The Spark That Lit the Revolution: Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World 9781784538620, 9781838601089, 9781838601072

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution Lenin in London and the Politics that Changed the World Robert Henderson

I.B. TAURIS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, I.B. TAURIS and the I.B. Tauris logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © Robert Henderson, 2020 Robert Henderson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Adriana Brioso Cover images: [top] RKP (Russian Communist Party), 1924. Found in the collection of Russian State Library, Moscow. © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images; [bottom right] © Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images; [bottom left] © The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-7845-3862-0 ePDF: 978-1-8386-0107-2 ePub: 978-1-8386-0106-5 Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

To Sheila and Dan

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Contents

List of Illustrations  viii Note on Transliteration and Calendars  xiii Acknowledgements  xiv Frontispiece  xvii

Introduction  1 1 The little Russian island: the first castaways  9 2 ‘Lirochka’ and Lenin – the spark that lit the flame?  39 3 1902–1903: Iskra and shaping the Party  83 4 1905: a congress of conspirators  111 5 The London Congress of 1907 and the triumph of Lenin  141 6 Two last visits: 1908 and 1911  177 Postscript Apollinariya’s story  203 Appendix  215

Select Bibliography  220 Notes  232 Index  255

List of Illustrations



Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The author/publishers will be pleased to make good any errors or omissions brought to their attention.

Plates 1 P. A. Kropotkin. (Walling, Russia’s Message, 1908.) 2 Members of the Russian Free Press Fund, c. 1894. Clockwise from top: Egor Lazarev, Felix Volkhovsky, Sergei Stepniak (Kravchinsky), Nikolai Chaikovsky, Leonid Shishko. (Walling, Russia’s Message, 1908.) 3 V. L. Burtsev. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.243.0119. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 4 P. I. Rachkovsky (in bowler hat) with T. Delcassé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (right), and G. Legyues, French Minister of Instruction and the Public Arts (left), Compiègne, September 1901. (Original from unidentified Parisian illustrated journal. Reproduced in Peregudova, Politicheskii sysk.) 5 W. Melville, 1892. (Police Review.)

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6 A. L. Teplov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236M.1212. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 7 K. M. Takhtarev. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236M.1198_002_ recto. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 8 A. A. Yakubova, shortly after her arrival in St Petersburg in 1890. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 9 A. A. Yakubova (centre) with E. K. Agrinskaya (left) and Z. P. Nevzorova (right) St Petersburg 1893. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 10 A. A. Yakubova, St Petersburg Winter 1894, on completion of Women’s Courses. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 11 N. K. Krupskaya. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236G.0618. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 12 Yenisei Okhrana file photo of V. I. Lenin, Valerian Ivanovich Moravskii papers, Envelope A, Hoover Institution Archives. 13 Yuli Tsederbaum (Martov). Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.236N.1239. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 14 A. N. Potresov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, 26001.XIIIF.236J.0953. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.)

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15 L. D. Bronshtein (Trotsky). Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.236B.0155. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 16 League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, St Petersburg February 1897. Left to right: V. V. Starkov, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, A. L. Malchenko, V. I. Ulyanov- Lenin, P. K. Zaporozhets, Y. O. Martov, A. A. Vaneev. (Courtesy of the Marxists Internet Archive.) 17 A. A. Yakubova, Moscow, May 1898, shortly before leaving for exile in Siberia. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 18 V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin, Moscow 1900. (Courtesy of the Marxists Internet Archive.) 19 V. P. Nogin. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236I.0852. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 20 J. Richter (Lenin) application to the British Museum Library, 1902. (© The British Library Board, Richter letter.) 21 G. V. Plekhanov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236J.0925. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 22 and 23  V. I. Lenin, (Oulianoff). Application for admission to British Museum Reading Room, May 1908. (© The Trustees of the British Museum, Oulianoff letter) 24 V. I. Lenin, (Oulianoff). Signature in British Museum Readers’ Admissions Book, May 1908. (© The Trustees of the British Museum, Oulianoff signature.)

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25 Workman dismantling Lenin plaque at 16 Percy Circus. Morning Star, 3 August 1968. (Courtesy of The Morning Star.) 26 A. A. Yakubova with son Misha c. 1907–08. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 27 A. A. Yakubova with son Misha and husband K. M. Takhtarev, St Petersburg, Autumn 1913. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.) 28 A. I. Ulyanova-Elizarova. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.236C.0253. (Courtesy of Hoover Institution Library & Archives, Stanford University.) 29 K. M. Takhtarev, Leningrad c. 1924. © AAY Arkhiv. (Courtesy of I. B. Dudnik.)

Figures 1 2

3

4 5

Frontispiece: V. I. Ulyanov as a student, Samara, 1890 (Alamy).  xvii The Free Russian Library. (Armfelt, ‘Russia in East London’, 1, 27).  23 Russian Free Library. Library stamp. TNA HO 144/272/A59222B/21. (Courtesy of The National Archives).  24 Lenin’s advertisement seeking to exchange Russian lessons for English. (The Athenaeum, 10 May 1902).  85 Iskra (The Spark) no. 22, 1902. The first ‘London’ issue.  87 ‘Tsar to Abdicate’ (Daily Mirror, 6 April 1907).  144

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List of Illustrations

6 ‘Russian Revolutionaries Meet Secretly in Church Hall’ (Daily Mirror, 16 May 1907).  163 7 ‘Plotters against a Throne’. (Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 25 May 1907).  166 8 ‘Aliens’ Island’. (Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 6 February 1909).  187 9 ‘Lenin’ and ‘Trotsky’. (Illustrated London News, 15 December 1917).  199 10 Announcement of death of V. I. Lenin. (Pravda, 24 January 1924).  213

Note on Transliteration and Calendars Calendars Until February 1918 Russia used the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar, with the effect that the Russian calendar was twelve days behind the Western calendar in the nineteenth century, and thirteen days behind at the beginning of the twentieth century. When referring to events in Russia prior to February 1918, I have given both dates, in the form 1 (13) March 1881; 25 October (7 November) 1917. When referring to events elsewhere, I have always given the ‘new-style’ Western date. If only one date appears, it can be assumed that it is the date according to the Gregorian calendar. Transliteration Russian names for places and people used in this book are transliterated according to a simplified version of the Library of Congress system: omitting diacritical marks and, for the most part, using the single letter ‘y’ in place of LC’s recommended ‘ii’ combination. Personal Names For the ease of the English reader, individuals will usually be referred to using the names by which they are most commonly known, for example Lenin as opposed to Ulyanov, Trotsky rather than Bronstein etc.

Acknowledgements

T

he current work is, in the main, the result of almost thirty years of research work carried out in numerous archival repositories and

libraries, both in Britain and abroad, and I am indebted to the staff at these institutions for the excellent assistance they have provided over the years. On previous occasions, I have acknowledged the invaluable support of successive British Museum archivists – Christopher Date, Janet Wallace, Gary Thorn, Stephanie Clarke and Lyn Rees, and I am pleased to do so again. Similarly, I would like, once more, to express my gratitude to the staff (too numerous to mention individually) of the Rare Books and Music Reading Room and the Newsroom of the British Library in London. In addition, I would like to thank the staff from a number of other international archival repositories and libraries, in particular, Nina Ivanovna Abdullaeva and colleagues at the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow; Carol Leadenham, Ronald Bulatoff and, more recently, Bert Patenaude, Sarah Patton and Simon Ertz of the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, CA; and Tanya Chebotareva at the Bakhmeteff Archive, Columbia University, New York. Over the years I have also benefited from the encouragement, suggestions and other aid provided by a range of friends, associates and colleagues such as Christine Thomas, Katya Rogatchevskaya, Julian Putkowski, Sean Mitchell, Alan Sargeant, Phillipa Parker, Martin Dewhirst, my former lecturer at

Acknowledgements

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the University of Glasgow, Professor John Gonzalez of the Rozhkov Historical Research Centre, NSW; and Professor David Saunders of Newcastle University. I have had a long and fruitful association with the School of History at Queen Mary University of London, first as a PhD student and later as an honorary member of staff and would like to thank fellow students and staff alike for their conviviality. I am indebted above all to Dr Jonathan Smele not only for his endless support and encouragement but also for agreeing to read and suggest amendments to an early draft manuscript of this work. I must also express my gratitude to the latter in his former role as editor of Revolutionary Russia and to successive editors of that and other journals such as Solanus, The British Library Journal, Library History, The European Review of History and, indeed, Voprosy istorii KPSS in the pages of which journals some of the materials in the current book appeared for the first time. I am especially grateful to Rebecca Beasley and Phillip Bullock, for inviting me to their 2009 conference ‘Russia in Britain, 1880–1940’, and allowing me to bring Aleksei Teplov and his Free Russian Library to the attention of the public. My thanks are also due to Rhodri Mogford and colleagues at Bloomsbury Academic without whose assistance the eventful career of Vladimir Burtsev would still remain untold. I must also express my gratitude to Tom Foot for helping Apollinariya Yakubova receive the retrospective international coverage she so richly deserves. It was thanks to his May 2015 Camden New Journal article that I was able to make contact for the first time with Irina Borisovna Dudnik, Apollinariya’s great niece. I am truly honoured to have made the acquaintance of this most kind and generous woman and to have had the opportunity, recently, to meet her in person during a visit to Holland where I received a royal welcome into the home of her daughter Larissa Hilgers and her husband Ruud. I am, of course, grateful beyond words to both

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Acknowledgements

Larissa and Ruud for their hospitality and help and, especially, to Irina Borisovna for granting me permission to examine Yakubova’s remarkable diaries and letters and to publish here, for the first time, a selection of her wonderful photographs. I am sure that, like me, all of the family impatiently await the day when more of Yakubova’s papers are unearthed and her full story can at last be told. Finally, I am indebted, as ever, to my wife, Elaine, whose generosity, calmness and understanding have seen me through some challenging times. Indeed, without her support it is doubtful this book could have been written. Of course, it goes without saying that none of the abovenamed individuals or institutions are responsible for any errors or omissions which may be found herein. I alone bear responsibility for this work in its final incarnation.

V. I. Ulyanov as a student, Samara, 1890.

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Introduction

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n his reminiscence of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin, first published in 1956, N. S. Karzhansky wrote as follows: There are many literary portraits of Lenin, which give a reasonable enough description of his appearance, his face, his eyes, the way he walked, his gestures and so on. But most of these sketches are of the Lenin of 1917, or even later, when he was 47 years old or more. The Ilyich I met in 1907 was only 37 years old – a beautiful age in a man’s life. And everything he did then, he did as a young man would do, with a kind of youthful and captivating ease.1

Karzhansky – the nom de plume of the writer and dramatist Nikolai Semenovich Zezyulinsky – had a valuable tale to tell, for he had been given the honour of spending a week working alone with Lenin at the end of the Fifth (London) Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), transcribing, and helping the latter edit, his speeches and other contributions to Congress. Few, if any, of Lenin’s associates (with the exception of his wife Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya) had spent so much time with him on a one-to-one basis for such a prolonged period. Karzhansky was right to draw attention to the fact that reminiscences of the young Lenin during his early years in emigration were few and far between. In these memoirs, Lenin was often referred to as ‘the old man’ (starik) – his party name (klichka) –

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doubtless earned thanks to his outward appearance of one who was somewhat ‘older than his years’, enhanced by a prematurely receding hairline and wise, brooding eyes. But appearances can be deceptive and Karzhansky was astute enough to recognize, and to stress in his memoir, the underlying drive and dynamism which would see Lenin through some particularly difficult and turbulent times until his eventual triumphant return to Russia in 1917. Since the time of Karzhansky’s memoir, considerably more research has been carried out into Lenin’s early years in emigration in London and, fortunately, some of that work has been published in English: notable examples being Andrew Rothstein’s Lenin in Britain; Muraʹveva and Sivolap-Kaftanova’s Lenin in London; and, more recently, Helen Rappaport’s excellent Conspirator: Lenin in Exile, in which the author devotes much considered attention to the Bolshevik leader’s several visits to the British capital and provides a thorough review of the available literature on the subject.2 The present book will try to avoid going over the same ground as the above works wherever it is possible to do so without breaking the narrative flow (although that narrative will not follow a strictly chronological path!), and concentrate instead on new archival finds and other, hitherto unpublished, information relating to this ‘beautiful age’ in Lenin’s life. The book will also bring to life that, as yet largely undiscovered, London and those of its inhabitants and visitors whom the Bolshevik leader ran up against during his various stays. This is not to say that ‘Russian London’ has escaped scholarly attention. For example, much rigorous work in the field has been carried out by the likes of Sarah Young who has made it available on her excellent website. Her ‘Map of Russians in London’ is particularly valuable.3 However, as I have discovered over the years, there are numerous other memorial sites connected with Lenin and the Russian emigration waiting to be added to the list and many more fascinating episodes from his early

