While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is

Host: The city was shrouded in fog, the kind that swallowed the streets and dimmed the lights until even freedom looked like a rumor. The clock tower stood silent above the square, its hands frozen at midnight — a gesture of defiance against the passing of time. Below, a narrow alley cut through the mist like a scar.

Inside a crumbling warehouse, half-illuminated by the pale glow of a single bulb, two figures sat across a metal table scarred with cigarette burns and years of arguments.

Jack, coat collar turned up, grey eyes sharp beneath the smoke, leaned forward with that skeptical poise that made his words sound like verdicts.
Jeeny, smaller, her hair loose, her brown eyes alive with quiet fire, held a battered book — Lenin’s collected writings, the spine cracked from too much use and too much belief.

The quote sat between them, printed on the brittle page, a sentence that still trembled with danger:
"While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State." — Vladimir Lenin.

Jeeny: “He wasn’t wrong, you know. The State — any State — is a cage, no matter how gilded. Laws are just the bars we convince ourselves we need.”

Jack: (lighting a cigarette) “You talk like a revolutionary pamphlet. The State isn’t a cage, Jeeny. It’s a fence. It keeps wolves out — and sometimes, us in.”

Host: The smoke curled upward, twisting like ghosts of old debates — Marx, Locke, Rousseau — all whispering through the dust of abandoned dreams.

Jeeny: “A fence built by wolves. Don’t romanticize control. Every empire began as protection and ended as oppression. That’s what Lenin saw.”

Jack: “And look what he built in its place. A State in the name of no State. Bureaucracy dressed as revolution. The Soviet Union didn’t free anyone; it just traded kings for committees.”

Host: The light bulb flickered, casting shadows that shifted like thoughts — sharp one moment, uncertain the next.

Jeeny: “You always judge the idea by its failure, not its intention. Lenin didn’t create tyranny; fear did. The idea was pure — freedom beyond governance, community without coercion.”

Jack: “Pure ideas make impure men. You take away the State, and someone will build another one — out of charisma, out of fear, out of hunger for order. It’s in us, Jeeny. We crave hierarchies the way bees crave a queen.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe humanity isn’t ready for freedom.”

Jack: “Or maybe freedom isn’t ready for humanity.”

Host: A sirene wailed faintly in the distance — not urgent, just eternal, the city’s way of reminding them that the world still watched.

Jeeny: “Lenin believed freedom wasn’t the absence of rule, but the presence of equality. When everyone owns the means of life — no one owns another. That’s when the State becomes unnecessary.”

Jack: “Unnecessary? Maybe in theory. But power doesn’t disappear; it changes hands. The absence of government doesn’t create freedom — it creates warlords. You’ve read Orwell; you know what comes next.”

Jeeny: (sharply) “Orwell wrote about corruption, not idealism. The decay of a dream doesn’t mean the dream was wrong.”

Jack: “No, but it means it was naïve. You think removing authority makes people free? It makes them feral. History’s full of it — the French Revolution, the collapse of Rome, the fall of Yugoslavia. When structures crumble, blood fills the cracks.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “Maybe blood is the price of becoming human again.”

Host: The silence after her words was thick, the kind that demanded courage to breathe in. The rain began outside, tapping against the broken windows in erratic rhythm — like a clock forgetting time.

Jack: “You want anarchy, Jeeny, but you forget — even chaos forms patterns. Someone always rises to command it. Even revolutions need leaders, and leaders become States.”

Jeeny: “Then what’s the alternative? Obedience forever?”

Jack: “No. Balance. The State is a necessary evil — emphasis on necessary. You don’t destroy it; you keep it on a leash. Democracy isn’t freedom; it’s the art of containment.”

Jeeny: “Containment is another word for fear.”

Jack: “And fear keeps civilizations alive.”

Host: A gust of wind burst through the window, scattering loose papers across the floor. One landed at Jeeny’s feet — a faded newspaper clipping of Rakesh Sharma’s smile, Earth reflected in his visor. She bent down, picked it up, and stared at it for a long moment.

Jeeny: “You know what he said when he saw Earth from space? ‘Saare Jahan Se Achha.’ Even then, he saw no borders, no governments — just one planet. Tell me that vision doesn’t make the State feel like a fiction.”

Jack: (softly) “Maybe. But fiction is what keeps madness organized.”

Jeeny: “Maybe freedom is madness — the kind that heals.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drowning the sound of their voices for a heartbeat. The lamp flickered again, then steadied — its pale glow wrapping the room in gold and shadow.

Jeeny: “Do you know what I think Lenin meant, beneath all his rhetoric? He wasn’t talking about utopia. He was talking about trust. That someday, humanity could grow up — could govern itself without fear, without violence, without rulers.”

Jack: “That’s not trust, Jeeny. That’s faith — and faith without structure collapses into despair.”

Jeeny: “No. Faith without courage does. Lenin’s tragedy wasn’t his belief — it was his impatience.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly, not from weakness, but from the weight of conviction. The fire in her eyes had the calm of someone who had already chosen her side — even if history would bury it.

Jack: “You’d still dismantle the State, even knowing what comes after?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because what comes after might finally belong to everyone.”

Jack: “And if it doesn’t?”

Jeeny: “Then at least we’ll know we tried to live free — not safe.”

Host: The clock tower outside struck one, its sound low and hollow. Smoke hung in the air, mingling with the scent of rain and dust — the perfume of revolutions past.

Jack: (exhaling) “You sound like the poets before every uprising. The ones who write verses while others bleed.”

Jeeny: “And you sound like the survivors afterward — the ones who mistake survival for wisdom.”

Host: Their gazes met — flint and flame, logic and faith. The world beyond the window glowed faintly now, the fog turning silver beneath the city lights.

Jack: “Maybe Lenin was right, in some cruel cosmic way. Freedom and the State can’t coexist. But maybe they’re both illusions. Maybe we chase freedom because we don’t want to face our own nature — the fact that we need control.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe we chase it because we refuse to accept that control is all we are.”

Host: The light bulb buzzed — faint, persistent — like the pulse of an argument that would outlive them both.

Jack: (after a long pause) “You know, I envy your faith. I really do. You still believe in the goodness of people.”

Jeeny: “Not goodness. Growth. I believe in the possibility that one day, humanity won’t need chains to behave.”

Jack: “And until then?”

Jeeny: (looking at him) “We learn how to build fences that don’t become prisons.”

Host: The rain stopped. Outside, the fog began to lift, revealing the faint outlines of the city — fragile, sleeping, alive.

Jack: “You really think freedom can exist without power?”

Jeeny: “Not yet. But I think one day, freedom will redefine power — not as dominance, but as responsibility.”

Jack: (softly) “That’s not Lenin. That’s hope.”

Jeeny: “Maybe hope was always the real revolution.”

Host: The camera would pull back now — the two of them small in the vast warehouse, surrounded by light, paper, and echoes. The fog outside turned to silver threads, weaving dawn out of the wreckage of night.

And as the city exhaled, Lenin’s words seemed to linger — not as prophecy, but as paradox:

"While the State exists there can be no freedom; when there is freedom there will be no State."

Perhaps, the truth was this:

Freedom and the State are not enemies — they are each other’s unfinished dreams.
For one to vanish, the other must first learn to trust.