[Picture: Lenin] Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and also known by the pseudonyms Nikolai Lenin and N. Lenin, (April 22, 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the main leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and from 1922, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union. He was the creator of Leninism, an extension of Marxist theory.