VLADIMIR LENINMAYKELIN RIVERA & ERICA GARCIA

ANALYSIS QUESTION

Analyze the methods used by a totalitarian regime to maintain power.

EARLY LIFE OF LENINHe was born as Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, he didn’t adopt the last name Lenin until 1901 while doing underground party work.

Lenin was born in Simbirsk on the Volga River in April 21, 1870. Third of 6 children.

He excelled in school and went on to study law in 1887, the same year his brother was executed. His time at Kazan University was short because he was expelled for taking part in a student demonstration. Two events in particular shaped his life:1. His father died in 1887. That year marked a turning point for young

Lenin and in a lot of ways determined his path as future revolutionary.

2. Lenin’s older brother, Aleksandr, a university student at the time, was arrested and executed for being part of a group planning to assassinate Emperor Alexander III. In 1891.

BECOMING A RADICAL

Lenin received his law degree in 1892. He moved to the city of Samara and took a position as a lawyer's assistant.

In the mid-1890s Lenin quit his law practice in Samara and settled in St. Petersburg. There he became associated with a group of radicals who were similarly impressed by the ideas of Marx and the influential Russian Marxist Georgy Plekhanov.

He grouped members into six member cells. By this means industrial conditions were investigated, statistics compiled and pamphlets written. It was also through these groups that he met his future wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, who he married in 1898.

In 1895, Lenin was arrested, imprisoned, and sent into exile to Siberia with other members of the Marxist organization known as the Union of the Struggle.

REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

Lenin went abroad in 1900 and with George Plekhanov and others organized the clandestine newspaper Iskra (The Spark), designed to ignite the revolutionary movement.

In Iskra Lenin rejected the notion of any kind of political alliance with liberals or other elements of the bourgeoisie and stressed the importance of social, rather than political, democracy, as the basis for individual freedom.

RISE TO POWER

1917 was to finally see the revolution in Russia. In fact two revolutions occurred in this year.

In March steelworkers in St. Petersburg went on strike. It grew until thousands of people lined the streets. The Tsar's power collapsed and the Duma, led by Alexander Kerensky, took power.

Lenin made a deal with the Germans; if they could get him safely back to Russia, he would take power and pull Russia out of the war. Kerensky was to fall over this same issue.

LENIN IN POWER

Assisted by the Germans, who hoped that he would undermine the Russian war effort, Lenin returned home and started working against the provisional government that had overthrown the tsarist regime.

He refused to take Russia out a war in which they were suffering severe losses and causing brutal hardship at home. Lenin came to power in October after a nearly bloodless coup.

OCTOBER REVOLUTIONHe eventually led what was soon to be known as the October Revolution. Almost three years of civil war followed.

The Bolsheviks were victorious and assumed total control of the country. During this period of revolution, war and famine, Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the sufferings of his fellow countrymen and mercilessly crushed any opposition.

LENIN IN POWER

The policies of War Communism led to significant declines in Russia's agricultural and industrial output.

At the Tenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party, held in March, Lenin introduced a policy of economic liberalization known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). The policy signified a temporary retreat from Lenin's goal of transforming the Soviet economy into a fully communist one.

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.

LENIN’S LEGEND

Lenin was one of the foremost revolutionary leaders of the 20th century. As a politician, he was characterized by remarkable determination, ruthlessness, and sometimes cruelty.

WORKS CITED

http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/leaders/vladimir-lenin/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitextlo/prof_vladimirlenin.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSlenin.htm

http://www.essortment.com/vladimir-lenin-biography-20426.html

http://www.biography.com/people/vladimir-lenin-9374007

http://www.historyguide.org/europe/lenin.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/lenin_vladimir.shtml