 First of all, comrades, the life and ideas of Lenin in 45 minutes, a bit of a tricky task, you might say, given the fact that his life covered the most stormiest period in Russian, and you could say in world history, so what I'd have to do is to touch on, I think, some of the main points, the main ideas. I hope this will serve to whet your appetite so that you yourself can delve into more deeply these ideas, because in reality they're an application, a concrete application of Marxism to the epoch in which Lenin lived. Lenin's always seen as one of the four great teachers of Marxism, Marx Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, and you could say, after the death of Engels and of Marx, it was Lenin who took up the defence of orthodox Marxism, and not only took it up, but applied it in such a way that he was able to build a revolutionary party that Lenin had to build, and led the working class in Russia to power, which was the first time that the working class had seized power and held on to it. It was a brief period of the parish commune, and transformed the entire world, and that's why, as was explained, Lenin has been demonised by the bourgeoisie, and the attempt is obviously to discredit Lenin, discredit his ideas, and this has become a bit of a cottage industry. Book after book after book is produced about the Russian Revolution, particularly Lenin's role, all decremental, people like Robert Service, for instance, the three volume on Lenin, the Russian Revolution, and it's incredibly starts off pretty for Lenin, the politician is hardly an order, he says, with his sympathetic vehicles. He was a merciless polemicist, a ruthless terrorist, and an unrepentant defender of probably everything done in his name and his party. It goes on in that similar vein throughout the book really, an attempt just to discredit and denigrate, and the reason why it's intensified now is because of this epoch of crises, where millions of workers are beginning to question the capitalist system and look for a way out, and therefore the ideas of Lenin would be particularly attractive for those thinking workers at this particular time, and particularly of young people, and therefore we have to rescue Lenin, if you like, on the one hand from the slanders of the bourgeoisie, but also the caricature given by Stalinism. Somehow Lenin was a superman that did everything perfectly well, and they tried to use that in order to carry through their own interest, their own particular revisionist policies, as far as the bureaucracy were concerned. Of course, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of these worship periods of Lenin jumped ship and sided with the bourgeoisie counter-revolution and then have spewed out all the rubbish talked about Lenin ever since, and therefore we have quite a task to rescue Lenin. Of course, as I said, he stood on the shoulders of Marx and Engels, who weren't from the working class as we know, they came from the upper class or the upper middle class, and the same case was for Lenin, but nevertheless, despite that fact, he put himself on the standpoint of the working class of the revolution and became one of the greatest revolutionary leaders of the working class that we know. That development of Lenin, as Trotsky pointed out, Lenin didn't begin as Lenin. Lenin evolved into the role, if you like, under the conditions that he faced, but it also showed his individual character of someone who showed determination and a meticulous attitude to ideas and conquering those ideas. As I said, he came from a kind of well-to-do family. His father was an inspector of schools, quite high up in the bureaucracy, if you like, and he had quite a decent education, a grammar school education, and went on to study in university, study law university as a matter of fact. But, of course, perhaps one of the turning points in Lenin's life was the hanging, the murder of his brother, his elder brother, who became influenced by the ideas that were prevalent at the time in Russia, called the Narodniks. Perhaps, as a background, the commies are aware that Russia was a totalitarian, autocratic state ruled by Azar, ruled by landlords in particular. It hadn't gone through a bourgeois democratic revolution, like in the West. Although the elements of capitalism were rapidly developing in the 80s, 80s, 90s, many of them were the importation of foreign capital from Britain, Germany, France, and so on, which built big, big industries at that time. And, of course, it sucked in the peasantry. They were desperate for work and created a virgin working class at that moment. Prior to that, obviously the fight was on the peasantry, if you like, and against the old order. And therefore, there were very heroic ideas emerged of challenge in the system, and one was here at the Land of Freedom Party, developed into the Narodniks organisation, which attempted to go to the mainly young students, actually intellectuals and so on, who broke from their families and went to the countryside to try and convince the peasantry to enlighten them to have a revolution. And they thought it could be a peasant revolution that could bypass capitalism, but