Lenin was born into a middle class family in April 1870. His real name was Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov. Lenin was a well educated man and in 1892 he qualified as a lawyer.
Meanwhile in 1887 Lenin's older brother Aleksandr was executed for plotting to murder the Tsar.
Lenin became a Marxist. (He declared himself a Marxist in 1889). Marxism was the creation of Karl Marx (1818-1883). According to him society went through an inevitable series of stages ending in Communism. The industrial workers, he said, would inevitably rise up against the capitalists and Capitalism would be replaced by Socialism in which the state would own industry. However the state would 'wither away' leaving a classless society or Communism. Needless to say the promised utopia never materialized.
Like all communists Lenin was an atheist. Marx claimed that religion is an illusion and Lenin was deeply hostile to it.
In 1896 Lenin was sent into exile in Siberia. In 1898 he married Nadezhda Krupskaya. Lenin was released in February 1900. Lenin then spent several years living in different parts of Europe.
Meanwhile a Marxist party was formed in Russia in 1898. At a meeting in 1903 it split into 2 groups. The Bolsheviks (from the Russian word for majority) and the Mensheviks (from the word for minority). However the Bolsheviks were not the majority within the party they were only the majority at one particular meeting.
Then in 1914 came the First World War. In September 1914 the Russian army was severely defeated at Tannenberg. Russia never really recovered. Russia continued to suffer terrible losses and the country 'bled to death'. Eventually the war gave Lenin the opportunity to seize power. In Russia there were severe shortages on the home front. In March 1917 a shortage of bread in St Petersburg led to riots. This time the soldiers in the city joined the rioters. The Tsarist regime quickly collapsed. The tsar abdicated.
A provisional government made up of deputies from the duma (parliament) which then ruled Russia. A moderate Socialist named Alexander Kerensky became prime minister. However in April 1917 the Germans helped the Bolshevik leader, Lenin to return from exile in Switzerland. Lenin, still in exile, worked tirelessly to make his way back to Russia. He approached the German government to organize for him a safe passage to Petrograd. The German government was happy to help a known provocateur return to Russia: Lenin, they thought—correctly, as it happened–would be a powerfully destabilizing force in their great enemy to the east. Lenin was spirited home on a “sealed train,” so that he could claim never to have set foot on German soil. Germany even provided economic aid to him and the Bolsheviks upon his arrival in Petrograd.
In July some Bolsheviks led a premature rising called the July Days. The provisional government claimed Lenin was a German agent and released documents, which were supposed to prove it. The rising fizzled out and Lenin fled to Finland. However he soon returned to Russia having easily refuted the governments claims.
The provisional government lost support because of its failure to end the war, which had cost so many lives and its failure to enact social reforms. Many Russians were impatient for peace and for radical reforms. Lenin appealed to them with his slogan Peace! Bread! Land!
The Bolsheviks had much support among soldiers in Petrograd. On 6 November 1917 the Bolsheviks led them in a revolt in Petrograd. They seized key buildings. On 7 November 1917 they seized the winter palace and arrested most of the provisional government (Kerensky escaped and fled abroad). Lenin and his followers quickly seized central Russia.
Before its downfall the provisional government had arranged for elections to a representative assembly. Lenin let the elections go ahead. However they won only 168 places out of 703 in the assembly. When it was clear the new assembly did not support them the Bolsheviks closed it by force. In other words the Russian people did not want Communism. Instead it was imposed on them by Lenin and his cronies.
Furthermore Lenin had to fight a long civil war before he controlled all of Russia. The war between the 'reds' (supporters of the Revolution) and the 'whites' (supporters of the monarchy and Tsar) lasted until 1921 and it devastated Russia. Worse Russia suffered a severe famine in 1921-1922 in which many people died. The Bolsheviks set up councils called Soviets, which together ruled Russia. Eventually this would coalesce into the Soviet Union was a one-party federation, governed by the Communist Party with Moscow as its capital.
Meanwhile the Tsar and his family were murdered in 1918. They were not the only ones. The Communist secret police the Cheka, killed tens of thousands of people.
During the civil war the Communists simply took food from the peasants by force whenever they needed it. The harsh policies of the Communists provoked unrest. In 1921 there were strikes in Petrograd and mutiny at Kronstad naval base, which was crushed by force. However Lenin them made a strategic retreat. He announced his 'new economic policy'.
The peasants were allowed to grow food and sell it for profit. In the towns some free enterprise was allowed. The Communists only retained control of the 'commanding heights' of industry (the most important ones). The new economic policy helped Russia to recover from the devastation wreaked by civil war.
However time was running out for Lenin. In 1922 he suffered the first of a series of stokes. Vladimir Lenin died on 21 January 1924. He was 53. After his death Lenin was embalmed and his body was put on display. After the death of Lenin Stalin became the dictator of the Soviet Union and he murdered millions of people. However Communism finally collapsed in the Soviet Union in 1991 and Lenin's dream ended in total failure. When Lenin died in 1924 the great city of St Petersburg was named after him. However in 1991 it was changed back again.
Joseph Stalin real name was Joseph Vissarionovich Dzugashvili and he was born in 1879. His father was a poor shoemaker. He died when Josef was 11. His mother was a washerwoman. Stalin was a short man. He was 5 feet 4 inches tall and he was pockmarked by smallpox.
Furthermore his left arm was shorter than his right.
