Sheila Fitzpatrick
Is there a lesson to be drawn from the Russian Revolution at its centenary? “Try again. Fail again. Fail better,” is the word from Marxist provocateur Slavoj Žižek, channelling “Lenin at his Beckettian best.” Author China Miéville is similarly downbeat, identifying the lesson as the recognition that “things changed once, and they might do so again.” Those are the friendly assessments from the left.