1917 Lenin's 'plague bacillus' train Zurich to St Petersburg

[TonyGosling]

Lenin’s long train ride into history
'Full allowance must be made for the desperate tasks to which the German war leaders were already committed… Nevertheless it was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland to Russia.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/lenins-long-train-ride-into-histor y/

n Lenin on the Train, Catherine Merridale gives us a detailed look at the famous train journey from Zurich to Petrograd. We read that Lenin’s ‘sealed truck’ was actually no more than a series of carriages with locked doors; the Bolshevik and his wife, along with a handful of other exiled socialists, travelled through Germany eagerly looking out of the windows. The carriages were far from being hermetically sealed, even though the lawyerly Lenin had insisted on the train being granted extraterritorial rights, heightening its estrangement in popular imagination.

[TonyGosling]

Robert Fulford: How Germany smuggled 'the most grisly of weapons' — Vladimir Lenin — back into Russia
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/robert-fulford-how-germany-smuggled-th e-most-grisly-of-weapons-vladimir-lenin-into-russia-by-train

Germany hoped that if it could smuggle Lenin back into Russia, he might take control and end his country's part in the war. After a weird train ride, it worked, and the Soviet Union was born


Vladimir Ilyich Ulianov (1870-1924) better known as Lenin (6th-R) addresses his supporters celebrating in October1918 in Moscow the first anniversary of Bolshevik revolution.
December 9, 2016 12:15 PM EST

Readers of history are always fascinated by those events that seem unimportant at first but end up shaping reality. In the winter of 2016-2017 we are approaching the centenary of the most famous such event, the return of Vladimir Ilich Lenin from exile.

It began as the Kaiser’s generals realized they were losing the war against Britain, France, Canada and other allies — and American troops were on their way. But to the Germans, the immediate problem was Russia. In the Triple Entente, Russia was on the side of the West, so Germany had to fight a two-front war. They couldn’t consolidate their armies in a single force that would overwhelm France and Britain.

German spies reported that many Russians wanted to withdraw from the war with its casualties and food shortages. At the same time, British and French diplomats were doing their best to hold the alliance together.


Keystone/Getty Images
Winston Churchill, in his dramatic prose, later summed up the decision of the Germans: “They turned upon Russia the most grisly of weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland to Russia.”

Lenin was already a formidable socialist leader but he was exiled from Russia by a tsarist court. The Germans hoped that if they could smuggle him back into Russia, he might take control and end his country’s part in the war. They did, and he did, and under his direction the Soviet Union was born.

The Germans organized the railway cars for the journey, protected by a squad of their own troops. The journey took eight days and stretched 3,200 k.m. Lenin treated it as his private office, frequently calling meetings to give orders about everything from food to when toilet breaks should be taken. Catherine Merridale, an expert on Russian history, has recently written a convincing, highly readable book about the trip, Lenin on the Train (Holt).

A dodgy air hung over the whole business. Widespread talk of revolution sometimes produces hucksters who wonder what’s in it for them. In this story the huckster is a Russian named Alexander Parvus, a low-rent leftist journalist.

Arrested by the Russian police for his minor part in the 1905 revolution, he was sentenced to Siberia and escaped to Germany. Having met and talked to Lenin, Trotsky and other revolutionaries, he decided he was an expert on Russian socialism. Soon he was briefing the German foreign ministry, for a fee, while also reporting to the revolutionaries. The Germans gave him money to pass along to various Russian socialists, so that they could create unrest. He diverted enough of it to become affluent.

Lenin had been living in exile, in Zurich, planning how he would some day put into practice the principles of Karl Marx. After Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and a Provisional Government took shaky control of Russia, Lenin grew deeply frustrated. It looked as if history was running away from him. He read in the papers about liberal reforms, but that meant Russia was heading for parliamentary democracy, postponing the violent revolution it needed, in his view. Lenin had nothing to do except organize the Swiss socialists and dream about smashing Zurich’s chic restaurants.


