Vladimir Lenin

{{cquote
 * text= Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism is combined with absorption in the narrowest forms of practical activity.
 * author= V. I. Lenin,
 * source= {{wp|What is to be done?}} (1902)

{{Infobox officeholder }}
 * name           = Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
 * native_name    = Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ленин
 * image          = Lenin LCCN2014715123 (cropped).jpg
 * order1         = Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union
 * term_start1    = 30 December 1922
 * term_end1      = 14 June 1924
 * predecessor1   = office established
 * successor1     = Alexei Rykov
 * order2         = Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian SFSR
 * term_start2    = 8 November 1917
 * term_end2      = 14 June 1924
 * predecessor2   = office established
 * successor2     = Alexei Rykov
 * birthname      = Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
 * birth_date     = 22 April 1870
 * birth_place    = Simbirsk, {{wp|Russian Empire}}
 * death_date     = 14 June 1924
 * death_place    = Moskva, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
 * party          = {{unbulleted list|Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)}}
 * spouse         = {{unbulleted list|Nadezhda Krupskaya|(1898-1924)|}}
 * citizenship    = Soviet
 * signature      = Lenin_-_signature.png
 * signature_alt  = Lenin's signature

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. An active socialist since his brother's execution in 1887, he became the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the {{wp|Russian Social Democratic Labour Party}}, which split from the more reformist Menshevik faction in 1912.