Vladimir Lenin was a prominent yet controversial figure of the 20th century; he founded the Bolshevik party and crafted the 1917 Socialist Revolution in Russia. The Bolsheviks strived to destruct the Tsarist regime and instead sought the establishment of a socialist state. Consequently, Lenin was the first leader of the Soviet Union. Politically, socially and economically, Lenin used socialism and its influence to avail the Russian population out of the abysmal environment of which they resided. Lenin had an immense influence in the turn of the 20th century including his leadership of the Bolshevik revolution from the first communist state in history. Hence, Lenin served as influential figure in the late 19th to early 20th century a time where …show more content…
Lenin’s was born on the 22nd of April 1870 and his given name is Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. He was one of six children to his father, IIya Ulyanov, who was awarded a minor rank due to his nobility for faithful work in schools; subsequently the title was inherited by his children. Bertram D. Wolfe, a well-known biographer of Lenin, formerly wrote “their household was one breathing order, peace, conscientious, devotion to duty, domestic simplicity and quiet affection” . During Lenin’s childhood, Russia underwent rapid industrialisation and boosted their army however, at the same time, Russia was also governed by an autocracy with 70% of 132 million of the population being peasants and stricken by poverty. In 1861, the Tsar of the period Alexander II freed peasants from serfdom allowing them to own their own plots of land. However, this had little effect and hostility had begun to rise as a ramification of the Tsar’s absolute power. Thus the intelligentsia during the 19th century was vigilant of the iniquities faced by millions of Russian’s and adopted belligerent ideologies that advocated toppling the Tsar perforce. Whilst Lenin was still in his youth, age 10, Tsar Alexander II was assassinated by a radical revolutionary. Subsequently, his son, Alexander III held the throne, however, constituted little improvements. Lenin’s early …show more content…
Lenin studied law briefly, however, discovering his zealousness of revolutionary movement he concluded to immerse himself within it. Lenin began in 1892 to study the difficulty in political change from a Marxist perspective where he established the notion of Leninism. He put emphasis on the concept of vanguard of the proletariat meaning “radical class consciousness had to be cultivated among workers through agitation by a well-organized revolutionary party” Lenin thus created a Union for the Struggle of the Liberation of the Working Class in 1895, during this period that Lenin communicated the fundamentals of Marxism. Lenin was arrested by the okhrana and sent into exile in Siberia. After his sentence was completed he established a newspaper known as Iskra ‘The Spark’ which held the main objective of addressing the peasant question. This referred to how the peasantry was able to be involved in a Challenge change and
During the Russian Revolution, Lenin was the first Marxist leader of Russia from 1917-1924. For him, democracy was a form of the State, and in turn, a form of oppression. He believed that democracy was a way to make the people of Russia compliant. He saw Parliament as mask for the government, and that officials would make it seem like they were doing good for the public but end up going behind closed doors to make official changes in their favor. This is something he wanted to change.
(Background Essay) Before Vladimir Lenin came into power to rule Russia, Russia was ruled by Czar’s. A Czar was an emperor that the ruled Russia before 1917. The last Czar to rule Russia was Nicholas II. He was overthrown by Bolsheviks in the year of 1917.
One man, Vladimir Lenin saw that Russia was spiraling downwards, having lost two battles in a row and having the highest death count out of all the European countries he saw that a change was needed. Lenin was the leader of the Bolsheviks who were a communist group that wanted to draw out of the war and over thrown Czar Nicholas II. Preaching peace, and food he wanted, ¨the offer of peace, the salvation of Petrograd, salvation from famine, and the transfer of land to the peasants who depended on them,¨ (Document 8). People were drawn into this and, ¨increasingly taken in by the propagandists of the united Socialist Party and their internationalis ideas,¨ (Document 9). This combined with high death rates, starvation, communist ideals started the overthrow of Russia and the end of the war.
