Lenin, Vladimir - Background of a Revolutionary

The charismatic Bolshevik leader, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, helped to overthrow four hundred years of tsarist rule in Russia. When he took power, in 1917, he and his revolutionary movement introduced communism to the Russian people.

Some people welcomed him; others reviled him. History will ultimately judge whether his changes were best for the country.

Winston Churchill, writing of Lenin in The Aftermath - Being a Sequel to The World Crisis, observed a paradox about the man who turned the ideas of Karl Marx into real-life government:

[Lenin] alone could have led Russia into the enchanted quagmire; he alone could have found the way back to the causeway. He saw; he turned; he perished ... The Russian people were left floundering in the bog. Their worst misfortune was his birth, their next-worst - his death. (Churchill, quoted by Richard Langworth in The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill, at page 113.)

This video clip - from Lenin: Revolutionary - includes considerable historical footage about the background, and impact, of Vladimir Lenin.

See, also:

Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution

Lenin: Rare Recording of His Voice