “What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?”

In it, Lenin defeated the populists, pointed out the leading role (hegemony) of the Russian working class in the struggle against tsarism and capitalism, for a victorious communist revolution, and for the first time put forward the idea of ​​a revolutionary alliance of workers and peasants as the main means of overthrowing tsarism, landowners, and the bourgeoisie. Lenin saw that to accomplish these tasks a proletarian party was needed. In 1895, he created the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class” - the beginning of a revolutionary proletarian party in Russia. In December 1895, Lenin was arrested, imprisoned, and... then in 1897 he was exiled to Siberia, to the village of Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, where N.K. Krupskaya came into exile.

V.I. Lenin in his student years.

In prison and exile, Lenin continued to carry out revolutionary work, writing books, articles, and leaflets. In 1899, Lenin’s famous book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” was published. Returning from exile in 1900, Lenin went abroad, where he founded the newspaper Iskra. “Iskra” launched a struggle for Lenin’s organizational plan for building a proletarian party in Russia, crushing the enemies of the working class - the “Economists” and Socialist Revolutionaries. Lenin’s first, still absentee, acquaintance with Stalin dates back to this same period. The lives and activities of Lenin and Stalin closely merged in the struggle for the cause of the revolution. The greatest role in the victory of Iskra was played by Lenin’s remarkable work “What is to be done?”, in which Lenin gave an ingenious development of the ideological foundations of the Marxist party. Lenin's Iskra united around itself the majority of social democratic organizations in Russia and prepared the convening of the Second Party Congress, which took place in 1903. At this congress, the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was created. In the struggle against the opportunists for a new type of party, Lenin created a group of Bolsheviks at the congress. Smashing the Mensheviks, after the congress Lenin wrote the book “One Step Forward - Two Steps Back,” in which for the first time in the history of Marxism he developed the doctrine of the party as the leading organization of the proletariat, without which it is impossible to win the struggle for the proletarian dictatorship, and laid the organizational foundations of the Bolshevik Party.

When the revolution began in Russia in 1905, Lenin directed all the work of the Bolsheviks to lead the masses in the revolution. With his immortal work “Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution,” Lenin enriched Marxism with a new theory of socialist revolution, he developed a theory of the development of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one, and laid the tactical foundations of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin mercilessly exposed the Mensheviks and the most vile of them, Trotsky, who instilled in the workers disbelief in the strength of the working class, was an opponent of the union of workers and peasants and led the way to disrupt the revolution.In order to directly lead the struggle of the working class in the revolution, Lenin returned to Russia in November 1905. Soon, at the Tammerfors Conference of the Bolsheviks, Lenin met for the first time with Stalin, who was then leading the revolutionary struggle in Transcaucasia.

After the defeat of the first Russian revolution, Lenin was forced to go abroad again in 1907, where he stayed for more than 9 years. During the difficult years of the Stolypin reaction, in the context of the decline of the labor movement, the flight of intellectuals from the party, and the Mensheviks’ attempts to liquidate the party, Lenin gathered the forces of the party in the fight against anti-party trends in the labor movement. Lenin, fighting against the revisionists, degenerates in the field of Marxist theory, wrote his famous book “Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.” In this work he defended the theoretical foundations of the Marxist party. Under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolsheviks convened the Prague Conference in January 1912, at which they expelled the Mensheviks from the party and formed a separate independent Bolshevik party. With the beginning of a new upsurge in the labor movement and the publication of the newspaper Pravda, Lenin moved from Paris to Krakow, closer to the border, in June 1912, in order to directly supervise all the work of the party. When the imperialist war began, Lenin was arrested by the Austrian police and was in prison for 11 days, and then went to Switzerland, where he lived until the February Revolution of 1917.

Lenin sharply and irreconcilably opposed the war, exposing its predatory nature. He called for turning the imperialist war into a civil war and put forward the slogan of the defeat of “his” governments in the imperialist war. Lenin exposed the treason of the leaders of the Second International, who, with the beginning of the imperialist war, switched to the service of the bourgeoisie and became supporters of the war. He also exposed the hidden social chauvinists - the so-called centrists - Kautsky, Trotsky and other traitors to Marxism who defended the interests of the imperialist bourgeoisie. From the very first days of the war, Lenin began to gather forces to create a new, Third International. During the war (1916), Lenin wrote the book “Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism,” in which he gave the deepest Marxist analysis of imperialism. Based on his theory of imperialism, Lenin scientifically substantiated the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country and the impossibility of the simultaneous victory of socialism in all countries After the overthrow of the autocracy in February 1917, Lenin, despite the opposition of the imperialist governments, returned to Russia. Arriving in Petrograd on April 3, he was enthusiastically greeted by the working masses, who saw him as their leader. On April 4, Lenin announced his famous April resolutions at a meeting of the Bolsheviks theses in which he outlined a brilliant plan for the party’s struggle for the transition from a bourgeois-democratic revolution to a socialist revolution, putting forward the slogan: “All power to the Soviets.” Based on this plan, the Bolsheviks launched combat work to prepare socialist revolutions.

