Vladimir Lenin was a Russian revolutionary who, influenced by Marxist theory, became one of the big names behind the October Revolution, the event that brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in 1917. His adherence to Marxist theory was due to the influence of his brother's death and the contacts he had with these ideals during his university period.
As ruler of Russia after the victory of the Bolshevik revolution, Lenin promoted measures that centralized power in his figure and sought to neutralize the power of the soviets and workers. He also sought to combat inequalities in Russia and fiercely pursued his opponents. He died in 1924, victim of sequelae caused by a stroke.
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Youth
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on April 22, 1870, in the city of Simbirsk, which lies on the banks of the Volga River in southern Russia. The city in which he was born is now called Ulyanovsk, after Lenin himself, after he died in 1924. Lenin was born in a
upper middle class family and that enjoyed some benefits of the nobility in the tsarist period (monarchical period in Russia).![Vladimir was born into a wealthy family and was one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution of 1917.[1]](/f/27a85426bb5afe309c7e031d866905ab.jpg)
Lenin's father was called Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov and was descended from a family of servants. He prospered throughout his life and became an inspector of public schools. He later gained noble status, a privilege that only about 1.1% of Russia possessed.
his mother was called Maria Alexandrovna Blank and was a children's teacher. Mary belonged to a German-Swedish Lutheran family who had Jewish descent. Lenin was the third of eight children the couple had (two of these died in the childhood).
His family's financial condition allowed Lenin to have a good education. During his childhood, he stood out as a excellent student and got excellent results. His parents had political views based on conservative liberalism and both supported the tsarist monarchy, after all, the family enjoyed the status of nobility and had a good life. The family's living condition changed drastically with two tragedies.
On January 12, 1886, the Lenin's father passed away, victim of cerebral hemorrhage, at 54 years of age. The following year, more precisely on May 4, 1887, her older brother, Aleksandr Ulyanov, engaged in an assassination attempt against Tsar Alexander III. Lenin's brother was studying at the University of St. Petersburg, when he joined socialist groups called Norodnaya Volya (translated from Russian as “People's Will”).
The plan fell through, and Aleksandr and four other cronies were arrested and sentenced to death for plotting the tsar's assassination. The result of this was that Aleksandr Ulyanov was executedatstrength on May 8, 1887. Alexander's execution put the Ulyanov family name in disgrace, making them undesirable among the Russian elite.
Lenin adheres to socialism
Until then, Lenin did not defend the ideals of socialism and was a religious young man, but after death of his father and the execution of his brother, he adhered to socialist ideals and came to reject the religion. Lenin began reading socialist theorists and entered the University of Kazan in mid-1887.
Lenin was expelled from Kazan for being involved in a protest, and the “stain” caused by his brother's involvement in radicalism damaged him to the point that he was expelled from the university. After that, get to graduate in Right from the University of St. Petersburg through her mother's influence. He never set foot in that university, but took a test and passed it.
In the period from 1887 to 1890, Lenin deepened his knowledge in theorists who advocated the socialism it's the Marxism. Then he started working as a lawyer and settled in Saint Petersburg from 1893. Lenin's actions took place with revolutionary groups that called themselves the social democrats.
By then Lenin was already a staunch socialist and a voracious reader of Marxist-oriented authors. His deepening in Marxist theory and his political engagement in this revolutionary cell led him to write, in 1894, a political treatise – the first written by him: Who are the 'Friends of the People' and how they fight against the Social Democrats.
From then on, Lenin's involvement in the revolutionary struggle only grew. He was recognized for his capacityrhetoric and went on to argue that the Marxist struggle would be responsible for mobilizing the proletarian against tsarism. The key for this to happen would be the moment when the proletariat manifested its class consciousness.
In 1897, Lenin was stuck for his involvement with revolutionary movements and received as punishment three years of exile in Siberia. Being considered a low-risk prisoner, Lenin had great freedom in exile, receiving visits from friends and even sending letters freely. In exile, he married NadezhdaKrupskaya, who was also engaged in revolutionary struggle. The two remained together until Lenin's death and never had children.
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Exile
In 1898, Russian Marxists founded the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (POSDR). Lenin soon joined the party and became active in the organization of its revolutionary newspaper, the Iskra (means “spark”). As the repression of the tsarist government was intense, Lenin chose to flee russia and preferred to organize the newspaper abroad from 1900 onwards.
During this period, the movement of Marxists in Russia had grown considerably and resulted in workers' unrest in significant parts of the country, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was from this growth of workers' movements and the circulation of socialist ideals that the RSDRP was born, for example.