Introduction

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years yet to be recounted. All this and much more is to be found in these pages. My own interest in Vladimir Ilyich’s association with London has a very specific starting point. It was first sparked by a discovery I made in the archives of the British Museum at precisely 10 am on Tuesday 4 April 1989. As a young Russian curator at the British Library, I had been despatched there by the head of the Slavonic and East European Branch of the Department of the Printed Books, who had assigned me the task of bringing together all information held by the Museum on Lenin’s visits to the Library. Thus my first archival commission. After an unsuccessful first visit to the archives I feared I was destined to draw a blank, but I would soon discover that archival research has much in common with panning for gold or mining for diamonds – a lot of dross had to be extracted and discarded until, with luck, one might come across a tiny historical gem, un petit bijou d’histoire, as one recent find was described.4 And so it was with my first discovery. It was already known that Lenin had visited the ‘Museum’ on five separate occasions during his emigration in the early twentieth century but documentary evidence existed for only one of these visits: for a number of years, his 1902 letter of application for admission under the pseudonym of Dr Jacob Richter was kept on display in one of the Museum galleries. Of his other visits, however, little was known and, for some time, this lacuna had sparked the curiosity of numerous scholars (primarily, but not exclusively, Soviet). Over the years, a variety of archivists and curators had been called on to tackle the ‘Lenin question’ but without result. The admissions registers for the period had been exhaustively checked and had yielded nothing. After all, in the course of his career, Lenin had used well over 100 pseudonyms and, in addition, he and his fellow revolutionaries were not averse to using each other’s pen names when the mood took them. Moreover, there were many ways in which these Russian names

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could be rendered. I was already aware of the various transliteration systems which existed – the different ways in which countries around the world chose to transpose the Cyrillic into the Latin alphabet. The task that faced me, therefore, resembled that of trying to find a very small needle in a very large haystack (with the added difficulty that the needle had no defined shape or form). After spending many hours scanning the registers, searching fruitlessly for variations of these multiple pseudonyms, I was on the point of giving up. But then, back in my office, leafing through a volume of Lenin’s correspondence, I came across a letter he had written in the early 1900s. How he had signed that letter gave me renewed hope and so, the following morning, I was back, knocking on the archivist’s door, explaining that Lenin, whose real name was transcribed, according to the Museum’s transliteration scheme, as ‘Ulyanov’ would often, instead, use the ‘continental’ Latinized form – ‘Oulianoff ’. In other words, quite simply, might we try to search the card index again, but this time under the letter ‘O’ rather than ‘U’? To my delight, this new and breathtakingly obvious approach produced the desired result in the form of a small index card bearing the briefest of details of the admission to the Reading Room in May 1908 of one ‘Oulianoff, Vladimir’. Armed with this information, the archivist disappeared into the cavernous underbelly of the Museum and returned smiling broadly and bearing a small packet of faded brown documents tied up, as was customary archival practice, with a delicate, pink ribbon. He granted me the honour of opening the pack and, to my joy, amongst other documents I discovered a letter, written in a very neat hand but in somewhat halting English, from the said Oulianoff to the director of the British Museum, requesting a ticket of admission to the famous Reading Room. The details of this and the other documents in the bundle will be laid out in due course, but suffice it to say, Lenin’s letter requesting

Introduction

5

admission contained no information of any earth-shattering consequence. Indeed, its mundanity was such that my wife’s initial reaction on perusing a copy was that it was ‘a bit like a laundry list really’. And, in truth, it was – but it was ‘Lenin’s laundry list’ and, as such, a real ‘little historical gem’, the discovery of which would soon attract international press attention.5 I was, of course, delighted with the interest my small find had generated, but that was as nothing compared to the excitement I had felt at that precise moment of discovery: for, as I quickly realized, following Lenin’s admission, a Museum clerk must have brought all of these documents together, tied them up with that little pink ribbon, parcelled them up with hundreds of similar applications and sent them off for storage. And here was I now, some eighty years later, the first person to untie that bow, and to hold these unique manuscripts in my hand. At that point of discovery, I recall leaning back in my chair, closing my eyes and clearly seeing the young Vladimir Ilyich sitting at a desk. I saw him holding a pen, sensed him searching for the correct English words and felt the scratch of nib on rough paper. This was my first experience of the exhilaration of archival research and, fortunately, it would not be my last, for the Museum afforded me the opportunity to expand the scope of my research and, in the weeks and months to come, to uncover yet more little archival treasures, many of which will appear later in this book. As my work in the archive progressed, I came to realize that just about every other Russian revolutionary of note had visited the Reading Room at one time or another. London had been particularly popular as a place of refuge during the years 1890 to 1910, a period when the steady influx of East European Jews had been augmented by wave upon wave of Russian political activists, obliged to flee, first from persecution in their homeland and then from the new pro-tsarist policies being adopted by many of the other major West European

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states. Most, but certainly not all, of these fugitives chose to settle in the East End of the city, an area which, by the turn of the century, had already come to be known by its inhabitants as the ‘Little Russian Island’ (Russkaya ostrovka). Although, with other new arrivals choosing instead to put down their roots in other parts of the capital – in the centre, west and north – the London which greeted Lenin in 1902, might more accurately be described as a ‘Russian Archipelago’. To date, the lives of these little communities of castaways have received scant attention and it is one of the aims of this book to remedy the situation by offering the first detailed account of the life of these groups of refugees among whom Lenin lived, worked and (very occasionally) played. The reader will be offered pen portraits of a wide range of those ‘Little Russian Islanders’ and their visitors whom Lenin encountered during his various stays – from the foremost leaders of the tsarist opposition to the solitary activists of an extreme anarchist or terroristic bent. Their ever-changing relationship with the British public, press and government will be charted, as will their constant battle against not only the agents-provocateurs and spies of the tsar’s dreaded political police force, the Okhrana, but also detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard and, indeed, from other European police agencies such as the French Sûreté. This book is primarily the result of research carried out over a number of years, not only in the British Museum but in a range of other British and international archives and it is my hope that it will present an original, engaging and compulsive narrative in which many of the characters (who for a variety of reasons have been written out of history) appear for the first time. Key amongst these ‘non-persons’ is the enigmatic co-founder of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, Apollinariya Aleksandrovna Yakubova-Takhtareva, whose alleged secret love affair with Lenin has been hinted at for several decades. Here, for the first time, the association between the two –

Introduction

7

and indeed the impact it had on their respective spouses, Nadezhda Krupskaya and Konstantin Takhtarev – will be examined in detail. To date, the history of the relationship which existed between these four individuals in London has hardly received a mention, which is surprising to say the least, given that Krupskaya herself admitted that she and her husband were at the Takhtarev’s flat ‘all the time’ during their first stay in 1902–1903.6 That relationship, which began in Russia some years earlier, is certainly worthy of examination here for the new light it throws on this under-reported side of Lenin’s life and, indeed, on a particularly intriguing aspect of the man’s psychological make-up. Although she was described by contemporaries as a woman of rare beauty, until recently, no portrait of Yakubova was thought to exist, nor was much known about her life in general. In 2015 I was fortunate enough to discover such a portrait and, as a direct result of the publicity following that find, a collection of her personal papers came to light, allowing a much fuller portrait of her to be drawn. In addition, her small archive contains a number of other remarkable photographic portraits, a selection of which are published here for the first time. Readers can now form their own opinion with regard to those of Yakubova’s qualities which others, including the first leader of the Soviet Union, may, indeed, have found irresistibly attractive. But, quite apart from the Yakubova-Takhtareva revelations, the book also contains a raft of other previously unpublished information, some of which brings into question the accepted version of the young Lenin’s London years. To date, many of the Soviet leader’s biographers have raised him up as the ‘conspirator’s conspirator’ – an individual who, thanks to his meticulous planning and the extreme caution which he exercised as he moved throughout Europe in the years leading up to 1917, managed, on the whole, to avoid the attentions of the tsarist and other European police forces. Indeed, it is namely this – Lenin’s supposed mastery of the art of konspiratsiia – which historians have often put

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

forward as the reason for the dearth of information in their accounts of certain periods of his life, such as, for example, his visit to London in the spring of 1905. But, as I will show, Lenin was not always as successful in his attempts at concealment as he and his biographers might have imagined – for example, as a recent archival discovery proves, his every movement and those of his associates during his 1905 London stay were, in fact, meticulously tracked and recorded by a talented Russian police spy whose fascinating reports are detailed here – again, for the first time. By incorporating new information from a range of other archives, contemporary newspaper reports and some important and previously overlooked personal reminiscences, the book will also afford the reader fresh glimpses into all of Lenin’s six stays in the British capital from 1902 through to 1911. In 1917 and in the years of the Civil War that followed, Lenin became known for his cold-blooded ruthlessness and determination. As this book will show, the young Lenin who visited Britain in the first years of the twentieth century demonstrated, even at that early age, a similar callous single-mindedness. But before moving on to tell the story of Lenin’s London years, we must first of all set the scene. We will begin by taking an historical tour around the East End and some of London’s other émigré haunts in order to meet those of Lenin’s revolutionary compatriots who had already made the British capital their home, and to gain an understanding of the changes which ‘Russian London’ had undergone in the years leading up to his arrival. Then we shall journey back to the St Petersburg of the 1890s to examine that first decade of Lenin’s political activism, and witness the formation of his first personal and political relationships, not only with such as Nadezhda Krupskaya and Yuly Martov but also, more importantly, with Konstantin Takhtarev and his wife-to-be Apollinariya Yakubova. It is only then that Lenin’s continuing close relationship with the latter during his first years in London can be brought fully into focus.

1 The little Russian island: the first castaways Bloodhounds abroad In the spring of 1902 when Lenin first set foot on British soil he was, of course, aware that he was by no means the first Russian political émigré to cross the English Channel. He was equally conscious of the fact that, wherever his compatriots gathered, there too one would be sure to find representatives of the tsar’s political police, the notorious Okhrana. Long before March 1854, when Britain declared war on the Russian Empire and signalled the commencement of two years of hostilities in the Crimea, the British public had been warned to be on the look-out for tsarist spies in their midst. As early as 1835, a few years after the suppression of the Polish uprising by Tsar Nicholas I, a letter appeared in the London Times drawing attention to a certain Russian spy by the name of Dombrowski who had tried to pass himself off as a Polish refugee and insinuate himself into the Polish émigré community in London. The correspondent continued: The unrelenting and barbarous persecution which is carried on by the Emperor Nicholas against the unfortunate Poles who are within his reach is too well known; but the public are not so generally aware,

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

that even the free soil of Great Britain cannot shelter the heroic men who have preferred exile to submission from the effects of his ruthless hate … Not satisfied with the wholesale persecution of the unfortunate Poles in their own country, he sends his bloodhounds abroad in search of individual victims.1 Such ‘bloodhounds’ were despatched to keep a close watch not only on exiles but also on any Russian subject who happened to find himself (or herself) in a foreign country, whether for business or pleasure. As one historian commented: ‘In the drawing rooms of London and Paris he [the travelling Russian] dreads that the eyes of the secret police may be upon him.’2 But, in particular, it was the publishing activities and political activism of the early London émigrés, such as Alexander Herzen (Gertsen) and Nikolai Ogarev which were the main concern of Tsar Nicholas’s Third Section (as his Secret Police Department was then known). Herzen himself recalled the perfidious activities of the Russian spy, G. G. Peretts, and told of how his own distribution agent Trübners had dismissed a Polish employee, following the discovery that the latter had been in direct correspondence with the Russian government.3 As the Daily News commented, ‘The necessity for vigilance against treachery and spies is obvious.’4 But although such reports and reminiscences might lead one to conclude that a tsarist agent lurked on every street corner of London, the reality is that, at this time, the British network of the Third Section probably comprised no more than a handful of individuals and, even with the assistance of diplomatic staff such as F. I. Brunnov,5 its operations in the British capital were disorganized: the bloodhounds did not hunt in packs, and were failing to return the results required of them. Nicholas’s concerns with regard to the freedoms that Britain afforded such ‘political criminals’ were taken up on his succession to the throne

The Little Russian Island: The First Castaways

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by his son, Alexander II, whose eagerness to pursue his opponents beyond the borders of Russia would increase as his reign progressed and as the radical Party of the People’s Will began to adopt more direct means of protest. An indication of his anxiety was demonstrated in October 1878, when the Russian chargé d’affaires in London, M. F. Bartolomei, approached Lord Salisbury, then foreign secretary, to enquire, informally, whether the newly formed Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police might consider releasing some officers to assist in ‘the watching of the refugees who congregate in London’.6 St Petersburg had received information that certain refugees in the capital were plotting the assassination of the tsar and they wished to be informed as soon as the assassins set off for Russia.7 Bartolomei’s request caused alarm both in the Home Office and at Scotland Yard, with the chief commissioner of the Metropolitan Police producing a memorandum on the subject that day, very much deprecating any direct communication between the Russian Embassy and the police, warning that such acts of political espionage were apt to cause ‘great animosity against the government among a large class of the people’, and advising that ‘any interference with the right of asylum in this country for political refugees is sure to arouse much feeling.’8 The Home Secretary Richard Assheton Cross agreed and, consequently, Bartolomei’s request was politely declined.9 It was clear to St Petersburg that the perceived threat from London would have to be tackled without the assistance of the British police.

