I'm going to go. He's

a-a-ra-s-s-s-s-a-s-s-a-s-a-s- Hey Uyghurs again.

Welcome to the Russian rulers podcast.

Episode 71, the Russian Civil War.

Last time we followed Vladimir Iliich Ulyanao Lenin's rise to power of the Bolshevik party and his ascension to the head of the Russian government.

Now we will follow his journey to extend his influence and rule over the Russian people.

Lenin, while head of the Bolsheviks, was still not the sole ruler of Russia.

On November 8, 1917, Lenin appeared before the divided group of revolutionaries at the Congress of the Soviets and said,

quote,

We shall now proceed to construct the socialist order.

American journalist John Reed had this to say about Lenin's appearance.

Quote, a short, stocky figure with a big head set down in his shoulders, bald and bulging.

Little eyes, a snubish nose, wide generous, and heavy chin.

Clean shaven now, but already beginning to bristle with a well-known beard of his past and future.

Dressed in shabby clothes, his trousers much too long for him.

Unimpressive to be the idol of a mob, loved and revered, as perhaps few leaders in history have been.

A strange, popular leader, a leader purely by virtue of intellect,

colorless, humorless, uncompromising and detached,

without picturesque idiosyncrasies,

but with the power of explaining profound ideas in simple terms,

of analyzing a concrete situation,

and combined with shrewdness the greatest intellectual audacity.

...