First revolution and attempt to return

Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin was a very well-known opposition figure, as one of the founders of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP), which split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1905.

The split in the Russian radical opposition itself took place far from Russia: most party members were threatened with prison when they returned to their homeland. Among those whom the authorities did not expect was Lenin.

Ilyich perfectly remembered how, on a January morning in 1905, the stunned Lunacharsky spouses flew into his house, announcing the beginning of a revolution in Russia. After this, Lenin waited a whole year for permission to enter his homeland - but time did not wait, and 1905 was decided without him. Neither books, nor speeches, nor congresses could turn the revolution in the direction desired by Lenin - even the tsar remained in place. In December 1907, the future leader of the revolution left Russia again for almost ten years.

“There, to the rebellious Petrograd”

Lenin’s condition after receiving the news of the February Revolution was best described by his wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya:

“There is no outlet for colossal energy... There is no need for a clear awareness of what is happening. And for some reason I remembered the white northern wolf that Ilyich and I saw in the London Zoological Garden and stood for a long time in front of his cage. “All animals get used to the cage over time: bears, tigers, lions,” the watchman explained to us. “Only the white wolf from the Russian North never gets used to the cage—and day and night it beats against the iron bars of the cage.” Lenin literally cannot sit still: he feverishly paces around the room, writes letters, meets like-minded people, but most importantly, he thinks; thinks about what kind of magical airplane can carry him to his revolutionary homeland. In his fever, he no longer cares much about the safety and feasibility of his plans: just to start moving there, towards the rebellious Petrograd.”

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The legal route lay through France, Great Britain and Scandinavia, but here’s the problem - back in 1915-1916, the Entente countries compiled blacklists of people who should not cross the borders of the treaty countries. Among the undesirables were active peace propagandists, including Lenin.

Returning to their homeland under their own name was excluded. Vladimir Ilyich, in desperation, begins to come up with absolutely fantastic plans that make his worried comrades laugh. One plan was to borrow documents from two deaf-mute Swedes similar to him and Zinoviev and travel under their names. Krupskaya joked: “It won’t work, you can let it slip in your sleep... You’ll fall asleep, see the Mensheviks in your dream and start cursing: bastards, bastards! So all the conspiracy will disappear.” But there was little humor in this situation.

“Go immediately, even through hell!”

Paradoxically, the October Revolution was to some extent saved by the unexpected decision of the Provisional Government, which in March 1917 amnestied all those convicted of political and religious matters. Now Lenin could return to Russia and even remain free, but he still did not know how to get to his homeland. Then another savior of the revolution appeared on the scene - Yuliy Martov.

He offered all the numerous political emigrants a risky and unexpected option - to go through Germany, giving it in return some of the prisoners of war held in Russia. There was nothing unusual in the proposal itself: through exchange, some Russian citizens, for example the scientist Maxim Kovalevsky, returned to Russia from Germany, which was at war with it. But whether the Provisional Government would want to make an exchange and receive such a revolutionary gift was a big question. Fortunately for the revolutionaries, Germany, interested in the return of the Bolsheviks to Russia who would contribute to its exit from the war, allowed them to travel “on credit” - without the consent of the Provisional Government for an exchange.

We also agreed that the carriage should be sealed, that is, any contact between travelers and the outside world would be excluded.

Lenin did not care at all how to get to Petrograd. "Drive! Go immediately, even through hell! - he said. The enterprise was risky: despite the amnesty, there were no guarantees that they would not go straight to prison. In addition, the people had every reason to believe that Lenin and his comrades had sold themselves to the Germans. Although regarding the latter Lenin stated:

“You want to assure me that the workers will not understand my arguments about the need to use any road in order to get to Russia and take part in the revolution. You want to assure me that some slanderers will manage to confuse the workers and convince them that we, the old, proven revolutionaries, are acting to please German imperialism. It's a joke for the chickens."

"We're going to jail"

Farewell to Switzerland took place on April 9. It would hardly be possible to call him calm: at the station there was almost a scuffle with opponents of Lenin’s idea, someone tried at the last moment to dissuade the revolutionaries from taking a risky step, someone expressed a modest hope of seeing each other again soon on Swiss soil. But the plan was not disrupted: at 15:10 the political emigrants left Zurich.

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The atmosphere in the sealed carriage was almost fraternal. They slept in turns, because there wasn’t enough room for everyone, they sang songs in chorus, and told jokes. One of the emigrants recalled Lenin this way:

“I have never seen a person so natural and simple in his every word, in every movement.<...>No one felt depressed by his personality, no one even felt embarrassed in front of him.<...>Drawing in the presence of Ilyich was impossible. It wasn’t that he cut the person off or ridiculed him, but just somehow immediately stopped seeing you, hearing you, you definitely fell out of his field of vision as soon as you stopped talking about what really interested you, and started posing. And precisely because in his presence the person himself became better and more natural, it was so free and joyful to be with him.”

And the Germans tried to make an impression: they fed them cutlets with peas, bought newspapers, and drove the curious away from the carriage during stops. Only once did a member of the leadership of the German trade unions try to get a conversation with Comrade Lenin, which caused an outburst of merriment in the carriage and a promise of reprisals in case of repeated attempts. An excited and joyful mood reigned, and the future leader of the revolution kept repeating: “We are going to prison.”

"Lenin is a German spy"

But the Provisional Government was not sure that Lenin was going to prison. Some ministers argued that Lenin should not be allowed into the country. Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, one of the leaders of the cadets and the father of the famous writer, recalled that “to this they answered quite unanimously that there were no formal grounds to prevent Lenin’s entry, that, on the contrary, Lenin had the right to return, since he had been amnestied - that the way, which he resorts to to complete the journey is not formally criminal. Added to this<...>that the very fact of turning to Germany’s services will undermine Lenin’s authority to such an extent that there will be no need to fear him.”

Exactly the same arguments - “Lenin himself will undermine his authority” - were expressed by the Provisional Government to the Entente, which demanded to prevent Ulyanov from returning to his homeland.

The official media actively promoted the idea that “Lenin is a German spy.” In feuilletons and anecdotes, they persistently depicted how he fraternized with the Kaiser; cartoonists compared the train carrying Vladimir Ilyich to a Trojan horse. It would seem that Lenin was discredited on all fronts. Even if he is not imprisoned, it will not be possible to carry out a socialist revolution.

“Long live the world socialist revolution!”

The night from April 16 to 17, 1917 became the moment of truth. The closer the train approached the Finlyandsky Station, the more acutely Lenin and his inner circle asked themselves the question: “Will they be arrested or not?” Torches were burning on the platform. The streets were full of people. But these people clearly did not intend to judge Lenin - they were holding welcome posters in their hands. Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich recalls:

“The orchestra played a greeting, and all the troops stood guard.<...>There came such a powerful, such a stunning, such a heartfelt “hurray!” that I had never heard.<...>Vladimir Ilyich, having warmly and joyfully greeted us, who had not seen him for almost ten years, began to move with his hasty gait and, when this “hurray!” rang out, he paused and, as if a little confused, asked:

- What is this?

- It is the revolutionary troops and workers who greet you...

The officer, with all the restraint and solemnity of large parades, reported to Vladimir Ilyich, and he looked at him in bewilderment, obviously not at all expecting that it would all be like this.”

Looking around at the sea of ​​heads spread out around him, Lenin said: “Yes, this is a revolution!” And the leader of the revolution with a bouquet of white and scarlet carnations walked under the triumphal arches made for him to his first public tribune in ten years. It became an armored car. The roar of the Marseillaise, performed by a military orchestra, ceased, and Lenin began his speech:

“Sailors, comrades, greeting you, I still don’t know whether you believe all the promises of the Provisional Government, but I know for sure that when they tell you sweet speeches, when they promise you a lot, you are deceived, just as the entire Russian people are deceived. The people need peace, the people need bread, the people need land. And they give you war, hunger, lack of food, they leave the landowner on the land... Long live the world social revolution!”

According to other memoirs, he said:

“I thank you for giving me the opportunity to return to Russia. You have done a great thing - you have overthrown the king, but the work is not finished, you still need to strike the iron while it is hot. Long live the socialist revolution!”

The people started singing the Marseillaise again, but Lenin, wincing, stopped them. He did not like the anthem of the bourgeois revolution, which called for the fight against the enemy, so the leader asked to sing “The Internationale”. The Bolsheviks standing nearby did not know the song, for which they were ashamed by Lenin.

