A Century Ago, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Died

A century ago, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who kept his underground nom de guerre, Lenin, had achieved all that a revolutionary could wish. After his Bolshevik Party seized power he was the most important person in the Soviet Union. Then he died at age 53. So passed perhaps the most consequential, and certainly one of the most evil, human beings of the 20th century. Lenin devoted much of his life to revolution. Today his triumph looks like it was inevitable. However, he realized how fortunate he and the Bolshevik party had been. Indeed, when exiled from Russia to Switzerland he seemed to abandon hope. The Romanovs had ruled for 300 years, celebrating their third century in 1913. Why not 300 years more, he asked? Any revolution "won't happen in our lifetime," he told his wife.