The sealed wagon is the established designation of three trains in which, following from Switzerland through Germany to Russia, in April 1917, a large group of emigrant revolutionaries passed. In common parlance, a sealed carriage means only the one in which Lenin moved (the first train).

In fact, there are already so many fairy tales about a sealed carriage that they could well be published as a separate book. Of course, it must be said that the sealed car was purely symbolic: the back door opened freely. So it's just a figurative expression. But this expression has taken root, so we will not deviate from tradition.

The story with sealed wagons has a number of aspects, and the main one is whether V.I. Lenin, along with the right to travel through the territory of Germany at war with Russia, also received German gold to conduct subversive work in Russia.

Trotsky's "History of the October Revolution" argues that the question of German gold supposedly received by the Bolsheviks is one of those myths with which the histories of all revolutions are rich - always "the overthrown class is inclined to look for the cause of all its disasters ... in foreign agents and emissaries ". Having made a corresponding historical excursus, the author concludes about Milyukov's History of the Revolution: “with the golden German key, the liberal historian opens all the riddles that he has been hurt about as a politician” .... “I didn’t think,” exclaims the same Trotsky in his autobiography (“My Life”), that I would have to return to this topic. But there was a writer who raised and supported the old slander in 1928. The name of the writer is Kerensky, who 11 years later said in Sovremennye Zapiski that "Lenin's betrayal, committed at the moment of the highest tension of the war, is an impeccably established, indisputable historical fact."

Hardly anyone doubts the paramount importance of clarifying the question of the German subsidy for the history of the preparations for the October 1917 Bolshevik coup. “If Lenin,” Kerensky asserts with an undoubted exaggeration, “had not had support in all the material and technical power of the German apparatus of propaganda and German espionage, he would never have succeeded in the destruction of Russia.” "A comforting historical philosophy," Trotsky tries to taunt, "according to which the life of a great country is a plaything in the hands of a spy organization." Yes, the regularity of historical phenomena is very relative, and "His Majesty the case" in contact with concrete reality can give the most unexpected sociological pattern. Among such accidents, of course, one should also include the presence of the “golden German key”. And it is somehow strange that so far no one has tried to essentially analyze the available material and check the data that in one way or another can answer the question: myth or reality. German money in the history of the Russian revolution.

Unfortunately, the general statements with which the publicistic speeches of political opponents of the Bolsheviks are filled, not excluding the persistent, sometimes noisy, denunciations over a number of years by the famous Burtsev, to some extent make it possible to play more or less with impunity in high tones of indignation rhapsodies on the themes of the legendary "golden German key". Russian anti-Bolshevik public opinion is still, for example, perplexed by the mystery of how authentic the sensational so-called American documents on the German-Bolshevik alliance published in 1918 are. The only analysis of these documents in Russian literature - a very brief and superficial one (in a footnote) - can only be found in Miliukov's text, and the historian, in essence, does not give any criterion for judging the authenticity of documents and rather sanctifies even unconditional falsification with his authority. But even more surprising is that the Bolsheviks themselves, who seemed to be most interested in exposing their opponents, did not try to reveal the forgery in these documents.

What is the truth here and what is a lie? How can a person who is not a professional historian understand this? Many authors dealing with this topic, note that the most serious work of the founder of the scientific school of historians of Russian revolutions and the Civil War, Professor G.L.

The February Revolution inspired the Germans who found themselves in stalemate in a protracted war. There was a real opportunity for Russia to withdraw from the war and after that - a decisive victory in the West. Various interpretations of subsequent events associated with this idea were also reflected in German publications on this topic.

The chief of staff of the Eastern Front, General Max Hoffman, later recalled: “We naturally sought to strengthen the disintegration introduced into the Russian army by the revolution by means of propaganda. In the rear, someone who maintained relations with the Russians living in exile in Switzerland came up with the idea of ​​using some of these Russians in order to destroy the spirit of the Russian army even faster and poison it with poison. According to Hoffman, through Deputy Erzberger, this "someone" made a corresponding proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; as a result, the famous "sealed wagon" appeared, delivering Lenin and other emigrants through Germany to Russia. Soon (1921), the name of the initiator also surfaced in the press: it was Alexander Parvus, who acted through the German ambassador in Copenhagen, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau.

Let's get past the February coup. The history of the February days will not open the lid of the mysterious casket with German gold. True, the Russian ambassador to Sweden, Neklyudov, spoke in his memoirs about a significant conversation that he had in mid-January 1917 in Stockholm with the Bulgarian envoy in Berlin, Rizov, who was trying to find grounds for concluding a separate peace with him.

Having met with a cold reception, Rizov cautioned his interlocutor: "in a month or, at the latest, in a month and a half, events will occur, after which I am sure that the Russian side will be more inclined to talk." "The prediction of the Russian revolution" - this is the title of this passage of Neklyudov's memoirs. There were quite a few such predictions on the eve of the February events - it was too obvious that Russia was somehow drawn to disaster by some fate.

It is difficult to say whether Rizov was hinting at any specific plan from outside or was only conveying a rumor widely spread in Russia, partly connected with vague talk about a palace coup that was supposed to take place "before Easter" - at least he wrote it down almost in those the same days in his diary, the St. Petersburg ambassador of England, stipulating that he received information from “serious sources” (Melgunov S.P. “The German key of the Bolsheviks”, New York, 1989, p. 92).

S.P. Melgunov notes that there is no doubt that the German agents were supposed to fish in muddy water, provoke all kinds of unrest and inflame popular passions at the time of the turmoil that has begun. And, of course, not without reason. Alekseev wrote in a telegram on February 28 that “perhaps the Germans showed a rather active participation in the preparation of the rebellion.”

Such a conjecture, however, is extremely far from recognizing the February Revolution as a product of German creativity, as some of the contemporary memoirists are inclined to do so. The “internal” conviction of Guchkov, Rodzianko, and many others that even the documents of the rather famous “Order No. I” type were brought to us from Germany in a prepared form does not belong to the number of serious historical arguments that deserve consideration on the merits.

According to Rantzau himself, the idea of ​​Parvus found support in the Foreign Ministry from Baron von Malzan and from Deputy Erzberger, head of military propaganda; they persuaded Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who suggested that the Headquarters (that is, the Kaiser, Hindenburg and Ludendorff) carry out a "brilliant maneuver" (ibid., p. 89).

This information was confirmed with the publication of documents of the German Foreign Ministry. Zeman-Scharlau's book gives an extensive account of Brockdorf-Rantzau's meeting with Parvus, who raised the question of the need to bring Russia into a state of anarchy by supporting the most radical elements.

In a memorandum drawn up on the basis of conversations with Parvus, Brockdorff-Rantzau wrote: “I believe that, from our point of view, it is preferable to support the extremists, since this is what will most quickly lead to certain results. In all likelihood, in three months you can count that disintegration will reach a stage when we can break Russia military force"(Sobolev G.L. The secret of" German gold ". St. Petersburg). As a result, the chancellor authorized the German ambassador in Bern, von Romberg, to get in touch with Russian emigrants and offer them passage to Russia through Germany.

Looking ahead, we also note that four years after the Bolshevik coup, the famous German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein published a long article in the Berlin newspaper Vorverts, the central organ of German Social Democracy, in which he claimed that he could, with documents in hand to prove that after the fall of the tsarist regime in Russia, Lenin received from the government of Wilhelm II a huge amount of money to conduct Bolshevik propaganda in the Russian army and to organize a Bolshevik uprising.

“It is known,” Bernstein wrote, “and only recently it was again confirmed by General Hoffmann (then the then commander-in-chief of the German army on the Eastern Front and who negotiated peace with the Bolsheviks in Brest-Litovsk in 1918) that this is the government of the Kaiser, according to at the request of the German General Staff, allowed Lenin and his comrades to travel through Germany to Russia in sealed saloon cars so that they could conduct their agitation in Russia. Can be different opinions about whether it is permissible for socialists to accept such services from such sources.
Parvus (the pseudonym of A.L. Gelfand, a former German Social Democrat who was suspended from work in the German Social Democratic Party for unseemly financial deeds) was indeed an agent of the German General Staff even before the First World War (since 1911), when he worked in Turkey.

A.I. Kolganov, a leading researcher at the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, notes that Parvus, acting first through the German ambassador in Constantinople, and then through an employee of the Imperial Chancellery, Ritzler, sent to meet him in Berlin, presented in March 1915 a document entitled " Preparations for a Mass Political Strike in Russia (commonly referred to as Dr. Gelfand's Memorandum). In this document, Parvus proposed to undermine Russia from within, relying on the national separatist and radical socialist organizations, including the Social Democrats (Bolsheviks), who took anti-war positions. Parvus really had commercial connections with some Russian Social Democrats who worked in the representative office of his trading company in Denmark (in particular, with Ya.S. Ganetsky). Ganetsky, indeed, had contacts with Lenin ... But then the facts end, and pure conjectures begin (Kolganov. A.I. The myth of "German gold", - St. Petersburg. M., 2002, p.5).

Meanwhile, Parvus tried to act independently of the Foreign Ministry: having received the consent of the General Staff, he asked Y. Ganetsky to inform Lenin that his and Zinoviev's trip through Germany was organized, but not to tell him clearly from what source the assistance was provided. Agent Georg Sklarz was sent to Zurich to organize the trip, and the transfer of Lenin and Zinoviev was first of all supposed. However, the case failed on the first attempt: Lenin was afraid of being compromised. On March 24, Zinoviev, at the request of Lenin, telegraphs Ganetsky: “The letter has been sent. Uncle (that is, Lenin) wants to know more. The official passage of only a few persons is unacceptable.” When Sklarz, in addition to the proposal to send only Lenin and Zinoviev, offered to cover their expenses, Lenin interrupted the negotiations (Shub D. “Lenin and Wilhelm II. New about the German-Bolshevik conspiracy”, “New Journal”, Book 57. New York, 1959, p. 189).

On March 28, Lenin telegraphed Ganetsky: “The Berlin permission is unacceptable to me. Either the Swiss government will receive a wagon to Copenhagen, or the Russian will agree on the exchange of all emigrants for interned Germans, ”after which he asks him to find out the possibility of passing through England. On March 30, Lenin wrote to Ganetsky: “Of course, I cannot use the services of people related to the publisher of Kolokol (that is, Parvus),” and again proposes a plan for exchanging emigrants for interned Germans (this plan belonged to Martov).

And one more very significant circumstance, which A.I. Kolganov notes in his work, is that Lenin in the open press directly declared Parvus a German agent acting in the interests of the German General Staff. From participation in all sorts of "peace conferences", behind which loomed a shadow German government The Bolsheviks categorically refused. And, finally, within Germany itself, the Bolsheviks supported the Spartak group, led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who advocated the defeat of their own government (as well as the Bolsheviks of theirs). Isn't it strange behavior for "German agents" "directed" by Parvus?

On March 31, Lenin, on behalf of the party, telegraphs to the Swiss Social Democrat Robert Grimm, who initially acted as an intermediary in negotiations between the Bolsheviks and the Germans (later Friedrich Platten began to play this role), the decision to "unconditionally accept" the proposal to travel through Germany and "immediately organize this trip" .

The next day, he demands money from Ganetsky for the trip: “Allocate two thousand, preferably three thousand crowns for our trip. We intend to leave on Wednesday (April 4) with at least 10 people.” Soon he writes to Inessa Armand: “We have more money for the trip than I thought, there will be enough for 10-12 people, because the comrades in Stockholm helped us a lot (underlined in the text).

The German leftist Social Democrat Paul Levy assured that it was he who turned out to be an intermediate link between Lenin and the embassy in Bern (and the German Foreign Ministry), who equally ardently sought the first - to get to Russia, the second - to transport him there; when Levi connected Lenin with the ambassador, Lenin sat down to draw up the conditions of travel - and they were unconditionally accepted.

The interest of the Germans was so great that the Kaiser personally ordered to give Lenin copies of official German documents (as material for propaganda about the “peacefulness” of Germany), and the General Staff was ready to let the “sealed wagon” pass directly through the front if Sweden refused to accept Russian revolutionaries.

1. I, Fritz Platten, escort, on my own responsibility and at my own risk, a carriage with political emigrants and refugees returning through Germany to Russia.
2. Relations with the German authorities and officials are conducted exclusively and only by Platten. Without his permission, no one has the right to enter the car.
3. The right of extraterritoriality is recognized for the wagon. No control of 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 question of war or peace.
5. Platten undertakes to supply passengers with railway tickets at normal fare prices.
6. If possible, the journey should be made without interruption. No one should either voluntarily or by order leave the car. There should be no delays along the way without technical necessity.
7. Permission to travel is given on the basis of an exchange for German or Austrian prisoners of war or internees in Russia.
8. The mediator and the passengers undertake to personally and privately press the working class to comply with paragraph 7.
9. Moving from the Swiss border to the Swedish border as soon as possible, as far as technically feasible.

Bern - Zurich. April 4 (March 22. N.M.), 1917
(Signed) Fritz Platen, Secretary of the Swiss Socialist Party.

Regarding paragraph 7, Professor S.G. Pushkarev believes that since the Bolsheviks were not part of the government and did not have a majority in the Soviets, and therefore they could not actually exchange prisoners, the paragraph had no practical meaning and was included by Lenin solely in order to to give the outside reader the impression of an equitable nature of the treaty.

At 15:10 on April 9, 32 Russian emigrants left Zurich to the German border station Gottmadingen. There they boarded a sealed carriage, accompanied by two officers of the German General Staff - Captain von Plantz and Lieutenant von Buring, who spoke fluent Russian, whose compartment was located at the only unsealed door (out of the four doors of the carriage, there were seals on three).

Meanwhile, many participants in the trip (for example, Karl Radek) denied the fact that the wagons were sealed and claimed that there was only a promise not to leave the wagons. This carriage, as far as possible, proceeded without stopping through Germany to the station of Sassnitz, where the emigrants boarded the steamer "Queen Victoria" and crossed to Sweden. In Malmö they were met by Ganetsky, with whom Lenin arrived in Stockholm on April 13. On the way, Lenin tried to refrain from any compromising contacts; in Stockholm, he categorically refused to meet with Parvus, demanding that three persons, including Karl Radek, witness this.

Apparently, the first published list of passengers of the “sealed car” who arrived with Lenin was compiled by Burtsev, who, by the way, specified that this was only one train, followed by two more with hundreds of passengers. (Burtsev Vladimir Lvovich (1862-1942) Russian publicist and publisher, a nobleman of the Ufa province, who earned the nickname "Sherlock Holmes of the Russian Revolution" for his revelations of secret employees of the Police Department ("provocateurs of the tsarist secret police").

Another list of passengers of the "sealed wagon" was compiled by the Swedish police and is given in Hans Björkegren's book "Scandinavian Transit". Basically, it coincides with Burtsev's list, but there are minor differences. Some authors note that list No. 2 published in the Russian translation of E. Sutton's book "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution" ("Russian Idea", 1998) is several times larger. Many of them will become members of the party leadership, Soviet government, punitive bodies, ambassadors, prominent writers, etc.

Some of them to this day rest near the Kremlin wall; their names, like many others (Erenburg, Usievich, etc.), still adorn the streets of Russian cities, there is also the Voykovskaya metro station. Some names (of their descendants) have again flashed since the 1990s among the entrepreneurial, cultural, journalistic and other democratic communities (Abramovich, Weinberg, Lerner, Manevich, Miller, Okudzhava, Rein, Sheinis, Shmulevich, Shuster, etc.).

Lenin arrived in Petrograd on the evening of 3 (16) April. Immediately upon his arrival in Russia, on April 4 (17), Lenin delivered the famous "April Theses" directed against the Provisional Government and "revolutionary defencism." In the very first thesis, the war on the part of "Lvov and Co" was characterized as still "predatory, imperialist"; called for "the organization of a wide propaganda of this view in active army and fraternities. Further, there was a demand for the transfer of power into the hands of the Soviets ... ". The day after the publication of the Theses in Pravda, on April 21 (NS), one of the leaders of German intelligence in Stockholm telegraphed the Foreign Ministry in Berlin: “Lenin's arrival in Russia is successful. It works exactly the way we would like it to."

Subsequently, General Ludendorff wrote in his memoirs: “By sending Lenin to Russia, our government assumed a special responsibility. From a military point of view, this enterprise was justified, Russia had to be knocked down.

Opponents of the “German gold” version point out that Parvus was not an intermediary in the negotiations on the passage of Russian political emigrants through Germany, but the mediation of Karl Moor and Robert Grimm, quite reasonably suspecting them of German agents, the emigrants refused, leaving Fritz Platten to negotiate.

When in Stockholm Parvus tried to meet with Lenin, he categorically refused this meeting. Further, in their opinion, the emigrants who passed through Germany did not take on any political obligations, except for one thing - to agitate for the passage of interned Germans from Russia to Germany, equal in number to the emigrants who passed through Germany. And the initiative in this commitment came from the political emigrants themselves, since Lenin categorically refused to go simply with the permission of the Berlin government.

In addition, supporters of the “German gold” version tendentiously violate the chronology of events, as indicated, in particular, by G.L. Sobolev: they forget to mention that the idea of ​​​​passing through Germany did not belong to Parvus, but to Yu.O. Martov, was expressed at a meeting of emigrants in Bern at a time when Parvus had not yet thought about what problems opponents of the war might have with obtaining visas in the Entente countries.
They also forget to mention that from the very beginning the emigrants strove to act openly and legally - through the Committee for the Return of Russian Emigrants to their Homeland (this Committee is not mentioned at all in their writings).

Another argument is the traditional suppression of the fact that the sealed carriage in which the group of emigrants headed by Lenin returned to Russia was not the only one. In May 1917, a significant group of Menshevik-internationalists, Socialist-Revolutionaries and non-factional Social Democrats headed by Yu.O. Martov, P.B.

