Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was Lenin's actual name however, he changed this, after a period of exile by the River Lena in Siberia. he read law at the University of Kazan, but was expelled in 1887 for attending a student demonstration (sentenced to 3 yrs of exile in Siberia). Nevertheless, he later graduated with top honours at the University of St Petersburg.
Lenin became a revolutionary when his brother, Alexander Ulyanov was arrested and hanged in March 1887, along with various other student members of the People's Will. They were caught preparing bombs. In 1895, Lenin helped to found the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the working class. He was an early convert to Marxism and joined the Marxist Social Democratic Party when it was formed in 1898. He believed that only a group with fully dedicated revolutionaries would be able to drive the proletarian revolution (Martov disagreed with this leading to the party split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903). Lenin lived in exile until Nicholas II was taken off the throne in the February/March 1917 revolution. In October and November of the same year he led the Bolshevik Revolution and became the first leader of the USSR. He dominated the Russian government until his death in 1924.
A touch of Fun:
Lenin coined a slogan on how to achieve the state of communism through rule by the Communist Party and modernization of the Russian industry and agriculture: "Communism is Soviet power plus electrification of the whole country!" The slogan was subject to popular mathematical scrutiny: "Consequently, Soviet power is communism minus electrification, and electrification is communism minus Soviet power."
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