R.H. Bruce Lockhart was a British Government agent in Russia before and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. His first-hand experiences and lucid observations, published in 1932 as a book entitled Memoirs of a British Agent, provide a fascinating account of the Russian Revolution and its key characters.

On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, for those interested in understanding the causes, events and consequences of October 1917, there are dozens of books and articles to get stuck into. The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution by Robert Service, according to Ben Gliniecki, is not one of them.

On 16th April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia in the midst of the Revolution. Lenin’s return marked a turning point for the Bolshevik Party – the beginning of a process of politically preparing the party for the seizure of power by the working class. We republish here an extract from Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution about the political rearming of the Bolsheviks.