Because of exile, with a view to launching the newspaper, Lenin settled in Munich, Germany. From Munich, the revolutionary newspaper Iskra it was smuggled into Russia and became an extremely popular publication. Historian Victor Sebestyen says that Lenin believed that only 10% of the newspaper's circulation reached the right hands: those of workers|1|. Sebestyen further claims that it was during his work at the newspaper that Lenin demonstrated increasingly authoritarian postures.
During this period when he worked at Iskra, Lenin adopted his pseudonym for the first time. This was in 1901 and he is believed to have adopted “Lenin” in reference to a river called the Lena. He published an article in Iskra which later became a book called What to do?, in which he wove his idea that the revolution should be brought to the proletariat through a party guided by the ideals of Marxism.
THE Lenin's idea is criticized by many Marxists, since, to Karl Marx, the revolution must be carried out by the proletarian himself, as soon as he becomes aware of his class and the contradictions of capitalism. Lenin, in turn, bureaucratized this process, proposing that this possibility would only be possible if workers were organized by a party.
In 1902 Lenin moved to London to escape repression by the Bavarian police. In the English capital, he continued to work on the publication of the Iskra and was one of the protagonists of the RSDLP split. This happened during the II RSDRP Congress in August 1903.
There was at this event a disagreement between Lenin and Julius Martov. There was a personal feud between the two over the party leadership, but beyond that there was a disagreement over the direction of the party. Lenin proposed the personal engagement of all those who joined and the centralization of power. Martov wanted a less centralizing party and more freedom for its members.
From that, the RSDLP split and two groups emerged: the Bolsheviks, in line with what Lenin thought and advocates of more radical measures for Russia and with a more centralizing posture, and the Mensheviks, less centralizers and advocates of smaller reforms for the country. The rift between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks continued, and Lenin was repeatedly criticized by the Mensheviks for having a “despotic” attitude.
1905 revolution
Historian Eric Hobsbawm says that the possibility of a revolution against tsarism in Russia was something concrete since, at least, the 1870s|2|. The events of the beginning of the 20th century contributed to the mobilization of workers and socialist groups to remain strong in Russia.
Between 1904 and 1905, Russia held the Russian-Japanese War, conflict against Japan for the domination of regions of the Chinese territory. This conflict was marked as a vexatious defeat for Russia, which had to give up its interests in disputed lands, as it contributed to increasing the poverty situation of much of the Russian population.
The economic crisis in the country was gigantic and this motivated a working poor class to mobilize against this oppression. Workers on strike in the capital, St. Petersburg, decided to make a marchpeaceful towards the Winter Palace, the home of Tsar Nicholas II. The march, however, had more airs of a religious procession than necessarily a union march.
When the workers arrived at the gates of the Winter Palace, the soldiers who guarded the place openedfire against the population, creating a panic scenario. It is not clear whether this massacre was premeditated by the tsar or was a spontaneous action by the soldiers themselves. The result is that about 200 people were killed and hundreds were seriously injured.
This event was known as SundayBloody and it was the spark that spread the revolutionary impetus throughout the rest of Russia. Lenin called the events of 1905 the General Rehearsal, since the protests and demonstrations of that year “failed” from the revolutionary point of view, that is, from the point of view aimed at the overthrow of tsarism.
Victor Sebestyen suggests that Lenin, despite having briefly returned to Russia during the General Rehearsal, took no effective action in developing and coordinating revolutionary activities.|1|. Even though he did not participate directly, he encouraged workers to arm themselves and rebel. This posture caused the Bolsheviks, aligned with Lenin, and Mensheviks to definitively break out in 1906.
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Russian revolution
Shortly after the General Rehearsal, Lenin returned to exile, passing through various places in Europe, such as Paris, continuing his studies and writing new theoretical treatises. In 1914, the First World War, and Lenin criticized this conflict as a “warimperialist” and encouraged the workers to wage another war: against the bourgeoisie.
Conditions in Russia during the war years worsened, and Victor Sebestyen reports that the disparity in living conditions between the rich and poor was so great that it frightened even foreigners from countries where the poor lived in harsh conditions, such as the Great Britain|1|. Russia's defeat in the war and the worsening of the population's living conditions led that country to the path of revolution.
Morale in Russia was low and food prices were rising every day. By 1916, the Russian government was aware that riots could take place at any time. On February 23 (March 8 in the calendar used by the Russians at the time), thousands of people decided to protest in the streets of Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg). At that moment the overthrow of tsarism began.
