ABSTRACT

The upheavals in Russia during 1917 changed the history of the world. Russia broke with the evolutionary Western path of national development. The birth of communist power was seen by Lenin, its founder, as the means by which not only the vast lands and peoples of Russia would be transformed, but also the world. For seven decades Lenin was revered by half the world as its spiritual guide despite the bitter dissensions among communist countries as to which was the rightful heir. His vision of communism as a world force was realised less than twenty-five years after his death.