April 9, 1917, a group of several dozen excited people, most of them adults and a few children, gather in the "Kringer-Hof", a hotel in the square in front of Zurich Central Station.
They converse in Russian, although for many it is not their mother tongue, and hold in their hands suitcases and baskets with its side.
At the hotel, lunch awaits them, after which everyone will move to the platform, and from there to a train car - for a journey that will change the fate of their distant country, and the fate of the entire world.
What would have happened if a group of revolutionaries led by Vladimir Lenin had not been allowed to leave that day of exile in neutral Switzerland in neutral Russia, which had just been liberated from monarchy and hoped to build a future of a democratic republic? What would have happened if Germany, through which the only possible travel route had passed, had not agreed to help enemy citizens pass through its territory? What would have happened if Lenin and his gang had not embarked on a feverish activity to organize the coup that would bring them to power? It is said that history does not recognize the word "if", but for the reading of the book "Lenin on the Train" by historian Katherine Meredale, these questions - and many others - are self-evident.
Meredale, a Cambridge University lecturer and expert on the history of Russia and the USSR, bestows the travel affair of Lenin and his Bolshevik companions in a broad historical context, outlining the happenings and interests of a variety of parties involved, from revolutionaries themselves to major players in international politics. The German interest in undermining Russia's stability, its enemy in the war, led it to embrace those who sought to ignite the fire of revolution throughout Europe.
Meredale notes that the Germans "made eighths in the air to help a group whose heads were in their eyes disgusting criminals."
The Bolsheviks planned to tattoo the Russian state, and the Germans saw in sending them back to Russia, throwing a lot of combustible material into the fire that had already started to burn.
The bet that promised to paralyze the Russian giant seemed so magical that at the top of the German it was decided to accede to Lenin's demands and give him and his team a safe passage to Russia.
Lenin understood that his political rivals in Russia would make up for the fact that the Germans were giving his gang free rein and would stick a foreign agent label on him.
To counter the evil, he sought to equate his contacts with the "German enemy," conducted through various intermediaries, the appearance of negotiation.
Meredale describes at length the wording of the compromise that was formulated, and its practical expression: a signed caravan, headed by the Bolshevik leader, drew a white chalk line to mark its territory, a kind of extraterritorial territory that is not subject to anyone from the outside.
But German aid did not amount to the physical bringing of revolutionary elements to the Russian capital.
There were also millions of German money, which were transferred in various routes to the east to finance the displacement of Russia from the camp of the warring states in Germany.
One of the amazing stories included in the book reveals Lenin's attempt to equip himself with the blessing of Russia's allies for the war. "The morning before he left, he made one last attempt and called the U.S. embassy in Bern," reveals Meridale. 'Try again on Monday,' he advised Lenin, forgetting about any affair. "Eventually, the clerk, named Alan Dolls, became one of the CIA's influential directors, and for years he would tell this story to new recruits."
The variety of sources and the amount that Meredale has used for research is very impressive. Reports from Western ambassadors to Russia help it to understand the moods of the revolution, as well as the limited ability of foreign representatives to internalize the intensity of the changes taking place before their eyes. The memories left by some of Lenin's partners on the journey provide a glimpse into a relationship that blossomed or withered on the signed train. Despite the ideological fervor, not only did the ideological glue connect and separate them - the loves and hates were not foreign to the revolutionaries, and more than once they mingled with each other until they could not be separated. For example, Lenin and his wife Nadjda Krupskaya in the first compartment in the front of the caravan, and Insa Armand, Lenin's mistress in the second compartment; The couple Zinoviev with their child Stefan in the third cell, while Sara Ravitch, the first wife of her friend Zinoviev (Radomiselsky) is also in the second cell.
In the episode "Friends on the Road", the author traces the experiences of some of Lenin's partners on the train, even those who did not actually ride it but contented themselves with watching it from a distance or likened themselves to other maneuvering chess players on the path of revolution.
Almost everyone was doomed to be disappointed and fall.
The fall of the Germans came earlier of all: they planned to exploit Lenin only until the collapse of the Russian army, but did not understand who they were dealing with.
Revolutionary propaganda soon ignited in Germany as well, and the German Empire ended its historic role.
"However, the greatest suffering was caused to the society that Lenin came from," says Meredale, and her statement is valid both in relation to the whole of Russia and in relation to Lenin's partners.
Only a minority died in their bed.
Nothing experienced by the Tsarist police came close to sadistic treatment of those who saw themselves as the heroes of the revolution.
Some of the passengers on the sealed train were thrown in front of you as early as Lenin's days, others were executed by Stalin's order, continuing.
Catherine Meredale / Lenin on the train; From English: Yiftach Brill, Magnes Press, 251 pages