Portal:Communism/Selected biography/8
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (22 April 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist who served as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1922 till 1924. A Marxist, he was responsible for developing the political theory of Marxism-Leninism, and as the leader of the Bolshevik Party took a senior role in the October Revolution of 1917. Following the Bolsheviks rise to power, Lenin was instrumental in the conversion of the Russian Empire into the Soviet Union, a socialist state governed by a Communist Party.
As a politician, Lenin was a persuasive and charismatic orator. As an intellectual his extensive theoretic and philosophical developments of Marxism produced Marxism–Leninism, a pragmatic Russian application of Marxism that emphasized the critical role played by a committed and disciplined political vanguard in the revolutionary process, while defending the possibility of a socialist revolution in less advanced capitalist countries through an alliance of the proletarians with the rural peasantry.
Lenin remains a controversial and highly divisive world figure. Critics labeled him a dictator, but supporters saw him heroically as a champion of the working classes. He has had a significant influence on the Marxist-Leninist movement, which since his death had developed into a variety of schools of thought.