After the July days, the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of Lenin. The bourgeoisie, which madly hated Lenin, and its Menynevist-Socialist Revolutionary agents decided to kill him. The Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, together with Trotsky, Kamenev, and Rykov, insisted on handing over Lenin to the authorities. Stalin insisted that Lenin go into hiding and leave Petrograd. While in hiding, Lenin continued to lead the party. During these days, he wrote his wonderful book “State and Revolution”, in which he further developed Marx’s teaching on the dictatorship of the proletariat. In September 1917, given the enormous growth of Bolshevik influence among the masses, Lenin indicated that an uprising was ripe.

On October 7, Lenin returned to Petrograd, and on October 10, the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, after Lenin’s report, adopted his resolution on an armed uprising. On October 24, the Central Committee gave the signal for an uprising. Lenin became the head of the uprising. Together with Lenin, the victory of the October Socialist Revolution was organized by his faithful comrade-in-arms, Stalin. Under the banner of Lenin, the working class won the Great October Socialist Revolution. The Second Congress of Soviets enthusiastically adopted the historical decrees written by Lenin on peace and land and formed the world's first workers' and peasants' government - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin. Under Lenin's leadership, the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet Government achieved the respite necessary to strengthen the Soviet Republic by making peace with Germany and defeating the Trotskyist-Bukharin war provocateurs. With a firm hand, Lenin built the Soviet state, suppressing the resistance of the overthrown classes - the bourgeoisie and landowners. More than once enemies of the people made attempts on Lenin's life. On August 30, 1918, Lenin was seriously wounded by a terrorist Socialist Revolutionary. This villainous assassination attempt was organized with the complicity of Trotsky and Bukharin.

In the most difficult conditions, Lenin led the struggle of workers and peasants for Soviet power and the independence of our homeland, against foreign invaders and White Guard hordes and, directly leading the defense of the country, hand in hand with Stalin, organized the victory of the Red Army in the civil war. Under Lenin's leadership, the workers and peasants liquidated the landowner class, defeated the bourgeoisie, and dealt a severe blow to the kulaks. In the fight against the enemies of the working class, Lenin created in 1919 the combat headquarters of the world labor movement - the Communist International - and led the first congresses of the Comintern, where its ideological and organizational foundations were forged. After the end of the civil war, under the leadership of Lenin, the country transitioned to peaceful work to restore the national economy. The VIII All-Russian Congress of Soviets in December 1920 adopted Lenin’s plan for the electrification of the country. Lenin pointed out the path of a new economic policy that ensured the construction of socialism in our country. More than once the Trotskyists, Bukharinites and other traitors, who later became agents of foreign intelligence services, tried to undermine the unity of the Bolshevik Party and force it to deviate from the Leninist path.

Each time, under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolshevik Party dealt brutal blows to these agents of the class enemy in its ranks. At Lenin's suggestion, the party adopted a resolution on party unity at the Tenth Congress in 1921 - an iron law protecting the unity of the Bolshevik ranks.

Lenin's wound during the assassination attempt in 1918 and continuous hard work undermined his health. Beginning in 1922, Lenin was forced to interrupt his work more and more often. On November 20, 1922, Lenin spoke at the plenum of the Moscow Council. This was his last speech, which he ended with the words: “from NEP Russia there will be socialist Russia.” At the end of 1922, Lenin became seriously ill. But even during his illness, he did not stop working for the benefit of the revolution, to which he devoted all his strength, his entire life. Being already seriously ill, Lenin wrote a number of important articles (“Pages from the Diary”), in which he summed up the work done and outlined a plan for building socialism in our country. On January 21, 1924 at 6:50 pm Lenin died. With deepest sorrow, the working people of the USSR and the whole world saw off their father and teacher, best friend and protector - Lenin - to the grave. The working class and peasantry of the Soviet country responded to the death of Lenin by even greater unity around the Leninist party. The Bolshevik party raised the banner of Lenin high and carried it further. The faithful successor and great continuer of Lenin's work and teachings, Stalin, in Lenin's mourning days, on behalf of the Bolshevik Party, took a great oath at the Second Congress of Soviets of the USSR - to fulfill Lenin's behests without sparing his strength. The Bolshevik Party fulfilled this great oath of Stalin with honor. Under the leadership of Stalin, the Bolsheviks ensured that socialism won in the Soviet country.

Lenin - the greatest statesman and political figure in the history of mankind, a powerful leader and organizer of the revolutionary struggle and victories of the working class, his brilliant theorist, luminary of science - in the new conditions of the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, raised the revolutionary theory of Marx to the highest level. Lenin's teaching summarizes the gigantic experience of the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the capitalist system and to build a new, socialist society. Lenin's rich theoretical heritage is invaluable. Lenin's most important works have been translated into all major languages ​​of the world.

Marxism-Leninism illuminates the path for the proletarians and working people of the whole world to fight for the abolition of all exploitation, for the happiness of mankind.

Listen to the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Part 1:
Mayakovsky V.V. 1925

Listen to the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Part 2:
Mayakovsky V.V. 1925
FROM THE BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONICLE OF V.I. LENIN. PERSONAL LIFE EVENTS
1870, April 10 (22). Born in Simbirsk in the family of public school inspector I.N. Ulyanov and the daughter of a doctor M.A. Ulyanova, nee Blank. He is their fourth child.