Refusing at first to go through Germany without the official permission of the Petrograd Soviet, the emigrants stranded in Switzerland eventually chose this path - for lack of another, as they claimed in their telegrams to the Petrograd Soviet. The emigrants' correspondence contains a "black list of the most dangerous pacifists" for whom passage through the Entente countries was closed. It included not only the co-editors of the Bolshevik Social Democrat, Lenin and Zinoviev, but also all the former employees of the newspaper Nashe Slovo, headed by Trotsky and Martov.

The first "bell" was the arrest in Great Britain of a moderate internationalist, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries V.M. Chernov - in fact, his arrest prompted Lenin to accept Platten's proposal. At the request of the Provisional Government, which was pressed by the Petrograd Soviet, Chernov was soon released; but this was followed by the arrest of L.D. Trotsky by the British authorities in Canada, and it took much longer to wait for his release from the English concentration camp (Sukhanov N.N., “Notes on the Revolution”, Vol. 2, books 3-4. M. : 1991, p. 18).

Unable to obtain official permission from the Petrograd Soviet and feeling like "undesirable emigrants", the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries passed through Germany without permission. And if the very fact of the journey is intended to prove the connection of the Bolsheviks with the German General Staff, then it will be necessary to admit that both the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries were also connected with it.

The supporters of the anti-Bolshevik version are also hushed up about the fact that they did not skimp on accusations of links with the German General Staff during the First World War and did not require any proof of this from them.
"Spy mania" began with the first defeats of the Russian army, and until 1917, charges of treason and secret relations with Germany were brought against members imperial family and the ministers of war; in 1917, supporters of the slogan "war to a victorious end" made similar accusations against almost all opponents of the war (which had been so since 1914). In particular, N.N. Sukhanov, who spent the entire war in Russia, testifies: “Except for the Bolsheviks, all any noticeable internationalists were directly or indirectly accused of serving the Germans or of having relations with the German authorities. I personally became a favorite target of the "Rech" and was called by it only with the epithet: "kind to the German heart" or "so highly valued by the Germans." Almost daily I began to receive letters from the capital, the provinces and the army; in some there were exhortations or bullying, in others - questions: “Tell me, how much did you take? “

The victim of such accusations in July 1917 was, for example, Viktor Chernov, although he returned to Russia from France, respectively, through allied England. When the indignant leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party presented an ultimatum to the Provisional Government, all the accusations immediately turned out to be a "misunderstanding." L.D. Trotsky was also accused of spying for Germany, and the only argument of the prosecution was his passage through Germany, although it was no secret to anyone that Trotsky was returning to Russia from the USA and could not pass through Germany with all his desire (as a result, Kerensky had to remove the disgraced prosecutor from the case).

Finally, opponents of this version accuse their opponents of uncritical and frankly one-sided selection of sources; in particular, the authenticity of the documents used by the supporters of the “German gold” version also raises doubts, since many of them have long been recognized as fakes (Kolganov. A.I. The myth of “German gold”, - St. Petersburg. M., 2002, p. 12). As for the famous documents of the German Foreign Ministry, while willingly referring to them, supporters of the “German financing” version are very reluctant to quote them, since they do not contain any direct evidence of the financing of the Bolsheviks.

The journey of the revolutionaries railway through Germany is most famous, since Lenin followed this path. However, the majority of political emigrants came to Russia after the February Revolution not through enemy Germany, but through allied England, from where they went to Russia to Arkhangelsk, Murmansk or through Scandinavia by sea. Due to the danger from German submarines, passenger steamers followed under the protection of warships. british navy and all transport was controlled by the British Admiralty, the Foreign Office and the police.

The Provisional Government itself provided great assistance to the arrival of revolutionaries in Russia. By his order, large funds were allocated to Russian embassies to pay for travel and other needs of emigrants. However, the generosity of the government extended only to the supporters of the "war to a victorious end"; regarding the opponents of the war, N.N. Sukhanov writes: “More than two months have passed since the beginning of the revolution, but the way to Russia for“ unwanted emigrants ”was still closed. Our revolutionary government has not yet been able and did not want to achieve free passage of Russian internationalists through the allied countries.

The naive Februaryist promises of "the rapid development of Russia after throwing off the shackles of tsarism" were not destined to come true. Including because of the internal Russian features.

The development of events between February and October showed that democratic government was not viable. Deprived of legitimate supreme power, the Russian army decomposed, the peasants fled to their homes to divide the land, anarchy spread ("if there is no Tsar, everything is allowed"), and by October "the power was lying on the street." The Bolsheviks took it without special efforts and victims.

In August 1917, that is, still under the Provisional Government, Wall Street bankers out of their own pocket (and not on account of a German loan) gave the Bolsheviks the first million dollars and sent a group of their representatives to Russia, which was disguised as a "humanitarian mission of the Red Cross" .

Their plans and actions in the early years Soviet power have a considerable analogy with the current actions of the same foreign forces in Russia, starting from the era of "perestroika".

The return of V. I. Lenin from emigration to Russia in April 1917

THE RETURN OF V. I. LENIN FROM EMIGRATION TO RUSSIA IN APRIL 1917

A. V. LUKASHEV

V. I. Lenin received the first news of the victory of the February Revolution in Russia in Zurich on March 2 (15), 1917. From that day on, all the activities of the leader of the Bolshevik Party are focused on further developing the strategy and tactics of the party in the revolution, on finding ways to quickly return to their homeland . V. I. Lenin was eager to revolutionary Russia in order to take part directly on the spot in the struggle of the Party and all working people for the victory of the socialist revolution. Several options were considered for returning to Russia - by airplane, with the help of a smuggler, using someone else's passport - but they all turned out to be impracticable. “We are afraid,” wrote V. I. Lenin on March 4 (17) A. M. Kollontai, “that it will not be possible to leave accursed Switzerland soon” (1).

The absence of V. I. Lenin in Russia affected the entire work of the Bureau of the Central Committee and party organizations. Revolutionary Russia was waiting for Ilyich. Party organizations and workers, accepting greetings to V. I. Lenin at meetings and rallies, expressed their ardent desire to see him in their ranks as soon as possible. Recalling the first days of the revolution, the worker of the Sestroretsk plant A. M. Afanasyev wrote: “I really wanted Ilyich to be here, with us, to lead the revolution on the spot” (2).

The mood of the Bolshevik party organizations was well expressed in the greetings of the Moscow Regional Bureau of the Central Committee and MK of the RSDLP (b) to V. I. Lenin. Warmly welcoming Ilyich "as a tireless fighter and a true ideological leader of the Russian proletariat", the Moscow Bolsheviks wrote: "... we look forward to your return to our ranks" (3). From the first days of the revolution, the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) took all measures to help V. I. Lenin return to Russia as soon as possible. If the working masses and the Bolshevik organizations of Russia were impatiently waiting for their leader, then V. I. Lenin himself was even more eagerly striving to Russia. “You can imagine,” he wrote in one of his letters, “what a torture it is for all of us to sit here at such a time” (4).

But, despite the political amnesty proclaimed by the government to the Times in the very first days of the revolution, almost a month passed before V. I. Lenin managed to escape from his, as he put it, “damned far away”.

Amnesty for political prisoners and émigrés was one of the gains of the February Revolution. During the days of the overthrow of the monarchy, the revolutionary masses carried out a political amnesty in Russia in an obvious manner: they seized prisons and released political prisoners. Following Petrograd and Moscow, the prisoners of tsarism were released in Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Revel, Tver, Chelyabinsk, Minsk, Tula, Kyiv, Odessa and other cities. Many political exiles, having learned in distant Siberia about the overthrow of tsarism, without waiting for the permission of the Provisional Government, left their places of settlement and hurried to the call of the bell of the revolution.

Workers, soldiers and peasants at rallies and meetings held in the first days of March included in their resolutions demands for an immediate amnesty for political prisoners and the return to Russia of political emigrants - exiles of tsarism. The popular demand for amnesty was also reflected in the first documents of the Petrograd Soviet. Among the conditions under which the Executive Committee of the Council handed over power to the Provisional Government that was being created on March 2, in the first place was the holding of a complete and immediate amnesty for all political and religious matters (5).

In the first days of the revolution, the Provisional Government could not resist the violent pressure of the revolutionary masses and was forced to agree to an amnesty, a decree on which was issued on March 6 (6).

But if with regard to political prisoners and exiles, with the active participation populace the amnesty was carried out quickly, but the situation was different with the return of political emigrants, whose number abroad reached 4-5 thousand people.

Upon receiving news of the revolution in Russia, the Russian political emigration abroad set in motion: the emigrants greedily caught every news about the events in their homeland, vigorously discussed them and rushed to Russia. But for most of them, the amnesty proclaimed by the Provisional Government did not yet mean the practical possibility of returning to their homeland.

At a meeting of the Provisional Government on March 8, Kerensky, playing the leader of a revolutionary democracy, spoke of the desirability of “assistance on the part of the government for the return of emigrants. Foreign Minister Milyukov falsely declared that he had already taken measures in this regard. In connection with this statement, no decisions were made to facilitate the return of emigrants (7).

But life itself forced them to make decisions. “We demand,” the workers of the Petrograd Dynamo plant wrote in their resolution on the same day, “that the decree on amnesty be immediately put into effect ...” (8). The same resolutions were adopted at many plants and factories in Petrograd and other cities of Russia, in military units and on ships Baltic Fleet. From abroad, the government and the Petrograd Soviet began to receive telegrams from emigrant organizations demanding assistance in returning to Russia. Russian embassies and missions abroad were besieged by emigrants who demanded visas to enter Russia. Ambassadors and envoys telegraphed to Petrograd: "What to do?" (9).

On March 10, Milyukov telegraphed them: "Be kind to render the most benevolent assistance to all Russian political emigrants in returning to their homeland." Further, the minister proposed, if necessary, to supply emigrants with means of travel and to show them "the most precautionary attitude" (10). This answer was calculated primarily to reassure the public, the revolutionary masses. He was referred to every time the question arose of the obstacles placed in the way of the return of emigrants. However, Milyukov's telegram did not apply to the majority of emigrants - it concerned only those of them that the government needed.

Milyukov's answer was intended for the stage. Another, secret telegram was for backstage. She appeared the next day, March 11. “If our political emigrants wish to return to Russia,” it said, “please provide them immediately with the established consular passports for entry into Russia ... unless these persons appear on international or our military control lists” (11). Thus, Milyukov firmly slammed the door to revolutionary Russia to all internationalist émigrés. The return of the emigrants-defencists, especially their leaders, was given the fullest assistance. On March 10, a telegram was sent from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ambassador in Paris, Izvolsky: “The Minister asks to immediately assist in the return to Russia on the grounds indicated in the number 1047 of this date, Plekhanov, the secretary of the Arrel editorial board, Avksentiev, and other Russian socialist émigrés whom Avksentiev indicates” (12) The leader of the Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, N. Avksentiev, took an extremely chauvinist position on questions of the war, and Miliukov knew this. and London on assistance in returning from abroad and to many other prominent defense emigrants: V. Chernov, B. Savinkov, L. Deutsch, etc. (13).

By returning prominent social-chauvinists from emigration to Russia, the Provisional Government thus helped to strengthen the petty-bourgeois compromising parties, on which it relied in carrying out its anti-people imperialist policy. For the same reason, the governments of England and France actively contributed to their return to Russia (14).

The Provisional Government pursued its double-dealing policy towards emigrants in disguise, as it understood that open opposition to the return of the internationalists would cause an outburst of indignation among the revolutionary masses of Russia. Miliukov taught the tsarist ambassadors, who remained at their posts, to disguise their actions. He explained to them that "for reasons of internal politics" it was not expedient to openly "distinguish between pacifist and non-pacifist political exiles" and asked them to report this to the governments to which they were accredited (15). The provisional government knew that if the control lists remained in force, then the internationalists would still not receive visas to enter Russia (16).

If the Provisional Government "for reasons of domestic policy" hid the truth about the obstacles it placed in the way of the return of the internationalists, then the governments of France and England directly told the Russian ambassadors that they would not allow emigrants-internationalists into Russia. At a meeting at the Russian embassy in Paris in mid-March, military agent Count A. A. Ignatiev stated: “Both the French military authorities and the all-Union military administration consider it desirable that the majority of the emigrants should remain in France, where vigilant supervision is established over their stay and activities, and where any dangerous from the point of view of propaganda and pacifism, their performance can be stopped by the French authorities ”(17). Ambassador Izvolsky informed the participants of the meeting about a statement made to him at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that “the government of the republic is concerned about the forthcoming settling of emigrants in Russia due to the pacifist tendencies of many of them; in France they fear that upon their arrival in their homeland they will not refrain from propagating their ideas of an immediate conclusion of peace there” (18). About Izvolsky’s conversation with the French government, the English ambassador in Paris, Lord Bertie, reported to London more specifically: “The Russian ambassador is here,” he wrote, “acting on the instructions of his government, appealed to the French government with a request to allow all Russian political emigrants to return. However, the French police have been instructed not to allow the extremists to leave” (19). The British government strongly opposed the return of the internationalists to Russia (20).

Having ascertained the intentions of the allied governments towards emigrants who were opposed to the war, Izvolsky telegraphed to Petrograd: “The British and French governments are very apprehensive about the return of these pacifists to Russia in view of the likelihood that they will promote the immediate conclusion of peace there. There is quite definite evidence that these two governments will oppose their departure from France and their passage through England” (21).

The vast majority of emigrants living in Switzerland (about 80%) were, in Izvolsky's terminology, "pacifists." Therefore, in relation to them, the British government took very specific measures. “According to a telegraph order from the British Ministry of War,” Russian Chargé d’Affaires in Switzerland Onu reported to Petrograd on March 17 (30), “the British authorities in Switzerland ... terminated the visa of passports for travel to Russia and the Scandinavian countries. Exceptions are made only for officials of allied countries” (22).

With such a decision of the issue by the governments of France and England, the internationalists living in Switzerland had only one road to Russia - through Germany. But the emigrants did not know all this at first. V. I. Lenin did not know this either.

On 4 (17) March, the first reports about a political amnesty in Russia appeared in foreign newspapers (23). Since these days, the movement among emigrants for the fastest return to their homeland has especially intensified. Emigrant committees for returning to Russia began to be created everywhere, inquiries were poured into embassies and missions abroad and directly to Petrograd about ways to return.

Immediately upon receiving the news of the amnesty, V. I. Lenin began to develop a plan for returning to Russia through England. “Yesterday (Saturday) I read about the amnesty. We all dream about the trip, - he wrote to I. Armand in Klaran on March 5 (18). - If you are going home, stop by first to us. Let's talk. I would very much like to instruct you in England to find out quietly and truly whether I could pass through.

V. I. Lenin knew well that neither he nor other prominent Bolsheviks could go through England just like that. The British authorities were quite well aware of their revolutionary activity knew their attitude to the imperialist war. When passing through England, they could be detained and even arrested. As for himself, he had no doubts about it. “I am sure,” he wrote to I. Armand on March 6 (19), “that I will be arrested or simply detained in England if I go under my own name, for it was England that not only confiscated a number of my letters to America, but also asked (her police) to my father in 1915, whether he corresponded with me and communicated through me with the German socialists. Fact! Therefore, I cannot move personally without very “special” measures ”(25). And V. I. Lenin sketches sample text conditions of passage through England, which provided for these "special" measures, which had to be agreed with the British government through negotiations. These conditions included the granting to the Swiss socialist F. Platten the right to transport any number of emigrants through England, regardless of their attitude to the war, the provision of a wagon enjoying the right of extraterritoriality on the territory of England, as well as the possibility of sending emigrants from England by steamboat to the port of any neutral country as soon as possible. The British government had to give guarantees of compliance with these conditions and agree to their publication in the press (2b).

Having learned that I. Armand was not going anywhere yet, V. I. Lenin decided to ask one of the other emigrants to go to England in order to find out on the spot about the possibility of traveling to Russia. “I will try to persuade Valya to go,” he wrote to I. Armand on March 6 (19), “(she came to us on Saturday ...). But she has little interest in the revolution” (27). However, the matter did not come to a conversation in England. It all came to light in Switzerland. V. Safarova responded vividly to the request of Vladimir Ilyich and went to the English envoy for a visa. There the conversation turned to the purpose of the trip to London. On March 10 (23), V. I. Lenin reported on his results in Clarens: “They told Valais that it was impossible at all (in the English embassy) through England” (28). However, even after such a decisive refusal of the British mission, V. I. Lenin and other Bolshevik émigrés made a number of attempts to find out the possibility of returning to Russia through allied countries. But this time, too, the results were disappointing (29).

From foreign newspapers, V. I. Lenin received additional information about the attitude of the governments of France and England towards the return of internationalist emigrants to Russia. In Lenin's extracts from the newspaper "Frankfürter Zeitung" there is such an entry: "Genf. 26.III. A big telegram about the mood of the French, how they are afraid of the republic, they are afraid that the revolution will go further, to terror - they (they and the British) are sending (social) patriots to Russia, not letting the supporters of peace.

It is clear from Lenin's materials that the plan of returning to Russia through England remained in Vladimir Ilyich's field of vision for a comparatively long time, approximately until mid-March (30). V. I. Lenin then attached paramount importance to its implementation. And only the resolute opposition of the governments allied with Russia to the passage of internationalists through their countries forced the Russian emigrants in Switzerland to resort, as the last opportunity to return to Russia, to passage through Germany. V. I. Lenin noted this circumstance every time when it came to the return of emigrants to Russia. Thus, in the communique on the passage of Russian revolutionaries through Germany, handed over by V. I. Lenin on March 31 (April 13), 1917 in Stockholm to the editorial office of the Politiken newspaper, it was clearly emphasized that the practical steps to return to Russia through Germany by Swiss emigrants were taken only after it had been indisputably proved that "the British government does not allow Russian revolutionaries living abroad who oppose the war into Russia" (31).

