Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (22 April 1870 — 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary leader, political and economic theorist, philosopher and statesman. He was the main leader of the October Revolution, which led to the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first workers' and peasants' state.

Lenin's main contribution to Marxist theory was his theory of imperialism, the domination of monopolies and cartels. In many of his works, he also contributed greatly to the development of a Marxist praxis, the strategy and tactics of the revolution, the Marxist theory of state, and the structuring of a proletarian organization through democratic centralism.

Lenin's political and theoretical activity, his writings of the 1890s and the beginning of the 20th century, his resolute struggle against opportunism and revisionist attempts to distort Marxist theory, and his struggle for the creation of a revolutionary political party is considered the Leninist contribution to Marxism, now commonly referred to as Marxism–Leninism.

Early life (1870–1888)

Photograph of Lenin's family in 1879. The 9 year old Lenin is positioned in the bottom-right corner of the photo.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born in Simbirsk on 22 April 1870, the fourth of eight children of Ilya Ulyanov, a respected figure in public education and son of former serf, and Maria Alexandrovna, a woman who came from a family of nobility background. Although Lenin's father was not a revolutionary himself, he shared progressive views and opposed autocracies, and both his father and mother contributed greatly with his intellectual upbringing. Besides his mother and father, a big intellectual influence on Lenin was his brother Alexander, who first introduced him to Marxist literature.

Lenin's youth and childhood coincided with a reactionary period in Russia, when civilians were commonly arrested for expressing criticism of the czarist regime. In May 1887, when Lenin was 17 years old, his brother Alexander Ulyanov was publicly executed for an attempt to assassinate the tsar Alexander III, and event which had an impact in Lenin's radicalization towards revolutionary action.

Lenin was admitted to the Faculty of Law at Kazan University in 13 August 1886, and a month later he joined the Samara-Simbirsk Fraternity, a student society, at the time prohibited by the University Statutes and punishable by expulsion. A year after he began his studies, he joined student campaigns and demonstrations demanding that student socie­ties be permitted, that students who had been expelled be rein­stated and those responsible for their expulsion be called to account. As a result of participation in the student demonstrations, on December 1887, Lenin was arrested, expelled from University and exiled to a nearby village for one year, becoming under strict police surveillance since then.

Throughout his exile in the village of Kokushkino, Lenin studied extensively political economy works and other literature. Later in his life, he wrote about this period: “I don't think I ever afterwards read so much in my life, not even during my imprisonment in St. Petersburg or exile in Siberia, as I did in the year when I was banished to the village from Kazan; I read voraciously from early morning till late at night.”

In the autumn of 1888, Lenin was permitted to return to Kazan and shortly after returning, but unable to readmit to the university. He was also prohibited from attending universities abroad. Back in Kazan, he joined a Marxist study-circle organized by Nikolai Fedoseyev, beginning his political and revolutionary activities. It was during this period of 1888–89 that Lenin studied for the first time Karl Marx's Capital, vol. I.

Early revolutionary activities (1889–1895)

Lenin in 1891

In May 1889, the Ulyanov family moved to a village next to the city of Samara, with Lenin narrowly escaping another arrest by the secret police, which arrested and imprisoned members of Fedoseyev Marxist study circles of Kazan a month later. In Samara, Lenin earned a living by giving lessons. Considering he was prohibited from attending university, Lenin sent several applications requesting permission to pass his university examinations without attending lectures, until 1890, when he received the permission to do so, along with the task of studying for 18 months independently. After hard work and intense study schedule, he took his examinations in 1891, achieving the highest marks in all subjects, receiving a first-class diploma.

Lenin began to practice law in the Samara Regional Court, and he appeared for defense in court about twenty times during the period of 1892–93. His legal practice, however, was secondary only to diligently studying Marxism to prepare himself for revolutionary work. In 1892, Lenin organized the first Marxist circle in Samara. The study group focused on the works of Marx and Engels, the works of Plekhanov and others. Lenin's legal practice enriched his knowledge of the real world, as this enabled him to see concrete examples of class struggle from the perspective of the economically disenfranchised and the limits of the bourgeois law apparatus.

In 1893, Lenin wrote his earliest theoretical work titled New economic developments in peasant life, an analysis of Russia's economy based on data and statistics on peasant farming. During that time, Lenin corresponded with Nikolai Fedoseyev and exchanged views on Marxist theory and the economic and political developments of Russia. He had a deep affection for their friendship, and years later he wrote: "Fedoseyev played a very important role in the Volga area and in certain parts of Central Russia during that period; and the turn towards Marxism at that time was, undoubtedly, very largely due to the influence of this exceptionally talented and exceptionally devoted revolutionary."