nevertheless, they were very heroic and attempted to carry out this fundamental change against the repression of the czarist apparatus, which was extremely reactionary at that particular time. Later, they evolved, because that movement failed, they turned towards individual terrorism, that is the idea of eliminating, particularly the czarist officials, hated police chiefs and such individuals, they wanted to topple the regime through assassination, if you like. And then, this also attracted a lot of young, idealist people, who wanted to obviously overthrow Rotten czarist regime, and one of those was Alexander, which was Lenin's brother, but he was caught and he was hanged along with a number of others. Obviously, that had a big effect on Lenin, although he was only a young lad, in effect, still in school, but nevertheless, there would be a general sympathy amongst young people and so on for the actions of the Narodniks, and no doubt in the early period, Lenin was influenced by these ideas, attracted to these ideas. Although then, Marxism began to percolate into Russia, mainly as a result of a split in the Narodniks and the emergence of a figure called George Plechenoff, who became the father of Russia and Marxism, and he broke from these ideas of individual terrorism, got in contact with Marx and Engels, and they formed a very small group. In exile, because conditions in Russia were so oppressive, so they actually formed the small nucleus of five people in Geneva, and they began to publish small, I feel like Marxist literature, to be smuggled back into Russia itself. This is a tiny group, and we're talking about 1883, when they formed the emancipational of labour group of five individuals, incredible, and from this group emerges the Russian Social Democratic Party, emerges Bolshevism, and emerges the whole question of world revolution. This tiny, tiny little group, this little embryo that existed, was Lenin himself. It wasn't an immediate remark, Marxist, not at all. It was well read and learned a lot of languages. He came across the capital in particular, his brother had a copy of capital, he looked at it and was very serious. If you want to categorise Lenin as an individual, he was a very serious individual, and someone was determined to look into certain questions in the depth that it required. He had a very serious attitude to ideas, you could say, and that didn't just apply to Marxism. These capital actually was translated into Russian far earlier than the English edition, for instance, because the Russian Tsarist censors looked at one look at the capital and said, Jesus Christ, no one can understand this. Nevertheless, these ideas, anti-during, smuggled in, a number of other Marxist texts, which Lenin, again affected by the radical situation, the crisis of the intelligentsia, actually at the time, began to look for alternative ideas. One of these ideas, obviously, was the ideas of Marxism, which was a growing interest, if you like. He was not a revolutionary Democrat or a Marxist in his early life. He acquired that, if you like. He came to it. He struggled to gain it. Once he did, he mastered it. That's the qualities of Lenin. Of course, when his brother was hanged, the family looked on in disdain, if you like, Lenin managed to get to Kazan University, where in six weeks he'd been expelled because there had been a movement of students which he participated in. He actually studied his law degree outside of the university. His mother tried to camp in for him to get back in, but the authorities were refusing, but they allowed him to sit his exams outside of the university. He got a first-class degree in law, and he said he was the shortest career of anybody at that time, because obviously that's when he had a burning interest in Marxism. He was discussing the local groups. He started to contact older people who were neurotics and so on, discussing with them, but eventually he ends up going to St Petersburg, the capital of Russia. At this time, circles are forming in Russia. Worker circles, left-wing circles that are taking place. In 1895, he, together with a man called Matov and the other individuals, organised a circle in Petersburg, which they called the struggle for the emancipation. Of a long name, but there we are. Begin to carry out agitation in the works. Other groups are forming elsewhere. Trotsky actually formed the group in south of Russia. These groups are springing up. The idea was to try and fuse these groups together. Social-democratic ideas. Obviously, we were dominating Germany, France at this time. The second international was being built in 1889, founded. Obviously, this group was also in touch. I can't go into all the details, but it touched England before he died. They were dedicated, but they were in the fight. That little struggle, could you imagine? The strongest regime of autocracy and a reaction, a tiny nucleus of people in exile. There were small groups forming in Russia itself and Lenin formed this group with Matov. Very quickly, he's arrested. They tried to organise a paper. He's arrested and sent into exile in Siberia. He joined with another person called Krupskaya, who