Lenin, Stalin and Trostky were here

Lenin, Stalin and Trostky were here, originally uploaded by louisberk.

Fulbourne Street in Whitechapel holds a particular fascination for me. Many (many!) years ago when I was studying for my History A'Level I came across the story of the Lenin's frequent visits to London between 1902 and 1911. I specifically remember a description of an annual congress of the forerunner to the Communist Party being held in the East End in 1905 and a description of Stalin, Trotsky, Gorky, Litvinov and Rosa Luxembourg being present. If I recall correctly one of the activities was rudimentary weapons training which took place in Epping Forest!

I never really got to the bottom of the story until I began to work in Whitechapel, 30 years later. When researching the background for my book "Walk to Work", I came across notes to several guided walks around Whitechapel which identified two buildings as being the site for 1905 meeting. Both were in Fulbourne Street. Looking at the architecture and considering the veracity of the writers (including Professor William Fishman, a world authority on East End radical history) it appears that the meeting took place in a non-descript victorian shopfront building on the southern end of Fulbourne Street, which can be seen in the distance of my picture.

It never ceases to fascinate me that you can follow in the footsteps of some of the most significant (and often infamous) individuals of 20th Century history when walking around the East End, especially Spitalfields and Whitechapel.

Of course, it is easy to romanticise the events of 1905. The sad truth is that the Russian people only replaced one repressive autocratic regime with another and even today one wonders whether there is true democracy in Russia.

You will also notice in the picture that the foreground contains a bollard with the words "Chtch Middx 1818". This is a parish boundary marker for the magnificent Hawksmoor church of Christchurch in Spitalfields. If it is authentically from 1818 it is a real gem. 1818 is very soon after the Napoleonic wars but this bollard does not look like a real, re-used canon.

TECHNICAL NOTE: this picture was taken with a Hasselblad SWC medium format camera on Fuji 400H 120 film. It was processed at West End Cameras and the picture is taken from the scan to CD.