The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-31
By "RURIK.

AAS (By the International News Bureau,
 Incl
 Vladimir Iljic Uljanov was born of a noble family in the government of Simbirsk Al years ago. The mean ing of revolutionary terrorism was brought home to him early. In the year 1SS7-one of the blackest per iods of reaction in the recent history of Russia-Vladimir' elder brother was arrested at Harkov for complicity in a plot to murder Alexander III. Vladimir was still but a youth of IT when his brother died on the gallows. As soon as he entered the Univer- sity, Vladimir Iljic threw himself heart and soul into the study of So- cial Democracy. It was not long be- fore his activities reused the suspi- cions of the ohrana and in the early 90's, while still a student he was exiled t0 Siberia. His sentence, however, was not a long one, and few years later he returned to Russia to resume his active work and his studies. His first book on the land question was published under the name of Hin (his first nom de guerre) soon after his re- turn from exile. In this work he set forth the views of the Social Demo- crat party on the land question in Russia, demanding that all the land should become the property of the state, which would lease it out to the peasants in proportion to their needs
 1t was more, however, as a tacti- clan than as' a theorist that Lenine made his mark. In 1900 he left Rus sia, and joined Plehanov in Switzer- land. For some years these two men now poles apart-worked together and edited the paper Iskra (Spark) in common. Plehanov's early work in Lausanne was mainly educational Having left Russia in the cary sos, he gathered round him in Lausanne I.small group of devoted followers, whose object was to apply western Social Democracy to Russian condi- tions. For some years Plehanov and Lenine (by this time he had adopted . his present nom de guerre) had much in common; it was not until the So- cialist Conference at Stockholm in 1903 that the first differences reveal ed themselves. It was from this Con- ference that the cleavage between
 
 former being those who held a ma jority' at the conference, the latter minority" The tactics advocated by the majority under Lenine were those which he has pursued consist emily ever since. The essence of his tactics may be summed up in the words 'pure revolutionary action without any compromise with the 1,~. 1N= nor in 1917 has he ever wavered, un- der any conditions, in the application of his rules of conduct.
 In 1905 Lenine returned to Russia to take part in the revolution. Though not the President of the ill-starred Soviet of 1905, he was the driving power behind it. In October of the same year he started the first Social Democrat daily with the help of Max i'm Gorki. The collapse of the Soviet and the failure of the revolution led to a compromise between the autocra- cy and the middle casses in the shape of the first Duma- True to his theor- ies, Lenine persuaded his followers to boycott the elections, and there were no Social Democrats in the first. Du- ma of May 1906, Lenine's extreme tac- tics, however, forfeited him the sup port of many of his followers, whc regarded the boycott of the Duma as a mistake, and in 1907 Lenine himself realized that his work in Russia was for the time being over. In the spring of that year he left Russia and took up his residence abroad, partly in Paris partly in Switzerland, and part ly in Austrian Poland from which country he kept in touch with the revolutionary movement in Russia.
 The outbreak of the war in 1914 found Denine in the Carpathian Noun tains. At first arrested as a Russian subject he was afterwards released owing to the mediation of the Aus trian Socialist leader, Victor Adler He withdrew to Geneva, where he started a new socialist paper, Socia Demokrat, that preached the necessity of Russia's defeat in the war.
 Previous to the revolution Lenint was comparatively unknown figure to the outside world. Western Eur. ope has since learned of his existencC owing to the notoriety he gained by his journey through Germany to Rus sia. What more natural than tha this unknown Zimmerwaldian, who had worked against the victory of hi! country in the war, should be brand ed by the West as a mere German agent! Even if it be true that he ha. himself taken German money, it i. not for German ends. Men of hi! stamp are not overscrupulous; they wiu stop at nothing that seems to leaC thefn nearer the goal they have SC before them.
 The whole truth about Lenine will perhaps, never be known to this gen eration. A man of iron will, fanatical ly devoted to a new religion or socia democracy that he has himself creat