Born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov is known by the pseudonyms V.I. Lenin and N. Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, a communist politician, the principal leader of the October Revolution, the first head of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1998, he was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. His contributions to Marxist theory are commonly referred to as Leninism.