Was Lenin on Germany's Side?

[Dimitri Molotov]

I was looking something up when i heard something about Lenin being in Switzerland when Germany put him into an armored train to Moscow to hijack the revolution, and distract Russia enough to get them off of the eastern front in the war with Germany, and with a freed up eastern front Germany could focus their forces on the western front and win the war. I have never heard of this before, is this true and what are more details about this? I have heard some people say Lenin was a good man and some say he was a traitor to the revolution, but I have never heard anything this huge before.

[scarletghoul]

The Bolsheviks, like the majority of Russian people, wanted to get out of the war which was a senseless bloodbath. Germany wanted to win the war. So Germany helped Lenin get back to Russia when the time was right because it would benefit both of them. Lenin was not 'on Germany's side', he was on the side of the Russian people, and that meant getting Russia out of the war. Anti-Leninists will try to spin it like lenin was some german agent or whatever but thats rubbish

[Widerstand]

Germans organized his return to Russia, yes.

It's been a very common story I heard in highschool history class, usually mixed with some sort of "communism is totalitarian anti-democracy just like fascism blablabla" non-sense.

[Dimitri Molotov]

Thank you, that makes allot more sense to me, have a good day comrade!

[psgchisolm]

Germans organized his return to Russia, yes.

It's been a very common story I heard in highschool history class, usually mixed with some sort of "communism is totalitarian anti-democracy just like fascism blablabla" non-sense.
Yes. The Soldiers didn't want to fight the war. The civilians didn't want to fight the war. The Germans didn't want to fight the Russians. So it was win win for the Germans, they just did what was in the best interests for them.

[Tommy4ever]

Well look at it this way:

Lenin is a man who had donated his entire life to trying to create revolution in Russia. When it is actually happening there is nothing on earth that is going to stop him from getting back to Russia.

However he is in Switzerland.

If he goes through France or Italy then he will be arrested and unable to return to Russia - these countries would try to protect their Russian ally.

He therefore has to go through the Central Powers. It's the only way.

So that's Lenin's POV.

Now let's look at the German:

They want to end the war in the East so they can launch a massive assault in the West. Sending Lenin to Russia might increase the strength of the anti-war camp and generally ''mess things up''. Sounds like a win, win. I doubt for a second they actually believed he could take power (at that stage no one did).

People who claim he was a German spy are just fools. Even the people who issued that propoganda could hardly have believed it.

[scarletghoul]

Yeah its a ridiculous allegation. What should Lenin have done ? Refused any help on principle and walked all the way to Russia ??

[Tommy4ever]

Yeah its a ridiculous allegation. What should Lenin have done ? Refused any help on principle and walked all the way to Russia ??

I know.

I've had full blown arguements with people about this as they continuously claim that Lenin had some sort of evil pact with the Kaiser. :rolleyes:

All, it would have been quite literally impossible for him to get to Russia without going through Austria-Hungary or Germany.

[ComradeOm]

Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me how Martov and the other Zimmerwald exiles returned to Russia? I'm fairly sure that it was similarly by train across Germany, and was going to make a joke to that effect, but I'm not certain and can't find my source for that

[PhoenixAsh]

Out of curiosity, can anyone tell me how Martov and the other Zimmerwald exiles returned to Russia? I'm fairly sure that it was similarly by train across Germany, and was going to make a joke to that effect, but I'm not certain and can't find my source for that


Didn't Martov return to Russia after the revolution ?

I assume that taht would mean there were somewhat less problems since there was a seize fire.

[PhoenixAsh]

No serious historian would ever propose Lenin was a German agent. At the very best he was used and seen as a useful tool by the German politicians.

The rumour is based on the Sisson documents published in the US. The NY post challenged these documents and called them forgeries. not only because of minor errors in offcial letter heads but also because the words used were sometimes not german. This was later confirmed by the British government (1920) and the independent researcher Kienan.

[ComradeOm]

Didn't Martov return to Russia after the revolution ?No, 9 May 1917. Found my source:

"Martov had arrived [on 9 May], about 2 o'clock. A rather large group had come with him, including those eminent leaders of our movement and future distinguished figures of the revolution: Axelrod, Lunacharsky, Ryazanov and others. All of them, like Lenin but a month later, had passed through Germany on a 'sealed train'" (Sukhanov, Russian Revolution: A Personal Record)

Yet nobody ever accuses Martov or other prominent Mensheviks of being in the pay of the Kaiser


The rumour is based on the Sisson documents published in the USActually it goes back even further than that. Kerensky used falsified documents to accuse the Bolsheviks of collaboration with Berlin following the July Days in 1917