In August 1893, Lenin went to St. Petersburg, where he attended to several Marxist circle meetings, where the sharply criticized the liberal Narodniks, serving as a basis for Lenin's 1894 book What the “friends of the people” are and how they fight the social-democrats?, which was illegally distributed in 3 parts throughout cities of Russia, laying down the theoretical foundation for the program and tactics of the Russian revolutionary social-democrats. It was during this period that Lenin first met Nadezhda Krupskaya, who was working as a teacher free of charge for workers.

Establishment of a united Marxist organization and arrest (1895–1897)

Lenin in 1895

In March 1895, Lenin attended a conference in St. Petersburg of members of the social-democratic groups of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and Vilno. The conference discussed the question of changing over from the propaganda of Marxism in nar­row circles to mass political agitation, and of publishing popular literature for the workers and establishing close contact with them. It was decided to send two represent­atives abroad, and Lenin was one of them.

From May to September, Lenin traveled abroad to meet the social-democrats in exile, mainly Plekhanov, in Berlin, Lenin first met Wilhelm Liebknecht a German social-democrat and in Paris, Lenin met Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law and socialist militant. In the occasion of Friedrich Engels' death, in August 5, 1895, Lenin wrote a small pamphlet highlighting Engels' contribution to the proletarian cause. In the same year, the Marxist circles of St. Peters­burg united into a single political organi­zation under Lenin's leadership. In December this organization adopted the name of League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. The organization had been active months earlier in agitating workers through pamphlets and participated in strikes, which led to the arrest of Lenin and other leaders of the League in 20 December, 1895. Lenin was accused of "crimes against the state" and was given fourteen months of solitary confinement followed by three years of Siberian exile.

During his time in prison, Lenin continued to carry on his revolutionary work. He quickly found ways and means of establishing contacts with com­rades who were not arrested and through them directing the activities of the League. Inside his cell, he managed to write the draft program for the first congress of the League and began to write and research for his book The development of capitalism in Russia evading censorship by using milk as invisible ink, which would reveal the writing once warmed or dipped in hot water. Krupskaya was able to exchange letters with Lenin by describing herself as Lenin's fianceé, and through her he maintained communication with the members of the League.

Siberian exile (1897–1900)

After more than fourteen months of imprisonment Lenin was sen­tenced to three years in exile in the village of Shushenskoye in Eastern Siberia under police surveillance. The sentence was announced to him on February 13, 1897. In a 1897 letter to his mother and sister during his exile, Lenin asked them to bring him works written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published in French, The poverty of philosophy, Critique of Hegel's philosophy of right, and a chapter of Anti-Dühring. Krupskaya, who was in prison since August 1896 in the same case as Lenin, received permission to join Lenin in Shushenskoye by describing herself as his fianceé in December 1897, and in May 1898 she finally arrived, marrying Lenin a month later.

During his time in exile, Lenin developed two main works, The tasks of the Russian social-democrats, where he presented the practical works of the Russian social-democrats as spreading the teachings of scientific socialism and fighting against czarism, and The development of capitalism in Russia, a thorough and profoundly researched study on the economic development of Russia published in 1899 under a pseudonym. The book provided, through extensive analysis and ample statistical evidence, a well-reasoned argument in support of a revolutionary alliance between working class and peasantry, considering Imperial Russia's historical conditions, and showed that a process of economic differentiation had begun among the peasants, a few of which were becoming kulaks, or the rural bourgeoisie.

The first congress of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) was held in March, 1898 in Minsk, which founded the party and showed that the organization was growing withstanding the blows it received from the arrest of its leaders. Although the congress and its Manifesto were in many respects lacking, at the time, Lenin described the foundation of the RSDLP as "the biggest step taken by the Russian working-class movement in its fusion with the Russian revolutionary movement." With the publication of The development of capitalism in Russia in 1899, Lenin begun a struggle against the anti-Marxist ideologues known at the time as the Narodnik and the "legal Marxists", represented especially by Bernstein, whose ideas Lenin described as "an attempt to narrow the theory of Marxism, to convert the revolutionary workers' party into a reformist party".

The idea of creating of a single, united Marxist party in Russia occupied a central place in Lenin's writings at the time of his exile in Siberia. Lenin wrote three articles for the Workers' Gazette, which had been adopted as the official newspaper organ of the RSDLP, on the question of founding a Marxist party, Our programme, Our immediate task, An urgent question. These articles were published only in 1925, because the Central Committee was arrested and the newspapers organ of the RSDLP was destroyed. At the end of his exile, Lenin didn't have his term prolonged, but was prohibited from residing in university cities or large industrial centers. Lenin chose a place of residence close to St. Petersburg.