AFP
At that point Alexander Parvus came to him with a proposition. The Germans would finance and manage a trip to Russia. Lenin bargained. How many colleagues could he take with him? (About 30.) Parvus apparently believed that if everything worked out, Lenin would give him a good job in the new Russia. But Lenin had his suspicions and gave him nothing. Parvus never saw Russia again. He died in Germany.

When they arrived in Finland, the last passport-check before Russia, Lenin was alarmed that soldiers on the Russian side were backed up by British allied troops. A British officer, who knew about Lenin, sent a wire to the provisional government, suggesting it would be a mistake to admit him. He got a reply that Russia was now a democratic society and of course Lenin, a Russian citizen, could be admitted. Harold Gruner was an MI-5 officer on duty that night. He played for time while hoping some sensible decision would be made.


SES
He strip-searched Lenin, examined his books and papers and asked “what-is-your-business” questions. Britain’s ambassador in Stockholm had suggested Lenin be admitted in the normal way. As a junior officer, Gruner felt he had to comply. For years after, colleagues teased him for “locking the stable door while the horse was out, or rather in.” Gruner tried to forget the whole nasty business but Lenin didn’t forget. He ordered Gruner shot as soon as he took power in Russia, according to Merridale. But Lenin’s orders weren’t followed as quickly then as later. In 1918 Gruner joined the unsuccessful British intervention against the Bolsheviks in Siberia. Merridale adds an ironic coda: “Gruner notched up not one but two heroic failures, for which a grateful George V awarded him an OBE.”

In a narrow sense, the project was a success. Lenin, once deposited in Russia, became the dominant figure in the post-tsarist state, eventually making peace. But that only meant that Germany managed to lose the war on one front rather than two.

And in the east, Lenin created a more dangerous enemy. When Hitler attacked Russia in 1941, the Soviets fought back with such tremendous effect that they destroyed much of Germany and made colonies out of five nearby nations. They even added a chunk of Germany to their portfolio of properties and maintained their empire for half a century. But then, as Merridale says, Lenin’s journey was the scheme of a Great Power, and when Great Powers try something like this, they always get it wrong.

[TonyGosling]

“In the middle of April [1917] the Germans took a sombre decision. Ludendorff refers to it with bated breath. Full allowance must be made for the desperate stakes to which the German war leaders were already committed. They were in the mood which had opened unlimited submarine warfare with the certainty of bringing the United States into the war against them. Upon the Western front they had from the beginning used the most terrible means of offense at their disposal. They had employed poison gas on the largest scale and had invented the ‘Flammenwerfer.’ Nevertheless it was with a sense of awe that they turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacillus from Switzerland into Russia.”
http://www.thehistoryforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30125

Winston S. Churchill
The World Crisis, Volume five.



Germany's empowerment of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1917 was the most serious consequence, BY FAR, of the Great War. So how, exactly, did the Germans do it?

Alexander Helphand (Parvus) had been active on the far-left fringes of the international socialist movement for many years. He had gained some notoriety because of his involvement with the St. Petersburg Soviet in 1905. Beginning in 1910, Parvus had amassed a fortune acting as an advisor in various capacities to the Young Turks in Constantinople, the details of which remain murky. He was now about to become the main conduit through which the infusion of millions of German goldmarks would elevate Lenin’s tiny band of Marxist incendiaries to a position of absolute dictatorship over the land of the Czars. His biographer describes him during this period:

“His massive, gigantic figure was more puffed out than ever, The broad, bull-like face with its high forehead, tiny nose, and carefully trimmed beard, had developed a flabby double chin, behind which his neck completely disappeared. The small lively eyes were deeply embedded in fat. His short legs were barely strong enough to support his body, and when he was standing up or walking, he seemed to use his arms to maintain himself on an even keel.”

On January 7, 1915, Parvus was received by Freiherr von Wangenheim, the German ambassador to Constantinople. Parvus pointed out the important fact that Lenin, alone among the revolutionaries, had opposed the war with Germany from the beginning and that therefore: “The interests of the German Government are identical with those of the Russian revolutionaries.”

