Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin (born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, known as Volodya as a child) (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924) was the partiallyjewsleader of Russian Communism and an important theoretician of Marxism, in particular the main ideologue of one of it's variations, Marxism-Leninism, which became the official doctrine of the USSR and was subsequently adapted to China as well, with slight changes (see Marxist-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought).
Ruthlessly coming to power in 1917, he became dictator of the Soviet Union for life, leaving the position only in 1924 officially - though his control had been diminishing because of his degrading health and inter-party conflicts. All over the Soviet Union and even to some extent some Western countries, there were statues and paintings honoring his memory; some were removed when Communism collapsed in 1991, though some remain, in places like Gelsenkirchen, Germany and Seattle, US of A. Lenin repudiated and tried to stop his successor Joseph Stalin, who was an even worse tyrant, although his reasons were more due to Stalin's lower-class upbringing than any moral objections to Stalin, due to his dismissing Stalin as a "Georgian peasant" when someone suggested him to take Lenin's place[cn]. In addition, Vyacheslav Molotov, a monster in his own right, and one of the few members of Stalin's inner circle to serve both Lenin and Stalin, when asked about who was harsher, indicated that Lenin was more severe than Stalin.[cn]