Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924), formerly known as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, was from Sinbirsk, Russia (now Ulyanovsk City). Proletarian revolutionaries, politicians, theorists, and thinkers. Previously held important positions such as Chairman of the Soviet People's Committee (i.e. Prime Minister of the Soviet Union) and Chairman of the Workers, Peasants, and National Defense Committee. [1] [54]
In August 1887, he entered the Law Department of Kazan University to study. Graduated from the University of St. Petersburg in 1891. In 1892, a Marxist group was organized and the Communist Manifesto was translated into Russian. The Working Class Liberation Struggle Association was established in 1895. In December 1900, the first Marxist political newspaper in all of Russia, the Mars newspaper, was founded. In January 1912, the Mensheviks were expelled from the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, making the Bolsheviks an independent Marxist political party. During World War I, the leadership of the Bolshevik Party adhered to proletarian internationalism. In November 1917, he led the successful October Revolution in Russia and overthrew the bourgeois provisional government. From 1918 to 1920, he led the people of the whole country to repel the armed interference of 14 capitalist countries and the rebellion of domestic reactionary classes. After the end of the domestic war, he led the whole party to shift the focus of work to the construction of organizational socialism. On January 21, 1924, he passed away from a stroke in Gorky Village at the age of 54. [1-5] [39]
Lenin was the founder of the world's first socialist country and also the founder of the world's first proletarian ruling party. He successfully led the October Socialist Revolution in Russia, transforming socialism from scientific theory to great practice. Leninism, as a new development and achievement of Marxism in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, opened up the path of Marxist nationalization. Lenin is widely recognized by communists around the world as a "great mentor and spiritual leader of the international proletarian revolution", and is one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. [1] The writings are included in the Complete Works of Lenin.

The Road to Learning
Vladimir Ilich Lenin (formerly known as Ulyanovsk) was born on April 22, 1870 (April 10 in the Russian calendar) in the city of Sinbirsk on the banks of the Volga River in Russia (now Ulyanovsk). [57]
In 1879, Lenin, who was only 9 and a half years old, skipped the preparatory class and successfully entered middle school through exams. From this time until the age of 17, Lenin studied at the Simbirsk Classical High School. He is diligent and eager to learn, achieving excellent academic results in school, and receiving rewards from the school every time he is promoted. On June 22, 1887, Lenin graduated from high school. His graduation certificate only showed a score of 4 in one subject, while the other ten subjects received a score of 5. When he graduated, he was awarded a gold medal for his excellent character and academic performance. [32]
When Lenin was young, he witnessed the hardships and tragic experiences of the urban poor and nearby farmers in Sinbirsk, which aroused deep sympathy for the working masses and strong dissatisfaction with the current social situation. He extensively read progressive books, especially the works of Russian revolutionary democrats such as Vyg Berinsky and Nikga Chernyshevsky, and was deeply influenced by revolutionary democratic ideas. In his senior years of high school, he first saw "Capital" brought home by his brother Alexander, who was attending university in St. Petersburg, and began to be exposed to Marxism. [57]
In May 1887, just as Lenin was about to graduate from high school, his brother Alexander was arrested and killed by the Tsarist authorities for his involvement in the assassination attempt of the Tsar by the People's Party organization. In July, the entire family of Lenin settled in Kazan. In August, Lenin entered the Law Department of Kazan University to study. At the end of the year, he was arrested and exiled for participating in the progressive student movement. The following autumn, Lenin returned to Kazan and joined the Marxist group organized by Fedosev, starting to systematically study Marx's Capital and Plekhanov's works, becoming a Marxist.