becomes his partner. While he's in exile, he studies. That's the main thing. What else can you do? Communications are very difficult. He tried to keep in touch with Matov, who's also exiled as well, but to somewhere else. He studies, and studies, and studies Marxism. Also translates books, the web's book for industrial democracy. He translates, but he reads and reads. He becomes mature as a Marxist, but not just a Marxist, but becomes recognised as more of a leading Marxist, if you like. It was able to write and carry out polemics against a tendency, which had emerged at that time, what they called, it was mentioned last night, the economist tendency. That was an idea of, well, the workers should fight only on economic questions in effect. The political struggle, well, they can be left more to the liberals. Obviously Lenin and Plechenwaf, in particular, as I mentioned, can campaign and attack these particular ideas, explaining, no. On the contrary, politics and economics, and even the theories, as we explained last night, are part and parcel of the struggle of the working class movement itself. Obviously these ideas were attractive. They had quite an influence, but it was this small group that fought these ideas. Above all, what matured in Lenin's mind in exile was the need to really fuse these, to step up, if you like, to create a revolutionary party, a Russian party on the equivalent of the German Marxist party, or the French party. That was the idea. In fact, there was a conference called in 1998, which was the first conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. There were nine people there. The issue manifested when the couple of weeks were all arrested and that's the end of it. So that was the situation. Many people in exile, repression, difficult conditions, people in exile trying to smuggle in literature, and Lenin connected, he realizes the only way to take the thing forward is to create a newspaper, a periodical, that could disseminate these ideas of Marxism itself and way to struggle against the other tendencies. There was another technology called legal Marxism, a very unusual animal, because the boos was in Russia were very weak and were against the autocracy and they were looking for arguments to justify their own existence. Of course Marxism says that after feudalism, capitalism arises as a revolutionary system, which is true. Of course they were looking to take out the revolutionary aspects of Marxism and concentrate on it. On the ideas that served their purpose. It was a very peculiar development. Of course Plecanoff and Lenin wage war, if you like, an ideological war against these tendencies. By 1900, when the exile came to an end and they were able to leave Siberia, they had written prepared the way and wanted to get in contact above all those people abroad, Plecanoff, to establish an all Russian newspaper. The name was thought of as the spark of Iskra, and they went to see Plecanoff, he was keen on the idea, can't go through all the details, but they eventually launched it in 1900 and it becomes a very important weapon, published abroad because it couldn't publish it in Russia, it was all illegal stuff, they had to smuggle it in. They published it in Geneva first of all, later on they came to London, as was said, Lenin lived in London also in 1902, just up the road there, and it was able to publish Iskra and get it smuggled back in a very complicated way. We think we have difficulties, and that's trying to smuggle producer paper in Russia, in London, and other socialist people are hard enough to produce, and getting it across the continent and smuggling it into Russia to be distributed amongst the workers. They said roughly about 10% of the papers they smuggled and actually got through, shows the enormous sacrifices, the enormous determination of these young comrades, because you were talking about Lenin 23, 24 years of age, very young personally, born in 1870, it gives you the timeline. But the Iskra newspaper is taking into these workers' circles and lays the basis for the conquest of these groups, if you like, into genuine Marxism, and they prepare the way for a new congress, the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which in effect is the founding congress, which takes place in 1903. But by that time, a book is produced by Lenin, which he had thought of, and his ideas were material about how to build the party, what kind of character is the party going to have. Of course it wasn't going to be fundamentally different from what was happening in Germany, he admired the German party, under illegal conditions and underground conditions, it had to be a party of professional revolutionaries. And he writes the book, what is to be done, which is an attack on spontaneity and so on, he does make a mistake in the book because he copied it from Kautsky, but it's another matter about the idea of consciousness. A consciousness he thinks is brought to the working class, or rather socialist consciousness rather, is brought to the working class, which he never repeated that idea. He bent the stick the other way against the arguments, the economists he admitted later. Obviously