Vladimir Illich Ulyanov (Lenin) Born in Simbirsk, Russia His father, Ilya Ulyanov, a local schools inspector, held

conservative views and was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church. Lenin was deeply influenced by the revolutionary political views of his older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, who introduced him to the ideas of Karl Marx. Lenin did well at school, although he despised his teachers conservative views. 1887: Ulyanov (Lenins older brother and a member of the Peoples Will) was executed for his part in the plot to kill Alexander III. Lenin eventually studied Law at Kazan University, after being initially barred because of his brothers criminal sentence. While at university, Lenin took great interest in politics, protesting and eventually being expelled from Kazan University. He went to St. Petersburg, passed there and began practising law in Samara. After 1895, he helped to form the Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class. He was, however, arrested in 1896 and sentenced to three years internal exile in Siberia. In February 1900, after being released, Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya moved to Geneva met up with other revolutionaries and together they formed the Social Democratic Labour Party and published Iskra (Spark). After disagreement between Lenin and his friend Jules Martov, they split to form the Bolsheviks (led by Lenin and including Joseph Stalin) and the Mensheviks (led by Martov and including Leon Trotsky). Lenin returned to Russia for the 1905 Revolution but had little impact on its development and failed to gain support from the emerging trade union movement. Instead, the Bolsheviks undertook robberies and bombings to gain money for the party.