The agentura This was the way things stood until 1(13) March 1881 when Alexander’s reign was brought to an abrupt and bloody end (not, it should be added, from without his empire, but from within). As he

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

drove alongside the Catherine Canal in St Petersburg, a bomb was thrown at his carriage killing a soldier and injuring the driver. As the dazed tsar emerged, another bomb was thrown, killing him instantly. His assailants, Nikolai Rysakov and Ignaty Grinevitsky, assisted by the young Sofiya Perovskaya, were all members of the radical Party of the People’s Will, and this act was the culmination of a programme of terror which they had commenced some two years earlier. The ensuing reaction to the assassination was extreme, with virtually all internal opposition being quickly crushed thanks, in large measure, to the uncompromising tactics of the notorious St Petersburg chief of police, G. P. Sudeikin. However, in so doing, ‘that most brazen-faced provocateur’ effectively created a rod for his own back by forcing even more revolutionaries abroad, thereby removing them from his immediate control and supervision.10 This new, self-inflicted problem had to be tackled and so it was that, soon, reports began to appear in the British press describing how the Russian political police had arranged to despatch agents to track Russian socialists in all the principal cities of Europe, and had plans to send four to London alone.11 However, it was not until two years later, in July 1883, that Russia finally decided to set up a permanent (and illicit) Foreign Agency (Zagranichnaia agentura) in their Paris Embassy at 79 Rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement, from whence agents could be posted to any other European country, including Britain. The enterprise got off to a slow start due to incompetent management, but came into its own in the summer of 1884 with the appointment as head of Petr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, a former police informer.12 This protégé of Sudeikin was quick to put his stamp on the Agency. In an early letter to the Prefect of Police in Paris, Rachkovsky spelled out his intentions: ‘I am endeavouring to demoralize the radical émigré politically, to inject discord among revolutionary forces, to weaken them, and at the same time to suppress every revolutionary act in its

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origin.’13 It was his view that Russia’s problems lay not with Russians but with non-Russians, ‘Jews, Ukrainians, Poles and other inhabitants of Russian Lands’, and in the years to come he would provide yet more proof of these deep-rooted racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. The new head of the Foreign Agency energetically set about developing close relationships with French police, politicians, publishers and journalists. As well as inheriting some Russian police agents of long standing such as Vladislav Milevsky he also, at an early stage, recruited another of Sudeikin’s pupils, Abram Landezen (real name Avraam Gekkel´man, later known as Arkady Mikhailovich Garting).14 The latter, who will reappear in later chapters, was described as follows: ‘age about 40, height 5 ft. 6 ins., complexion, hair and eyes dark, moustache dark, short, clean-shaved. Looks more a Frenchman than a Russian. Smart appearance, excitable demeanour.’15 At the same time, Rachkovsky branched out, recruiting new native operatives, such as former member of the Sûreté, Henri Bint. Together, these agents were responsible for wrecking a range of revolutionary enterprises throughout Switzerland, but perhaps their greatest and most successful joint venture played out in Paris in the spring of 1890 when, as a result of Landezen-Garting’s provocation, a group of Russian émigrés was arrested on charges of illegal possession of explosives. The trial resulted in six of the accused receiving sentences of three years imprisonment and, although the provocateur had smartly fled the scene before any arrests were made, the judge identified him as ringleader and, in absentia, handed down the maximum sentence of five years. Following this affair, the attitude of the French government and public towards the émigré community cooled noticeably and, later that year, relations were dealt a final blow when the former head of the Russian police, General N. D. Seliverstov, was murdered in the heart of the French capital. The assassination, allegedly carried out

14

The Spark That Lit the Revolution

by a Polish socialist agitator (although some suspected the hand of Rachkovsky himself), led to a series of expulsions and marked the end of Paris as a safe haven for the Russian political emigration. Now, thanks to a combination of a strengthening of the anti-émigré policies of the governments of Austria and Germany, and the ruthless efforts of Rachkovsky and Landezen in Switzerland, the revolutionary emigration found itself with almost nowhere else to turn but London. With his quarry thus conveniently corralled, Rachkovsky deemed it time to cross the Channel and to expand his operations into the British capital.

To London In the course of the 1880s a handful of high-profile Russian revolutionaries such as Peter Kropotkin, Nikolai Chaikovsky, Vera Zasulich and Sergei Stepniak (Kravchinsky) had already sought refuge in England and had been sympathetically received by a small number of liberal-minded British men and women. (In due course, they would all, to a greater or lesser extent, come to be associated with the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom (SFRF) and the Russian Free Press Fund (Fond vol´noi russkoi pressy).) Now, in the  early years of the new decade, a similar welcome was extended to the latest batch of arrivals, not all of whom had found their journey to London a straightforward one. Feliks Volkhovsky, a former member of Chaikovsky’s revolutionary circle, had been exiled to Siberia from whence he fled eastwards via Vladivostok and Yokohama. After a prolonged stay in Canada and America, he eventually arrived in London in the summer of 1890.16 His journey to safety, however, had not been as circuitous, nor indeed as perilous, as that of the young radical journalist Vladimir Burtsev who had had the good

The Little Russian Island: The First Castaways

15

fortune to leave Paris in April 1890 only days before the mass arrest of his comrades in connection with the aforementioned bomb plot. He had intended to return to his homeland for propaganda and fund-raising purposes but realizing that he had been betrayed by Landezen, and that the Russian police were now in hot pursuit, he embarked on a remarkable catch-me-if-you-can journey which was followed anxiously by none other than Tsar Alexander III himself, who demanded that he be sent regular progress reports on the pursuit.17 The journey took the revolutionary through most of the countries of central Europe until he eventually found refuge on board a British steamship in the lower reaches of the Danube. Even then the Russian police refused to give up the chase and, accompanied by acquiescent Turkish officials, boarded the ship as it lay at anchor off Istanbul and demanded that Burtsev be handed over to them. It was only thanks to the bravery of the English captain, who steadfastly refused to surrender his charge, that Burtsev survived intact and arrived eventually to a hero’s welcome at Surrey Commercial Dock in London’s East End on 6 January 1891.18 It appeared, however, that the English capital was no longer able to provide the safety and anonymity that the revolutionaries so desired. On disembarkation Burtsev’s compatriots had spirited him off to what they confidently assumed was a safe, secret address in north London. However, within days the whereabouts of the new arrival had already been transmitted to St Petersburg, with Rachkovsky reporting that the fugitive was now to be found living with Volkhovsky at 130 St John’s Way, Upper Holloway, under the pseudonym Smith.19 It appeared that now the tentacles of the Okhrana had stretched into every corner of Europe. Indeed, earlier that month, The Times had claimed that the foreign section of the Russian Secret Police had recently been restructured and that eighty-four new agents had been added to the large staff which previously existed. According to this

16

The Spark That Lit the Revolution

report, the central office continued to be in Paris, but sub-agencies had now been created at Zurich, Berne, Geneva, Mentone and Montpellier. In addition, it claimed, there now existed a London office which was controlled from Paris.20 Whether or not the agentura had indeed grown to such a size is open to question but there is absolutely no proof that Rachkovsky had commenced formal operations in London at this early stage. According to the Russian police archives it was not until the spring of that year that the agency chief crossed the Channel with the express intention of investigating the ‘establishment of a special surveillance unit’ in the British capital. To this end he had toured the haunts of the émigrés and held a meeting at the Russian Embassy with the chargé d’affaires, Butenev.21 As for the earlier information he had obtained concerning Burtsev’s address, this had not come into his possession via some agent on the ground in London but from a letter sent by Burtsev a few days after his arrival to an old associate in Paris who, unbeknownst to Burtsev, had gone over to the enemy and was now in the pay of the Okhrana.22 It was not until April 1891 that Rachkovsky met up in Nice with the Director of Police P. N. Durnovo,23 in order specifically to discuss the expansion of operations and arrange funding that would ensure surveillance in London could be carried out effectively.24 With finances secured, he was only then able to set about the recruitment of agents. Six months later he duly reported that his London agency was fully up and running, claiming even that he had already infiltrated an agent into the local emigration. ‘Now’, he declared, ‘all the London émigrés and all those who have dealings with them are under our complete control.’25 In fact, this was something of a hollow boast, for his first undercover agent, the unfortunate Polish émigré Bolesław Maliankewicz, had proved so incompetent and unsuited to the task that he had to be quickly removed from London before he could do any further damage to the agency.

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An ill-starred spy Maliankewicz’s tale is a sad one. Born in Warsaw in 1867, he joined the ranks of the revolutionary opposition in his youth and in April 1884 gained a certain notoriety when he threw a bomb at Cracow police headquarters. In his own account of the affair, however, he neglected to mention that he had thrown the bomb at a window but missed, with the result that the device bounced back off the wall and blew up injuring no one but himself. The unfortunate bomber was immediately arrested.26 Much later, upon his release from prison, he left the country and settled in the heart of the radical emigration in London’s East End where he appears to have ‘lost the revolutionary faith’. In early 1891 he offered up his services as a spy to St Petersburg, saying he had gained the trust of Kropotkin, Lavrov, Stepniak, Volkhovsky and others in the London emigration associated with the journal Free Russia. Durnovo eagerly accepted and had Rachkovsky take him on at a salary of 200 francs a month. But even as one reads the early communiqués, it is easy to detect a lack of balance in some of the spy’s judgements. In his report of one meeting, for example, he claimed that a particularly cruel stance was adopted by none other than the artist William Morris, whose public rejection of the violence of anarchism was already widely known at the time. It is evident too, from his derogatory comments, that Maliankewicz was driven by an excessively bitter personal hatred of an elderly and much-respected Polish émigré Stanislaw Mendelssohn – ‘mon mortel anatagonist’, as he called him. Then, in the letters that followed, a sense of panic and paranoid suspicion started to creep in. It soon became apparent that the new recruit was liable to do more damage to the Agency than good and it was therefore arranged for him to be transferred to Paris, where at least, he could be kept under closer control.

18

The Spark That Lit the Revolution

Sadly, the affair ended in tragedy. Maliankewicz’s file shows that for a number of years he lived on in Paris, quietly and in considerably straitened circumstances in an asylum for the poor. Then, in 1897, Rachkovsky received a query from St Petersburg concerning a report that his former agent had confessed to his fellow émigrés that he had been in the employ of the Okhrana and had then promptly shot himself. The head of the Foreign Agency replied with a brusque telegram, stating that the deceased had indeed worked for him for a time, that he was sacked because he was ‘useless’ and that he had committed suicide solely as a result of critical financial embarrassment. A vivid example of Rachkovsky’s callous indifference to the suffering of his fellow man, be he friend or foe. Leaving aside his agent’s incompetence, Rachkovsky had been making strenuous efforts to win the cooperation of the British authorities and to gain an entrance to the British press but had failed on both counts. Following his successes in Paris, he was quite exasperated by his inability to recruit representatives of the latter to his cause and, in a report to St Petersburg, expressed his displeasure in an astonishing diatribe in which he referred to the British in general as ‘a self-seeking, dishonest nation whose sole objective, in combined agitation with our own revolutionaries, was the violent overthrow of the Supreme Power!’27 It is possible that Rachkovsky’s entire enterprise may well have crumbled before it got off the ground had it not been for a chance introduction he received to the chief inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, Mr (later, Sir) William Melville, an individual who bemoaned the ‘feeble’ attitude of his superiors towards the anarchist menace. He shared his Russian associate’s disdain of radicals of every description and was more than willing to help the latter sweep them out of the country.28 The exact degree to which the two policemen collaborated at this early stage

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19

in their relationship is open to question but it is doubtless thanks to Melville that the doors of Fleet Street were finally opened up to the Russian policeman. He, in turn, did not hesitate to make use of the opportunity, sending off defamatory articles on Stepniak and the other émigrés to compliant newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Morning Advertiser.29 Now that fortune appeared to be smiling on him, the head of the Foreign Agency did not rest on his laurels. He wrote to St Petersburg requesting, and immediately receiving, a payment of 10,000 francs to enable him to employ another sixteen surveillance agents in Europe.30 How many of these were intended for service in London is unclear, although it is known that Rachkovsky considered his operations in the British capital – ‘the second most important centre of sedition after Paris’31 – to be important enough to warrant the dispatch of one of his most trusted and longest-serving spies, Vladislav Milevsky, ‘to collaborate with the London police’. Evidently, Chief Inspector Melville’s unofficial assistance to his Russian colleague extended further than merely putting him in touch with his friends in the press: he was willing even to offer up the services of his own staff at Scotland Yard.