According to Bonch-Bruevich, “the searchlights striped the sky with their mysterious, quickly running sheaves of light, now rising into the heavenly heights, now descending point-blank into the crowd. This restless, sliding, trembling light everywhere, playing and shimmering<...>excited everyone even more, giving the whole picture of this historical meeting some kind of mysterious, magical<...>view".

There was something mystical and religious about it. The figure of Lenin on an armored car became one of the symbols of Russia in the 20th century. It will be copied until the end of the century.

That April night Lenin was cloudlessly happy. The real fight was just beginning, but it was as if he knew that he was destined to win. Tomorrow he will read his famous “April Theses” to his fellow party members, which at first will cause a lot of controversy with their radicalism, but the pressure of the “fierce leader” will very soon break the resistance of the Bolshevik party, and on April 22, 1917, at the April party conference, as a gift on his 47th day birth, Lenin will receive recognition for his theses. Here the figure of Stalin will appear on the political horizon, who will be one of the first to speak out for the new party program, thereby probably winning over Lenin.

To the leader of the socialist revolution and founder of the Soviet state Vladimir Ilyich Lenin After the collapse of the USSR it was not easy. All-out reverence for the Soviet era was replaced by no less violent reproach and accusations of the politician of all mortal sins. Moreover, Lenin was reviled and accused by the same historians who had previously earned academic degrees from his praise.

Among the numerous accusations against the Bolshevik leader, one of the most common is the statement that Lenin acted on instructions from German intelligence and with German money.

“Lenin was brought to Russia by the Germans in a sealed carriage so that he would ruin the country” - these were the words about the debunked leader that were heard in the 1990s and to this day.

At the same time, the accusers very often have extremely vague ideas about what the “sealed carriage” was. The most prepared refer to the words Winston Churchill, who stated that the Germans brought Lenin into Russia in an isolated carriage, like a “plague bacillus.”

So what really happened and is the “sealed carriage” proof of Lenin’s work for German intelligence?

Unwanted "returnee"

After the victory of the February Revolution in Russia, the new authorities granted all political emigrants who were abroad the right to return to their homeland. This also applied to the leaders of the Bolshevik Party, including Lenin.

However, the return was prevented by a huge problem called the First World War. It was extremely difficult for Russian emigrants to get to Russia through trenched Europe.

The Provisional Government allocated funds for the return of oppositionists to Russia, but the Bolsheviks and representatives of a number of other parties could not count on such help.

The reason for this was the difference in attitude towards the war. The Provisional Government put forward the slogan “War to a victorious end” and was interested in those who shared it returning to Russia.

The negative attitude of Lenin and the Bolsheviks towards the war was well known - this position had been an open secret since 1914. In this regard, the Provisional Government, without taking the path of prohibitions, did not intend to help the Bolshevik leaders return to their homeland.

"Blacklist of pacifists"

This situation was also closely observed by representatives of other countries participating in the First World War, who sought to defend their interests. It was important for England and France to keep Russia as an ally; Germany was interested in Russia's exit from the war.

Accordingly, European powers treated Russian politicians depending on their views on the war.

Those who supported the slogan “War to a victorious end” returned home through England, from where they went to Russia in Arkhangelsk, Murmansk or through Scandinavia by sea. Due to the danger of attack by German submarines, passenger ships traveled under the protection of British naval warships, and all transport was controlled by the British Admiralty, Foreign Office and police.

It was precisely this route that the Bolshevik leaders, led by Lenin, who were in Switzerland, initially considered.

But very soon it became clear that this path was forbidden to them - the British intelligence services strictly cut off those Russian emigrants who did not support the continuation of the war.

Moreover, the Entente intelligence services had a “black list of the most dangerous pacifists”, those on which were arrested on their way to Russia.

It is for this reason that one of the founders and chief theoretician of the Socialist Revolutionary Party was arrested in Great Britain on his way to Russia Victor Chernov. In Russia, this caused a storm of indignation, and after the intervention of the Provisional Government, the Social Revolutionary was released and sent to his homeland. The Bolsheviks did not have to count on such an outcome.

German version

And they were faced with the eternal Russian question “What to do?”

It was not Lenin who was the first to express the idea of ​​returning to Russia via Germany at a meeting of emigrants in Bern, but his former comrade-in-arms, and at that time an irreconcilable enemy, the Menshevik Yuliy Martov. Lenin was initially skeptical about Martov’s idea: traveling through the territory of an enemy country did not seem like the best option.

However, time passed, appeals to the Provisional Government for help remained unanswered, and the route through Great Britain promised arrest. The German General Staff expressed a desire to help the stuck “pacifists.” There is nothing surprising in this - after all, in those same days, the British fleet covered the return to Russia of supporters of “war to a victorious end.” European countries diligently tried to use the situation in Russia to their advantage...

Another fact that is not often voiced today is that Russian emigrants who were in Switzerland directly appealed to the Provisional Government for permission to travel through German territory. But the Provisional Government remained silent for the reasons mentioned above.

In this situation, Lenin turned to the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party Fritz Platten with a request to enter into negotiations with the German Ambassador to Switzerland Romberg on the passage of Russian emigrants through the territory of this country.

Lenin's Nine Conditions

Germany was willingly ready to let the Russians through, but the emigrants, paradoxically, set their own conditions for the German side:

“Conditions for the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany

1. I, Fritz Platten, accompany, on my full responsibility and at my own risk, a carriage with political emigrants and refugees returning through Germany to Russia.

2. Relations with German authorities and officials are conducted exclusively and only by Platten. No one has the right to enter the carriage without his permission.

3. The right of extraterritoriality is recognized for the carriage. No controls on passports or passengers should be carried out either when entering or leaving Germany.

4. Passengers will be accepted into the carriage regardless of their views and attitudes towards the issue of war or peace.

5. Platten undertakes to supply passengers with train tickets at normal fare prices.

6. If possible, travel should be completed without interruption. No one should leave the carriage either of their own free will or by order. There should be no delays in transit unless technically necessary.

7. Permission to travel is given on the basis of exchange for German or Austrian prisoners of war or internees in Russia.

8. The intermediary and passengers undertake to personally and privately seek the implementation of point 7 from the working class.

9. Making the move from the Swiss border to the Swedish border as quickly as possible, as far as technically feasible.”

These conditions were accepted by the German side, after which the decision to travel was approved.

Travel from Zurich to Petrograd

The fact of the trip itself was not particularly secret. On the day of departure, April 9, both 32 departing people and mourners gathered at the Zurich station, among whom were those who did not approve of such a trip. It even got to the point of exchanging unpleasant remarks.

At 15:10 local time, 32 emigrants left Zurich for the German border station Gottmadingen. There they boarded a sealed carriage, accompanied by two officers of the German General Staff.

The carriage was in fact not completely isolated from the outside world. “Three of our carriage doors were sealed, the fourth, rear carriage door opened freely, since the officers and I were given the right to exit the carriage. The compartment closest to this free door was allocated to the two officers accompanying us. A chalk line drawn on the floor of the corridor separated - without a neutral zone - the territory occupied by the Germans, on the one hand, from Russian territory, on the other... The High Command ordered its representatives to prevent any contact with the German population. Strict rules also applied in the carriage itself. The travelers strictly adhered to the agreement,” Fritz Platten wrote in his memoirs.

As agreed, the carriage with the emigrants proceeded as quickly as possible to the Sassnitz station, where they boarded the Queen Victoria steamer and crossed to Sweden. Through the territory of Sweden and then Finland, Lenin and his comrades reached Russia, arriving at the Finland Station in Petrograd on April 16, 1917.

Lenin with a group of Russian political emigrants in Stockholm on the day of travel from Switzerland to Russia. (31 March/13 April 1917). Photo by V. Malmström. Source: www.globallookpress.com

He who is not with us is a spy

An interesting point is that the “sealed carriage” will be cited as “proof” of Lenin’s work for German intelligence later, starting in July 1917, when the conflict between the Bolsheviks and the Provisional Government reached a boiling point and a case was opened against the Bolshevik leader on charges of espionage.

The accusation, by the way, was absolutely typical for that period, used to discredit political opponents. Russian revolutionary Nikolay Sukhanov, who aligned himself with the Mensheviks and subsequently became a victim of Stalin’s repressions, wrote: “Except for the Bolsheviks, all any noticeable internationalists were directly or indirectly accused of serving the Germans or having relations with the German authorities. I personally became a favorite target of Rech and was referred to by it only with the epithet: “dear to the German heart” or “so highly valued by the Germans.” Almost every day I began to receive letters from the capital, the province and the army; In some there were admonitions or mockery, in others there were questions: “Tell me, how much did you take?”

