Name-dropping:
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (VLAD-uh-meer EEL-itch LEN-in) (1870–1924):
Russian Revolutionary whose Bolshevik Revolution would, many decades later, lead to the classic Nintendo game Rush ’n Attack, as well as several James Bond movies, the nuclear arms race, and Baby Boomers spending their childhood cowering beneath their school desks during nuclear preparedness drills. In short, he changed the world.

When to Drop Your Knowledge:
When you’re hanging around with communists or capitalists. Lenin is like a box of chocolates: You can pretty much find whatever you’re looking for in his story.

The Basics
Born Vladimir Ulyanov, the man who would be Lenin came to hate the Russian monarchy early: When he was just 17, his older brother was hanged for conspiring to assassinate Czar Alexander III. Like a lot of people who would go on to do horrible things, Lenin became a lawyer, but rather than practice law he immediately became a full-time revolutionary.

From 1895 on, Lenin lived in periodic exile, always in trouble with the Czarist regime. But somehow he still managed to move up the ranks of the small socialist political party in Russia, until he eventually became the leader of the group known as the Bolsheviks in 1903. Like many a revolutionary, his first attempt at overthrowing the government, in April 1917, failed, mainly because the workers didn’t rise up in quite the numbers he expected. The result: He ended up fleeing to Finland. But by October, the Bolsheviks began another offensive. Thanks to their cool, sloganny posters that now grace so many college dorm rooms, and also thanks to their guns, the Bolsheviks took Russia by storm. Not surprisingly, they proved to have a fair amount of popular support, and Lenin soon found himself in power—although the war between the Bolsheviks (or Reds) and Loyalists (or Whites) continued until 1920. It was the first successful Communist revolution, and Lenin’s dictatorial style of Communism would become every bit as influential as Marx’s writings.

Between the civil war and World War I, Russia was in bad shape by the time the shooting stopped. Lenin sought to turn things around with his New Economic Policy, which aimed to rebuild industry and improve agricultural techniques. (It did so, although a lot of peasants starved in the process. For presumably being on the side of the peasants, the Bolsheviks sure killed a lot of them.)

Lenin continued to be the leader of the Soviet Union until is death in 1924, but in reality he didn’t do much leading in the last few years of his life. After a debilitating stroke in 1922, he became in ineffectual leader–which, in part, gave noted jerkface Joseph Stalin the opportunity and time to assume control of the Soviet state.

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
No one knows for sure where Vladimir Ulyanov picked the pseudonym Lenin. Maybe all the good nicknames (like “Stalin,” which means “Man of Steel”) were already taken. Some scholars believe, however, that “Lenin” was a subtle jab at fellow communist Georgi Piekhanov, who’d chosen the pseudonym “Volgin,” a reference to the Volga River. The Lena River is longer and flows in the opposite direction of the Volga–but hence, “Lenin.”

Extra Credit:
SOUNDING SMART
Unlike some of those who came after him, Lenin’s political convictions were sincere—but he tailored Marxism to suit his tastes and felt free to change the rules of the game as he moved along. That set a dangerous precedent in Soviet politics, one that has continued in post-Soviet Russia. Exactly 50 words that we made up about Lenin and Russia after exhaustive research. Memorize them, then slip them into a conversation about the contemporary political situation there.

Conversation Starters
◆ Lenin asked that no memorials be created for him, so he might be a bit disappointed to learn that his embalmed body has been on display in Moscow’s Red Square more or less continually since 1924. But how much of Lenin remains to be displayed is a question of open debate. In the past couple decades, Lenin’s embalmed corpse has looked awfully waxy, and although the Soviet government won’t comment, many believe that at least part of Lenin’s body is fake. (The type of embalming most commonly used in the United States, incidentally, lasts only about a week.)

◆ One thing’s for sure: Like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, the Lenin in Red Square doesn’t have a brain. It was removed before his body was embalmed and sent to a German scientist in hopes that he could locate the brain cells responsible for genius. Either Lenin wasn’t a genius or the brain is more complicated than the early Soviets believed, because the scientist didn’t find much worth noting.

◆ Among Lenin’s more unusual hobbies was sharpening pencils. As his brother Dmitry once noted, Lenin sharpened pencils with “a sort of special tenderness, so the letters came out like delicate threads.” Sharpening pencils was apparently not just a childhood fascination; it continued into his Revolutionary days. Lenin also loved riding bicycles. Hey, even Communist revolutionaries need hobbies.