At the Museum Towards the end of the nineteenth century the round Reading Room of the British Museum had come to resemble a veritable club of international revolutionaries whose Russian contingent included the likes of Kropotkin, Chaikovsky, Stepniak and, of course, Burtsev.32 The Museum archives, as well as providing ample proof of the popularity of the Library amongst the Russian community, also point to the presence in the Reading Room of other individuals, both English and Russian,

20

The Spark That Lit the Revolution

whose primary purpose for admission was certainly not that of selfbetterment, but rather the covert surveillance of the émigrés at their academic labours. In December 1893, the principal librarian received a letter from young Police Constable Francis Powell of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard requesting admission to the Reading Room. He did not require it ‘for the ordinary purpose’ but, as he explained, in order to keep an eye on ‘certain persons not above suspicion’ who frequented the rooms. He added that he did not wish to disclose his identity for fear of arousing the suspicions of the suspects.33 The Museum authorities evidently had no moral objection to the request and a reader’s ticket was immediately made available. Some years later, Powell was himself recruited into the Okhrana as head of its operations in England, and one might therefore safely infer that at this time, like his superior, Chief Inspector Melville, he too had already formed close links with Rachkovsky and that the ‘certain persons’ he had in mind were members of the Russian émigré community.34 Soon afterwards, Powell arranged the admission of another of his colleagues, Detective Sergeant Michael Thorpe who, it is worth noting, actually preceded his associate as the Okhrana’s contact in London and who, on his retirement, was even awarded a pension by the Russian Department of Police.35 It is almost certain that he too, by the time he entered the Reading Room, was already in regular contact with agent Milevsky in London. But Rachkovsky was not content to rely solely on the external surveillance provided by Melville’s men, nor on the services of the ageing Milevsky: it was essential to have his own man on the inside and he therefore called into action one of his recent young Russian recruits, Lev Dmitrievich Beitner, who arrived in London from the University of Zurich in August 1894. Having previously struck up friendships with Volkhovsky and Burtsev, Beitner immediately immersed himself in the life of the émigré community, quickly gained admission to the British

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Museum – thanks, curiously, to a letter of recommendation from none other than the principal librarian himself, Richard Garnett – and began to ingratiate himself with a number of other members of the Russian Free Press Fund and their British supporters. With his agent firmly in place Rachkovsky could now, more confidently, repeat the claim made three years earlier, that all the London émigrés were under his complete control. And as we shall see, the strenuous efforts he had made to this point would soon bear fruit, playing out in a dramatic denouement under the very dome of that famous Reading Room.

Teplov and the Free Russian Library It was not only the British Museum that needed to be surveilled but also another émigré meeting place which perhaps posed an even greater threat to the Russian state. This was a small, insignificant library which had recently been founded in the heart of the East End. The library’s location in Whitechapel, one of the poorest slum areas of the capital, was anything but welcoming – as one visitor described: The neighbourhood wаs dreadful. Public houses at every step, drunks swearing everywhere. Street-sellers filled the pavements, with tramps, pickpockets and swindlers scurrying hither and thither, hanging on to their women who were dressed in rags and wearing wooden shoes on their bare feet. Somewhere, another fight broke out. The undisguised miserable poverty hid neither its ulcers nor its vices.36 The journalist Isaak Shklovsky, in one of his silhouettes of London life, left an evocative description of what visitors at the turn of the century would have encountered during their visit to the library’s premises at no, 16 Whitechapel Lane, E1. It is worth quoting here at length:

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

They arrived at a rickety-looking house, the wall of which was bellying out. Above the door hung a blue notice board with the sign ‘Russian Odessan Restaurant’ which also carried an inscription in Yiddish to the effect that the food was kosher. Below this sign was another which read Russkaia Bezplatnaia biblioteka (Russian Free Library). The entrance was anything but inviting. They had to grope their way along a dark corridor which stank of cabbage and fried fish, emanating no doubt from the restaurant. Then they had to climb a staircase which presented a dangerous ascent. Not only had someone poured dishwater down it, but many of the banisters were missing, taken, no doubt, by the poor to feed their stoves during the bitterly cold nights. On each landing were doors giving on to filthy little workshops inhabited by cobblers and tailors. The library itself, which survived solely on donations from the poor inhabitants of the area, made a disheartening impression. Everything carried the imprint of desperate poverty, or rather, destitution: the sad little tables, the rough benches and, in particular, the huge numbers of members of the public burrowing in newspapers and books (see Figure 1). Most were unemployed, poorly dressed, pale and, in all likelihood, starving, as they silently leafed through the pages of the Russian and Jewish newspapers on offer. Along the walls, rows of books were arranged on shoddilybuilt, home-made bookcases. For the library’s visitors, in this distant foreign land, these books represented a precious memento of their homeland. These poor unfortunates, driven from the ghetto by extreme poverty and sometimes by terrible bloody catastrophe, lived and breathed the memory of their homeland and cherished its language, even though most of them did not have a particularly strong command of it. A door lead from the large room into a smaller one which was even filthier and stuffier, piled up to the ceiling with books

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and dusty bundles of old newspapers. There, crouched behind a little table, a young ginger-haired lad with a delicate and sickly countenance sat engrossed in his book-binding. There too they found the librarian, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a huge black beard who carried an air of absolute authority over both rooms. Amidst all of these stunted, sickly sons of the ghetto, he appeared as a colossus.37 The gentleman in question was Aleksei Lʹvovich Teplov, another of those revolutionary giants of the London emigration whom time has chosen to forget. It is remarkable, indeed, given the major role he played in the Russian East End, how rarely his name is to be found in histories of the period. As a young student in Russia in the 1870s, Teplov

Figure 1  The Free Russian Library. (Armfelt, ‘Russia in East London’, 1, 27).

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The Spark That Lit the Revolution

had become involved in spreading socialist propaganda amongst the railway workers of Penza province until his arrest and exile to Siberia. Fleeing to the west in the late 1880s, he had played an active role in the terrorist wing of the movement and had been one of those implicated in the 1890 Paris Bomb Plot. In February of that year in a forest on the outskirts of Paris, the unfortunate revolutionary received a serious wound to the thigh caused by the premature explosion of one of the experimental bombs he had been testing. And his misfortunes did not end there for, a few months into his convalescence, in the early hours of the morning of 29 May, he was one of those rudely awoken by the French police and taken into custody on charges of illegal possession of explosives. On his release from prison in 1893 and with the help of his old comrade Vladimir Burtsev, he crossed the Channel and settled in London. Here it was that, having apparently abandoned his

Figure 2 Russian Free Library. Library stamp. TNA HO 144/272/ A59222B/21.

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flirtation with terrorism, Teplov decided to renew his work in raising the political consciousness of the masses: this time among the East European Jewish immigrant workers in Whitechapel. It proved to be a long and difficult task but eventually, some five years after his arrival, on 13 July 1898, he was able to announce the opening of his Free Russian Library and Reading Room at 15 Whitechapel Road, Stepney (see Figure 2). The foundation of the library had been achieved thanks in the main to the moral and financial support of Teplov’s fellow revolutionaries in exile such as Burtsev, Chaikovsky and V. G. Chertkov, Tolstoy’s literary agent and disciple newly arrived in Britain. But finding continued funding from a community which was itself impoverished was always going to prove problematic. Teplov turned, therefore, to his homeland with an appeal in which he explained that his intention was to give his impoverished fellow workers in the East End ‘the opportunity to maintain a spiritual relationship with their mother country and to retain contact with its literature and life’. His appeal, evidently, met with some limited success for, by the turn of the century, he had managed to relocate his business a few hundred yards along the road to the house at 16 Whitechapel Lane.38 Soon thereafter, having received additional support from certain local benevolent societies and individuals, the library developed into the cultural hub of the Russian East End. Apart from engaging in purely library matters, the staff arranged cultural excursions for the local community to museums, zoos and botanical gardens and organized entertainments of an educational nature for children. The Free Library also acted as an employment agency, advertising the services of experienced foreign language teachers and generalists, competent translators from and into all European languages, good copyists, guides, and so on. Indeed, the point had now been reached when Teplov had almost adopted the mantle of Alexander Herzen

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– a visit to whom had been considered obligatory for any Russian passing through London. Now, as the new century approached, the Free Russian Library in Whitechapel had gained such fame that it had become one of the top attractions for Russian visitors to the capital, especially if they happened to be of a radical bent. As a result, it also attracted the attention not only of certain other individuals, mainly in the employ of the Okhrana, but also of the CID and the French Sûreté.

A hotbed of revolution The archives of the Sûreté Générale in Paris contain a series of fascinating reports compiled by one of their London agents in early 1902, in which he described the ‘Whitechapel Group’ as being one of the main Russian political émigré associations in England,39 and in which he claimed that the Free Library was the ‘rallying centre of the Russian revolutionary movement in London’. Moreover, Teplov, the manager of the library, was deemed to be ‘one of the most influential members of the revolutionary party here’.40 The un-named police agent also submitted copious newspaper extracts and a variety of notices and handbills advertising a range of entertainments offered by and on behalf of the library. But he went on to provide much more alarming news when he described how Teplov was offering courses in practical chemistry and giving instruction in complex substances and in formulas for nitro-glycerine. Furthermore, he reported on the group’s plans to organize Sunday trips to the countryside and, in passing, offered his own opinion that such excursions might give ‘to those revolutionaries following a higher calling, the opportunity to perfect their skills in the manipulation of chemical compounds by carrying out open-air experiments’.41According

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to this agent, then, Teplov, the notorious Paris bomber, was in fact still practising his black art under the guise of mild-mannered librarian. However, there is no evidence in any of the archives I have examined thus far which would substantiate such an allegation. And of course, it was not only the Sûreté who took an interest in the activities of the Free Library. The principal tsarist agent in the capital at this time was a French citizen by the name of Jean Edgar Farce (whose exploits and contacts with Lenin and his Social Democrats will be described in detail later). His meticulous reports to his superiors in the Foreign Agency in Paris covered the activities of all the revolutionaries in London and in much more detail than his counterpart in the Sûreté.42 This was thanks primarily to the close working relationship he had established with officers in Special Branch. In a later report he described how, thanks to his ability to read and understand Yiddish, he was able to pass on information from the local newspapers to Scotland Yard officers who in turn passed on information that would otherwise have been impossible for him to obtain. The agent’s detailed submissions on Teplov, in particular, were helped by the fact that, as he proudly boasted, one of his informants was ‘a regular reader at the Russian Library’.43 This would have come as no surprise to the émigrés who were well aware of spies in their midst. One young Social Democrat worker who was a regular attendee at the lectures arranged by the library recalled how ‘Russian spies swarmed around the platform and how Teplov would ignominiously grab them by the collar and throw them out.’44 Teplov himself was later interviewed by the London Daily News for a long item describing the arrival in London of ‘a special staff of Russian Police spies’. He had shrugged it off saying: ‘“We are used to spies by this time. A few extra cannot make a difference to us.” And he laughed merrily as he recalled some of his own experiences with the detectives.’45

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The Burtsev affair It had been a matter of great regret to Teplov that one of the main champions of his library had not been present to see it open to the public. His absence, however, had been unavoidable for, by that point, in the summer of 1898, Vladimir Burtsev had already spent some six months languishing in a British prison. The quite remarkable story of how he ended up there, as the first Russian revolutionary to be thus incarcerated, is one which should feature prominently in any history of Russian London. Rachkovsky’s new agent in London, Lev Beitner, had been in post for over a year when, on Christmas Eve 1895, the émigré community suffered a devastating loss with the tragic and inexplicable death of Sergei Stepniak when he was knocked down by a train at a level crossing in north west London. Although from eye-witness accounts it was clear that this was a tragic accident, pure and simple, it did not prevent the appearance of a scurrilous news story claiming that the writer had somehow been lured to his death by a mysterious English woman in the pay of the Russian secret police.46 Although this was unquestionably a ‘tale of cock and bull’ as the journal Free Russia described it, the removal from the scene of one of the most formidable opponents of the tsarist regime would doubtless have been welcomed by Rachkovsky and his London agents who could now redirect their energies towards other targets among whom Burtsev loomed largest.47 Since his escape from Siberian exile in July 1888, Burtsev had been near the top (if not at the very top) of the Foreign Agency’s most-wanted list but, despite Rachkovsky’s best efforts, the young revolutionary had always succeeded in slipping through his fingers. Having once more survived a police pursuit – this time through the Balkans, as described earlier – Burtsev settled in London where he

