In the biography of Lenin by Vladimir Ilyich this time occupied a special place: first the boy received home education– the family spoke several languages and gave great importance discipline, which I followed mother . The Ulyanovs lived in Simbirsk at that time, so he subsequently studied at the local gymnasium, where he entered in 1879 and whose director was the father of the future head of the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky, F.M. Kerensky. In 1887 Lenin graduated educational institution with honors and continued his studies at the University of Kazan. It was there that his passion for Marxism began, which led to joining a circle where the works of not only K. Marx and F. Engels were discussed, but also G. Plekhanov, who influenced the young man big influence. A little later, this became the reason for his expulsion from the university. Subsequently, Lenin passed the law exams as an external student.
The beginning of the revolutionary path
Having left his native Simbirsk, where he lived parents , he studied political economy and was interested in social democracy. This period was also distinguished by the future leader’s trips to Europe, upon his return from which he founded the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.”
For this, the revolutionary was arrested and exiled to Yenisei province, where I not only wrote most his works, but also arranged a personal life with N. Krupskaya.
In 1900, his period of exile ended, and Lenin settled in Pskov, where Vladimir Ilyich published the Zarya magazine and the Iskra newspaper. In addition to him, S. I. Radchenko, as well as P. B. Struve and M. I. Tugan-Baranovsky were involved in the publication.
Years of the first emigration
There are many things connected with Lenin’s life during this period. interesting facts . In July of the same year, Vladimir Ulyanov left for Munich, where Iskra settled for two years, then moved first to London, where the first congress of the RSDLP was held, and then to Geneva.
Between 1905 and 1907 Lenin lived in Switzerland. After the failure of the first Russian revolution and the arrest of its instigators, he became the leader of the party.
Active political activity
Despite the constant moving, the decade from the first to the second revolution was very fruitful for V.I. Lenin: he published the newspaper “Pravda”, worked on his journalism and preparation for the February uprising, and after the October revolution, which ended in victory. Full the biography says that during these years his comrades-in-arms were Zinoviev and Kamenev, and then he first met I. Stalin.
The last years of life and the cult of personality
At the Congress of Soviets he headed a new government, called the Council of People's Commissars (SNK).
Brief biography of Lenin says that it was he who negotiated peace with Germany and softened domestic policy, creating conditions for private trade - since the state was not able to provide for citizens, it gave them the opportunity to feed themselves. Under his leadership, the Red Army was founded, and in 1922, a whole new state on the world map, called the USSR. It was also Lenin who introduced the initiative for widespread electrification and insisted on a legislative regulation of terror.
In the same year, the health of the leader of the proletariat deteriorated sharply. After a two-year illness, he died on January 21, 1924.
Lenin's death gave rise to a phenomenon that later became known as the cult of personality. The leader's body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum, monuments were erected throughout the country and numerous infrastructure facilities were renamed. Subsequently, many books and films were dedicated to the life of Vladimir Lenin for children and adults who painted him exclusively in a positive way. After the collapse of the USSR, controversial issues began to arise in the biography of the great politician, in particular, about his nationality.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Lenin) is one of the greatest figures in the history of Russia and the world revolutionary movement. Its significance for the entire course of the world, and, in particular, Russian history no one disputes, but Lenin’s philosophical and political views and his activities still evoke the most controversial, extreme assessments. In the public consciousness, two mythological images coexist: the Soviet one, representing an almost ideal person and statesman, and the post-perestroika one, painted almost exclusively with black paint. Both of them are quite far from reality.
Georgy Vernadsky (historian):“Lenin’s activities can be viewed from different points of view, and different assessments of its results are possible. But one cannot deny the fact that his personality had a colossal influence on the course of political development of Russia and, indirectly, world history.”
Francesco Misiano (Italian politician): “No one is praised and scolded as much as Lenin, no one is said about so much good and so much bad as about Lenin. There is no middle ground with Lenin; he is either the embodiment of all virtues or all vices. In the definition of some, he is absolutely kind, and in the definition of others, he is extremely cruel.”
