Full Name: Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
Nickname: Vladimir Lenin

Father: Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov (1831-1886-)
Mother: Maria Alexandrovna Blank (1835-1916)
Wife:Nadezhda Krupskaya (m. 22-Jul-1898)

Born: April 22, 1870
Born Place: Ulyanovsk, Simbirsk, Russia
Died: January 21, 1924 (aged 53)
Died Place: Gorki Leninskiye, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Cause of Death: Stroke

Height: 1.65 m
Remains: Mummified, Red Square, Moscow, Russia
Education: Kazan University
Occupation: Political Leader, Political Scientist, Journalist, Lawyer, Revolutionary.
Nationality: Soviet, Russian

Political Party: Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Russian Communist Party.

Books: What Is To Be Done?, State and Revolution, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of..., Essential Works of Lenin, Lenin and Gorky.

Founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and first head of state of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Vladimir Illich Ulyanov (later known as Lenin) was born in Ulyanovsk, Simbirsk, Russia, on 10th April 1870. His father, Ilya Ulyanov, a local schools inspector, held conservative views and was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church. While his mother was the daughter of a land-owning physician. Lenin was deeply influenced by the revolutionary political views of his older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, who introduced him to the ideas of Karl Marx.

Lenin's father was a secondary-school teacher who rose to become a provincial director of elementary education. In school, he proved himself to be very bright though he suffered alienation because of it. However, he excelled in his studies. He also enjoyed reading and the writings of Goethe and Turgenev would affect him for the rest of his life.

Lenin received the typical education given to the sons of the Russian upper class. Nevertheless, as a young man, he began to develop radical (extreme) political views in disagreement with the existing Russian form of government. Russia at this time was ruled by emperors known as czars who inherited their positions, and Lenin's shift to radical views was probably fueled by the execution by hanging of his older brother Alexander in 1887 after Alexander and others had plotted to kill the czar. Lenin graduated from secondary school with high honours and enrolled at Kazan University, but he was expelled after participating in a demonstration. He retired to the family estate but was permitted to continue his studies away from the university. He obtained a law degree in 1891.

Two major tragedies occurred which had an acute effect on the young Lenin (then Ulyanov). In 1886 his father died from a cerebral haemorrhage, the following year his brother, Alexander, was hung for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Lenin renounced religion and the political system. Added to this he was the brother of the dead revolutionary and found many doors closed to him. He finally managed to be accepted into a Kazan University where he studied law. This was to be short-lived as he was expelled for attending a peaceful protest some three months later. He was ostracised from the academic world. He studied the law on his own and passed the exam, coming first in a class of 124 in 1891.

Vladimir Ilich Lenin was named president of the Society of People's Commissars (Communist Party) when he was aged forty-seven. The problems of the new government were enormous. The war with Germany was ended immediately (his battle cry had been "Bread not War"). Though Russia lost the bread basket of Ukraine to Germany this was soon regained when Germany was ultimately defeated in the war. The land was redistributed, some as collective farms. Factories, mines, banks and utilities were all taken over by the state. The Russian Orthodox Church was disestablished.

There was the opposition and this led to a civil war in 1918 between the Mensheviks (Whites) and the Bolsheviks (Reds). Despite being supported by Britain and the U.S.A. the whites were defeated after a bitter struggle.

From 1919 to 1921 famine and typhus ravaged Russia and left over 27 million people dead. To counter these disasters Lenin put into effect the New Economic Plan. This plan embraced some capital ideas (limited private industry) in order to revitalise the flagging economy. However,  he was never to see the full effect of his measures.

On May 26, 1922, Lenin suffered a serious stroke (a loss of consciousness due to the rupture or blockage of an artery in the brain). After recovering from this first stroke, he suffered a second on December 16. He was so seriously ill that he could participate in political matters only occasionally. He moved to a country home at Gorki, Russia, near Moscow, where he died on January 21, 1924.