Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (born Ulyanov) was a Russian revolutionary and politician who served as the first leader of the Russian SFSR and the Soviet Union, before his death in 1924. He gave his name to Marxism-Leninism, the official ideology of the Bolshevik Party (VKPb). An active socialist since his brother's execution in 1887, he became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the, which split from the more reformist Menshevik faction in 1912. After having lived in Western Europe between 1900 and 1917, the authorities of the German Empire permitted him to return to Russia via train in April 1917 following the February Revolution, based on the assertion that his prescense could cause trouble for their enemies in the Great War, the Russian Empire. He would go on to lead the overthrow of Alexander Kerensky's Russian Provisional Government during the October Revolution later that year, forming a new government in Russia, initially alongside the Left Socialist Revolutionary Party and the soviets (workers' councils).