Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 then of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1924. As the Bolsheviks' founder, Lenin led the October Revolution, which established the world's first communist state. His government won the Russian Civil War and created a one-party state under the Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, his developments to the ideology are called Leninism.