The basis of Lenin's views was Marxism. At the same time, he did not consider all Marxist positions to be dogma, and treated this teaching creatively, making changes in relation to Russian conditions. This was especially evident during the period between the February and October revolutions and during the introduction of the NEP, when many of his comrades even accused him of moving away from Marxism.
Lenin proclaimed class character any state. In order to transition to a just socio-political system at the transition stage, he considered it necessary to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, believing that the only alternative to it could be the dictatorship of landowners and capitalists. He viewed the Bolshevik Party as the vanguard of the working class. Lenin also considered morality to be a class concept, and opposed bourgeois morality to revolutionary morality. “People have always been and will always be stupid victims of deception and self-deception in politics until they learn to look for the interests of certain classes behind any moral, religious, political, social phrases, statements, promises,” he believed.
The February bourgeois revolution of 1917 came as a surprise to Lenin. However, he quickly assessed the situation and decided to take the chance to prepare and implement the socialist revolution. Returning to Russia in April 1917, he put forward the slogan: “No support for the Provisional Government, all power to the Soviets!” The popularity of the Provisional Government, torn apart by inter-party contradictions, continuing the First World War and postponing the resolution of the most important issues government system fell steadily, while the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies gradually gained strength. Taking advantage of this situation of dual power, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, headed for an armed uprising, which they carried out practically without resistance on October 25, 1917. Lenin became the head of the Soviet state.
To win over the peasantry to the side of the Bolsheviks, Lenin adopted some points of the Socialist Revolutionary program in his April Theses. This caused the rejection of a significant part of his fellow party members - some even believed that he was thereby sacrificing the proletariat to the peasantry. When the Bolsheviks took power in October 1917, one of the first decrees was the “Decree on Land”, according to which private ownership of land was abolished, and peasants were given free land plots. In the early days after the revolution, this contributed to widespread support for the Bolsheviks from the peasant masses, who made up the majority of the Russian population.
Followed in the years Civil War The policy of war communism, one of the components of which was surplus appropriation, dictated by the need to prevent famine in the cities, caused mass discontent and peasant uprisings. In 1921, the transition to the New Economic Policy (NEP) was announced, allowing for some market elements and replacing food appropriation with a much more lenient tax in kind. Despite the fact that Lenin viewed the NEP as a temporary tactical retreat, this decision aroused the opposition of a significant part of the party.
First World War Lenin declared it imperialist and unfair for all its participants. In this regard, he put forward the slogan of transforming the imperialist war into a civil war. According to him, the soldiers had to turn their arms against their own bourgeois governments, organize revolutions in their countries, and then conclude a just peace without annexations and indemnities. The propaganda of such views ultimately contributed to the disintegration of the army.
First decree Soviet power There was a “Decree on Peace”. But, as Lenin admitted, “a war cannot be ended at will by sticking a bayonet into the ground.” For its real implementation, a peace treaty with Germany was required, which was signed in Brest on March 3, 1918. To push through this decision, Lenin had to enter into a serious conflict with a number of his comrades. The debate over the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty has not subsided to this day: assessments vary from an act of betrayal to a brilliant political move. On the one hand, Russia made territorial concessions and lost the opportunity to become one of the victorious countries and share the benefits of victory with the Entente states. On the other hand, the disintegration of the army by that time had already reached such a degree that it was almost impossible to convince the soldiers to continue the war. The Brest-Litovsk peace allowed us to gain a respite for the formation of a new, workers' and peasants' Red Army.
Nikolai Berdyaev (philosopher):“He [Lenin] stopped the chaotic collapse of Russia, stopped it in a despotic, tyrannical way. This has a similarity with Peter.”
Lenin is considered one of the organizers and inspirers of the Red Terror policy. At the same time, he called on his comrades to act exclusively within the framework of necessity. In conversations and correspondence, he often used expressions like “shoot” or “hang”, but they often remained purely declarative and did not have the nature of specific instructions. As for the execution of the royal family, Lenin’s participation in the decision-making has not been proven.
