Alexander Lukashenko is the current President of Belarus; he has been in the power since 1994. Before he ventured into politics, he worked in the Soviet Army and as director of a state-owned agricultural farm. Born in a remote village in northern Belarus just a few years after the end of World War II, Lukashenko and his mother were left to fend for themselves after his father abandoned the family. Since early childhood, Alexander Lukashenko became devoted to Leninist ideology, enrolling in the Mogilev Teaching Institute after high school. After graduating, Lukashenko spent three formative years as a political officer in the Soviet Border Guards. Returning home, Lukashenko married his childhood sweetheart, Galina Zhelnerovich. Lukashenko then took a leadership position in the Komsomol, or Communist Youth Wing. Later on Lukashenko, joined a state-owned agricultural farm in order to provide for his growing family. After a distinguished career managing a construction materials plant and enormous state-run farm complex, Lukashenko was elected as a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus and served as the chairman of a key anti-corruption committee. Barely a year later, the Soviet Union fell apart and Lukashenko's hardline stance against corruption led to a surprise win for him in the first presidential elections in newly-independent Belarus. Relying on the ideological concepts mastered in his youth, Lukashenko has remained a steady autocratic hand at the helm of his country throughout the turbulent decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.