1886, January 12 (24). Death of Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov from cerebral hemorrhage. January 15 (27). Participates in his father's funeral. September 19 (October 1). Confirmation by the Simbirsk District Court of inheritance rights to movable property of I.N. Ulyanov - M.A. Ulyanova in one fourth part, daughters Olga and Maria in one eighth part and sons Alexander, Vladimir and Dmitry in one sixth part.

1887, May 8 (20). In the courtyard of the Shlisselburg prison, A.I. Ulyanov, convicted in the case of the assassination attempt on Alexander III, is executed along with four comrades.

June 10 (22). The Pedagogical Council of the Simbirsk Gymnasium awards V.I. Ulyanov a certificate of maturity and awards him a gold medal. August 10 (22). The director of the Simbirsk gymnasium, F.M. Kerensky, sends the characteristics of those who graduated from the gymnasium to Kazan University; among them is the characteristic of V.I. Ulyanov.

August 11 (23). F.M. Kerensky sends to the manager of the Kazan educational district a list of students who have completed the 8th grade and have “moral maturity”; Among them, V.I. Ulyanov was named.

December 4 (16). Participates in a student meeting at Kazan University, organized in support of student protests that began in Moscow against the reactionary university charter. Hands over his entrance ticket to the university.

December 5 (17). He writes a petition to the rector of Kazan University to expel him from the student body due to the impossibility of continuing his education under the existing conditions of university life.

1889, January-February. M.A. Ulyanova uses the money received from the sale of a house in Simbirsk to purchase a small farm in the Samara province of Bogdanovskaya volost near the village of Alapaevka.

November 15 (27). The testing commission of the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University awards V.I. Ulyanov a first-degree diploma after passing the required exams as an external student.

1894, end of February. Meets N.K. Krupskaya in St. Petersburg at the apartment of engineer Klasson during a meeting of St. Petersburg Marxists.

1898, January 8 (20). In a telegram he asks the director of the police department to allow his fiancée N.K. Krupskaya to serve exile in the village of Shushenskoye.

June 7 (19). Reported by M.A. Ulyanova about postponing her wedding with N.K. Krupskaya due to the lack of necessary documents. Early July. The police department puts forward as a condition for living with N.K. Krupskaya in Shushenskoye the immediate conclusion of a church marriage with her.

1909. V.I. Lenin and N.K. Krupskaya meet I.F. Armand during her visit from Brussels to Paris.

1915, early March. Death in Switzerland of N.K. Krupskaya’s mother, Elizaveta Vasilievna.

March 10 (23). Participates together with N.K. Krupskaya in the funeral of her mother at the Bremgarten cemetery in Bern (Switzerland).

1916, July 12 (25). The death of her mother, Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, in Petrograd at the age of 82. V.I. Lenin learns about this in Zurich (Switzerland).

1917, April 4 (17). Upon arrival from Switzerland, he visits the graves of his mother, Maria Alexandrovna and sister, Olga Ilyinichna, at the Volkov cemetery in Petrograd.

1919, March 13. Takes part in the funeral at the Volkov cemetery in Petrograd of M.T. Elizarova, the husband of his elder sister, A.I. Ulyanova-Elizarova.

1922, April 23. Professor N. Rozanov at the Botkin Hospital in Moscow removes from the body of V.I. Lenin the bullet with which he was wounded on August 30, 1918. End of May. General weakness, loss of speech, sharp weakening of the movement of the right limbs, which lasted three weeks. December 16. Second cerebral hemorrhage. Paralysis of the right arm and right leg.

1923, March 10. Third cerebral hemorrhage. Severe paralysis of the right half of the body and speech impairment.

March 14th. A government message is published indicating that V.I. Lenin’s health has undergone a significant deterioration, as a result of which the government has deemed it necessary to establish the publication of medical bulletins on the state of his health.

1924, January 21. The fourth cerebral hemorrhage in the quadrigeminal region. The death of V.I. Lenin at 6:50 pm in Gorki near Moscow.

January 27. The sarcophagus with the body of V.I. Lenin is installed in the Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow.

GOVERNMENT POSTS HELD BY V.I. LENIN
1917, night from October 26 to 27. Elected by the II All-Russian Congress of Soviets as the head of the Soviet government - Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

1918, early July. The V All-Russian Congress of Soviets adopts the Constitution of the RSFSR, which clarifies the status of the post of Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, which is occupied by V.I. Lenin. November 30th. At the plenary meeting of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies, the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is approved, and the Council is given full rights in mobilizing the country's forces and resources for its defense. V.I. Lenin is confirmed as the Chairman of the Council.

1920, April. The Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense is transformed into the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the RSFSR under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin.

1923, July 6. The session of the Central Executive Committee elects V.I. Lenin as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. July 7. The session of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR elects V.I. Lenin as chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. July 17th. The Council of Labor and Defense is created under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR under the chairmanship of V.I. Lenin.

