Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky & Co. in London, 1907

This former factory gate in Islington, now an entrance to a park, is across the road from the onetime location of a church which had a fascinating connection with the Russian Revolution – Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Gorky, Litvinov & Rosa Luxemburg visited the area in 1907 for the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party, held at the Brotherhood Church, a Fabian socialist institute, which once stood on Southgate Road, London N1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLgGpQPrj4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ddp3uq8v5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPel60DwDhE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_ywvwV1J3o

I recently uploaded these clips from the BBC4 programme Watching The Russians – apologies for the atrocious sound quality and wobbly picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ltmuseum/3490967121/

The Brotherhood Church (it must have been some idealistic but naive man of the cloth who took the booking for the red revolutionay congress!)

Lenin & Co. at the Brotherhood Church – this was the congress at which the Bolsheviks gained the upper hand on the Mensheviks

8th June 1934: Sheer man power is used to pull down the remaining walls of the Southgate Road Brotherhood Church in Islington, London.