Lenin’s arrival at Finland Station in Petrograd in April 1917, 100 years ago this week, is one of the most dramatic moments in world history. Against the backdrop of hitherto unprecedented carnage and suffering, Lenin arrives in Petrograd with an unshakeable determination to orient the Bolshevik party to the perspective of international socialist revolution. This standpoint is contrary to the prevailing positions of every other political tendency, and even to those of a section of the leadership of his own party.
In the period following the February upheavals, a number of the senior Bolshevik leaders in Petrograd have wavered towards policies of adaptation to the Provisional Government and the continuation of the imperialist war. Meanwhile, Lenin’s own thinking has gravitated towards positions associated with Leon Trotsky and the theory of “permanent” or “uninterrupted” international revolution. It would be no exaggeration to state that the future trajectory of human civilization itself hangs in the balance as the modestly dressed Marxist descends from the train, wearing a bowler hat and anticipating his arrest at any moment.
Zürich, April 10: Lenin boards train to Petrograd
Lenin, his wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and Inessa Armand, Grigori Zinoviev, Karl Radek and 27 other revolutionaries and their family members board the train in Zürich on April 10 to cross Germany and reach Petrograd. The train passes through Singen Offenburg, Mannheim, Frankfurt/Main, Berlin and Bergen to reach Saßnitz. The Bolshevik Karl Radek later described the trip as follows:
“Ilyich worked throughout the journey. He read, made entries in notebooks, but also concerned himself with organisational questions. … In Frankfurt, the train stopped for a long time, and the platform was sealed off by the military. Suddenly, the cordon was…