4 The ‘trustees’ of the Schmidt money: Volkogonov, p. 202.
5 Lenin’s money from Party: Volkogonov, pp. 238–40. Nadya admits they were not in penury: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 198.
6 Lenin needs rest: Nadya’s letter to his mother, 22 June 1907, CW, Vol. 44, p. 423, and Lenin to his mother, 24 June 1907, CW, Vol. 44, p. 425.
7 Lidia Dan: quoted in Boris Sapir (ed.), Fyodor Ilyich Dan Prisma [Letters] 1899–1947, Amsterdam, 1985, p. 137.
8 Clara Zetkin, Reminiscences of Lenin, www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1924/reminiscences-of-lenin.htm.
9 Walter Borg’s quote about Lenin’s freezing feet: Salisbury, p. 213.
10 Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 194.
20: GENEVA – ‘AN AWFUL HOLE’
1 Lenin, ‘I’ve come back to Geneva to be buried’: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 196.
2 Ibid. p. 202.
3 ‘Shall I live to see another Revolution’: letter to Maria Ulyanova, 3 March 1909, CW, Vol. 44, p. 496.
4 Plekhanov, My i oni [‘Us and Them’], Moscow 1907, p. 32, and quoted in Samuel Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism, Stanford, 1963. August Bebel to Lenin: quoted by Martov in Getzler, p. 136.
5 Lenin and Bogdanov: letter to Gorky, CW, Vol. 44, p. 263.
6 Lenin on religion: letter to Gorky, CW, Vol. 44, p. 186.
7 Gorky on Lenin’s charm and vivacity: Gorky, Days with Lenin, p. 28.
8 Okhrana informers: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, pp. 173–4.
9 Zinoviev’s background: Ulam, pp. 213–14; and quotes: Balabanova, p. 139. Kamenev, quotes: Valentinov, p. 149, and Trotsky, My Life, p. 274.
10 On Dr Zhitomirsky: Yuri Felshtinsky, Lenin and His Comrades: The Bolsheviks Take Over Russia, 1917–1924, New York, 2010. ‘A large city will cheer us up’: Lenin to his mother, 13 December 1908, CW, Vol. 44, p. 497.
21: INESSA – LENIN IN LOVE
1 Background of Inessa Armand: Michael Pearson, Inessa: Lenin’s Mistress, London, 2001, and R. C. Elwood, Inessa Armand: Revolutionary and Feminist, Cambridge, 1992.
2 ‘Lenin was mesmerised’: Jean Fréville, Lénine à Paris, Paris, 1958, p. 13.
3 Elizabeth de K. and Lenin: Fischer, p. 192, and Felshtinsky, pp. 93–5.
4 Reports from Okhrana: quoted in Ben Fischer, Okhrana: The Paris Operations of the Russian Imperial Police, Washington D.C., Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997. Also a double agent: Valerian Agafonov, Zagranichnaya Okhrana, Petrograd, 1918, has good first-hand accounts of spying throughout Europe for the Tsar.
5 Inessa’s background: Pearson, Elwood, Fréville, Louis Fischer and Polina Vinogradskaya, Pamyati Inessy Armand (ed. Nadezhda Krupskaya), Moscow, 1926.
6 Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 195. Food parcels from Russia: Lenin to his mother, 5 June 1909, CW, Vol. 44, p. 479. Tidy Paris flat: Ilya Ehrenburg, People and Life: Memoirs 1891–1917, London, 1961.
7 Lenin’s stress and insomnia: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 197.
8 Nadya on cycling: letter to Lenin’s mother, 19 September 1909, CW, Vol. 44, p. 485. Last time Lenin saw his mother: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 201, and quoted in Katy Turton, Forgotten Lives: The Role of Lenin’s Sisters in the Russian Revolution, 1864–1937, London, 2007.
9 The long-censored letters between Inessa and Lenin became available after the collapse of the USSR in 1991 in various stages over the next decade, not all at once. Most are in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) fond 127, but a few others are in the Archives of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF). Most of the family records were moved to the RGASPI by 1991, including most of Inessa’s letters to her children. This letter ‘I wasn’t in love with you then’: RGASPI f. 127, op. 17, d. 12.
