Vladimir IIyich Lenin
Life-Sketch
(Extract)
Vladimir IIyich Lenin was born on April 22, 1870 in the town of Simbirsk on the Volga.... His father was an inspector of schools. After finishing secondary school Lenin entered the University of Kazan. But soon afterwards he was arrested by the tsarist authorities for taking part in the revolutionary movement of the students and was banished from Kazan. In 1889 Lenin settled in the city of Samara, where he continued to study the works of Marx and Engels, and organized a Marxist circle.... He studied at home and in the autumn of 1897 got his law degree. In 1895 he united the workers’ Marxist circles in St. Petersburg into a single organisation, the League of Struggle for Emancipation of the Working Class. This organisation was the embryo of the well-known revolutionary workers’ party in Russia.
In December 1895 the police arrested Lenin and other leaders of the League.... During the three years of exile Lenin wrote many theoretical works and articles in which he developed Marxist teachings and presented correct answers to the urgent fundamental questions confronting the working class movement of Russia.
In January 1900 Lenin came back from exile with a plan to publish a political newspaper.... While in Germany, he succeeded in making arrangements to publish the newspaper Iskra, which was smuggled across the border into Russia by friends.
Lenin’s relentless struggle for the establishment of a proletarian party in Russia was crowned with success. The party (now the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) rallied Russia’s proletariat for the struggle against Tsarism, for the establishment of democratic republic, for the emancipation of the working people from exploitation.
In January 1905 the first bourgeois-democratic revolution began in Russia.... After the Tsarist authorities had succeeded in crushing the revolution, Lenin, in compliance with a decision of the Party, again left the country for a time.
When the First World War broke out, Lenin and the other Russian communists resolutely and consistently came out against the imperialist war.
February 1917 saw the beginning of the second bourgeois democratic revolution in Russia.... The Provisional Government that was set up betrayed the interests of the people and the country; it made preparations to turn Russia into a colony of foreign imperialism.
Lenin came back from abroad. He immediately announced a programme for the further unfolding of the revolutionary movement of the workers, soldiers and working peasantry, rousing them to the struggle for establishing a people’s Government in Russia....
------Boundless Faith In People-------
The October Socialist Revolution in Russia became victorious. For the first time in the history of mankind the power passed into the hands of the representatives of workers, peasants and soldiers....
Immediately after the victory of the socialist revolution the Decree on peace was adopted on Lenin’s initiative, in which the Soviet Government appealed to the belligerent countries and all peoples to conclude a democratic peace immediately. The decree on Peace actually laid the foundation for the policy of peaceful co-existence.
Lenin headed the first government of the world’s first socialist state. In this office, which he held until his death on January 21, 1924, he displayed his genius as a statesman. Great scholar, leader and organizer, he was closely linked with the people and had boundless faith in their great powers and talents....
It required tremendous efforts to rehabilitate the country’s ravaged economy. On Lenin’s initiative a plan for the electrification of the country was drawn up and its implementation was begun at once. Lenin believed that in order to build a new society in Russia, it was first of all necessary to develop an up-to-date industry, to help the peasants transform their petty individual farms into largescale machanized collective farms, and to carry through a cultural revolution.
The Essence of Lenin’s teachings is that the abolition of man’s exploitation by man and the transfer of all material wealth to the people form the basis of a new society of true democracy and freedom, which alone can provide a secure life for every person, irrespective of his origin or nationality. And everything the Soviet Government does, everything the peoples of the Soviet Union create and build, is the realisation of Lenin’s dreams, ideas and thoughts.
Source: Shivdan Singh Chauhan Papers, MSS, NMML
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