In 1889, Lenin moved with his family to Samara. He persevered in self-study and completed four years of university courses within a year and a half. [13]
In 1891, Lenin passed the examination for the Law Department of the University of St. Petersburg as an outsider and was awarded a diploma with honors. Later obtained the qualification of a legal assistant. He often appears in Samara District Court to defend poor farmers. [13]
Early activities
In August 1893, Lenin arrived in St. Petersburg. He organized and led Marxist group activities, actively disseminated Marxism, and fought against erroneous ideas that influenced the workers' movement.
In 1894, Lenin wrote "What are" Friends of the People "and how do they attack the Social Democrats?", criticizing the theoretical views and political programs of the liberal populist movement, and systematically elaborating on the basic principles of the materialist view of history founded by Marx and Engels; It clarifies that the people are the creators of history, and class struggle is the driving force for the development of class society; Discussed the historical status and great mission of the proletariat, and proposed the task of establishing a working party. [13]
In the spring of 1895, Lenin went to Western Europe to establish connections with the leaders of the Russian Marxist group Labor Liberation Society, such as Vo Plekhanov, and to investigate the Western European worker movement. In October of the same year, after returning to China, Lenin united all Marxist groups in St. Petersburg and established the St. Petersburg Workers' Liberation Struggle Association, achieving the first integration of Marxism and the workers' movement in Russia. At the end of 1895, Lenin was arrested and imprisoned for reporting an insider affair. [13]
In February 1897, after 14 months of imprisonment, Lenin was sentenced to three years of exile. He departed from St. Petersburg to the exile site in eastern Siberia and arrived in Shushensk Village in the Minusinsk Division of Yenisysk Province in May. During his three years in Siberia, he began using the pen name "Lenin".

In 1899, Lenin completed the book "The Development of Russian Capitalism" in exile, thus thoroughly eliminating the erroneous theories of the populist movement. [13]
In February 1900, Lenin ended his exile in Siberia, and soon after returning to St. Petersburg, he moved to Western Europe to study at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Then he went to Stuttgart, Munich, Leipzig, Prague, Vienna, Manchester and London to engage in professional political activities. In Munich, Germany, he co founded the first newspaper of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, the Mars newspaper, in collaboration with Maldives. It was then published in Leipzig and London. During this period, he used many aliases and eventually used "Lenin" as his official name. [13]
Struggle for Party Building
From 1901 to 1902, he wrote the book "What to Do?" which had a great influence in the Russian Revolution in the future. The book clearly opposes Bernstein's revisionism, criticizes the "economic faction" within the party, believes that the backward group should accept the leadership of the advanced group, and demands that the party be built into an institution with "professional revolutionaries" as the vanguard core and strict organizational discipline (i.e. democratic centralism). [13]
On July 30, 1903, the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party held a congress in Brussels, during which a Bolshevik (meaning majority) with Lenin at its core was formed. The emergence of Bolsheviks and their ideological system marked the formation of Leninism.
In 1904, Lenin wrote the book "Further, Two Steps Back", which exposed the opportunism of the Mensheviks in the issue of party organization, comprehensively discussed the idea of establishing a new type of proletarian political party, emphasized the decisive significance of organizational unity for the proletariat, and pointed out that the party is an advanced, conscious, and organized force of the working class, armed with Marxism.

In early 1905, the bourgeois democratic revolution broke out in Russia. In April, Lenin presided over the Third Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in London and formulated the party's strategic line in the democratic revolution. In July, Lenin wrote the book "Two Strategies of the Social Democratic Party in the Democratic Revolution", criticizing the opportunistic strategy of the Mensheviks and comprehensively elaborating on the revolutionary strategy of the Bolsheviks. He deeply discussed major issues such as the leadership of the proletariat in the democratic revolution, the alliance between workers and peasants, the democratic dictatorship of workers and peasants, and the transformation of the democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, Enriched and developed Marxist theories on proletarian revolution and proletarian dictatorship. In November, Lenin returned from abroad to St. Petersburg and directly led the work of the Bolsheviks. [58]
The Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party was held in London from May to June 1907. Lenin was elected to the Presidium of the Congress and gave a report on his attitude towards bourgeois political parties. In June, Russia's first bourgeois democratic revolution ended in failure. Lenin went abroad again at the end of the year and went into exile in Paris and other places in Western Europe, persisting in political writing under relatively poor conditions. [58]
In 1908, Lenin wrote the book "Materialism and Empirical Criticism". In this work, Lenin refuted the attacks of Russian Machists on Marxism, exposed the idealistic essence of Machism, and systematically expounded the basic principles of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, especially the basic principles of dialectical materialism epistemology. This work played an important role in guiding the Bolshevik Party to adhere to the Marxist scientific worldview. [58]
During this period, Lenin also devoted himself to summarizing the experience of the Russian revolution, leading the Bolshevik Party to implement a strategy of combining secret and legal work, and fighting against the recall faction and the Menshevik cancellation faction. In 1912, Lenin presided over the Sixth National Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in Prague, eliminating the Mensheviks from the party. Under the leadership of Lenin, the Bolshevik Party was consolidated and developed in both ideology and organization, becoming the core force leading the Russian revolution.