10 Nadya in ‘a state of utter melancholy’: letter to Lenin’s mother and sister Maria, 12 April 1910 and 3 May 1910, CW, Vol. 44, p. 496 and p. 513. Kollontai claims Nadya offered to leave Lenin: Marcel Body, ‘Alexandra Kollontai’, Preuves, No. 14, April 1952, Paris.
11 ‘Life…more cheerful when Inessa was around’: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 198.
12 ‘a hot bonfire of revolution’: quoted in Rappaport, p. 201. Inessa was ‘pedantic…repeated Lenin verbatim’: Balabanova, p. 185.
22: BETRAYALS
1 ‘Theory is not Holy Writ’: quoted in Ulam, p. 235. Lenin in favour of parliaments, in Nevskaya Zvezda: 13 May 1912, CW, Vol. 7, pp. 257–8.
2 Roman Malinovsky an ‘outstanding worker representing us’: Lenin to Alexander Shlyapnikov, 16 October 1912, CW, Vol. 43, p. 186.
3 Malinovsky’s background: Service, pp. 220–8; Felshtinsky, pp. 25–7; Ulam, pp. 237–40; and Rappaport, pp. 225–9.
4 Lenin didn’t believe Malinovsky a double agent: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 219.
5 ‘That bastard…fooled us for years’: Lenin to Zinoviev, quoted in Rappaport, p. 228.
6 Launch of Pravda: Louis Fischer, pp. 278–80.
7 Lenin to Gorky on moving to Austria: 12 May 1912, CW, Vol. 44, p. 104.
8 Climbing Babya in the Tatra Mountains: quoted in Clark, p. 219.
9 Galicia is ‘almost Russia’: Lenin to his mother, 3 September 1912, CW, Vol. 44, p. 496. Homesickness: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 198.
23: A LOVE TRIANGLE – TWO INTO THREE WILL GO
1 Nadya ill and needing treatment for Graves’ Disease: letter to Maria Ulyanova, quoted in Clark, p. 285.
2 Nadya’s operation in Berne: Louis Fischer, pp. 284–7. Lenin’s row with surgeon: letter to Kamenev, 15 June 1913, CW, Vol. 44, p. 138.
3 Nadya on operation: ibid., p. 213.
4 Nadya on Inessa in Galicia: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 219.
5 Lenin’s fondness of children: Zina (Zinoviev) Lilina, ‘Tov: Lenin edet v Rossiyu’, Leningradskaya Pravda, 16 April 1924.
6 Lenin thanks Inessa for representing him in Brussels: RGASPI f. 127, op. 16, d. 19.
7 Nadya on drawing close to Inessa: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 223.
8 Inessa’s letter from Paris, 14 December 1913: RGASPI f. 127, op. 13, d. 15; Lenin’s reply: RGASPI f. 127, op. 13, d. 18.
24: CATASTROPHE – THE WORLD AT WAR
1 Lenin predicting war, Vyperod: October 1907, CW, Vol. 7, p. 142.
2 Lenin tells his mother there won’t be war: 13 November 1912, CW, Vol. 44, p. 499; and to Gorky, 9 December 1912, CW, Vol. 44, p. 178.
3 Arrest in Galicia and help from Victor Adler: Lenin letter to Zinoviev, CW, Vol. 44, pp. 258–9, and Clark, p. 195.
4 Move to Berne: Lenin to his sister Maria, 21 August 1914, CW, Vol. 44, p. 513.
5 Russian Interior Minister Durnovo warning against war: Figes, p. 387.
6 The most comprehensive works in English on Russia’s disastrous First World War and the Eastern Front 1914–1918 are Dominic Lieven, Towards the Flame: Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia, London, 2015; Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 1914–1917, London, 1975; and Max Hastings, Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914, London, 2013. I have drawn from each of them.
