Significance of Vladimir Lenin

It is easier to quantify a historical figure’s achievements not by showing what he changed, but rather by showing what the world would be like if he had not been there. If Vladimir Lenin had not been born, there would be no Cold War, no Soviet Union and Russia might still be ruled by a Tsar. However, Lenin was not simply a catalyst in the many changes Russia faced; he was a most volatile reactant in the chemistry of Russian and world politics. Breaking the barrier between attaining both economic success and political achievement, Vladimir Lenin almost singlehandedly ended the Tsardom and brought the socialist “Bolshevik” party to power in Russia. Lenin’s unique experiences in his youth led him to his status as a revolutionary and ultimately changed Russia and the world. Lenin’s early life helped to shape his destiny as a revolutionary leader.
As with most people, Lenin’s beliefs and ideals were instilled in him at a young, impressionable age. Lenin was born in a small rural town on the Volga River called Simbirsk on April 10, 1877. He was born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov, to a family of two sisters and three brothers, all of whom became revolutionaries. Vladimir’s father, Iliya Ulyanov, was a school inspector and was ironically a nobleman. Lenin was raised in an upper-middle class family and even expressed this fact openly at his rallies validating it by saying, “By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia” (What Is to Be Done 2). Marx and Engels were the two inventors of Communism, who were well educated upper-class members of society that believed in social change. One of Lenin’s older brothers, Alexander, was also a revolutionary. In 1887, he and four others were arrested for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. Alexander Ulyanov was publicly hanged that same year. Before his death, Alexander said that, “[Vladimir] showed no interest in public affairs” (Gottfried