The next day, January 8, Wangenheim duly reported the conversation to State Secretary von Jagow and suggested that Parvus be allowed to present his plan personally to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. After stops in Bucharest, Sophia and Vienna, Parvus arrived at the Wilhelmstrasse in late February, 1915, where his audience included Dr. Kurt Riezler, political warfare assistant to the Chancellor.

Parvus presented to the German diplomats an elaborate three-point proposal: the infiltration of Bolshevik propaganda into Russia; an international press campaign against Czarism; organizing massive strikes under the slogan “Freedom and Peace.”

He emphasized financial support for massive strikes at the Putilov, Obukhov, and Baltic factories in St. Petersburg as being of the highest importance. He stated that “Strikes here and there, the risings produced by distress and the increase in political agitation will all embarrass the Czarist government. If it takes reprisals, this will result in growing bitterness; if it shows indulgence, this will be interpreted as a sign of weakness and fan the flames of the revolutionary movement even more.”

The final memorandum which Parvus gave to his German interlocutors on March 9, 1915, is described by his biographer as “a unique document, a plan, on a vast scale, for the subversion of the Czarist empire. Helphand [Parvus] had drafted a blue-print for the revolution. It was practical, detailed, with all its parts creating an impressive whole.”

German diplomats were not unmindful that the Parvus plan could backfire; the German proletariat - no less than the Russian - were vulnerable to the Marxist lure as subsequent events would show. But the recent battle of the Marne had dashed German hopes of a quick victory and raised the spectre of a protracted war of attrition. It was therefore decided to furnish Parvus with an initial outlay of one million marks, and the St. Petersburg strikes were tentatively set for January 1916.

Meanwhile, Parvus went to Copenhagen where he set up a research organization ostensibly to study the social effects of war, but actually to recruit agents. He also set up an export-import business - Handels og-Eksportkompagniet - which eventually became a profitable enterprise and served to enable the transfer of German funds to the Bolsheviks. He was determined to deliver on his promise to the Germans to foment strikes in St. Petersburg and worked towards this end in conjunction with Count Brockdorff-Rantzau and Baron Gisbert von Romberg, the German Ministers to Copenhagen and Berne respectively.

He also managed to recruit Jakob Fürstenberg, Lenin’s most trusted agent who was also known by various aliases such as Hanecki, Kuba, or his Party name, Ganetsky. Fürstenberg, who had Lenin's permission to work in Parvus’ organization thus kept Lenin informed, while at the same time providing Parvus with a connection to Bolshevik headquarters and serving as managing director of Parvus’ import-export company.

On July 6, another five million goldmarks were budgeted by the German Foreign Office for subversive propaganda and the recruitment of agents. Good progress was being made towards the planned St. Petersburg strikes. “The main thing” Parvus told Brockdorff-Rantzau “is to stimulate the revolutionary mood. All this will have to be tackled vigorously, as according to every expectation, the revolutionary events will take place on 22 January.” On January 3d, 1916, he telegraphed Brockdorff-Rantzau (the German Minister in Switzerland) that everything was ready: “All is going as desired. Expecting reports from St. Petersburg.”

On January 11, things got off to a promising start. 10,000 workers at the Naval factory in Nikolaev put down their tools. Eleven days later, 45,000 workers struck in memory of Bloody Sunday in 1905. But while Parvus had seen to it that the strike committees had plenty of funds, the strikes did not spark a revolution as expected. The workers in Moscow and the provinces did not follow the lead of St. Petersburg and in two weeks the strikes had fizzled out.

Parvus had failed to deliver and the German Foreign Office now began to reconsider its strategy. On the initiative of von Jagow, who had never been fond of political subversion as a form of warfare, German diplomacy focused on signing a separate peace with the Czarist Government. German money to the Bolsheviks temporarily ceased . . .