7 Brusilov quotes, an ‘army of ignoramuses’: Figes, p. 398.
8 Low morale in army: Hastings, p. 277.
9 Polianov, Minister of War, to Tsar: quoted in Figes, p. 400.
25: IN THE WILDERNESS
1 Lenin’s squabble with his sister Anna: Turton, p. 96.
2 Lenin complains to Inessa about squabbles in Party: quoted in Service, p. 296.
3 Nadya’s mother dies and is cremated: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 224.
4 Nadya ill again and needs holiday: letter to Kollontai, www.marxists.org/kollontai
5 Nadya, Inessa and Lenin holiday at Sörenberg: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 231.
6 Lenin’s opposition to war: letter to Kollontai, 12 November 1914, CW, Vol. 44, p. 199.
7 Zimmerwald Conference: Service, pp. 246–8. Martov on Lenin’s anti-war stand: Getzler, p. 197.
8 Inessa and Lenin dispute on ‘free love’: Rappaport, p. 236; Pearson, Inessa Armand, pp.
176–8; Service, p. 276; Inessa to Lenin, RGASPI f. 127, op. 17, d. 9, and Georges Bardawil, Inès Armand, Paris, 1993, p. 187.
9 Lenin to Inessa, RGASPI f. 127, op. 15, d. 14.
10 Background on Helphand: Zbyne˘k Zeman, The Merchant of Revolution, London, 1965.
26: THE LAST EXILE
1 Lenin’s money troubles: Nadya to Maria Ulyanova, 16 December 1916, and Lenin to Maria, 13 January 1917, CW, Vol. 44, p. 512.
2 Modest lodgings in Zurich: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 231.
3 Titus Kammerer, ‘We rented to the Lenins’, Partisan Review, Vol. 6, No. 3, New York, 1939.
4 Stefan Zweig quote: from Zweig, The Tide of Fortune: Twelve Historical Miniatures, London, 1927.
5 Lenin’s plan to hand over Bolshevik funds to Inessa: see Service, p. 270.
27: REVOLUTION – PART ONE
1 Dmitry Merezhkovsky quote: from the diaries of Zinaida Gippius, Peterburgskie dnevniki 1914–1919, New York, 1982, p. 45; and her claim that Russia is ‘a large lunatic asylum’, p. 49.
2 Alexander Blok on promiscuity: quoted in Figes, p. 159.
3 Officers going AWOL: Major-General Sir Alfred Knox, With the Russian Army 1914–1917, London, 1921.
4 The revolution ‘will be started by the army’: quoted in Pipes, The Russian Revolution, p. 374.
5 Meriel Buchanan: quote from M. Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter, London, 1958. Lord Milner: quoted in Louis Fischer, p. 297.
6 Okhrana reports: see Alexander Rabinowitch, Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising, Bloomington, Ind., 1968.
7 Gippius, p. 165.
8 Lenin to Inessa, RGASPI f. 127, op. 17, d. 11.
9 Lenin’s instructions to Kollontai: 2 March 1917, CW, Vol. 12, p. 165.
10 Plans to leave Zurich using disguises: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 225.
11 ‘My nerves overstrung’: Lenin to Inessa, RGASPI f. 127, op. 18, d. 19.
12 Alexandra’s letter describing revolutionaries ‘a hooligan movement’: www.alexanderpalace.org/letters
13 ‘That fat fellow Rodzianko’: quoted in Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, p. 489.