But in April 1917, I repeat, the Provisional Government did not bring any charges against Lenin, and the arriving Bolsheviks presented the reasons and circumstances of their trip through Germany to the Petrograd Soviet, and this explanation was considered quite satisfactory.

But the main thing, which is little talked about now, is that Lenin’s notorious “sealed carriage” was by no means the only one. A little later, Russian emigrants traveled through the territory of Germany twice more in the same “sealed carriages”, and these were not Bolsheviks, but Mensheviks, Socialist Revolutionaries, anarcho-communists and representatives of other political forces who rejected the slogan “War to a victorious end.”

In total, about 300 Russian politicians and members of their families transited through Germany.

Does this mean that they were all German agents? If so, then it turns out that those who traveled through Great Britain also selflessly served the interests of the British crown.

Victory for the Bolsheviks

And if you look even deeper, you can agree that the German General Staff in 1917 was swarming with Bolshevik agents - after all, in the end, Lenin’s “sealed carriage” contributed not only to the victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia, but also to the collapse of the German Empire as a result of the revolution , the leading force of which was Ilyich’s German ideological comrades.

In reality, of course, everything is somewhat simpler. In the spring of 1917, various political forces built their own combinations, hoping to win by using others.

The winners in the end were the Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, who outplayed absolutely everyone.

Sergei Kremlev, a regular contributor to the “Ambassy Prikaz” and the author of many books about the past and present of Russia, has long been researching the Stalin era, and has recently prepared for publication a major work on V.I. Lenin: "Lenin: Savior and Creator."

Sergei Kremlev’s book devotes three entire chapters to a thorough, based on the analysis of reliable documents, exposing the lie about the “sealed carriage” in which Lenin returned to Russia in the spring of 1917. With the permission of the author, “Posolsky Prikaz” introduces them to its readers. Today we are publishing the next chapters...

Only a week has passed since the first newspaper news about the revolution in Russia reached Zurich, and Lenin finds no rest in his impatience to “jump” to Petrograd. The plan gives way to a plan, Yakov Ganetsky-Furstenberg (1879-1937) joins in the search for a way out...

Ganetsky began as a Polish social democrat, one of the founders of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), at the V Congress of the RSDLP he was elected a member of the Central Committee, became close to the Bolsheviks, and in 1917 became a member of the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b). While in Scandinavia (either in Christiania-Oslo or in Stockholm), Ganetsky was a “transmission link” between the Bolsheviks in Switzerland and Russia, sending letters and press both ways, and to St. Petersburg - after February - also manuscripts of Lenin’s articles in renewed Pravda.

The falsifiers certify Ganetsky as an alleged intermediary between Lenin and the “German General Staff”, “forgetting” that Ganetsky was indeed one of those who worked on the “German” version quite openly, and worked on the “English” version on Lenin’s instructions, about which a little later will be said.

“...Uncle wants to receive detailed information. The official path is not acceptable for individuals. Write urgently to Warsaw. Klusweg, 8"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 408).

“Uncle” is Lenin himself, and “Warshavsky” is the Polish political emigrant M.G. Bronsky. On the same day, Lenin also writes to Armand, and in this message there are, in particular, important lines for us:

“...Valya was told that it was impossible to go through England at all (at the English embassy).

Now, if neither England nor Germany will ever let you in!!! But it is possible"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 409).

This must be understood in such a way that Valentina Sergeevna Safarova (née Martoshkina), about whom Lenin wrote to Armand on March 19, fulfilled Ilyich’s request and sounded the waters at the English embassy (in relation, of course, to herself, and not to Lenin).

But, as we see, it was unsuccessful.

In a couple of weeks, Valentina Safarova, together with her husband, the future Trotskyist Georgy Safarov, will leave for Russia along with Lenin, Krupskaya, Armand, with Anna Konstantinovich, Abram Skovno and others mentioned by Lenin in a letter dated March 19, in that same notorious “sealed” carriage...

In the meantime, everything is still hanging in the air, and it is not clear which one exactly - in foggy London, or in spring Berlin?

PARALLEL sounding - in London and Berlin, takes several days, and Lenin temporarily returns to current affairs, in particular, working on “Letters from Afar” and sending them to Pravda.

Finally, on March 28, the first news came from Ganetsky from Stockholm, and it was not very comforting. In response, Lenin sends the following telegram to Ganetsky (note, quite openly!):

“The Berlin permit is unacceptable to me. Either the Swiss government will receive a carriage to Copenhagen or the Russians will agree to exchange all emigrants for interned Germans.”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 417).

However, the “temporary” Foreign Minister Miliukov is no more interested in Lenin’s arrival than the London Foreign Office.

Nevertheless, Lenin makes a new attempt, and in the last days of March he sends a whole memorandum to Ganetsky, which I will also have to quote in full - not a single word in it can be deleted without losing the full meaning:

“Please inform me in as much detail as possible, firstly, whether the British government agrees to allow me and a number of members of our party, the RSDLP (Central Committee), into Russia on the following conditions: (a) The Swiss socialist Fritz Platten receives from the English government the right to bring through England, any number of persons, regardless of their political trend and their views on war and peace; (b) Platten alone is responsible both for the composition of the groups transported and for the order, receiving the carriage locked by him, Platten, for travel across England. No one can enter this carriage without Platten's consent. This carriage enjoys the right of extraterritoriality; (c) from a harbor in England, Platten carries the group by steamship of any neutral country, receiving the right to notify all countries about the time of departure of this special steamer; (d) for travel by rail, Platten pays according to the tariff according to the number of seats occupied; (e) the British government undertakes not to interfere with the hiring and departure of a special steamship for Russian political emigrants and not to delay the steamer in England, giving the opportunity to travel the fastest way.

Secondly, if agreed, what guarantees will England give for the fulfillment of these conditions, and does it object to the publication of these conditions?

In the case of a telegraphic request to London, we will cover the costs of the telegram with a paid response."

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, pp. 417-418).

In fact, this was a plan that was later implemented on essentially the same conditions, no longer in the “English” but in the German version with the participation of the same Platten, a Swiss left-wing social democrat who collaborated with Lenin after the Zimmerwald and Kienthal conferences internationalists.

Well, what kind of vile bastard do you have to be, if you have such a document, to confuse your brains with a distortion of the truth about a German “sealed” carriage! Indeed, from the above text it is extremely clear that the German “sealed” carriage arose solely because London did not agree to the English version of the “sealed” carriage!!!

The “whistleblower” of “Nicholas” Lenin, Nikolai Starikov, in the previously mentioned book “analyzes” the collisions described above, every now and then distorting facts and dates, making jokes and shamelessly lying... But, devoting two dozen pages to the “analysis” from 126 to 146, and passing off the obvious (even then) as secret, he remains silent about the above document.

And it’s clear why!

HOWEVER, almost immediately after sending the memorandum, Lenin sent a telegram (not at all encrypted) to Ganetsky from Zurich to Stockholm on March 30:

“Your plan is unacceptable. England will never let me through; rather, it will intern me. Miliukov will cheat. The only hope is to send someone to Petrograd and achieve an exchange for interned Germans through the Council of Workers' Deputies. Telegraph.

Ulyanov"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 418)

What prompted this telegram? Apparently, some disappointing news for Lenin from England, about which a little later. So, nothing worked with the English “sealed” carriage, and the situation in Russia increasingly required control. And on the same day, March 30, 1917, Lenin wrote a huge letter to Ganetsky, as the liaison between him and St. Petersburg. It was, in fact, instructive and almost everything was devoted to issues of the party’s work in Russia.

Lenin had already figured out the situation and now transmitted through Ganetsky to St. Petersburg those directives and explanations that Kollontai so innocently sought from him in the first days after February. Without being able to quote the very lengthy letter in detail, I will quote a couple of lines from it:

“...It is necessary to explain very popularly, very clearly, without learned words, to the workers and soldiers that it is necessary to overthrow not only William, but also the kings of England and Italy. This is the first thing. And the second most important thing is that bourgeois governments must be overthrown and start with Russia...

…The conditions in St. Petersburg are extremely difficult... They want to fill our party with slop and dirt... We cannot trust either Chkheidze and Co., or Sukhanov, or Steklov, etc...."

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, pp. 422-423).

