Vladimir Ulyanov was better known as Lenin, the revolutionary leader who helped establish Soviet rule in Russia.
Born in 1870, Ulyanov adopted “Lenin” as a revolutionary pseudonym and became the leading figure of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He directed the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution of 1917, when they seized power from Russia’s provisional government.
Lenin became head of the Soviet Russian government and later the first leader of the Soviet Union. His political writings shaped Leninism, an interpretation of Marxism centered on a disciplined revolutionary party. He died in 1924, several years before Joseph Stalin became the dominant Soviet leader.
A common mix-up is treating Lenin and Stalin as interchangeable: Lenin founded the Bolshevik state, while Stalin succeeded him as the Soviet Union’s most powerful leader.