Drawn in by its name, a new layer of revolutionary activists are joining the Young Communist League. But instead of educating members in Marxism, the YCL focusses its energies on stunts. We need to steel ourselves in the genuine ideas of Lenin.

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR. The most powerful deformed workers’ state was collapsing into chaos as supposed communists were looting the state and its assets. The workers of the Soviet Union had to pay the price.

Today is the 80th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War Two. This bloody catastrophe, which claimed the lives of almost 5m Soviet troops and saw the Nazis plunge deep into Soviet territory, was facilitated by the wrecking behaviour of Stalin and the bureaucracy.