Explaining in Russia the circumstances of the return of the first group of emigrants from Switzerland, N. K. Krupskaya wrote in the article “A Page from the History of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party” in May 1917: immediately go to Russia to continue the work to which he devoted his whole life, and already in the conditions of a free Russia to defend his views. Very soon it became clear that there was no way to go through England. Then the idea arose among the emigrants to obtain a pass through Germany through the Swiss comrades” (32).

The idea of ​​obtaining permission to travel through Germany in exchange for Germans and Austrians interned in Russia arose in emigre circles shortly after receiving news of the amnesty in Russia. The emigrants knew that during the war between Russia and Germany, military detainees and prisoners of war were repeatedly exchanged through neutral countries, and they believed that the amnesty announced by the Provisional Government would open this convenient way return home. At a meeting of representatives of Russian and Polish socialist organizations of the Zimmerwald trend in Bern on March 6 (19), this plan was put forward in its most general form by the leader of the Mensheviks, Martov. R. Grimm, one of the leaders of the Swiss Social Democracy, was then instructed to probe the Swiss government for consent to mediate negotiations on this issue with representatives of the German authorities in Bern (33). At the same time, a participant in the meeting, Zinoviev, on behalf of V. I. Lenin, in a telegram to Pyatakov, who was leaving Norway for Russia at that time, wrote that in Petrograd they also demanded the participation of the Swiss government in negotiations with the Germans on the passage of emigrants in exchange for Germans interned in Russia (34).

The eyes of V. I. Lenin were turned at that time to England: he found out the possibility of the passage of emigrants through the countries allied to Russia. But, being unsure of the consent of the British government to the passage of the internationalists, he did not lose sight of other possible ways of returning to Russia. This showed the far-sightedness of the leader of the Bolshevik Party.

Not yet knowing all the secret diplomacy unfolding around the question of the return of emigrants, Lenin foresaw in advance the possible difficulties and complications in this matter and in advance looked for ways and means to overcome them. Regardless of Martov, not yet aware of his plan, he advised the emigrants to inquire about other possible ways of returning to their homeland and, in particular, the possibility of obtaining permission to travel through Germany (35). V. I. Lenin considered it expedient, through the Russians living in Geneva and Claean, “to ask the Germans for a pass-wagon to Copenhagen for various revolutionaries.” At the same time, he quite definitely emphasized that such a request should come from non-party Russians and, best of all, from social patriots. "I can not do it. I am a "defeatist"... If they find out that this thought comes from me or from you, - he wrote to I. Armand on March 6 (19), - then the matter will be spoiled ... ".

V. I. Lenin understood that neither he nor other Bolsheviks, consistent internationalists, could initiate a trip through Germany, that the imperialist bourgeoisie and social chauvinists would use this for slanderous purposes against the Bolshevik Party.

In an effort to leave for Russia as soon as possible, Lenin at the same time did not allow any recklessness in his actions, he showed his inherent political restraint and adherence to principles. For these reasons, he decisively rejected the proposal of Ya. S. Ganetsky, who recommended obtaining a travel pass with the assistance of the German Social Democrats (36).

When it finally became clear to Vladimir Ilyich that the way for the internationalists through England was closed, and nothing was done in Geneva and Clarans regarding the carriage to Copenhagen, he turned to Martov's plan - after all, it was almost what I. Armand wrote about. V. I. Lenin expressed his attitude to the Martov plan in a letter to V. A. Karpinsky, who informed him about the state of affairs in Geneva in connection with the Martov plan. In a reply letter, Vladimir Ilyich approved Martov's plan, found that this "plan, in itself, is very good and very true", that "it is necessary to work for it" (37). At the same time, Lenin again emphasized that it was necessary to make sure that, in addition to Martov, non-party Russians and defencists turned to the Swiss government with a request for mediation, that the Bolsheviks could not directly participate in this matter. “We will be suspected,” he wrote to Karpinsky, “... our participation will ruin everything” (38). The exact date of this Lenin's letter has not yet been established. One thing is indisputable, that it was written by Lenin after it became clear that the internationalists could not pass through England. V. A. Karpinsky writes in his memoirs that by the time he received this letter from Lenin, “it had already become completely clear that all hopes of passing through the“ Entente kingdom “must be abandoned” (39).

V. I. Lenin wrote to Karpinsky that the Martov plan could also be promoted in Geneva, involving influential people, lawyers, etc. in this matter. But in practice, the Swiss Central Committee for the return of political emigrants to Russia, created in Zurich (23) March(40).

Soon after the meeting in Bern, R. Grimm turned to the representative of the Swiss government, Hoffmann, with a request to mediate in negotiations with the German authorities. Hoffmann refused official mediation, stating that the governments of the Entente countries could see this as a violation of Switzerland's neutrality, but as a private individual he entered into negotiations with the German ambassador in Bern and soon received through him the German government's consent in principle to let the Russian emigrants through. On his own behalf, Hoffmann recommended that the emigrants ask the Provisional Government through the government of some neutral country to contact the Germans on this issue, as was always done during the exchange of prisoners of war between Russia and Germany. A corresponding telegram was sent to Petrograd (41).

Grimm informed Bagotsky and Zinoviev, secretary of the Executive Commission of the Emigration Committee, about the consent of the German government, who asked him to complete the matter. But representatives of other émigré groups in Zurich did not agree with this, saying that it was necessary to wait for an answer from Petrograd.

VI Lenin had no illusions about the answer from Petrograd. Knowing whose class interests the Provisional Government represented, he did not expect anything good from the intervention of Milyukov and Kerensky in the affairs of the Swiss internationalist emigrants. “Milyukov will cheat,” he wrote (42).

V. I. Lenin detailed his thoughts on possible assistance from Petrograd in a letter to Ganetsky on March 17 (30). “... The clerk of Anglo-French imperialist capital and the Russian imperialist Milyukov (and Co.) are capable of doing anything, deceit, betrayal, everything, everything, to prevent the internationalists from returning to Russia. The slightest credulity in this respect both towards Milyukov and Kerensky (an empty talker, an agent of the Russian imperialist bourgeoisie in his objective role) would be downright destructive for the working-class movement and for our party, would border on betrayal of internationalism” (43). Lenin saw the only way to return from Switzerland to Russia was to obtain from the Provisional Government, through pressure from the Petrograd Soviet, the exchange of all emigrants for Germans interned in Russia (44).

Unable to contact directly the Central Committee Bureau and the St. Petersburg Committee of the Party, he asked Ganetsky to send a reliable person from Stockholm to Petrograd for this purpose. It was also important to do this for other reasons - to help the Bolsheviks in Petrograd organize the reprinting of foreign Bolshevik literature (“Collection of the Social Democrat”, “Communist”, Lenin’s “Several Theses” published in the Social Democrat, etc.) "which helped the party would work out the correct tactics in the revolution (45).

V. I. Lenin tried with all his might from Switzerland to help the party take the right positions in the new conditions of the class struggle, to work out Marxist revolutionary tactics. Even in a telegram to the Bolsheviks, who were leaving for Russia from Scandinavia in early March, he outlined the basic tactics of the party. In the famous Letters from Afar, the tasks of the party and the proletariat in the revolution were already formulated in more detail.

V. I. Lenin in Switzerland had rather meager information about the situation in Russia, but even from them he caught what a difficult situation was in Petrograd, what difficulties the party was going through. “Conditions in St. Petersburg are extremely difficult,” he wrote. “Republican patriots are straining every effort. They want to flood our party with slop and mud...” (46). The letters sent by V. I. Lenin to Russia contained his most important principles of principle on the tactics of the Bolsheviks, which corresponded to the tasks of the moment. But that still didn't solve all the problems. V. I. Lenin understood that it was necessary to leave for Petrograd as soon as possible. And although Lenin wrote that it was necessary, through pressure from the "Soviet of Workers' Deputies", to get the government to exchange Swiss emigrants for interned Germans, he did not really count on the help of the Council, in which he already had an idea of ​​the balance of class forces. “There is no doubt,” he wrote, “that in the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies there are numerous and even apparently predominant (1) supporters of Kerensky, the most dangerous agent of the imperialist bourgeoisie...; (2) supporters of Chkheidze, who oscillates godlessly in the direction of social patriotism...” (47).

And I had to go, and as quickly as possible. This was also talked about by the news that came to Ilyich at that time from Russia.

From the first days of the February Revolution, the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) took all measures to ensure that V. I. Lenin returned to Russia as soon as possible and directly headed the leadership of the party and its Central Committee on the spot. Knowing that the Bolshevik emigrants were extremely short of money, on March 10 the Bureau of the Central Committee transferred to Stockholm (sent Vladimir Ilyich 500 rubles from the cash desk of the Central Committee for the journey to Russia (48). The Bureau of the Central Committee tried to contact Lenin by mail and telegraph, in order to inform him in more detail about the events in Russia, about the state of affairs in the party and to hasten his departure from Switzerland.But the telegrams and letters of the Bolsheviks were detained by the authorities of the Provisional Government and did not reach Lenin. to Stockholm from Petrograd by a special party courier M. I. Stetskevich.On March 10 or 11, Stetskevich left for Stockholm, taking with her letters and newspapers for V. I. Lenin. She also had a special assignment to demand his arrival in Russia (49). meeting with Stetskevich, on March 17 (30) Ganetsky telegraphed V. I. Lenin in Zurich that the Bureau of the Central Committee was sending telegrams and sending messengers to Stockholm, demanding his immediate and that many Mensheviks are already in Petrograd, and “ours lack leadership,” that we must hurry, because “every missed hour puts everything at stake” (50).

The state of affairs in the party and the country urgently demanded the speedy return of V. I. Lenin to Russia. However, the emigrants, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, resolutely opposed the passage through Germany without the sanction of Milyukov-Kerensky. In this complex and difficult situation, having weighed all the pros and cons, the leader of the Bolshevik party made the only correct decision, proceeding from the interests of the party and the revolution - to take advantage of the consent of the German government and return to Russia through Germany. Vladimir Ilyich made this decision, as eyewitnesses testify, not without hesitation. “This was the only case,” W. Münzenberg wrote in his memoirs, “when I met Lenin in great agitation and full of anger. With short quick steps he walked around the small room and spoke in sharp, abrupt phrases.. Lenin weighed all the political consequences that the trip through Germany could have and foresaw its use by factional opponents. Despite this, the final conclusion of all his words was: we must go through hell" ("Das Fazit aller seiner Reden aber lautet: "Wir müssen fahren, und wenn esdurch die Höll geht"") (51).

Recognizing the decision of representatives of other party groups of emigration to postpone their departure until they receive a sanction from Petrograd - "to the greatest extent erroneous and causing the deepest harm to the revolutionary movement in Russia", the Foreign Collegium of the Central Committee of the RSDLP on March 18 (31), 1917 adopted a resolution on returning to Russia through Germany (52). The decisive influence on the adoption of this resolution was undoubtedly the summoning of V. I. Lenin by the Bureau of the Central Committee to Petrograd and the message that proper leadership of party work in Russia was not ensured due to his absence.

The decision of the Collegium Abroad of the Central Committee was handed over to the leaders of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries in Switzerland, Martov and Natanson, and communicated to all emigrants: all political emigrants in Switzerland were invited to take part in the trip, regardless of their party affiliation and their attitude to the war. The very next day - March 19 (April 1) - Natanson telegraphed from Lausanne. I. Lenin and the emigrant committee to Bagotsky that the Socialist-Revolutionaries would oppose the decision taken by the Bolsheviks (53).

On March 20 (April 2), the resolution of the Foreign Collegium of the Central Committee of the RSDLP was discussed in Zurich at a meeting of socialist revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and representatives of the Nachalo, Vperyod, and PPS groups. Noting in their resolution that the return of emigrants to Russia through the allied countries proved impossible and that it was possible to return to their homeland only through Germany, the Compromisers, loyal to their opportunism and frightened by the revolutionary courage of the Bolsheviks, however, recognized this decision as a political mistake, since, in their opinion, it was not it has also been proved that it is impossible to obtain from the Provisional Government consent to the exchange of emigrants for Germans interned in Russia (54). The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who called themselves revolutionaries, did not have the courage to use the only opportunity to return to their homeland without the permission of the Russian bourgeoisie.

V. I. Lenin then denounced them, calling them "scoundrels of the first degree, who disrupted the common cause of the Mensheviks" (55), afraid of what the "social-patriotic" Princess Maria Alekseevna "will say."

In a letter to the Bolshevik V.M. Kasparov, N.K. they started a desperate squabble... they consider the departure through Germany to be erroneous, they must first get an agreement - some say Milyukov, others - the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. In a word, in their language it turns out: sit and wait” (56).

“Our“ internationalists ”, the Mensheviks in the first place,” V.A. Karpinsky wrote in his memoirs of those days, “having learned about the refusal of the Swiss government, they sounded the retreat. Apparently, it was one thing to blurt out a bold thought in the heat of the moment, and another thing to carry it out The Mensheviks feared that passing through Germany without an official blessing would make a very bad impression on "public opinion." At the first serious occasion it became clear that the Menshevik-internationalists, as was to be expected, were afraid of breaking with the right, social-patriotic wing of their party. The Mensheviks were followed by other vacillating elements, the “Vperyodists” (Lunacharsky, etc.), the “Party Bolsheviks” (Sokolnikov), and others, the Left Bundists, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Anarchists” (57).

The fact that the passage of emigrants through Germany would be used by the bourgeoisie and social-chauvinists against the Bolsheviks and other internationalists, Lenin knew even without the Mensheviks. But Lenin also knew something else - that the broad masses of workers and soldiers of Russia would not believe the dirty slander of the bourgeoisie, and if some of them for some time succumbed to the provocation of forces hostile to the proletariat, they would soon discover its dirty underlying reason.

“We were faced with a choice,” wrote Bolshevik emigrants from Lenin’s group, “either to go through Germany, or to remain abroad until the end of the war” (58). Guided by the interests of the party, the interests of the revolutionary struggle against capitalism, the Bolsheviks did not retreat a single step from the decision they had made, in spite of any subsequent intrigues of the opportunist compromisers.

Vladimir Ilyich did not build any illusions about the reasons for the consent of the German government to the passage of emigrants through their territory. “The imperialist adventurers who played the fate of the nation,” Wilhelm Pieck wrote about the then leaders of Germany, “... hailed the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia as a ‘gift of God’ that could hasten the victory of Germany” (59). The German imperialists understood that the return of the internationalists to Russia would further deepen the revolution and intensify the peace movement, which they hoped would benefit Germany.

Speaking on March 31 (April 13), 1917, in Stockholm to the Swedish left-wing Social Democrats with a report on the passage through Germany, V. I. Lenin also shed light on this side of the issue. “Naturally, Lenin declared,” F. Ström, a participant in this meeting, writes in his memoirs, “the German government, when it allowed passage, speculated on our opposition bourgeois revolution but these hopes are not destined to be justified. The Bolshevik leadership of the revolution will be much more dangerous for the German imperial power and capitalism than the leadership of the revolution by Kerensky and Miliukov” (b0).

The internationalists of the European socialist parties, who approved the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany, told them back in Bern: “If Karl Liebknecht were now in Russia, the Milyukovs would willingly let him go to Germany; The Bethmann-Hollwegs are letting you Russian internationalists out to Russia. Your business is to go to Russia and fight there against both German and Russian imperialism” (61). However, the Milyukovs could not "release" Karl Liebknecht to Germany. For anti-militarist propaganda, he was convicted by the German government and was in the Lükau hard labor prison. Unable to physically "release" K. Liebknecht to Germany, the British, French and Russian imperialists widely distributed in Germany his militant anti-militarist pamphlets, in particular Liebknecht's letters written in the spring of 1916 to the court at the royal military commandant's office in Berlin (62). In these wonderful letters, K. Liebknecht consistently exposed the predatory and predatory nature of the world war, the imperialist essence of the internal and foreign policy German militarism and called on the proletariat to an international class struggle against the capitalist governments of all countries, for the abolition of oppression and exploitation, for an end to war and for peace in the spirit of socialism (63).

The German militarists felt for themselves how the Milyukovs, the Brians and Lloyd Georges "released" K. Liebknecht to them. Consequently, in giving permission for the passage of revolutionary emigrants from Switzerland to Russia through their territory, they resorted to essentially the same methods of struggle against Russia and the Entente. This struggle between the governments of the warring imperialist countries was used by VI Lenin to return to Russia (64).

A group of Russian emigrants who decided to return to their homeland through Germany were closely watched by representatives of the British and French governments. "The British and French representatives," Chargé d'Affaires in Berne informed Milyukov later, "looked with extreme anxiety at the projected departure of Lenin's group" (65). And further Onu explained the reason for their concern: propaganda against the war in Russia could intensify from this. The English envoy reported to London about the preparations for the departure of emigrants through Germany. From London they handed over to the British ambassador in Petrograd, Byokenen, to point out to Milyukov the need to take urgent measures. On the results of the conversation with Milyukov, Buokenen reported to London: “To my question what he intended to do to avert this danger, he replied that the only thing that could be done was to publish their names and report the fact that they were going to through Germany; this would be enough to prevent their arrival in Russia” (6b).