Heinrich Mann (German writer):“In Lenin’s life, loyalty to a great cause is inevitably combined with intransigence towards everyone who tries to interfere with this cause.”
When by 1919 it became clear that hopes for an early world revolution had not been justified, Lenin, who, in contrast to other Marxists of that time, had earlier spoken about the possibility of the victory of a socialist revolution in a single country, recognized the possibility of coexistence side by side with socialist and capitalist states At the same time, he proposed sticking to the tactic of “pitting the imperialists against each other.” It was planned to shift the emphasis in foreign policy from the West to the East, to “group around the awakening peoples of the East” and help them in the national liberation struggle.
The Bolsheviks declared the right of nations to self-determination. If almost all political forces came to terms with the impending secession of Finland after the February Revolution, then admit secession Russian Empire Few of its other parts were ready. Meanwhile, independent republics were formed on the outskirts of Russia. Lenin did a lot to ensure that Soviet power was established in these republics, and they became part of the new public education– The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as close as possible to the former borders of the Russian Empire. After the destruction of the bourgeois state, he energetically set about building a socialist state.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich:“The guardian of Russian national interests was none other than the internationalist Lenin, who in his speeches spared no effort to protest against the division of the former Russian Empire.”
During the Civil War and immediately after it, the country fell apart, it was torn apart by interventionists and nationalists, industry was largely destroyed, and, most importantly, during the First World War and the Civil War, huge human losses were suffered. It was necessary to build a new state by making decisions on the fly. And here Lenin showed enormous political flair and flexibility, sometimes taking actions that contradicted his previous views and statements and caused bewilderment among his former comrades. Some see this as a manifestation of political unscrupulousness, while others see it as the ability to admit one’s own mistakes and correct them.
The indisputable merit of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party was the establishment of broad social rights and guarantees: the right to work and its normal conditions, free healthcare and education, equality of representatives of different sexes and nationalities.
Bertrand Russell (English scientist and philosopher):“Others could have destroyed, but I doubt whether there was a single person who could rebuild so well.”
Lenin's books and articles are distinguished by absolute confidence in his own rightness. He was irreconcilable towards other people's views on fundamental issues and, being an excellent polemicist, mercilessly ridiculed them. He fought against dissent both within the party and in the new Soviet state. One of the manifestations of such a struggle was the expulsion of a large group of thinkers who disagreed with Marxism on the so-called “philosophical ship”. However, for those harsh times, this decision can be called quite humane. Parting with the Motherland was a personal tragedy for everyone, but for many this deportation probably saved their freedom and even their lives.
Lenin’s harsh statements about the intelligentsia are known, who, for the most part, reacted to Soviet power with at least wariness, and even outright hostility. However, despite the desire of the most radical Bolsheviks to abandon the old culture and art, Lenin resisted these trends. With his direct participation, leading theaters and museums were preserved. Moreover, the project of monumental propaganda was intended to perpetuate and, thereby, promote the work of outstanding figures of Russian and world culture, even those whose views were far from revolutionary. Leading artists, writers, musicians, and scientists were provided with enhanced rations. Even during the Civil War, new research organizations were created. At the same time, a grandiose plan for the electrification of the country was being developed - GOELRO. But, at the same time, a significant part of the intelligentsia, which he often called the “near-cadet public,” was subjected to various repressions: expulsions, arrests, and some ended up in the Red Terror machine.
Jack Lindsay ( English writer): “For me, Lenin is, first of all, the greatest intellect of the century. His books, his works completed the process of re-education of many millions of people on earth.”
Lenin was an uncompromising materialist and an atheist, therefore he considered the fight against religion one of the most important matters in the construction of a new state. Religion, in his opinion, “is one of the types of spiritual oppression that lies everywhere on the masses of the people... Religion is the opium of the people, a kind of spiritual booze in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demands for a life somewhat worthy of a person.” In the fight against religion, Lenin called on supporters to act flexibly, without offending the feelings of believers if possible. The “Decree on the separation of the church from the state and school” was one of the first signed, back in early 1918. This document declared freedom of conscience and equality of all religions. Church lands and property were nationalized, but could be transferred to religious organizations for free use by decision of local authorities. This inevitably led to excesses, sometimes ending in bloody clashes. There were especially many of them during the campaign to confiscate church valuables to help the starving people of the Volga region in 1922. Lenin secretly urged his comrades to use it to discredit the church.