Development of a proletarian party (1900–1903)

Once out of exile, Lenin had to establish connections with the social-democratic organizations, but on his way from Siberia to Pskov he first stops at the Ufa Gubernia to see his wife Krupskaya and his mother-in-law to help them get settled for the rest of Krupskaya's exile. There, he also began meeting with social-democrats who were then living in exile in the region and presented them his plan for setting up a revolutionary newspaper to broaden possibilities for the activities of the Russian Marxists. Lenin spent most of the year 1900 traveling inside Russia and abroad to meet with social-democrats discussing the publication of a Russian Marxist newspaper and magazine. During this time, he wrote a draft of the editorial board declaration of the Iskra and Zarya, in which he described the task of establishing an all-Russian social-democratic newspaper as the "the first step" on the road to open political struggle.

In the summer of 1900, Lenin discussed with Plekhanov the publication of Iskra, to which Plekhanov demanded a privileged position on the editorial board and this triggered a heated debate with Lenin to the point his relationship with Plekhanov became severely strained. Plekhanov's arrogant and petty behavior profoundly affected Lenin, as described in his writing How the "Spark" was nearly extinguished, where his disappointment with Plekhanov's irate, confused and manipulative behavior is detailed. At the end of the year, in spite of the misfortunes, Lenin had managed to establish an agreement with Plekhanov's Emancipation of Labour group and Lenin wrote the Declaration of the editorial board of Iskra, presenting the tasks of uniting the disorganized social-democrat groups into a strong party under the single banner of revolutionary social-democracy, and establishing ideological unity against opportunist trends. The first publication of Iskra introduced an article by Lenin titled The urgent tasks of our movement, where he declares the main task of the social-democrats at the time was the overthrow of autocracy and spreading the ideas of scientific socialism into the masses.

Lenin spent the whole year of 1901 managing and writing articles for Iskra, among which was Where to begin?, where Lenin mentions that the role of the newspaper "is not limited solely to the dissemination of ideas, to political education, and to the enlistment of political allies. A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organizer". In this article, he also reinforces the need for an all-Russian newspaper and an united revolutionary social-democratic party. At the end of 1901, Vladimir Ilyich had begun using "Lenin" as pseudonym, with no particular reasoning behind the name.

During the period of 1901–1902, the editorial board of the Iskra was drafting a programme for the RSDLP in preparation for the Second Congress of the party. Sharp ideological differences between Plekhanov and Lenin arose, and they wrote different drafts for the programme, which was later united into a single programme by a dedicated committee. Most notably, Lenin insisted on advocating the dictatorship of the proletariat as an essential condition of the revolution in the party programme. In 1902, Lenin published his famous work, What is to be done?, presenting a thorough analysis of the international opportunist trends in social-democratic organizations of Europe. In this book, he also addressed organizational questions and issues of the Russian social-democracy at the time, reinforcing the need for a united social-democratic revolutionary party.

The draft of the programme for the RSDLP was published in Iskra in June, 1902, and in the Second Congress of the RSDLP, held in July–August 1903, the party adopted the programme with minor changes. The adopted programme was the party's programme until after the revolution, in 1919. The Second Congress' agenda included a discussion of the party programme, the party organization, the election of the central committee and the editorial board of the party's central newspaper organ. In this congress, Lenin set a resolute struggle against the persisting opportunist trends of the "Economists" on the basis of ideological and organizational principles. As a result of this congress, Lenin's supporters received the majority of votes in the Party election and they began to be known as Bolsheviks, while the opportunists in minority became known as Mensheviks.

Initial struggles against Menshevik opportunism inside the RSDLP (1903–1905)

After having their positions defeated at the Second Congress in 1903, the newly-formed opportunist Menshevik faction frequently disregarded the congress decisions, sabotaged party work, and began to attempt to gain control of the party's central bodies. Having sided with the Mensheviks, Plekhanov co-opted to the editorial board of Iskra all of its former editors, disregarding the congress resolutions. As a response, Lenin resigned from Iskra's editorial board and worked closely with the Central Committee, in an effort to shield it from opportunist trends. Under Menshevik control, the editorial board of Iskra launched a campaign against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Lenin briefly exposed these opportunist tactics of the Mensheviks and their disrupting activities during and after the Second Congress in an open letter titled Why I resigned from the Iskra editorial board.

The Bolsheviks were faced with the necessity of thoroughly exposing the Mensheviks' anti-party activities and the internal struggles the party was facing against opportunism since the Second Congress. To this end, Lenin published in May, 1904 the book One step forward, two steps back, where he carefully reviewed the minutes and resolutions of the Second Congress and exposed the rise of an opportunist trend. In this work, Lenin also developed standards for a healthy party life, namely strict observance of party rules, common party discipline for all party members, consistent application of democratic centralism, inner-party democracy, development of independent activity of the masses of party membership and development of criticism and self-criticism, all under the principle of collective leadership. In the final and concluding passage of the book, Lenin mentions the importance of the organization of the working class: "In its struggle for power the proletariat has no other weapon but organization."

