How did a single wayward intellectual become the father of the Soviet Union? This program examines the unlikely alignment of forces that enabled Lenin to return from exile and to take power over a vast nation fully engaged in a world war. With the help of rarely seen archival clips, photographs, and artworks, the film guides viewers through developments that anticipated the October Revolution, the milestones of the revolution itself, and the roles played by Kerensky, Gorky, Trotsky, and other allies and enemies of the Bolshevik government. Attention is also given to the uneasy and eventually doomed alliance between Russia’s avant-garde and Lenin’s cultural initiatives. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (54 minutes)