The door closed with a soft click, sealing Jake inside the smoke-filled backroom of The Crown and Anchor. The noise of the pub faded to a distant murmur. In its place came the low crackle of cheap cigarettes, the hum of whispered breaths, and the oppressive weight of tension. The air was thick—tobacco, damp wool, revolution.
Half a dozen men watched him in silence, their faces half-hidden by haze. Jake recognized all of them. Zinoviev with his restless eyes. Kamenev, calm and analytic behind round spectacles. Others whose names he had once memorized for exams—lieutenants of a revolution that hadn't happened yet. And at the head of the table sat Vladimir Lenin.
"Sit, Comrade Stalin," Lenin said—not unkindly, but with absolute authority.
Jake obeyed, steadying his hands on the table. He had faced Okhrana agents and ordered men to their deaths, but this was different. These minds were scalpels. This room was an operating table.
Lenin leaned through the haze, studying him with bright, hard eyes. "Your letter was compelling," he said. "But letters are theory. I deal in facts. This split with the Mensheviks—how real is it?"
The test began.
Jake drew a slow breath. "It's complete, Comrade Ulyanov. We still share halls, but the ideology is beyond repair. They cling to the bourgeois phase, dreaming of alliances with Kadets. They think history can be negotiated."
Lenin's gaze stayed fixed. "And the oil workers in Baku? Organized?"
A trap. Testing field knowledge.
Jake didn't hesitate. "Angry, but scattered. Companies pit Armenian against Azeri, Russian against both. The Mensheviks exploit it well. They feed the workers bread while we feed them theory. We must give both."
Lenin's eyes sharpened with interest.
Jake continued, voice low and certain. "The railway workers in Tbilisi are the same. The Mensheviks promise safer hours and higher wages. We promise historical destiny. The revolution must first prove it can change tomorrow—not just grandchildren's futures."
For a heartbeat the room stilled. He had spoken Lenin's language—vision fused with practical force.
Then Zinoviev sneered. "Action? Your Caucasus comrades call it banditry. Expropriations, robberies—ideology painted over crime."
Before Jake could respond, Lenin cut in with a sharp gesture. "A party at war needs weapons," he said coldly. "And war costs money." He turned back to Jake. "Tell us about Orlov."
The room leaned in. This was the real trial.
Jake straightened. "Orlov was rot in the bone. He hid behind old friendships, using the party's sentimentality as cover. When I confirmed his treachery, the Okhrana was hours from ending us. We didn't have time for debate."
He let the silence stretch. "The infection had to be cut out. So I cut it."
Flat. Controlled. Ruthless.
The silence that followed was dense. Even Zinoviev looked uneasy.
Lenin leaned back, a faint smile flickering. "Correct."
One word—but enough. Jake felt air return to his lungs. He had passed. Not just as a minor organizer, but as someone worthy of the table.
The discussion shifted to logistics, but Jake barely heard. His attention snapped back only when a new voice spoke—smooth, ironic, edged with arrogance.
"Sharp analysis, comrade from the Caucasus," the man said.
Jake turned. Wild hair. Intelligent eyes. The unmistakable goatee.
Leon Trotsky.
"You think like a manager," Trotsky continued. "Efficient. Disciplined. A policeman of the revolution." His smile was thin. "But revolutions are not managed—they are imagined. Tell us, comrade: what is your vision?"
A challenge. A dagger.
Eyes turned to Jake—especially Lenin's. Facts wouldn't shield him. He needed a future. A prophecy.
Zinoviev spoke first, launching into his practical proposal. "We must concentrate on the industrial heartlands—Petersburg, Moscow. Win the factory committees, and we win Russia."
Trotsky scoffed. "Peasant thinking. Alone, Russia will be crushed by Europe. Germany is the key. Revolution must be international, or it dies."
Lenin turned to Jake. "Comrade Stalin. Where do we strike?"
Safe answers waited. Jake took neither path.
"Comrades," he said softly, "you are all looking at the wrong map."
The room stilled.
"You study the map of 1907," he said. "Factories, borders, today's alignments. We must study the map of 1914."
A meaningless number to them. A loaded gun to him.
Jake nodded to Zinoviev. "The industrial centers matter." Then to Trotsky. "And the international wave is our end goal." He leaned forward. "But both will be reshaped by a conflict that is not about class at all."
Eyes narrowed.
"Britain fears Germany's fleet. The Kaiser fears encirclement. Austria fears Serbia. The Balkans are a powder keg. These contradictions will explode—in steel, not pamphlets."
He wasn't debating. He was foretelling.
"There will be a war," Jake said calmly. "Not a limited one. An inferno. It will devour a generation. Millions of Russian peasants will die in trenches for the Tsar. And there, in the mud, their faith in the Little Father will break."
Horror flickered across the room.
"Our true recruiting ground," Jake continued, "is not today's factory. It is tomorrow's trench."
A breathless silence fell. Shock. Fear. Fascination.
"Our priority must be the army. Quiet infiltration. Cells in key regiments. Pamphlets addressing officers' cruelty, pay, land—not abstract theory. When the imperialist war begins and the state is weakest, we turn their guns. Not at German workers—but at the Romanovs."
His final words were a whisper, sharp as a blade.
"That is our real objective."
No one spoke. The air had changed. He hadn't just contributed—he had redrawn the battlefield and the century.
Trotsky stared, arrogance replaced by unwilling respect.
Lenin leaned in, fingers white on the table's edge, eyes burning.
"Explain this 'inevitable war,'" Lenin said quietly. "Explain it from the beginning. In detail."
Jake had won the room.
Now he had to defend a prophecy that only a time traveler could know.