PARTY CONGRESSES HELD UNDER SOVIET AUTHORITY WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF V.I. LENIN
1918, March 6–8. VII emergency party congress. Questions about the revision of the party program, about the new name of the party - RCP (b). Controversy about the Brest-Litovsk peace.
1919, March 18–23. VIII Party Congress. V.I. Lenin delivers a report to the Central Committee on work in the countryside on the military issue. Adoption of the second Party Program.
1920, March 29 – April 5. IX Party Congress. The next tasks of economic development and the issue of cooperation were discussed.
1921, March 8–16. X Party Congress. Questions about replacing appropriation with a tax in kind, about party unity. Adoption of the NEP.
1922, March 27 – April 2. XI Party Congress. In the report of the Central Committee, V.I. Lenin states that the retreat is over, that the alliance of the working class and the peasantry is strengthening. Thesis: “who - whom.”

Source of information: A.A. Dantsev. Rulers of Russia: 20th century. Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix publishing house, 2000.

(1870 - 1924)

Lenin's biography is very long, some things in it are subject to doubt, some events are probably still hidden.

The great leader and teacher of the working people of the whole world, the successor of the revolutionary teachings of K. Marx and F. Engels, the organizer of the CPSU and the founder of the Soviet state, was born on April 22 (according to the old style - April 10), 1870, in the city of Simbirsk, in the family of an inspector of public schools. The elder brother Alexander, a Narodnaya Volya member, was executed in 1887 after participating in the preparation of an assassination attempt on the Tsar. In the year of his brother’s death, Lenin graduated from high school and entered the law faculty of Kazan University. However, in December of the same year he was arrested for participating in the revolutionary movement of students, which was the reason for his expulsion and deportation to the village of Kokushkino, Kazan province.

In 1888 he returned to Kazan, where he joined a Marxist circle, and the following year he moved to Samara. In 1891, he passed the exams as an external student for the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University and began working as an assistant to a sworn attorney in Samara. In the book “What are “friends of the people” and how do they fight against the Social Democrats?” (1984), “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” (1899) Lenin completed the ideological defeat of populism.

The next part is best presented in the form of a short biography of Lenin (Ulyanov) - at this time Vladimir Ilyich made many useful acquaintances and trips.
In April 1895, L. went abroad to establish contact with the Liberation of Labor group. In Switzerland he met Plekhanov, in Germany - with W. Liebknecht, in France - with P. Lafargue and other figures of the international labor movement. In September 1895, having returned from abroad, Lenin visited Vilnius, Moscow and Orekhovo-Zuevo, where he established connections with local Social Democrats. And already in the fall of 1895, on the initiative and under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich, the Marxist circles of St. Petersburg united into a single organization - the St. Petersburg “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” which was the beginning of a revolutionary proletarian party, for the first time in Russia began to combine scientific socialism with the mass labor movement.

On the night of December 8 (20) to December 9 (21) of the same year, Lenin, along with his comrades in the Union of Struggle, was arrested and imprisoned, from where he continued to lead the Union. However, Ulyanov’s activities did not subside even in prison - there he wrote “The Project and Explanation of the Program of the Social Democratic Party,” a number of articles and leaflets, and prepared materials for his book “The Development of Capitalism in Russia.” After 2 years, in February, Lenin was exiled for 3 years to the village. Shushenskoye, Minusinsk district, Yenisei province. For active revolutionary work, his future wife, N.K. Krupskaya, was also sentenced to exile. As L.'s bride, she was also sent to Shushenskoye, where she became his wife. While in exile, Vladimir Ilyich established and maintained contacts with the Social Democrats of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Voronezh and other cities, with the Emancipation of Labor group, corresponded with the Social Democrats who were in exile in the North and Siberia, rallied surrounded by exiled Social Democrats of the Minusinsk district. In addition, he wrote over 30 works while in exile.

Lenin left Shushenskoye immediately after the end of his exile (January 29 (February 10), 1900) left Shushenskoye. He established connections with Social Democrats everywhere - in Ufa, Moscow, St. Petersburg (he visited it illegally), and in other cities. In 1900, he settled in Pskov, where he did a lot of work organizing the newspaper and created strongholds for it in a number of cities. In July of the same year, Lenin went abroad, where he established the publication of the newspaper Iskra - he was its immediate leader. Iskra played an exceptional role in the ideological and organizational preparation of the revolutionary proletarian party. Subsequently, Lenin noted that “the entire flower of the conscious proletariat took the side of Iskra.” It was one of his articles published in Iskra that Ulyanov wrote under the “fatal” pseudonym - Lenin. This happened in December 1901.

For the next five years (1900 - 1905) Vladimir Ilyich lived in Munich, London, and Geneva.
In the struggle for the creation of a new type of party, Lenin’s work “What is to be done?” was of outstanding importance. Urgent issues of our movement" (1902), in which Lenin criticized "economism" and highlighted the main problems of building the party, its ideology and politics.

In 1903, the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP took place. At this congress, the process of unification of revolutionary Marxist organizations was completed and the party of the working class of Russia was formed on the ideological, political and organizational principles developed by Lenin. A new type of proletarian party, the Bolshevik Party, was created. After the congress, Ulyanov launched a struggle against Menshevism.

During the Revolution of 1905-1907, Lenin directed the work of the Bolshevik Party to lead the masses. Already on November 8 (21), 1905, he arrived in St. Petersburg, where he led the activities of the Central Committee and the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolsheviks, the preparation of an armed uprising, and also headed the work of the Bolshevik newspapers “Forward”, “Proletary”, “New Life”. In the summer of 1906, due to police persecution, Lenin moved to Kuokkala (Finland), and in December 1907 he was again forced to emigrate to Switzerland, and at the end of 1908 to Paris.