Patriarch Tikhon:“I have information about him [Lenin] as a man of the kindest, truly Christian soul.”
Maksim Gorky:“His [Lenin] private life such that in religious times they would make him a saint.”
Lenin's personal modesty and simplicity were noted by almost everyone who had the opportunity to communicate with him personally. Even his enemies admitted this. He considered himself not a great man, but a representative of a great idea and, at the same time, an instrument for its implementation. That is why in him, like in religious figures of the past, kindness and cruelty paradoxically coexisted. Having set the goal of creating a society of social justice, Lenin was ready to achieve it in the most effective way at the moment. And, ultimately, the attitude towards the figure of Lenin largely depends on the attitude towards this goal and on what methods of achieving it are considered acceptable.
Winston Churchill (English politician):"Their [the Russians'] greatest misfortune was his birth, but their next misfortune was his death."
Romain Rolland (French writer):“Not since the time of Napoleon the First has history known such a steely will. Never since the heroic era have European religions known an apostle of such granite faith. Never before has humanity created a ruler of thoughts so absolutely selfless.”
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (revolutionary pseudonym Lenin) was born in Simbirsk on April 22, 1870. There he was baptized according to the Christian rite. His father Ilya Nikolaevich, who managed to receive an excellent education, successfully advanced in his career and reached the rank of 4th class on the table of ranks, which gave him the right to receive the title of nobility. IN last years During his life, Ilya Nikolaevich served as an inspector of public schools.
Did Volodya believe in God as a child? Probably he was simply fulfilling the demands of his elders. He always had excellent grades in the Law of God. But at the age of sixteen, he consciously abandoned his faith in God.
My father was buried in 1886, at the age of 54, when Volodya Ulyanov was only 16 years old. In the summer of 1887, the family left Simbirsk for Kazan.
Party comrade M.M. wrote about meeting the Ulyanov family. Essen.
“This was a real family, as we imagined it to be in the distant future. Vladimir Ilyich’s love for his family, tender care for his mother... runs through Lenin’s entire life.”
When Vladimir entered the Faculty of Law at Kazan University, he greatly upset his mentor Fyodor Mikhailovich Kerensky, who insisted on continuing his education in literature and linguistics.
In 1887, the Ulyanov family learned about the participation of their eldest son and brother Alexander in revolutionary terrorist activities. On May 8, he was executed as a terrorist who had encroached on the life of Emperor Alexander 3.
During the same period, Vladimir was involved in the work of the Narodnaya Volya student circle, led by Lazar Bogoraz. And just three months after enrolling at the university, Vladimir Ulyanov was expelled from it for involvement in student demonstrations that turned into mass riots and was subject to expulsion from Kazan.
At the request of L.A. Ardasheva, his maternal aunt, the exiled V. Ulyanov went to the village of Kokushkino, Laishevsky district, Kazan province. Here, having settled in the Ardashevs’ house, he studied the works of N.G. Chernyshevsky, reading Marxist and other literature.
In the fall of 1888, with the permission of the authorities, he returned to Kazan, where he was introduced to one of the Marxist circles. At the meetings, the works of Marx, Engels, and others were comprehended and discussed.
In 1890, the authorities relented and allowed Vladimir Ulyanov to prepare as an external student to take the lawyer exams. A year later, in November 1891, Vladimir Ilyich passed exams for the entire course of the Faculty of Law of the Imperial St. Petersburg University. He also studied literature on economics, and especially on agriculture.
After receiving his diploma, Vladimir Ilyich worked as an assistant to lawyer A.N. Hardin. The novice lawyer was mainly entrusted with “official defense” in criminal cases.
In May 1895, Vladimir Ilyich left for Europe, where he met:
- In Switzerland - with G. Plekhanov,
- In Germany - In Liebknecht,
- In France - P. Lafargue.