the working class, through its own experience, throws up collective and socialist consciousness, whether that's carried through is another matter, but it comes to that conclusion. But the book was a valuable book in training and putting down the marker for the building of the revolutionary party of professional revolutionaries. Cymru is going to dedicate their time, they didn't necessarily have to be full time, but in their hearts they were full time, in their being they are there to struggle to fight to win the workers. Of course the building of the party then was the founding of the second congress, I haven't got time to go into the ins and outs, but there's been a lot of myths about the second congress. Obviously a splitter took place at the end of the congress, in London as a matter of fact. They were in Brussels, they were infested in it, I think it was a flower factory they had, there were so many rats there, an infestation, and above all the police forced them out. And they came to London and they finished the congress in London, but a split took place between Lenin and Matoff. And that was the embryo, an embryo, nothing more, an anticipation, nothing more. And they didn't know it at the time between Menshiviks and Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik name is a Russian name for majority and the Menshiviks is the name for the minority which Matoff had. And first of all Matoff's views carried the majority all the way through until the very end. And when the Boon, which is a Jewish organisation, walked out because they weren't prepared to give them exclusive autonomy, that's an interesting concept. They didn't want to create a federal party, they wanted to create a unified party, not a party of Jewish workers, of Russian workers, of Georgian workers, et cetera, et cetera. The working class must be unified into one party, and that's the way they looked at it. And therefore didn't want to split it along national lines. And they walked out, the economists, which are a very small number, also walked out to let it actually have the majority. And the split took place over not politics, over who should be on the editorial board of the Obiskner. And Lenin said, let's reduce it instead of six people who were on there, three people didn't do enough, didn't actually do any work. Let's put it in the hands of the three people who did the work, which is Matoff, Lenin and Plecanoff. And that created a big hoo-ha. Again, I haven't got time to go into it. And it was like the interior, what they had gone mad, why the hell they talked, you know, splitting over a small thing like that. And what is a member there was a big issue of? You know, what is a member? If you look at the two definitions, it's not a great deal, isn't it, in effect? Although one obviously was reflecting the pressures of the petty bourgeoisie of intellectuals who should come into the party and do bugger all, basically. For his letter he said, no, people have to come in and prove themselves if you like. And in that way involve themselves in the real life of the party, not just the sympathisers. But it's not a fundamental thing, but you can see how things evolve. And it was all about an organisational question at the party's split. But it was an anticipation, because in reality the arguments looked at, the bourgeoisie looked upon us, the harder people, and the menschewics, or those who supported Matoff, are soft people, the socks on the hands. There was no political differences, but you could see there were certain differences emerging. They really emerged on the basis of events. And that was the 1905 revolution, which again brought the Russian working class to its feet. An incredible revolution, which no one really expected if it came out of the blue in many ways. And Lenin's idea, by the way, he's always said, oh, you're only interested in the small, elitist party of professional revolutionaries above the working class. In 1905, he says, open the party, recruit the workers, get the young people in. He was very open, in other words, at each stage of the development of the party, he puts forth a different viewpoint in order to show the needs of the party. And in a revolution, you have to expand, you have to move out, you have to... If workers are drawing lots of different conclusions and cultures, it's changing, and you bring them in. As we know, the 1905 revolution was began by a demonstration led by a priest who turned out to be a police agent. But nevertheless, there was a bloodbath when they asked to present a petition to the czar. I think more than a thousand were shot down in cold blood, which began the revolution. In the words from a counter-revolutionary act, the working class went on the move for the whole year. In the growth of what we all know as Soviets, workers' councillors were thrown up at that time in Russia, unknown before. It wasn't like the workers were told to do it, in other words, extended strike committees. The rule of Russia was convulsed in strikes and uprising and so on and so forth. Therefore, these committees were born out of the struggle. As we perhaps know, Trotsky was made eventually the head of