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Undoubtedly in the ranks of the turbulent 20th century’s decades a few names emerge as some of the most significant key revolutionaries known in the history of mankind: Lenin, Mandela, Stalin, Hitler, Mao to name a few. Yet some of them share and spread out that specific spirit able to spark a fire on a global scale, conquer minds and inspire millions of people effectively having them bent to their absolute will. But what does it take to be a true revolutionary and change the fate of those millions, to define the very course of the history itself and/or even shape entire countries? How does one bring down emblematic well-established ‘status quos’ and regimes to build one’s own upon former remains and ashes? What is it like to be a true visionary, to lead, inspire and motivate millions of people to follow you?

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (later known as Lenin as he solely nicknamed himself) was one of the leading political figures in the course of the 20th century. He was the revolutionary thinker behind the USSR idea (a.k.a. The Great Soviet Union), fought to materialize it and masterminded the Bolshevik bloody takeover of power in Russia after World War One. And although Lenin died in his mid-50s, his ideas influenced and marked the following generations’ fate, development and lives for quite many decades that came after.

==Lenin - the Young Revolutionary==

Once Lenin was released, he continued to passionately work on his views regarding social imbalance and formed the famous Bolsheviks group of supporters – a major faction of Russian Marxists, later shaping the whole Communist Party.<ref>Initially establishing the so-called Russian Social Democratic Worker's Party and later – Communist Party.</ref> The synthesis of Lenin’s views combined together with those of Karl Marx created what we now know as “Marxism-Leninism” or the basis of whole Communist doctrine throughout the 20th century. His teachings attracted more and more passionate followers and were not popular with the Russian authorities at all – he was, after all, against the ruling Tsarist regime and class divisions in society. Vladimir aimed at total state ownership of goods, abolishing Tsarists privileges, equal rights for all and lack of workless personnel - even if that meant going to extremes like poets serving in army or getting involved with peasant work. As the tension grew, Lenin decided to leave the country for security reasons and move to Western Europe. He spent there most of the subsequent decade and a half and continued to play a key role also in the international revolutionary movement.