Returning to St. Petersburg, Lenin, together with Trotsky, Martov, and other future revolutionaries, began uniting individual Marxist groups and circles into the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.” The primary task that Lenin set for his comrades-in-arms was the overthrow of the autocracy.
For active participation in anti-government activities, Vladimir Ulyanov was taken into custody in December 1895. For more than a year, while the investigation was underway, he served time in a St. Petersburg prison, and in 1897 he was in the Minusinsk district of the Yenisei province. At the same time, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya also went into exile, and was assigned the Ufa province as her place of exile. In order for Krupskaya to be allowed to come to Shushenskoye, Vladimir Ilyich had to get married, as required by Orthodox custom and Russian law.
In Siberia, the study “The Development of Capitalism in Russia” was written, aimed against populist theories, and more than 30 other books. He regularly corresponded with Social Democrats in Moscow, N. Novgorod and other large Russian cities. Provided legal assistance to local peasants. In revolutionary circles, Vladimir Ilyich was known as K. Tulin.
On July 29, 1900, Lenin emigrated to Switzerland, where he began publishing a newspaper and later a theoretical journal. The editorial board included Plekhanov, V.I. Zasulich, P.B. Axelrod, representing the emigrant group “Emancipation of Labor”, and three representatives of the “Union of Struggle” - Lenin, Martov and Potresov.
The first issue of Iskra was published on December 24, 1900. The revolutionary newspaper was published with a circulation of 8 to 10 thousand copies. In April 1901, Krupskaya also arrived in Munich.
In the fall of 1905, Lenin came to the capital illegally to lead preparations for an armed uprising. During this period, 2 books were created:
- "Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution",
- "To the rural poor."
In December 1905, the First Conference of the RSDLP took place, at which Lenin met I. Stalin.
Lenin and Krupskaya returned to Geneva in 1908, where they lived until April 1917. After the defeat of the first revolution, he decided not to give up. "Broken armies learn well." They have been living in exile for 9 years. It was then, in 1909, that it happened an important event in the biography of Lenin - meeting Inessa Armand. They would be together for 11 years, until her death. However, he does not abandon Krupskaya. It is believed that Armand was his mistress all these years, although their relationship may have been platonic.
At the party conference of 1912 there was a final division with the Mensheviks.
On May 5, 1912, the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda began publishing in St. Petersburg, first edited by Stalin and later by Kamenev.
There is information that the pre-revolutionary financing of the Bolsheviks was carried out by the Germans, Russia’s enemies in the First World War. With their money, Lenin's comrades launched active propaganda against the tsar and against (which was extremely important for Germany) the war.
After February Revolution The Germans send the leader and several of his comrades to Russia in a sealed carriage. There they were actively involved in political life, and in April 1917 Lenin put forward his famous ones.
In October 1917, Lenin led the revolution. In an address written on October 25 (old style), Lenin announced the overthrow of the provisional government. On the same day, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets opened, approving decrees on land and peace. At the congress, a new government was formed, headed by V.I. Lenin - the Council of People's Commissars.
On March 3, 1918, Lenin signed the Brest Peace Treaty. It was a humiliating treaty for Russia, but it provided respite from the war. In protest against this agreement, the social revolutionaries left the government.
Fearing the capture of Petrograd by the Germans, the Council of People's Commissars and the Central Committee of the RCP (b) relocated to Moscow. Since then, Moscow has regained its status as the capital, becoming the main city of the new state.
On August 30 of the same year, an attack was committed on Lenin. He was seriously wounded. The Bolsheviks responded to this assassination attempt with the Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR dated 09/05/1918 “On the Red Terror”. A few months earlier, on July 26, Lenin wrote that it was necessary to encourage the energy and mass scale of terror against counter-revolutionaries.
On January 20, 1918, the Decree on freedom of conscience, church and religious societies was adopted. According to this decree, all property of church societies was declared public property. It was announced that “every citizen can profess any religion or not profess any. All legal deprivations associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith are abolished.”
