Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

The most dedicated leader of the revolution, and future leader of the Bolshevik Party in Russia, was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He was born in 1870 in Simbirsk, Russia, a small town on the Volga River, to a family of hereditary nobles that were not wealt
but quite comfortable. Vladimir Ulyanov, who would later change his name to Lenin, was the third of seven children. His oldest brother, Aleksandr, was hanged in May of 1887 for having joined in a plot to kill Czar Alexander III. The czar signed a warra
to have the five student conspirators executed. A year earlier, Vladimir's father had died. Because of these cicumstances Vladimir experienced extreme grief. He died of a stroke in January of 1924 at his villa outside Moscow. I chose Vladimir Lenin to ite about because I felt that I didn't truly understand what part he played in the Bolshevik takeover of Russia. In fact, I didn't even understand what role he played in Russia, though I did know that he was associated with communism in some way. At the University of Kazan, where Lenin majored in law, Lenin was expelled after only three months for taking part in a student protest meeting. He went on to work in a law office in St. Petersburg, where he joined the Social Democratic Party. In late February 1917 riots broke out in Saint Petersburg. A group of individuals assumed formal governmental powers and declared itself the Provincial Government of Russia on March 1. Lenin took the reins of the Bolshevik Party shortly after the Bolsh
ik Revolution which overthrew this Provincial government. Lenin instantly created to pieces of legislation. One of them withdrew Russia from World War I. The other one nationalized personal property. From 1918 to 1921 Russia was torn by a civil war betw
n the White armies and the Red Army of the Soviet government. In the summer of 1918 the Soviet government, under Lenin's leadership, launched the Red Terror, a brutal campaign aimed at eliminating political opponents among the civilian population. The g
ernment also introduced a series of economic policies in an effort to put socialist principles into practice and to respond to Russia's pressing economic needs. However, these policies only weakened economic output.Widespread strikes and uprisings broke
ut in cities and rural areas, and by early 1921 mass unrest was threatening the stability of the Soviet government. What was your affect on history?
Even though my ideas have been abandoned in a great majority of the world's nations, I feel in some small way that I have contributed to history. Whether that contribution was positive or negative is left for future generations to decide. My achievemen
lies in the drive of my life, communism. It has been the one idea that has kept me going through the few years that I have inhabited this planet, the idea of a classless society. However the complete picture of my design did not take off until after I h
died, I am the un-denied leader of communism, taking it from mere theory into workable practice.
By pressing communist philosophies into the government I effectively removed the restraints to modernization and industrialization imposed by the former monarchy. (McNeal 68). Thus, I effectively changed the course of Russian history. However even the lshevik party seemed to drift away from my control during my lifetime. Several years after my death a member of the Bolshevik party remarked that, "Had Vladimir lived very much longer he most likely would have landed in jail" (McNeal 68). To tell you th
truth, I believe it. However, even though the party changed drastically from its conception the principle, that the party was to be an elite force meant to guide the people, still remained dominant. And along with that is the belief that those who rejec
the current party line are class enemies. Outside the party there can only be enemies; within, only true believers.
But overall the foundation of the Bolshevik party was laid by myself, and I can be attributed with most of it's earlier success. I was very good at manipulating the public while still following their will. One of the reasons why this was possible was b
ause of communism's flexibility. The main idea being that there was only a few basic premises--such as an elitist party, the division of the world into proletariats and capitalists, and the idea that the proletariats would eventually win--the communists
ay otherwise choose any course of action they wanted to, and getting complete obedience from it's supporters at every turn. " The historical Lenin was a political genius who founded a party, provided it with a body of dogma, maneuvered it into power, an
transformed it into an effective dictatorship" (McNeal 68). What effect did your brother's execution by Czar Alexander III have on your life?
The death of my brother deeply grieved me. My brother was someone who I could look up to. The thing that made my brother's death particularly hard was the fact that my father had died only fourteen months earlier, and I was now the man of the house. My
rother, Alexander, was arrested at St. Petersburg University as the leader of a group of students who had decided to "execute," the czar. (McNeal 5). However this did not lead me to become involved in the revolutionary circles. Russia at that time, even
hough deeply involved in western Europe could still be classified as a country that had only been influenced by western Europe, and not completely part of these group of countries. Thus Russia took the status of eastern countries, such as India, China, d Africa, which can be characterized as elites of non-western societies. Within each of these countries there seems to be a group of people that are highly influenced by western Europe, taking as their own many philosophic, political, and social ideas. ese people, which drive themselves to better their country with these ideals usually find themselves outcasts. In other words, the majority of the people in these nations would rather keep traditional methods of government in place. However, these few e
te in every country which has embraced western Europe will not be convinced that their country is working well, and become increasingly frustrated with the rest of their nation. The answer is revolution.
