V. I.

Lenin

How We Arrived [1]

This article was a report to the Executive Committee of the
Petrograd Soviet made by Lenin the day after his arrival in
Petrograd on April 4 (17), 1917, on behalf of the emigrants who
returned from Switzerland together with him.

The news that the British and French governments have refused to
grant the emigrant internationalists passage to Russia has
already made its way into the socialist press.

The thirty-two political emigrants of various party affiliations
(among them 19 Bolsheviks, 6  Bundists , [2]
3 adherents of the Paris internationalist paper Nashe Slovo [3] ) who have arrived here consider it their duty to make
known the following:

We are in possession of a number of documents which we shall
publish as soon as we receive them from Stockholm (we left them
behind because the Swedish-Russian border is under the full
control of agents of the British Government), and which will
give everyone a clear picture of the deplorable role the
above-named “Allied” governments are playing in this connection. On this point we shall add only the following: The
Zurich Emigrants’ Repatriation Committee, which consists of
representatives of twenty-three groups (including the Central
Committee, the Organising Committee, the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, and the Bund), unanimously passed a
resolution stating publicly that the British Government decided
to prevent the emigrant internationalists from returning to
their native land and taking part in the struggle against the
imperialist war.

From the first days of the revolution this intention on the part
of the British Government had become quite clear to the
emigrants. At a conference of representatives of the
Socialist-Revolutionary Party (M.A. Natalison), the Organising
Committee of the R.S.D.L.P. (L. Martov), and the Bund (Kosovsky), a plan was conceived (it was proposed by L. Martov)
to obtain for these emigrants passage through Germany in
exchange for German and Austrian prisoners interned in Russia.

A number of telegrams to this effect were sent to Russia, while
steps were taken through the Swiss socialists to get this plan
put through.

The telegrams sent to Russia were held up, apparently by our
Provisional “Revolutionary Government” (or its supporters).

After waiting two weeks for an answer from Russia, we decided to
carry out the above-mentioned plan by ourselves (other emigrants
decided to wait a little longer, being still unconvinced that
the Provisional Government would do nothing to ensure the
passage of all emigrants).

The whole business was handled by Fritz Platten, a Swiss
internationalist socialist. He concluded a Carefully worded
agreement with the German Ambassador in Switzerland. The text of
this agreement will be published later. Its main points are:

(1) All emigrants, regardless of their opinions on the war,
shall be allowed passage.

(2) The railway coach in which the emigrants will travel shall
have the privileges of extraterritoriality; no one shall
have the right to enter the coach without Platten’s permission; there shall be no control either of passports or
luggage.

(3) The travellers agree to agitate in Russia that the emigrants
who have been granted passage be exchanged for a corresponding number of Austro-German internees.

All attempts on the part of the German Social-Democratic
majority to communicate with the travellers were firmly repelled
by the latter. The coach was accompanied by Platten all the
way. He had decided to travel with us to Petrograd but be has
been detained at the Russian border (Tornio)—let us hope,
only temporarily. All negotiations were conducted with the
participation of and in complete accord with a number of foreign
internationalist socialists. The protocol of the journey was
signed by two French socialists, Loriot and Guilbeaux, and by a
socialist from the Liebknecht group (Hartstein), by the Swiss
socialist Platten, the Polish Social-Democrat Broziski, the
Swedish Social-Democrat deputies Lindhagen, Carleson, Ström, Ture Nerman and others.

“ Were Karl Liebknecht in Russia now, the Milyukovs would readily
let him out to go to Germany; the Bethmann-Holiwegs let you
Russian internationalists out to go to Russia. Your business is
to go to Russia and fight there against both German and Russian
imperialism.”

That is what these internationalist comrades told us. We think
they were right. We shall make a report of our journey to the
Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies. We hope that the latter will obtain the release of a
corresponding number of internees, first and foremost the
prominent Austrian socialist, Otto Bauer, and that it will
obtain a permit for all emigrants, not only the social-patriots,
to return to Russia. We hope that the Executive Committee will
put an end also to the unheard-of state of affairs, where no
newspapers left of
Rech [4] are allowed to be sent out of the country, and even the
Manifesto of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies [5] to the workers of the world is not allowed to get into the foreign
press.

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Notes:
[1]



[2]



[3]



[4]



[5]
Lenin refers to the appeal of the Petrograd Soviet “To the
Peoples of the World”, adopted at its meeting on March 14 (21),
1917, and published the next day in the central newspapers. The
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik leaders were obliged to
issue this appeal under pressure from the revolutionary masses,
who demanded an end to the war.

The appeal called upon the working people of the belligerent
countries to come out in favour of peace. It did not, however,
expose the predatory nature of the war, did not propose any
practical steps in the fight for peace, and in effect, justified
the continuation of the imperialist war by the bourgeois

Provisional Government.