Until 1917, the leader of the world proletariat, V. I. Ulyanov, like other professional revolutionaries, had to live in the strictest secrecy. It was impossible for him to sign his articles and other works with his own name. Therefore, V. I. Ulyanov had to use pseudonyms, party nicknames.
He had many pseudonyms for printing. Some of the articles and brochures published abroad, he signed simply - N. In other cases, he signed S. Tulin, V. Ilyin, V. I-in. Sometimes Ilyich used foreign surnames as a pseudonym - Frey, Richter, Meyer.
The pseudonym Lenin, or rather N. Lenin, appeared with the leader in 1901. With this pseudonym, he began to sign his published works. And it was under this name that he went down in history. This name became so widely known that after the 1917 revolution, he began to sign “V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin.
There are several versions of why the leader of the world proletariat chose this particular pseudonym. Let's consider each of them.
The family version, it is also official or toponymic
The leader's pseudonym comes from the name of the Lena River. Olga Dmitrievna Ulyanova, the niece of Vladimir Ilyich, the daughter of his brother Dmitry, wrote: “I have reason to assume,” my father wrote, “that this pseudonym comes from the name of the Lena River, so beautifully described by Korolenko. Vladimir Ilyich did not take the pseudonym Volgin, since it was rather worn out, in particular, it was used, as you know, by Plekhanov, as well as other authors, for example, the notorious God-seeker Glinka, etc."
The researchers who support this version believe that the name of this particular great river arose due to the fact that Ilyich was in exile in Siberia, in Shushenskoye. But, apparently, this is not the point. Shushenskoye stands on the Shush River, a tributary of the Yenisei. If we were talking about Siberian impressions, it would be more logical to expect the pseudonym "Shushin" or "Yenisein". The famous "Lena execution" in the gold mines could not play any role here either, since it happened in 1912, when Ilyich was already using this pseudonym with might and main.
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Probably, if the pseudonym really comes from the name of the Lena River, the point is a mere coincidence. Lenin - simply because he was not Volgin, in opposition to Plekhanov.
The conspiratorial version
It belongs to the historian V. Loginov. In 1900, when Vladimir Ulyanov needed to go abroad, there was a problem with a passport. According to his "native" documents, of course, he would not have been released anywhere. And then a friend of Nadezhda Konstantinovna, sympathizing with the revolutionary movement, gave Ilyich the passport of her father, Nikolai Yegorovich Lenin, in which she forwarded the date of birth. Having gone abroad with a forged document, Vladimir Ulyanov remained Lenin forever.
Literary version
It belongs to the writer Alexei Golenkov.
Everyone knows that Vladimir Ilyich was very fond of the work of Leo Tolstoy. Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya recalls that on his way to exile, to Shushenskoye, Vladimir Ulyanov read Tolstoy's story "The Cossacks". The hero of this story by the name of Olenin also goes into exile, however, to the Caucasus, and not to Siberia. Tolstoy, according to Lenin, was the "Mirror of the Russian Revolution." And the thoughts, partly in tune with the revolutionary moods of Ulyanov-Lenin himself, are also expressed by the hero of the story OLENIN.
Romantic version
In one of the television programs of the late 90s, a version was heard that Vladimir Ulyanov took the pseudonym Lenin in honor of the Kazan student Elena Rozmirovich, with whom, they say, he was unrequitedly in love in his youth. And this is not the only Lena who is credited with the honor of breaking the heart of the young leader. Other candidates for this role are the Kazan beauty Elena Lenina, the actress of the Mariinsky Theater Elena Zaretskaya and even some Elena of Petersburg, with whom Ilyich was allegedly in love.
This version, for obvious reasons, does not stand up to criticism, however, it is quite popular.
Exotic versions
If you read the word Lenin the other way around, you get Ninel. Ninel is a female name, and it is hidden, since the leader of the world proletariat hid his homosexual ties with Zinoviev and Trotsky. Absolutely incredible, of course, but no more incredible than deriving the party name Lenin from the name of the Lenin monastery (Kloster Lehnin) in Germany, near Potsdam. The monastery is known, among other things, for the famous "Lenin's prophecy", set forth in a document of the 17th century, allegedly dating back to the manuscript of the 12th century. The prophecy says that someday Central and Eastern Europe will unite into a single state from the Rhine to the Volga.
Sounds strange? Nevertheless, such versions also take place.