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was mostly to be found, as was the Russian custom, in the British Museum under the dome of his beloved Reading Room. Indeed, one of the first products of his labours was an excellent thirty-page article entitled simply, ‘The British Museum’ which appeared under the pseudonym N. Viktorov, in the respected Russian journal The Historical Messenger.48 This was the first full description of the Library’s holdings by a Russian and was written, quite clearly, as a guide to the collections for the ever-increasing numbers of his fellow revolutionaries who were now washing up on the shores of the Thames (prior to their arrival Lenin and his comrades would almost certainly have been among those who had familiarized themselves with this informative article). Burtsev’s main academic preoccupation during this period, however, was a collaborative project with Stepniak involving the compilation of materials for a history of political and social movements in nineteenth-century Russia. (Unfortunately, the latter had passed before the volume eventually saw the light of day in 1897, under the title A Century of Political Life in Russia (1800–1896).49) Lenin himself is known to have made heavy use of this ‘essential work of reference for every Russian radical’ in one of his later articles.50 And the book was not only popular amongst revolutionaries – no less a figure than S. E. Zvoliansky, the new director of the Department of Police, showed he was a believer in the old maxim ‘know your enemy’ by asking for ten copies to be sent to him and, two months later, placing an order for ten more.51 Burtsev then turned his full attention to a project long in gestation – namely, the publication of a new radical journal Narodovolets (Member of the Party of the People’s Will) which called for the resumption of revolutionary activities, including terrorist acts, within Russia, and roundly censured Lenin’s nascent Social Democrats for their lack of support which, the editor believed, was responsible for the current lull in such activities. The first issue appeared in

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April 1897 and created quite a storm, not only among his political opponents but also among some of the leading émigrés in London who, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety which still gripped Europe following the anarchist outrages of recent years, were highly unlikely to be persuaded openly to declare support for terrorist acts, whether confined to Russian soil or not. Meanwhile, in St Petersburg, Director of Police Zvoliansky was instructed to draw up a detailed plan that would ensure the troublesome editor could be brought to justice once and for all.52 Rachkovsky was assigned to the task and immediately called on the assistance of his old acquaintance Melville at Scotland Yard. Rachkovsky and his masters followed the chief inspector’s counsel to the letter which resulted, on 16 December 1897, in Burtsev’s dramatic arrest in the vestibule of the Reading Room of the British Museum itself. The charge, engineered jointly by Melville and the Russian Police, was that of ‘unlawfully encouraging certain persons whose names were unknown, to murder his Imperial Majesty Nicholas II, Emperor of the Russias’.53 With liberal London exploding in protest at this self-evident setup, concocted at the behest of the Russian tsar, the British authorities rushed to complete proceedings and, two months later, Burtsev was brought to trial at the Old Bailey where he was found guilty as charged. The judge handed down the maximum penalty permissible by law of eighteen months solitary confinement with hard labour. Again, despite numerous pleas for clemency from the émigré community and their British supporters, Burtsev would be obliged to serve his sentence, in full, in Pentonville Prison and later in Wormwood Scrubs. The

revolutionary’s

autobiography

contains

a

powerful

reminiscence of his time in detention and the appalling conditions he endured.54 It was the opinion of this man, already familiar with the rigours of prison life in Russia, that the British regime was by far the harsher of the two, and incomparably more severe than the

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French system: unlike the Maison de la Santé prison in Paris where prisoners could smoke, take walks together and were even allowed spirit stoves in their cells, life in Pentonville was quite another story with its solitary confinement, hard-labour, the indignities of the slopping-out bucket, the bed of bare boards and the constant threat of further punishment.55 As a direct result of such appalling conditions Burtsev’s health collapsed and, on his eventual release in July 1899, he was found to have contracted tuberculosis. Advised to seek an immediate rest cure on the coast where he could breathe in the salty sea air, his friends dispatched him to Christchurch on the south coast to where Vladimir Chertkov had recently relocated his Tolstoyan colony. There, from early morning to late at night, the invalid was to be found sitting by the seashore, wrapped in a shaggy plaid blanket. However, unable to rest, he was soon back in London, engaged once more in his studies at the Museum. His labours, however, were soon interrupted when he again fell seriously ill and was obliged to leave London for a prolonged rehabilitation in the Swiss mountains.56 This effectively brought an end to Burtsev’s lengthy residence in Britain, a stay which had witnessed quite a remarkable societal change in the country. Whereas in 1891, the revolutionary had experienced the warmth of that welcome which Britain had traditionally extended to political refugees; as the decade progressed, he witnessed a distinct rise in British anti-alienism – first, solely on social and economic grounds but then hijacked for political ends. By the time of his arrest, public opinion had already swung violently against immigration, while the long-cherished British policy of political asylum itself was coming under attack. This change in attitude towards aliens in general resulted, a few years later, in calls for their total exclusion from Britain which was, to all intents and purposes, the effect achieved by the Aliens Act of 1905, despite claims that political refugees were explicitly excluded from its remit. Those few who opposed the introduction of

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the Act rightly saw in it ‘a measure, calculated to stir up anti-foreign feeling and race prejudice, a reactionary measure that would bear very harshly on the victims of political or religious persecution’.57 But such warnings fell on deaf ears. The Act was duly passed and came into force on 1 January 1906. In 1891 Burtsev had, with some relief, arrived in Britain, the only remaining place of political asylum in Europe. By the time he returned to Russia in 1905, he and his associates had already witnessed the sad demise of that last refuge.58 This, then, was the direction in which Britain was already heading when a new wave of Russian Social Democratic revolutionaries led by Lenin arrived in London in the early years of the century. And it is possible that it was this change in societal attitude which caused the Bolshevik leader such problems on his arrival – such as the difficulties he encountered in gaining entry to the Reading Room of the British Museum: out of the ninety or so applications I have come across from revolutionaries of all descriptions, the Museum authorities demanded a second reference only twice, and on both of these occasions it happened to be Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov-Lenin who was applying for admission.

The Richters arrive Considering he had only recently completed a term of exile in Siberia, the young Lenin had encountered surprisingly little resistance from the authorities when, in May 1900, he applied for a visa to leave Russia (on the pretext of seeking medical treatment for his ulcer problems and of continuing his studies). Two months later, having said farewell to his family and bidden au revoir to his wife who, like him, had also been exiled but who was still serving out her term, he crossed the Russian border on his way to Switzerland to visit Plekhanov and

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others in the ‘Emancipation of Labour Group’ to discuss plans for a Marxist newspaper, which he had drawn up while still in Siberia. In September he moved to Munich where he established his centre of operations and in late December 1900 saw his plans come to fruition at last with the appearance of the first issue of his newspaper Iskra (The Spark) – a title, incidentally, which pointed to Lenin’s great admiration for the participants in the revolt of December 1825. The newspaper’s motto, ‘From a spark a flame will flare up!’, was taken from the poem ‘The Decembrists’ Answer’ written by one of those who took part in the uprising, the exiled poet Alexander Odoevsky in response to Pushkin’s impassioned poem of support for their revolutionary cause, ‘Deep in Siberia’s Mines’. On completion of her sentence in April 1901, Krupskaya too was allowed to leave Russia and headed for Munich to be reunited with her husband. Over the next year or so, with her help, Lenin and his co-editors (Georgy Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich, Yuly Martov, Aleksandr Potresov and Pavel Axelrod) succeeded in producing a total of twenty-one issues of the newspaper, first on a monthly and then on a bi-monthly basis, with an average print-run of 8,000, and occasionally topping 10,000, until pressure from the German police obliged them to move operations. The group was divided on where they should select for their next base with Plekhanov and Axelrod expressing an obvious preference for Switzerland. Lenin, however, had already opted for London. The reasons behind this choice are unclear. Lenin had never visited England before and had little proficiency in the language. At that time, London was the virtual home of his ‘economist’ enemies and there were very few ‘orthodox’ Russian Social Democrat voices to be found there. Moreover, he had no English Marxist contacts whatsoever. Perhaps he wished to make use of the riches of the British Museum Library, or simply wanted to escape the attentions of the Okhrana

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and take advantage of that hospitality towards political refugees for which Britain was famed. Alternatively, he may have had another reason entirely. For it is quite possible that he was keen to renew an ‘old friendship’ with a certain dear comrade whom he had not seen since his release from prison in St Petersburg in February 1897 and who, he knew, was now resident in London. Was there perhaps in London another spark which Lenin hoped could be rekindled into a flame? However that may be, and for whatever reason (or reasons), as was now becoming usual, Vladimir Ilyich got his way – London it would be. And so it was that around the middle of April 1902 he and Krupskaya, his dutiful wife, disembarked from a cross-channel ferry at Dover and set foot on British soil for the first time. The minutely detailed official Soviet chronicle of Lenin’s life, which runs to thirteen substantial volumes, can only narrow their date of arrival down to between Sunday 13 and Thursday 17 April (although another source claims it was Monday 14 April).59 Similar uncertainty surrounds their exact point of arrival in London. Some say Victoria station, others Charing Cross. Unfortunately, British police records are of no help here, which is surprising given the numerous instances of contemporaneous, meticulously detailed police reports on the crosschannel arrival and onward travel of other Russian radicals of much lesser import than Lenin. One such example from the archives of ‘the Met’ concerns the arrival from France in October 1900 of the Russian anarchist Ivan (John) Lebedinsky.60 The police file begins with a report from that same PC Francis Powell, whom we encountered earlier in the British Museum but who, having reached the rank of sergeant, was now stationed in Dieppe. His report described Lebedinsky arriving on the evening boat train from Paris and boarding the SS Sussex bound for New Haven. Powell pointed Lebedinsky out to the purser and gave

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him a note to pass on to the officer in charge at New Haven. When the ferry arrived, the officer interviewed the Russian who told him he was going to take up a job in a newspaper with the Tolstoyan Vladimir Chertkov who was, at that time, still living at an address in Croydon. A telegram was sent to New Scotland Yard alerting them to Lebedinsky’s departure on the Victoria portion of the morning boat train. On arrival in London he was met by two PCs who tracked him first to a café on Oxford Street where he had breakfast, thereafter to London Bridge Station and thence to Forest Hill and to the home of the Russian revolutionary Hesper Serebriakoff at 53 Siddon Road.61 Given that such meticulous tracking of suspect aliens by the Yard was by no means uncommon, the question arises of how Lenin, head of a vast network of Russian political activists, managed to avoid detection so easily. Opinions vary. Some put it down to his mastery of ‘konspiratsiia’, which to the Russian has a specific meaning of ‘underground secrecy’ or ‘secrecy or stealth in avoiding detection’.62 Others claim that at this early stage of his career, Lenin’s role as de facto leader of the Russian Social Democrats was not widely known. Yet others take his unusual ability to move freely around Europe as further evidence of his cosy relationship with the Russian police – an intriguing accusation which we shall examine in due course. But, whichever the railway terminus was, we do at least know that there to meet the couple was Nikolai Aleksandrovich Alekseev, a political acquaintance from their St Petersburg days who, like them, had been arrested for his activism but who, unlike Lenin and most of his other comrades, found Siberian exile impossible to bear and therefore made his escape in 1899, arriving the following January in England.63 He settled in a flat in north London near King’s Cross Station at no. 49 Sidmouth Street which he described as ‘one of the slum streets of London’. However, the location evidently suited him since, in the census of the following year, ‘journalist/author Nicholas Aleksieev’ was

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listed as one of four lodgers of Mr and Mrs Freemantle who lived next door at no. 47.64 Sidmouth Street ran along the south side of Regent Square, an area which had been associated with East European radicals since at least the early 1850s when no. 38 on the north side served as home to the Polish Democratic Press and also temporarily housed Alexander Herzen’s Free Russian Press when it first started production in 1853.65 There are also documents dating from 1885 linking Sergei Stepniak to no. 45 on the east side, although whether he lived there or merely used the house as a correspondence address is unknown.66 Despite its location in the very centre of the capital and its proximity to one of London’s busiest railway terminals, Regent Square, with its two churches and twelve majestic London plane trees, had about it (and still has) an air of tranquillity, and it was doubtless the peaceful atmosphere of the area (and the fact that it was a mere ten-minute walk away from the British Museum and its famed library) that served as an attraction to Herzen and Stepniak in their time just as it did to Alekseev in his. And it was to this seemingly ideal spot that the latter now conducted his two newly arrived charges. However, the address in question was known; not only known to a small handful of East European revolutionaries, but had, in fact, come to the attention of the British public some ten years earlier and, as a result, still retained a reputation of some notoriety. As some of the older residents could have testified, serenity had not always reigned in Regent Square.