the Petersburg Soviet. It was a great work as a leader at a very young age. I think he was less than 25 years of age. Lenin actually was in exile at that particular time. The division between the Mensheviks and the Valschvist began to crystallise a bit over politics, although they both intervened in the revolution as such. Lenin explained far clearly that he had vision about Lenin. Did he make a mistake? Yes, he probably made a lot of mistakes, but he made far fewer mistakes than most people because he was great understanding of the processes. Therefore, he was able to see, as Trotsky saw actually, that in the Soviets were the embryo of workers' power, of a new workers' state. No one else understood this, but he understood it. In fact, the Valschviks had a sectarian attitude to the Soviets. They thought, oh, we'll walk into the Soviets and we'll declare the party, and if you all agree with the party, then disband in favour of the party. Lenin said, yes, that's crazy. Out to left ideas, if you like. But 905 was a bit of a turning point because it also identified the role of the liberals, if you like, the bourgeoisie in the revolution. Everybody understood that the revolution facing Russia was to break the autocracy, bring in constitutional democracy, create a republic, if you like. It was a bourgeois democratic revolution. It solved the land question because that hadn't really been solved, although the emancipation of the Serbs took place in 1861. It didn't fundamentally alter the fact that the landlords held most of the land. The land question of all these questions were not resolved by the regime, but capitalism had come late into Russia. That was the point. They created these big, huge factories in Petersburg, in Moscow. A working class was created, very small, but very militant and compacted these big, huge factories. Of course, the majority of the population, 150 million, were peasants. And yet, what Lenin explained, and Trotsky also, is that the leadership of the revolution should be in the hands of the working class because the bourgeoisie were now incapable of leading such a revolution. Whereas in the 17th century, the British bourgeois, although it was the petty bourgeois who actually did all the fighting, nevertheless led the revolution in France, likewise. But now, they've come on the scene too late. They were actually hanging on to the court-tales of the landlords and the old regime. They were counter-revolutionary. That's the whole point. Whereas the Manjuics were saying politically, it's a bourgeois revolution. We must support the bourgeoisie. The workers must support the bourgeoisie because it's their revolution. Lenin said, no, the bourgeoisie are counter-revolutionary. They will support the old order. The working class is the only revolutionary class and allied with the peasants to overthrow the regime itself. It came forward with the idea of a democratic dictatorship of proletariat and peasantry. Again, a bit of a mouthful. The idea is that the unity of the peasantry in the working class would carry through the revolution itself. That was a different perspective from the Manjuics who were supporting the bourgeoisie. They were supporting the counter-revolution. Now we see the difference emerging between the two. Trotsky, on the other hand, actually had voted with the minority in 1903, although politically did not support them. He had an independent view saying for an incredible view, which was called the permanent revolution, that the working class should come to power and not just hold power, it should carry through the expropriation of capitalism. As a starting point of a world revolution, this had never been known before. Good God, this was an incredible theory, which was confirmed in 1917 as a matter of fact. Therefore Trotsky, although it wasn't part of Lenin's faction, because that's all it was at this stage, the Bolshev party, by the way, was not created until 1912. They were both part of the Manjuics and the Bolsheviks, were both factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. They did sometimes have their different conferences, their own separate conferences, sometimes they had a unified conference in London in 1907. Well, the church would be knocked down. They had a conference here, a unified conference, Manjuics, Bolsheviks, Trotsky was here, Rosaluxon was here, all I'm saying is, but then the differences emerged and they split apart again. This is a process that takes place a number of years, by the way, where political differences really start to emerge, as we say, between Manjuics and Bolsheviks, but it never started in that way. It took a long time for that to differentiate on political lines. 