This struggle cost much for Lenin's mental health, urging him to take a rest from his work. He and Krupskaya spent a month in the mountains hiking, which was enough for Lenin to regain his energy. Back from his rest, Lenin discussed with his comrades plans to start a publication of a Bolshevik newspaper organ and to launch a campaign calling for a Third Congress of the RSDLP. Since 1904, a war had broken out between the Russian and the Japanese empires. Lenin wrote an agitative leaflet a week after the outbreak of war that the Russian proletariat had nothing to gain from the bourgeois imperial ambitions of tsarist Russia, and that the war would sprout revolutionary movements against the autocratic government. As a result of war, social and revolutionary unrest began to rise in Russia, prompting Lenin to work to prepare the Party for the approaching revolution. The Mensheviks, however, persisted with their disruptive activities, having gained control of some Party organs to pursuit their own factional interests. Lenin resolutely called out the Bolsheviks to break with the Mensheviks and organize to convene a Third Congress. The Bolsheviks held a meeting in Geneva on December 12, 1904 discussing the founding a Bolshevik periodical, Vperyod, in preparation to the Third Congress of the RSDLP. It was published the first time in January 4, 1905.

First Russian revolution (1905–1907)

In Russia, a series of local strikes evolved into a general strike in 7 January, 1905, beginning the Russian revolution of 1905. The Third Congress was held between 25 April and 10 May, 1905, and the Mensheviks were absent, even though they were invited. One of the resolutions of the Third Congress approved by the Bolsheviks was the task of organizing the proletariat for an armed uprising against tsarist autocracy. During the months of June and July, Lenin wrote the book Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution, in which he detailed the theoretical considerations behind the resolutions in the Third Congress and heavily criticized the Menshevik political line.

Lenin returned to Russia in 21 November 1905 and began working extensively with other Bolsheviks to prepare for an armed uprising. Together with the newly formed worker councils (Soviets), the Bolsheviks declared a general strike in 5 December and began an armed struggle against tsarist troops. However, by 16 December, the revolutionary forces were being consistently suppressed and a decision was passed to end the uprising to preserve revolutionary forces. Lenin analyzed the experiences of the uprising and outlined basic tactics that should guide the Party in case of another armed uprising.

After the 1905 revolution, the tsarist government became more and more repressive, to the point that Lenin was obligated to leave Russia to avoid getting arrested after noticing he was being followed. He managed to travel to Finland avoiding authorities, and stayed there up until December 1907, traveling back and forth between the city of Kuokkala and St. Petersburg.

Second Revolution (1917)

Lenin proclaiming soviet power in 1917. Behind him are Stalin, Sverdlov, and Dzerzhinsky.

In March 1917, Lenin called for the liberation of all colonized and oppressed nations. In April, he published the April Theses, which denounced the Great War and called for another revolution to overthrow the provisional government and establish a soviet republic and Third International.

Soviet government (1918–1923)

Painting of Lenin and Dzerzhinsky during the Civil War

In June 1920, Lenin met with two Japanese journalists: K. Fussa and M. Nakahira. He asked them questions about Japanese history and society. He was happy when he learned that corporal punishment of children was rare in Japan, as the Soviet government had banned it three years earlier.

Declining health and death (1923–1924)

Lenin suffered his first stroke in May 1922 and another in December. Following the second stroke, his doctors tried to isolate him from politics because they feared it could cause another attack. Lenin's state worsened in February 1923 and he became unable to work.

Lenin's 'will'

Lenin composed his last writing in late December 1922 with a postscript from January 1923. Trotskyists and anti-communists claim that this was Lenin's 'will', but Trotsky himself admitted in 1925 that there had never been a concealed testament, and that those that said that there had been one were lying.

The document called for increasing the number of Central Committee members from 50 to 100 in order to prevent a split in the party. It also evaluated five party leaders: Stalin, Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin. Lenin criticized Trotsky for being bureaucratic and egocentric and said that Bukharin did not fully understand dialectics. He accused Zinoviev and Kamenev of treason during the October Revolution. The postscript criticized Stalin for being rude to Krupskaya.

Library works

• (1902) What is to be done?
• (1905) Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution
• (1908) Materialism and empiriocriticism
• (1913) The three sources and three component parts of Marxism
• (1916) Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism
• (1917) The state and revolution
• (1918) The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky
• (1920) “Left-wing” communism, an infantile disorder

References