[1] Chris Pallis was born in Bombay to a prominent Anglo-Greek family,[2] "of whose intellectual achievements he was always extremely proud".
His father Alex was general manager of the family firm of merchant bankers, Ralli Brothers; when he retired, he returned from India to settle in Switzerland.
Subsequently his boss, Christopher Booth, defended him from further press criticism, saying that he was a fine neurologist entitled to his own political views.
In doing so not only does it demolish the romantic Leninist 'history' of the relationship between the working class and their party during these years (1917–21) but it also provides a backbone to understanding why the Russian revolution failed in the way it did.
From this understanding flows alternative possibilities of revolutionary organisation and some 26 years after the original was written this is perhaps its greatest contribution today.