When his exile was over, he began his tour of Western Europe where he began a revolutionary newspaper, Iskra, and consumed all material available pertaining to revolutionary activity. He and Krupskaya traveled the continent agitating and organizing a revolution that was supposedly inevitable. (Liversidge).
During this time the Russian Social Democratic Labour party was formed which Lenin was a part of. Five years later the party would split into two, separate factions, with Lenin as the leader of the more radical revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks. Later, when the Bolsheviks came to power they would call themselves the Communist Party. .
Lenin's Cons.
Although Lenin had many visions of a Communist Russia that would supply its peoples with all that was needed, this was hardly achieved under his short ruling. When the Bolsheviks came to power after their overthrow of the Provision Government, Lenin was in a precarious position. In the midst of World War I and taking a beating by Germany, his first task was to "put an end to the war at once" (Lenin, handout, 37). The peace treaty that ended Russia's involvement in the war was brutal, Germany demanded much and received it, but land was not Lenin's concern he was more interested in safeguarding the revolution (Liversidge, 143). The result was the German annexation of the Baltic region and the "recognition of an independent Ukraine", these conditions bred much argument in the Bolshevik committee and initial doubts of retention of power (141-2). So, strike one for Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
Historians have characterized Lenin as the most ruthless and violent Russian leader, second only to his successor, Stalin (Liversidge, 6). His reign was marred by frequent bloodshed and executions. Most notably, was the Civil War that followed the Bolshevik rise to power. It was Red versus White, Bolsheviks versus all those opposed to Bolshevik run Russia.