But when American intervention seemed probable, the Germans needed no further persuasion to turn on the money tap full blast. The main conduit by which German funds reached the Bolsheviks was described by H. Grebing, a member of the Austro-Hungarian legation in Stockholm:

"It is quite certain that, during the war, Helphand [Parvus] and Fürstenburg [Ganetsky] could and did carry on, with German help, an export business through Scandinavia to Russia. . . This import of German goods to Russia was undertaken regularly and in considerable volume by the Helphand-Fürstenburg enterprise in the following manner: Helphand received from the Germans certain goods such as surgical instruments, medicines, and chemicals needed in Russia, and then Fürstenburg, as his Russian agent shipped them to Russia. The cost of these goods was not paid back to Germany, but, since the outbreak of the Russian revolution, it was used mainly for Lenin?s propaganda."

The German imports were received by a St. Petersburg-based pharmaceutical business - Fabian Klingsland - run by Kozlovsky, an agent working for Parvus and a delegate to the Executive Committee of the Petersburg Soviet. The money - now laundered through a legitimate business enterprise - was then deposited in various accounts in the Petersburg branches of the Russo-Asiatic Bank and the Bank of Siberia from which it was withdrawn by a relative of Ganetsky-Fürstenburg, one Eugenia Sumenson. The money was distributed by Kozlovsky and Alexander Keskuela, an Estonian Bolshevik recruited by von Romberg. The total amount of German money to the Bolsheviks is enormous and has been conservatively estimated by Eduard Bernstein, a prominent German Social Democrat, at more than fifty million goldmarks:

"From absolutely reliable sources [Bernstein wrote] I have now ascertained that the sum was very large, an almost unbelievable amount, certainly more than fifty million goldmarks, a sum about the source of which Lenin and his comrades could be in no doubt. One result of all this was the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. General Hoffmann, who negotiated with Trotsky and other members of the Bolshevik delegation at Brest, held the Bolsheviks in his hand in two senses [that is, military and monetary], and he made sure they felt it."

Most of the money was used to produce some forty-two specially targeted newspapers and magazines. These were not the crudely printed pre-1914 handbills and pamphlets, but professional publications printed on high quality paper. For the soldiers there was Soldatskaia Pravda. For the sailors it was Golos Pravda and front-line troops had Okopnaia Pravda. Each of these distributed an astounding 100,000 copies per day to the troops. Additionally there were foreign language pamphlets aimed at minorities.

The main Bolshevik organ was Pravda of which 1,500,000 copies per week were distributed free of charge to factory workers who had sparked the March revolution in the industrial district of Vyborg. On December 3d, 1917, less than a month after Lenin seized power, the German Minister of Foreign Affairs, Richard Kühlmann, submitted the following confidential report:

"The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain. The task therefore was to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the front - in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks. It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were able to build up their main organ, Pravda, to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party . . . It is entirely in our interest that we should exploit the period while they are in power, which may be a short one, in order to attain firstly an armistice and then, if possible, peace. The conclusion of a separate peace would mean the achievement of the desired war aim, namely a breach between Russia and her allies."

After the War, the Allies concentrated on further trashing their victims - Germany and Austria - while neglecting the real danger from the newly minted "Soviet Union." The price of their stupidity: World War II.

For more on this and other fascinating topics, see my new e-book, OUR CENTURY at

http://www.ourcenturybook.com

[TonyGosling]

Lenin's Sealed Train
https://spartacus-educational.com/Lenin_Sealed_Train.htm

On 10th March, 1917, Tsar Nicholas II had decreed the dissolution of the Duma. The High Command of the Russian Army now feared a violent revolution and on 12th March suggested that the Tsar should abdicate in favour of a more popular member of the royal family. Attempts were now made to persuade Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich to accept the throne. He refused and the Tsar recorded in his diary that the situation in "Petrograd is such that now the Ministers of the Duma would be helpless to do anything against the struggles the Social Democratic Party and members of the Workers Committee. My abdication is necessary... The judgement is that in the name of saving Russia and supporting the Army at the front in calmness it is necessary to decide on this step. I agreed." (1)

Prince George Lvov, was appointed the new head of the Provisional Government. One of his first decisions was to allow all political prisoners to return to their homes. Lenin was living in Zurich and he did not hear this news until the 15th March. A group of about twenty Russian exiles arrived at Lenin's home to discuss this important event. Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, explained: "From the moment the news of the February revolution came, Ilyich burned with eagerness to go to Russia. England and France would not for the world have allowed the Bolsheviks to pass through to Russia... As there was no legal way it was necessary to travel illegally. But how?" (2)