Tragedy in the Square In the early hours of Thursday 21 September 1893, the tranquillity of Regent Square had been shattered as four pistol shots rang out. Later that morning the national newspapers carried the shocking tale of a dreadful crime of passion which had cost three young

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lives. The press pack then moved on from the square to the Coroner’s Court from where there emerged details of the horrific murders of Bessie Montague, a 23-year-old chorus singer at a West End theatre who lived at no. 18 Regent Square, and her male companion, Samuel Garcia, a 26-year-old stockbroker, and also of the suicide of Leo Percy, a 26-year-old electrician who had been engaged to marry Miss Montague until the latter terminated the arrangement three years earlier. On the night in question, the jilted lover had lain in wait in the Square and had accosted Miss Montague and her companion on their return. Percy produced a pistol and, as his former fiancée tried to flee, shot her in the back. He fired his next bullet at Garcia as he too tried to escape but it missed and went through his hat. The third, however, hit the unfortunate Garcia in the back of the head. Percy had then, evidently, placed the pistol in his own mouth and, with his fourth shot, had committed suicide. A letter he had written to his father some ten days before the tragic events occurred was later found on his body. It read as follows: My dear Father – I have no doubt that by the time you receive this you will know all, if what I expect occurs. I can bear it no longer. The pain and humiliation is too great, so it is best ended. I determined long ago that no other one should have her. I am sorry if I give you pain but there is nothing I can live for now. My best love to all. – Your affectionate son, Leo.67 This tale of tragic, unrequited love had unfolded almost ten years before Lenin’s arrival and there is no reason to suppose that he would have been informed of the Square’s dark history. Had he known, however, it is possible he may have paused to reflect on the irony of the situation given the identity of two of the inhabitants who lived nearby.

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There are conflicting accounts of what happened following Lenin’s arrival in the Square. It is known that he and Krupskaya lived for just over a week near to Alekseev’s lodgings in a ‘dormitory room’ rented out by the poor owners of the flat, but it is unclear who had made these arrangements on their behalf. Many historians have relied heavily on Alekseev’s reminiscence, in which account he himself claims responsibility not only for finding accommodation for the new arrivals but also for helping Lenin set up his newspaper and even for arranging his admission to the British Museum. (The German Socialist Max Beer was another of those who would later claim responsibility for helping Lenin arrange the printing of Iskra in London.68) However, there is another version, confirmed in part by Krupskaya herself, in which it is pointed out that, in reality, most of the assistance offered to the new arrivals was supplied by an enigmatic young Russian émigré couple who, on their arrival in London a few years earlier, had adopted the pseudonyms of Robert and Paulina Tar. They had moved into Regent Square the year before Lenin’s arrival and had taken up residence at no. 20, just two doors away from the scene of the horrendous murders and suicide described above. Although both Robert and his young schoolteacher wife have received occasional mentions in histories of the period, the full extent of the help they offered Lenin and Krupskaya, both as welcoming party and as much more besides, has been either overlooked, ignored or more likely, as I will argue below, deliberately obscured and suppressed.69 To date, the history of the complex, and at times stormy, relationship which existed between the two couples has hardly received a mention and it is certainly worthy of examination here for the new light it throws on an under-reported period of Lenin’s life and on an intriguing aspect of his psychological make-up. However, to fully understand the nature of this relationship it is necessary, first, to travel back some ten years to the Russian capital, St Petersburg.

2 ‘Lirochka’ and Lenin – the spark that lit the flame? Mr and Mrs Tar Robert Tar – or to give him his real name Konstantin Mikhailovich Takhtarev (he simply used the middle syllable of his surname as an alias) – had attended St Petersburg University and the Medicomilitary Academy in the early 1890s and had become an energetic organizer of a Marxist students’ and workers’ study circle. He was already acquainted with Lenin having met him on two previous occasions. Their first encounter was at a workers’ meeting in St Petersburg in November 1895. Takhtarev recalled that, thanks to Lenin’s intelligence, selflessness and dedication, he soon won the respect of all present at the meeting. But the political views of the two would soon diverge to such an extent that when they next met in Munich in 1900, Lenin already regarded Takhtarev as an outright enemy and the very personification of ‘economism’, that deviant interpretation of Marxism which, Lenin believed, had to be

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crushed at all costs.1 However, despite these polarized views, and despite that attitude of belligerence which Lenin habitually showed towards those who disagreed with him and for which he was already renowned, on this occasion, much to Takhtarev’s surprise, Lenin behaved with courtesy and consideration, showing great respect towards his guest who, when recalling the meeting in 1924, shortly after Lenin’s death, wondered if, ‘perhaps the reason for his comradely attitude toward me was certain personal ties which we had in common.’2 In fact, as Takhtarev was fully aware, there could have been no other possible explanation for the friendliness of the reception he had received. In referring to the ‘certain personal ties’ they shared, he had in mind Lenin’s long-standing relationship with the remarkable young woman whom Takhtarev had only recently married and who, on her arrival in the British capital, had adopted the name Paulina Tar. This was Apollinariya Aleksandrovna Yakubova who, in Soviet history text books, occasionally received a passing mention as one of the co-founders, together with Lenin, Martov and others, of the St Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class – the forerunner of the RSDLP. But, if Yakubova’s name is known at all to the wider Western public, it is doubtless in relation to the claim, first made in print in 1964 by the American journalist Louis Fischer and repeated by numerous biographers since, that the young Lenin had proposed to her and had been turned down.3 Although Fischer admitted that ‘such matters cannot be documented’, the rumour has persisted, fuelled, no doubt, by reports that Yakubova was something of a beauty. From reminiscences of her contemporaries it is clear that, quite apart from her indomitable spirit and boundless energy, she possessed numerous other qualities that would attract even the most stony-hearted individual. In one such memoir, she is described as:

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A marvellous person, intelligent, staunch, decisive and unusually truthful. Insincerity was completely foreign to her. She had a crystal-pure nature and was such a hard worker. She was one of the best teachers at the Sunday School for workers […] and recruited workers from there for the revolutionary propaganda circles. From the very foundation of the League of Struggle, she was one of its most active and devoted members. Broad-shouldered, with fair hair and small, sparkling brown eyes and a bright glowing complexion, she was the very embodiment of health. She exuded a fresh fragrance of meadow grasses. We called her the ‘primeval force of the black earth’.4 The mystery that surrounded Yakubova and her alleged dalliance with the Bolshevik leader was further deepened by the commonly held belief that has persisted for some considerable time, that no portrait of this enigmatic young woman had survived and that, therefore, no concrete proof existed of that beauty which may or not have been the cause of the first stirrings of passion in the heart of the young Lenin. It was only as recently as 2 May 2015 that the public were first made aware that the mystery had at last been solved when the Independent newspaper published a long-lost photograph of the young revolutionary dating from May 1898.5 The previous month, during a visit to the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) in Moscow, where I was engaged in quite another research project, I had had the good fortune, almost accidentally, to stumble across the photograph in question. The discovery of this petit bijou d’histoire caused quite a stir internationally with the story appearing in a range of newspapers worldwide. In Russia alone it was picked up by over seventy newspapers and other news providers, showing that, despite the shift in political affiliations within Russia, the life of V. I. Lenin still excited at least some interest. In truth, I had actually

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‘solved the mystery’ two years earlier when, in the catalogues of a St Petersburg photographic archive, I had come across another likeness of Yakubova in a group portrait dating from an earlier period. I brought that discovery to the attention of a small group of historians at a conference in January 2014.6 But it was only at a later date that I found out Yakubova’s likeness had, in fact, already appeared in print on at least two occasions: first as a small sketch in an appendix to a 1926 history of the Bolsheviks and then, in 1972, as a slightly larger reproduction of the same sketch in a collection of reminiscences covering Lenin’s early St Petersburg period.7 And so, in the end, there never had been a ‘Yakubova enigma’ – her image had existed in the public domain almost since the time of the revolution but, nevertheless, that particular 1898 photograph of a pale and sickly, yet defiantly beautiful Yakubova, seemed perfectly to capture the young woman’s unconquerable spirit.

A black earth childhood Apollinariya Aleksandrovna Yakubova was born in 1869 into the family of a priest in Vologda province, some 500 kilometres to the north east of Moscow. Almost nothing was known of her early years until relatively recently when a set of her diaries came to light.8 From these one learns of a childhood spent in a caring and loving environment. Her mother, in the course of her fifty years, endured the agonies of childbirth on numerous occasions, but only three of her children survived to adulthood – Apollinariya, and her two younger siblings, Lyubovʹ and Vladimir. The family unit also included a grandmother and a vibrant young revolutionary aunt by the name of Liliya (Elizaveta Irineevna Speranskaya-Elokhovskaya) who was only a few years older than

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Apollinariya and who had a huge influence on the development of her niece’s political awareness. Liliya was closely associated with such local revolutionary luminaries as Herman Lopatin, and other members of the ‘Party of the People’s Will’ who either had been exiled to Vologda or were passing through on the way to their final destination in Siberia. Soon the young Apollinariya was introduced to her aunt’s comrades and to their radical views and thus were sown the seeds of a revolutionary consciousness. Among other fascinating materials, Yakubova’s diaries contain an account of the evening of 1 March 1881 when, as a twelve-year-old, she heard of the assassination earlier that day of Tsar Alexander II, and of how the shocking news was received by the town at large – how it grieved members of her family, while having quite the opposite effect on her aunt and her band of transient ‘politically untrustworthy’ acquaintances, some of whom, reportedly, ran around the town that night, brandishing red flags and inciting the people to rise up.9 It was not long afterwards that young Polly’s aunt entrusted her with the safe-keeping of a range of forbidden revolutionary books and underground journals, the illicit reading of which transported her for the first time into an exciting new world: An unknown world of heroic exploits and incredible tortures that were commonplace ‘there’. I got hold of biographies of Sofiya Perovskaya, Gesya Gelʹfman and other brave participants in the events of 1 March, and also read vivid descriptions of the torments to which the prisoners in the ‘Fortress’ were subjected. I recall in particular a poem describing the sufferings of a pregnant woman who had been locked up there. These all made a tremendous and shocking impression on me. And, amidst all of those horrors, there stood out in sharp relief the saintly image of Sofiya Perovskaya and, for the first time, the desire for heroism in the name of the good of the people sank its roots into my child’s heart.10

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The young revolutionary’s political and social development was also aided in no small measure by a father whose outlook was remarkably modern for the time, and who was determined that his daughters should not suffer the fate common to other provincial girls who spent their early years in blissful, uneducated ignorance, only then to be quickly married off. Indeed, on one occasion, having been approached by a would-be suitor, Apollinariya’s father had replied that it was not for him to answer on behalf of his daughter and that, if the young fellow wished it, he should contact her directly. He declared that, as a father, his only concern was that he should do his utmost to accommodate his daughter’s wishes. Apollinariya thanked him for this most dignified response and asked him to pass on her categorical refusal to the impudent youngster in whichever form he considered most appropriate. This was the first time Apollinariya had turned down a proposal of marriage, but it would by no means be the last. It is interesting that, in her autobiography, Apollinariya goes out of her way, not only to describe another approach made to her a few months earlier, but also, almost apologetically, to attempt to explain her reasons for disappointing the suitor in question. The unfortunate individual on this occasion was a young, somewhat plain-looking schoolteacher who, however, made up for his lack of beauty by a rare musical talent. Apollinariya described how, ‘under his bow the violin positively sang and wept with the beauty of a human voice and, at such times, his plain features could be transformed to the point where he became almost quite attractive’. As a great admirer of the violin, Apollinariya loved to hear him play. She wondered, however, whether it may have been due to her overly enthusiastic response to one of his performances that he managed to pluck up the courage to sit down beside her, take her by the hand, and ask if she might be capable of falling in love with him and becoming his wife.

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I jumped up as if stung. All of that rapturous mood which his playing had just inspired in me suddenly vanished without trace. I was left with nothing but a feeling of cold indignation. ‘How dare you ask me such a question? I am, after all, a mere girl compared to you! I have no thoughts of marriage – not with you nor with anyone else. I do not love you and never will. You must put it from your mind!’ Recalling the incident in her adult years, Yakubova still seemed to betray a certain sexual naivety: Thinking back now to the kind of girl I was in high school, I find it hard not to be amazed at how such youngsters could take it into their head to ask me to marry them. After all, at that time, I was still a mere girl in the physical sense – granted, a healthy and quite pretty girl, but still with the face of a complete child. It was only some two years later, after I had left high school, that I matured and fully developed physically.11 It is unfortunate that there are no direct references in what remains of Yakubova’s diaries to her reported refusal of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, but the examples above indicate that the general topic was, at least, of some interest to her when she sat down in the final decade of her short life to commit her recollections to paper.

