Tsarist autocracy
In the early 1900s, Baruch Charney was drawn to the revolutionary movement for the overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy, becoming an activist in the Jewish Labour Bund. As an underground revolutionary, open use of his real name was regarded as highly dangerous to both him and his family, so the pseudonym "Vladeck" was adopted as a "nom de guerre". Baruch Charney would use this as his surname for the rest of his life.