Running Away Against War
Since 1905, Lenin has represented the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the Socialist International Bureau. Since 1907, he has attended several meetings of the International Bureau, the International Social Party Congress, and the Representative Conference, uniting leftists from various countries to fight resolutely against opportunism in the Second International. [59]
In 1907 and 1910, the International Social Party Congress was held in Stuttgart and Copenhagen, respectively. These two meetings were held in a situation where imperialist countries were frantically expanding their armies and preparing for war, and the danger of war was rampant. Opposing militarism and imperialist warfare has become the central agenda of the conference. Lenin refuted the opportunistic views on the issue of war at the meeting, clarified the imperialist nature of future wars, and emphasized that the proletariat should do its best to oppose and stop wars. If imperialist wars break out, we cannot defend the bourgeois motherland in the war and should use war to accelerate the collapse of bourgeois rule. With the joint efforts of Lenin, K ä tzatkin, Rosa Luxembourg, and other left-wing leaders, the Congress formulated the correct strategies for socialist parties in various countries to oppose imperialist wars. [59]
In 1912, Lenin participated in socialist rallies throughout Europe, such as the Prague Representative Conference. [59]
In July 1914, the First World War broke out, and the majority leaders of the Socialist Parties and the Second International of the warring countries abandoned the resolution of the International Social Party Congress to oppose imperialist wars and supported their own governments in waging wars, becoming social chauvinists. In August, Lenin, who resided in Bologna, was falsely accused of being a spy and was arrested by the Austro Hungarian authorities, and was imprisoned in the New Targ County prison. Lenin was released after 11 days in prison and then went to Switzerland with his family. On September 5th, Lenin arrived in the neutral country of Bern, Switzerland. The next day, he convened a meeting of the Bolsheviks in Bern. The meeting passed the resolution drafted by Lenin on "The Tasks of the Revolutionary Social Democratic Party in European Wars", strongly condemning the betrayal of Marxism by the leaders of the Second International and clarifying the Bolsheviks' attitude towards this war. Lenin also put forward the slogan of "turning imperialist wars into domestic wars".

In August 1915, Lenin first proposed that socialism could achieve victory in a few or even a single capitalist country. In September, Lenin attended the First Congress of the International Socialist Party, also known as the Zimmerwald Conference, held in Zimmerwald, Switzerland. At the meeting, the Zimmerwald Left was formed and a Zimmerwald Left Standing Committee led by Lenin was established. Lenin, as a leader of the Zimmerwald Left, advocated that imperialist wars should be transformed into class wars and called on the working class to seize power by launching civil wars. The majority in the meeting rejected his proposal, believing that the conference agenda should be limited to the scope of pacifism. At the second anti war conference held in Switzerland, he led the Zimmerwald left-wing to reiterate their views, but ultimately only received a compromise declaration.
In February 1916, Lenin and Krupskaya moved from Bern to Zurich. During this period, Lenin carried out extensive creative theoretical research to criticize revisionism and opportunism, defend and develop Marxism. [59]
After the outbreak of World War I, Lenin focused his energy on studying the issue of imperialism. In August 1915, Lenin proposed for the first time in his article "On the slogan of the European Union" the idea that "socialism may first achieve victory in a few or even in a single capitalist country, based on the law of imbalanced economic and political development of imperialism.". This is Lenin's epoch-making new contribution to the theory of socialist revolution. In 1916, Lenin wrote the book "Imperialism is the Highest Stage of Capitalism", which comprehensively analyzed the essence, characteristics, and basic contradictions of imperialism, revealed the objective laws of its emergence, development, and extinction, and pointed out that imperialism was the eve of the proletarian socialist revolution.