Cartoon of Lenin in the satrical journal, Pugach. "Lenin reading his own newspaper. The truth - not to be found in Pravda - is that I got two million from Wilhelm! But even that's not the whole truth. If they knew, I'd hang." (April, 1917)
Cartoon of Lenin in the satrical journal, Pugach. "Lenin reading his own
newspaper. The truth - not to be found in Pravda - is that I got two million from
Wilhelm! But even that's not the whole truth. If they knew, I'd hang." (April, 1917)
Aware that the British and French would never allow him a transit visa to Russia through Allied territory in Europe. It was suggested that he should try to return via England under a false passport, but it was decided that this was far too risky and if he was arrested he would be probably interned for the duration of the war. On 19th March 1917 a meeting of socialists was held to discuss the issue. The German socialist Willi Münzenberg was there and later reported that Lenin paced up and down the room declaring, "we must go at all costs". Julius Martov suggested that the best chance would be to send word to the Petrograd Soviet, asking them to offer the Germans repatriation of German prisoners in exchange for the group's safe conduct home via Germany. (3)

The Swiss socialist, Robert Grimm, who Lenin had described as a "detestable centrist", offered to negotiate with the German government in order to obtain a safe passage to Russia. He pointed out that Germany had been spending a great deal of money in producing revolutionary anti-war propaganda in Russia since 1915, in the hope of engineering a withdrawal from the war. This would enable German troops on the Eastern Front to be diverted to the western campaign against Britain and France. Grimm began talks with Count Gisbert von Romberg, the German ambassador in Berne. (4)

Alexander Parvus also arrived in Switzerland. The former German Social Democrat who had originally helped to fund Iskra, the Russian revolutionary newspaper, had now gone over to the German government, operating as an arms contractor and recruiter for the war effort. he had been heavily involved in the German propaganda drive among tsarist troops to destabilize Nicholas II. Parvus made contact with Richard von Kühlmann, a minister at the German Foreign Office. (5)

Von Kühlmann sent a message to Army Headquarters explaining the strategy of the German Foreign Office: "The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important war aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain, the task therefore was gradually to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the front - in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks had received a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda, to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party." (6)

Parvus made contact with General Erich Ludendorff who later admitted his involvement in his autobiography, My War Memories, 1914-1918 (1920) that he told senior officials: "Our government, in sending Lenin to Russia, took upon itself a tremendous responsibility. From a military point of view his journey was justified, for it was imperative that Russia should fall." (7)

General Max Hoffmann, chief of the German General Staff on the Eastern Front commented: "We naturally tried, by means of propaganda, to increase the disintegration that the Russian Revolution had introduced into the Army. Some man at home who had connections with the Russian revolutionaries exiled in Switzerland came upon the idea of employing some of them in order to hasten the undermining and poisoning of the morale of the Russian Army."

Hoffmann claims that Reichstag deputy Mathias Erzberger became involved in the negotiations. "And thus it came about that Lenin was conveyed through Germany to Petrograd in the manner that afterwards transpired. In the same way as I send shells into the enemy trenches, as I discharge poison gas at him, I, as an enemy, have the right to employ the expedient of propaganda against his garrisons." (

Paul Levi, a close associate of Rosa Luxemburg, and a member of the German anti-war Spartacus League, handled the Berne-Zurich end of negotiations, with Karl Radek. Levi was contacted by the German Ambassador in Switzerland and asked: "How can I get in touch with Lenin? I expect final instructions any moment regarding his transportation". Lenin now negotiated the deal with the ambassador that would allow him to travel through Germany. (9)

In his farewell message to the Swiss workers Lenin explained his analysis of the situation in Russia. "It has fallen to the lot of the Russian proletariat to begin the series of revolutions whose objective necessity was created by the imperialist world war. We know well that the Russian proletariat is less organized and intellectually less prepared for the task than the working class of other countries... Russia is an agricultural country, one of the most backward of Europe. Socialism cannot be established in Russia immediately. But the peasant character of the development of a democratic-capitalist revolution in Russia and make that a prologue to the world-wide Socialist revolution." (10)