February revolution
These protests soon gained momentum and protesters began to invade the most important places in the city, such as arsenals. O Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and the members of the Duma, the Russian Parliament, formed a GovernmentProvisional with conservative politicians, liberals and some socialists. This was the February revolution. The new government tried to restructure the country while continuing the war effort. Lenin, realizing that the scene was becoming favorable for him, returned to Russia.
Along with Lenin's return, another important step for the future of Russia took place. A group of soldiers, workers and intellectuals got together and formed the Petrograd Soviet, a committee that began to observe and analyze the measures taken by the Provisional Government. They did not immediately take action because they believed that, at that moment, the bourgeoisie was better able to govern the country.|3|.
Lenin's return to Russia in 1917 and the country's revolutionary context led to authors such as Noam Chomsky to consider that Lenin's work has undergone a change of character, becoming more libertarian|4|. Chomsky considers that, in these works, Lenin dealt directly with the importance of the soviets as a form of autonomous organization of workers. This represented a change of position, since, historically, Lenin considered that the party should be the channel for the mobilization of workers.
Lenin's position became moreradical, as he went on to encourage the working classes to rebel against the Provisional Government, criticizing those who defended the union between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. Furthermore, Lenin defended the end of the war with Germany, the expropriation of land and the nationalization of the industries installed in the country.
Lenin also advocated that a revolutionary government be installed and, in his writings during this period, defended the idea of “peace, bread and earth” and that power should be exercised by the workers themselves from the expression “all power to the soviets”. Sebestyen says Lenin “offered simple solutions to complex problems”|1|, Chomsky already says that his action throughout 1917 was opportunistic|4|.
However, other authors understand that the revolutionary dynamic in Russia led the Bolsheviks almost spontaneously to power, since they were the most prepared in that context to do it. Some understand Lenin's writings and revolutionary action as an example of the democratic action of Marxism.
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October Revolution
In this revolutionary context marked by the mobilization of workers, Lenin knew how to do what the Mensheviks in power could not do and got the support of the masses. Both workers and rural workers strongly adhered to Bolshevik revolutionary ideals, as Daniel Orlovsky suggests.|5|.
The situation in the Soviet Union remained chaotic and the war effort choked the country. The Provisional Government remained unpopular and a series of Bolshevik demonstrations and protests took place in July (in the Julian calendar). The involvement of the Bolsheviks in these protests led the Provisional Government to accuse Lenin of treason.
The authority of Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government, began to decline at the end of 1917 in a context of deep crisis. Workers' strikes and mobilizations were greater than ever and Lenin urged that power in Russia be taken by the Bolsheviks in the name of the workers.
The Bolsheviks debated internally the question of the seizure of power in Russia, until, on the day October 24th (November 7 in the Gregorian calendar), armed groups of Bolsheviks began to take strategic locations in the city of Petrograd. In the following days, new places were conquered by the Bolsheviks and a Council of the People's Commissariat or Government of Workers and Peasants was formed on a temporary basis. The Bolsheviks had taken power.
Historians debate this issue to this day. Some authors, such as Victor Sebastyen and Noam Chomsky, define the October Revolution, as the Bolsheviks' seizure of power became known, as coup. Other historians, such as Eric Hobsbawm, consider it irrelevant to address this issue.|6|. Anyway, this event was known in history as "October Revolution”.
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Lenin in power
With the rise of the Bolsheviks to power, Lenin became ruler of russia and started the process of restructuring of the entire Russian state. Among the changes made, at first, there was the nationalization of lands held by the aristocracy and the Orthodox Church, the granting of power to the peasants for local governments to carry out agrarian reform, the order that non-Russian peoples should submit to the authority of the Russians, etc.
Once established in power, Lenin refused to accept the proposed idea of there being a governing coalition that would encompass other socialists. He also kept part of the bureaucratic structure of the tsarist period – he just called them commissariats – allowing former tsarist bureaucrats to participate in the construction of the new Russia.
settled with powercentralizer and acted to ensure the growth of the communist party. Another important action he took was to establish measures to weaken and disarticulate the soviets and workers' committeess. Chomsky sees Lenin's measure of weakening workers' committees as a "deviation from socialism"|4|. With the power of revolutionary groups destroyed, Lenin turned to silence the opposition through a secret police, the Cheka.
about the Cheka, Daniel Orlovsky says that this secret police has turned into a “State within a State, arbitrarily administering revolutionary justice and terror”|7|. Another demonstration of despotism came when, in January 1918, Lenin also decreed the closing of the Constituent Assembly when the Social Revolutionaries got more votes than the Bolsheviks.
