It's actually pretty similar when you get to the bottom of it. Lenin was a member of the nobility during the Tsar rule. He saw his oppurtunity when Russian leadership was weakened after the first World War (similar to how the British were weakened after the Seven Years' War) and took it. The biggest difference is that he had unsuccessfully tried before and was orchestrating the whole thing from his exile base in Switzerland. Hunger was just a useful tool to overthrow the government more easily. If hunger alone was enough, Mao would have gotten his ass kicked harder and faster than anyone else in history. But in the end hungry people don't make good soldiers and only soldiers can bring drastic change in governance.