Leon Trotsky was a big part of the Russian Revolution. He make big impact in Russian history. Trotsky was a man that was not afraid of stating his opinion or trying to make a change. He has such a edgy background and I doubt people would’ve really thought what a great impact he tried to make. He was not best of friends with either Lenin nor Satalin.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 marked one of the most radical turning points in the country’s 1,300-year history and established the Soviet Union as a Communist state. Russia in the 19th century was a massive empire stretching from Poland to the Pacific. Ruling such a massive country was quite the undertaking, especially because the long-term problems within Russia were approaching the surface. In 1917, these problems finally produced a revolution, which completely wiped the old system away. The Russian Revolution was a rebellion executed by the Russian people against the Russian elite.
Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.
Cheka At the end of December 1917 Soviet authorities formed The Cheka, the Extraordinary Ordinary combined security police and function with a sort of political army. After the Russian Revolution it was obviously that not everyone wanted Lenin as their leader. So Lenin had to do something in order to hold the power.
During the 20th century, Russia was experiencing turmoil in war and the country was deeply affected with Tsar Nicholas’s wrong decisions and lack of experience in politics. After the 1917 revolution in Russia, Lenin became the ruler of Russia and the USSR and proved to be the best Russian ruler of the 20th century. Before then, Tsarism dominated and Nicholas II was in power until he foresaw many revolutions against his methods of ruling. He remained as the supreme ruler and did not take actions for reforms. However, after the 1917 revolution, which Lenin masterminded, the Tsar was overthrown and the Bolsheviks established a stable government which took control in Russia.
Lenin continued to give Stalin power and the people could not do anything to stop it. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin had complete control over the communist party. By the late 1920s, he was the dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin kept finding way to get more power and the people were not able to do anything to fix
Since there was such a large peasant population it was easy for them to rebel and win. Many troops were just simply peasants in uniform and when the tsar order the soldiers to shoot the people rebelling they didn’t and the tsar had no power.(doc.2).These peasant were known as proletariats, the growing class of factory and railroad workers, miners, and urban wage earners.(doc.4).Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party spread the works of Karl Marx to many factory workers with other socialist.(doc.4).Lenin was profoundly affected by his older brother Alexander’s 1887 execution for being involved in a plot to assassinate the tsar.(doc.5).The peasants tried to make a petition to overthrow the tsar’s reign but he refused to meet with them.(doc.1)This gave the peasants almost no choice but to revolt. Finally, in March the tsar is overthrown and within about a day there were no signs of the tsar because the peasants had burned or taken down everything that even made you think of him. Little did the Russians know that it was more difficult to construct a government than to destroy
When the time came, and Lenin felt that it is suitable to take action, it can be argued that he did not look at Marx for answers, but due to his practical nature, preferred looking at the state that Russia was in, and based his actions on that. This was because Lenin felt that the world had changed since Marx’s time, primarily due to the development of
There was much political insecurity within the Russian society. Lenin desired to capitalize the political structure. This would eventually take authority from the provisional political structure, and replace it with the authority of the
Lenin enforced the communist regime and was inspired by ruling through fear. Harris (2013) clarifies Lenin’s methods by displaying his approaches to keeping control of his country. This meant that Lenin “viewed terror as a legitimate and necessary instrument of political struggle” (Harris, 2013: 50). Harris showcases Lenin’s methods of controlling his population through fear by establishing “the Gulag system, mass deportation, mass strengthening of the Soviet Police State” (Harris, 2013: 53). Lenin was responsible for the formation of the Gulag system which was a series of labour camps located in various areas of Russia.
The Russian Revolution, which was started by Lenin and his followers, was a rebellion that occurred in 1917 which forced higher powers to act to the needs of the lower class. For instance, many citizens were worried for their protection in consequence to the lack of survival necessities due to an early drought. Furthermore, their current czar during the time was incapable for his position as a czar and made horrendous decisions as czar. For example, when the czar, Nicholas, entered in World War I, he sent untrained troops into countless battles of failure which costed in mass amounts of lost life (paragraph 23).
Petersburg where he quickly became a leader among the Marxists. Eventually, Lenin created his own group of Marxists called the Bolsheviks. In December 1895, Lenin, who was now 25 years old, and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years. After his exile ended in 1900, Lenin went to western Europe, where he continued his revolutionary activity.