During the years of reaction 1908-1810, Lenin fought for the preservation of the illegal Bolshevik Party against the Menshevik liquidators, otzovists, and against the schismatic actions of the Trotskyists , against conciliation towards opportunism (a detailed description of these trends will not be given in the short biography of Lenin). He deeply analyzed the experience of the Revolution of 1905–07. At the same time, L. repulsed the onslaught of reaction against the ideological foundations of the party.
At the end of 1910, a new upsurge of the revolutionary movement began in Russia. In December 1910, on Lenin's initiative, new newspapers began to be published in St. Petersburg (Zvezda, Pravda). To train party workers, Lenin in 1911 organized a party school in Longjumeau (near Paris), in which he gave 29 lectures. In January 1912, the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP was held in Prague under the leadership of L., which expelled the Menshevik liquidators from the RSDLP and defined the tasks of the party in an environment of revolutionary upsurge. To be closer to Russia, Lenin moved to Krakow in June 1912. From there he directs the work of the bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP in Russia, the editorial office of the newspaper Pravda, and manages the activities of the Bolshevik faction of the 4th State Duma.
During the First World War (1914-1918), the Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, raised high the banner of proletarian internationalism, exposed the social chauvinism of the leaders of the 2nd International, and put forward the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war.

On July 26 (August 8), 1914, Lenin, following a false denunciation, was arrested by the Austrian authorities and imprisoned in the city of New Targ. Thanks to the assistance of Polish and Austrian Social Democrats, he was soon released, after which he continued to remain abroad. Having received in Zurich on March 2 (15), 1917, the first reliable news about the February bourgeois-democratic revolution that had begun in Russia, Lenin defined new tasks for the proletariat and the Bolshevik Party. April 3(16), 1917 L. returned from emigration to Petrograd. Solemnly greeted by thousands of workers and soldiers, he made a short speech, ending with the words: “Long live the socialist revolution!” Under L.'s leadership, the party launched political and organizational work among the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers.

In July 1917, after the elimination of dual power and the concentration of power in the hands of the counter-revolution, the peaceful period of development of the revolution ended. On July 7 (20), the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of Lenin, and he was forced to go underground. Until August 8 (21), 1917, L. was hiding in a hut beyond the lake. Razliv, near Petrograd, then until the beginning of October - in Finland (Yalkala, Helsingfors, Vyborg). However, even underground, he continued to lead the activities of the party, publishing various brochures.
On the evening of October 24 (November 6), Lenin illegally arrived in Smolny to directly lead the armed uprising. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets, which opened on October 25 (November 7), which proclaimed the transfer of all power in the center and locally into the hands of the Soviets, he made reports on peace and land. The congress adopted Lenin's decrees on peace and land and formed a workers' and peasants' government - the Council of People's Commissars, headed by Lenin.

The victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, won under the leadership of the Communist Party, opened a new era in the history of mankind - the era of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Lenin led the struggle of the Communist Party and the people of Russia to solve the problems of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to build socialism; under his leadership, the party and government created a new, Soviet state apparatus. The confiscation of landowners' lands and the nationalization of all land, banks, transport, and large-scale industry were carried out, and a foreign trade monopoly was introduced. The Red Army was created. National oppression has been destroyed. The party attracted the broad masses of the people to the grandiose work of building the Soviet state and implementing fundamental socio-economic transformations. In December 1917 Lenin, in his article “How to organize a competition?” put forward the idea of ​​socialist competition of the masses as an effective method of building socialism.
From March 11, 1918, L. lived and worked in Moscow, after the Central Committee of the Party and the Soviet government moved here from Petrograd.

In May 1918, on the initiative and with the participation of Lenin, decrees on the food issue were developed and adopted. At L.'s suggestion, food detachments were created from workers, sent to the villages to rouse the poor to fight the kulaks, to fight for bread. The socialist measures of the Soviet government met fierce resistance from the overthrown exploiting classes. They launched an armed struggle against Soviet power and resorted to terror. On August 30, 1918, Lenin was seriously wounded by the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorist F.E. Kaplan.

During the Civil War and military intervention of 1918–20, Lenin was chairman of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense, created on November 30, 1918 to mobilize all forces and resources to defeat the enemy. He put forward the slogan “Everything for the front!” At his suggestion, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee declared the Soviet Republic a military camp. Under the leadership of Lenin, the party and the Soviet government in a short time managed to rebuild the country's economy on a war footing, developed and implemented a system of emergency measures called “war communism.”
After the victorious end of the Civil War, Lenin led the struggle of the party and all workers of the Soviet Republic for the restoration and further development of the economy, and led cultural construction.

At the end of 1920 - beginning of 1921, a discussion unfolded in the party about the role and tasks of trade unions, in which questions were actually resolved about methods of approaching the masses, about the role of the party, about the fate of the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism in Russia. Lenin spoke out against the erroneous platforms and factional activities of Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin, the “workers’ opposition”, and the group of “democratic centralism”. He pointed out that, being a school of communism in general, trade unions should be for workers, in particular, a school of economic management.

