Revolution in Motion
Lenin Returns to Russia
During the February Revolution, Vladimir Lenin had been living in exile in Switzerland. Though historians disagree about specifics, they concur that the government of Germany deliberately facilitated Lenin’s return to his homeland in the spring of 1917. Without question, the German leadership did so with the intent of destabilizing Russia. The Germans provided Lenin with a guarded train that took him as far as the Baltic coast, from which he traveled by boat to Sweden, then on to Russia by train. There is also evidence that Germany funded the Bolshevik Party, though historians disagree over how much money they actually contributed. Lenin arrived in Petrograd on April 3, 1917. His arrival was enthusiastically awaited, and a large crowd greeted him as he stepped off the train. To their surprise, however, Lenin expressed hostility toward most of them, denouncing both the provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet that had helped to bring about the change of power. Although a limited sense of mutual trust had come about among the various competing parties ever since the February Revolution, Lenin would have nothing to do with this mentality. He considered any who stood outside his own narrow Bolshevik enclave to be his sworn enemies and obstacles to the “natural” flow of history. |
The Bolsheviks and the Military
Lenin recognized that the current Russian leaders’ hesitation to pull the country out of World War I was a weakness that could be exploited. He knew that after four years of massive losses and humiliating defeats, the army was ready to come home and was on the verge of revolting. While other politicians bickered over negotiating smaller war reparations—and even over whether Russia might possibly make territorial gains by staying in the war longer—Lenin demanded that Russia exit the war immediately, even if it meant heavy reparations and a loss of territory. With this position, Lenin received growing support throughout the Russian armed forces, which would ultimately be key to his seizing power. Thus, he launched an aggressive propaganda campaign directed specifically at the Russian troops still serving on the front. |
These two topics are important to our unit because the two in sequence is the Russian Revolution making progress and moving in the "right" direction, or at least a direction of change.