The door to the backroom of The Crown and Anchor closed with a soft, final click, shutting out the raucous din of the pub and sealing Jake in a hazy, smoke-filled world. The air was thick with the smells of cheap Russian tobacco, pipe smoke, and damp wool coats. For a moment, no one spoke. The men around the table simply observed him, their faces a gallery of historical portraits come to life, their eyes sharp, analytical, and deeply intimidating.
Jake recognized them all. It was like a nightmare seminar from his past life as a history teacher. Grigory Zinoviev, his face fleshy and his eyes restless, a man known for his powerful oratory and wavering convictions. Lev Kamenev, more scholarly and cautious, peering at him over a pair of spectacles. And a half-dozen others, the sergeants and lieutenants of the Bolshevik high command. He was in a room with the men who would one day rule a sixth of the world, and they were all looking at him, a minor gangster from the provinces, with undisguised, probing curiosity.
At the head of the table, Vladimir Lenin gestured to the empty chair. "Sit, Comrade Stalin," he said, his voice devoid of warmth. It was not an invitation; it was a command.
Jake took the seat, his movements careful and deliberate. He placed his hands on the table, forcing them to remain steady. He was acutely aware that he was being judged, measured, and dissected. The man who had faced down Okhrana agents and orchestrated executions found that this quiet, intellectual scrutiny was by far the most terrifying ordeal of his new life.
Lenin did not bother with pleasantries. He took a drag from a cheap cigarette and leaned forward, his eyes, like chips of dark, intelligent flint, fixing on Jake. "Your letter was… compelling," he began, the word hanging in the air, neither a compliment nor an insult. "But letters are paper. The situation in the Caucasus is blood and oil. Report. The split with the Mensheviks. Is it as complete as the reports suggest?"
The examination had begun. It was not a friendly chat. It was a grilling, a test to see if the man in the chair matched the man in the letter.
Jake met Lenin's gaze, his mind racing. He had to be more than just a source of facts. He had to be an analyst. "It is functionally complete, Comrade Ulyanov," Jake said, his voice a low, steady baritone. "We share meeting halls out of necessity, but ideologically, we are on opposite sides of a chasm. They still dream of a bourgeois-democratic phase. They seek alliances with the Kadets. They believe history can be politely negotiated with." He allowed a hint of the disdain he knew Lenin felt to color his words.
"And our people?" Lenin pressed. "What is the mood of the oil workers in Baku? Are they organized?"
This was a direct test of his practical knowledge. "Their mood is angry, but their organization is poor," Jake replied without hesitation, drawing on the reports he had absorbed in his weeks of consolidation. "The companies use ethnic divisions to keep them weak—Armenians against Azeris, Russians against both. Our cells are present, but they are too focused on party doctrine. They are failing to connect with the workers' immediate, material grievances."
He saw a flicker of interest in Lenin's eyes. He was not just spouting dogma; he was identifying a practical failure.
"For example," Jake continued, pressing his advantage, "the railway workers in Tbilisi. A key strategic asset. Yet they are overwhelmingly loyal to the Mensheviks. Why?" He paused, posing the question to himself before answering it. "Because we, the Bolsheviks, appeal to their long-term class consciousness. We speak of a future proletarian state, of the dialectical necessity of revolution. The Mensheviks, however, appeal to their short-term craft identity. They organize within the guild. They speak of better wages next month, of safer working conditions next week. We are selling them a paradise in the future. They are offering them a slightly less hellish present."
He leaned forward, his own passion for the strategic problem making his performance utterly convincing. "Our grand strategy is correct, of course. But we must prove that it offers more tangible short-term benefits than their reformist compromises. We must not just lead the strikes; we must win them. We must show the workers, with bread and kopeks, that our methods are superior. Theory is not enough. We must deliver results."
This was the language Lenin understood. The unity of theory and practice. What is to be done? He was, in effect, quoting the spirit of Lenin's own future writings back to the man who would author them, framing his practical experiences in the Caucasus within a theoretical framework he knew the master would approve of.
Zinoviev, who had been listening with a skeptical frown, interjected. "Results? The only results we hear from the Caucasus are of bank robberies. Expropriations. It is simple banditry masquerading as revolution."
The accusation was sharp, a direct attack on Jake's reputation. Before Jake could reply, Lenin waved a dismissive hand. "A party at war needs a war chest," Lenin said, his voice cutting. "I am more interested in the results of Comrade Stalin's security operations. Tell us of the traitor Orlov."
This was the true test. He had to describe his brutal, unilateral purge in a way that sounded not like a gangster consolidating his turf, but like a disciplined revolutionary protecting the party.
"Orlov was a symptom of a disease," Jake said, his voice dropping, becoming colder. "The party in Tbilisi was sentimental. It valued old friendships over ideological purity. Orlov exploited this. He was protected by a culture of laxity." He recounted the events—the discovery of the treachery, the emergency meeting, the execution—in a flat, clinical, and brutally honest tone. He omitted his own manipulations, of course, framing it as a straightforward counter-intelligence victory.
"There was no time for a trial," he concluded. "The Okhrana were hours away from liquidating our entire armed wing. To hesitate, to engage in a prolonged debate, would have been an act of criminal sentimentality. The cancer had to be excised before it killed the patient. So I excised it."
He said the final words without apology, without bravado. He stated it as a simple, necessary fact.
The room was silent. He had just confessed to a summary execution, an act that flew in the face of all party protocol, and he had framed it as the highest form of revolutionary duty.
Lenin leaned back, a cloud of smoke obscuring his face for a moment. When it cleared, his expression was one of intense, analytical concentration. He was not looking at a thug. He was looking at a man who saw the world in the same cold, pragmatic, and unsentimental terms as he did. A man who was willing to do the dirty, necessary work without flinching.
"Correct," Lenin said, the single word an absolution and an endorsement.
Jake felt a profound, internal sense of release. He had survived. He had passed the examination. He had proven he was not just a letter, not just a gangster, but a man with a mind that the leaders of the revolution could understand and, more importantly, use.
But as the general discussion shifted to the logistics of the upcoming Party Congress, a new voice, quiet until now, cut through the smoke. It was a voice laced with a subtle, almost musical irony, a voice that dripped with intellectual arrogance.
"Your analysis is sharp, comrade from the Caucasus," the man said. Jake turned to see a figure he had not paid much attention to, a man with a shock of wild, dark hair, intense eyes, and a sharply pointed goatee. It was Leon Trotsky.
"But it is the analysis of a good manager," Trotsky continued, a slight, condescending smile playing on his lips. "A policeman of the party. You speak of security, of results, of efficiency. These are the virtues of an administrator." He leaned forward, his eyes glinting. "But the revolution also needs poets. It needs prophets. It needs men who can not only manage the present, but who can see the shape of the future. Tell us, comrade. What is your grand vision?"
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