At the 10th Congress of the RCP (b) (1921), L. summed up the results of the trade union discussion in the party and put forward the task of transition from the policy of “war communism” to the new economic policy (NEP). The congress approved the transition to the NEP, which ensured the strengthening of the alliance of the working class and the peasantry and the creation of the production base of a socialist society. Many economic issues were resolved, including the development of
principles of unification of the Soviet republics into a single multinational state on the basis of voluntariness and equality - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was created in December 1922.

In March 1922, L. led the work of the 11th Congress of the RCP (b) - the last party congress at which he spoke. Hard work and the consequences of being wounded in 1918 undermined Lenin’s health, and after 2 months he became seriously ill and returned to work only in early October. His last public appearance was on November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow Soviet. On December 16, 1922, Lenin’s health condition deteriorated sharply again. At the end of December 1922 - beginning of 1923, L. dictated letters on internal party and state issues: “Letter to the Congress”, “On giving legislative functions to the State Planning Committee”, “On the issue of nationalities or “autonomization”” and a number of articles - “Pages from the diary”, “About cooperation”, “About our revolution”, “How can we reorganize the Rabkrin (Proposal to the XII Party Congress)”, “Less is better”. These letters and articles are rightly called L.’s political testament. They were the final stage in Lenin’s development of a plan for building socialism in the USSR. In them, L. outlined in general form the program for the socialist transformation of the country and the prospects for the world revolutionary process, the foundations of the party’s policy, strategy and tactics.
In May 1923, Lenin moved to Gorki due to illness, and in January 1924 his condition worsened sharply, and on January 21, 1924 at 6 o’clock. 50 min. Lenin died in the evening. On January 23, the coffin with the body of the former leader was transported to Moscow and installed in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions, where everyone who wanted to say goodbye to him could say goodbye. On January 27, a funeral took place on Red Square; the coffin with L.'s embalmed body was placed in a specially built Mausoleum.

This is where Lenin's biography ends. Of course, in our time the attitude towards Vladimir Ilyich is not clear, but there is no doubt that he was an unsurpassed philosopher. He developed all the components of Marxism - philosophy, political economy, scientific communism. Having summarized the achievements of science, especially physics, of the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the perspective of Marxist philosophy, Lenin further developed the doctrine of dialectical materialism. He deepened the concept of matter, defining it as an objective reality that exists outside of human consciousness, and developed the fundamental problems of the theory of man’s reflection of objective reality and the theory of knowledge. Lenin's great merit is the comprehensive development of materialist dialectics, especially the law of unity and struggle of opposites. L. made his greatest contribution to Marxist sociology. He specified, substantiated and developed the most important problems, categories and provisions of historical materialism about socio-economic formations, about the laws of development of societies.

Vladimir Lenin was a politician on a global scale. He managed to create a completely new state. On the one hand, he was able to win a political and triumphant victory. On the other hand, historically Lenin found himself in the camp of losers. After all, his cause, based on the principles of violence, was doomed from the very beginning. Despite this, it was Vladimir Ulyanov who determined the vector of development of world history of the twentieth century.

A complete biography of Lenin is contained not only in Soviet encyclopedias. Numerous books are dedicated to his life. There is a biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on Wikipedia. It exists on various sites dedicated to the history and biography of famous people. We studied the biography and personal life of Lenin, briefly presenting the information in the article.

Roots

The biography of Vladimir Lenin began in the mid-spring of 1870 in Simbirsk. His dad worked as a school inspector; he did a lot for public education. Ilya Nikolaevich lost his father early and his older brother took care of his upbringing. At that time he was a clerk at one of the city firms. Nevertheless, Lenin's father received a good education. He was a hardworking man - the leader of the proletariat inherited his colossal capacity for work from his father. Thanks to the merits of Ilya Nikolaevich, the Ulyanovs were even given hereditary nobility.

On his mother’s side, Lenin’s grandfather Alexander Blank was a doctor and medical inspector at the hospitals of the arms factory in Zlatoust. At one time he married a German girl, Anna Grosskopf. Later, my grandfather retired and received the rank of nobility. He even became a landowner, purchasing the Kokushkino estate.

Lenin's mother was a home teacher. She was considered an emancipated woman and tried to adhere to leftist views. She was known not only as an excellent and hospitable hostess, but also as a caring, fair mother. She taught her children the basics of foreign languages ​​and music.

There is still debate about Lenin's nationality (the biography contains a lot of contradictory information). Many are documented, but most are unsubstantiated. Lenin himself considered himself Russian.

Childhood

Lenin's life (his biography confirms this) was not initially distinguished by originality. He was a smart boy. When Volodya was five years old, he began to read. When Vladimir entered the Simbirsk gymnasium, he was considered a real “walking encyclopedia.” The future leader of the state was not interested in exact sciences. The young man loved history, philosophy, statistics, and economic disciplines.

He was a diligent, careful and gifted student. Teachers repeatedly presented Ulyanov with certificates of merit.

According to classmates, young Lenin had great authority and respect. In addition, the head of the gymnasium, F. Kerensky, the father of the future head of the Provisional Government, at one time also gave a rather high assessment of Lenin’s abilities.

