Late in April Lenine and several other active Bolshevik leaders returned to Petrograd from Switzerland, together with Martov and other Menshevik leaders, who, while differing from the Bolsheviki upon practically all other matters, agreed with them in their bitter and uncompromising opposition to the war and in demanding an immediate peace.[8] As is well known, they were granted special facilities by the German Government in order that they might reach Russia safely.  Certain Swiss Socialist leaders, regarded as strongly pro-German, arranged with the German Government that the Russian revolutionists should be permitted to travel across Germany by rail, in closed carriages.  Unusual courtesies were extended to the travelers by the German authorities, and it was quite natural that Lenine and his associates should have been suspected of being sympathizers with, if not the paid agents and tools of, the German Government.  The manner in which their actions, when they arrived in Russia, served the ends sought by the German military authorities naturally strengthened the suspicion so that it became a strong conviction.

Suspicious as the circumstances undoubtedly were, there is a very simple explanation of the conduct of Lenine and his companions.  It is not at all necessary to conclude that they were German agents.  Let us look at the facts with full candor:  Lenine had long openly advocated the view that the defeat of Russia, even by Germany, would be good for the Russian revolutionary movement.  But that was in the days before the overthrow of the Czar.  Since that time his position had naturally shifted somewhat; he had opposed the continuation of the war and urged the Russian workers to withhold support from it.  He had influenced the Soviets to demand a restatement of war aims by the Allies, and to incessantly agitate for immediate negotiations looking toward a general and democratic peace.  Of course, the preaching of such a policy in Russia at that time by a leader so powerful and influential as Lenine, bound as it was to divide Russia and sow dissension among the Allies, fitted admirably into the German plans.  That Germany would have been glad to pay for the performance of service so valuable can hardly be doubted.

On his side, Lenine is far too astute a thinker to have failed to understand that the German Government had its own selfish interests in view when it arranged for his passage across Germany.  But the fact that the Allies would suffer, and that the Central Empires would gain some advantage, was of no consequence to him.  That was an unavoidable accident and was purely incidental.  His own purpose, to lead the revolutionary movement into a new phase, in which he believed with fanatical thoroughness, was the only thing that mattered in the least.  If the conditions had been reversed, and he could only have reached Russia by the co-operation of the Allies, whose cause would be served, however unintentionally, by his work, he