Stalin's mother he wanted her son to become a clergyman. Stalin studied at a seminary but he became a Marxist and he was expelled in 1899. Like all Marxists Stalin was an atheist. (Although we don't know exactly when Stalin lost his religious faith completely).
Marxism was the creation of Karl Marx (1818-1883). According to him society went through an inevitable series of stages ending in Communism. The industrial workers, he said, would inevitably rise up against the capitalists and Capitalism would be replaced by Socialism in which the state would own industry. However the state would 'wither away' leaving a classless society or Communism. Needless to say the promised utopia never materialized. Marxism was a foolish dream.
Stalin joined the Social Democratic Party, which split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks (Communists). Stalin was a committed Communist. Yet he played only a small part in the revolution of 1917. However in 1922 Stalin was appointed Secretary General of the party.
Meanwhile in 1904 Stalin married Yekatrine Svanidze. They had a son called Yakov who later died in mysterious circumstances. Yekatrine herself died in 1907.
Following Lenin's death in 1924 the cunning and devious Stalin or Joseph Vissarionovich Dzugashvili 1879 took power. By 1928 he had made himself dictator. His main enemy Leon Trotsky (Lev Devidovich Bronstein 1879-1940) was exiled 1929. In 1940 he was assassinated in Mexico. Meanwhile Stalin soon proved to be a tyrant who murdered millions of people.
In 1919 Stalin married Nadezhda Alliluyeva. They had a son Vasili and a daughter Svetlana. However the second wife killed herself in 1932.
In 1929 started a series of 5 years plans. Heavy industry in Russia was to be greatly expanded. As part of the 5-Year Plan, Stalin decided that farms in the Ukraine should be collectivized. In other words peasants would be deprived of their land and livestock and made to work as farm laborers on land now owned by the state. Not surprisingly many Ukrainian peasants bitterly resisted even slaughtering their own livestock rather than hand it over to the state. However Stalin was determined to crush the Ukrainian peasants and he caused a terrible famine in 1932-33 that took the lives of millions of innocent people. In 1932 collective farms were given completely unrealistic quotas to fill. Soviet law decreed that the peasants would not be allowed to keep any grain until they had met their quotas. They could not, of course meet them so Soviet officials simply confiscated all the grain they wanted leaving the peasants to starve. How many people died in this man-made famine is not known for sure but it was probably about 7 million. This horrific artificial famine is called the Holodomor.
In 1934 Stalin began a series of 'purges' in which millions of people died. The purges are known as the Great Terror. They began when Sergei Kirov was assassinated. He was probably murdered on Stalin's orders. Nevertheless Stalin used it as an excuse to eliminate his enemies (or anyone he thought might be an enemy). Many prominent communists were put on show trials and executed. Millions of ordinary people were sent to labor camps and forced to work in appalling conditions.
In 1937-38 Stalin purged the officers in the red army. About 80% of the generals and 50% of the colonels were executed. So the red army was weakened just when Russia was facing a threat from Nazi Germany.
Furthermore in the 1930s, under Stalin the churches were persecuted. Thousands of clergymen were arrested and propaganda for atheism was widespread.
Despite Stalin's terrible crimes Russian industry grew rapidly in the years 1929-1941. In 1939 Stalin made a non-aggression pact with Hitler. In 1939 the two men divided Poland between them. Then Stalin demanded that Finland give him territory, which he hoped would make Russia easier to defend. When the Finns refused Stalin went to war. The Russians attacked Finland on 30 November 1939. At first the Finns successfully resisted but superior Russian numbers eventually overwhelmed them. The Finns surrendered in March 1940.
In 1940 Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were still independent. However in the summer Stalin sent in the Red army to occupy them and they were absorbed into the Soviet Union.
Despite the non-aggression pact of 1939 the Germans invaded Russia in June 1941. Stalin was taken by surprise and the Russians suffered heavy losses. Finland, Romania and Hungary assisted the Germans. However the Russians obtained substantial material aid from Britain and the USA.
At first the Germans advanced rapidly and captured a huge number of Russians (most of the captives did not survive the war). However the rate of German advance slowed and by the beginning of December it had 'run out of steam'. The Germans failed to take Moscow and on 5 December 1941 the Russians counterattacked. They made some progress early in 1942 but in the summer the Germans returned to the offensive German troops advanced into the Caucasus. Others attempted to capture Stalingrad. The battle for the city was fought from August onward. In November the Russians counterattacked and encircled the Germans. The majority of German troops surrendered on 31 January. The rest surrendered on 2 February. Meanwhile the Germans withdrew from the Caucasus.
The Germans and Russians fought a great tank battle at Kursk in July 1943. The result was a resounding Russian victory. Afterwards the red army advanced rapidly. In November 1943 they liberated Kiev.
Early in 1944 the Red army entered the Baltic States. In June they began a massive offensive in central Europe. Romania surrendered on 23 August 1944. Although Bulgaria was not officially at war with Russia she had helped the Germans. So in September Russia declared war and occupied Bulgaria. Finland surrendered in September 1944. In January 1945 the Russians advanced across Poland. In April they entered Berlin. The war ended on 8 May 1945.
The 'Great Patriotic War' as it was called caused terrible suffering to the Russian people. Millions of them died. When Germany surrendered the red army was left occupying Eastern Europe. So Stalin installed puppet regimes in each country. Stalin also clamped down on his own people. Fortunately he died on 5 March 1953.
