Josh Ireland

He's the sort of person that...

It gets incredibly cross when people swear in front of children or tell like rude stories in front of children or women.

But at the same time, I think he does have an eye for women.

I mean, this will become a sort of a feature later in his story.

And suddenly everything's up for grabs.

It's a disaster for the Russian Empire.

I mean, it's been badly led for decades by a weak, indecisive, incompetent Tsar, Nicholas II.

Yeah.

And eventually, after sort of the death of millions, a wasteful death of millions and the collapse of the economy in 1917, there's a revolution.

And it's not the revolution that Bolsheviks expected.

And in fact, they're also surprised by that none of them are in

in Russia.

Lenin is in Switzerland.

Trotsky is in the United States.

And so all of them are desperate to get there.

Lenin is famously taken in the train by the Germans.

It's so virus-like.

This is a basilisk we're going to drop into the Empire.

Well, they kind of are, and they aren't, because then, quite quickly, Lenin has to go to Finland to avoid arrest.

So there's this brief window of a liberal, free, sort of near-democracy in Russia, and it looks like maybe Russia's going to have a sort of different future, that maybe it's going to resemble its neighbours, like, no, not neighbours, its continental neighbours.