f Kamenev, Lenine, and others less well known, who
skillfully exploited the friction with the Provisional Government, the idea
of overthrowing that bourgeois body and of asserting that the Councils of
Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates would rule Russia in the interests of the
working class made steady if not rapid progress.

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