Labour is a party of amateur historians. To understand Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, you had to appreciate their obsession with American politics, and their deities among 20th century Democratic presidents: FDR, JFK, LBJ and William Jefferson Clinton.

To understand Jeremy Corbyn and his cohorts, you have to appreciate their obsession with the history of Marxist revolutions. They take their cues not from dead presidents, but Ho Chi Minh, Samora Machel and Fidel Castro.

That is not in itself a bad thing. You can learn as much about successful leadership from those characters as you can from reading Robert Caro, LBJ’s biographer. But it explains why – for all the indifference that Corbyn and co appear to be showing to the need to persuade the public to vote for them in five years’ time – they are operating with relentless and at times brutal efficiency in their efforts to seize control of the Labour party’s internal machinery.

Unite the union is not terrorising Labour party staff and MPs | Letter from Jennie Formby, political director of Unite Read more

It explains why Corbyn has been willing to appoint only true believers to his key shadow cabinet and inner circle jobs, and is allowing Unite the union to terrorise the party’s staff and MPs like a homage to the Bolsheviks’ NKVD secret police.

Why? Because, as any good Marxist knows, you must secure your revolution against the enemies within – including the temptation to dilute the purity of your principles and policies – before there is any chance of taking on your enemies without.

Secure the revolution, silence all internal opposition, eliminate any disloyal elements, they tell themselves, and then we will have the strength and unity to take the fight to the Tories, the media and the public. If that strategy seems hopelessly misplaced and outdated, remember that it is only 15 years since the last successful socialist revolution in Britain, Ken Livingstone’s seizure of the London mayoralty.

That success obsesses the Corbyn inner circle more than any other, not least because most of them were part of it – and Livingstone, their spiritual father, is no longer just advising behind the scenes, but taking a formal role within the Corbyn team, and creating trademark controversy in the process.

Livingstone’s 2000 victory in London tells them that a seemingly unfashionable, far-left maverick can command popular support in defiance of his own party, the media and the bourgeois establishment, simply by speaking his mind and sticking to his principles.

It’s a good theory, but it comes with grave dangers. The Livingstone who won as an independent in 2000 and as the Labour candidate in 2004 was the same Ken who lost badly in 2008 and 2012. In 2008 we told ourselves that the media assault on Livingstone and the toff factor with Boris Johnson would play in Labour’s favour in terms of driving turnout among working class voters in inner-city London.

Ken Livingstone says sorry over 'psychiatric help' comments Read more

As it transpired, we were swamped by the size of the vote for Johnson from London’s suburbs, totally alienated by fears that Livingstone would increase their taxes and extend the congestion charge, as well as wanting to signal their anti-Labour sentiment at the nadir of Gordon Brown’s administration. The same pattern repeated itself in 2012: all the more crushing in the wake of the omnishambles budget, with Labour 10 points ahead in the national opinion polls.

As Corbyn and his inner circle attempt to repeat the Livingstone story, with the man himself now part of the team, Labour supporters are entitled to ask: which story are we actually repeating: the runaway success of 2000, or the dismal failure of 2012?

We will soon find out, with 5 May 2016 is looming large in the calendar: another potential bloodbath for Labour in the Scottish elections; hundreds of council seats in England up for grabs; and most significantly, Sadiq Khan and Zac Goldsmith fighting out the London mayoral election. If Labour loses London, it will be because once again the suburbs have trumped the inner city, and Khan will waste no time in putting the blame on Corbyn’s absence of appeal to those middle-income voters.

That is exactly what Livingstone did when he lost in 2008, blaming Gordon Brown’s unpopularity, and nearly triggering his downfall the following weekend. Livingstone’s former advisers may get a taste of their own medicine if Khan loses next May.

If he does, I confidently predict Corbyn will be gone within a week. He is a fine and decent man, and he will jump before he is pushed. If he doesn’t, the pushing will not take long.

After that, who knows? But we can guarantee one thing. Somewhere, in the corner of a darkened coffee house, Corbyn’s acolytes will debate where their revolution went wrong, and they will reach the only, inevitable conclusion that Marxists always reach: “We weren’t revolutionary enough”. This is how it always ends.