Paper trail of 1917 Russian Revolution on display in London

Intriguing insights into Russia’s 1917 Revolution are on display in a new exhibition at the British Library. As part of events to mark the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s Bolsheviks coming to power, the library focuses on the paper trail surrounding the revolution. Just one example is a letter to the library from Vladimir Lenin when he was living in London. Susan Reed, the exhibition co-curator, said: “He (Lenin) applied in 1902 when he was first living in London as an exile to get a reader’s ticket. “He applied under the pseudonym ‘Jacob Richter’ because he wanted to keep under the radar of the Tsarist secret police and in indeed of the nascent British secret services, which were monitoring Russian political exiles at the time. “He said he was studying ‘the land question.’” Among other items on display is a rare first edition of the Communist Manifesto, published in London in 1848. The exhibition, which is called Hope, Tragedy and Myths, also includes propaganda posters, photographs, banners, uniforms and archive film. It runs until the end of August this year.