However, in reality, believers were persecuted at the level of party and public organizations, in schools and universities. Lenin himself actively hated the Russian Orthodox Church, branding it as “a department of police Orthodoxy.” The Church lost the rights of a legal entity, representatives of the clergy were deprived of political rights and freedoms. Monasteries and churches were closed, property was nationalized. From the beginning of 1922, mass executions of clergy began. Even while ill, Lenin waged an irreconcilable struggle with the church.
For the last 3 years Lenin lived in Gorki. He could not work fully. The last time he spoke publicly was on November 20, 1922 at the plenum of the Moscow Soviet. His health was deteriorating, and presumably one of the reasons for this was the attack that took place in 1918, another reason was his overwork. Doctors recognized Lenin’s vascular atherosclerosis and premature wear.
Now his body is in the Mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Ulyanov) was born on April 22, 1870 in Simbirsk. Until the age of 16, he belonged to the Society of St. Sergius of Radonezh. In 1887 he graduated from the Simbirsk gymnasium, the director of which was F.M. Kerensky, father of A. Kerensky. In the same year, V.I.’s older brother was executed for participation in the assassination attempt on Alexander the 3rd. Ulyanova - Alexander.
After graduating from high school, Lenin entered Kazan University at the Faculty of Law. However, his university studies were short-lived. Soon Vladimir Ulyanov was expelled for actively promoting the student movement and participating in the “People's Will” circle. After this, becoming interested in the ideas of K. Marx, he joined one of the Marxist circles. During the same period, Ulyanov began to study political economy and become interested in journalism. As a result of student unrest, Vladimir was first arrested and subsequently exiled to the Kazan province (village of Kokushkino), where he spent time until the winter of 1889. Thus began Lenin’s revolutionary activity.
A short biography of Lenin is impossible without mentioning his exile to the Yenisei province (the village of Shushenskoye). Vladimir Lenin became the founder of a party called the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class. As a result of its activities, he was arrested in 1895 along with many other party members. Lenin was imprisoned for a year, and during the next three years, spent in exile in Shushenskoye, he wrote most of his works. Lenin's works dating back to this period are quite numerous.
During his exile, Vladimir Ulyanov married Nadezhda Krupskaya. The marriage was registered in 1897; before that, Krupskaya was his common-law wife. However, Lenin was not destined to have children, although some historians consider this fact controversial and mention in this regard the relationship of Vladimir Ilyich with Inessa Armand.
In 1898, the 1st Congress, which was attended by nine delegates, established the RSDLP party. Almost immediately after this, all participants were arrested. Lenin was sent into exile, after which he founded the newspaper Iskra and actively participated in its work. Later, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin became one of the organizers of the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP.
During the first Russian revolution (1905-1907) Ulyanov was in Switzerland. However, during the 3rd Congress of the RSDLP in London, he noted that the main goal of the revolution should be the destruction of the remnants of serfdom and the overthrow of the autocracy. In 1905, under a false name, he arrived in St. Petersburg, where he headed the St. Petersburg Central Committee, prepared the uprising, wrote new works, and collaborated with the newspaper Pravda. But soon after that he left for Finland, where in December Lenin and Stalin met personally.
Then there was a long period of frequent moving and emigration. Only at the beginning of the February Revolution of 1917 did Lenin return to Russia and become the head of the uprising. A few months later he delivered a report known today as the April Theses. After the authorities issued an order for his arrest, Ulyanov continued his active underground work.
As a result of the October Revolution of 1917 and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, power completely passed to Lenin's party. He headed the new government of the country, founded the Red Army, and made peace with Germany. In an effort to improve the welfare of the population, he replaced War Communism with the NEP (New Economic Policy).
Lenin's death occurred as a result of a sharp deterioration in his health on January 21, 1924 (according to some sources, due to an assassination attempt). The leader's body was preserved and placed in a mausoleum. The first, wooden version of Lenin's mausoleum was ready by the day of his funeral.
