The world today would be quite a dieeer-ent place if not for one very determined man— Vladimir Ulyanov, known to the world under his nickname, Lenin. In 1917, he organized a disjointed mass of rebelling workers into an efficient army that overthrew the centuries-old Russian monarchy and founded the world’s first socialist state: the Soviet Union.
The Soviet revolution gained momentum by giving a voice to the poor and the uneducated. “Land to the peasants! Factories to the workers!”—that slogan led Russia’s underprivileged to battle and on through a bloody civil war. The revolution intended to destroy the old society completely and build a new one on its ruins, and it succeeded in doing that. All the institutions were to be closed down and reinvented; all possessions taken away and reassigned. The massively ambitious plan was to start from ground zero, to erect a new civilization on a land cleansed of its past.
But people are attached to their past and rarely ready to erase it without a trace, even if offered something better. Who was this Lenin who believed in destruction so much that he managed to infect others? He must have suffered terribly in that old life that he yearned to annihilate. His life in the old regime must have been so unbearable that he preferred anything—pools of blood, cities in flames—to the old Russia he knew. What happened to him?
What happened was, he grew up in a privileged, well-off, loving family. His father—a nobleman, professor, and high-ranking education administration official—invested in his children’s education and received well-connected guests in his comfortable house. His mother, a wealthy bourgeoise by birth, organized their home life around staging plays, reading books, and practicing foreign languages over meals. Vladimir received an excellent education at a private school, where he learned Latin, Greek, German, French, and English. His teachers remember him as a diligent, straight-A student who showed no signs of rebellion or dissatisfaction. He looked up to his elder brother, Alexander, who went off to St. Petersburg to study math and physics. The family gathered by the fireplace to read Alexander’s letters out loud. In his third year at the university, Alexander received a gold medal for independent scientific research in zoology. Vladimir and his younger siblings adored their talented brother and hoped to follow in his steps. When their father died unexpectedly at age fifty-four, Alexander became the de facto head of the family, the main center of gravity for his mother and five younger siblings.
And then, in Vladimir’s last year of high school, the terrifying news comes: Alexander is arrested for participation in a terrorist plot to assassinate the czar and is sentenced to be hanged. Horrified, all friends and neighbors turn away from the family. Even an old teacher friend, who, for decades, had spent his evenings at the Ulyanovs’ playing chess, stops coming. The mother, in fever from shock and fear, travels to St. Petersburg to ask the czar for mercy. Alexander refuses to sign the petition to spare his life. His mother begs; Alexander finally agrees, citing his family’s well-being as the reason. The czar refuses the petition. Alexander is executed.
The same year, Vladimir enters the university to study law. Right away, he joins a revolutionary circle, thus kicking off his long, dizzying career as the ideologist, mastermind, and leader of the twentieth century’s biggest revolution. Now, he is often dubbed “a bloody genius.” One of his most controversial decrees was the order to assassinate the czar’s family, including five children.
Written by NINA WIEDA
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World History