The beginning of the revolutionary path

In 1887, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, whose biography we are considering, completed his gymnasium education, receiving a gold medal. At the same time, he learned that his older brother Alexander was arrested. He was accused of attempting to assassinate the Russian autocrat. Before this, Sasha was a university student in the Northern capital. He learned the basics of biology, was considered a talented young man and planned to become a scientist. He didn’t have any radical ideas then. But, be that as it may, at the beginning of May 1887 he was executed.

Meanwhile, his younger brother Vladimir also became a student. He studied in Kazan and in his first year began to participate in the student revolutionary movement. After some time, he was completely expelled from the university. Soon the young revolutionary was sent into exile in the same province.

A year later, Ulyanov was allowed to return to Kazan. A little later, he and his family moved to Samara. It was in this city that the young man began to become thoroughly acquainted with the postulates of Marxism. He also became a member of one of the Marxist circles.

After some time, Ulyanov managed to pass exams as an external student in a law faculty course at the University of St. Petersburg. The next year, the young lawyer became an assistant attorney. However, he was unable to fully prove himself as a specialist and soon finally parted with jurisprudence. Vladimir moved to the Northern capital and became a member of the Marxist student circle organized at the Technological Institute. In addition, he began to create a program for the Social Democratic Party.

As the biography tells - Russian), in 1895 he went abroad for the first time. Vladimir visited countries such as Germany, Switzerland and France. It was there that he managed to meet not only the leaders of the international labor movement V. Liebknecht and P. Lafargue, but also his political idol G. Plekhanov.

Emigration

When Vladimir Ulyanov returned to the capital, he attempted to unite all the disparate Marxist circles into one organization. We are talking about the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class”. Of course, members of this organization have already tried to implement their plan to overthrow the Russian autocracy.

A short biography of V.I. Lenin contains information that he actively promoted this idea. As a result, the revolutionary was arrested. For a long time he was in a prison cell. And after that, in the early spring of 1897, he was deported to Siberia, to the village of Shushenskoye. The term of exile was determined to be three years. Here Ulyanov communicated with other exiles, wrote articles, and did translations.

As a brief biography of Vladimir Lenin tells, in 1900 he decided to emigrate. He lived in Geneva, Munich, London.

It was during these years that Vladimir created the political publication Iskra. On these pages, for the first time, he signed his articles with the party pseudonym “Lenin”.

After some time, he became one of the initiators of convening the Congress of the RSDLP. As a result, the organization was split into two camps. Ulyanov managed to lead the Bolshevik Party. He began to launch an active struggle against the Mensheviks.

In 1905, he continued to prepare an armed uprising in the Russian Empire. There Vladimir learned that the First Russian Revolution had begun in the country.

First blood

A short biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin suggests that he could not remain indifferent to the events in Russia. He arrived in his homeland for a short time. A little later, Lenin found himself in Finland. During this time, Ulyanov tried in every possible way to attract people to his side. He encouraged them to arm themselves and attack officials.

In addition, he proposed boycotting the first State Duma. Note that Lenin later admitted his mistake. He also supported the bloody Moscow uprising and from exile gave advice to the rebels.

Meanwhile, the revolution finally ended in failure. In 1907, at the fifth congress, all parties were already opposed. This factional struggle reached its climax at the party conference in 1912. This happened in Prague.

In addition, during the same period, Ulyanov managed to organize the publication of a legal Bolshevik newspaper. Note that initially this publication, in fact, was created by L. Trotsky. It was a non-factional newspaper. In 1912, Lenin, by and large, became the main ideologist of the publication. And Joseph Dzhugashvili was chosen as editor-in-chief.

War

After the defeat in the revolution, Ulyanov began to analyze the mistakes of the Bolsheviks. Over time, these failures turned into victories. The Bolsheviks rallied like never before and a new wave of the revolutionary movement began.

And in 1914, Lenin was in Austria-Hungary. It was here that he learned that the First World War had begun. The future head of the Soviet state was arrested. He was accused of spying for the Russian Empire. The consequences could have been more than disastrous, but the Austrian and Polish Social Democrats stood up for their associate. As a result, Lenin was forced to move to neutral Switzerland. It was during this period that the revolutionary made a call to overthrow the Russian government and turn the imperialist war into a civil war.

This position initially led him to complete isolation even in Social Democratic circles. In addition, when the war was going on, Ulyanov’s ties with the Motherland were almost completely severed. And the Bolshevik Party itself inevitably broke up into several separate organizations.

February 1917

When the February Revolution came, Lenin and his comrades received permission to come to Germany and from there go to Russia. Once in his homeland, Lenin was given a solemn meeting. He spoke to the people and called for a “social revolution.” He believed that power should belong to members of the Bolshevik Party. Of course, many people did not share this position at all.

Despite this, Lenin spoke at rallies and meetings literally every day. He tirelessly called for people to stand under the banner of the Soviets. By the way, at that time Stalin also supported the theses of the Bolshevik leader.

In early July, the Bolsheviks were once again accused of espionage and treason. Now - in favor of Germany. Lenin was forced to go into hiding. He and his associate Zinoviev ended up in Razliv. After some time, Lenin secretly moved to Finland.

And at the very end of the summer of 1917, the Kornilov performance began. The Bolsheviks were against the rebels and thus they managed to rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of socialist organizations.