1905, defeated revolution, terrible conditions, harsh reaction. Of course, the Bolsheviks talked about boycotting the Duma, because he was rotten in favour of the revolution, but now there's an air in the revolution. In fact, there's a terrible reaction leading to people committing suicide even. They were so impacted on them, that they were despair. And the party began to decline. There were ultra-left tendencies emerging in the party. They were idealist tendencies emerging in the Russian Social Democratic Party and also in the Bolsheviks. They made mistakes. They were a bit ultra-left. Lenin explained he shouldn't boycott in a period of downswing. He should use every little aspect to try and put forth your views. Therefore, he was a minority of one, by the way. There were other different tendencies emerging. A liquidationist tendency was called, which was trying to dissolve the illegal part of the party and try and move it on to illegal operation, which is impossible under the conditions taking place. They had to be fought, so there were a lot of struggles within the Bolshevik party. A lot of arguments took place. You had this idea it's a monolithic party on the contrary. Even Lenin was in the majority of one, quite a few occasions. Nevertheless, he was this experience and the enormous difficulties of this counter-revolutionary period that they tried to just hold the thing together, holding the party together, holding the ideas together, defending the ideas. That's why Lenin, yes, he came to London in 1908 to write a book on materialism and imperial criticism. Another lovely title that we often like to quote. But again, against these idealist viewpoint that was emerging in the Bolshevik faction, actually, and Bogdanoff and so on. Lenin was trying to come back and maintain the fundamental correct ideas of Marxism in tactics and in strategy at that particular moment. The party was collapsing by 1910. Basically, there was a hardy left. Such was the collapse of the party. There was very little left of the Bolshevik party. You had to be rebuilt and that came with a revival of the working class in 1911, 1912. In other words, there was a revival of the working class. The Bolsheviks banned to reassess and reconnect and eventually launch a newspaper, Pravda. I thought he robbed it off Trotsky. The name Pravda was launched in 1912 and the Bolshevik party then took the decision, or the faction decided to call itself a party. It would be the party and they would fight for power. They were in a very difficult position because internationally, you know, Rosa Luxemburg, Kautsky, all the other leaders, they supported the Bolsheviks. They supported the Bolsheviks in very, very difficult circumstances to hold out against everybody, but they were conviction with their ideas. Understanding the perspective in line of March, that takes a bold man, a bold person, and that was Lenin and therefore he comes to the realization in 1912, such as the groundwork that they were doing and the revival of the Labour movement that four-fifths of the working class who could read read Pravda were looking towards the Bolsheviks. Quite a remarkable turn around in the situation, all cut across, as we know, by the World War in 1914, the biggest betrayal of international working class in its history where the Marxist leaders, Kautsky, the German party which was held up as a model even by Lenin had betrayed the working class and went to war, decided to vote for the war credit as opposed to those who stood out like Rosa Luxemburg and Carl Liebnick and the movement was shattered because of the World War internationally. In 2015 they had the Zimavall conference and Lenin at the joke that you get all the internationalists of the world into two stagecoaches and that's what it's all about in 1915. The people who supported internationalism, John McClade in Scotland of James Connolly in Ireland, the Bolsheviks of Luxembourg, of Liebnick, of the Serbs, there was a number around, but they were very small and yet they had the perspective the internationalists dead long lived the third international. God, what a bold perspective, that was in the depth of the war. Look, the idea of a new international, a new banner held by a tiny little number of people, my God. Give us a bit of a sense of proportion, doesn't it, about how the greater forces we have in Britain and internationally compared to what was there and yet within two years the Bolsheviks would empower at shows the enormous changes that can take place on the basis of events themselves. But the war was like a dead blanket over the whole movement. Lenin, as we did his philosophical studies and writings as a matter of fact, he sharpened up his theory and so forth and he gave a speech in January 1917 to the young socialists in Switzerland that he, well, you know, the future will be good for the comrades, but I won't see the revolution unfortunately. That was January 1917. One of the reasons of that, a large out of touch, didn't have the internet then, the newspapers went full of the moods of the working class, you didn't know what was happening and particularly in dictatorships you don't know. You know what the real mood is, how it explodes, you know, it's underneath, and suddenly the whole thing blows up in February 1917. The Bolsheviks are 8,000 members at that time, only 8,000. The revolution, the second revolution takes place. Soviets are thrown up again, but the people who will come into the Soviets look to the most well-known figures. They were mainly of the Menshvik leaders and they got a majority in the Soviets at that particular time. The Bolsheviks were a tiny, tiny