They were met by security forces, who fired on the group, killing and wounding hundreds. The crisis set the stage for what would be called the Russian Revolution of Hoping to placate his citizens, the emperor issued his October Manifesto, offering up several political concessions, most notably the creation of an elected legislative assembly known as the Duma. But Lenin was far from satisfied. His frustrations extended to his fellow Marxists, in particular, the group calling itself the Mensheviks, led by Julius Martov.
The issues centered around party structure and the driving forces of a revolution to fully seize control of Russia. While his comrades believed that the power must reside with the bourgeoisie, Lenin passionately distrusted that segment of the population. The fighting would continue until a party conference in Prague, when Lenin formally split to create a new, separate entity.
As always, his mind stayed focus on revolutionary politics. During this period he wrote and published Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism , a defining work for the future leader, in which he argued that war was the natural result of international capitalism.
In , a tired, hungry and war-weary Russia deposed the tsars. Lenin instead called for a Soviet government, one that would be ruled directly by soldiers, peasants and workers. Three years of civil war followed. The Lenin-led Soviet government faced incredible odds.
They were aided by World War I Allies, who supplied the group with money and troops. Determined to win at any cost, Lenin showed himself to be ruthless in his push to secure power. He launched what came to be known as the Red Terror, a vicious campaign Lenin used to eliminate the opposition within the civilian population. In August Lenin narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, when he was severely wounded with a pair of bullets from a political opponent.
His recovery only reinforced his larger-than-life presence among his countrymen, though his health was never truly the same.
For centuries leading up to World War I, Russia was ruled by an absolute monarchy under which the lower classes had long suffered in poverty. This tension was exacerbated by the nationwide famine and loss of human lives as a result of World War I. The first revolution began when the Russian army was sent in to control a protest led by factory workers who had recently lost their jobs. The military quickly lost control of the situation, and the Czar was forced to abdicate. When the Czar was dethroned, Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia after being exiled for anti-Czar plots.
Other revolutionaries including Leon Trotsky also returned to Russia to seize the opportunity. The two established the Bolshevik party, a communist party that was staunchly opposed to the War, which continued to wreak havoc on the unstable nation. However, when the Bolsheviks gained only 25 percent of votes in the elections, Lenin overturned the results and used military force to prevent democratic assembly.
He established several state-centered government programs and policies that would continue, in some form, throughout the reign of the Soviet Union. In his declining years, he worried about the bureaucratisation of the regime and also expressed concern over the increasing power of his eventual successor Joseph Stalin. Lenin died on 24 January His corpse was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square.
Search term:. Read more. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets CSS enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. The bloody upheaval marked the end of the oppressive Romanov dynasty and centuries of imperial rule in Russia.
The son of Ilya Ulyanov and Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova, he was the third of six siblings in an educated family and would go on to become first in his class in high school.
But it was exactly their educational background that made the family a target of the government; his father, an inspector of schools, was threatened with early retirement by officials wary of public education.
As a teenager, Lenin became politically radicalized after his older brother was executed in for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander III. Later that year, year-old Lenin—still known as Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov—was expelled from Kazan Imperial University, where he was studying law, for taking part in an illegal student protest.
After his expulsion, Lenin immersed himself in radical political literature, including the writings of German philosopher and socialist Karl Marx , author of Das Kapital. In , Lenin declared himself a Marxist. He later finished college and received a law degree. Lenin practiced law briefly in St. Petersburg in the mids. He soon was arrested for engaging in Marxist activities and exiled to Siberia. The two would marry on July 22, Lenin later moved to Germany and then Switzerland, where he met other European Marxists.
During this time, he adopted the pseudonym Lenin and established the Bolshevik Party. Militarily, imperial Russia was no match for modern, industrialized Germany.
Russian participation in the war was disastrous: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any other nation, and food and fuel shortages soon plagued the vast country. Lenin advocated for Russian defeat in World War I, arguing that it would hasten the political revolution he desired. It was during this time that he wrote and published Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism in which he argued that war was the natural result of international capitalism.
Hoping that Lenin could further destabilize their foe, the Germans arranged for Lenin and other Russian revolutionaries living in exile in Europe to return to Russia.
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