Lenin felt he needed the support of other socialists living in Switzerland for his journey through Germany. He sent a telegram to two French anti-war figures living in Switzerland, Romain Rolland and Henri Guilbeaux, asking them to appear in the railroad station on the day of his departure. Rolland refused and sent a message to Guilbeaux: "If you have any influence on Lenin and his friends, dissuade them from going through Germany. They will cause great damage to the pacifist movement and to themselves, for it will then be said that Zimmerwald is a German child." He then went on to quote Anatoli Lunacharsky who had described Lenin as "a dangerous and cynical adventurer". (11)

Lenin talking to Ture Nerman on the way to the sealed train on 13th April 1917. Also in the photograph is Inessa Armand (in the fur-trimmed jacket) and Nadezhda Krupskaya (in large hat).
Lenin talking to Ture Nerman on the way to the sealed train on 13th April 1917. Also in the
photograph is Inessa Armand (in the fur-trimmed jacket) and Nadezhda Krupskaya (in large hat).
Lenin insisted that his party of thirty-two should include some twenty non-Bolsheviks, in order to offset the unfavourable impression produced by his trip under German auspices. The people who travelled with him included Gregory Zinoviev, Karl Radek, Inessa Armand, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Georgi Safarov, Zinaida Lilina and Moisey Kharitonov. Lenin's supporters milled around the waiting train carrying revolutionary banners and singing the "Internationale". There was a group of anti-German socialists, shouted, "Spies! German spies! Look how happy they are - going home at the Kaiser's expense!" Anatoli Lunacharsky said that Lenin looked "composed and happy". (12)

Willi Münzenberg was there to see Lenin off. He later recalled that as the doors closed Lenin leaned from the carriage window, shook his hand and said, "Either we'll be swinging from the gallows in three months or we shall be in power." (13) At the German frontier at Gottmadingen station, they were escorted by German soldiers to their own specially commandeered military "sealed train". A locomotive pulled "a green-painted coach comprised of three second-class compartments (mainly for the couples and children) and five third-class compartments, where the single men and women would have to endure the hard wooden seats. The two German officers escorting them took a compartment at the rear." (14)

Lenin on the train to Petrograd by Pyotr Vasiliev (1949)
Lenin on the train to Petrograd by Pyotr Vasiliev (1949)
Once the three of the carriage's four doors at the Russian end were closed shut, Fritz Platten, a Swiss socialist marked them with chalk in German as "sealed". The train was given a high traffic priority by the Germans. Crown Prince Wilhelm, the eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, was delayed for two hours to let Lenin's train to pass. There was a several hours' layover in Berlin during which some members of the German Social Democratic Party boarded the train but were not allowed to communicate with Lenin. (15)

After Germany they travelled through Sweden and Finland. On 2nd April Lenin's family received a telegram: "We arrive Monday at eleven at night. Tell Pravda." Lenin feared being arrested at the Russian border. However, Prince George Lvov, pledge to allow all political prisoners the freedom to return to their homes was kept. At 11.10 at night on 3rd April the train arrived at Finland Station. He was greeted by sailors from the Kronstadt naval base, the Petrograd workers' militia and the Red Guards. (16)

Lenin arrives at Finland Station (3rd April, 1917)
Lenin arrives at Finland Station (3rd April, 1917)
As he left the railway station Lenin was lifted on to one of the armoured cars specially provided for the occasions. The atmosphere was electric and enthusiastic. Feodosiya Drabkina, who had been an active revolutionary for many years, was in the crowd and later remarked: "Just think, in the course of only a few days Russia had made the transition from the most brutal and cruel arbitrary rule to the freest country in the world." (17)