It is most important for us to know the beginning of Lenin’s letter to Ganetsky dated March 30, concerning departure:

“Dear comrade! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your efforts and help. Of course, I cannot use the services of people related to the publisher of Kolokol. Today I telegraphed to you that the only hope to escape from here is the exchange of Swiss emigrants for German internees..."

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 418).

Here I will have to temporarily interrupt the quote to clarify something...

The publisher of “The Bell” mentioned by Lenin is precisely the same Parvus-Gelfand whom various old people and co. drag into the story with the “sealed” carriage (in the “German” version) and with “German gold”.

Parvus was indeed dirty in a variety of ways, but back in November 1915, Lenin, in the article “At the Last Line,” described the magazine “Die Glocke” (“The Bell”) published by Parvus as "the organ of renegadeism and dirty servility in Germany". Ilyich also wrote there: “Parvus, who showed himself to be an adventurer already in the Russian revolution, has now sunk... to the last line... Mr. Parvus has such a copper forehead...” etc.

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 27, pp. 82-83).

By the way, it was Parvus who put forward the theory of “permanent revolution”, and Trotsky only adopted it. Parvus was a dexterous person, he could, as they say, get into the soul without soap, and he approached Ganetsky clearly not without intent, for the purpose of provocation.

Lenin, of course, did not succumb to it.

Let us return, however, to Ganetsky’s letter of March 30, which Lenin, extensively explaining the meaning of the last telegram, continued as follows:

“England will never let me in, nor the internationalists in general, nor Martov and his friends, nor Nathanson (an old populist, later a left Socialist Revolutionary - S.K.) and his friends. The British returned Chernov to France, although he had all the travel papers!! It is clear that the Russian proletarian revolution has no worse enemy than the British imperialists. It is clear that the clerk of the Anglo-French imperialist capital, Miliukov (and Co.), are capable of going to great lengths, deceiving, betraying, doing anything to prevent the internationalists from returning to Russia. The slightest trust in this regard both in Miliukov and Kerensky (an empty talker, an agent of the imperialist bourgeoisie in his objective role) would be directly destructive for the labor movement and for our party ... "

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, pp. 418-419).

So, the British turned even the Socialist Revolutionary Chernov back to France! For Lenin, this was a completely understandable reason for abandoning the attempt to travel through England. After all, even Chernov didn’t pass! With all the papers “corrected” in “union” Paris...

However, there was nothing particularly surprising here. At first glance, Chernov is not Lenin. Chernov is a “defencist”, he is for the war “to the bitter end”, but...

But Chernov is popular among the Russian peasantry, that is, he is a political competitor of the Petrograd creatures of London - Miliukov, Guchkov, Nekrasov, etc. It turns out that St. Petersburg is inconvenient for the English and Chernov.

If the route through England is impossible for the Socialist-Revolutionary “defencist” Chernov, then what can we say about the Bolshevik “defeatist” Ulyanov!? They simply didn’t let Chernov through, but Lenin would probably have been arrested - “English”, she “always shits”...

The “English” option is no longer available. The Britons are not only cunning, but they also know how to think. Why would they help Lenin preserve the whiteness of his political clothes if they could so easily be stained with “Teutonic” dirt!?

The Provisional Government did not respond to telegrams from Switzerland,? (?V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 120) clearly not wanting to facilitate Lenin’s return to Russia. But historical time – unlike “temporal” ones – did not wait.

What could Lenin do?

After all, the danger was becoming more and more real that Lenin, in the midst of Russian events, would get stuck on a neutral Swiss “inhabited island” in the middle of the “ocean” of the European war...

Could this be tolerated?

By the way, at that time even such projects arose for Bolsheviks (more precisely, Bolsheviks) to leave, such as a fictitious marriage with someone from the Swiss in order to obtain a Swiss passport. And Lenin, recommending the Bolshevik S. Ravich (“Olga”) for this purpose the Menshevik P.B. Axelrod, who received Swiss citizenship, wrote to “Olga” on March 27: “Your marriage plan seems very reasonable to me and I will stand (in the Central Committee) for giving you 100 frs: 50 frs to the lawyer and 50 frs to the “convenient old man” for marrying you! Hey-hey!! Have the right to enter both Germany and Russia! Hooray! You came up with a wonderful idea!”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 416).

How, one must assume, Lenin envied his “bride”!

If same-sex marriage had already been legalized in Europe, then Lenin, completely “red” in all respects, even for some “blue”, could probably have “jumped out” for a couple of weeks - just to get the coveted “neutral” Swiss passport , “revealing” all the boundaries...

And SUDDENLY, unexpectedly, a “convenient” Swiss “old man” was found for Lenin too... Actually, then he was not yet an old man, being thirty-six years old in 1917, and he was not trying to be Ilyich’s “husband.” However, he had a certain weight in Switzerland and could help Lenin with his departure. We are talking about the well-known secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, Robert Grimm...

Let me remind you: Grimm was not only a centrist socialist, but also a national councilor, that is, a member of the Swiss parliament. And so he offers Lenin help in immediately traveling to Russia through Germany! Moreover, not only Lenin and the Bolsheviks passed through, but also Martov and the Mensheviks, and the Socialist Revolutionaries...

Well, this was very opportune, I must admit... The matter finally got off the ground...

But I will emphasize that, contrary to the mysterious hints of the old people about what no one knows, everything that happened in the first days of April 1917 in Switzerland after Grimm’s initiative was carried out in the light of the broadest, so to speak, publicity.

And how could it be otherwise?! Lenin, immediately realizing that Grimm’s case would probably “fail,” also immediately understood that it was necessary to neutralize as much as possible the inevitable negative effects of the passage of Russian revolutionaries through the territory of a country at war with Russia, and for this it was necessary to publicly involve European socialists in the cause , including from France.

And so it was done, about which - in its place.

On March 31, 1917, the Foreign Collegium of the Bolshevik Central Committee decides to accept Grimm’s proposal to immediately move to Russia through Germany, and Lenin immediately sends a telegram to Grimm, also signed by Zinoviev and Ulyanova (N.K. Krupskaya):

"To National Councilor Grimm

Our party decided to unconditionally accept the proposal for the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany and immediately organize this trip. We are already counting on more than ten participants for the trip.

We absolutely cannot be held responsible for any further delay, we strongly protest against it and are going alone. We kindly ask you to come to an agreement immediately and, if possible, communicate the decision tomorrow.”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 424).

Grimm is negotiating with the German government through the German envoy to Switzerland Romberg, and Russian emigrants are slowly beginning to pack their bags...

Lenin puts his personal and party archives in order. (V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, pp. 638, 639, 640).

But why did Grimm suddenly show such activity? Maybe he did this on behalf of the notorious “German General Staff”?

Don't think…

On the contrary, I am sure that Grimm began to work for Lenin, not least because he was afraid of his continued stay in Switzerland!

Lenin's political activity and his growing influence among the left-wing Swiss socialists increasingly disturbed the Swiss centrists and Grimm personally. But while Lenin was considered a political criminal in Russia, the right-wing socialists could not “push” him out of Switzerland - without losing political face - in no way. Denying Lenin political asylum meant handing him over to tsarism.

Now, when tsarism had fallen, a convenient option for getting rid of Lenin appeared - to transport him to Russia, if England did not agree, through Germany.

All this, most likely, was so, since if Lenin, while continuing to remain in Switzerland, had turned his unspent energy to the situation “Lenin against Grimm,” then this would not have promised anything good for the petty Grimm.

So Grimm was busy.

NIKOLAI Starikov assures everyone that Ganetsky “sat on Lenin’s financial flows”... This pathetic attempt to present Lenin as some kind of “political oligarch” is not even funny.

Here are three documents cited from that 49th PSS, pages 424 to 426...

Letter from Armand from early April:

“...I hope that we are going on Wednesday - I hope, together with you.

Gregory(G.E. Zinoviev, - S.K.) was here, we agreed to go with him...

We have more money for the trip than I thought, enough for 10-20 people, because our comrades in Stockholm helped us a lot.

It is quite possible that in St. Petersburg now the majority of workers are social patriots...(this is how it was then, precisely in an urban, and not in a rural environment, - S.K.)

Let's fight.

And the war will agitate for us..."

As we see, Lenin in his anti-war agitation did not count on “German gold”, but on the realities of life itself. And what kind of money did Lenin count on for the trip? We learn this from his telegram to Ganetsky in Stockholm dated April 1, 1917:

“Allocate two thousand, preferably three thousand, crowns for our trip. We are planning to leave on Wednesday(April, 4, - S.K.) minimum 10 people. Telegraph"

That's all “financial flows”!

