Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin was the son of a school inspector whose elder brother was hanged for plotting against the Tsar, a lawyer turned professional revolutionary, exiled in Siberia and Europe for most of two decades, who returned in a sealed train in 1917 and led the Bolsheviks to power in October. The State and Revolution, written in hiding in Finland that summer, argues from Marx that the state is an instrument of class rule that must be smashed and will wither away, and it is the theory the practice belied. He ruled for six years, and his embalmed body still lies in Red Square.