Vladimir Ilich (Lenin) turns Revolutionary

After Alexander, Vladimir Ilich's (VI) older brother, was hanged for revolutionary activities May 8, 1887, VI's interests turned towards the revolutionary ideas that his brother died figthing for.  In the fall of 1887 Vladimir Ilich started Law studies at the University of Kazan, but after joining a revolutionary group, and participating in demonstrations against the university administration, he was expelled for about one year to the family estate at Kokushkino, where he continued his studies.  In November 1891 VI passed the law examination as an external student at St. Petersburg University, and then for about a year and a half he was an assistant barrister to the Samara Cicuit Court, working on about ten rather petty cases.  After this VI was convinced that regular practizing of law was not for him; his interest was in the revolutionary ideas, and in describing and promoting them by speaking and publishing.

When VI was arrested and imprisoned in St. Petersburg late 1895, it was for publishing illegal revolutionary literature.  During his imprisonment for about a year, he worked with Krupskaya on passing information secretly, and after VI was expelled to Shushenskoe in Siberia, they married in 1898.  There they worked on generating revolutionary writings (The Development of Capitalism in Russia) together.  In Shushenskoe VI enjoyed jaunts on the river, hunting and walking in the forest, and he read a vast amount of economic, philosophical and historical literature, which his mother sent him.  Life in Shushenskoe was materially frugal, but VI had plenty of time for thinking, had access to a significant amount of literature, and had nice company.  The stay in Shushenskoe can probably be characterized as the completion of Lenin's formative years.

Members of St. Petersburg group of Leage of Struggle for the Emancipation of Labour, February 1897.  Lenin in center.

Lenin the Bolshevik Leader

After the Siberian exile, Lenin left for Europe to publish Iskra (The Spark), which was to be published in Munich, and smuggled into Russia.  As an editor of Iskra Lenin hoped to bring cohesion to the increasingly fragmented Russian Social Democratic movement, and it was in this leadership role he became known as Lenin, the acknowledged leader of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

In the early 1900's until the revolutionary activities of 1917, Lenin was mostly in Europe, involved in publishing and in leading the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.  Then, after the October Revolution in 1917, he became chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.  As such he became the principal architect of the new government, and in general he authored its policies.  For the next five years, until Lenin's illness set in, Lenin provided his country with a kind of dynamic leadership it had not seen in years.

Lenin and commanders reviewing troops of citizen trainees at the Red Square, Moscow, May 25, 1919.

Speech at the Red Square, Moscow, with Trotsky and Kamenev on the steps, May 5, 1920.

Lenin with Stalin at Gorki in 1922.  Picture taken by Lenin's sister Maria.

N. K. Krupskaya, "Reminiscences of LENIN", International Publishers, 1960, p32 and p439.

Dmitri Volkogonov, "LENIN   a new biography", The Free Press, 1994, p312.

Ronald W. Clark, "LENIN   a biography", Harper & Row Publishers, 1988, p308.

The Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Internet Archive has a good collection of Lenin's writings, and has pictures showing Lenin mostly as a statesman.

The website Leninism has more of Lenin's writings, and pictures in the Image Archive.

The Soviet Union of 1918 has more information about Lenin...