Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov was most commonly know as Lenin(a name probably givin to him during secret operations as a revolutionist). He was born in the city of Simbirsk(now Ul'yanovsk) in central European Russia in 1870. He was possibly one of the greatest supporters of Marxism. In 1887, his older brother, Aleksandr, was arrested and executed in Saint Petersburg in a conspiracy to assassinate Alexander III, the Russian emperor. Along with his studies for school, he read about Rakhmetev, a revolutionist, and began to model himself after him. He also started to read works by Karl Marx. In 1892 he received he law degree, and after a short career as a lawyer's assistant moved to Saint Petersburg and associated himself with a Marxist group. They eventually secretly spread handwritten pamphlets exposing workers to Marxism and explaining it to them. When he tried to start a paper, however, the police caught him and exiled him to Siberia for three years. He spent the time researching Marx’s work and writing. After the three years he moved to Germany and started a paper called The Spark which was to be smuggled into Russia. Unlike most communist papers which supported existing communist parties it was made to start one. The plan worked, and after the parties in Russia started numerous strikes and small revolutions, all of which came to little avail. The was until WWI brought strain to the country. Late in February of 1917 riots broke out in Saint Petersburg and led into a revolution that overthrew the Russian monarchy. Later in October, a second broke out which succeded in bringing the worlds first communist state into power. Lenin was behind the uprising of a power that would test the rest of the world, if you wish to see his body it is preserved and secured in a glass coffin in the V. I. Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square opened in August 1924.(thats in Russia)- Dranceon