Vladimir Lenin, who was commonly described...
No one will think to put up pictures of Lenin around town to commemorate his birthday on April 22. And even if some weirdo does, nobody will notice. Even the dispute over removing his body from the Mausoleum does not arouse as much passion as debates over the legacy of his successor, Joseph Stalin, even though it was Stalin himself who created the posthumous cult of Lenin and immortalized him in legend as the "leader of the international proletariat."
Lenin"s real destiny is much more interesting than the legends about him. The myths cannot contain the man. Many revolutionaries dreamed of changing the world but few did. Lenin did the impossible. He fundamentally changed the course of human history.
Lenin"s rise to supreme power is as remarkable as it is unexpected. His entire biography up till the 1917 October Revolution is a string of nearly endless defeats.
He was expelled from university for no good reason. All he did was stand silently at a student protest.
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