The air inside the Congress hall felt dense, like it could crush the breath out of the room. Every delegate knew this was no ordinary vote. The dry, technical words on the agenda — democratic centralism, party discipline, factional rights — were masks for something far more primal. Power.
A victory for Lenin would mean a party forged into a weapon: sharp, centralized, and lethal.
A victory for Martov's Mensheviks would mean debate, consensus, and paralysis.
Leon Trotsky stood slowly, every eye in the hall following him. He was magnetic, poised between two worlds — the idealist and the tactician, the dreamer and the general. He let the silence stretch until it hurt, until even the scraping of boots ceased. His gaze swept the room, meeting Lenin's steel stare, then Martov's hopeful one. His face revealed nothing.
When he finally spoke, his tone was measured and surgical.
"Comrades," he began, "we have spent weeks debating the structure of our movement. We have heard those who call for a broad, democratic party — a noble dream." He paused just long enough for the Mensheviks to lift their heads. Then: "And we have heard those who call for discipline — for a vanguard ready to act when history demands. A hard, necessary truth."
He started pacing, hands behind his back. His voice gathered weight. "Some of you see this as a battle between freedom and tyranny. Between the soul of the revolution and the machinery of power. You are wrong. That is a fantasy for poets."
Jake sat quietly in the back, watching the performance unfold with a mix of awe and grim satisfaction. Trotsky wasn't crossing the floor; he was giving his followers a reason to believe that following Lenin was the logical, even moral, choice. It was genius — a mask over a deal struck in fog.
"The question," Trotsky went on, "is not what kind of party we want, but what kind of party can win. The Okhrana does not debate before it strikes. The Tsar's army does not vote before it fires. To fight a disciplined enemy with a disorganized committee is not democracy — it is suicide."
The hall was silent except for the faint creak of wooden benches.
"Paralysis," he said, voice cutting like a knife, "is the real enemy of revolution. Endless debate, factional vanity — that is what will destroy us. We need unity. We need motion. We need a sword, not a seminar."
He raised his head, eyes burning. "I vote for a party that can win."
He sat down. The words hung in the air like the strike of a bell.
The hall erupted into murmurs. Martov's face drained of color. Lenin's remained still, but the faintest twitch of his jaw betrayed relief — or disbelief.
The chairman banged his gavel. "Delegates, prepare for the final vote!"
One by one, the blocs stood to declare their allegiance. The Bolsheviks voted for the statutes. The Mensheviks voted against. The Bundists abstained. It came down to Trotsky's faction — the smallest group, but the one that would decide everything.
"The delegation from Ekaterinoslav votes with Comrade Trotsky… for the statutes."
"The delegation from Odessa… for the statutes."
Each declaration struck like a hammer blow. When the count was finished, Lenin's platform had passed — by only a handful of votes.
For a moment, no one moved. Then, the Bolshevik side erupted. Cheers. Laughter. Shouts of triumph.
Across the aisle, Martov's men stood in fury. "This is no victory!" Martov shouted, his voice breaking. "This is a coup! A conspiracy! You have hijacked the party!"
He turned to his followers, trembling with rage. "We will not stand for this Bonapartist farce! Come — we walk out!"
And they did. A flood of angry voices, echoing under the vaulted ceiling, marching toward irrelevance.
Jake watched them go. The Mensheviks had not only lost the vote — they had surrendered the battlefield. The Congress, and the future of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, now belonged to Lenin.
That night, the celebration filled a rented room above a London pub. The air was thick with smoke and victory. Lenin, usually grave and tight-lipped, was smiling — genuinely smiling — as comrades crowded him with congratulations.
He found Jake by the window, half in shadow. "Koba," he said warmly, using the Georgian name with newfound respect. "I watched you through this whole Congress. While the rest of us argued, you built alliances. You solved problems. You delivered a miracle."
Lenin's eyes gleamed. "Tell me — how did you do it? How did you turn Trotsky?"
Jake met his gaze. The lie came easily, practiced and clean. "Trotsky is ambitious," he said. "I didn't appeal to his ideals. I showed him how those ideals die without discipline — and without funding."
Lenin barked a laugh, full of approval. "Excellent. You turned his vanity into reason. You are a man of iron, Koba. You understand what most intellectuals forget — that ideas are useless without hands to shape them. You are the kind of man this revolution needs."
The praise hit harder than expected. In another life, Jake Vance had been an invisible man — a teacher, respected but unremarkable. Here, in the storm of history, he was necessary. The cold mask of Stalin no longer felt like a disguise. It was fitting him like armor — and it gleamed.
He inclined his head. "I serve the party, Vladimir Ilyich."
Lenin clasped his shoulder, smiling, and moved on.
Jake left soon after. The laughter and shouting faded behind him as he returned to his small, rented room. On his desk waited a stack of coded messages from Tbilisi. The Congress was over. The real work — the dangerous, dirty work — was waiting.
He set to decoding. The letters from Kamo were matter-of-fact: reports on arms purchases, surveillance, logistics. Then one line stopped him cold.
The boy Giorgi is still with us. Ran messages during the Tiflis affair. Brave, quiet. Follows orders. I'll find a use for him.
Jake froze.
Giorgi. The boy from the ambush — the trembling child with blood on his arm, who had stared at Jake as the trap closed. The one he'd used as bait.
He'd told himself the boy was gone — disappeared into the chaos. But here he was, alive, still in Kamo's orbit. Still caught in the machinery Jake had built.
And "find a use" — Jake knew what that meant. A courier. A bomb-carrier. An expendable life in a war that devoured its own children.
The triumph of London, the thrill of Lenin's praise — all of it drained out of him. The armor cracked. The ghosts rushed in.
Jake stared at the paper, his hands trembling. For the first time since coming to this world, he felt something that wasn't strategy or power or victory. He felt horror.
Because the boy was still alive.
And Jake knew exactly how the machine he'd built would destroy him.