The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a mass organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia.

Lenin wanted members " who recognise the Party Programme and support it by material means and by personal participation in one of the party's organisations.

Lenin advocated limiting party membership to a smaller core of active members, as opposed to " card carriers " who might only be active in party branches from time to time or not at all.

The founder of Russian Marxism, Georgy Plekhanov, who was at first allied with Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks, parted ways with them by 1904.

The majority of the members had been skeptical of initiating the revolution so early, and it was Lenin who was able to persuade them.

At the 9th Party Congress the Democratic Centralists, an opposition faction within the party, accused Lenin and his associates, of creating a Central Committee in which a " small handful of party oligarchs ... was banning those who hold deviant views.

Several Central Committee members, who were members of the Workers Opposition, offered their resignation to Lenin but their resignations were not accepted, and they were instead asked to submit to party discipline.

Lenin regarded colonialism as the root cause of imperialism, as imperialism was distinguished by monopoly capitalism via colonialism and as Lyal S. Sunga explains: " Vladimir Lenin advocated forcefully the principle of self-determination of peoples in his " Theses on the Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self-Determination " as an integral plank in the programme of socialist internationalism " and he quotes Lenin who contended that " The right of nations to self-determination implies exclusively the right to independence in the political sense, the right to free political separation from the oppressor nation.

Lenin was developing the work of Friedrich Engels, who said that " with each epoch-making discovery, even in the sphere of natural science, materialism has to change its form.

In Russia the Social Democrats ' plan had the backing of Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Bolsheviks, who in July 1917 were plotting a revolt against the Russian Provisional Government, which was opposed the Power Act, as it would reduce the power of the Russian administration in the country.

Vladimir Lenin described them as " bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who fatten on famine .” Marxism-Leninism had intended a revolution to liberate poor peasants and farm laborers alongside the proletariat ( urban and industrial workers ).

He adopted the slogan of " peace without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered ", which didn't go quite as far as Lenin, who advocated Russia's defeat in the war and demanded a complete break with the Second International.

Trotsky attended the Zimmerwald Conference of anti-war socialists in September 1915 and advocated a middle course between those who, like Martov, would stay within the Second International at any cost and those who, like Lenin, would break with the Second International and form a Third International.

By the end of 1917, Trotsky was unquestionably the second man in the Bolshevik Party after Lenin, overshadowing the ambitious Zinoviev, who had been Lenin's top lieutenant over the previous decade, but whose star appeared to be fading.

Lenin, who had earlier hoped for a speedy Soviet revolution in Germany and other parts of Europe, quickly decided that the imperial government of Germany was still firmly in control and that, without a strong Russian military, an armed conflict with Germany would lead to a collapse of the Soviet government in Russia.

In June 1937, he said in a speech, " Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will of the party of Lenin and Stalin, will be mercilessly crushed and destroyed.

Those who opposed the war, such as Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, saw themselves as further to the left.

Before the Revolution, despite supporting political reform ( including Bolsheviks elected to the Duma, when opportune ), Lenin proposed that capitalism could ultimately only be overthrown with revolution, not with gradual reforms — from within ( Fabianism ) and from without ( social democracy ) — which would fail, because the ruling capitalist social class, who hold economic power ( the means of production ), determine the nature of political power in a bourgeois society.

After Lenin ’ s death ( 21 January 1924 ), Trotsky ideologically battled the influence of Stalin, who formed ruling blocs within the Russian Communist Party ( with Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, then with Nikolai Bukharin, and then by himself ) and so determined soviet government policy from 1924 onwards.

When Communists had taken power, Lenin, who had lived in Munich some years before, sent a congratulatory telegram, but the Soviet Republic was put down on 3 May 1919 by the Freikorps.

Prior and after the failed revolution, the Bolshevik leadership voluntarily resided in exile to evade Tsarist Russia's secret police, such as Lenin who resided in Switzerland.

These never ceased to suggest that if, in the eyes of Marx and Lenin `` full communism '' was still a very distant ideal, the establishment of a Communist society had now, under Khrushchev, become an `` immediate and tangible reality ''.

He remained a self-described " non-factional social democrat " until August 1917 when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks as their positions assembled and he came to believe that Lenin was right on the issue of the party.

However this was not accepted and Lenin tried to expel him from the Bolshevik faction.

Lenin was firmly opposed to any re-unification, but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership.

It was created on December 20, 1917, after a decree issued by Vladimir Lenin, and was subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky.

At Moscow, Sun Yat-sen University Portraits of Chiang were hung on the walls ; and, in the Soviet May Day Parades that year, Chiang's portrait was to be carried along with the portraits of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and other socialist leaders.

At the founding congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party ( the predecessor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ) Vladimir Lenin was able to gain enough support for the establishment of an all-powerful central organ at the next congress.

Lenin was able to persuade the Central Committee, after a long and heated discussion, to initiate the October Revolution.

The Central Committee, according to Lenin, was to be the supreme authority of the party.

Criticism of other officials was allowed during these meetings, for instance, Karl Radek said to Lenin ( criticising his position of supporting peace with the Germans ), " If there were five hundred courageous men in Petrograd, we would put you in prison.

" The decision to negotiate peace with the Germans was only reached when Lenin threatened to resign, which in turn led to a temporary coalition between Lenin's supporters and those of Trotsky and others.

Lenin reply was evasive, he conceded that faults had been made, but noted that if such policies had in fact been carried out the criticism of him during the 9th Party Congress could not have occurred.

Lenin did state that factionalism was allowed, but only allowed before and during Party Congresses when the different sides needed to win votes.

The 11th Party Congress would prove to be the last congress chaired by Lenin, he suffered one stroke in May 1922, was paralysed by a second in December later that year, was removed from public life in March 1923 and died on 21 January 1924.

When Lenin died, the Soviet leadership was uncertain how the building of the new, socialist society should proceed.

Under Lenin the party ruled through the government, for instance, the only political office held by Lenin was Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars, but following Lenin's health the party took control of government activities.

Trotsky spent much of his time between 1904 and 1917 trying to reconcile different groups within the party, which resulted in many clashes with Lenin and other prominent party members.

* unsuccessfully trying to assassinate Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Yakov Sverdlov in 1918

Finally, in trying to effect a revolution in Tsarist Imperial Russia ( 1721 – 1917 ), Lenin faced the problem of an autocratic régime that had outlawed almost all political activity.

Yitzhak M. Brudny writes that, in Shafarevich's opinion, Jews represented such a ' small nation ' in Russia, and full of hatred against traditional Russian way of life, first played an active role in the terrorist regime of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin and then, during the Perestroika era were trying to implant into Russia the liberal values of the Western world.

Lenin was most disappointed when, following the October Revolution, a similar revolution did not break out in Germany as he had expected and hoped for, forcing him to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 to take Russia out of World War I. Brest-Litovsk was an immense shock to the Bolsheviks, and afterwards a new policy emerged of both seeking pragmatic co-operation with the Western powers when it suited Soviet interests while at the same time trying to promote a Communist revolution whenever possible.

He soon came under the influence of the head of the Menshevik part of the Social Democratic faction in the Duma, Nikolay Chkheidze, and supported him against the Bolshevik emigre leaders ( Vladimir Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev ) who, in 1912 – 1913, were trying to get the Bolshevik deputies to break away from the Menshevik majority and form a separate faction in the Duma.