The failure of the Russian Socialist Republic will be the defeat

Host: The factory was dead.
Its machines stood silent — metal corpses in the dim light of dawn. The windows were cracked, their panes streaked with soot and frost, the world outside pale and cold. The air inside smelled of iron, oil, and the slow decay of purpose.

Host: In the middle of the vast hall, where men once shouted over the roar of progress, Jack stood among the rusting gears. His breath rose like smoke. His hands were blackened by dust, his eyes gray mirrors of exhaustion and thought.

Host: Jeeny walked along the catwalk above, her coat wrapped tight around her small frame. The morning light cut through the broken glass, splintering across her face — a woman half in shadow, half in awakening.

Host: Between them, pinned to a column of rust, fluttered an old piece of yellowed paper — a relic of another century. On it, the words of Karl Liebknecht, bold and trembling:

“The failure of the Russian Socialist Republic will be the defeat of the proletariat of the whole world.”

Host: The wind moved through the space like the ghost of history, carrying whispers of revolution and regret.

Jack: “You ever think,” he said, voice echoing against the empty walls, “that every ideal dies the same way — strangled by the hands that tried to hold it too tight?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly. “Ideals don’t die. They shed their believers.”

Jack: “And what’s left?”

Jeeny: “The lesson.”

Host: Jack laughed once, bitterly. The sound broke the stillness like glass.

Jack: “Liebknecht thought one country’s fall would damn the world. But maybe it wasn’t the fall that did it. Maybe it was the illusion that a single flag could carry every man’s hope.”

Jeeny: “It wasn’t a flag,” she said, descending the stairs. “It was a promise — that power could belong to the people. That labor could be dignity, not servitude. That justice could be shared.”

Jack: “And look where that promise led.”

Jeeny: “Promises don’t fail, Jack. People do.”

Host: Her footsteps echoed across the concrete floor. She stopped beside him, her gaze sweeping the derelict hall.

Jeeny: “Do you know why Liebknecht said that?” she asked quietly. “He wasn’t worshipping Russia. He was mourning humanity. He saw that the dream wasn’t confined to one nation — it was a lifeline for millions who had nothing else.”

Jack: “And yet that lifeline became a noose.”

Jeeny: “Only when greed found its way into the dream — as it always does.”

Host: The wind whistled through the cracked windows, carrying with it the faint sound of a city waking — car horns, construction, the hum of another kind of machine.

Jack: “You think socialism failed because of greed?” he asked.

Jeeny: “Because of forgetting,” she said. “The moment the revolution becomes about control instead of compassion — it’s already over.”

Jack: “You talk like it could still work.”

Jeeny: “Not as a system,” she said, “as a conscience. Every worker, every citizen, still carries the same hunger — not for equality, but for recognition. To be seen. To matter.”

Jack: “And what about the proletariat of the world? Liebknecht’s great vision?”

Jeeny: “It’s still here,” she said, touching her chest. “Just smaller. Quieter. No longer marching in banners, but surviving in acts — kindness, solidarity, fairness. Maybe the revolution didn’t fail. Maybe it just learned humility.”

Host: Jack looked around the vast, broken space — the carcass of an age that once believed in destiny. His hand brushed against a rusted gear, its teeth dull but intact.

Jack: “You make failure sound sacred.”

Jeeny: “Failure is sacred,” she said. “It’s the only thing honest enough to teach us.”

Host: The sunlight crept higher through the shattered glass, spilling gold across their faces. Dust glimmered in the air like memory refusing to settle.

Jack: “Liebknecht died for his belief,” Jack murmured. “He thought his death would be proof. But the world just moved on.”

Jeeny: “It always does,” she said. “But the question is — do we move with it or within it?”

Jack: “Within?”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said. “The world changes, Jack. But principles — true ones — they don’t age. They adapt. The tragedy of the twentieth century wasn’t that socialism failed. It’s that compassion lost its language.”

Host: The wind caught the tattered paper on the column. It fluttered weakly, the ink fading but defiant.

Jack: “You think the working class still has a voice?”

Jeeny: “Always,” she said. “But it’s quieter now — drowned out by the hum of consumerism and the illusion of comfort. The world replaced collective struggle with individual ambition. It’s easier to sell.”

Jack: “And you think that’s the defeat Liebknecht was talking about?”

Jeeny: “Exactly,” she said. “Not just political defeat. Moral defeat — the moment we stopped believing that humanity was one body instead of seven billion separate hands.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, his cynicism dissolving under the weight of her conviction.

Jack: “You sound like someone who still believes in the dream.”

Jeeny: “I do,” she said. “But not as a flag or a system — as a choice. Every time someone lifts another up instead of stepping over them, the proletariat wins a little.”

Host: Silence fell again. The wind had gentled now. The first warmth of the sun spread through the hall, breathing color back into the gray.

Jack: “So maybe the Russian Socialist Republic didn’t fail,” he said quietly. “Maybe it just handed the baton to us.”

Jeeny: “Yes,” she said. “And we’re still deciding whether to run or rest.”

Host: The camera pulled back — the two figures standing amid rust and light, surrounded by relics of a forgotten faith in unity.

Host: On the column, Liebknecht’s words fluttered once more before falling still, the morning sun catching them like a final benediction:

“The failure of the Russian Socialist Republic will be the defeat of the proletariat of the whole world.”

Host: But the world, perhaps, has not yet failed — not as long as compassion breathes in defiance of despair. For every age remakes its revolutions, and every generation must choose again whether to live for the self, or for each other.