Meanwhile, in mid-autumn, Lenin arrived illegally in the revolutionary capital. At party meetings, he and Trotsky managed to achieve the adoption of an official resolution related to the armed uprising.

October Revolution

Ulyanov acted harshly and quickly. The biography of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Wikipedia also contains this information) says that on October 20, 1917, he began to lead the direct uprising. On the night of October 25-26, the Bolsheviks arrested members of the Provisional Government. A little later, decrees on peace and land were adopted. In addition, SovNarK was formed, headed by Ulyanov.

A truly new era has begun. Lenin had to deal with urgent issues. So, the head of state began to create the Red Army. He was also forced to conclude a peace treaty with Germany. In addition, the development of a program for the formation of a socialist society began. Thus, the Congress of Soviets of Workers, Peasants and Soldiers became a government body. And the capital of the proletarian state moved to Moscow.

However, several unpopular steps of the new government - such as the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly - led to a complete break with representatives of the Left Socialist Revolutionary movement. As a result, a rebellion began in July 1918. This action of the Left Social Revolutionaries was brutally suppressed. As a result, the political system became a one-party system and acquired totalitarian features. Taken together, all this caused discontent. Events resulted in a fratricidal civil war.

Civil War

During the war, Ulyanov was forced to monitor the progress of urgent mobilization into the Red Army. He was closely involved in issues related to weapons. He managed to organize the work of the rear. Actually, these measures subsequently influenced the outcome of the war.

In addition, Lenin was able to exploit the obvious contradictions in the white camp. He managed to create a 10-fold advantage of the proletarian army over the enemy. He also attracted royal military specialists to the work.

Unfortunately, at the very end of the summer of 1918, an attempt was made on the life of the leader of the state. As a result, the “Red Terror” began in the country.

War communism and new politics

Having recovered from his wounds, Ulyanov began economic reforms - the construction of so-called military communism. He introduced it by directive throughout the country. Lenin at that time did not have a clear economic program, but nevertheless he introduced food appropriation, natural exchange and banned trade. A little later the industry was nationalized. As a result, the production of goods practically ceased.

Ulyanov tried to save the situation. That is why he decided to introduce compulsory labor service. Her evasion was punishable by execution.

However, the economic situation continued to deteriorate. Then, in 1921, Lenin announced a course towards a “new economic policy” in the country. The War Communist program was finally cancelled. The government allowed private trade. As a result, a long process of rebuilding the economy began. But Vladimir Ilyich was not destined to see the fruits of the new policy course.

Last years

Due to his failing health, Lenin was forced to step down from power. Joseph Dzhugashvili became the sole leader of the new state of the USSR.

Ulyanov continued to fight the disease with amazing courage and tenacity. To treat the leader, the authorities decided to involve a number of domestic and Western doctors. He was diagnosed with cerebral vascular sclerosis. This disease was caused not only by enormous overloads, but also by genetic reasons.

Everything was in vain - in Gorki on January 21, 1924, Vladimir Lenin died. After some time, the body of the founder of the USSR was transported to the capital and placed in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. For five days there was a farewell to the leader of the country.

On January 27, Ulyanov's body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum, which was specially built for this purpose.

Let us note right away that after the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, the issue of reburial of the head of the proletarian state was repeatedly raised. This topic is still being discussed.

Personal life of the leader

Ulyanov met his future wife Nadezhda Krupskaya back in 1894. Krupskaya's father was a tsarist officer. His daughter, Nadezhda, was a student of the famous Bestuzhev courses. At one time, she even corresponded with Leo Tolstoy himself.

When the woman began to live together with Ulyanov, she became not only her husband’s main assistant, but also a like-minded person. She always followed her husband and took part in all his activities. The woman also followed him when Lenin found himself in exile in Shushenskoye. It was here that the lovers got married in the church. The best men were peasants from this village. And an associate of Lenin and Krupskaya made wedding rings. They were made from copper nickels.

Lenin had no children. Although some historians believe that the leader had an only son. His name was Alexander Steffen. According to rumors, his associate gave him a child. They say that this relationship lasted almost five years.

The reader already knows briefly about the most important thing from Lenin’s biography. It remains only to highlight some interesting facts from the life of the leader of the proletariat:

1. At the gymnasium, Ulyanov studied mostly with straight A's. In the certificate he received the only four - in the discipline “logic”. Nevertheless, he graduated with a gold medal.
2. In his youth, the future head of the Soviet state smoked. One day his mother said that tobacco was too expensive. And there wasn't much money. As a result, Ulyanov gave up the bad habit and never smoked again.
3. Ulyanov had about 150 pseudonyms. The most common are Statist, Meyer, Ilyin, Tulin, Frey, Starik, Petrov. The origin of the famous pseudonym “Lenin” is still not precisely known.
4. Ulyanov could be among the Nobel Prize winners. In 1918, his candidacy was considered and they wanted to award him the Peace Prize. But a fratricidal civil war began. As a result, it was these events that were able to deprive Lenin of the prestigious Nobel Prize.
5. A number of new names were invented in honor of Lenin: Varlen, Arvil, Arlen, Vladlen, Vladilen, Vilen, etc.
6. Ulyanov was considered a great gourmet. However, his wife was not a fan of cooking. Therefore, the Ulyanovs specially hired a cook.