minority, but nevertheless the whole perspective had to be changed. As I said in 1905 Lenin's position, the Bolsheviks position, was it was a bourgeois revolution led by the working class, but it would have formed a democratic republic. Now he says, towards the conclusion, no, this should be after February, there must be another revolution to continue what's being done to carry out his socialist revolution. In other words, he'd come over to Trotsky's position of permanent revolution. And he had to fight within the party, Lenin had to wage a war, an ideological war at the April conference. He wrote the number of letters to the Bolsheviks, you know, letters from afar, because the Bolsheviks in Russia were making compromises. We're giving in to the pressures of social patriotism and giving too much concessions to the Menshviks and the Democrats and Lenin came back and laid the law down. One thing is very clear, he didn't mess about, you know, and laid the law down politically and argued the case. They thought he was men. They thought he was a bloody Trotskyist, you know, he came back here telling us, we should be talking about a second socialist revolution where we've been preaching in the last 20 years and the democratic revolution and Lenin forcefully argued and won over the ranks, many of the Bolshevik ranks themselves and changed the policy of the Bolshevik party and put it on the road to power after April 1917. And with that, you have the development then of revolution and counter-revolution in that particular year. You know, the enormous successes or the beginnings of successes and the ideas they put forward, it wasn't down with the provincial government because it was a government elected, mainly based on liberals, first of all, but then the social revolution and the Menshviks joined in and Lenin's revolution down with the capitalist ministers, break with these people, carry out a real revolution and it was putting very skillfully, putting arguments forward to undermine the liberals and the reformists to win over and gain a year from the workers themselves who are looking for a way out. In other words, he's skillfully connected with the advanced layers of workers. It's the events, isn't it? July days, the Bolshevik party's thrown underground. They're trying to hunt down Lenin and he's forced to run into exile, you know, to go to Finland. The others arrest. Trotsky joins the Bolshevik party at that time. He brings in 4,000 workers on an organisation called the Mesryonsky and is elected to the Central Committee. Trotsky's a great figure at this time. He was outside the party but comes to the party at this crucial time of the Bolshevik party. Lenin says once he understood about the question of conciliation there was no greater Bolshevik than Trotsky says Lenin. Shows the, again, the statue of this person and it was Lenin and Trotsky leads the revolution because although they win a majority in the Soviets by September in Pedrograd, in Leningrad all a number of other Soviets come over to the Bolsheviks because of the cornwall of uprising and the fact that the Bolsheviks are able to have a united front policy to win over the best workers, which they were successful. They win a majority in the Soviets which is the alternative embryo state, if you like. And then the question of an insurrection is posed at that time. And, of course, there's even an argument over that by October, even Zanoviev and Kamenyef, the leaders who were with Lenin for years and years and years opposed the insurrection and goes to another newspaper to say that they planted an insurrection for Christ's sake, you know? And Lenin's furious, of course, as you can imagine it. But nevertheless they managed the skill of Trotsky to win over not only a bill, rather a military committee in defence of the revolution. They always posed the idea of defending the revolution, absolutely right. Don't send out the troops from Pedrograd. In other words, the whole idea and strategy was now to carry out a successful insurrection which they do on the 25th of October or the 7th of November, which happens to be Trotsky's birthday. It's a great present, I'm sure. And they come to power. And there's a huge congress of the Soviets who are organised and immediately they organise a programme and Lenin puts forward this great speech about we're now going to begin the creation of a world socialist order that the Russian revolution could never exist alone. This is the only opening shot of the world revolution. And that's the beauty of it. This is not a nationalist road to socialism. This is an internationalist view that the revolution in Russia was the spark that the chain of world capitalism was broken at its weakest link. And Lenin epitomised all the experience of that period and concentrated in the building of the Bolshevik party and the need to carry out in words, or rather in deeds, what the words were telling them years ago. That's the great thing about the Bolsheviks. Even Rosa Luxembourg, I can quote it later on, said they did it. They didn't talk about it, they did it. That's the great contribution of Bolshevism and it's a worldwide phenomenon. They come to power, Lenin issues a series of decrees on land, on peace, on workers' control, on the right of nations and self-determination. He tries to put down markers because they don't know what the situation is going to have. They're still in the war. The Germans are still very much on the offensive against Russia. And now, of course, the revolution, when the bourgeoisie recognised what has happened, that the Bolsheviks have come to power, and this is not like another socialist government. On the contrary, it's a huge threat to them. So they embarked. 