The Russian Revolution полностью

The strongest advocate of the “Lenin card” was Parvus. He had made one approach to Lenin in 1915: on that occasion, Lenin had refused to cooperate, but the situation was different now. In 1917 Parvus lived in Copenhagen where, as a cover for his intelligence activities, he operated an import company. He also had a spurious scientific institute from which to conduct espionage.¹⁹ His business agent in Stockholm was Jacob Ganetskii, Lenin’s trusted associate. Familiar with Russian émigré politics, Parvus placed high hopes on extremists like Lenin. He assured the German Ambassador to Denmark, Count V. Brockdorff-Rantzau, that if let loose, the anti-war left would spread such anarchy that after two or three months Russia would find it impossible to remain in the war.²⁰ He singled out Lenin for particular attention as “much more raving mad” than either Kerensky or Chkheidze. With uncanny foresight he predicted that once Lenin returned to Russia he would topple the Provisional Government, take over, and promptly conclude a separate peace.²¹ He understood well Lenin’s lust for power and believed he would strike a deal in order to be able to cross German territory to Sweden. Under Parvus’s influence, Brockdorff-Rantzau cabled to Berlin:

We must now unconditionally seek to create in Russia the greatest possible chaos.… We should do all we can … to exacerbate the differences between the moderate and extremist parties, because we have the greatest interest in the latter gaining the upper hand, since the Revolution will then become unavoidable and assume forms that must shatter the stability of the Russian state.²²

The German envoy in Switzerland, G. von Romberg, gave similar advice on the basis of information obtained from local experts on Russian affairs. He called Berlin’s attention to the fact that the followers of “Lehnin” caused discord in the Petrograd Soviet with calls for immediate peace negotiations and the refusal to cooperate with both the Provisional Government and the other socialist parties.²³

Won over, the German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, instructed Romberg to initiate talks with the Russian émigrés about transit to Sweden. These talks were carried out in late March and early April (NS) with the assistance of Swiss socialists, initially Robert Grimm and then Fritz Platten. Lenin acted on behalf of the Russians. It is symptomatic of the myopia of the Germans that in venturing on these dangerous political waters they did not bother to inform themselves about either Lenin or his program: all that mattered to them was that the Bolsheviks and other adherents of the Zimmerwald-Kiental position wanted Russia out of the war. A historian who has inspected the German archives found in them no document to indicate interest in the Bolsheviks: two issues of Lenin’s journal, Sbornik Sotsial-Demokrata, forwarded to Berlin by the Berne embassy, lay in the archive forty years later, their pages uncut.²⁴

In negotiating transit across Germany, Lenin took great pains to ensure that the émigrés would not lay themselves open to charges of collaborating with the enemy. He insisted that the train enjoy the status of an extraterritorial entity: no one was to enter it without the permission of Platten and there would be no passport controls.²⁵ The fact that a penurious refugee felt in a position to pose terms to the German Government indicates that he had a good appreciation of the services which he could render to it.

On the German side, the negotiations were carried out by the civilian authorities, with the active support of the Foreign Office, especially its chief, Richard von Kühlmann. Although subsequently it came to be believed that the driving force behind Lenin’s return to Russia was Ludendorff, in fact the general played a marginal role, his contribution being confined to providing transport.²⁶

On April 1 (NS), Platten transmitted Lenin’s terms to the German Embassy. Two days later, he was advised they were acceptable. At this time the German Treasury approved a request from the Foreign Ministry to allocate five million marks for “Russian work.”²⁷ What the Germans were doing in regard to Russia was part of a pattern:

For each of their enemies, France, Britain, Italy, and Russia, the Germans had long since worked out a scheme for treason from within. The plans all bore a rough similarity: first, discord by means of the parties of the far left; next pacifist articles published by defeatists either paid or directly inspired by Germany; and, finally, the establishment of an understanding with a prominent political personality who would ultimately take over the weakened enemy government and sue for peace.²⁸

For Britain, they used the Irishman Sir Roger Casement, for France, Joseph Caillaux, and for Russia, Lenin. Casement was shot, Caillaux imprisoned, and only Lenin justified the moneys spent on him.