Page 44 - All About History - Issue 58-17

LENIN WAS BORN TO
NOBLEPARENTS

Thoughpresentedtothenationastheultimateman
ofthe people, Lenin’s real origins were far grander
thanhelikedtoleton.Hereliedontheimmensely
powerful Bolshevik propaganda machine to create a
background worthy of a revolutionary leader and give
the impression that he was a working-class hero. In
fact, Lenin’s father had been born to a family of serfs
buthadclawedhis wayuptothe topofmiddleclasses,undertaking a
university education and marrying the wealthy daughter ofadoctor.He
enjoyed a glittering civil service career and was eventually awarded the
Order of St Vladimir, which turned the one-time serf into a hereditary
nobleman. Lenin’s parents were both conservative monarchists yet this
fact, as well as his noble birth, were whitewashed from his carefully
rewritten public biography, which told a tale of heroic lower-class struggle.
Lenin’s father, Ilya Ulyanov,
rose from poverty to nobility

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Stalin’s exile was
spent beside the
Yenisei River

Young Stalin was already a
thorn in plenty of sides
T
T
S S LIN MIGH T HA V E
IN MIGH HAVE
WORKED FOR THE TSAR’S
T
SECRET POLICE
Asearly as 1916, accusations were being made that
Stalin had once worked for the Okhrana, the secret
police of theRussianEmpire.TheyoungStalin,
going by thealiasKoba,seemedtobeableto
travel freely despite his known revolutionary
leanings and wasn’t subject to the same
restrictions as his peers. Eyewitnesses claimed
that Stalin regularly met Okhrana representatives and always knew
whowasabouttobearrested,yetalwaysescapedarresthimself.
While this would suggestthatStalinwasatraitortohisowncause,
others have reflected that he was a realist who knew when to cosy up
totheofficersoftheOkhrana.Stalinrecognised that money, influence
and power were all valuable, regardless of which side they came from.