Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) was a Russian revolutionary and politician who led the Bolshevik Party to power in the October Revolution of 1917 and became the first head of government of Soviet Russia and later the Soviet Union. Building on the political and economic theory of Karl Marx, he developed the body of thought known as Marxism-Leninism, arguing for a disciplined vanguard party to lead a working-class revolution. As head of the new Soviet state he oversaw its withdrawal from the First World War, presided over the Russian Civil War against anti-Bolshevik forces, and later introduced the New Economic Policy, a partial retreat from full state control of the economy. He survived an assassination attempt in 1918 but suffered a series of strokes from 1922 that left him incapacitated before his death in 1924, after which he was succeeded in the power struggle that followed by Joseph Stalin.
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