Entry
Entries A-Z
Subject index
Lenin and Leninism
Vladimir Il’ich Ulianov, better known by his revolutionary codename, Lenin, was born in the provincial Russian town of Simbirsk on April 22, 1870. He was born into a prosperous, privileged, and intellectual middle-class family. As a child, Ulianov/Lenin lived a cultured and warm family life. Perhaps the first question that arises, then, is why did Lenin later become a passionate revolutionary? Essentially, there are two overarching reasons. First, the antiquated social, political, and economic systems of Russia were no longer fit for purpose. By the 1880s, the crucial decade in Lenin’s development, the government had turned to anti-Semitism and repression to maintain its authority. Increasingly, educated observers became alienated from it and looked to foreign models of democratic and law-based government as a necessary ...
- Loading...