Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He served as head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924. Under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-partycommunist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism.

Lenin was born in Simbirsk on 22 April 1870 and baptised several days later; as a child, he gained the nickname of "Volodya," a dimunitive of Vladimir. On 21 January 1924, Lenin fell into a coma and died later that day. His official cause of death was recorded as an incurable disease of the blood vessels.