\•^°Vladimir Ilyich Lenin°^•/

Lenin's character is a combination of fanatical ideological commitment and political pragmatism: determination, colossal capacity for work, discipline, asceticism in everyday life, firmness and uncompromisingness, a penchant for radical decisions and authoritarianism, polemical rigidity and intolerance of ideological opponents, strategic thinking, the ability to persuade and organize, self-confidence and emotionality in disputes, while at the same time simplicity in communication with comrades and the ability to subordinate personal life to political goals.

Lenin was short (164–166.7 cm), stocky, dense, with broad shoulders and a short, thick neck, a round, high-cheekboned face, a high forehead, an early, solid bald spot, light brown hair and a reddish beard with a brush-trimmed moustache, brown, intelligent

In 1915, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was in exile in Switzerland: after the outbreak of World War I, he moved from Austria-Hungary to Bern, where he lived in cramped conditions and devoted his time to theoretical and political work; the central event of the year was the Zimmerwald Conference on September 5-8, 1915, in the Swiss village of Zimmerwald, which brought together 38 delegates from 11 European countries, where Lenin headed the radical wing - the Zimmerwald Left Group, which included Bolsheviks and left-wing Social Democrats from Poland, Latvia, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Germany; they called for turning the imperialist war into a civil war and seeking the defeat of their governments, but the final manifesto of the conference, prepared with the participation of Leon Trotsky, turned out to be a compromise and did not contain a specific revolutionary program; In addition to the political struggle, 1915 was marked by active theoretical work: Lenin published "Socialism and War" and a number of articles in which he developed the key tenets of Bolshevism, and also formulated for the first time the idea of ​​the possibility of the victory of socialism in one, separate country; these studies became the foundation for the classic work "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism", completed in 1916; in exile, Lenin also corresponded with comrades-in-arms, criticized social chauvinism and centrism, defended the need to create a new, revolutionary International, participated in the publication of the journal "Kommunist" and trained cadres for the future struggle, combining journalism with organizational work among left-wing émigré groups.