On the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, paeans to the conquering Bolsheviks will be sung. But why? Why do so many Marxists and “leftists” still identify with the totalitarian and bureaucratic monster built on the backs and graves of the Russian working class? Could “victory” have been worth the price? The seeds of the Bolshevik dictatorship were sprouting in 1917 and the harvest still haunts us today.

Bloodstained doesn’t only force us to reckon with the past but it demands we think more carefully about freedom, social change, and what we mean when we advocate a new society. The defense of history's obscene Leninist enterprises, once categorized as “actually existing socialism,” ends here. No more velvet-gloved hagiography. No more Lenins.