Lirochka and Ilyich – a St Petersburg affair Apollinariya had much more for which to thank her father (and indeed her mother). The simple, frugal life they led inspired in her feelings of indifference to the material side of life. They also left her with a great love and respect for physical labour. No kind of work,

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irrespective of how lowly or dirty it was, could shame either of her parents – if it had to be done, they would do it. That same attitude towards physical labour remained with Apollinariya throughout her life to the point that acquaintances and friends would refer to her as ‘a democrat not only in word but in deed – a natural democrat’.12 Yakubova accepted the compliment and, at times, was quite bemused by her friends’ attempts to adopt the same fully democratic approach to life but who found it so terribly difficult to achieve. However, while she respected physical labour and appreciated its true value, she never became fixated by it, unlike certain of her comrades. Indeed, she recalled the almost fetishistic, reverential awe in which some of her friends held the ‘Working Man’ for the simple reason that he was a ‘proletarian’ – a representative of so-called black labour. Yakubova did not specify which of her ‘friends’ she had in mind though, as we shall see, certain of her personal letters provide clarification. But Apollinariya also admitted to other characteristics inherited from her father, which were, perhaps, not so praiseworthy – namely, an inflexible iron will which, on occasion, led her to deeds of cruelty and a fiery temper which sometimes resulted in her committing acts that she would later bitterly regret. She also inherited her father’s almost child-like trust in other people which, she admitted, in the course of her life, would cause her much personal grief and suffering.13 But of all her father’s gifts, the most precious by far was that of education for which he scrimped and saved to bestow on her. At his expense, not only she and her sister, but also her aunt were despatched to the highly regarded Mariinsky High School in Vologda to continue their education, an event quite unheard of in the history of their small village. Apollinariya was conscious of her father’s sacrifice and was determined not to let him down, and so it was that, in the autumn of 1890, she successfully completed her high school studies and then set off for St Petersburg where, for the next four years, she attended

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the Physics and Mathematics Department of the Higher Courses for Women (the Bestuzhev Courses). Among those who enrolled in the institute at the same time was Vladimir Lenin’s younger sister Olʹga Ilyinichna Ulyanova who, following in the footsteps of her brother Aleksandr, had already become politically radicalized. (Aleksandr had been executed just a few years earlier for plotting to assassinate the tsar.) According to reports, Olʹga was much admired by her contemporaries and quickly befriended a group of her classmates who held similar political views. One of those was Zinaida Pavlovna Nevzorova and another was the young Apollinariya. Unfortunately, by the end of the year Olʹga had fallen seriously ill and when, in the spring of 1891, her brother Vladimir arrived in the capital to sit some law exams, he found Olʹga’s health had deteriorated to such an extent that he was obliged to arrange for her admission to hospital. Sadly, it was there on 8 May at the young age of nineteen that Olʹga died of typhoid fever.14 One feels almost sure that, given the tragic circumstances, at some point during his visit, Vladimir Ilyich would have met up with Apollinariya and his sister’s other friends but, sadly, there is no mention of such an encounter in her diary. While continuing their studies, Apollinariya and some of her classmates offered their services as teachers at evening classes and at a Sunday School for workers in the Nevskaya zastava, an industrial area of the city. She and Zinaida Nevzorova formed a particularly close friendship which would last till death. In these early days they worked together distributing political propaganda leaflets and, it was reported, had invented a particularly novel means of doing so. First they would roll the leaflets up individually and hide them in their aprons. Then they would wait outside the Laferme tobacco factory on Vasilevsky Island and, as soon as the factory whistle blew, would run through the crowds stuffing their leaflets into the hands of

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unsuspecting workers and then vanish before anyone knew what was happening.15 For some time, the two had shared a small flat on Malyi Prospect on Vasilevsky Island and it was there, in the first week of November 1893, that Apollinariya’s first recorded meeting with the young Lenin took place.16 The event was documented by Nevzorova’s younger sister Sofiya, who had arrived in the capital two weeks earlier to begin her studies at the Bestuzhev Institute and for whom Apollinariya had kindly given up her place in the flat so that Zinaida could look after her. Sofiya recalled that first encounter with Vladimir Ilyich, the young redheaded revolutionary who had recently arrived from Samara in the south east of the country, ostensibly to take up an appointment with a law firm, but for whom the capital, in fact, held other attractions – namely, the Imperial Library where he intended to immerse himself in the study of Marxian economics. He hoped also to make contact with others of a like-mind – at that time, St Petersburg was home to such bright young Social Democrat intellectuals as Petr Struve, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky and Anatoly Vaneev who would be joined in due course by Petr Maslov and Yuly Martov.17 And so it was that Vladimir Ilyich had appeared as a guest-speaker that November evening at a gathering in Zinaida Nevzorova’s flat and had read out his observations on an article about markets composed by Herman Krasin, a local Marxist. Others present sat or stood quietly around. Sofiya particularly remembered her sister sitting together with Apollinariya on one of the beds as they listened attentively to the powerful words of this new revolutionary intellectual. But Sofiya’s short reminiscence is of particular interest and value not so much for her references to the young Lenin but rather for the inordinate amount of space she devoted to a positively glowing tribute to her sister’s former flatmate cited earlier in this chapter – that so-called primeval force of the black earth.18

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Nevzorova’s reminiscence, which was written some years after Lenin’s death, appears in a collection devoted in its entirety to his memory and it does rather stand out as something of an oddity, thanks to its primary focus on this little-known associate of Vladimir Ilyich, rather than on the man himself. There are those who are convinced that this is exactly what the author intended, arguing that, by including such a glowing eulogy on Apollinariya in a piece ostensibly devoted to the Soviet leader; Sofiya was indirectly hinting at the intimate relationship which existed between Lenin and the young St Petersburg schoolteacher and which, at that time of writing in the 1930s, would have been quite impossible to acknowledge openly: everything written about the Leader was minutely checked and, had Nevzorova attempted to do so then, at best, her memoir would have been locked away in an archive, there to gather dust indefinitely.19 While there is little doubt that Vladimir Ilyich felt the pull of that ‘primeval force’ and that the two shared at least a degree of intimacy, this argument in itself is not wholly convincing. However, as we shall see, there are other indications of a romantic attachment between the two.

The young Krupskaya That same gathering in the flat on Vasilevsky Island was also mentioned in the reminiscences of another young schoolteacher and former Bestuzhev student, Lenin’s wife-to-be, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya. She herself was not present on that occasion, but recalled how she had heard from a friend about the arrival from the Volga of a knowledgeable Marxist and his impressive performance at the meeting, and how she was later given a notebook entitled ‘On markets’ which contained a parallel text with the writings of Krasin on one side of the page and Lenin’s commentary on the other. The

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friend who passed on this information to Krupskaya may well have been Yakubova – the two had already met through their school work and, indeed, Krupskaya would later claim to have been very close to Apollinariya and to have had a particular fondness for that young revolutionary who ‘was valued and loved by everyone’.20 Apparently, it had been thanks to an invitation from Yakubova that, over Shrovetide 1894, Nadezhda Konstantinovna had found herself at a clandestine political meeting held at the home of Robert Klasson, an engineer by profession, and there, for the first time, had met her husbandto-be, Vladimir Ilyich.21 However, it was hardly love at first sight – Krupskaya recalled that although one could not fail to be impressed by the young revolutionary’s forcefulness and intellect, she was rather put off by his abrasive and rude attitude to one of those present.22 It is interesting that, in her reminiscence, Krupskaya made no reference to Apollinariya’s role in all of this, nor did she even mention her as one of those in attendance. The same ‘oversight’ applies to her recollection of a later gathering of Sunday School teachers which had been called by Lenin – a meeting at which one feels almost certain Yakubova would have been present, especially since, according to Krupskaya, almost all of her other schoolteacher-friends were.23 However, as we shall see, this was by no means the only time that Krupskaya’s memory appeared to fail her when the subject concerned Yakubova. It is difficult to be absolutely sure of Vladimir Ilyich’s true feelings towards either of these two young women in these early years, though one may be able to glean something from the conspiratorial ‘party name’ he chose to give to each of his new female fellow conspirators. Apollinariya’s flatmate, Zinaida Nevzorova, apparently due to her tendency to plumpness, was awarded the less than flattering nickname ‘the Bun’ (bulochka), while Krupskaya, whose incipient Grave’s disease had caused her eyes to start to bulge, was known simply as ‘the Fish’ (ryba). Krupskaya’s other party comrades called her by the even less

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complimentary nickname ‘the Herring’ (seledka) while, after their marriage, Lenin was known to call her the ‘Lamprey’ (minoga). He referred to Apollinariya, on the other hand, by the charming diminutive ‘Kubochka’, and later still by the yet sweeter ‘Lirochka’ (the first from her surname YaKUBova, and the second, a shortened form of Apollinariya). As for the emotional attachment which the two young women may have had for Vladimir Ilyich in those early days, it is difficult to discern anything stronger than the feelings of friendship which one comrade might have for another. It is probably safe to say, on the other hand, that the bond between Yakubova and Krupskaya was considerably stronger, with not, at that time, the slightest trace of jealousy anywhere to be found. A famous example, which Krupskaya put forward as proof of her early closeness to Yakubova, concerned a joint mission they undertook at Lenin’s request in late 1895, when the two put on headscarves, disguised themselves as workers and managed to gain entry to a hostel in the Nevskaya zastava where the employees of the Thornton garment factory lived. They visited both the men’s and the family quarters and were appalled at the truly shocking conditions they found there. Based on the information they brought back, Lenin wrote a detailed article which he had intended to publish in his journal Rabochee delo (Workers’ Cause) but, sadly, this and his other revolutionary plans were brought to an abrupt halt by the events of the night of 8–9 (20–21) December 1895, events which signalled a radical change in government policy.24

Arrest and imprisonment Considering the populist terrorist threat to have been contained, the Russian Department of Police turned its attention from the members of the People’s Will – the narodovoltsy – to the remaining

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sources of opposition within the country and carried out the first in a series of mass arrests of members of Social Democratic organizations and related workers’ study groups. Lenin was among the first of those latter-day, self-styled ‘Decembrists’ taken into custody. While in prison, he was kept informed of the ongoing work of those of his comrades still at liberty by his sister Anna, who was allowed to pay him occasional visits, and it is interesting that, in one of her reminiscences of the period, Anna mentions specifically arranging to meet Yakubova to receive updates prior to her prison visits.25 From this, one might reasonably conclude that during Lenin’s enforced absence he had entrusted the running of the group to Yakubova. Krupskaya later recalled an intriguing incident dating from around this same time which might serve as a further indication of Lenin’s continuing interest in his Lirochka. Apparently, while under arrest in the House of Preliminary Detention in St Petersburg, Lenin managed to smuggle a letter out to Krupskaya explaining that, every day, as the prisoners were escorted to the exercise-yard, they passed a window which offered a fleeting glimpse of the pavement outside the prison. He asked if she and Yakubova specifically could arrange to wait at that particular place at a given hour so that he could see them both. In the end, according to Krupskaya, Yakubova, for some reason, was unable to make it and, although she went along herself for a few days and waited there patiently for some considerable time, Lenin’s plan, somehow, did not materialize.26 One commentator cites this as proof of Yakubova’s callousness – not deigning to respond to the request of an imprisoned friend – but that is a somewhat harsh judgement given there is no way of knowing if Krupskaya had even passed the request on. Another commentator, meanwhile, thought it easier just to ‘reinterpret’ the incident, claiming that Lenin had actually sent the request to Krupskaya alone and that it was she who

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had asked Yakubova to accompany her, ‘but the latter had laughed and said “No, it is better you go alone – after all it is you he wants to see – not me!”’27

A St Petersburg ‘honeymoon’ But whatever the truth of this specific incident, it is clear from Apollinariya’s reaction on receiving news of the prisoner’s release that she did have certain feelings for him. Lenin’s sister Anna recalled that, while she was visiting his mother on the very day of her brother’s release from preliminary detention, Yakubova burst into the room, rushed up ‘and kissed him while laughing and crying at the same time’.28 Hardly the reaction of a heartless, uncaring woman. Their relationship, however, was not always so straightforward as was clearly demonstrated the following day. Lenin’s joyful reunion with Yakubova had taken place thanks to the unexpected leniency of the authorities who, releasing the prisoner and his comrades from detention, had, bizarrely, allowed them to spend three days at large and quite unsupervised in St Petersburg, before they set off to Siberia to begin their respective periods of exile. Lenin took advantage of the opportunity and hastily convened two meetings of his group. Other ‘Decembrists’ present were Martov, Zaporozhets, Krzhizhanovsky, Starkov, Vaneev, Malchenko, Lyakhovsky and Boris Zinovʹev. Also in attendance were three members of the group who had avoided arrest – Gorev, KatinYartsev and Yakubova.29 Apollinariya would later tell of how a heated discussion had arisen between her and Lenin over how the League of Struggle should be organized – a difference in opinion which, it should be noted, would become one of the key causes of the historic Bolshevik/Menshevik split at the first 1903 London Congress of

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the RSDLP. At the St Petersburg meeting Yakubova defended the introduction of ‘organizational democracy’, believing it necessary to broaden the movement by bringing workers into the central group of the organization. Lenin, on the other hand, was a firm believer in centralism and the need for absolute control of the Party by a small group of professional revolutionaries. Unfortunately, this difference in opinion turned into a full-on confrontation between the two. Apparently, in the heat of argument, Lenin angrily accused Yakubova of anarchism, which indictment brought her to the brink of tears and affected her so strongly that she felt physically ill. As Lenin’s sister Anna later recalled, it had evidently caused Apollinariya great pain to argue with Ilyich, whom she valued so much, and whose release from prison had clearly made her so happy, but, true to character, the ‘primeval force of the black earth’ refused to budge from her position. She tenaciously held her ground and, with the support of some other young members, won the day, with two workers being elected into the central group.30 Anna, for one, was dismayed by the way her brother had treated Yakubova, knowing how selflessly devoted she was to the revolution, and how much kindness and concern she had personally shown to her brother during his imprisonment.31 Vladimir Ilyich, on the other hand, recalling the event at a later date, was anxious to stress that he attached no importance whatsoever to the disagreement: Of course, it goes without saying that the disputants in question in no way saw in their disagreement the beginnings of any kind of a split, considering it to be, on the contrary, purely accidental and a ‘one-off ’.32 He was already well-known for a certain lack of sensitivity and the somewhat abrasive attitude he occasionally displayed towards friend and foe alike. However, there is another version of the events of that evening which may better explain the hostility of his attack which had such an emotional impact on the young schoolteacher.

