Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) was born in Simbirsk into a noble family of an inspector of public schools. He graduated from Simbirsk gymnasium (1887). He entered the Law Faculty of Kazan University but was expelled for being involved in student riots. In 1891, he graduated from the Law Faculty of St. Petersburg University as an external student. He worked as an assistant attorney in Samara, and St. Petersburg. Since the late 1880s, he was a member of Marxist circles. He was an organizer of the St. Petersburg Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class (1895). December 1895 saw him arrested and exiled to Krasnoyarsk Kray [region]. After the term of exile was completed, he went abroad. He was a member of the editorial team of Iskra [Spark] newspaper. He developed the Program and Charter of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). After the split of the Party (1903), he became the all-time leader of the faction (since 1917, the party) of Bolsheviks.

He took part in the revolution of 1905–1907. He was a zealous opponent of Mensheviks’ orientation at the alliance with the bourgeoisie in the struggle against the autocracy. He advocated an armed uprising, the establishment of the revolutionary power of the alliance of proletariat and peasantry under the hegemony of the former. He lived in St. Petersburg. In 1906 he moved to the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1908–1917, he was in emigration. During World War I, he adhered to an internationalist position, supported “revolutionary porazhenchestvo” [defeatism], the transformation of the imperialist war into a civil war.

In April 1917, he returned to Russia. He came out with radical slogans of the transfer of all power to the Soviets, an earliest possible end to the war, the nationalization of all lands, the development of the revolution into a socialist one (“the April theses”). After the July political crisis, Provisional Government accused him of high treason in favour of Germany, he was hiding from arrest together with Grigory Zinoviev in Razliv near Petrograd, then in Finland. Early October saw him illegally return to Petrograd.

He was the main organizer and leader of the October coup. On October 10, 1917, the meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) adopted Lenin’s resolution on an armed uprising. The night of October 26, 1917, saw the Provisional Government arrested. The 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies adopted Lenin’s Decrees on peace and land and established the first Soviet government, the Council of People’s Commissars. Vladimir Lenin was elected Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars, becoming the founder and de facto leader of the world’s first socialist state.

He headed the Commission of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) and the Council of People’s Commissars for the defense of Petrograd from the troops of Aleksander Kerensky and Pyotr Krasnov. He authored the Declaration of the Rights of the Working and Exploited People, which formed the basis of the first Soviet Constitution. He managed to achieve the conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk Peace treaty with Germany in March 1918, considering this step essential to preserve the Soviet power. Lenin supported the introduction of an emergency food policy – Prodrazverstka [Food Levy] (spring–summer 1918). On August 30, 1918, he was wounded during an assassination attempt, which was one of the pretexts for the outbreak of the Red Terror.

Since November 30, 1918, he was Chairman of the Council of Workers’ and Peasants’ Defense (since 1920, the Council of Labour and Defense) of the Russian SFSR, the extraordinary supreme body of Soviet Russia during the Civil War. He was an initiator of the establishment of the Communist International (1919). In 1919–1924, Lenin was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) – RCP(b). He played a key role in the formation of the USSR. He was the first Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR (since July 1923).

Since the end of 1922, while formally remaining in office, he actually withdrew from the daily political leadership of the country due to severe health issues. Since the spring of 1923, he lived in the village of Gorki near Moscow on a permanent basis. Lenin died on January 21, 1924. The coffin with the embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin was placed in the Mausoleum at Red Square.