Soon, a message appeared in the widely circulated French newspaper Petit Parisien that Russian political émigrés who decided to return through Germany would be declared traitors to the state and brought to justice in Russia. With this threat, Milyukov and Buokenen wanted to prevent the arrival of internationalists in Russia, and it really turned out to be enough to intimidate the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries. But the threat of Buchanan-Milyukov did not stop the leader of the Bolshevik Party. The revolution was calling him, the party and the revolution needed him, and he went to Russia.

After the decision of the Foreign Collegium of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, R. Grimm behaved extremely ambiguously, and the organizers of the trip refused his further services, instructing the secretary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party, a prominent internationalist, Fritz Platten (67) to complete the trip. On March 21 (April 3), F. Platten visited the German ambassador in Bern, Romberg, and informed him of the conditions under which Russian emigrants agree to take advantage of the permission of the German government to let them pass through Germany. These conditions basically coincided with the conditions of passage through England previously drawn up by V. I. Lenin. Their main points stipulated that all emigrants go, regardless of their views on the war; the wagon in which they will travel must enjoy the right of extraterritoriality in German territory and no one can enter it without the permission of Platten; baggage and passport control is not carried out. For their part, the travelers undertook the obligation upon their return to Russia to agitate for the exchange of the missed emigrants for the corresponding number of Germans and Austrians interned in Russia. They did not take on any other obligations (68).

These conditions were accepted by the German authorities on March 23 (April 5), and preparations for the departure took on a practical character.

A lot of urgent things had to be done in a matter of days: to identify everyone who wanted to go with the first batch, to find money for travel, to prepare a number of important documents, etc. The group who wanted to go through Germany by March 19 (April 1) consisted of only 10 people (69) . “Vladimir Ilyich,” writes M. Kharitonov, a member of the Zurich section of the Bolsheviks, “took great care that all members of our section, who only had physical ability were able to go” (70).

Lenin asked Karpinsky, who remained the representative of the Bolsheviks in Geneva, to notify Abramovich to hurry up with the preparations, he asked the Zurich Bolsheviks to notify the departure of Goberman in Lausanne and "find out exactly (1) who is traveling, (2) how much money he has" (71) . Having learned that Mikha Tskhakaya has no money for the trip at all, he says that “We will pay for the trip for Mikha” (72). He asks M. Kharitonov to find the Bolshevik worker A. Linde and help him prepare for his departure (73). Bolshevik groups in Switzerland, at the request of Lenin, brought to the attention of émigrés of all political denominations that those wishing to travel in the first batch could join the group. In a few days, the initially small group of those leaving grew to 32 people (19 Bolsheviks, 6 Bundists, 3 supporters of the Parisian international newspaper Nashe Slovo, etc.) (74).

Money was needed for the trip, and “chronic lack of money,” as V. A. Karpinsky wrote in his memoirs, was a constant companion of emigrant life. I had to borrow wherever it was possible to borrow. “Allocate two thousand, better three thousand, crowns for our trip,” Lenin telegraphed to Ganetsky (75). Soon Vladimir Ilyich told I. Armand: “... we have more money for the trip than I thought, there will be enough for 10-12 people, because comrades in Stockholm helped us a lot” (76).

However, 32 people agreed to go, and there was not enough “Stockholm money” for such a group. I also had to borrow from Swiss comrades (77).

While Lenin was completely absorbed in the preparations for his departure, the Compromiser emigrants launched an unbridled agitation against the trip. On March 22 (April 4), a crowded party meeting of emigrant organizations was held in Geneva, at which the plan of the Central Committee of the RSDLP was rejected (78). The Lausanne-Clarens group of Socialist-Revolutionaries and Social Democrats on March 23 (April 5) adopted a resolution of protest against the impending departure of Lenin's group through Germany (79). The Zurich Emigration Committee also took an unfriendly position. On March 22 (April 4), the executive commission of the committee adopted a resolution in which it called on “all local organizations and individual comrades not to bring disorganization into the return of political emigration! and wait for the result of the steps taken by the Central Committee as an organ of political emigration as a whole” (80).

In émigré circles, which did not approve of the departure of Lenin's group through Germany, it was suggested that one of the Swiss comrades be sent to Petrograd to report to the Soviet on the situation of émigrés in Switzerland. As a last resort, it was proposed to send a special telegram to the Council. V. I. Lenin did not object to sending a telegram to the Soviet, but being sure that the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik majority of the Soviet would not support their plan, he did not consider it possible to postpone the trip because of waiting for an answer.

Reporting on March 23 (April 5) that the Mensheviks were urgently demanding to wait for the Soviet's sanction, he asked Ganetsky to send "someone to reach an agreement with Chkheidze as far as possible," and also to find out the opinion of the Bureau of the Central Committee on this question (810. The Bureau of the Central Committee, having learned even earlier from Ganetsky about the plan to travel through Germany, this plan was fully approved and in a telegram sent from Petrograd on March 23 (April 5) Ganetsky confirmed that "Ulyanov must arrive immediately" (82), The next day Ganetsky and Vorovsky forwarded the telegram to Lenin, adding from myself: “We ask you to leave immediately, without “reckoning” with anyone (83).

V. I. Lenin knew that the slander that the chauvinists would erect against the Bolsheviks for their passage through Germany, they must counter with documents that would testify that they had no other choice. Therefore, he advised Ganetsky to record every step, to collect "documents against Milyukov and Co., capable of dragging out the case, feeding him with promises, cheating, etc." (84). With Karpinsky, he agreed to send materials to Petrograd via Stockholm that would outline to everyone the sad role of the governments allied with Russia in the issue of the return of Russian political emigrants (85).

V. I. Lenin considered it necessary to draw up a protocol on the trip and invite for signing it not only the departing Bolshevik emigrants, but also the internationalists of the socialist parties of Europe, who considered the passage of Russian revolutionaries through Germany under the current situation not only as their revolutionary duty, but also as a revolutionary duty .

Prominent representatives of the internationalist groups of European socialist parties F. Loriot and A. Guillebaud (France), P. Levy (P. Hartstein, Germany), M. Bronsky (Poland) and Fr. Platten (Switzerland) March 25 (April 7) signed a special statement in Bern, which emphasized that in the current situation for Russian emigrants in Switzerland, they "not only have the right, but are obliged to take advantage of the opportunity presented to them to travel to Russia." The internationalists of the European parties wished the departing Russian revolutionaries success in their struggle against the imperialist policy of the Russian bourgeoisie, which, as they wrote, “is part of our common struggle for the liberation of the working class, for the socialist revolution" (86).

The statement of the internationalists was included in the protocol on the passage of emigrants through Germany, drawn up and signed by the Bolsheviks in Bern the next day (87). This protocol covered in detail all the circumstances of the preparations for the departure of emigrants from Switzerland to Russia, emphasized that the conditions they had obtained from the German authorities made passage through Germany acceptable, and expressed firm confidence that the worker internationalists in Russia fully agree with their step (88).

Until the very moment of departure, the Bolsheviks invited emigrants from other directions to join their trip. But after the article in Petit Parisien, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries did not even want to hear about it. On March 23 (April 5), members of the Executive Commission of the Zurich Emigration Committee Andronnikov, Bagotsky, Ioffe, Mandelberg, Reyhesberg, Semkovsky, G. Ulyanov, Fratkin and others sent Chkheidze, Kerensky and the Committee for Assistance to Exiles and Emigrants (Committee B: Figner) to Petrograd a telegram in which it was reported that Russian emigrants in Switzerland were deprived of the opportunity to leave for Russia, since the obstacles to their return through France and England were insurmountable. “In our opinion,” the telegram said, “the only real way- an agreement between Russia and Germany, following the example of the exchange of civilian prisoners already practiced during the war, on the passage of emigrants in exchange for the release of civilian prisoners interned in Russia. In conclusion, the members of the Executive Commission urged the Compromisers in Petrograd to take steps to return them to Russia (89).

On the same day, the leaders of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries and representatives of some other areas of emigration who joined them - Martov, Natanson, Axelrod, Martynov, Lunacharsky, Ryazanov and others sent a telegram from themselves to the same three addresses. “We state the absolute impossibility of returning to Russia through England,” they wrote. “Under such conditions, a political amnesty will turn out to be fictitious unless extra-ordinary measures are taken. We support the plan put forward by the Central Emigrant Committee in a telegram to Chkheidze, Kerensky, Figner" (90).

On the same day, the Zurich Emigration Committee asked the Russian mission in Bern whether there was a way for the emigrants to return to Russia. From the mission, the Committee was told: “At present there is no way to travel to Russia” (91). In this situation, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, intimidated by Milyukov, refused to join the Leninist group of emigrants who were returning to Russia by the only possible way. Martov informed Platten that the Mensheviks were sticking to their old decision, that they would continue to wait for the sanction of the Provisional Government (92).

March 27 (April 9) at 15:00 10 minutes. a group of Russian political emigrants headed by V. I. Lenin left Switzerland for Russia through Germany. At the Zurich railway station, a handful of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries staged a hostile demonstration for those departing. Ryazanov then called the departure of revolutionaries through German territory madness (93).

The Bolshevik émigrés, who did not have time to leave with Lenin, warmly saw off those departing, wishing them success in their revolutionary work in Russia. Telegrams were sent to V. I. Lenin from different cities of Switzerland. “Greetings to friends and comrades,” the Bolshevik Ilyin telegraphed from Geneva. “We enthusiastically welcome your departure. We're sorry we can't go with you. Have a good trip. Best regards. See you soon, with you soul and heart "(94). “When is Ilyich going to Russia, or has he, perhaps, already gone? - the Bolsheviks V. Zagorsky and V. Solovyov wrote on the day of departure. - Well, for now, all the best! See you soon at work in St. Petersburg or Moscow” (95).

The conditions for passage through Germany, worked out by V. I. Lenin, were exactly fulfilled by the German authorities. From Teingen, through Gottmadingen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Berlin, the emigrants arrived in Sassnitz, from where they reached Trelleborg by sea and arrived by rail from Malmö on the morning of March 31 (April 13) to Stockholm. Here they were met by representatives of the left Swedish Social Democracy K. Lindhagen, F. Ström and a correspondent of the Social Democratic newspaper Politiken. V. I. Lenin handed over to this newspaper a communiqué of the group, which outlined all the circumstances relating to the trip. He then elaborated on these questions at a joint conference of emigrants and Swedish Social Democrats - internationalists. In Stockholm, V. I. Lenin created the Foreign Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) to inform foreign workers about the events and tasks of the Russian revolution.

Lenin did not stay in Stockholm. “The most important thing,” he told a Rolitiken correspondent, “is that we arrive in Russia as soon as possible. Dear every day” (96).

Since Milyukov's threat to bring the emigrants to trial for passing through Germany did not stop V. I. Lenin, the British authorities, as Howard writes about this, intended to forcibly detain him in Sweden. From the diary of the leader of the Swedish right-wing social democracy, E. Palmstierna, it became known that even plans were hatched to kill V. I. Lenin during his passage through Stockholm. But after careful consideration, the British authorities decided to abandon the implementation of these plans, organizing a smear campaign against the leader of the Bolshevik Party (97).

March 31 (April 13) at 6 a.m. 37 min. In the evening emigrants left Stockholm for Russia via Finland.

As they approached Russia, they increasingly thought about how real the threat of Milyukov was. After all, they did not know much about the state of affairs in Petrograd. “During the trip between Stockholm and Torneo,” writes a participant in the trip, Scheinesson, “a rally was held in the carriage, at which Lenin spoke and indicated how we should behave in court if the Russian authorities want to create a political process from our arrival” (98).

Even at the meeting in Bern, the Bolsheviks decided that if they were charged with any charges in Russia for passing through Germany, they would demand an open trial in order to turn it into a trial of the Provisional Government, which continued the reactionary war and in the fight against its opponents with existing methods. royal regime. But the case did not reach the court - the Provisional Government was powerless to carry out its threat.

From the telegram of V. I. Lenin, sent by him from Torneo to M. I. Ulyanova and to Pravda, revolutionary Petrograd learned about the leader’s arrival and went out to meet him.

On April 3 (16), V. I. Lenin arrived in Petrograd and was enthusiastically received by the working people. The return of V. I. Lenin to Russia was of the greatest importance for the victorious outcome of the revolution in our country. On the Finland Station Square, from the tower of an armored car, in front of thousands of revolutionary workers, soldiers and sailors who met him, Lenin openly and boldly called on the party, the working class and the revolutionary army to fight for the socialist revolution.

Becoming at the head of the Bolshevik Party and the revolutionary masses, he ensured the development of the correct strategy and tactics of the party, their implementation in the course of the revolution and the conquest of the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country.

Notes

1. V. I. Lenin. Soch., ed. 4, vol. 35, p. 241.

4. V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 35, p. 249.

5. "News of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies", No. 4, March 3, 1917, p. 4.

6. “Decrees of the Provisional Government: 346. On amnesty. Collection of legalizations and orders of the government, published during Governing Senate”, March 7, 1917, No. 55, pp. 535-537.

8. “The revolutionary movement in Russia after the overthrow of the autocracy. Documents and materials”, M., 1957, p. 466.

9. AVPR, f. Legal Department (administrative office work), 1917, op. 455g, d. 22, l. one; d. 27, ll. nineteen; d. 29, l. 5.

10. Ibid., f. Embassy in Paris, d. 3560, l. eight.

11. Ibid., f. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 97, v. 1, l. 88. International control lists of persons who were not allowed to enter the Entente countries were compiled by the military representatives of England, France and Russia at the Inter-Allied Bureau in Paris in 1915-1916. Along with persons suspected of spying for Germany, they also included persons who opposed the war and were therefore suspected of promoting peace.

The checklists contained, for example, the following motivations for including certain persons in them: “Suspiced of propaganda about the conclusion of peace”; “Took a lively part in the last Kienthal internationalist conference; traveled around the northern countries of Europe to promote the conclusion of peace among the socialists of Denmark, Norway and Sweden”; “An agent of peaceful and anti-militarist propaganda and his entry into Russia is undesirable,” etc. In total, up to 6,000 people were included in these lists.

In addition to international watch lists, there were also lists for individual countries: French, English, Russian, which additionally included many people who were not included in the general lists. (See AVPR, f. Legal Department, op. 455g, file 154, vol. 1, pp. 234-235, 238-246, 249-275, 347-431, 490; vol. II, pp. 1- 19, 77-85, 113-121, 149-152).

12. AVPR, f. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 97, vol. I, l. 71. "Number 1047" - Miliukov's telegram dated March 10, instructing the ambassadors to show "the most precautionary attitude towards emigrants." There was, of course, no mention of checklists in this telegram. "AppeL" ("Call") - the newspaper of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries; was published in Paris from October 1915 to March 1917. “The ‘call’ of Messrs. Plekhanov, Bunakov and Co., wrote Lenin, fully deserved the approval of the chauvinists ... in Russia.” V. I. Lenin. Complete collection cit (hereinafter: PSS), vol. 27, p. 83.

13. AVPR, f. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 97, vol. II, l. 409; f. Embassy in London, op. 520, d. 617, l. 217; f. Legal Department, op. 455g, d. 75, l. 42.

14. Russian Chargé d'Affaires in England K. D. Nabokov wrote in his memoirs: “Lloyd George became interested in the question of the return of some Russian emigrants to Russia. One day one of his personal secretaries and, showing me a list of 16 Russian emigrants, he asked me to assist them, and assured me that the prime minister, for his part, "would take all possible measures." This list included B. V. Savinkov, N. D. Avksentiev and Lev Deutsch with his wife." As can be seen from the documents, Nabokov asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to urgently acquaint Kerensky with a list of these 16 chauvinist emigrants and to telegraph to him "whether the latter considers it desirable that the embassy render special assistance in returning the mentioned persons to Russia in the first place "". On March 27, Nabokov received a response from Milyukov to his request. "You can provide special assistance for the return to Russia, first of all, of the emigrants listed in your telegram" (K. D. Nabokov. Trials of a diplomat, Stockholm, 1921, pp. 82-83; AVPR, f. Legal Department, list 455g, file 81, sheets 4, 7; f. Embassy in London, list 520, file 617, sheet 189).

15. A. L. Popov. Diplomacy of the Provisional Government in the fight against the revolution. "Red Archive", 1927, vol. I (XX), p. 9; AVPR, f. Embassy in Paris, d. 3557, l. sixteen; f. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 97, vol. II, l. 383.

16. Control lists abroad were kept by Russian military agents; missions and embassies did not have them. When passports were being validated for emigrants, the lists of those wishing to return to Russia were handed over from the embassies to military agents, who deleted from them the persons included in the control lists. Soon after the February Revolution, rumors about the checklists made their way into the press, causing deep public outrage. In this regard, Milyukov, for demagogic purposes, began a correspondence with the Chief of the General Staff, P. I. Averyanov, whom he asked to take measures to revise the control lists and exclude political emigrants from them. As a result of the "revision"... 7 people were excluded from the lists. The actual results of the "revision" of the control lists can be judged from the telegram of the Commissar of the Provisional Government abroad Svatikov, who in mid-August 1917 raised the question of the need to revise the control lists before the Provisional Government. “I consider it the highest indecency,” Svatikov wrote, “that among international spies, the name of the Minister of Internal Affairs Avksentiev is in the first place” (AVPR, fund of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 97, vol. I, l. 224; 71, vol. II, sheets 738, 923; Embassy in Paris, file 3559, sheet 8; file 3557, sheet 14; f. Legal Department, op. 455d, file 31, sheet 1; case 27, ff. 38-39v.; case 3, folio 2, 6, 7, 31; list 455, file 154, vol. I, ff. 277-279, 385). Avksentiev was at the top of the checklists because the lists were alphabetized. He was included in the lists due to the excessive zeal of the tsarist police and military authorities, since, being an ardent chauvinist, he never opposed the war.

