When Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik party led the first successful workers revolution in history, they were under no illusions that their work was finished with the overthrow of capitalism in Russia. As the fledgling workers' state was gripped by a civil war, the revolution's leaders remained steadfast in their commitment to spreading their successes across all of Europe.

Tony Cliff (1917–2000) spent his life developing revolutionary Marxism against Stalinism. From his early days as a revolutionary in British-occupied Palestine to the high points of struggle in post-war Britain, Cliff worked to restore lost ideas and traditions and fan the flames of resistance.