LENIN’S REAL name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov. Like most Russian revolutionaries, he had taken another name to protect himself from the Police. He looked like anything but a leader of men; someone once said he looked more like a small-town grocer. He was short, stocky, bald and wore a small heard. His clothes were shabby and his pants were usually too long. He was not a great orator but he had a gift for simplifying and explaining complicated questions, which made him an effective speaker before crowds. Lenin was born in 1870, the son of a schoolteacher who became an official in the school system. The family was fairly well off and no different from thousands of other Russian families. Then Lenin’s older brother, Alexander, went off to study in the Russian capital. Young Alexander became involved in a plot to assassinate the tsar and was hanged with four other students. Lenin was seventeen at the time and he too, became a revolutionist. He studied law, completing a four-year course in one year. He practiced law for a while, but soon became a full-time revolutionist. He was arrested‚ sent to prison for fourteen months and to Siberia for three years. After this, with his wife, Krupskaya, he spent most of his time in exile. They went from one European country to another and were often very poor. Wherever they were, Lenin never stopped studying, writing and working for the revolution. In 1917 he was in Switzerland, impatient to get back to Russia where so much was happening. He was in touch with the Bolsheviks there and sent them instructions, but that was not the same as being on the spot because of the war, however, it seemed impossible for him to travel across Europe. It was the German government that …
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