Who led the Communist Revolution of Russia?

The story behind the answer

Vladimir Lenin led the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution of 1917, toppling Russia’s Provisional Government and establishing the world’s first communist state. As the architect of the revolution and head of the new Soviet government, Lenin withdrew Russia from World War I, redistributed land, and laid the ideological and institutional foundations of the USSR.

To distinguish the names: Lenin launches the revolution; Stalin succeeds him and consolidates a dictatorship in the late 1920s; Gorbachev tries to reform the system in the 1980s; Putin is a post-Soviet leader. Memory tip: “L for Lenin, L for leads”—Lenin leads the 1917 revolution.