The Allied imperialists kept a keen eye on Lenin’s every movement. On April 3, the day he arrived in Petrograd, the British Embassy submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs giving its opinion of Lenin. This memorandum declared that Lenin was a good organiser and an extremely dangerous man and that it was very likely that he would find numerous followers in Petrograd.(1)
That very same day the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a memorandum from the French Ambassador also referring to Lenin’s passage through Germany.
A. Neratov, Assistant Foreign Minister, made the following notation on these documents:
“All information received from third parties must be published in the press to-morrow without fail, the sources not being indicated, and the goodwill shown by the German government towards Lenin and the others should be stressed.”(2)
This was the origin of the mesh of lies and slanders that was woven around Lenin’s return to Russia. The fear that “this good organiser would find numerous followers in Petrograd” inspired the Allied imperialists to start a campaign against Lenin. He was accused almost of high treason in Germany’s behalf. The example of the Provisional Government was followed up by the entire bourgeois and defencist press. This is what Ryech, the Cadet newspaper, wrote on April 5, 1917:
“Citizen Lenin and the comrades who hastened to return to Russia, before they selected the route through Germany, should have asked themselves why the German government was so eager to accord them this unparalleled service, why it deemed it possible to give passage through its territory to citizens of a hostile country returning to that country. The reply, we think, would have been clear. The German government hoped that the earliest possible return of Citizen Lenin and his Comrades would be to Germany’s interest: it believed in the Germanophilism of the leader of the Bolsheviks. And the very possibility of such a reply, in our opinion, should have been quite sufficient for any responsible man of politics returning to Russia for the benefit of the people to refrain from taking advantage of this strange amiability. . . . But we think . . . that for a Russian man of politics, whatever his views, the way to the heart and conscience of the people of Russia does not lie through Germany.”(3)
The Socialist-Revolutionaries did not lag behind the Cadets. On April 16, V. Chernov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, wrote to Lenin in Dyelo Naroda literally in the same terms as the Cadets:
“It did not occur to him that even from his own point of view, the permission of England for his return would have been better, if only for the fact that it would have been extorted by the pressure of the Russian revolution, while the permission of Germany may be due to suspicious motives.”(4)
All of them—from the British imperialists to the Russian Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks—libelled Lenin in one and the same stereotyped way, incited the backward masses against him and hinted that the Bolshevik leader was a spy in the pay of Germany.
But the proletariat and the soldier-peasants were not taken in by this abominable slander. On April 3, the day of Lenin’s arrival, the Third Company of the Finland Regiment adopted a resolution protesting against the slanders of the bourgeoisie and its menials in the petty-bourgeois camp:
“Considering that the only safe road to Russia lies through Germany, we demand that the Provisional Government should immediately come to an agreement with the German government for the exchange of our political exiles for German prisoners.”(5)
The workers of Petrograd greeted their beloved leader with unfeigned joy. Huge demonstrations marched from all parts of the city to the Finland Railway Station. Lenin’s comrades, his fellow-fighters in the Bolshevik Party, came to welcome the man who had created and moulded this heroic party. The revolutionary soldiers and sailors came for advice, and eagerly seized upon every militant slogan uttered. Working men and women, sailors, soldiers, Party organisations and the first detachments of the Red Guard came to welcome the leader of the revolution. The streets were filled with marching columns of workers carrying banners with the inscription, “Welcome, Lenin!” An enormous crowd flooded the square of the Finland Railway Station.
Mensheviks also appeared to welcome Lenin. The Menshevik leaders came to dissuade Lenin from fighting for the Bolshevik line. They came to sever him from the masses. Chkheidze, a prominent Menshevik, read Lenin a veritable sermon on how to conduct himself in the revolution.
The Menshevik Sukhanov, a confederate of Chkheidze in betraying the proletariat and combating the Bolshevik Party, testifies to how this Menshevik dominie tried to persuade Lenin to desist from revolution:
“At the end of a small group of people, behind whom the door immediately banged to again, Lenin came, or rather rushed, into the royal waiting room, wearing a felt hat, his face frozen with cold and with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers in his hands. Dashing to the centre of the room, he came to an abrupt halt in front of Chkheidze, as though he had encountered an entirely unexpected obstacle. Thereupon Chkheidze, without relaxing his dour look, pronounced the following ‘speech of welcome,’ consistently maintaining not only the spirit and style but also the tone of a moralising sermon:
“‘Comrade Lenin, in the name of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and of the whole revolution, we welcome you on your arrival in Russia. . . . But we consider that the chief task of the revolutionary democracy at the present time is to defend our revolution from all attempts against it both from within and from without. We consider that what is needed for this is not disunion, but the union of the ranks of the entire democracy. We hope that you will pursue these aims together with us. . . .’
“Chkheidze paused. I was overcome by the unexpectedness of the thing. What attitude could Lenin possibly adopt towards this ‘welcome’ and this magnificent ‘but’? . . . But Lenin apparently knew very well what attitude to adopt. He stood with a look on his face as though all this did not concern him in the slightest—he kept glancing around, peering into the faces of the bystanders and even staring at the ceiling of the waiting room . . . and then—now having definitely turned away from the delegates of the Executive Committee—’replied’ as follows:
“‘Dear comrades, soldiers, sailors, and workers! I am happy to greet in your persons the victorious Russian revolution, to greet you as the vanguard of the world proletarian army. . . . The predatory imperialist war is the beginning of a civil war all over Europe. . . . The hour is not far off when, at the call of our comrade, Karl Liebknecht, the peoples will turn their weapons against their exploiters—the capitalists. . . . The dawn of the world Socialist revolution has already begun . . . In Germany, everything is in a ferment. . . . To-morrow, any day now, European imperialism may completely collapse. The Russian revolution you have made marks the beginning of this and has started a new era. Long live the world Socialist revolution!’”(6)
Having rid himself of the Menshevik dominies, Lenin went out on to the steps of the station. The square suddenly came to life. The huge crowd greeted the leader with cheers. Lenin was helped to mount an armoured car; searchlights played on him. Lightly stamping his feet, as though testing the strength of the armoured car, Lenin confidently launched his appeal for a world Socialist revolution to the crowd, which stood listening with bated breath. Lenin’s speech at once raised the revolution to a higher level.
The revolution needed a mind of unusual power to find its bearings rapidly, in the complex tangle of contradiction and antagonisms and to point out unerringly the immediate goal of the masses.
A will of unusual strength was needed to lead the masses to this goal by a sure path.
Lenin possessed this gigantic mind and will, fortified by the experience of the revolutionary struggle of the tasks of the proletariat. The leader of the revolution had assumed his post.
[1] A. B. Popov, “The Diplomacy of the Provisional Government in Combating the Revolution,” Krassny Arkhiv, 1927, Vol. I (XX), p. 11.
[2] Ibid., p. 12.
[3] “Lenin’s Arrival,” Ryech, No. 78, April 5, 1917.
[4] V. Chernov, Lenin’s Dyelo Naroda, No. 26, April 16, 1917.
[5] “The Third Company of the Finland Regiment of the Guards,” Rabochaya Gazeta (Workers’ Paper), No. 38, April 23, 1917.
[6] N. Sukhanov, Notes on the Revolution, Book 3, Berlin, 1922, pp. 14-15.
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