“Freedom is the goal, and struggle is the method”, says Lucy Dias, a university student and revolutionary activist from the organisation Liberdade e Luta (Freedom and Struggle), “but there can’t be real freedom under capitalism”. We’re sitting, along with 1500 other young socialists and political activists, in a vast warehouse in the old port district of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Defiant slogans decorate the walls and the building is awash with militant singing and lively drum beats. This is an international camp for young people who want to fight for their future, organised by Juntos!, a broad youth organisation. Here, there’s no doubt that spirit of freedom and struggle is universal.

When the Russian Revolution broke out in early 1917, Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov – better known as Lenin – the leader of the Bolshevik faction of the RSDLP, was exiled in Zurich, Switzerland. As the first reports arrived of these extraordinary events, Lenin’s excitement was coupled with exasperation that he himself was separated from them by thousands of miles. “I am beside myself that I cannot go to Scandinavia!!” he complained bitterly, in a letter to his friend Inessa Armand. “I will not forgive myself for not risking the journey in 1915!”