Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilich Lenin was born on May 4, 1870. In school, he was very bright, and enjoyed reading and writings of Goethe and Turgenev. Lenin's father died of a cerebral hemorrhage and his brother was hung for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Lenin was finally accepted to the Kazan University where he studied law. He was expelled, and later studied law on his own and passed the exam in first in a class of 124 people in 1891.

In 1895, Lenin traveled to Switzerland to meet like minded Social Democrats. He and Georgi Plekhanov argued over the means of bringing about change in Russia, and in tern led to the eventual split of the Social Democratic party into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Lenin was put in prison for fifteen months for obtaining illegal pamphlets. After he served his term, he was exiled to Siberia, and got married. They went back to Switzerland in 1900 and started his paper, the Iskra. Lenin made a deal with the Germans that he would take power and pull Russia out of the war. Lenin then came to power in October 1917.

In 1918, the Mensheviks fought the Bolsheviks, resulting in a Menshevik loss. Between 1919 to 1921, typhus destroyed Russia and killed over 27 million