17. AVPR, f. Embassy in Paris, d. 3557, l. 291.

18. Ibid., l. 296.

19. Ibid., f. Office, "War", d. 205, l. 32.

20. The British government not only did not release internationalist emigrants from England, but also prevented their return to Russia from other countries through England. On March 23, by order of the British Admiralty, the Canadian authorities in Halifax arrested a group of émigrés on their way from New York to Russia via England on the ship Christiania Fjord, on the grounds that they were connected with the leaders of the internationalist-minded circles of Russian Social Democracy. (AVPR, f. Legal Department, op. 455g, d. 38, ll. 1, 3).

21. AVPR, f. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chancellery, op. 470, d. 71, l. 206.

22. Ibid., f. Legal Department, op. 455g, d. 5, l. 3. The British government, ceasing to validate passports for exit from Switzerland to Russia and the Scandinavian countries, referred to the absence of a regular shipping service between England and Scandinavia. However, this did not prevent him from sending defencists to Russia.

23. Allgemeine Amnestie. "Vorwärts", Berlin, 1917, No. 75, Sonnabend, den 17 März.

25. "Daddy" - the party nickname of M. M. Litvinov.

26. In all the main and fundamentally essential, these conditions coincided with those on which the passage of the first group of Russian political emigrants from Switzerland to Russia through Germany subsequently took place.

27. "Valya" - the wife of a political emigrant G. I. Safarov.

29. As the French counterintelligence authorities reported to Paris on March 23 (April 5), 1917, in a private conversation, a political émigré in Switzerland stated that their group “soon goes to Russia to conduct propaganda there in socialist circles in the spirit of the Zimmerwald Conference . He said that the French authorities did not allow them to pass through France ... ". In the report intelligence department of the headquarters of the French army on April 3 (16), 1917, about the departure on March 27 (April 9) from Switzerland to Russia of a group of Russian political émigrés in the eye with V. I. Lenin, it was reported that “these persons requested from the Vice-Consulate of England in Lausanne permission for the right of passage through England, but since their request was refused, they turned to the German consulate. The head of the Russian department of the Inter-Allied Bureau in Paris, Count P. A. Ignatiev, at the request of the quartermaster general, sent in the summer of 1917 to the GUGSH reports of Russian counterintelligence abroad on the case of Lenin's travel from Switzerland to Russia. These reports contain the following information: 1) “...Usievich lived in Lausanne. Son-in-law of Kon. He requested a passport from the British consul, which he was denied. He left for Russia through Germany...” 2) “...In early April, Lenin... had his first meeting with Grimm about sending emigrants to Russia... It was established that Lenin and his group unconditionally asked for French passports, but in their extradition was refused.” (TsPA NML, f. DP, op. 17, item 38644, ll. 349, 350, 354).

30. On March 10 (23), V. I. Lenin, in a letter to I. Armand, about the impossibility of passing through England, spoke out only presumably: “Now, if neither England nor Germany will let them in for anything !!! And it's possible!" A few days later (between March 12 and 18 (25 and 31)), he writes about this already quite definitely: “We must not get into Russia !! England won't let you. It does not go through Germany ”(V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 35, p. 248).

Stop in comparative detail at English version Lenin's plan to return to Russia is also important because foreign bourgeois historians pass over it in complete silence, tendentiously describing the return of V. I. Lenin from emigration to Russia in 1917 on the basis of the so-called documents of the German Foreign Ministry (W. Hahlweg. Lenins Reise durch Deutschiand im Apriel 1917. "Viertel Jahrschrifte für Zeitgeschichte. Stuttgart, 1957, No. 4; His own. Lenins Rückkehr nach Russland 1917, Leiden, 1957, Einleitung; Z. A. B. Zeman. Verbündete wieder Willen. Deutschlands Beziehungen zu-en l russis1 1918), "Der Monat". Berlin. 1958 Hft. 120; D. G. Watt. From the Finland Station "Spectator, London, no. 6777, May 16. 1958; H. Schurer. Alexander Helphand-Parvus..." The Russian Review , v. 18, No. 4, October 1959, etc.) Bourgeois historians bypass this question, of course, not without intent: an objective and comprehensive coverage of this aspect of Lenin’s preparations for his departure to Russia, using authentic documents, say, Minister English foreign affairs, would not be in favor of their falsifying concept.

31. V. I. Lenin, PSS, vol. 31, p. 487.

32. " soldier's truth”, No. 21, May 13 (26), 1917. The article by N. K. Krupskaya was written during direct participation V. I. Lenin, who not only carefully edited it, but also included a number of important provisions in it. That original plan return to Russia included travel through allied countries, according to his memoirs and emigrant-Bolshevik G. Shklovsky. “The first way, it would seem, is the easiest,” writes Shklovsky, “turned out to be the most difficult for Vladimir Ilyich and his friends, and, with a detailed study of the issue, completely impossible. This is the route along which all patriotic emigration poured into Russia - through France, England, and then by sea to Petrograd ... ”(Proletarian Revolution, 1926, No. 1 (48), p. 7).

33. See "The Revolutionary Movement in Russia after the Overthrow of the Autocracy", p. 124.

34. See "Lenin Collection XIII", p. 254.

35. V. I. Lenin recommended that emigrants find out in the Russian mission in Switzerland the possibility of obtaining passports and visas for entry into Russia, the possibility of obtaining their passports for emigrants from Russians living in Switzerland, etc. Vladimir Ilyich himself asked on March 6 (19) V. A. Karpinsky, who lived in Geneva, take on his (Karpinsky’s) name papers for travel to France and England, along which Lenin could travel to Russia (see V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 35, p. 242 ). But this plan had to be abandoned as unrealizable (See V. A. Karpinsky. Vladimir Ilyich abroad in 1914-1917. According to letters and memoirs. Notes of the Lenin Institute, II, 1927, p. 106).

36. “The Berlin permission is unacceptable to me,” wrote V. I. Lenin to Ganetsky on March 15 (28) (V. I. Lenin. Soch., vol. 36, p. 386). Two days later, he again wrote to Ganetsky about his proposal: “Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your efforts and help. Of course, I cannot use the services of people who are connected with the publisher of Kolokol.

37. V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 36, p. 381.

38. Ibid.

39. V. A. Karpinsky. Decree. cit., p. 107.

40. Swiss Central Committee for the Return of Political Emigrants to Russia. Hectographed leaflet. Zurich, March 24, 1917. Original. State public library them. V. I. Lenin, book museum.

The committee in Zurich initially united Russian emigrant socialists of all directions, but on April 2 (15) the social patriots left it, forming their own committee in Bern, representing 160 emigrants, supporters of "national defense". After that, the Zurich Committee united 560 emigrants, mostly of an internationalist direction. (“The allied missions,” wrote On to Petrograd, “the Committee enjoys a disgusting reputation.” AVPR, f. Legal Department, op. 455g, d. 30, l. 14). In the very first days of the committee's existence, an Executive Commission was created, which included Adler, Andronnikov, Bagotsky, A. Balabanova, Bolotin, Ioffe, F. Kohn, Mandelberg, Reyhesberg, Semkovsky, G. Ulyanov, Ustinov, Fratkin. The chairman of the commission was Semkovsky, the secretary was Bagotsky. (In the telegram of the commission to Petrograd, cited in the book by F. Platten “Lenin from emigration to Russia. March 1917” (1925), on p. 24, when listing the names of the commission members, the surname of Ulyanov is given an incorrect decoding: “Ulyanov (Lenin)”. Not V. I. Ulyanov, but G. K. Ulyanov (deputy of the Second Duma) was a member of the commission.From March 23 (April 5), the Executive Commission published the Bulletin.The committee issued circular letters.

41. The telegram was apparently sent to Petrograd on 15 or 16 (28 or 29) March. See the letter of V. A. Karpinsky to V. I. Lenin dated March 23 (April 5), 1917. CPA IML f. 17, op. 12, units ridge 27450, l. one; “Central Swiss Committee for the Return of Political Emigrants to Russia. Bulletin of the Executive Commission” (hereinafter: “Bulletin of the Executive Commission”), No. 1, Zurich, 5 April, p. 2; No. 1-2, Zurich, April 10, p. 1; "The Revolutionary Movement in Russia after the Overthrow of the Autocracy", p. 125.

Rejecting Ganetsky's proposals to obtain a pass through Berlin, V. I. Lenin telegraphed him on March 15 (28): "Either the Swiss government will receive a wagon to Copenhagen, or the Russian will agree on the exchange of all emigrants for interned Germans." (V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 36, p. 386).

42. V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 36, p. 387.

43. Ibid., vol. 35, p. 249.

44. See ibid.

45. See ibid., pp. 250-251.

46. ​​Ibid., p. 253.

47. Ibid., p. 250. V. I. Lenin's fears about Petrogradsky's position. Council fully justified. The Executive Committee of the Council, to which representatives of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) repeatedly applied, did not take any measures to assist the emigrants in returning to their homeland. Moreover, having heard at its meeting on April 4 (17), 1917 Zurabov's report "On the situation of Swiss emigrants" and the message of Lenin and Zinoviev "How we arrived", the Executive Committee of the Council refused to approve the passage of emigrants through Germany (A. Shlyapnikov. Arrival V. I. Lenin to Russia in 1917 "Lenin Collection II", pp. 448-457, "Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Minutes of the meetings of the Executive Committee and Bureau of the IK", 1925, pp. 72-74).

48. CPA IML, f. 17, op. I, unit ridge 134, l. I.

49. A. Shlyapnikov. Decree. cit., p. 449.

50. The Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, knowing from the first days of the revolution about the obstacles posed by the return of emigrants, through the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, appealed to the Provisional Government with a proposal to take all measures to ensure that “formal considerations do not prevent the return of political emigrants to Russia” (“ Lenin collection II”, p. 458). The question of the return of emigrants, of the obstacles to their arrival by the governments of England, France and Russia, was widely reported on the pages of Russian newspapers, including Pravda (See Pravda No. 10, 16 (29) March; No. 11, March 17(30); No. 16, March 23 (April 5), etc.). In the article “The Police Are Alive,” Pravda wrote: “There are reports that the French and British governments are trying to prevent the return of our comrades, Russian emigrants, to Russia.” The article ended with an appeal to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government: “G. Milyukov, the people who paved the way for you to the portfolio of the Minister of Foreign Affairs demand from you immediate and decisive measures to ensure the return of emigrants to Russia. (“Pravda”, No. 13, March 19 (April 1), 1917

51. W. Munzenberg. Die dritte Front, Berlin, 1930, pp. 235-236.

52. V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, pp. 83-84. After the adoption of this resolution, the Bolsheviks organized a departure to Russia, already independently of the Zurich Emigrant Committee, which also took the position of waiting and procrastination in this matter. (See "Swiss Central Committee for the Return of Political Emigrants to Russia. Circular Letter No. 2", March 31, 1917; "Circular Letter No. 3", April 2, 1917).

53. TsPA IML, f. 17, op. 16, units ridge 20465, l. one.

54. "The revolutionary movement in Russia after the overthrow of the autocracy", pp. 127-128.

55. V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 36, p. 389.

56. "Lenin collection XIII", p. 271.

57. V. A. Karpinsky. Decree. cit., p. 107.

58. "The revolutionary movement in Russia after the overthrow of the autocracy", p. 128.

59. Wilhelm Pick. Preface to the book “Karl Liebknecht. Selected speeches, letters and articles”, M., 1961, p. 32.

60. Fredrik Strem. I stormig tid. Memoirer. Norsted, Stockholm, 1942. See also N. K. Krupskaya. A page from the history of the party. "Notes of the Lenin Institute", II., p. 153.

61. V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 121.

62. TsGVIA, f. 2000, op. I, d. 2652, l. 2-Goiter

63. See Karl Liebknecht. Selected speeches, letters and articles, Moscow, 1961, pp. 379-385, 388-396.

64. Bourgeois historians, who invent all sorts of fables about the imaginary connections of Lenin and the Bolsheviks with the Germans, due to which, they say, they let them into Russia, bypass this side of the issue under consideration with complete silence. And it is not surprising - after all, the objective disclosure of the true motives of the Germans' consent to the passage of emigrants undermines the falsifying foundations of their writings, prepared by order of various Rockefeller, Ford, etc. anti-communist propaganda funds.

65. AVPR, f. Mission in Bern, 1917-1918, op. 843/2, d. 416, l. fourteen.

66. Ibid., f. Office, "War", d. 205, l. 44; A. L. Popov. Decree. cit., pp. 8-9.

67. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, wrote N. K. Krupskaya to V. M. Kasparov, “took Grimm in the right direction and almost ruined the whole thing. But Platten helped...” (“Lenin Collection XIII”, p. 271).

68. See "The Revolutionary Movement in Russia after the Overthrow of the Autocracy", p. 127.

69. "Lenin collection XIII" p. 265.

70. M. Kharitonov. From memories. "Notes of the Lenin Institute", II, p. 145.

71. V. I. Len and n. Soch., vol. 35, p. 255: vol. 36, p. 389.

72. "Lenin collection XIII", p. 268.

73. M. Kharitonov. Decree. cit., p. 145.

74. See V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 119.

75. "Lenin collection XIII", p. 265.

76. The money was sent to Stockholm by the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (See A. Shlyapnikov, op. cit., p. 450).

77. “The money, in which we, as our enemies slandered, were drowning, we did not have at all,” writes F. Platten. loan for 3000 fr. under the guarantee of Lang and Platten ”(Fritz Platten. Lenin from emigration to Russia. March 1917, p. 42). But the money employed in Switzerland was also not enough for the whole journey - emigrants were additionally credited in Stockholm. F. Ström talks about this in his book: “We borrowed, Lenin suddenly said, several thousand crowns for a trip from a Swiss party comrade - a manufacturer. Could you borrow a few thousand crowns from several workers' organizations; it is difficult to travel through your extended country and through Finland. I promised to try and called several union leaders, our publisher and Fabian Monsson to raise money in the Riksdag. Fabian pulled out some 300s. He went, among other things, to Lindman, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs. “I will gladly subscribe for a hundred crowns, if only Lenin leaves today,” said Lindman. Several bourgeois members of the Riksdag signed because Fabian said: "They will govern Russia tomorrow." Fabian did not believe in this at all, but it helped, and he, in any case, turned out to be right! We collected several hundred crowns, and Lenin was pleased. He was a poor man. Thus, he could pay for the hotel and for the tickets to Haparanda” (Fredrik Strem. op. cit.).

78. CPA IML, f. 17, op. 12, units ridge 27450, l. I.

81. V. I. Leni n. Works, vol. 36, p. 390.

82. A. Shlyapnikov. Decree. cit., p. 449. During the second departure of M. I. Stetskevich to Stockholm at the end of March, - wrote A. Shlyapnikov, - she “was given an order: V. I. Lenin must travel in any way, not embarrassed to go through Germany provided there is no personal danger of being detained” (p. 450).

83. "Lenin collection XIII", p. 270.

84. V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 35, p. 249.

85. See ibid., p. 254; PSS, vol. 31, pp. 119, 487.

86. The Revolutionary Movement in Russia after the Overthrow of the Autocracy, p. 129. During the passage of emigrants through Stockholm, the Berne statement of the internationalists was joined and signed by the Swedish Social Democrats K. Lindhagen, F. Ström, K. Carlson, K. Chilbum, Toure Nerman and Norwegian socialist A. Hansen.

87. The protocol on the passage was then signed by emigrants from other parties who were returning to Russia with Lenin's group.

88. "The revolutionary movement in Russia after the overthrow of the autocracy", cf. 128.

89. Bulletin of the Spanish Commission”, No. 1-2.

90. Bulletin of the Spanish Commission”, No. 1-2. The telegrams were received in Petrograd on March 28 (April 10) and handed over to Milyukov. On April 6 (19), he replied to the Zurich Emigration Committee and the leaders of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries that passage through Germany in exchange for the Germans interned in Russia was considered impossible, and promised to assist them in returning through England. In the second half of April (early May), Chkheidze, Skobelev, Dan and Tsereteli telegraphed to Berne the foreign section of the Menshevik Organizing Committee about the need to abandon the plan of passage through Germany, since "this would make a very sad impression." (CPA NML, f. 451, op. 3, d. 20426, l. 1). Further there were assurances that they hoped to obtain permission for the passage of emigrants through England. Since the promises to assist the emigrants in their passage through England remained promises, the Socialist-Revolutionary-Menshevik emigration rushed to Russia along the path along which Lenin's group was returning and which they at one time considered unacceptable. “On Tuesday, May 9,” V. I. Lenin wrote in this connection, “more than 200 emigrants arrived from Switzerland who had passed through Germany, including the leader of the Mensheviks Martov, the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionaries Natanson, and others. This passage again and again proved that there is no other reliable way out of Switzerland than through Germany. (V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 32, p. 73).

The All-Russian Conference of the Social-Democrats, held in Petrograd in May, Mensheviks and United Organizations recognized that Axelrod, Martov, Martynov and others, who returned to Russia through Germany, "performed their party and revolutionary duty, hastening to return to active revolutionary struggle in Russia” and recognized it as her duty “to fight in every possible way against any slanderous slander against these comrades for passing through Germany” (“Protocols of the All-Russian Conference of Social-Democratic Mensheviks and United Organizations”, Petrograd, 1917). The emigrants, united by the Berne Committee, waiting for their passage through England, telegraphed Kerensky and Avksentiev with resentment in August 1917: "The Zimmerwaldists have left, we have stayed."

