Sell Us The Rope, May - B+

                      This fascinating novel is an imagining of the famous 1907 Russian Labour Congress  held in London and attended by Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Litvinov, Gorky, Rosa Luxemburg and Elli Vuokko, along with hundreds of other socialists. Vuokko is a teenage Finn of vast talents and good looks, who catches the eye of the Georgian known as Koba. Luxemburg encourages Elli to have a fling with the brooding Stalin, who eyes all around him with great suspicion. Justifiably so, as Lenin orchestrates a tricky entrapment to link Stalin to the Okhrana, which Stalin sees before he is caught. 

                     The background insights into Stalin and Luxembourg are enlightening. The vivid descriptions of London's poverty, hopelessness, congestion and despair are on par with Dickens. Stalin's alleged connection to the Okhrana is based on a very slim reed that has never been confirmed in over a century. As we know, Koba ruled the USSR in a three decade reign of terror and is considered one of history's great monsters. The two women did not last long in Europe's caldron at the end of WWI. Vuokko was murdered by White Guards in Finland's 1918 Civil War. Luxembourg was murdered by a paramilitary unit in Berlin in 1919.