More than a century after the Russian Revolution, Vladimir Lenin’s decision to organise the Soviet state around national republics continues to shape political arguments about Ukraine
When Vladimir Putin speaks about the origins of the war in Ukraine, he often reaches back into history for his justifications. In speeches and essays, the Russian president has repeatedly argued that modern Ukraine is an artificial construct that was effectively created by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution of 1917 – and above all by their leader, Vladimir Lenin.
According to this interpretation, Ukraine has never been a serious, distinct nation from Russia, but a political idea that emerged when the new Soviet regime reorganised the territories of the former Russian Empire into a federation of republics. In Putin’s view, by granting Ukraine formal status as a Soviet republic, Lenin unintentionally laid the groundwork for Ukrainian independence decades later.
It’s a disputed version of history, to say the least.
Many historians argue that Ukrainian cultural and political identity long predated the Soviet Union. Ideas of a distinct Ukrainian language, culture and political community had been developing since at least the 19th century, alongside nationalist movements across Europe.
But it’s impossible to understand Putin’s version of history without coming back to Lenin. Historian Dr Lara Douds reflected on Lenin’s life and legacy on the HistoryExtra podcast – and explained how he’s become Putin’s bogeyman.
Lenin’s revolution
“The boy who would become Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov in a provincial town in the Russian Empire,” explains Douds. The town was Simbirsk, about 400 miles east of Moscow on the Volga river. Simbirsk was a modest administrative town in the interior of the empire, far removed from the political centres of St Petersburg and Moscow.
At the time of Lenin’s birth, the Russian Empire was one of the largest political entities in world history. It stretched from eastern Europe across Siberia to the Pacific Ocean. Its political system remained rigidly stuck in the past.
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“The context he is born into is one of a Russian empire characterised by autocracy,” Douds says. The tsarist regime was “absolutist and repressive,” with political power concentrated in the hands of the emperor. The Romanov dynasty had ruled Russia since the early 17th century, and the tsar governed with barely any constitutional limits.
Nevertheless, Russia had begun to reform in limited ways. “Economically, it’s coming out of serfdom, but very slowly,” Douds explains. A small noble elite controlled land and political power, while most of the population were peasants.
By the late 19th century, these tensions were producing political opposition.
“In the couple of decades before Lenin’s birth we see the development of a revolutionary movement in the Russian empire,” Douds says.
When he was born in 1870, in many respects, Lenin’s upbringing was privileged.
“It seems as though Lenin had a wonderful, almost idyllic childhood,” Douds explains. He grew up in a close-knit and intellectually engaged family. His father, Ilya Ulyanov, was a state official who had risen steadily through the imperial bureaucracy. Originally a teacher, he eventually became a school inspector.
“He’s promoted to the point that by Lenin’s birth he has the right of hereditary nobility in the Russian empire,” Douds says. This status placed the family within the educated professional class rather than among Russia’s peasantry.
The family was socially ambitious and culturally active. “It’s a family on the make in many ways.”
The household included six children – three boys and three girls – with Vladimir in the middle. “They all play together. They are very cultured. They enjoy reading, music, painting, walking in nature,” Douds says. Lenin himself was an exceptional student. “He has glowing school reports.”
The Ulyanov family tragedy
In 1886 Lenin’s father died suddenly while still relatively young. The loss was devastating for the family. And an even greater shock followed the next year when Lenin’s older brother, Alexander Ulyanov, was arrested in St Petersburg.
Alexander had become involved in an underground revolutionary organisation known as Narodnaya Volya – ‘The People’s Will’. This organisation had already gained notoriety for assassinating Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The group believed that eliminating key figures in the tsarist government could trigger a broader uprising.
Their next target was Alexander III.
After being identified as an involved member in this latest plot, “Alexander Ulyanov becomes one of the young people, aged about 20, to be hanged at the Peter and Paul Fortress,” Douds says.
“It’s a hugely traumatic moment in the life of the young Vladimir Ulyanov,” she says. “The family is shunned by polite society, which they had been part of up until that point,” Douds says.
Lenin himself rarely spoke publicly about his brother’s execution. In his writings he preferred to present his political commitments as the result of careful intellectual analysis rather than personal trauma.
But many historians suspect the episode left a profound mark.
“It is very much a moment that defines Lenin’s feelings about tsarism,” Douds explains. Beneath the rational framework of Marxist theory, she suggests, there may also have been “a lot of repressed anger that defines his career”.
Whatever the exact psychological impact, Lenin immersed himself in revolutionary politics and socialist theory, which would eventually bring him to the leadership of the Bolshevik movement. The Bolsheviks were a radical faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that advocated for a tightly organised revolutionary party to overthrow the tsarist regime.
The making of a revolutionary icon
After Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power during the Russian Revolution, his image was carefully cultivated by the new Soviet state. In November 1917, Bolshevik forces seized power in Petrograd, overthrowing the provisional government that had replaced the tsar earlier that year.
In subsequent decades, Soviet propaganda presented him as the founding father of a new socialist society.
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“The cult of Lenin had taken over Soviet society in many ways,” Douds explains. Schoolchildren learned stories about ‘Grandfather Lenin’, portrayed as wise, compassionate and morally flawless. “It reached a sickening degree.”
It was only after many decades that that narrative began to change. “After the collapse of communism there was a great appetite to criticise him,” Douds says. His status as a leading figure of Russian political intellect had faded.
Lenin’s political return
Now, ire directed toward him has returned.
“We can see Putin recently blaming Lenin for the creation of Ukraine,” Douds says.
But why?
The Bolsheviks reorganised the former Russian empire into a federation of national republics after the revolution. In 1922 this structure became formalised as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), composed of multiple Soviet republics including Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
These republics – including the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic – were formally granted limited autonomy within the new Soviet system.
In Putin’s interpretation, this arrangement artificially created Ukrainian statehood within the Soviet framework. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, those republics became independent states, including modern Ukraine. Lenin’s decision to structure the Soviet Union as a federation of republics did indeed shape the political map of eastern Europe for much of the 20th century.
In that sense, it’s Putin’s stated view that Lenin bears much of the responsibility for the conflict between the two countries.
Danny Bird was speaking to Laura Douds on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James Osborne is a senior content producer at HistoryExtra