14 Mutiny by regiments and casualties in Revolution: Figes, pp. 486–92.
15 Tsar’s abdication: Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, pp. 528–9.
16 Bolsheviks unprepared for Revolution and short of money: Rabinowitch, Prelude to Revolution, p. 129.
28: THE SEALED TRAIN
1 Lenin approves Martov’s ‘sealed train’ plan: letter to Radek, 7 March 1917, CW, Vol. 44, p. 216.
2 Tells Inessa he has to operate secretly: letter, 8 March 1917, RGASPI f. 127, op. 18, d. 13.
3 German Generals Ludendorff and Hoffmann: quoted in Clark, p. 269; also see Hastings, p. 253.
4 German defence of using Lenin: Volkogonov, p. 216.
5 Lenin desperate to reach Russia: letter to Inessa, 10 March 1917, RGASPI f. 127, op. 18, d. 13.
6 Negotiations with Germans: Fritz Platten, Lenin iz emigratsii v Rossiyu, Moscow, 1925.
7 Reaction in Zurich to sealed train: Rappaport, pp. 228–30; Michael Pearson, The Sealed Train, London, 1975, pp. 49–51; Catherine Merridale, Lenin on the Train, London, 2016, pp. 73–9; Karl Radek, ‘Lenin’s “Sealed Train” ’, New York Times, 19 February 1922; J. Ley, ‘A Memorable Day in April’, New Statesman, 19 April 1958; Olga Ravich, ‘The Journey Across Germany’, Pravda, 10 April 1922.
8 Lenin felt justified in taking German help: Clark, p. 214.
9 British tried to bribe Lenin: Clark, p. 217.
10 Lenin’s belongings when he left Zurich: Kammerer, ‘We rented to the Lenins’. Rappaport, p. 229.
11 Departure from station in Switzerland: Karl Radek, ‘V plombirovannom vagone’, Pravda, 20 April 1924; Platten, p. 19; and Rappaport, pp. 232–3.
12 Lenin a martinet on the journey: Radek, ‘Lenin’s “Sealed Train” ’; Merridale, pp. 82–6; and Rappaport, pp. 231–4.
13 Lenin to Zinoviev: quoted in Louis Fischer, p. 317, and in Radek, ‘V plombirovannom vagone’.
14 Lenin in Stockholm: Platten, p. 35; Radek, ‘V plombirovannom vagone’; and Rappaport, pp. 236–7.
15 Esmé Howard quote, ‘let things take their course’: Louis Fischer, p. 286.
16 Lenin infuriated by articles in Pravda supporting the war: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 239.
17 Women strip-searched by British soldiers: Zina Lilina, ‘Tov: Lenin edet v Rossiyu’, Leningradskaya Pravda, 16 April 1924. British agent Harry Gruner letting Lenin into Finland: Giles Milton, Russian Roulette: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin’s Global Plot, London, 2013.
29: TO THE FINLAND STATION
1 Finland looked familiar to Nadya and Lenin: Krupskaya, Reminiscences, p. 245.
2 Kamenev’s pro-war editorial: Pravda, 31 March 1917.
3 Lenin’s arrival at the Finland Station on Easter Monday 1917 is best described in Sukhanov, pp. 86–90, and Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Lenin, New York, 1965, pp. 288–92.
4 Trotsky on Mathilde Kshesinskaya’s mansion and background: quoted in Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, and Barbara Allen, Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: The Life of an Old Bolshevik, Leiden, 2015.
5 Lenin’s speech to Bolsheviks at the Party headquarters: Sukhanov, pp. 91–3.
30: THE INTERREGNUM
1 Lenin at his mother’s grave: Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, Vospomonanii o Lenine, Moscow, 1985, p. 43.
2 Lenin at Tauride Palace: Sukhanov, p. 103.
3 Lenin’s ‘extremism’, quotes from Prince Lvov and Pavel Milyukov: Figes, p. 487.
4 Gorky, ‘this is no longer a capital; it is a cesspit’: Gorky, ‘Untimely Thoughts’ column, Novaya Zhizn, 13 June 1917.
5 Trotsky on anarchy: Trotsky, My Life, p. 183.
6 ‘For sheer political incompetence, history has few better examples’: Zinoviev, History of the Bolshevik Party, www.marxists.org/archive/zinoviev/works/history/ch01.htm. Chaos at meetings of Petrograd Soviet: Pipes, The Russian Revolution, pp. 448–9.
7 ‘Soon the government will not…preserve itself’: Bonch-Bruevich, p. 63.
8 Prince Lvov: quoted in Figes, p. 482.
9 Kerensky speaking: Sukhanov, pp. 91–3, and Albert Rhys Williams, Through the Russian Revolution, New York, 1921.
10 Gippius, p. 193.
31: ‘PEACE, LAND AND BREAD’
1 Lenin said experts were not needed: to Alexander Shotman in Shotman, ‘Lenin nakanune Oktyabrya’, O Lenine: Sbornik vospominaniy, Leningrad, 1925.
