![]() Stalin was born in Georgia in 1878: his real name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, but he adopted the name ‘Stalin’ which literally means ‘man of steel’. Although he showed little care for the immense suffering inflicted on the Russian people during the revolution, civil war and beyond, Lenin is credited with being one of the most important – and often revered – men in Russian history. His body was embalmed, and is still on display in a mausoleum in Red Square today. Lenin suffered a stroke in March 1923, and died in January 1924. Despite attempts to dictate his successor (Lenin advocated for Stalin’s removal, replacing him with his ally Trotsky), Stalin’s influence and ability to portray himself as close to Lenin won out. His incapacitation gave his rival Stalin a chance to build up a power base. Image credit: Public Domain.īy the second half of 1921, Lenin was seriously ill. It was widely disseminated as publicity material across Russia. In 1920, Lenin also introduced his divisive New Economic Plan (NEP): described as a retreat by some, NEP was a kind of state-run capitalism, designed to get Russia’s economy back on its feet following a disastrous five years of war and famine.Ī photograph of Lenin by Pavel Zhukov, taken in 1920. It took 3 years for the White Army to be defeated. Lenin had assumed that there would be widespread support amongst the working classes for Bolshevism – and whilst there was support, it was not as much as he had hoped for. The 1917 revolutions were far from a complete victory however, and the next few years saw Russia engulfed in a bitter civil war. Instead, he advocated for a period of socialism, a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, to transition from one political state to the next. His political ideology was centred on Marxism (communism), but he believed Russia could never make such a dramatic departure from centuries of autocratic rule by the tsars. Lenin was a revolutionary socialist: exiled under Tsar Nicholas II for his political beliefs, he returned following the February Revolution of 1917 and played a major role in the October Revolution the same year. So who exactly were these men, and what did they do for the USSR? 1. 8 men led the Soviet Union in its 70 year existence, each leaving their mark and several developing cults of personality either during their lifetime or after their death. The Soviet Union was one of the dominant world powers throughout the 20th century, and it has left a powerful legacy that is still felt today in both Russia and the West.
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