Briefly made advances, then elected Communist (5)

I believe the answer is:

lenin

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'communist' is the definition.
(Lenin is an example)

'briefly made advances then elected' is the wordplay.
'briefly made advances then' becomes 'len' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'elected' becomes 'in'.
'len'+'in'='LENIN'

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(Other definitions for lenin that I've seen before include "Leader of the Russian Revolution" , "Revolutionary man" , "First Soviet leader" , "Head of the Communist state after the fall of the Tsar" , "Vladimir Ilyich -, Soviet premier" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.

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