On April 2, Lenin writes a letter to the chief “archivist” of the party, V.A. Karpinsky and his assistant S.N. Ravich, in which he gives instructions on how to prepare the archive (making copies, binding, etc.), and also reports:

"Dear friends!

So we're going on Wednesday through Germany.

Tomorrow this will be decided completely.

We will send you a bunch of bundles with our books, books and things, asking you to send them one by one to Stockholm for forwarding to us in St. Petersburg.

We will send you money and a mandate from the Central Committee to carry out all correspondence and manage affairs...

P.S. We hope to raise enough money for the trip for 12 people, because our comrades in Stockholm helped us a lot...”

Let me remind you that this was purely internal correspondence, not intended for the public or the elderly. Armand's letter was published for the first time in 1978 in the Complete Collected Works, a telegram to Ganetsky and a letter to Karpinsky - in 1930 in the XIIIth Lenin Collection. So these documents confirm Lenin’s true financial position with all the clarity of the fact - in contrast to the forged “documents” of the American Sisson, etc.

It would seem that one could breathe a sigh of relief, sit down on the path according to Russian custom and hit the road, but then...

But here the Swiss Mensheviks, led by Martov, balked, and with them the Socialist Revolutionaries... They began to object to the resolution of the Foreign Collegium of the Bolshevik Central Committee to accept Grimm’s proposal for an immediate move and demanded to wait for permission for travel from the Petrograd (Menshevik) Council of Workers’ Deputies.

In other words, the “Petro-Soviet” riffraff who played the same tune as Miliukov had to give consent to Lenin’s quickest arrival in Russia.

The line of the Swiss Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries was clear - Lenin in Switzerland was much less politically dangerous to them than in Petrograd, and delays in his departure were beneficial to them. On the other hand, the Petrograd Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries in the Petrograd Soviet, starting with Chkheidze and Kerensky, needed Lenin in St. Petersburg no more than Grimm needed in Zurich...

The Mensheviks not only objected, they informed Grimm, and the matter stalled.

Vladimir Ilyich was furious and wrote in a note to the Zurich section of the Bolsheviks:

"Dear friends!

I am attaching the solution(about travel, - S.K.)…

On my own behalf, I will add that I consider the Mensheviks who thwarted the common cause to be scoundrels of the first degree, “afraid” of what “public opinion” will say, i.e. social patriots!!! I'm going (and Zinoviev) to the whole world.

Find out exactly (1) who is going, (2) how much money he has...

We already have a fund of over 1000 frs (approximately 600 rubles - S.K.) for travel. We are thinking of setting Wednesday IV as the day of departure.

Take passports from the Russian consul at your place of residence immediately...”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 427).

The last phrase, by the way, clearly shows that preparations for the move were made, although without the consent of the Provisional Government, but not in secret from it! Although Miliukov publicly threatened to put on trial everyone who would travel through Germany, Lenin writes about this in his next letter to Karpinsky and Ravich, also reporting:

“...Platten takes on everything. Below I give you a copy of the conditions that Platten presented. Apparently they will be accepted. We won't go without this. Grimm continues to persuade the Meks(Mensheviks, - S.K.), but we, of course, act completely independently. We think the departure will take place on Friday, Wednesday, Saturday...”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, pp. 427-428).

He asked to speak immediately with Henri Guilbeault, a French socialist journalist, publisher of the magazine “Demain” (“Tomorrow”), and also, “if Guilbeau sympathizes,” to ask Guilbeault to “involve Romain Rolland for signature,” the famous French writer of progressive views, opponent of the war.

Lenin also wanted to involve lawyer Charles Nain, one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, editor of the newspapers “La Sentinelle” (The Sentinel) and “Droit du Peuple” (People’s Law), in covering the departure.

In Nikolai Starikov’s depiction, Lenin’s move was accomplished almost in the greatest secrecy, in the best traditions of the “knights of the cloak and dagger.” As we see, in reality Lenin was ready to announce his forced passage through Germany to all of Europe! On April 6, Lenin personally sent a telegram to Guilbaut with a request to bring Rolland and Nan or Graber, the second editor of the newspaper La Sentinelle.

In reality, the “Protocol of the Trip” was signed for publication by Platten, Guilbaud, the French radical socialist Ferdinand Loriot, who specially came from Paris, the German social democrat Paul Levy (Garstein) and the representative of the Polish social democracy Bronsky...

AGAIN the Mensheviks began to put a spoke in the wheels. Lenin, through Ganetsky, requested

“Belenin’s opinion” (in this case it was not Shlyapnikov, who bore this pseudonym, who was meant, but the Bureau of the Central Committee in Petrograd), and on April 5 the Bureau, through Ganetsky, issued a directive: “Ulyanov must arrive immediately”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 556, note 479)

Yes, we had to hurry - the entire “head” of Bolsheviks was beginning to arrive in St. Petersburg. Lenin in Zurich received a telegram from Perm signed by Kamenev, Muranov and Stalin, returning from Siberian exile: “Salut fraternel Ulianow, Zinowieff. Aujiourdhui partons Petrograd...” (“Brotherly greetings to Ulyanov, Zinoviev. Today we are leaving for Petrograd...”)

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 428)

Through Platten, envoy Romberg was conveyed the conditions, where the main points were the following:

“All emigrants are coming without any difference in their views on the war. The carriage in which the emigrants are traveling enjoys the right of extraterritoriality; no one has the right to enter the carriage without Platten’s permission. No control of passports or luggage. Those traveling undertake to agitate in Russia for the exchange of missed emigrants for a corresponding number of Austro-German internees.”

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 120).

The training camp was nervous, everyone was on pins and needles. And this is not my conjecture, it is enough to cite two telegrams from Lenin to Ganetsky dated April 7... Initially, the departure was scheduled for Wednesday the 4th, but even on April 7 Lenin was still in Bern and telegraphed to Stockholm:

“20 people are leaving tomorrow. Lindhagen(Social Democratic Member of the Riksdag, Mayor of Stockholm, - S.K.) and Ström(Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Sweden, - S.K.) let them definitely wait in Trelleborg. Urgently call Belenin and Kamenev to Finland..."

But on the same day another telegram leaves for Stockholm:

“Final departure on Monday. 40 people (actually 32 people left - S.K.). Lindhagen, Strom is definitely Trelleborg..."

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 431).

There is probably no need to comment here. And it’s clear that the atmosphere was, to put it mildly, not calm. Someone realized at the last moment and wanted to leave immediately, someone hesitated and stayed...

But all this was a minor matter compared to the main thing: Lenin was going to Russia!

On Monday, April 9 (March 27, old style) Vladimir Ilyich with Krupskaya, Zinoviev with his wife and son, Armand with his sister-in-law Konstantinovich, Leninists Skovno, Mikha Tskhakaya - a total of 32 people, of which 19 people were Bolsheviks, and 6 were Bundists, We left through the German Taingen (Tingen) border with Switzerland to Russia.

The trip through Germany took three days - the speed is not express, but not so bad in wartime and taking into account the fact that it was not a scheduled flight and not a military “letter”.

On April 12, 1917, a group from the German port of Sassnitz sailed to Sweden, and from the ship Lenin and Platten sent the last “moving” telegram to Ganetsky: “We arrive today 6 o’clock Trelleborg”?

Already on the way to Russia, Lenin sent a telegram to Geneva and Karpinsky, who remained behind to prepare for sending the party archive to Russia:

“The German government loyally guarded the extraterritoriality of our carriage. Let's move on. Print a farewell letter. Hello. Ulyanov"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 433).

Lenin was referring to the "Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers", which was published on May 1, 1917 in German in the newspaper Jugend-Internationale, and ended like this:

“When our party put forward the slogan in November 1914: “transforming the imperialist war into a civil war” of the oppressed against the oppressors for socialism, this slogan was met with hostility and malicious ridicule of social-patriots... The German... social-imperialist David called him “crazy” and the representative of Russian (and Anglo-French) social chauvinism... Mr. Plekhanov called it a “dream farce.” Representatives of the center escaped with silence or vulgar jokes about this “straight line drawn in airless space.”

Now, after March 1917, only a blind person could fail to see that this slogan is true...

Long live the beginning proletarian revolution in Europe!

On behalf of departing comrades...

