It was on April 16 in 1917 that Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile...Lenin had convinced the Germans that if they helped him get back into Russia, him and his party could seize power and stop the war...with that, Germany could then take their troops from the Russian front and focus on the Western front instead...the Tsar had just been overthrown, but the leaders of the provisional government led by Alexander Kerensky still supported the war effort...ironically enough, both Lenin and Kerensky had attended the same school...Lenin promised immediate peace and gave up a large tract of land to Germany to get it...this appealed to the Russian people who had become tired of the fight that cost so many millions of Russian lives...the communist revolutionary became leader of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (SFSR) later that year...in 1922, he became the first Premier of the Soviet Union...he had survived an assassination attempt in 1918 and then suffered several strokes which slowed the once energetic leader...the last one left him unable to speak...this was when Stalin saw his chance and made a grab for power...ironically, Lenin who himself had been associated with murder, arson and terror warned others about Stalin and that he was ‘too brutal’...but it was too late and Stalin rose to supreme power...Lenin died on 21 January 1924...but according to reports, this was not the last time Lenin was ‘seen’...it is said that Lenin is a frequent visitor to the Kremlin...even before his death, he was sighted by a security man in October 1923...although Lenin was still alive at the time...(he died three months later)...the security officer was puzzled why Lenin visited the Kremlin by himself with no guards...he reported this but was told on the phone that it was impossible because Lenin was in Gorky at that moment...bilocation perhaps or a ghostly apparition?...others corroborated the story of Lenin’s sighting in the Kremlin that night…supposedly, Lenin was walking in a great hurry, even though at the time his pace has been slowed by a series of strokes and required him to use a cane...even today, sightings of Lenin’s ghost are reported.