In his speech he announced what became known as the April Theses. Lenin attacked Bolsheviks for supporting the Provisional Government. Instead, he argued, revolutionaries should be telling the people of Russia that they should take over the control of the country. In his speech, Lenin urged the peasants to take the land from the rich landlords and the industrial workers to seize the factories. Lenin accused those Bolsheviks who were still supporting the government of Prince Lvov of betraying socialism and suggested that they should leave the party. Lenin ended his speech by telling the assembled crowd that they must "fight for the social revolution, fight to the end, till the complete victory of the proletariat". (1

Some of the revolutionaries in the crowd rejected Lenin's ideas. Alexander Bogdanov called out that his speech was the "delusion of a lunatic." Joseph Goldenberg, a former of the Bolshevik Central Committee, denounced the views expressed by Lenin: "Everything we have just heard is a complete repudiation of the entire Social Democratic doctrine, of the whole theory of scientific Marxism. We have just heard a clear and unequivocal declaration for anarchism. Its herald, the heir of Bakunin, is Lenin. Lenin the Marxist, Lenin the leader of our fighting Social Democratic Party, is no more. A new Lenin is born, Lenin the anarchist." (19)

The journalist, Harold Williams rejected the idea that Lenin could play an important role in affairs: "Lenin, leader of the extreme faction of the Social Democrats, arrived here on Monday night by way of Germany. His action in accepting from the German government a passage from Switzerland through Germany arouses intense indignation here. He has come back breathing fire, and demanding the immediate and unconditional conclusions of peace, civil war against the army and government, and vengeance on Kerensky and Chkheidze, whom he describes as traitors to the cause of International Socialism. At the meeting of Social Democrats yesterday his wild rant was received in dead silence, and he was vigorously attacked, not only by the more moderate Social Democrats, but by members of his own faction. Lenin was left absolutely without supporters. The sharp repulse given to this firebrand was a healthy sign of the growth of practical sense of the Socialist wing, and the generally moderate and sensible tone of the conference of provincial workers' and soldiers' deputies was another hopeful indication of the passing of the revolutionary fever." (20)

Albert Rhys Williams, an American visitor to Russia, disagreed with this viewpoint. Williams was convinced that the Bolsheviks would become the new rulers: "The Bolsheviks understood the people. They were strong among the more literate strata, like the sailors, and comprised largely the artisans and labourers of the cities. Sprung directly from the people's lions they spoke the people's language, shared their sorrows and thought their thoughts. They were the people. So they were trusted." (21)



By John Simkin (john@spartacus-educational.com) © September 1997 (updated January 2020).

▲ Main Article ▲
Primary Sources
(1) Nadezhda Krupskaya, Reminiscences of Lenin (1926)
From the moment the news of the February revolution came, Ilyich burned with eagerness to go to Russia. England and France would not for the world have allowed the Bolsheviks to pass through to Russia... As there was no legal way it was necessary to travel illegally. But how? On March 19th there was a meeting of the Russian political emigre groups in Switzerland ... to discuss ways and means of getting back to Russia. Martov presented a plan to obtain permits for emigrants to pass through Germany in exchange for German and Austrian prisoners of war interned in Russia. But no one wanted to go that way, except Lenin, who snatched at this plan. When news came that the German Government would give Lenin and his friends safe passage through Germany in a "sealed train" Lenin wanted to leave at once.

(2) Richard von Kühlmann, telegram to Army Headquarters (December, 1917)
The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important war aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain, the task therefore was gradually to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the front - in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks had received a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda, to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party.

(3) General Max Hoffmann, The War of Lost Opportunities (1924)
We naturally tried, by means of propaganda, to increase the disintegration that the Russian Revolution had introduced into the Army. Some man at home who had connections with the Russian revolutionaries exiled in Switzerland came upon the idea of employing some of them in order to hasten the undermining and poisoning of the morale of the Russian Army.

He applied to Reichstag deputy Mathias Erzberger and the deputy of the German Foreign Office. And thus it came about that Lenin was conveyed through Germany to Petrograd in the manner that afterwards transpired.

In the same way as I send shells into the enemy trenches, as I discharge poison gas at him, I, as an enemy, have the right to employ the expedient of propaganda against his garrisons.