From then on, the measures taken by Lenin reinforced his intention to build a model of government in which the masses of workers were subject to the power of a single leader. During this period – 1918 – Lenin survived two assassination attempts.
However, Lenin also took steps that sought fight historical inequalities of Russian society. The aforementioned measure to carry out agrarian reform was one of them. Other measures were taken to combat illiteracy in the country, through a decree that determined that education should be a right for everyone.
Last years
While in Soviet power, Lenin had to deal with the counterrevolutionary insurgency that formed from 1918 onwards. Writer Lesley Chamberlain understands that the Russian Civil War was the result of the fighting between the Bolsheviks and the intelligentsia Russian (the country's intellectual elite). From the moment this intelligentsia was defeated, the Bolsheviks consolidated their power|8|.
In this context of growing opposition to Bolshevism, Lenin and the Bolshevik government negotiated Russia's exit from the war through the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, an onerous agreement for the country. The person responsible for the negotiations was LeonTrotsky – the same one who led the Red Army and defended Russia in the Civil War. Lenin urged the Bolsheviks to accept "world peace to save the world revolution"|9|.
During the years of the Russian Civil War, Lenin's government implemented measures that allowed the confiscation of grain from peasants, as well as peasants and bourgeois who demonstrated against the government being persecuted. THE Cheka played a very important role in that persecution, and historians suggest that thousands may have been killed. Chomsky considers that the apparatus of repression imposed during the Leninist government was one of the forerunners of Forms of totalitarianismthat developed in the 1920s and 1930s|4|.
After the war, the Soviet Union was created by Lenin and the power of the Bolsheviks was consolidated Lenin sought to rebuild the country's economy, destroyed after years of war and revolution, and reimplanted a market economy, therefore in the capitalist molds, by middle of New Economic Policy, known by its Russian acronym NEP. This economic plan was implemented in 1921
From 1922 on, Lenin's power over the Soviet Union was deteriorated by his health problems. Lenin suffered spillscerebral, in May and December 1922 and March 1923. His health was greatly weakened, which created a dispute within the Soviet government over who would succeed to power in the country.
We know that Lenin's successor was Joseph Stalin, but in the last months of his life, Lenin showed that he did not agree with the possibility that he would succeed him in Soviet power. Historian William B. Husband claims that Lenin considered Stalin “very rude” and did not know if he could exercise the country's power with caution. He even directed that Stalin be removed from his positions of power.|10|.
The aftereffects of Lenin's three strokes were so severe that the Soviet ruler was unable to recover. In day January 21, 1924, Lenin died, and his death announcement was made the next day. As a tribute, the city of Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) was renamed as Leningrad. Lenin became a great symbol of socialism in the Soviet Union and in all socialist countries that emerged throughout the 20th century.
Grades
|1| SEBESTYEN, Victor. Lenin: an intimate portrait. Rio de Janeiro: Globo Livros, 2018.
|2| HOBSBAWM, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Brief 20th Century, 1914-1991. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995, p. 63.
|3| ORLOVSKY, Daniel T. Russia in war and revolution. In.: FREEZE, Gregory L. (org.). Russian history. Lisbon: Editions 70, 2017, p. 299.
|4| Chomsky on Lenin, Trotsky, Socialism and the Soviet Union. To access, click on here.
|5| ORLOVSKY, Daniel T. Russia in war and revolution. In.: FREEZE, Gregory L. (org.). Russian history. Lisbon: Editions 70, 2017, p. 308.
|6| HOBSBAWM, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Brief 20th Century, 1914-1991. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995, p. 69.
|7| ORLOVSKY, Daniel T. Russia in war and revolution. In.: FREEZE, Gregory L. (org.). Russian history. Lisbon: Editions 70, 2017, p. 319.
|8| CHAMBERLAIN, Lesley. Lenin's Private War: the deportation of Russian intelligentsia by the Bolshevik government. Rio de Janeiro: Record: 2008, p. 43.
|9| Today in History: 1917 – Russia signs Treaty of Brest-Litovski with the Central Powers. To access, click on here.
|10| HUSBAND, William B. The New Economic Policy (NPE) and the revolutionary experience. In.: FREEZE, Gregory L. (org.). Russian history. Lisbon: Editions 70, 2017, p. 335.
Image credits:
[1] Everett Historical and Shutterstock
By Daniel Neves Silva
History teacher
Source: Brazil School - https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/vladimir-lenin.htm