2 ‘We must talk about peace, land and bread, these things’: Lenin to Kamenev, 13 May 1917, CW, Vol. 44, p. 134.
3 Rhys Williams, p. 74.
4 ‘A peaceful reconnaissance of our enemies’ forces’: Lenin to Zinoviev and Kamenev, 2 May 1917, CW, Vol. 44, p. 201.
5 Indiscipline in army and quotes from generals: Baron Aleksei Budberg papers, Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, Box 1, Knox, pp. 109–10, and in Louis Fischer, p. 284.
6 Gorky in despair: Maxim Gorky archive, www.marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/
7 Revolution on the land, estates vandalised: Figes, pp. 493–9; Pipes, The Russian Revolution, pp. 423–6; and Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, London, 1979, pp. 286–9.
8 Landowners murdered: Figes, p. 498.
32: THE SPOILS OF WAR
1 June All-Russian Congress of Soviets: Sukhanov, p. 186; Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power, p. 123; and Morgan Philips Price, Manchester Guardian, 19 June and 20 June 1917.
2 German money to Lenin: Volkogonov, pp. 167–73; Zeman, Zbyneˇk (ed.), Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915–1918, Oxford, 1953, pp. 101–3; Merridale, pp. 106–15.
3 Details of German payments to Bolsheviks: Volkogonov, pp. 170–5; Merridale, pp. 105–9; and Pearson, The Sealed Train, pp. 116–19. Long-censored reports detailing the cover-up: letter to Trotsky and Lenin, RGASPI f. 32, op. 14, d. 12.
33: A DESPERATE GAMBLE
1 Anthony Curtis, Somerset Maugham, London, 1977, is good on Maugham’s role as a spy in Petrograd, as is Maugham’s own Ashenden: Or the British Agent, London, 1928. Robert Bruce Lockhart’s Memoirs of a British Agent, London, 1932, and Diaries: Volume 1, London, 1973, are highly readable (if not always entirely reliable) about espionage in Russia between 1917 and 1921, as is Robert Service, Spies and Commissars, London, 2011.
2 The disastrous June offensive: Hastings, pp. 293–7; Figes, pp. 483–6; and Budberg Papers, Box 1.
34: THE JULY DAYS
1 Lenin insists on caution in demonstrations: Nikolai Podvoisky, ‘Lenin in October’. ‘Holiday’ before the July Days: Bonch-Bruevich, p. 72.
2 July Days description: Figes, pp. 472–4, and Rabinowitch, Prelude to Revolution.
3 ‘A little more than a demonstration, but less than an insurrection’: Lenin to Trotsky, in Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution, p. 296.
4 Lenin demands explanation from insurrection planners: Podvoisky, ‘Lenin in October’.
5 Lenin and Nadya embrace and say goodbye, witnessed by Zinoviev, Stasova and Kamenev: Bonch-Bruevich, p. 84.
6 Lenin goes underground into hiding: Trotsky, On Lenin. Shaving with Stalin’s help: Service, Lenin, p. 272.
35: ON THE RUN
1 Escape from Petrograd with Zinoviev: Service, Lenin, pp. 274–6; Bonch-Bruevich, p. 82, and Clark, pp. 296–8.
2 Lenin, The State and Revolution, CW, Vol. 12.
3 Journey from Gulf of Finland to Helsingfors: Shotman, ‘Lenin nakanune Oktyabrya’, p. 24.
4 In hiding at Helsingfors police chief’s apartment: Volkogonov, p. 274.
5 Gustav Rovio, ‘Kak Lenin skryvalsya u gel’singforskogo politseimeistera’, in N. L. Meshcheryakov (ed.), O Lenine: Sbornik vospominanii, Moscow, 1924.
36: REVOLUTION – PART TWO
1 Trotsky speech: account in Sukhanov, p. 284.
2 Lenin back in Petrograd: Margarita Fofanova, ‘V. I. Lenin na Vyborgskoi Sytorone vy 1917 godu’, in VoVIL (Vospominaniya o V. I. Lenin), Vol. 4, Moscow, 1989–91.
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