I thought Lenin was a Great Man until I read a biography about him

First of all he was an atheists which I guess shouldnt matter when judging what a man accomplished in his life, also he was married from 1898 till his death in 1924 and had no children which I find odd.

Lenins father died when he was 15 but he was in charge of schools in a region and his wife got a good pension11, also Lenins mother inherited an estate and got money from the peasants, not that it matters much but Lenin never worked and got money from his mom, he spent his time reading and meeting with revolutionaries, he was arrested when he was about twenty, he managed to get a good deal and sent to a decent place in Siberia and not the the harsher places were some people died, he spent about three years in Siberia. After that he went into exile in Zurich, Paris, London, Geneva and other European cities.

The thing about Lenin is that he was never fully in control of the Marxist party and when the split occured in 1905 his party the Bolsheviks were the minority to the Mensheviks, even among the Bolsheviks he was not the leader. Lenin was respected because he was a great writer but still at many times he could have been pushed out of the party but I feel that some liked him and felt sorry for him.

Even after 1910 Lenin was in exile and the Bolsheviks in Russia felt that they should have more power and they did, the Revolution was greatly helped by World WarI, but even during the Great War Lenin was still not a leading figure, when the October Revolution took place Lenin basically had nothing to do with it, he had no contact with the Sailors and Soldiers who made it possible, it was only after the Bolsheviks took power that they decided Lenin should be the Leader, but still Lenin did not have absolute power, when elections were held the Bolsheviks did not receive many votes.
The ordinary Russian did not know who
Lenin was

Lenin was also a brutal man who encouraged the secret police to kill dissenters, it was evident in his writings that he favoured the use of terror. Even in his final 3 years when Lenin had a disagreement with Stalin he could not remove Stalin from power. This just shows that Lenin was not in full control of his own party let alone Russia unlike Stalin who would later rule with an Iron Fist.

Lenin basically came to power because a few key members of the Bolshevik movement respected him for his writing and liked him or thought he was the only one who could unify the party, he personally did not do much except write a few things that most Russians did not read