Lenin: The Most Influential Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution

1. Lenin: Vladimir Lenin, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, on April 22, 1870, in Simbirsk, Russia, died at the age of 53 in Gorki-Leninskyie, Russia on January 21, 1924. Lenin was a well-educated lawyer and revolutionary who was one of the most influential leaders in the 20th century. Lenin crafted the Bolshevik Revolution and ultimately became the first leader of the Soviet Communist Party and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Lenin was a follower of the works of Karl Marx and his socialist ideas of “Dialectical Materialism.” He modified them to become what is referred to as Marxism-Leninism, which advocates for the worker in a classless society and abolished the bonds between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
2. Glasnost:

Glasnost, which means “openness” was a political slogan created by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, that was invoked to enable unfettered communications to include freedom of speech and activities that would increase the liberties and transparency of citizens within the Soviet Union and its republic states. Moreover, its goal was to instill policies that would moderate the abuse of executive power and deter corruption within the Soviet government. Although well-intentioned, it had the unintentional byproduct of allowing the nationalistic tendencies of the republic states to emerge and to seek independence from the Soviet Union.
3. Stalin: Joseph Stalin, born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili on December 18, 1878, in Gori, Georgia, and died under suspicious circumstamces at the age of 74 on March 5, 1953, in Moscow. A totalitarian dictator who ruled by terror. As a young reveloutiuonary he was imprisoned severel times. Stalin became secretary general of the of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1921, and assumed leadership of the Soviet Union following the death of Vladmire Lenin. Stalin conducted the Great purge in the 1930s killing millions and sucessfully and brutily led, the USSR through WWII. He instituted forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture that failed and created one of man’s greatest famines that led to even more deaths.