We remember all those thousands of genuine Communists who perished in Stalin’s camps, butchered simply for defending the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. Old Bolsheviks like Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin were forced to confess to crimes they had not committed. These famous victims were only the tip of the iceberg. Not remembered are the thousands of Trotskyists who languished in brutal concentration camps. They were brave and defiant to the end.

The 9th January (22th January in the Gregorian calendar) marks the centenary of one of the greatest events of the twentieth century. The stormy events of 1905 formed the majestic prologue to the revolutionary drama of 1917, and were described famously by Lenin as the “dress rehearsal” for the October revolution. Revolution puts parties and individuals to the acid test and clarifies programmes, ideas and perspectives. In reality, the success of 1917 was due in very large measure to the experience acquired by the generation in the 1905 revolution.

On March 22 and 29, in two parts, the British Channel Five TV showed a documentary on the Russian Revolution entitled The Russian Revolution in Colour. Far from being an objective account of the events that took place in 1917, it belongs to that long series of cheap misrepresentation of historical fact. Its purpose is to present the revolution as a cunning plot of Lenin and the Bolsheviks intent on imposing a bloody dictatorship on the Russian masses. But as Lenin always said, "the truth is always concrete". Nadim al-Mahjoub looks at the distortions and lies and puts the record straight.

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  1. The Russian Revolution of 1905 - The Dress Rehearsal for October

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