N. Lenin"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, pp. 93-94).

AND AT THE COMPLETION of this “epistolary” chapter, I will cite the last Leninist document in it. It was first published on September 17, 1924 in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper. This is a note to a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies "A. Belenin" - A.G. Shlyapnikov:

“I am enclosing receipts for the fare of our group. I received 300 SEK benefits from the Russian consul in Haparanda (from the Tatyana Fund). I paid an additional 472 rubles. 45 kopecks I would like to receive this money, borrowed by me, from the Committee for Assistance to Exiles and Emigrants.

N. Lenin"

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 49, p. 435).

What can I say...

Well, Lenin was a penny-pincher, it turns out! He brought with him German “gold” millions, but was busy trying to pay some measly hundreds of Russian rubles, which were also devalued.

But perhaps the reason was that Lenin did not have any millions? And upon arrival in Petrograd it was necessary not only to carry out party work, but also to live on something basic.

To live not on the mythical German millions, but on modest rubles, increasingly depreciated by the ongoing war...

Finally, again - not with the francs and crowns that were so disgusting in emigration, but with Russian rubles!

Lenin finally reached Russia!

FOR a correct look at those days, it is useful to get acquainted with their description by Pavel Miliukov, then one of the top officials in Russia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government. Miliukov writes about the return “from prisons, from exile, from abroad - Switzerland, Paris, London, America - of representatives of the Russian emigration,” and states that “we met them not only with honor, but also with warm greetings.” and “hoped to find useful employees among them”... For Plekhanov, for example, they reserved the Ministry of Labor, but immediately realized that “this is the past, not the present”...

This is how they met – in their old, but, as it turned out, tattered “clothes”, the compromisers and the “defencists”...

What about Lenin?

Miliukov “forgot” to report in his “Memoirs” that he stubbornly did not agree to Lenin’s passage through England and was generally against Lenin’s return to Russia, because it was known in advance that Lenin would stand for an immediate appeal to the allies to abandon the demand for “annexations and indemnities" and for offering peace on these terms.

But Miliukov lets something slip:

“At the beginning of April, Lenin arrived through Germany with his retinue in a “sealed carriage”... Later, Trotsky arrived, and I was later very much accused of “letting” him through. I really insisted to the British, who had him on the “black list,” not to detain him. But those who accused me forgot that the government had granted a general amnesty. In addition, Trotsky was considered a Menshevik - and was preparing himself for the future. It was impossible to recover for past crimes...”

(Milyukov P.N. Memoirs. M., Sovremennik, 1990, vol. two, p. 308)

You read it and don’t believe your eyes! Immediately admit that a general amnesty was declared, and keep silent that it was common to everyone except Lenin!

The Menshevik Trotsky, it turns out, was preparing himself for the future... But did the Bolshevik Lenin not prepare himself for the future?

But for Trotsky, it turns out, it was possible to plead with the British, but for Lenin - supposedly also subject to the supposedly general amnesty - God forbid!

Today this is called the “policy of double standards,” but at all times there was another definition for such actions: hypocrisy, duplicity and meanness!

In the same “Memoirs” Miliukov irritably reports:

“...It was impossible to punish for past crimes. But when Lenin began to pronounce his criminal words from the balcony of Kshesinskaya’s house(Wow!, - S.K.) speeches in front of a huge crowd, I insisted to the government on his immediate arrest...”

So, for the rest of the emigrants from Miliukov - not only “honor”, ​​but also “warm greetings”. For the decrepit Menshevik Plekhanov, who agrees to continue shedding the blood of Russian men in the name of “war to a victorious end,” a ministerial chair...

And for the energetic Bolshevik Lenin, who demands the immediate start of general negotiations on universal peace, prison bunks?

AND NOW - without quotes and references, but knowing what we know, let us once again take a look at that less than a month that passed from the first news in Switzerland about the Russian revolution until Lenin’s arrival in the Russian capital.

From the very beginning of the war, Lenin did not hide the fact that he was a supporter of the defeat of the Russian government in order to transform the imperialist war into a revolutionary war.

The last circumstance has to be emphasized time after time, since many people in the current Russian Federation, starting with Vladimir Putin, are either not enlightened on this score or are distorting it.

Lenin was the brightest patriot of Russia, but a Russia not of palaces, but of huts. And Lenin wanted the defeat of tsarism as a condition for transforming the war between the bourgeoisie of different countries into a war of the working people of all countries against the bourgeoisie of all countries. To wish defeat to your country, which is waging a just war, is betrayal. To wish defeat to the fattening ruling classes of your country, which plunged its people into a senseless and criminal war, is an act of high civil and social courage.

So in Europe, which had begun a terrifying mutual massacre, few people looked at the problem at that time, but there were people besides Lenin who thought the same way as he did. On March 16, 1916, Reichstag deputy Karl Liebknecht, in a speech in the Prussian Landtag, directly called on “those fighting in the trenches” "put down your arms and turn against the common enemy(that is, the capitalists of their countries, - S.K.)…».

For this, Liebknecht was... simply deprived of a word.

Nobody called him a Russian or English spy - still, European political culture had an effect. However, the rates in Germany and Russia turned out to be different.

German workers at the outbreak of the First World War were strongly influenced by the Second International, led by Bernstein and Kautsky, two prominent renegades of the labor movement who became effective agents of Capital's influence in the working class.

And Russian workers - not, unlike the Germans, spoiled by understanding of their problems on the part of Russian capital (which, moreover, as we know, was two-thirds not Russian), had large reserves of revolutionism and true class consciousness.

Therefore, Karl Liebknecht was much less dangerous for the elite “white” bastard in Germany (and not only in Germany) than Vladimir Ulyanov was for the elite “white” bastard in Russia, and not only in Russia.

Accordingly, Vladimir Lenin-Ulyanov in Russia was expected to take preventive measures that were stricter than being deprived of speech in parliament. Moreover, God spared Vladimir Ilyich from participating in bourgeois parliaments.

Let us return, however, to the first half of April 1917... Lenin passed through Germany and by sea was approaching the shores of Sweden.

Finally, here it is - the gangway, and behind it - neutral territory.

In SWEDISH Trelleborg, Ganetsky was waiting for the arrivals, and they went to Malmo, where they met with the Swedes, among whom was Lindhagen, the burgomaster of Stockholm... Would neutral Swedes have met a person suspicious of “German espionage” in this way?

After dinner in honor of the arrivals, late at night everyone left for Stockholm and at 10 am on April 13, 1917, they arrived in the Swedish capital.

The arrival of Russian emigrants returning home aroused considerable interest in Stockholm. The Politiken newspaper, No. 85 of April 14, 1917, published a message about this on the front page. In particular, it said: “After greetings and congratulations, a group of Russians headed past the newspapermen and cameramen clicking their cameras to the Regina Hotel...”

(Lenin. Collection of photographs and film footage in two volumes. M, Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee, 1970, vol. 1, p. 44).

Alas, several photos survived, but the film footage disappeared...

But a small message was preserved in the same issue of Politiken:

“Our friends didn’t want to give any interviews. Instead of interviews, the visitors sent a communiqué about the trip to the press and public through Politiken.

The most important thing is that we arrive in Russia as soon as possible,” Lenin said passionately. - Every day is precious. Governments have taken every measure to make travel difficult.

Have you met any of your German party comrades?(here we must remember that at that time the Social Democrats of all Europe were considered comrades, - S.K.).

No. Wilhelm Janson from Berlin tried to meet us in Lingen near the Swiss border. But Platten refused him, making a friendly hint that he wanted to save Janson from the troubles of such a meeting."

(V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 95).

Wilhelm Janson, a chauvinist-minded socialist, one of the editors of the Correspondence List of the General Commission of Trade Unions of Germany, sought a meeting with Lenin, but it is difficult to say whether it was a poorly disguised provocation or journalistic importunity. In any case, Janson was not successful.

On April 13, a meeting of Russian emigrants with Swedish left-wing Social Democrats was held at the Regina Hotel. The mayor of Stockholm, Karl Lindhagen, and Lenin presided. Lenin made a report about the trip, Lindhagen gave a speech “Light from the East”...

The Swedes expressed full solidarity with such a step of the Russian Social Democrats as the decision to travel through Germany, and Social Democrat Karl Carlson, editor of the Politiken newspaper, expressed the hope that the revolution in Russia would develop into an international revolution.

