New Documents on Lenin's Departure from Switzerland, 1917

Abstract

V. I. Lenin's decision to return to Russia through Germany in April 1917 represented a major stage in the development of the Russian Revolution. Stefan Zweig, who was himself then living near Zurich, later called this moment one of the Sternstunden of human history, and as befits such events, there has arisen a considerable body of literature relating to it: memoirs, documents, commentaries, and monographs, replete with sharply conflicting interpretations. Colored by the passions of war and revolution, the accounts long lacked a generally acceptable documentary foundation, but the opening of the archives of the German Foreign Ministry in the 1950's and subsequently the publication of hitherto unknown letters by Lenin seem to have done little to settle the old arguments. Writers have continued to draw the same contradictory conclusions, now buttressed with more or less impressive documentary references. 1 Probably no amount of documentation could put all the arguments to rest, but in 1917 the Russian 6migre"s in Switzerland had themselves attempted to clear up some uncertain details of Lenin's departure, and in so doing they had anticipated many of the later interpretations. Their findings, however, were quickly forgotten, to the detriment of the later efforts by historians.