91. Bulletin of the Spanish Commission”, No. 1-2, p. 2.

93. F. Platten. Decree. cit., pp. 119-120.

94. TsPA IML, f. 17, op. 16, units ridge 20437, l. one.

95. Ibid., op. 13, units ridge 27417, l. one.

96. V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 31, p. 95.

97. Lord Howard of Penrith. Theater of Life. II, London 1936, p. 264. (quoted from D. Warth. The Allies and the Russian Revolution, Durham, no. 9, 1954, Duke University Press, p. 42); Knut Backström. Lenin in Sweden in 1917. "New and Contemporary History", 1960, No. 2, p. 96.

98. Shaynesson. Memories of a travel participant. "Dzhetysuyskaya Iskra", Alma-Ata, January 21, 1924; see also M. Kharitonov. Decree. cit., p. 145.

Unknown Lenin - SEALED CAR

Page 5 of 21

"SEALED CAR"

So, on April 8, all the obligatory business was completed and on the morning of the 9th, with the first train, Lenin and Krupskaya left for Zurich. And it was only a few hours. We said goodbye to the owners, threw the essentials into the basket, returned the books to the library and took things to the station. All those who decided to go were already gathering there.

“All those leaving,” says Platten, “gathered at the Zähringerhof restaurant for a common, modest dinner. Because of the incessant running back and forth and the incessant information given by Lenin and Zinoviev, the meeting gave the impression of a disturbed anthill. After discussing the information, all the participants decided to sign an obligation, according to which each of the participants in the trip personally took responsibility for the step taken 1 .

And then there was a conflict. Among those who intended to go was the doctor Oskar Blum, author of the book Outstanding Personalities of the Russian Revolution. According to the agreement, neither party affiliation nor way of thinking could serve as an obstacle to inclusion in the list. And among those leaving, in addition to the Bolsheviks, were Mensheviks, and Vperyodists, and Socialist-Revolutionaries, and anarchists. But Blum was suspected of having connections with the Okhrana. “Lenin and Zinoviev made him understand that it would be better if he refused to travel ... His desire - to interview all those traveling - was satisfied. By 14 votes against 11, his inclusion in the list of those leaving was rejected” 2 .

Gradually everyone gathered. At half-past three the whole group "went from the Zähringerhof restaurant to the station, loaded - according to Russian custom - with pillows, blankets, and other belongings." There were already crowds of mourners on the platform. And suddenly it turned out that Blum had already entered the carriage ahead of time and calmly, with a smile, took his place. It was then that Vladimir Ilyich, who had kept himself in control all this time, as they say, broke loose. He jumped into the car and literally dragged the impudent man onto the platform by the collar.

Meanwhile, a crowd of émigrés had gathered outside the carriage, violently protesting against the trip. This is where a fight could break out. But young Swiss friends of Platten and railway employees quickly pushed the buzzers off the platform. A couple of minutes before the train left, David Ryazanov approached Zinoviev “in great excitement”: “V. I. got carried away and forgot about the dangers; you are cooler. Understand that this is madness. Persuade V.I. refuse...” 3 But it was too late to enter into a discussion.

Platten's friend, the young anarchist Siegfried Bloch, who was standing on the platform, saying goodbye to Lenin, politely "expressed the hope of seeing him again soon with us," that is, in Switzerland. Vladimir Ilyich laughed and replied: "That would be a bad political sign." Those departing had already taken their places in the car and were all waiting for the signal to depart. Since even the question of the number of emigrants going to Russia became the subject of political insinuations in the “Lenin-eater” literature, we will give a list of them. Under the obligation signed at the Tseringerhof restaurant are the names of Lenin and Lenina (Krupskaya), Zinoviev and Radomyslskaya (Lilina). Safarov and Safarova (Martoshkina), Usievich and Elena Kon (Usievich), employees of the Nashe Slovo newspaper Ilya and Maria Miringof (Mariengof), Inessa Armand and her husband's sister Anna Konstantinovich, Mikhi Tskhakai and David Suliashvili, Grigory Sokolnikov, M. Kharitonov , N. Boytsov, A. Linde, F. Grebelskaya, A. Abramovich, A. Skovno, O. Ravich, D. Slyusarev, Socialist-Revolutionary D. Rosenblum (Firsov), B. Elchaninov, Sheineson, M. Goberman, Aizenhud and Bundovki B. Pogovskoy. So 29 adults and two children: Stepan - the son of the Zinovievs and Robert - the son of Pogovskaya. Total: 31 people. There was no signature of the thirty-second - Karl Radek. He was an Austrian subject and could not be considered a Russian emigrant. Therefore, Platten asked him not to flicker at the station, but to join the group at the nearest stop in Schaffhausen, which Radek did 5 .

Finally the station bell rang. The mourners sang the Internationale. And the train started moving...

And those who remained, who considered this trip a political mistake - have they proved the possibility of a different solution? Not...

Days passed in the fruitless expectation of an answer from Petrograd. “Our situation has become unbearable,” Martov telegraphed his colleagues in Russia. On April 15 there was a split. A group of 166 emigrants who decided to wait became a separate organization. It was not until April 21 that an answer came to the telegram sent on the 5th. Milyukov answered. He again pointed out that passage through Germany was impossible and - once again - promised to achieve a return through England 6 .

The emigrants regarded the response as a mockery. And on April 30, they announced that they would go home the same way as the Leninist group. When asked if Germany was using their trip in its chains, they could only repeat what the Bolsheviks said: “It does not concern us at all what motives will guide German imperialism in this case, since we are waging and will be waging a struggle for peace, itself Of course, not in the interests of German imperialism, but in the spirit of international socialism... Lenin's travel conditions published by Platten in the People's Law contain all the necessary guarantees. Axelrod, Martov and Semkovsky wrote even more precisely: "Considerations of a diplomatic nature, fears of misinterpretation, recede for us into the background before the mighty duty to participate in the Great Revolution" 7 .

On May 12 (April 29), the second group of emigrants - 257 people, including Martov, Natanson, Lunacharsky and others, left through Germany for Russia. They arrived safely in St. Petersburg on Tuesday 22 (9) May.

However, not everything ended smoothly. Using the services of the same Robert Grimm in negotiations with Romberg, they brought him with them to Petrograd to meet with the Provisional Government regarding the fate of the emigrants who remained in Switzerland. But Grimm immediately engaged in his "secret diplomacy" about the possibility of concluding a separate peace and was expelled from Russia with a scandal.

June 30 was the third, then the fourth "arrival". In the same way, in a "sealed" carriage, through Austria, the Russian socialists left Bulgaria. And in August 1917, the Swiss emigrants, who believed Milyukov and were waiting for their passage through England, telegraphed Kerensky with resentment: "The Zimmerwaldists have left, we have remained."

But that was all later...

And on April 9 (March 27) at 15:10, the train with the first group of political emigrants left Zurich. Arrived in Teingen. Here, the Swiss customs officers carried out a search of luggage according to full program. It turned out that some products - especially chocolate - exceeded the export norms. The surplus was confiscated. Then the passengers were counted. “Each of us,” says Elena Usievich, “went out from the back platform of the car, holding in his hands a piece of paper with a serial number inscribed on it ... Having shown this piece, we entered our car from the front platform. Nobody asked for any documents, nobody asked any questions” 10 .

The car was driven across the border to the German station Gotmadingen. Accompanying the group, the attache of the German embassy in Bern, Schüller, transferred his powers to the officers of the German General Staff, Captain Arvid von Planitz and Lieutenant Dr. Wilhelm Buerig 11 . Everyone again unloaded from the car and entered the customs hall, where men and women were asked to stand on opposite sides of a long table.

“We stood in silence,” writes Radek, “and the feeling was very eerie. Vladimir Ilyich stood calmly against the wall, surrounded by his comrades. We didn't want the Germans to look at him. The Bundovka, who was carrying a four-year-old son with her, put him on the table. The boy, apparently, was affected by the general silence, and he suddenly asked in a sharp, clear childish voice: “Mamele, vusi dues?” The child apparently wanted to ask: “What is this? What's going on, mommy?" And the children's "shout in... the Minsk-English dialect" cleared the atmosphere 12 . It turned out that all this "building" was needed by the Germans only in order to recount the passengers.

Then in the waiting room III class supper was served. “Slender, yellowish-pale girls in lace caps and aprons served huge pork chops with potato garnish on plates ... It was enough to look at the trembling hands of the girls holding out the plates to us, at how they diligently averted their eyes from food, to make sure that nothing like this has been seen in Germany for a long time ... And we, - writes Elena Usievich, - thrust untouched plates of food into the hands of the waitresses” 13 .

In the morning, a gray-green wagon of II and III class of the “mixed” type was delivered - half soft, half hard, three doors of which were sealed with seals. The car was attached to the train to Frankfurt and the travelers began to accommodate. The first soft coupe was given to German officers. A dotted line was drawn with chalk at its door - the border of "extraterritoriality". Neither the Germans nor the Russians had the right to cross over it 14 . A separate compartment was given to Lenin and Krupskaya so that Vladimir Ilyich could work. The Zinoviev family and Pogovskaya and her son each received a compartment. They also took a compartment for luggage. But when the division ended, it turned out that several beds were not enough. Then for men they made a sleep order schedule. But every time the turn came for Vladimir Ilyich, the people on the waiting list categorically refused to take his place: you must be able to work in peace.

However, with a quiet work did not work out. That's in the coupe about different kind lots of people got busy.

And Lenin even had to decide how to share the only toilet between smokers and non-smokers. Now in the next compartment, where the Safarovs, Inessa Armand and Olga Ravich were traveling, Radek would start telling jokes and the thin partitions would literally tremble with laughter. Then the youth - "who had better voices and their hearing didn't let them down too much" - went to the compartment, as they said, "to give a serenade to Ilyich."

“For starters,” says Elena Usievich, “we usually sang “Tell me, what are you thinking about, tell me, our ataman.” Ilyich loved choral singing, and we were not always asked to leave. Sometimes he came out into the corridor to us, and the singing of all the favorite songs of Ilyich in a row began: “We were not married in the church”, “Do not cry over the corpses of fallen soldiers”, and so on” 16.

The observations of 24-year-old Elena regarding the personality of Lenin are curious: “I have never seen a person so natural and simple in every word, in every movement ... No one felt suppressed by his personality, did not even feel embarrassment in front of him. .. Drawing in the presence of Ilyich was impossible. He didn’t just cut off a person or make fun of him, but somehow he immediately stopped seeing you, hearing you, you definitely fell out of his field of vision as soon as you stopped talking about what you were really interested in, but began to pose. And precisely because in his presence the person himself became better and more natural, it was so free and joyful with him.

Meanwhile, the train was moving through Germany. “At large stations,” writes Usievich, “our train stopped mainly at night. During the day, the police drove the public away, preventing them from approaching the car. But at a distance, people still gathered in groups during the day, and even at night and eagerly looked at our car. They waved their hands at us from a distance, showing the covers of humorous magazines with the image of the deposed tsar. And it seemed to Elena that they “associated with the passage of Russian revolutionaries through their country hidden hopes for an early end to the horrific massacre, for peace ...” 18

They passed Stuttgart and the accompanying officers informed Platten that Wilhelm Janson, a member of the leadership of the German trade unions, who would like to talk with the Russians, got into the next car - with the knowledge of the high military command. "My message," writes Platten, "caused an outburst of merriment... The emigrants declared that they refused to talk and would not hesitate to resort to violence in case of repeated attempts." Radek adds: "Ilyich ordered him to be sent away 'to hell's grandmother' and refused to accept him... Despite the slap he received, [Yanson] tried very hard, bought newspapers for us at every station and was offended when Platten reimbursed him for their cost."

In general, the emigrants, especially young people, were in a somewhat excited and high spirits almost all the way. Disputes broke out in the corridor of the car every now and then - about the situation in Russia, the prospects for the revolution, and most importantly, how will they meet them - will they be arrested immediately or later? During such an argument, Lenin asked Platten: "What is your opinion, Fritz, about our role in the Russian revolution?" - “I must confess,” I replied, “that ... you seem to me to be something like the gladiators of Ancient Rome, fearlessly, with their heads held high, going out into the arena to meet death ... A slight smile slipped across Lenin's face ... " 20

There were no contacts with the Germans. Even lunch - cutlets with peas paid for by the Red Cross - was brought to the car. All the way the travelers looked out the windows. I was struck by the absence of men - both in the cities and in the villages, gray, with dull eyes, tired faces 21. But an unexpected incident happened in Frankfurt...

When the train stopped, the officers - von Planitz and Buhrig - went to the restaurant. In the meantime, the car was moved to another track. Then Platten also got out of the car, went to the station buffet, bought "beer, newspapers and asked several soldiers for a reward to carry the beer to the car ..."

The emigrants were standing at the windows, peering into the faces of the passengers hurrying to the commuter trains, when suddenly, having pushed aside the guards, the soldiers broke through the car. “Each of them held a pitcher of beer in both hands. They attacked us, writes Radek, with unheard-of greed, interrogating whether there will be peace and when. This mood of the soldiers told us more about the situation than it was useful for the German government ... We did not see anyone else all the way.

On the evening of April 10 (March 28), the car was picked up to the train and in the morning arrived in Berlin, first at Potsdam, then at Stetinsky station. The platform on which the train stood was cordoned off by civilian spies until the car was sent to Sassnitz.

In Sassnitz, Germany ended. From here, on the Queen Victoria sea ferry, travelers were taken to the Swedish city of Trelleborg. The emigrants were again counted and the German officers who accompanied the group remained on the shore. Usually passengers of the train also landed here, and then went to the ferry. The local authorities invited the emigrants to dinner, but the Leninist group, in order not to set foot on German soil, refused the invitation and stayed overnight in the car. And only when in the morning the whole train was rolled into the hold, they went out on deck - there was already Swedish territory here 23.

To those authors who stubbornly write about how the German Kaiser took a personal part in resolving the issue of the passage of emigrants and even gave appropriate instructions, just in case, we remind you that on this very day, April 12, when the Russian revolutionaries left Germany, Wilhelm II was informed for the first time about the "journey" of internationalists 24 .

On the ferry, the emigrants went to their cabins. “The sea was rough,” says Platten. - Of the 32 travelers, only 5 people did not suffer from pitching, including Lenin, Zinoviev and Radek; standing near the main mast, they were having a heated argument. The fact is that the passengers were given extensive questionnaires, and Lenin suspected some kind of trick on the part of the Swedish police. They decided to sign them with false names. The questionnaires were handed in, but “the captain suddenly appears with a piece of paper in his hand and asks which of them Mr. Ulyanov ... Ilyich has no doubt that his assumption turned out to be correct, and now they came to detain him. There is nothing to hide - you can’t jump out into the sea. Vladimir Ilyich calls himself. It turned out that this was just a telegram from Ganetsky meeting the ferry 25 .

Around 18:00, the Queen Victoria berths at Trelleborg. Ganetsky and the Swedish Social Democrat Grimlund are on the pier. “Hot greetings, questions, fuss, shouting guys. I have, - writes Ganetsky, - tears of joy in my eyes... There is no time to lose, - in a quarter of an hour a train is leaving for Malmö» 26 . A little over an hour and a train at 20 hours 41 minutes takes travelers to Malmö. Not far from the station, in the cafe of the Savoy Hotel, Ganetsky ordered dinner. “Our rabble,” said Radek, “who in Switzerland are accustomed to consider herring dinner, when they saw a huge table crammed with an endless number of appetizers, pounced like locusts and cleaned everything to the end, to the unheard-of surprise of the waiters ... Vladimir Ilyich did not eat anything. He exhausted the soul from Ganetsky, trying to learn from him everything about the Russian revolution ... that Ganetsky did not know” 27 .

On the night of April 13, we left for Stockholm by train. And again Lenin asked Ganetsky about the latest information from Russia. Only at 4 am he was persuaded to get some sleep. However, already in the morning at the Södertälje station, correspondents burst into the car. “Strictly fulfilling the decision,” writes Elena Usievich, “not to answer any questions, we didn’t even say “yes” and “no”, but only ... poked our fingers in the direction of Ilyich. Believing that we did not understand the questions, the representatives of the press tried to speak to us in French, German, English, even Italian... Coping with the dictionary, they asked questions in Russian or Polish. We shook our heads and poked our fingers at Ilyich. I'm afraid that the Western press has the impression that the famous Lenin is traveling accompanied by deaf-mutes...' Everyone calmed down after Vladimir Ilyich announced that a press communiqué would be delivered in Stockholm.

On Friday, April 13, at 10 am, the train arrived in Stockholm. At the Central Station, he was met by the Swedish Social Democrats: Burgomaster Karl Lindhagen, deputy of the Riksdag, writer Frederik Ström, Russian Bolsheviks and many correspondents and photojournalists. Vladimir Ilyich told reporters: “The most important thing is that we arrive in Russia As soon as possible. Dear every day...” and handed over for publication the official communiqué about the trip 29 .

From the station we proceeded to the Regina Hotel. A conference was held here with the Swedish leftists. Lenin made a report on the circumstances of their trip. And under the “Statement”, signed in Bern by the internationalists of France, Germany, Poland and Switzerland, they put their signatures - the already mentioned Lindhagen and Ström, as well as the editor of Politiken Karl Carlson, the journalist Karl Chilbum, the poet and writer Thure Nörman and the secretary Norwegian socialist union Youth Arvid Hansen 30 .

It all ended with a hearty breakfast, and Radek quipped about it: “Sweden differs from all other countries in that breakfast is arranged there on every occasion, and when a social revolution takes place in Sweden, a breakfast will first be arranged in honor of the departing bourgeoisie, and after - breakfast in honor of the new revolutionary government” 31 .