In 1917, the February Revolution broke out in Russia, and Tsar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire abdicated. The rule of the Romanov dynasty was completely overthrown, and a coalition of various parties, mainly the Social Revolutionary Party and the Constitutional Democratic Party, was established as the interim government of Russia. At the same time, Petrograd also established a Soviet. Lenin, a neutral country in Switzerland, was well aware of the need to immediately return to Russia, but due to neighboring countries being trapped in World War I, they were unable to travel directly. Nevertheless, Swiss Social Democratic Party member Fritz Plating actively negotiated with the German authorities, and Germany also hoped to use Lenin to ease the war with Russia on the Eastern Front. Therefore, he agreed to assist Lenin in returning home on a "sealed train" arranged by Germany. After crossing the German border, Lenin arrived in Sweden by boat. With the help of Swedish Social Democratic Party members such as Otto Geremren and Toure Niman, he passed through Scandinavia smoothly and arrived at the Finnish station in Petrograd by train on April 16, 1917. [42]
After returning to China, Lenin quickly became the leader of the revolutionary movement. He proposed the famous "April Outline", which pointed out that the Russian revolution must transition from bourgeois democratic revolution to proletarian socialist revolution, opposed the so-called "bourgeois temporary government", protested against its deliberate delay in the constitutional assembly elections, and put forward the slogan "all power belongs to the Soviet". At first, due to his political leftist stance, the party was isolated, but later his uncompromising stance made all those who did not trust the interim government see the Bolsheviks as their allies. However, leaders of the Social Revolutionary Party, such as Krensky, who opposed the Bolsheviks, slandered Lenin as a spy sent by Germany.

In July 1917, the "July Bloody Incident" occurred in Petrograd. The Russian Provisional Government suppressed the workers and soldiers of Bolshevik supported demonstrations and announced the wanted Bolshevik leaders, including Lenin. Lenin believed that the timing was not yet ripe and temporarily abandoned the idea of using force to seize power. He lurked in a thatched hut by Lake Lazriv, continuing to guide the revolutionary struggle. On August 9th, he left Russia and arrived in Finland (at the time in a semi independent situation), where he completed the writing of "The State and Revolution". On September 7th, Russian military commander Kolnilov launched a coup aimed at overthrowing the interim government, which had to seek help from the Red Guards of the Bolsheviks. The coup was ultimately shattered, and the Bolsheviks took the opportunity to strengthen their own power. After analyzing the new situation, Lenin wrote two directive letters to the Bolshevik Central Committee, the Petrograd Committee, and the Moscow Committee from September 12-14, clearly proposing a plan to seize power through uprisings, and secretly returned to Petrograd from Finland on October 7 of the same year. Lenin drafted a resolution on the armed uprising passed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and personally commanded the uprising at the Smolny Palace on the night of October 24, 1917. On November 7th, workers, soldiers, and sailors who supported the Bolsheviks occupied the Winter Palace, where the provisional government was located, at 2am the next day. They declared the overthrow of the Russian provisional government, established the People's Committee, and immediately held constitutional assembly elections. They also demanded the exclusion of the Constitutional Democratic Party and the establishment of a unified socialist democratic government, which was known as the "October Revolution", with "all power belonging to the Soviet". On the 8th of the same month, Lenin was elected as the Chairman of the People's Committee and promulgated the Peace Law and the Land Law. On December 20th, Lenin proposed the establishment of a special committee for the elimination of counter revolutionary and negligent work in Russia (referred to as the Cheka). Appoint Terzhinski as the Chairman of Cheka.