It is often forgotten that the October Revolution, the Spartacist rising, or the foundation of the Chinese Communist Party are all events within living memory. The targets of Lenin’s polemic in ‘Left-wing Communism’ are not all dead. Even the editor of Pravda whose line was implicitly repudiated by his ‘April Theses’ is still alive. The events and struggles and debates which formed the political consciousness of revolutionaries in the twenties and thirties—and which remain of such central relevance to politics today—can be discussed with participants. Yet the Left—despite the importance it habitually attaches to the experience of this past, both as a source of historical analogy and as the material base upon which classical revolutionary positions have been hammered out—has too often neglected this precious and dwindling inheritance of memory. At best, it has concentrated exclusively upon the great names—and erratically, at that. Of course, the account of past events given by major participants, in memoirs or interviews, can be invaluable. But the testimony of less central figures is often equally illuminating—and may at times even be more reliable.