And Vladimir (Ulyanov) Lenin met in London in 1902. By this time, Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks, published the newspaper Iskra, and developed a plan to overthrow the government in Russia. Gymnasium graduate Vladimir Ulyanov, 1887
Vladimir Ulyanov was born in Simbirsk into the family of public school inspector Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov.
Like his older brother Alexander, Vladimir Ulyanov studied at the Simbirsk classical gymnasium, from which he graduated with a gold medal in 1887.
The arrest and execution of his elder brother Alexander played a key role in the formation of the political views of the future revolutionary. As a student at St. Petersburg University, he took part in organizing the terrorist faction of the underground organization “People's Will”, participated in the preparation of an assassination attempt Alexandra III. The assassination attempt was prevented, the organizers were arrested and executed.
Vladimir Ulyanov, who entered the first year of the Faculty of Law at Kazan University in the same year 1887, was involved in the illegal “Narodnaya Volya” circle, and after three months of study he was expelled for participating in one of the student rallies against the introduction of a police regime at universities and deported to village. Upon returning from exile, he joined a Marxist circle. He had close ties with the Narodnaya Volya.
In 1891, Ulyanov passed external exams for a course at the Faculty of Law at St. Petersburg University, and in 1892-1893 he worked as an assistant to a sworn attorney in Samara. Organized a Marxist circle in Samara.
In 1893, Lenin moved to St. Petersburg, where he also worked as an assistant to a sworn attorney, and continued to engage in propaganda activities among workers. Here he met his future wife Nadezhda Krupskaya.
Having studied by this time the works of Plekhanov, Marx, Engels, economic literature, statistical reports on agriculture and other available sources, Ulyanov actively wrote and even published legally, developed the program of the Social Democratic Party, and formed his own doctrine of political struggle:
The Russian worker, rising at the head of all democratic elements, will overthrow absolutism and lead the Russian proletariat (along with the proletariat of all countries) on the straight road of open political struggle to a victorious communist revolution
Lenin V.I.
Full composition of writings. T.1, P.312
In 1895, Ulyanov traveled abroad, where he met with Plekhanov and other leaders of the international labor movement; upon his return, together with Martov, he united all the Marxist circles of St. Petersburg and created the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.”
A group of leaders of the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class” led by Lenin (in the center at the table)
That same year, all members of the group were arrested. Lenin was exiled to Siberia, to the village of Shushenskoye. He was followed by Nadezhda Krupskaya. Their wedding took place in Shushenskoye.
In 1900, after ending his exile, Ulyanov went to Switzerland, where he published the newspaper Iskra. In Russia, the newspaper was distributed by propagandists on the streets, enterprises, and barracks. Since December 1901, Vladimir Ulyanov signed his works with the pseudonym “N. Lenin."
In 1902, due to surveillance by the German police, Iskra moved to London. Lev Bronstein soon arrives there, having escaped from Siberian exile, having entered his last name in a false passport. Lenin accepted him as the seventh member of the Iskra editorial board.
The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was held from July 17 to August 10, 1903. Disputes broke out at the meeting, including between Lenin and Trotsky, who opposed Lenin’s plan for building the party.
For example, I personally had a big battle with Trotsky, the fight was desperate in 1903-5... At the London Congress he behaved like a poseur...
Lenin V.I.
Full composition of writings. T.47, P.137
The congress ended in a split. In the elections of the leading centers of the party, Lenin received a majority, so his followers began to be called Bolsheviks. Martov, who remained in the minority, was a Menshevik.
In 1905, Lenin returned to Russia to join the open revolution that had begun in the country.
After the defeat of the December armed uprising, Lenin went to Switzerland. The second emigration lasted until April 1917.
After the overthrow of the Provisional Government, Lenin headed the Council of People's Commissars - the new government established in the country.
To protect Soviet power, the state needed an army, which
Lenin V.I.
Complete works, vol. 45, p. 345
Lenin and Stalin in Gorki, 1922Due to deteriorating health, on May 15, 1923, Lenin moved to the Gorki estate near Moscow. His closest circle of comrades often came there. However, Lenin was no longer involved in party affairs, having suffered several strokes.