Vladimir Lenin

• Lenin was born into a middle class family.

  • His brother was executed in 1887 due to his involvement in a bomb plot by the People's Will to assassinate Alexander III.
• He was expelled from university for being involved in a revolutionary group.

  • However, he was later allowed to take his exams and he graduated as a lawyer in 1891.
• Whilst working as a lawyer in St Petersburg, he joined a Marxist group known as "The Elders" in 1893 and soon became its leader.
• He was arrested by the Okhrana and exiled to Siberia from 1895 to 1900.
• He missed the first Congress of the SDs in 1898 whilst in exile.

  • However, he did contribute a paper for discussion.
• Lenin was released from exile in Siberia in 1900 and went to live in Switzerland where he joined Plekhanov and other Russian exiles.
• He founded the SD party newspaper, "Iskra" in 1900 with Julius Martov.

  • Iskra is a direct translation of "The Spark".
• In 1902, he wrote a pamphlet entitled "What is to be done?".

  • This is an echo of the title of Nikolai Chernyshevky's earlier work.
  • In the pamphlet, he argued that workers should abandon trade unions and support a revolution to sweep away tsarism.