10 Interesting Facts about Vladimir Lenin

One of these following facts about Vladimir Lenin might have been really interesting for you to read. He was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served also as the leader of the Russion SFSR from 1917, and then concurrently as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1922, until his death. Politically a Marxist, his theoretical contributions to Marxist thought are known as Leninism, which coupled with Marxian economic theory have collectively come to be know as Marxism-Leninism. To get to know more about him, here are some facts about Vladimir Lenin you might like.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 1: Marxist

Born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin gained an interest in revolutionary leftist politics following the execution of his brother in 1887. Briefly attending the Kazan State University, he was ejected for his involvement in anti-Tsarist protests, devoting the following years to gaining a law degree and to radical politics, becoming a Marxist.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 2: Other Terms

After his death, Marxism–Leninism developed into a variety of schools of thought, namely Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism. Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 3: People’s Freedom Party

Interested in his late brother’s radical ideas, he joined an agrarian socialist revolutionary cell intent on reviving the People’s Freedom Party (Narodnaya Volya). Joining the university’s illegal Samara-Simbirsk zemlyachestvo, he was elected as its representative for the university’s zemlyachestvo council.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 4: The Communist Manifesto

In September 1889, Vladimir Lenin met and joined Alexei P. Sklyarenko. Both Vladimir and Sklyarenko adopted Marxism, with Vladimir translating Marx and Friedrich Engels’ political pamphlet, “The Communist Manifesto” (1848) into Russion. He began to read the works of the Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, a founder of the Black Repartition movement, concurring with Plekhanov’s argument that Russia was moving from feudalism to capitalism.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 5: Early Activism

In autumn 1893, Vladimir moved to Saint Petersburg, there working as a lawyer’s assistant and rising to a senior position in a Marxist revolutionary cell who called themselves the “Social Democrats” after the Marxist Social Democratic Party of Germany. Publicly championing Marxism among the socialist movement, he encouraged the foundation of revolutionary cells in Russia’s industrial centers, and befriended Russian Jewish Marxist Julius Martov.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 6: The February Revolution

In February 1917 popular demonstrations in Russia provoked by the hardship of war forced Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. The monarchy was replaced by an uneasy political relationship between, on the one hand, a Provisional Government of parliamentary figures and, on the other, an array of “Soviets”: revolutionary councils directly elected by workers, soldiers and peasants. Lenin was still in exile in Zurich.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 7: The April Theses

On the train from Switzerland, Lenin had composed his famous April Theses: his programme for the Bolshevik Party. In the Theses, Lenin argued that the Bolsheviks should not rest content, like almost all other Russian socialists, with the “bourgeois” February Revolution.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 8: Playing Chess

While imprisoned and charged with sedition which he denied all charges because he was denied legal representation and shit in 1895, he devised a code with which he could play chess with the neighboring inmate.

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 9: England and Germany

He wrote a letter in 1917 to the Romanian poet Valeriu Marcu criticizing World War I: “One slaveowner, Germany, is fighting another slaveowner, England, for a fairer distribution of the slaves.”

Facts about Vladimir Lenin 10: Death

The mental strains of leading a revolution, governing, and fighting a civil war aggravated the physical debilitation consequent to the wounds from the attempted assassinations; Lenin retained a bullet in his neck, until a German surgeon removed it on 24 April 1922. Among his comrades, Lenin was notable for working almost ceaselessly, fourteen to sixteen hours daily, occupied with minor, major, and routine matters.

Hope you would find those Vladimir Lenin facts interesting and useful for your additional reading.