Lenin: Revolution Now!
1919 AD
1919 1919
37.30E55.44N
MISC

MOSCOW, RUSSIA
	According to communist theorists, communism was an inevitable force that would sweep the world no matter what people did, but Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (or Lenin, as he called himself) was not a patient man. He wanted revolution now!
	Lenin  was born in 1870 to a middle-class Russian family. His parents were both teachers with leftist views and his brother was hanged for plotting against Czar Alexander III. Lenin became a Marxist and was kept under surveillance by the Czarist police.
	In December 1895 Lenin was arrested in St. Petersburg and sent to jail, then was sentenced to three years in Siberia. When he was released in 1900 he went abroad for 17 years where he became an active revolutionary leader.
	In his most important work, "What is to Be Done" (1902), Lenin downplayed the ability of communism to occur on its own and emphasized the professional revolutionary. Power, he argued, should be tightly held by a small, disciplined band of professionals.
	Lenin insisted that communists form cells and infiltrate all political, industrial, military, cooperative, educational and athletic organizations, operating secretly when necessary or in the open when possible.
	During World War I, Lenin had his chance. In 1917 a revolution toppled Czarist rule in Russia and an unstable republic took its place. But the republic continued the war against the Germans though Russian troops were sick of the battle and ripe for revolt. So, knowing he would further disrupt Russia, the Germans transported Lenin from Switzerland to Sweden, from which he entered Russia.
	Though Lenin's Bolshevik party was a small one, it was disciplined and in November 1917 it seized power from the faltering republic.
	The Bolsheviks quickly made peace with Germany and began instituting communism, which remained the ruling philosophy in the Soviet Union until the early 1990s.