I learnt the first verse as:

Harry was a Bolshie,
One of Lenin's lads,
Till he was foully done to death
By counter-revolutionary cads.

Whe I was working in Sydney a few years ago, I had occasion to ring a school - can't remember which one, but I think it was in an outer Sydney area. When I asked the bloke I was talking to his name, he said " ... Pollitt."

Smart-arse me says, "As in Harry, the Bolshie?"

"Yes, he was my uncle."

Went quiet for a minute. Talked about something else...

I think this bloke was used to that reaction, somehow.