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Lenin: A Biography

Historical Monographby Josh Skinner

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The October Revolution(Bolshevik Revolution)

After the February Revolution in 1917,in which protestors forced the Tsar toabdicate his throne, a provisionalgovernment was established.

Many did not support this provisionalgovernment, and turned to theBolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin,as an alternative.

In October of 1917, the Bolsheviksbegan organizing themselves andtaking control of government facilities.

On October 25 th, they stormed theWinter Palace, the seat of theprovisional government, andestablished Soviet rule over Petrograd.

Many outside Petrograd were opposedto this endeavor, thus starting theRussian Civil War.

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Leninism

Lenin was greatly inspired by worksby Karl Marx including The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital .

Leninism was Lenins response toMarxs theories. It is the practicalusage of Marxism for the specific timeand place it was used in: 20 th-centuryRussia.

The main difference between Marxismand Leninism is that, while Karl Marx

believed the proletariat would beurban and industrialized, and wouldrise in rebellion spontaneously, Leninneeded to alter Marxism to fit hisneeds. Thus, according to Leninism,the proletariat would be agrarian, asthey were in Russia, and would rise inrebellion with the leadership of avanguard party, which in his case wasthe Bolshevik party.

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The Red Terror In response to assassination attempts upon Lenin and other party members, Joseph Stalin

suggested that Lenin introduce terror into the Soviets hearts to keep them in support of the party.

Thousands of death warrants were signed, and many more were sent as hostages toconcentration camps in Siberia, where most died of exposure to the cold.

Most of the victims of the terror were peasants who opposed the communists known as kulaks, or deserters of the Red Army.

This marked the beginning of mass killings by communist regimes for the next century to come.

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Assassination Attempts

The first failed assassination attempt on Lenin wasin 1918, when a group of assassins ambushedLenin in his car and opened fired, but failed to hitLenin.

Seven months later, in August of the same year,Fanya Kaplan, a socialist revolutionary whobelieved Lenin to be a traitor of the true revolution,shot Lenin after a speech. Bullets hit him in thearm, jaw, and neck, but Lenin survived, albeit withbullets still lodged in his body for fear of injuring hisspine if doctors removed them

This would prove to be detrimental to Leninshealth, and in combination with a succession of strokes, Lenin was finally felled by a fourth strokein 1924.

His body was embalmed and put on permanentdisplay in his mausoleum in Moscow.

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Sources

Service, Robert. Lenin: A Biography. New York: PanMacmillan Books. 2008. Print.