We had to solve the problem of money. Vladimir Ilyich turned to Strem: "We borrowed several thousand crowns for a trip from a Swiss party comrade-manufacturer." Here Strem, apparently, forgot something or did not understand. For the guarantor for the loan of 3,000 francs issued by the Swiss socialists was not a manufacturer, but a member of the Council of Cantons, the extreme right Social Democrat Otto Lang 32 . “Could you,” Lenin continued, “borrow a few thousand crowns from several workers’ organizations; it is difficult to travel through your extended country and through Finland. I promised, writes Ström, to try and called several trade union leaders, our publisher and Fabian Monsson to raise money in the Riksdag. Fabian pulled out some 300s. He went, among other things, to Lindman, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs. "I will gladly subscribe for a hundred crowns, if only Lenin leaves today," said Lindman. Several bourgeois members of the Riksdag signed because Fabian said: "They will govern Russia tomorrow." Fabian did not believe in this at all, but it helped... We collected several hundred crowns, and Lenin was pleased... In this way, he could pay for the hotel and for the tickets to Haparanda” 33 . Finally, at the Russian Consulate General, Vladimir Ilyich also received official certificate No. 109 on the passage of the entire group of emigrants to Russia.

There were some other things left unfinished. In the morning, Lenin asked Ström to arrange a meeting with Karl Höglund, who was in prison. But the authorities refused, and then, together with Ström, he sent a telegram to Höglund: “We wish you a speedy return to freedom, to the fight!” A telegram was also sent to the Petrosoviet-Chkheidze, which, in addition to Lenin, was signed by Mikha Tskhakaya and David Suliashvili, with a request to ensure the group's unhindered passage through the Russian border 34 . Tskhakaya's signature had a special meaning: it was he who had drawn Chkheidze into the ranks of the Russian Social Democracy in ancient times.

Everything, thus, developed successfully, although trouble could well happen. The danger came from the same Parvus. Knowing that German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Jagow, and Minister of Finance Helferich were dissatisfied with him for his apparent inactivity,35 Parvus rushed to Stockholm and through Ganetsky asked Lenin for a meeting, allegedly on behalf of the Main Board of the German Social Democracy. But when he arrived at the hotel, Lenin, warned by Ganetsky, had already left it. And Ganetsky, Borovsky and Radek drew up a formal protocol on the refusal of Russian emigrants from any kind of contact with Parvus. However, this did not prevent him, having received such a slap in the face and, naturally, keeping silent about it, to report to his boss Brockdorf-Rantzau that he nevertheless met with the Russian Bolsheviks 36 .

In the afternoon, Lenin held a meeting. Since both members of the Foreign Collegium of the Central Committee - he and Zinoviev - were returning to their homeland, it was decided to leave in Stockholm the Foreign Representation of the Central Committee, consisting of Vorovsky, Ganetsky and Radek. They were given all the necessary instructions and handed over the money that remained with the Collegium Abroad - 300 Swedish crowns and Swedish government bonds of the same value, in which - at one time - Shlyapnikov invested party money 37 .

And, finally, since Radek remained in Sweden, it was decided to give his place in the group of those returning to Russia to the Polish Social Democrat, who was in Stockholm, Alexander Granas. Therefore, the size of the group remained unchanged - 32 people 38 .

All business was completed, and Radek dragged Lenin and Zinoviev to the shops. “Probably, the respectable appearance of respectable Swedish comrades,” wrote Radek, “aroused in us a passionate desire that Ilyich should look like a man.” Bought boots, a standard dark brown suit. And every time Vladimir Ilyich resisted: "Don't you think that I'm going to open a ready-made dress shop in Petrograd?" Zinoviev recalled: “We mechanically walked the streets, mechanically bought something from the most necessary for correcting V.I. and others, and almost every half an hour they asked when the train was leaving...” 39

We returned to the hotel, where the Swedes had a farewell dinner, and from there, with things, we moved to the station. On the platform, together with the mourners, they staged a rally. “When our people had already sunk,” writes Radek, “a Russian, taking off his hat, began a speech to Ilyich. The pathos of the beginning of the speech, in which Ilyich was honored as "dear leader", made Ilyich raise his bowler hat a little, but ... the further meaning of his speech was approximately as follows: look, dear leader, so that you do not do any nasty things there in Petrograd. The embarrassment with which Ilyich listened to the first flattering phrases of the speech gave way to a sly smile. The mourners sang the "Internationale" and at 18:37 the train set off 40 .

“As soon as we settled into the compartment,” says David Suliashvili, “Lenin took out a pile of newspapers, lay down on the top bunk, turned on the electricity and began to read the newspapers ...” Night fell. The cabin was quiet and comfortable. All that could be heard was the rustling of newspapers and the low exclamations of Vladimir Ilyich: “Ah, rascals! Ah, traitors! And in the morning, when everyone woke up, a meeting was held in the carriage corridor. Reading the St. Petersburg newspapers was thought provoking. It was agreed that all negotiations on the border would be conducted by Lenin and Tskhakaya, and they agreed on how to behave in the event of an arrest or a political trial in Petrograd 41 . The rest of the day and a good half of the night, while the train dragged through Sweden, Vladimir Ilyich again sat over the newspapers, taken from Stockholm with documents, took notes, trying to put together all his thoughts about the events taking place in Russia.

On April 15 (2), “in the early frosty morning,” writes Elena Usievich, “we landed in the small fishing town of Khaparanda and a few minutes later crowded on the porch of a small house, where for pennies you could get a cup of black coffee and a sandwich. But we didn't have time to eat. In front of us stretched a bay that was frozen even at this time of the year, and behind it - the territory of Russia, the city of Torneo and the red flag fluttering on the station building ... We were silent from excitement, fixing our eyes on him.

Vladimir Ilyich went to the Russian consulate and received a group of 300 kroons of allowance, which was due - from the Tatyana fund - to all returning political emigrants, and paid for 32 third-class tickets to Petrograd 43 . Meanwhile, “a dozen and a half sledges with small furry horses harnessed to them drove up to the porch. We began to sit down in pairs ... I suddenly remembered, - writes Elena Usievich, - that I had a small red handkerchief in my suitcase ... I took it out, tied it to an alpine stick taken from my husband ... At that time, Vladimir Ilyich's sleigh went around ours to stand at the front of the procession. Vladimir Ilyich, without looking, extended his hand, I put my flag into it. All the sledges started at once. Vladimir Ilyich raised the red flag high above his head, and a few minutes later, with the ringing of bells, with a small flag raised above Lenin’s head, we drove into Russian territory ... In Torneo, each of us was surrounded by a crowd of workers, soldiers, sailors, questions poured in, answers, clarifications... "Look, they've got it!" Nadezhda Konstantinovna said to me, nodding at several of our particularly ardent agitators...'

But then I had to deal not with friendly Russian soldiers-border guards, but with English officers who commanded on the Finnish border. They were rude and unceremonious. And it immediately spoiled everyone's mood.

The fact is that after the attempt to keep emigrants in Switzerland burst, the British authorities decided to stop them in Sweden. From the diary of the leader of the Swedish Social Democracy Palmstierna, it is known that even plans were allegedly nurtured to assassinate Lenin. But, having weighed all the pros and cons, they decided to abandon the "extreme measures" and organize a corresponding slanderous campaign in Russia, as they say, to kill both politically and morally 45 .

However, the British officers, of course, could not deny themselves the pleasure of mocking political emigrants. We started with Platten. He was immediately told that in St. Petersburg he would be immediately arrested. And when Fritz replied that he was ready for that, the conversation was interrupted and they told him to go back to Haparanda under escort, because he was refused to cross the border. And the rest, also under military escort, will be sent to St. Petersburg at 4 o'clock.

What happened to Platten did not come as a surprise. The possibility of such an option was discussed on the train. Then one of the young people started an argument: what if Fritz is not allowed to enter Russia? He was everyone's favorite, so we decided - in protest - not to cross the Russian border until we get permission for him. To the young it seemed a terribly noble act of solidarity. And they went along the wagon to collect signatures. They brought the document to Lenin. “Barely glancing at him, he calmly asked: “What idiot wrote this? The British and Russian governments will do everything not to let us through. And we ourselves will refuse?” Here only we, - writes Elena Usievich, - without any further explanations, realized how stupid it was ... "47

Nevertheless, when Platten told about the decision of the British, Lenin suggested that the whole group stay and immediately sent a telegram to St. Petersburg, to the bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, with a request to expedite the receipt of a pass for Platten. It was agreed with Fritz that he would wait for an answer in Haparang for three days. “However,” writes Platten, “not wanting to serve as an obstacle to their further trip, I insistently asked to be left in Sweden” 48 .

Then the British resorted to another provocation... Everyone who wrote about what was happening at that time in Torneo especially noted that the search carried out by the British was deliberately offensive. And only 52-year-old Mikha Tskhakaya explained: the officers did not limit themselves to rummaging through things and pockets, they “subjected us to a humiliating search, stripping Ilyich and me naked ...” 49

But this time it was not possible to provoke a scandal. All emigrants completed questionnaires, and Lenin literally “stuck into the newspaper columns” bought at the Pravda station. Zinoviev says: “V.I. shakes his head, throws up his hands reproachfully: he has read the news that Malinovsky turned out to be a provocateur after all. Further, further. V.I. some articles in the first issues of Pravda, insufficiently sustained from the point of view of internationalism. Really? .. Well, we will “fight” with them ... ”50

And time goes by. The 16 hours indicated by the British for dispatch had passed. Only in the evening the train is delivered, and the group begins to load into a separate car. At 8:00 p.m. Vladimir Ilyich sends a telegram to his sisters, Maria and Anna Ulyanov: “We are arriving Monday night, 11. Tell Pravda” 51 . The English officers kept their word: before Peter the emigrants would be accompanied by an armed convoy under the command of a lieutenant.

All night and all day the train went through Finland. “Everything was already nice, its own - poor third-class cars,” says Krupskaya ... “On the platforms of the stations, which they passed, there were a crowd of soldiers. Usievich leaned out the window. "Long live the world revolution!" he shouted. They looked at the riding soldiers in bewilderment” 52 .

Vladimir Ilyich tried to concentrate, to write. But he was haunted by the thought that those for whom he was looking for words, to whom he was going to turn there - in Petrograd - they were already here, nearby. That the escort soldiers, the young officer - these are the very real people who made the revolution. And it was felt that they, too, would like to have a talk with this "chief revolutionary."

The lieutenant in command of the convoy, turning pale with excitement, looked several times into the compartment where Lenin was traveling. But he did not dare to speak. And only when Vladimir Ilyich and Krupskaya “went into the next empty car, sat down and spoke ... The lieutenant was a defensist,” says Nadezhda Konstantinovna, “Ilyich defended his point of view - he was also terribly pale. And little by little soldiers were recruited into the car. Soon the car was full. The soldiers stood on the benches in order to better hear and see the one who speaks so clearly against the predatory war. And every minute their attention grew, their faces became more tense. Little Robert came running here too. He instantly "find himself in the arms of some elderly soldier, put his hand around his neck, mumbled something in French, and ate the Easter cottage cheese that the soldier fed him" 53 .

“V.I.,” writes Zinoviev, “literally “stuck” into these soldiers. Let's talk about land, about war, about new Russia. A special, fairly well-known manner of V.I. approaching the rank and file workers and peasants did what, in a very short time, an excellent comradely relationship was established ... But the defense soldiers stand their ground. They are not at all embarrassed that the interlocutor is clearly from the “educated”. They have their own point of view.

Actually, all this - word for word - he had already heard in Zurich from Mikhalev. This means that what Kondrat said is not a single opinion, but a widespread belief. Therefore, these soldiers “V.I. already after an hour of conversation, he dubbed them "conscientious defencists"... The first conclusion that V.I. makes is that defencism is an even greater force. In the fight against him, we need firm perseverance. But patience and a skillful approach are just as necessary. This is how Grigory Zinoviev recalled this episode. He remembered what Lenin and his political evaluation interlocutors. But for Vladimir Ilyich himself, the main thing turned out to be something else ...

In a letter dated March 26, Kollontai wrote to him: “The people are intoxicated by the perfect great act. I say "people" because in the foreground now is not the working class, but a vague, diverse mass, dressed in soldier's overcoats. Now the mood is dictated by the soldier. The soldier also creates a peculiar atmosphere where the greatness of pronounced democratic freedoms is mixed up, the awakening of the consciousness of civil equal rights and a complete misunderstanding of the complexity of the moment that we are experiencing” 55 . It turned out that Alexandra Mikhailovna was not entirely right, but in some ways completely wrong ...

A few hours later, already in Petrograd, in a conversation with members of the Central Committee and the PC of the RSDLP, he recalled not how he argued with the “conscientious defencists”, but how and what these soldiers said: “You should have heard with what conviction they talked about the need for an immediate end to the war, the speedy taking of land from the landlords. One of them, Lenin continued, clearly showed how the war should be ended. He made a very energetic movement with his hand, as if with force driving something deep into the floor, and said: "A bayonet into the ground - that's how the war will end!" And then he added: "but we will not let go of the rifles until we get the land." And when I remarked that without the transfer of power to the workers and peasants it would be impossible either to stop the war or to allocate land to the peasants, the soldiers completely agreed with me. This is how Nikolai Podvoisky wrote down the story of Vladimir Ilyich.

The next day, speaking with the “April Theses” to the Bolsheviks, Lenin also recalled the conversation in the carriage and how this soldier, a peasant who did not want to let go of his rifle, imagined agrarian reform: “The Tambov peasant [spoke].. .

You do not need to pay for one tithe, for the second - 1 ruble, for the third - 2 rubles. We will take the land, but the landowner will no longer be able to take it away.

A week later, on April 23 (10), in the pamphlet The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, Lenin wrote: “The war cannot be ended 'at will'. It cannot be ended by the decision of one side. It cannot be ended by "sticking a bayonet into the ground," to use the expression of one defense soldier. A week later, in the article "Our Views", he will repeat: "The war cannot be ended either by simply sticking bayonets into the ground, or in general by a unilateral refusal of one of the warring countries." And even two years later, he will remember this conversation on the train with a nameless soldier 58 .

And then, in the car, the discussion continued. Other emigrants came here. But when the young revolutionaries too categorically begin to "put pressure" on their interlocutors, Lenin, nodding at the soldiers, reproaches Usievich, Safarov, David Suliashvili: "Listen, listen ..." 59 And he leaves in the compartment. The first excitement from the meeting passed. Thoughts that had been hatched since the first days of the revolution, set forth in articles and Letters from Afar, acquire an even clearer form, line up in a strict sequence ... And he writes the initial draft of the April Theses.

At 9 pm the train stopped at Beloostrov station. On the platform they are met by: Shlyapnikov, Kollontai, Stalin, Kamenev, Maria Ulyanova and others. There are also about four hundred Sestroretsk workers who came for a meeting, headed by Vyacheslav Zof, Nikolai Emelyanov and Lyudmila Stal. The workers picked Lenin up in their arms, carried him into the station cafeteria, placed him on a stool, and Vladimir Ilyich uttered his first speech in Russia. short speech. Lyudmila Stal invites Krupskaya to say a few words to the workers, but from excitement, Nadezhda Konstantinovna writes, “I have lost all the words ...” 60

The train, together with the members of the Central Committee and the PC of the RSDLP who met them, moves on. And “in a cramped semi-dark compartment of the third class, lit by the butt of a candle, the first exchange of opinions takes place. IN AND. bombards his comrades with a series of questions. And at the end - the most burning: “Will we be arrested ...? The friends who meet us do not give a definite answer, but smile enigmatically.

If they knew what we now know, there would be less reason to smile.

The point is not only that, as part of the military team that accompanied the emigrants from Torneo, four counterintelligence officers were traveling with documents for the entire group, which they were supposed to hand over at the Finland Station in St. Petersburg to the Commissioner of the Provisional Government 62 . Another thing is more important: it was in Beloostrov that something more serious could happen ...

The head of counterintelligence of the Petrograd Military District, Boris Nikitin, left detailed memoirs on this score. At the very end of March, he says, a representative of the British counterintelligence came to him and handed over "a list of traitors of 30 people, headed by Lenin ... Germany let them through and they will arrive at our border in about five days." It turns out that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, without the sanction of the Council, cannot prohibit their entry. But the Chief Military Prosecutor, General Apushkin, gives Nikitin a sanction: "Do what you want, if only to achieve results."

“I’m calling by telegram,” Nikitin continues, “the commandant of Beloostrov, Yesaul Savitsky ...“ Here you are, - I tell him, - everyone is asking me for a living thing. You so want to take out a saber and go through the whole Beloostrov with lava. easier: by force, or whatever you want, but don't let them through the border." The result is known: the captain did not mention the four hundred Sestroretsk gunsmiths, but only later said to Nikitin, referring to his Cossacks: "People did not come out" 63 .

On April 3 (16), 1917, at 23:10, the train arrives at the platform of the Finland Station in Petrograd.

Information from Pravda: “At 11:10 a.m. a train approached. Lenin came out, greeted by friends, comrades in long-standing party work. Under the banner of the party, he moved along the station, the troops took guard ... Walking further along the front of the troops, standing in trellises at the station and holding "on guard", passing by the workers' militia, N. Lenin was greeted enthusiastically everywhere. Representatives of the Petrosoviet headed by Chkheidze were already waiting for him in the "royal" room of the station...

Nikolai Sukhanov paints what follows: “At the head of a small group of people, behind whom the door immediately slammed again, Lenin entered or, perhaps, ran into the “royal” room, in a round hat, with a chilled face and a luxurious bouquet in his hands.

