Comrade Vladimir Lenin, Head of Soviet Union, USSR T-Shirt

Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1870 – 21 January 1924) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist who was the founder of the Bolsheviks and the first head of the Soviet Union. Lenin's revolutionary activities led to his arrest and a three-year exile to Siberia in 1897. While in exile, he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, a fellow socialist activist, and continued to write and translate Marxist literature. After his exile ended in 1900, he spent much of the next two decades in Western Europe, where he adopted the pseudonym "Lenin" and became a leading figure in the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). In 1903, the party split into two main factions: his radical Bolshevik (majority) faction, which advocated for a disciplined, elite "vanguard party" to lead the revolution, and the more moderate Mensheviks. Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917, after the February Revolution had ousted Tsar Nicholas II and a Provisional Government had taken power. Campaigning under the popular slogan "Peace, land, and bread," Lenin advocated for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and the establishment of Soviet rule. In the October Revolution of November 1917, the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, seized power in a nearly bloodless coup d'état. Lenin became the first head of government of Soviet Russia and later of the Soviet Union (established in 1922). His government quickly took Russia out of World War I by signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, nationalized major industries and banks, and redistributed land. (Painting by Isaak Brodsky, public domain)