The thing that made Russia a perfect place for these western European ideas was the fact that there really was a problem in Russia. Czar Nicholas I admitted himself that, "I know absolutely nothing about matters of state," (Sherrow 34). And people no l
ger trusted the czar. Thus, the stage was set for a new Russia. My brother, though I did look up to him, was not the soul reason that I became involved in the rebellion.
How do you think the Bolshevik Party changed your life?
The Bolshevik party did not change my life. The Bolshevik party was my life. A fellow revolutionary wrote of me, "There is no other man who is absorbed by the revolution twenty-four hours a day, who has no other thoughts but the thought of revolution,
nd who, when he sleeps, dreams of nothing but the revolution," (Sherrow 42). Had there not been a need for revolution, I could very well have ended up being an unfulfilled lawyer my whole life. For being a lawyer was my first profession. I was admitted the law faculty of Kazan University in 1887, to be expelled four months later for a minor student demonstration. In 1890 the authorities, through much pleading by my mother, allowed me to become an external student of law. I then took several tests in . Petersburg, getting the highest possible scores on each one of them, and I was allowed to practice law in Samara. However, I drifted away from the occupation, instead enjoying the company of revolutionaries (McNeal 6). So, instead of becoming a lawye
that no one would ever have heard of, I became the leading force in the fight against the czarist government. Looking back on it now, what would you say would have made communism more effective in Russia?
Before the revolution the country was in poverty. After the revolution, the country was still in poverty, in fact, it was probably worse off. Communism would have been stronger from the beginning, had Russia not been involved in World War I. Lots of re
urces and people were invested in that war, whereas in fact they were needed at home. The Bolsheviks tried to end the Russian involvement in the war, but by doing so had to give up large land holdings which were painstakingly annexed to Russia by the cz
in the last 300 years. (McNeal 62). Other than that, there was really only minor changes that could have helped us out. Such as having a certain amount of oil at one time, which was later discovered. Small things like that.
If you were Joseph Stalin, what would you have done differently?
The thing that a lot of people do not realize about me, is that a lot of my beliefs coincided with that of Stalin's. Stalin's philosophy being only slightly more radical than that of mine. Had I remained in control of Russia it could almost be assured at very similar actions would have been taken to expand communism. In fact, I was even more fanatical about spreading communism, than Stalin. Pure Marxists believed that communism would start in industrialized nations and then expand itself to encompass
eveloping nations. However, this was not the case in Russia. Russia at the time of the Bolshevik revolution was far from an industrial powerhouse. In fact, it could best be described as a developing country, except there was very little developing. To c
pensate for this discrepancy in the communist movement, I believed that Russia was an example for the rest of the world -- that other nations would follow in a movement of revolutionary socialism which would encompass the globe. Stalin, after a couple o
years found that only a few developing nations were following in the communist movement. These few nations that were reverting to communism, were only switching their governments under the threat of communism. Thus, the USSR was born through these inten
onal acts of spreading communism. However, I was a more powerful leader to motivate my country into taking over most of Eur-Asia.
Most certainly my domestic policies would have fallen short of Stalin's. (Hingley 166). One reason why this would have happened was because I had led them into communism. I had led the people of Russia to freedom, and they admired me for it. They would
ave been more subservient. I was also a true Bismarck of Russia. I knew what small things to give people to make them happy. That is one of the reasons I was such a good revolutionary, I was able to fuel people's fire. Conversely, I could also quench th
fire, so as to make it die down.
What exactly did you wish NEP (New Economic Policy) to achieve? The first thing that I did when I came to preside over Russia was to nationalize land. What NEP was going to do was give people private land holdings and allow the people to sell their profits, instead of the government taking them over. This legislati
was enacted right after the Whites rebelled in Russia. NEP was really only a reform to stop the people from rebelling. This tactic was much the same as in Germany, under Bismarck.
Near the end of your life you realized that there were some problems within the party. Why did you suddenly decide that there were problems within the system?
I realized that once I was gone that the two sides of the party, one led by Trotsky and the other by Stalin, would have nothing in common because the platforms of these two communists were so different. I knew that the communist goals that I had tried uphold would be destroyed. While I was in office I was trying to make Russia prosper under communism. Once I was involved less in communism's affairs and realized that I was going to die soon, I started thinking of what "The Party" would be like after died. Suffice to say, it didn't look good. ". . . . the two outstanding leaders of the present Communist Party can inadvertently lead to a split, and if our Party does not take steps to avert this, the split may come unexpectedly," (Lenin 1)
W O R K S C I T E D
Hugley, Ronald. RUSSIA: A Concise History. London, Thames and Hudson Ltd.1972.
Lenin, Vladimir. The Testament. Boston, Halshall, Inc. 1997
McNeal, Robert H., The Bolshevik Tradition. Englewood, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall Inc. 1975.
Sherrow, Victoria. Life during the Russian Revolution. San Diego, Lucent Books, Inc., 1998.