At half past seven in the evening, after a farewell dinner, Lenin, who was accompanied by about a hundred people, leaves for the small Swedish port of Haparanda on the northern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. When looking at a map of Sweden and Finland, this route is discouraging. Why did Lenin need to go from Stockholm to the middle of nowhere, across all of Sweden, to distant Haparanda and, having moved from there to neighboring Torneo, go to the Finnish-Russian border through all of Finland, if from Stockholm through the Åland Islands to the Finnish Abo is just a stone's throw away?

I don’t know whether this reflected the Milyukovs’ desire to somehow offend Lenin and delay his appearance in Petrograd for at least a couple of days, or whether it was due to the dangers of wartime, but in any case, you wonder how petty and stupid someone brought up by an old man can be. anti-Leninist, worldly man, going to those wars in the name of the profits of the few, against which Lenin fought so passionately.

Those wars that make the simple and humane difficult, and the terrible and vile - acceptable...

One way or another, the emigrants reached the Swedish Haparanda.

The Gulf of Bothnia was still completely covered with ice.

In the late autumn of 1907, Lenin walked on the fragile ice of the southern part of this bay; now, ten years later, in the early spring of 1917, he moved across its ice from Haparanda to Finnish Torneo on a sled.

In Torneo he was searched by English (!) officers from the headquarters of the Entente troops (!?) (V.I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 647).

This fact was indicative in all respects, but by and large it was petty revenge, and Lenin traveled through Finland to the cheers of the workers.

On the night of April 16-17 (new style) 1917, he ended his emigrant odyssey on the Finlyandsky Station Square in Petrograd. He was met by thousands of people. The leaders of the Petrograd Soviet, Chkheidze and Skobelev, putting on a good face in a sour mood, greeted him with speeches, expressing the “hope” that Lenin would “find a common language” with them...

But these were all details. The main thing was that Lenin came to Russia!

Now, having arrived in his homeland after a ten-year separation, he will never part with Russia again - until his death.

TO THE QUESTION - who was Lenin?, many today will answer that he was a “German spy”, brought to Russia “in a sealed carriage.”

The carriages in which Lenin traveled through Germany, Sweden and Finland to Russia were quite ordinary, but that’s not what we’re talking about, but the fact that Russia did not immediately see in Lenin the indisputable leader it needed, and many actually believed that that a “spy” had arrived.

Lenin was greeted warmly upon his arrival, that’s true. However, the bulk of even the St. Petersburg workers were not then under the influence of Lenin. So far, even in St. Petersburg, tens of thousands at best followed him, but not hundreds of thousands, which, however, did not discourage him. Like Napoleon Bonaparte, Lenin believed that it was necessary to get involved in a good fight, and then we’ll see...

“We’ll fight,” he wrote to Armand on the eve of his departure.

And there were certain battles ahead.

Historian Yuri Felshtinsky argued in 1995:

“Having relied on the revolution in Russia, the German government, in critical days and weeks for the Provisional Government, supported the Leninist group, helped it pass through Germany and Sweden... Like the German government, the Leninist group was interested in the defeat of Russia.”

It's not like that here...

Moreover, it is so wrong that with this one statement Felshtinsky completely erases his reputation not only as an “objective historian,” but as a historian as such!

Firstly, the Entente placed its bet on a revolution in Russia (more precisely, on a “special operation”), and it inspired the “revolution” - conceived as a coup at the top, by Russian bourgeois circles.

Secondly, Lenin was helped through Germany by the right-wing Swiss social democrat Grimm and the left-wing Swiss social democrat Friedrich Platten, and through Sweden by the Swedish social democrats.

Thirdly, Lenin returned to Russia not during the “critical” days for the Provisionals, but at the height of the “honeymoon” of the Provisional Government with Russian society. The military Freedom Loan was going with a bang!

Finally, Lenin was interested in the defeat not of Russia, but of the landowner-capitalist power in Russia, rightly considering such a defeat as a condition for the transfer of power in Russia to the representatives of the people.

Lenin came to Petrograd from Switzerland in transit through Germany and Sweden, and the carriage with Russian political emigrants when traveling through German territory was indeed closed and enjoyed the right of extraterritoriality. But this route was given to Lenin and his comrades, as we know, by the British.

Let's remember the sequence of events...

The February Revolution declared a general political amnesty. Now emigrants could return home without immediately ending up in jail in Russia. However, England did not let in those revolutionaries who opposed the war. The threat of prison in Russia was replaced by the threat of prison in England. Lenin’s path from Switzerland through France and England to Sweden, and from there to Finland and Russia, was closed in the name of the triumph of “English democracy” over “Prussian militarism.” When Lenin passed through England, he would simply have been arrested.

And this is not an assumption; the British did this to some Russian political emigrants then. Let us not forget that the Golden International of the elite was already preparing to involve the United States in the final stage of the war, and its premature termination was absolutely unacceptable for the clan of Wilson, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Churchill, Morgan, Rothschild and Baruch. America was supposed to come to Europe and become the arbiter of its future destinies.

JUST in the days when Lenin was preparing to leave for Russia, on April 6, 1917, the United States of America declared war on Germany. And could the Entente allow people who could disrupt the process of increasing America’s military super-profits to enter Russia through territories controlled by the “allies”?

The attitude of the German government towards the passage of Russian revolutionaries opposing the war was exactly the opposite of the English one. By the beginning of 1917, Germany found itself in the most difficult situation of all the warring powers - even more difficult than Russia. On the one hand, Germany occupied significant territories - Belgium, a significant part of France, Russian Poland, but on the other hand, the shortage of everything was growing in Germany, resources were depleted, and the “allies” received ever-increasing supplies from “neutral” America. Before the United States officially joined the war, Germany received from them loans worth 20 million dollars, and the Entente countries - 2 billion!.. (History of the First World War 1914-1918. M., Nauka, vol. 2, pp. 297, 545)

This already says that Germany was doomed, because it interfered with America as the most dangerous competitor on the world stage... I note that Miliukov threatened Lenin with all punishments - up to prison, if Lenin went through Germany, not only because he was afraid of Lenin's political power but also because Lenin’s arrival in Russia was very disadvantageous for America!

At the same time, Lenin in Russia was - yes, objectively beneficial to Germany because from the beginning of the war he advocated ending it by all countries “without annexations and indemnities,” and by the spring of 1917 Wilhelm had no time for annexations, and indemnities were threatened from the perspective of Germany itself.

What Lenin sought on the issue of war was necessary for the peoples of Russia and Europe... But this gave a chance, albeit small, also to the Kaiser’s regime in the sense that if in 1917 Lenin’s point of view had prevailed in Europe, influencing Russia, then the regime could survive.

In December 1916, Germany, through neutral countries, turned to the Entente powers with peace proposals.

(History of the First World War 1914-1918. M., Nauka, vol. 2, p. 286)

But these were still proposals from the position of almost a winner.

On January 31, 1917, the German government communicated its peace terms to US President Wilson. (History of diplomacy, M., Politizdat, 1965, vol. III, pp. 40-41)

For those who would like to end the war, these conditions could well become the basis for at least a temporary truce. The Germans made a strong request this time too, but it was clear that this was a request, and in reality they would make concessions.

However, America was preparing to launch a war in the name of the enslavement of Europe, and then the world. On February 3, 1917, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Germany, citing the actions of the German submarine fleet as the reason for the break.

Let's compare two dates...

And on the same day - April 6, 1917, Fritz Platten informs Lenin about the consent of the German government to the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany.

The coincidence is amazing, but is it a coincidence?

Is there a direct connection between America's entry into the war and Berlin's decision to let Lenin through?

I'm sure it's there!

America on the side of the Entente is the beginning of the end of Germany, regardless of its temporary successes; Berlin could not help but understand this. Greed is greed, but it was necessary to look reality in the eye. And could the Germans in April 1917 refuse to return to their homeland those who denounced the global carnage, if back in December 1916 Germany was ready to immediately begin peace negotiations?

Moreover, Germany was inclined to peace after America entered the war.

The German imperial ministers did not understand the views of the Bolshevik leader so well as to understand that they, the representatives of bourgeois Germany exhausted by the war, wanted peace in the name of saving German imperialism, and Lenin called for peace in the name of the destruction of any imperialism, including Germanic.

Outwardly, the goals coincided, but this is in no way explained by the fact that Lenin was in any way connected with the German government. After all, no one in the West calls Churchill an “agent of Stalin” on the grounds that Churchill collaborated with Stalin. It’s just that from June 22, 1941 to May 9, 1945, the main goal of both was to defeat Hitler.

In the spring of 1917, there was also a tactical coincidence of goals, even without joint agreements.

