Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Communist Revolutionary, Politician and Political Theorist who served as the leader of the Russian SFSR from 1917, and then concurrently as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1922, until his death.
Lenin's theoretical contributions to Marxist thought are known as Leninism, which coupled with Marxian Economic Theory have collectively come to be known as Marxism-Leninism .
Lenin was notable for working almost ceaselessly, fourteen to sixteen hours daily, occupied with minor, major, and routine matters.
Lenin's Testament
In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies.It criticized high-rank Communists, including Joseph Stalin,Grigory Zinoviev,Lev Kamenev,Nikolai Bukharin and Leon Trotsky
Trotsku,Lenin and Kamenev at the II Party Congress in 1919
Lenin with Stalin
About the Communist Party's General Secretary (since 1922), Joseph Stalin, Lenin reported that the "unlimited authority" concentrated in him was unacceptable, and suggested that "comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post." His phrasing, "Сталин слишком груб", implies "personal rudeness, unnecessary roughness, lack of finesse", flaws "intolerable in a Secretary-General".
Lenin wanted the testament to be read out at the XII Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to be held in April 1923. However, after Lenin's third stroke in March 1923 left him paralyzed and unable to speak, the testament was kept secret by his wife,Nadezhda Krupskaya, in hopes of Lenin's eventual recovery. Only after Lenin's death on January 21, 1924, she turned the document over to the Communist Party Central Committee Secretariat and asked that it be made available to the delegates of the XIII Party Congress in May 1924.
An edited version of the testament was printed in December 1927 in a limited edition made available to 15th Party Congress delegates
The full English language text of Lenin's testament was published in the New York Times in 1926
Assassination Attempts
Lenin survived two serious assassination attempts. The first occasion was on 14 January 1918 in Petrograd , when assassins ambushed Lenin in his automobile after a speech
The second event was on 30 August 1918, when the Socialist Revolutionary Fanya Kaplan approached Lenin at his automobile after a speech; he was resting a foot on the running board as he spoke with a woman. Kaplan called to Lenin, and when he turned to face her she shot at him three times. The first bullet struck his arm, the second bullet his jaw and neck, and the third missed him, wounding the woman with whom he was speaking; the wounds felled him and he became unconscious. Fearing in-hospital assassins, Lenin was brought to his Kremlin apartment; physicians decided against removing the bullets.
Death
Lenin died at 18.50 hrs, Moscow time, on Jan 21, 1924, aged 53, at his estate at Gorki settlement.
The Soviet government publicly announced Lenin's death the following day, with head of State Mikhail Kalinin tearfully reading an official statement to delegates of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets at 11am, the same time that a team of physicians began a postmortem of the body.
On Jan 23,1924, mourners from the Communist Party Central Committee, the Moscow party organisation, the trade unions and the soviets began to assemble at his house, with the body being removed from his home at about 10am the following day, being carried aloft in a red coffin by Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin, Bukharin, Bubhov and Krasin. Transported by train to Moscow, mourners gathered at every station along the way, and upon arriving in the city, a funerary procession carried the coffin for five miles to the House of Trade Unions , where the body lay in state
Over the next three days, around a million mourners from across the Soviet Union came to see the body, many queuing for hours in the freezing conditions, with the events being filmed by the government.
On Saturday Jan 26,1924, the eleventh All-Union Congress of Soviets met to pay respects to the deceased leader, with speeches being made by Kalinin, Zinoviev and Stalin, but notably not Trotsky, who had been convalescing in the Caucasus. Lenin's funeral took place the following day, when his body was carried to Red Square, accompanied by martial music, where assembled crowds listened to a series of speeches before the corpse was carried into a vault, followed by the singing of the revolutionary hymn, "You fell in sacrifice."
Three days after his death, Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honour, so remaining until 1991, when the USSR dissolved
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