In Europe

Stockholm, after all, he refused to meet with or even see his old comrade Parvoes.
    Far more likely is that something changed within Lenin himself during that journey. After the meeting between Parvoes and Radek in Stockholm,he may suddenly have realised that his penniless Bolsheviks could, within only a matter of weeks, have tens of millions of gold German marks at their disposal, providing unparalleled opportunities for organisation and propaganda.
    About one fact, however, there is virtually no room for disagreement: after this train journey, the German millions came flowing in. In the communist history books, stories to this effect – which began to circulate within a few months – were always dismissed as ‘foul slander and obscurantist rumours’. Today, however, no one can avoid the conclusion that the glorious October Revolution was actually financed by the German ministry of foreign affairs.
    First of all, there are the German records themselves, made public after 1945. In them, one sees that the ministry had set up a special contact group for Parvoes and his people as early as 1916, under the code name ‘Stockholm’. The following is taken directly from the confidential report submitted to the kaiser, and dated 3 December, 1917: ‘It was not until the Bolsheviks began receiving a steady supply of funding from us, through diverse channels and under assorted headings, that they were able to transform their most important organ,
Pravda
, into an energetic propaganda vehicle and to broaden the narrow base of their party.’ Calculations recorded by the Germany ministry of foreign affairs on 5 February, 1918 show that 40,580,997 gold marks had been allocated for ‘propaganda and special objectives’ in Russia, and that 26,566,122 of those marks had already been paid out as of 31 January. Such sums would today be equivalent to hundreds of millions of euros. All available information indicates that the lion's share of this funding went to the Bolsheviks.
    The Russians, understandably enough, carefully eradicated all traces of this operation. In summer 1917, the provisional government – with the help of the French intelligence service – began a thorough investigation into alleged financial contacts between the Germans and the Bolsheviks. Yet Lenin and his companions were never taken to court. The dossier, all twenty-one volumes of it, was confiscated and destroyed right after the October Revolution, on the orders of Lev Trotsky.
    The results, however, were plain to see. From spring 1917 the Bolsheviks’ propaganda activities were so massive and widespread that they could not possibly have been funded from the party's own coffers. In February1917 the Bolsheviks did not own a single printing press. In March,
Pravda
was in such dire straits that relief benefits had to be organised to keep it running. Four months later, the Bolshevik press had a combined daily circulation of 320,000 newspapers, as well as around 350,000 pamphlets and brochures.
Pravda
appeared in more than forty editions, including in Polish and Armenian. Some 100,000 newspapers were distributed daily among the armed forces: the
Soldatsja Pravda
for the infantry, the
Gols Pravdy
for the navy, the
Okopnaja Pravada
(Trench Truth) for the front. There was enough money to pay party officials a regular salary, a luxury unheard of in Bolshevik circles. Party membership swelled between April and August 1917 from 23,000 to 200,000. The Bolsheviks never deigned to explain this sudden and profuse wealth.
    Does this mean that Lenin was actually nothing but a mere German agent? Not at all. Throughout his life his conduct shows that he was purely a revolutionary in heart and soul, a revolutionary who made all else secondary to that goal, and who was even prepared to make a pact with the Devil to achieve his objectives. His alliance with the Germans was purely a coalition of opportunity, one that served the interests of both parties at a given moment, but which could be tossed aside again at the next. Lenin, in fact, had only one goal: grand, worldwide revolution. Within that context, the Russian Revolution was but a start.
    The travelling party fell apart. Karl Radek became editor of
Izvestia
, was one of the delegation that negotiated a peace with Germany, and then became Lenin's most important agent in Poland and Berlin. For all his lightheartedness, he loved being close to the centre of power; one day, it was too late for him to withdraw. During a