Lenin, Vladimir Ilich

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov) (1870–1924) The principal figure in the Russian Revolution and first Premier (Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars) of the Soviet Union (1918–24). Lenin was the first political leader to attempt to put Marxist principles into practice, though, like Marx, he saw the need for a transitional period to full communism, during which there would be a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. The policies that he pursued led ultimately to the establishment of Marxism-Leninism in the Soviet Union and, later, in China. Born in Russia, he lived in Switzerland from 1900, but was instrumental in the split between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903, when he became leader of the more radical Bolsheviks. He returned to Russia in 1917, established Bolshevik control after the overthrow of the tsar, and in 1918 became head of state; he founded the Third International (or Comintern) the following year to further the cause of world revolution. With Trotsky's help he defeated counter-revolutionary forces in the Russian Civil War, but was forced to moderate his socio-economic policies to allow the country to recover from the effects of war and revolution. During the last years of his life he denounced, but was unable to prevent, the concentration of power in the hands of Stalin.