21 foreign armies invaded Russia in order to destroy the revolution. And of course, inside Russia as well, first of all, I'm going again, I'm going to take a history lesson about Russia as well as Lenin, unfortunately, and you can't deal with every single aspect. But of course, inside Russia as well, we have those who are ultra-left, the left social revolutionaries. We think there should be a revolutionary war. It doesn't matter what the consequences are. Lenin said, no, we have to conserve the forces and appeal for revolution abroad. That's what Trotsky was trying to do with the negotiations in Breslautov. Appeal to the German workers. Have a revolution, have a revolution. But it didn't come until the following November and November 1918 when the German workers rolled up. You had the beginnings of the world revolution. And therefore, what is created then is not just the Bolshevik party, but the whole perspective of a world revolution and the idea of a third international takes shape. In March 1919, all the Congress to establish the first Congress of the Communist International, the third international. At this time, it becomes a mass force. Communism becomes a grip now. And parties are created. The Social Democratic Party is splitting. And huge Communist parties are created. Huge mass Communist parties for the first time come on to the stage. You think this is it now, this is going to the opportunity. And the Congresses of the International were a school because the Bolsheviks had a huge experience of 20 years of underground work, of education of development. People in the West in Britain didn't have that, so they had to be schooled. They had to learn quickly because of the events. That was the idea. A university, if you like, of the working class was the Communist International. Of course, yes, the army, they defeated the Civil War. And yes, there was a red terror. That's true. In order to fight the white terror of the capitalist counter-revolution itself. Of course, all these writers, oh, look at Lenin, oh, bloodthirsty. They were fighting the bloody Civil War. They had to fight for their lives if they had lost it. They'd all be strung up on the linear slump post. And these petty bourgeois journalists, these petty bourgeois apologists, then took over the crimes, the crimes. Not the crimes of imperialism, because that's what the reality was. They sent the armies to overthrow the Russian state. And as we know, they were defeated. They were defeated, but Russia was in a very bad way. In 1921, 1922, industry was shattered. The whole thing was collapsing in Petrograd and Moscow. Half the population went to starving, went back to the villages to get food. The whole thing was in their hell of a state. Of course, then we had the rise of a bureaucracy. The officials started to get back. The only way out of this dilemma, as Lenin explained, was world revolution. There was always the perspective. Unfortunately, the revolutions were betrayed in Germany, in France and other countries. The Communist Party were strong enough at that stage. And therefore, unfortunately, you had the isolation of the Russian Revolution. And with that, the growth of Stalinism. Lenin dies in 1924. The last struggle he conducts in 1922, before he's paralyzed, is a bloc with Trotsy against rising bureaucracy within the Soviet Union itself. And where he puts out the need to remove Stalin from office. And the need to... The last testament is worth reading. To show the balance sheet and so on and so forth. But as I've run out of time, as you know, I've looked through it like an express train. A fast express, right through the history of the Russian Revolution. And therefore, you can't do adjusted Lenin's role and Lenin's ability and Lenin's ideas. Is what, I haven't got the... I've got the 45 volumes in English. I must admit I haven't read them all. I've read quite a few. 45 volumes of the work of this genius, if you like, applying it to all different... all different situations. That's the theory that we want. That's the whole essence. In order for us to create a successful revolution, we have to absorb the ideas of Lenin, as well as the other great Marxists as well. And therefore, I hope I've given a little bit of a flavour. A little teeny bit in order to wet your appetite. To read the literature we've created. I brought out Ted and Alan's book of Lenin Trotsky, what they really stood for again. Well, if you haven't got it, you should get that. The Russianism, another book of Ted's book of Russia from revolution to counterrevolution. Comrades, we are the Leninists. We have the future. Let's go for it.