Lenin

Vladimir Lenin
Владимир Ленин
Photograph of Lenin in 1916, while in Switzerland
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
In office 30 December 1922 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Alexei Rykov
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR
In office 8 November 1917 – 21 January 1924
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Alexei Rykov
Personal details
Born	Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (Владимир Ильич Ульянов) (1870-04-22)22 April 1870 Simbirsk, Russian Empire
Died	21 January 1924(1924-01-21) (aged 53) Gorki, Leninsky District, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Lenin's Mausoleum, Moscow, Russian Federation
Nationality	Russian Empire
Political party	Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) (1898–1912) Russian Communist Party (1912–1924)
Other political affiliations	League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class (1895–1898)
Spouse(s)	Nadezhda Krupskaya (m. 1898–1924)
Relations	Aleksandr Ulyanov (brother) Anna Ulyanova (sister) Dmitry Ilyich Ulyanov (brother) Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova (sister) and three other siblings
Parents	Ilya Ulyanov Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova
Education	Law
Alma mater	Saint Petersburg Imperial University
Central institution membership 1917–1924: Full member, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Politburo 1917–1924: Full member, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Central Committee 1905–1907: Full member, 3rd Central Committee Military offices held 1918–1920: Chairman, Council of Labour and Defence

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin (22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870  – 21 January 1924), was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism.

Born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brother's execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empire's , he devoted the following years to a law degree. He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. After his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, leading the Bolshevik faction against Julius Martov's Mensheviks. Encouraging insurrection during Russia's failed Revolution of 1905, he later campaigned for the First World War to be transformed into a Europe-wide proletarian revolution, which as a Marxist he believed would cause the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism. After the 1917 February Revolution ousted the Tsar and established a Provisional Government, he returned to Russia to play a leading role in the October Revolution, in which the Bolsheviks overthrew the new regime.