 This was a significant factor that contributed to the Bolshevik attitude to religion and the steps they took to control it.Moreover, the Bolsheviks including many people with non-Russian and/or non-Christian background, such as Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and Grigori Sokolnikov, who were, at best, indifferent towards Christianity, and at worst hostile to it.The ideas of German philosopher Karl Marx were synthesised with Lenin's own political thought to form the Communist Party.