Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov changed his name to Lenin in 1901 while doing underground revolutionary work for the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party's newspaper, Iskra. In order to evade Tsarist secret police and protect their true identities, it was not uncommon for early Bolsheviks (and all revolutionaries in general) to take up pen names for their writings and operations. For example, Stalin was originally Joseph Dzhugashvili (Georgian), Kamo was Simon Ter-Petrosian (Armenian), and Trotsky was Lev Bronshtein (Jewish).