(THE GERMANS) TRANSPORTED LENIN LIKE A PLAGUE BACILLUS.

Lenin had been living in exile, in Zurich, planning how he would some day put into practice the principles of Karl Marx. After Czar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and a provisional government took shaky control of Russia, Lenin grew deeply frustrated. It looked as if history was running away from him. He read in the papers about liberal reforms, but that meant Russia was heading for parliamentary democracy, postponing the violent revolution it needed, in his view. Lenin had nothing to do except organize the Swiss socialists and dream about smashing Zurich’s chic restaurants.

At that point Alexander Parvus came to him with a proposition. The Germans would finance and manage a trip to Russia. Lenin bargained. How many colleagues could he take with him? (About 30.) Parvus apparently believed that if everything worked out, Lenin would give him a good job in the new Russia. But Lenin had his suspicions and gave him nothing. Parvus never saw Russia again. He died in Germany.

When they arrived in Finland, the last passport check before Russia, Lenin was alarmed that soldiers on the Russian side were backed up by British Allied troops. A British officer, who knew about Lenin, sent a wire to the provisional government, suggesting it would be a mistake to admit him. He got a reply that Russia was now a democratic society and of course Lenin, a Russian citizen, could be admitted. Harold Gruner was an MI-5 officer on duty that night. He played for time while hoping some sensible decision would be made.

He strip-searched Lenin, examined his books and papers and asked “what-is-your-business” questions. Britain’s ambassador in Stockholm had suggested Lenin be admitted in the normal way. As a junior officer, Gruner felt he had to comply. For years after, colleagues teased him for “locking the stable door while the horse was out, or rather in.” Gruner tried to forget the whole nasty business but Lenin didn’t forget. He ordered Gruner shot as soon as he took power in Russia, according to Merridale. But Lenin’s orders weren’t followed as quickly then as later. In 1918 Gruner joined the unsuccessful British intervention against the Bolsheviks in Siberia. Merridale adds an ironic coda: “Gruner notched up not one but two heroic failures, for which a grateful George V awarded him an OBE.”

In a narrow sense, the project was a success. Lenin, once deposited in Russia, became the dominant figure in the post-czarist state, eventually making peace. But that only meant that Germany managed to lose the war on one front rather than two.

And in the east, Lenin created a more dangerous enemy. When Hitler attacked Russia in 1941, the Soviets fought back with such tremendous effect that they destroyed much of Germany and made colonies out of five nearby nations. They even added a chunk of Germany to their portfolio of properties and maintained their empire for half a century. But then, as Merridale says, Lenin’s journey was the scheme of a Great Power, and when Great Powers try something like this, they always get it wrong.