Having reached the middle of the room, he stopped in front of Chkheidze, as if he had run into a completely unexpected obstacle. And here Chkheidze delivered the following "greeting speech"... "We believe that the main task of revolutionary democracy is now to protect the revolution from all encroachments on it, both from within and without. We believe that for this purpose it is necessary not to disunite, but to unite the ranks of the entire democracy. We hope that you will pursue these goals together with us ... " Lenin, apparently, knew well how to relate to all this. He stood with such a look, as if everything that was happening did not concern him in the least: he looked around, looked at the surrounding faces and even the ceiling of the "royal" room, straightened his bouquet "rather weakly in harmony with his whole figure", and then, already completely turning away from the delegation of the Executive Committee, he "answered" as follows: "Dear comrade soldiers, sailors and workers! I am happy to greet the victorious Russian revolution in your person, to greet you as the vanguard of the world proletarian army ..." 64

Greeted by many thousands of "cheers", Lenin goes out onto the steps of the station. They help him get on the armored car. He trampled on the platform near the machine-gun turret, as if testing the car for strength, and gave the bouquet. But the bowler hat obviously interfered with him, as he later interfered with the sculptors who sculpted famous monument on the square near the station and replaced the hat with a proletarian cap. And as soon as he took off his bowler hat, Vladimir Ilyich began to speak...

Information from Pravda: “... Standing on an armored car Comrade. Lenin hailed the revolutionary Russian proletariat and the revolutionary Russian army, who not only succeeded in liberating Russia from tsarist despotism, but also laid the foundation for a social revolution on an international scale...” 65

“Those who have not survived the revolution,” Krupskaya recalled, “cannot imagine its majestic, solemn beauty. Red banners, a guard of honor from Kronstadt sailors, reflectors of the Peter and Paul Fortress from Finland Station to Kshesinskaya's house, armored cars, a chain of workers and workers guarding the path.

We were brought to Kshesinskaya's house, where the Central Committee and the Petrograd Committee were then located. A comradely tea was arranged upstairs, the St. Petersburg people wanted to organize welcoming speeches, but Ilyich turned the conversation to what interested him most, began to talk about the tactics that must be followed. Crowds of workers and soldiers were standing near Kshesinskaya's house. Ilyich had to speak from the balcony...

Then we went home, to our people, to Anna Ilyinichna and Mark Timofeevich [Elizarov]... We were given a special room. On the occasion of our arrival, the little boy who grew up with Anna Ilyinichna, Horus, hung out the slogan over both of our beds: "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" We almost did not speak with Ilyich that night - after all, there were no words to express what we had experienced, but even without words everything was clear.

When we were alone, Ilyich looked around the room... We felt the reality of the fact that we were already in St. Petersburg, that all those Parises, Genevas, Berns, Zurichs were already really the past.

Notes:

1 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 53,55,125.

2 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 53.54.

3 Ibid. S. 54,123

5 See: Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 50

6. See ibid. S. 38,39,40.

7 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 39, 41, 42; Urilov I.Kh. Yu.O.Martov. Politician and historian. M., 1997. S. 289,290

8 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 71,72.

9 See the article by Lukashev A.V. in the journal "History of the USSR" (1963. No. 5. P. 21).

10 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 66,148.

11 See ibid. S. 52,56,57; Höpfner K., Irmtraud S. Lenin in Germany. Translation from him. M „ 1985. S. 179

12 . Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 129.

13 Ibid. S. 149.

14 See ibid. S. 56.

15 See ibid. S. 151.

16 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 129,150.

17 Ibid. S. 151.

18 Ibid. S. 149.

19 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 57,64,130,131

20 Ibid. S. 58.

21 Ibid. S. 57,119.

22 Ibid. S. 56,131; Höpfner K., Irmtraud S. Lenin in Germany. S. 182.

23 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 58,152,185; Höpfner K., Irmtraud Sh. Lenin in Germany. S. 182.

24 Sobolev G.L. The secret of "German gold". S. 71.

25 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 131,139.

26 Ibid. S. 138.

27 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 131,138,139.

29 Ibid. pp. 139,152.

29 V.I. Lenin. Biographical chronicle. T. 4. S. 46.47.

31 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 132

32 Ibid. S. 53,203.

33 See the article by Lukashev A.V. in the journal "History of the USSR". (1963. No. 5. P. 18).

34 See: V.I. Lenin. Biographical chronicle. T. 4. S. 48; "Dawn of the East", Tiflis, 1925, January 17.

35 See: Sobolev G.L. The secret of "German gold". S. 41,42,44,45.

36 See: Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 132; Sobolev G.L. The secret of "German gold". SS. 69.70.

37 See: Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 132,133.

38 See: Ermolaeva R.A., Manusevich A.Ya. Lenin and the Polish labor movement. M., 1471. S. 402.

39 See: Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 123, 132.

40 Ibid. S. 133.

42 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 153.

43 V.I.Lenin. Biographical chronicle.T. 4. S. 52.

44 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 153.

45 See the article by Lukashev A.V. in the journal "History of the USSR" (1963. No. 5. P. 22).

46 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 59.60.

47 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 150.

48 Ibid. S. 60.

50 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. S. 124.

51 Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 49. S. 434.

52 Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 119-120.

53 Ibid. pp. 119-120.

54. Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 124, 125.

55 . RGASPI. Fund 134, op. 1, d. 272, l. 48.

56. Yakovlev B.V. Lenin. Autobiography pages. M. "Young Guard", 1967. P. 555. The layout of the book, prohibited by censorship, is stored in the RGASPI (fond 71. op. 51, file 94).

57 . Lenin V.I. Full coll. op. T. 31. S. 110.

58 . There. pp. 161, 281.

60 . Platten F. Lenin. From emigration to Russia. pp. 120, 125.

61 . There. S. 125.

63 Nikitin B.V. Fatal years. Paris, 1937. S. 22, 57, 58.

64 Nukhanov N.N. Notes on the Revolution. T. 2. Book. 3-4. M „ 1991. S. 6-7

66 Memories of V.I. Lenin. T.1. S.441, 442.

This composition was advanced both in time and in essence. It housed Lenin and the Bolsheviks. They took a very serious risk. Everyone: both freedom and reputation. It was possible, of course, to sit in Europe, calmly wait for the permission of the British, decorously go to some port, board a steamer in five months and arrive in Petrograd for a hat analysis. But, knowing the position of the Bolsheviks, the French and the British could well have interned them until the end of the war, which was not seen at all at that time.

The carriages in which the emigrants traveled were made extraterritorial

Lenin counted in his mind at breakneck speed. The ever-memorable Parvus volunteered to mediate with Germany, which was happy to flood Russia with active, loud defeatists. Tempting, but unfortunate for the reputation. And Lenin, seizing the idea, replaced the intermediary with a graceful feint, saddled German dreams, and even seriously bluffed, offering to exchange Russian socialists for German prisoners, for which he did not have and could not have any powers. The wagons in which the emigrants will travel were agreed to be made extraterritorial, for which those same legendary seals were hung on them.

From this moment of the story, a grandiose historical hurdy-gurdy begins: what kind of seals, how many seals, there were - there weren’t, they came out - they didn’t come out, and so on and so forth. Since the sealed carriage instantly became a symbol of Bolshevik betrayal and espionage, and Winston Churchill likened Lenin and his fellow travelers to "plague bacilli", the dispute over technical details acquired a fundamental character. Karl Radek, a passenger on the same train, stated, for example, that there were no seals, and everything was limited to the obligation not to leave the cars. There is a compromise option, according to which not all doors were sealed, but only some.

Lenin with a group of Russian political emigrants in Stockholm

However, the most interesting thing is to look at the life of the amazing passengers of the amazing car. Here is Lenin, who, together with Krupskaya, is given a separate compartment by his comrades. He takes a pile of Petrograd newspapers and climbs onto the top couch. From there comes the nervous rustle of paper and characteristic exclamations: “Here are the rascals! Here are the traitors! After reading the newspapers and distributing political labels, they receive guests here and resolve issues. Including how to share the only toilet between smokers and non-smokers. They sing in the corridor. Lenin comes out and joins. In his repertoire: "We were not married in the church", "Do not cry over the corpses of fallen soldiers" ...

We move along the corridor. At some point, a line was drawn across there. This is the border, because one of the compartments of the extraterritorial car is occupied by German officers, and it, together with the adjacent patch, is considered Germany. Migrants are not allowed there. What about luggage? The memoirs noted that the Bolsheviks traveled in a very Russian-intellectual way: with belongings, pillows and, of course, with countless bundles of books. Provisions were thinned out even when leaving Switzerland: customs officers did not allow the national treasure - chocolate - to be taken out of the country.

Churchill likened Lenin and his comrades to "plague bacilli"

The most disturbing thing is when passengers are still taken out of the train. But they are simply counted, put back into the car and the doors are closed. Defeatism is defeatism, but they are still citizens of the enemy country ... There was a difficult moment before loading the wagons on the ferry going to Sweden. Usually passengers are invited to spend the night in a hotel. But the revolutionaries reject the proposal and sleep in the cars. Only when the train is driven into the hold do the Leninists come out onto the deck. A new danger lurks on the border with Finland. The British are in control. They may not miss. But by hook or by crook, everything is settled, only Fritz Platten, the formal organizer of the trip, who voluntarily agrees to return to Switzerland, is sacrificed, and also in Stockholm - the Austrian citizen Karl Radek.

And then Finland Station, an armored car, the April Theses and the October Revolution. And let's say in Lenin's language: “To hell with them, with German money and German seals, to hell with him, with Parvus! The Bolsheviks fooled everyone, took power and held it for more than seventy years.

Sealed wagon- the established designation of a carriage and a special train in which Lenin with big group emigrant revolutionaries in April 1917 passed through Germany, following from Switzerland to Russia.

The history of the sealed wagon - component the question of German financing of the Bolsheviks and, accordingly, the role of Germany in the Russian revolution.

The idea of ​​a trip through Germany

Arthur Zimmermann, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Germany

The February revolution inspired the Germans, who found themselves in a stalemate in the conditions of a protracted war; there was a real opportunity for Russia to withdraw from the war and after that - a decisive victory in the West. The chief of staff of the Eastern Front, General Max Hoffman, later recalled: “We naturally sought to strengthen the disintegration introduced into the Russian army by the revolution by means of propaganda. In the rear, someone who maintained relations with the Russians living in exile in Switzerland came up with the idea of ​​using some of these Russians in order to destroy the spirit of the Russian army even faster and poison it with poison. According to Hoffman, through Deputy Erzberger, this "someone" made a corresponding proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; as a result, the famous "sealed wagon" appeared, delivering Lenin and other emigrants through Germany to Russia. Soon () the name of the initiator also surfaced in the press: it was Parvus, acting through the German ambassador in Copenhagen, Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau. According to Rantzau himself, the idea of ​​Parvus found support in the Foreign Ministry from Baron von Malzan and from Deputy Erzberger, head of military propaganda; they convinced Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg, who suggested that the Headquarters (that is, the Kaiser, Hindenburg and Ludendorff) carry out a "brilliant maneuver". This information was fully confirmed with the publication of the documents of the German Foreign Ministry. Zeman-Scharlau's book gives an extensive account of Brockdorf-Rantzau's meeting with Parvus, who raised the question of the need to bring Russia into a state of anarchy by supporting the most radical elements. In a memorandum drawn up on the basis of conversations with Parvus, Brockdorff-Rantzau wrote: “I believe that, from our point of view, it is preferable to support the extremists, since this is what will most quickly lead to certain results. In all likelihood, in about three months, we can count on the fact that disintegration will reach a stage when we will be able to break Russia by military force. . As a result, the chancellor authorized the German ambassador in Bern, von Romberg, to get in touch with Russian emigrants and offer them passage to Russia through Germany. At the same time (April 3), the Foreign Ministry asked the Treasury for 3 million marks for propaganda in Russia, which were allocated. .

Lenin's refusal to Parvus

Meanwhile, Parvus tried to act independently of the Foreign Ministry: having received the consent of the General Staff, he asked Ganetsky to inform Lenin that his and Zinoviev's trip through Germany was organized, but not to tell him clearly from what source the assistance was provided. Agent Georg Sklarz was sent to Zurich to organize the trip, with Lenin and Zinoviev being transported in the first place. However, the case failed on the first attempt: Lenin was afraid of being compromised. On March 24, Zinoviev, at the request of Lenin, telegraphs Ganetsky: “The letter has been sent. Uncle (that is, Lenin) wants to know more. The official passage of only a few persons is unacceptable.” When Sklarz, in addition to offering to send only Lenin and Zinoviev, offered to cover their expenses, Lenin broke off the negotiations. On March 28, he telegraphed Ganetsky: “The Berlin permission is unacceptable to me. Either the Swiss government will receive a wagon to Copenhagen, or the Russian will agree on the exchange of all emigrants for interned Germans, ”after which he asks him to find out the possibility of passing through England. On March 30, Lenin wrote to Ganetsky: “Of course, I cannot use the services of people related to the publisher of Kolokol (that is, Parvus),” and again proposes a plan for exchanging emigrants for interned Germans (this plan belonged to Martov). However, S.P. Melgunov believes that the letter, addressed just to a person who has a direct “relationship to the publisher of Kolokol”, was designed to be distributed in party circles and processed party public opinion, whereas the decision to return through Germany had already been made by Lenin.

Travel organization

Signatures of Lenin and other emigrants under the terms of travel through Germany.

The next day, he demands money from Ganetsky for the trip: “Allocate two thousand, preferably three thousand crowns for our trip. We intend to leave on Wednesday (April 4) with at least 10 people.” Soon he writes to Inessa Armand: “We have more money for the trip than I thought, there will be enough people for 10-12, because we great(underlined in the text) the comrades in Stockholm helped.”

The German leftist Social Democrat Paul Levy assured that it was he who turned out to be an intermediate link between Lenin and the embassy in Bern (and the German Foreign Ministry), who equally ardently sought the first - to get to Russia, the second - to transport him there; when Levi connected Lenin with the ambassador, Lenin sat down to draw up the conditions of travel - and they were unconditionally accepted.

The interest of the Germans was so great that the Kaiser personally ordered to give Lenin copies of official German documents (as material for propaganda about the “peacefulness” of Germany), and the General Staff was ready to let the “sealed wagon” pass directly through the front if Sweden refused to accept Russian revolutionaries. However, Sweden agreed. The terms of passage were signed on 4 April. The text of the agreement read:

Conditions for the passage of Russian emigrants through Germany
1. I, Fritz Platten, escort, on my own responsibility and at my own risk, a carriage with political emigrants and refugees returning through Germany to Russia.
2. Relations with the German authorities and officials are conducted exclusively and only by Platten. Without his permission, no one has the right to enter the car.
3. The right of extraterritoriality is recognized for the wagon. No control of 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 question of war or peace.
5. Platten undertakes to supply passengers with railway tickets at normal fare prices.
6. If possible, the journey should be made without interruption. No one should either voluntarily or by order leave the car. There should be no delays along the way without technical necessity.
7. Permission to travel is given on the basis of an exchange for German or Austrian prisoners of war or internees in Russia.
8. The mediator and the passengers undertake to personally and privately press the working class to comply with paragraph 7.
9. Moving from the Swiss border to the Swedish border as soon as possible, as far as technically feasible.
Bern - Zurich. April 4 (March 22. N.M.), 1917
(Signed) Fritz Platten
Secretary of the Swiss Socialist Party

Regarding paragraph 7, Professor S. G. Pushkarev believes that since the Bolsheviks were not part of the government and did not have a majority in the Soviets, and therefore they could not actually exchange prisoners, the paragraph had no practical meaning and was included by Lenin solely in order to so that the third-party reader gets the impression of an equitable nature of the treaty.

Drive

The locomotive of the train on which Lenin arrived in Petrograd

List of passengers

List of passengers of the "sealed car" compiled by V. L. Burtsev

Lenin's arrival in Russia

Lenin arrived in Petrograd on the evening of April 3 (16). On April 12 (25) he telegraphed Ganetsky and Radek to Stockholm with a request to send money: “Dear friends! Until now, nothing, absolutely nothing: no letters, no packages, no money from you. 10 days later, he already wrote to Ganetsky: “Money (two thousand) received from Kozlovsky. The packages have not yet been received ... It is not easy to arrange business with couriers, but we will still take all measures. Now a special person is coming to organize the whole business. We hope he gets it right."

Immediately upon arrival in Russia, on April 4 (17), Lenin delivered the famous "April Theses" directed against the Provisional Government and "revolutionary defense". In the very first thesis, the war on the part of "Lvov and Co" was characterized as still "predatory, imperialist"; there were calls for "organizing a broad propaganda of this view in the army" and fraternization. Further, there was a demand for the transfer of power into the hands of the soviets, with the subsequent "elimination of the army, bureaucracy, and police." The day after the publication of the Theses in Pravda, on April 21 (NS), one of the leaders of German intelligence in Stockholm telegraphed the Foreign Ministry in Berlin: “Lenin's arrival in Russia is successful. It works exactly the way we would like it to.” Subsequently, General Ludendorff wrote in his memoirs: “By sending Lenin to Russia, our government assumed a special responsibility. From a military point of view, this enterprise was justified, Russia had to be knocked down.

The arguments of the opponents of the version of "German gold"

Ganetsky (far left) and Radek (next to him) with a group of Swedish Social Democrats. Stockholm, May 1917

For their part, opponents of the “German gold” version point out that Parvus was not an intermediary in negotiations on the passage of Russian political emigrants through Germany, but that the emigrants refused to mediate Karl Moor and Robert Grimm, quite reasonably suspecting them of German agents, leaving Fritz Platten to negotiate . When in Stockholm Parvus tried to meet with Lenin, he categorically refused this meeting. Further, in their opinion, the emigrants who passed through Germany did not take on any political obligations, except for one thing - to agitate for the passage of interned Germans from Russia to Germany, equal in number to the emigrants who passed through Germany. And the initiative in this obligation came from the political emigrants themselves, since Lenin categorically refused to go simply with the permission of the Berlin government