WHAT was the role of the German General Staff? And did he play any role at all in the conflict with Lenin’s passage, did he take part in this or that?

Of course, I accepted, and could not help but accept!

Who else could the German political leadership consult with when making a decision, if not with its own intelligence services, that is, with the intelligence of the General Staff? For example, in information networks there is either gossip or information that the former chief of the Kaiser’s intelligence service, Walter Nicolai, having been captured by the Soviets in 1945, took credit for having taken part in the “transport” of Lenin to Russia. I can believe it - in the sense that this was discussed with Nikolai. But this concerned only the internal relations of German departments, to which Lenin, naturally, had nothing to do.

Lenin perfectly understood the piquancy of the situation when transiting through Germany, but there was no other way to get to seething Russia. That is why he insisted on the right of extraterritoriality, that is, travel without control of passports and luggage, without allowing any German officials or German citizens in general into the carriage. From here the “sealed carriage” began to travel through the pages of a number of Petrograd newspapers - like a vulgar historical curiosity.

As another similar curiosity, I can report that in the 50s, CIA Director Allen Dulles recalled how allegedly “at the end” of 1916, a certain “strong bald man with a reddish beard” persistently wanted to meet with him, then the resident of American intelligence in Switzerland . But, Dulles concluded, “a game of tennis with a beautiful lady awaited me,” and Lenin - well, who else could it be! - was never accepted. And CIA historians allegedly figured out that Lenin visited Dulles shortly before leaving for Russia, “to consult about German subsidies to the Bolsheviks” (Yakovlev N.N. August 1, 1914. M., Moskvityanin. 1993, pp. 264-265)

Humiliatingly hunched over in anticipation of “wise” advice, Lenin in a shabby jacket in front of the imposing, respectable Allen Dulles in a snow-white tennis suit the color of the Swiss snows - the picture is still the same!

What if the “one hundred percent” Yankees have a lot of self-confidence! They didn't even bother to compare the chronology of events, but to hell with them!

It’s good that the CIA chief did not ask his subordinates the task of analyzing whether “another one not accepted” by Dulles was a strong two-meter Russian stutterer with a mustache and curly hair, Peter the Great, who wanted to sell the original of his forged “Will” at a cheap price to the Library of Congress?

Sergey Kremlev, especially for the “Ambassadorship Prikaz”

Today marks 99 years since the beginning of one of the most famous train journeys in world history(in 2017 we will turn exactly a century old). The flight lasted more than 7 days, starting in the city of Zurich in the afternoon of April 9, 1917, acc.

Ideally, of course, I would like to repeat this flight in the year of the centenary at the same time intervals and look at all these points with my own eyes, making a new cycle - but it is unknown whether finances and current employment will allow this. So now let's see politics, but a purely transport component of the now legendary “sealed Lenin carriage”.

Route

There are certain discrepancies with the route.
So, at 15.10 on April 9, 32 emigrants left Zurich for the Gottmadingen station on the border. Towards the evening of the 9th they moved into a sealed carriage, according to the terms previously agreed through Platten. Then the carriage traveled through the territory of the Kaiser’s Germany. In contrast to Wikipedia, which writes about “non-stop movement,” some participants in their memoirs claimed that in Berlin the carriage stood for more than half a day, in some kind of dead end - until a new re-attachment to Sassnitz, i.e. from April 10 to April 11, 1917.

Then the carriage arrived at the port of Sassnitz, where the participants of the voyage left it and were transported on the Queen Victoria steamship to Trelleborg, Sweden. On April 13, they all arrived by train to Stockholm, where they spent a full daylight hours. Then we took a regular train to the border Haparanda and further to Torneo, where we transferred to a Finnish Railways train. on the evening of April 14. The train crossed the Grand Duchy of Finland in one and a half days on April 15-16 and finally, after a meeting in Beloostrov (where Lenin was joined, in particular, by Stalin) the train on the night of the 16th to the 17th (from the 3rd to the 4th according to O.S.) arrived in Petrograd. There was an armored car and a ceremonial meeting.

2. This route seems somewhat fake to me, because... Bern is listed as the point of departure, which is not true.

3. And here are screenshots from the stand in the museum car in Sassnitz (GDR). This route, in theory, is closer to reality. If we try to make out the signatures, we see that the carriage traveled from Gottmadingen through Ulm, Frankfurt-Main, Kassel, Magdeburg, Berlin (stop), then on a branch line with some deviation to the east, through Prenzlau - Greiswald to Sassnitz. [Correct me if I have linked the route to the area incorrectly]

4. Border Swedish Haparanda, where emigrants, in theory, transferred to a local train and rode on a sleigh across the border river (the question has been clarified) to get to the Finnish-Russian Torneo. Or maybe the direct long-distance Stockholm train went to Torneo - which I personally highly doubt.

5. Not very high quality, but still what it is - a photograph of Lenin in Stockholm that day (April 13). As you can see, the future leader of the world proletarian revolution looks very bourgeois.

Railway carriage

Unfortunately, the carriage is not going very well right now. From 1977 to 1994, we had the opportunity to see an exact analogue of the type of carriage on which Russian political emigrants traveled - in the GDR there was a Lenin museum carriage in Sassnitz, where that atmosphere was reconstructed and there were stands with detailed information. Now the carriage is gone, the museum is closed. Where did that carriage go? The Germans themselves write on the forums that he is now somewhere in Potsdam in the dead ends of sludge. Whether this is so, I don’t know.

However, there are still screenshots from a movie of that time, which ended up in the Sassnitz museum car. The film is called Forever In Hearts Of People (1987) - “Forever in the hearts of people”, it can be downloaded on the website.

Online it.
The story about the “sealed carriage” is in the second part of the film (08.45 min - 9.50 min).
Let's look at the screenshots.

6. Passage to the corridor. Somewhere there Lenin drew a line with chalk.

7. This was definitely a mixed carriage, since there were both 1st class compartments (one or two) and 2nd class compartments (where, in fact, political emigrants were accommodated). In this compartment at the beginning of the carriage, of a higher class, were accompanying officers of the German General Staff.

8. And in these simpler ones, Lenin, Radek, Zinoviev and their companions rode.

9. Another angle.

Alas, I can’t watch all this now. There is no museum-carriage on site.

PS. If anyone has anything to add regarding the route, type of carriage, or other transport and logistics component, please add links and other additions in the comments. There are also pictures-scans, if there is anything to add. First of all, I am interested in route and transport information, including on the Swedish trains that political emigrants traveled on (there is no information on them at all).

Conventional name of the myth:

The Bolsheviks were brought by the Germans in a sealed carriage

Detailed description:

The accusation is used as one of the “evidence” of Lenin’s connection with the Germans.

Examples of using:

Reality:

Since the beginning of perestroika, during the reassessment of historical events that was taking place at that time, they remembered the old accusation against the Bolsheviks. The charge concerns the issue of travel by Lenin and his group from Switzerland to Russia through the countries at war at that time.

Leaving the moral assessment of this fact behind the scenes, let's consider a related question: did only the Bolsheviks travel in sealed carriages? Let's look at the lists of those who traveled during the war.

As you can see there are two lists. The first list is people who traveled directly with Lenin. The second list is of people traveling on the following trains. There is clear information about them about their party affiliation. These lists highlight people actively involved in politics. Their family members are only mentioned. We can safely assume that family members who had independent political “weight” are singled out separately. This is confirmed by the fact that V.I. Lenin and N.K. Krupskaya go in separate lines.

Combining this data we get:

The consignment	Human	Including family members	% to total
RSDLP	64	95	38.3
BUND	33	48	19.8
Social democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania	1	1	0.6
Latvian Social Democratic Labor Party	2	6	1.2
Lithuanian Social Democratic Party	1	1	0.6
Polish Socialist Party	3	5	1.8
Socialist Revolutionary Party	17	32	10.2
Anarchist communists	24	34	14.4
POALEI ZION	3	3	1.8
Zionist-Socialist Workers' Party	1	1	0.6
Non-partisan	18	22	10.8
Total	167	248	100

What can we judge based on this table?

1. Not only the Bolsheviks passed through Germany. On the trains there were representatives of the entire left wing of the revolutionaries.

2. The RSDLP is indeed the largest faction on these trains. However, there is no division between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, and in the lists we see a number of well-known names of Mensheviks. We find that slightly more than a quarter are Bolsheviks.

Thus, to impose this accusation only on the Bolsheviks is extremely incorrect and biased.