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Just as in 1825, when the original Decembrist insurgents had set off into exile accompanied by their wives, so Lenin and those other latterday ‘Decembrists’, on the point of their own departure for Siberia, had considered it might be of benefit to their revolutionary labours if they too could rely on some female companionship during their time in the ‘Wild East’. (Amongst those to enter into hastily arranged marriages of convenience during this period were Anatoly Vaneev and Gleb Krzhizhanovsky, the latter of whom took Apollinariya’s friend Zinaida Nevzorova as his wife.) It has been claimed that, at some point during that fateful day, before the explosive argument took place, Lenin had made just such a proposal to Yakubova and had been turned down. It was only then that, ‘in his disappointment’, he turned to Krupskaya as a substitute. The latter, at that time, was in detention awaiting sentence having been arrested shortly beforehand. Immediately after that fateful meeting of the Union of Struggle, she had been visited in prison by her mother, who had managed to pass to her a letter from Ilyich in which he, allegedly, declared his love for her.33 This view of the Lenin/Yakubova/Krupskaya treugolnik (triangle) is not shared by V. T. Loginov, the author of a very detailed account of Vladimir Ilyich’s St Petersburg years.34 He argues that there is no evidence whatsoever of a love match between Ilyich and Yakubova and very much regrets the fact that, in former Leniniana, the subject had been considered taboo and deemed off-limits, especially given that nowadays it was not missed by a single ‘Lenin-devourer’ (Leninoed).35 Ten years earlier, the much-respected Soviet historian Dmitry Volkogonov had written of how difficult it was to establish the relationship of these three young people, ‘especially as the almost hundred-year-old “conspiracy” about this area of their lives has destroyed almost any trace.’36 Loginov argued that it would have been much more productive if, in the beginning, the story hadn’t been

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banned, but had instead been investigated and laid out once and for all, for the truth of the matter was self-evident. According to him, at the time of his argument with Yakubova, Vladimir Ilyich was already very much in love with Krupskaya and had already made his choice. The young bachelor enjoyed visiting Krupskaya and felt comfortable in that homely environment where her mother would often cook for him. Although Loginov does admit that Lenin also visited Yakubova during this period, he claims he did so purely for business purposes, besides which, Yakubova’s flat was that of a young student and so would not have been nearly so homely or welcoming as Krupskaya’s. This analysis allows the author to advance an additional and novel explanation for Yakubova’s emotional reaction to her explosive argument with Lenin: Everything became all mixed up in her mind and resulted in her fainting fit, for, apart from the harsh words, something else had become obvious to her – namely, that he had already made his choice!37 So, according to Loginov, it was Apollinariya who was madly in love with Ilyich and not the other way around! For the sake of completeness, it should also be mentioned that both of these theories are at odds with another claim: namely, that Lenin had already offered his hand to Yakubova over a year earlier, just prior to his arrest (and that he took her non-appearance on the pavement with Krupskaya outside prison as a final rejection of his proposal), in which case, it is unlikely that his decision to propose would have been driven by political expediency.38 It is for the reader to make up their own mind on all of these options, although it may be easier simply to concur with Louis Fischer’s original conclusion that ‘such matters cannot be documented’ and to move on. Whatever the true course of events that night in St Petersburg, it mattered little in the end for, within a few weeks, the police swooped

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again and made another series of arrests, taking into custody those workers newly appointed as party organizers and all of those who had supported them at the meeting, including the unfortunate Yakubova.39 Her arrest brought to an end the period of her St Petersburg friendship with Lenin and Krupskaya, but exile would separate them yet further, both physically and emotionally – a rupture which, intriguingly, Krupskaya neglected to mention in her memoirs. The Siberian experience proved to be considerably more difficult for Yakubova than for her former comrades. Krupskaya had been sentenced to three years in Ufa province but in May 1898 was allowed to join Lenin, her husband-to-be who, thanks to the intervention of his mother, had been permitted by the authorities to spend his exile in the village of Shushenskoe, near the town of Minusinsk in the most southern part of Krasnoyarsk Region, an area known by the exiles as the ‘Siberian Italy’ thanks to its pleasant location and favourable climate.40 Lenin and Krupskaya, his new ‘Decembrist bride’, took on a maid and, when they were not writing or translating, spent their time walking, picking mushrooms, swimming, skating, hunting and shooting. Given such a comfortable lifestyle, it is perhaps not surprising that the two made no attempt to escape, but were happy instead to sit out their term, in the meantime growing fat and healthy. Yakubova, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. Krupskaya had received a photograph of her friend taken shortly after the latter’s release from preliminary detention on 16 May 1898 and before her departure for Siberian exile four days later. (This is almost certainly the photograph I came across in Moscow in 2015.) Yakubova had been incarcerated for fourteen months and Krupskaya was appalled at the toll it had taken on her; how thin and pale she appeared, and had even wondered if the authorities might show some leniency and send her to Shushenskoe where she might be able to recover a little.41 But, having no influential mother to plead her case, the hapless

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revolutionary was dispatched to Kazachinskoe, a remote northern village on the banks of the Yenisei River where she was to serve out her four-year term. In a letter to Yuly Martov, a close friend who had been a member of the same activist group as Yakubova until his own arrest, she explained that, whereas most of her comrades had received three-year sentences, she had been accused of associating with an organization connected to the Party of the People’s Will, which was held to be more dangerous by far than the Social Democratic League of Struggle, and so she had attracted an additional year’s penalty.42

Siberia The authorities gave Apollinariya permission to make an extended break in Vologda on her journey eastward in order to make final preparations and to say her farewells to her parents. However, the break afforded her little comfort. Aware that she was simply putting off the inevitable, Apollinariya was anxious to get to her place of exile as quickly as possible so that she could declare it ‘home’, put down roots and start to get involved in some real work. She arrived in Kazachinskoe on 9 (21) July 1898 and was welcomed by the resident ‘politicals’ who included her St Petersburg comrades Panteleimon Lepeshinsky and Fridrikh Lengnik. Two months later, she wrote to Martov who had been despatched to Turukhansk, an even less desirable place of exile in the north. In her letter she described the glorious weather and how she was helping with the harvest, picking berries and slowly regaining her health. However, like many other exiles, she was finding the Siberian midges and mosquitoes to be insufferable and could not get used to the recommended and most effective means of counteracting the nuisance – covering oneself in fine netting. But this physical discomfort was the least of her problems. She found herself quite unable to adapt to her

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new day-to-day life and, even at this early stage, would occasionally succumb to the ‘exile blues’ (khandra) when everyone seemed, almost simultaneously, to withdraw into themselves to be alone with their thoughts in their own solitary worlds. Yakubova’s letters to Martov are those of a depressive: full of gloom and despondency, whether reporting on news of the accidental drowning of some transportees on the Angara river, or on her own sad journey to the sickbed of their young comrade Anatoly Vaneev. The authorities had given Yakubova permission to spend three weeks in Eniseisk where Vaneev had been obliged to cut short his journey into exile due to ill health. He had stayed there for a few months and then in July 1899 was transferred south to the town of Ermakovskoe where he died of tuberculosis shortly thereafter. Later, in London, Apollinariya would talk of her young friend with great affection and of Lenin’s determination to preserve the memory of their departed comrade. For her part, in order to fight the depression and to survive the next four years of that unbearable existence of ‘a hamster spinning in a wheel’,43 Apollinariya set herself the tasks of learning French, German and philosophy and, in addition, would occasionally don her schoolteacher’s hat to give lessons to some of the young girls in the town. She had also, apparently, taken up writing. In a later letter to Martov she made an intriguing reference to ‘a work of popular literature’ which she had just written and submitted for publication. She was now waiting to hear if it had been passed by the censor. The work was provisionally entitled Gold but Apollinariya gave no other details of this, her first literary endeavour, although in the same paragraph she did make an oblique reference to a news item she had come across about the discovery of some kind of ‘El Dorado’ in Vyatskoi province.44 It is highly likely that the work referred to was the one which first saw the light of day in St Petersburg in 1902, and it is worth pausing here to examine it in more detail.

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The Student of Nature Yakubova’s first published attempt at literary fiction is a short story of some fifty pages entitled The Student of Nature: A Tale (Drawn from Life) and it is intriguing to say the least – not because of any literary merit it may possess (Yakubova’s talents evidently lay elsewhere), but because of the questions it raises concerning the identity of the individuals on whom the main characters are based.45 It takes the form of a parable whose intended audience was the common Russian working man to whose moral and political education Yakubova had devoted the previous ten years of her life. The heroine of the piece – the ‘student’ (vospitanitsa) – is a certain Anna Aleksandrovna Rashkova. And the fact that she shares the same initials, and indeed patronymic, as the author, is hardly coincidental. The tale is packed full of semiautobiographical detail and one is reminded very much of that glowing tribute to ‘the primeval force of the black earth’ referred to earlier. The heroine strives selflessly to help anyone and everyone she can, in particular, the poor and needy and, blessed with good health, great courage, tenacity, boundless energy and remarkably good looks, is loved by everyone she meets. She too ends up in Siberia but not as a political exile (the censor would never have allowed that) but as a sborshitsa – a collector of funds for the restoration of a neglected church in her father’s village. But what is most noteworthy is the description of an encounter between the heroine and the hero – a handsome and powerful member of a landowning family, and the owner of a Siberian gold mine. This encounter serves as the focus of the work. In brief, it is yet another story of unrequited love – of a man who proposes to a woman and who is turned down and, as such, it is unquestionably ‘drawn from life’, though whether Vladimir Lenin or his alleged proposal may have been in the author’s mind at the time of composition is

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open to question. (The hero’s name – Anton Antonovich – gives no clue as to a real-life equivalent, if indeed, there was one.) But also of interest is Yakubova’s detailed description of the emotional turmoil her heroine endures before she arrives at her decision to refuse Anton Antonovich’s offer of marriage, which may or may not reflect the writer’s own experiences. Rashkova is torn by conflicting internal thoughts. On the one hand, she is tempted by the prospect of future riches and happiness which is there for the taking, but on the other hand, she is terrified at the thought of diving headfirst into an unknown world, full of tempting delights which may give pleasure but which could also lead to her ruin. She feels ‘as if bound in iron chains of her own making’.46 That evening, she goes to bed in Anton Antonovich’s house and, while asleep, lives out her confused state in a dream – or rather, nightmare. In her reverie Rashkova imagines she is on a river bank high above a turbulent river. On the other side, beyond her reach, stands a beautiful castle. At that moment, a prettily painted boat draws up piloted by a mysterious, handsome ferryman with stars in his hair, dressed in a cape of silver scales. They set off across the river but, half-way over, the boat starts to sink. She looks up to see her companion smiling triumphantly and with a hellish laugh, exclaiming, ‘Now you are mine!’ Rashkova falls into semi-consciousness and feels herself being lifted up and laid down on the shore. She then awakes, approaches the castle and enters, only to find its external appearance hides the very opposite. Inside, it is lifeless and feels and smells of the grave, its dark corridors filled with mutilated corpses which give off an almighty stench. Then, opening a door, Rashkova is confronted by a horrific sight. In a huge chamber the same ferryman sits on high, surrounded by monsters and carousing half-naked women, all pointing at her and screaming unintelligibly. She flees, crying and praying to be delivered from this hellish place, eventually escaping through a small window,

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only to be confronted by a maze of paths winding through a thick forest. She tries each one in turn but finds they all end at a deep chasm. Finally, an old man dressed in white appears and gives her a lecture about the sin of avarice and the avoidance of earthly pleasures, before pointing her to a narrow path leading to a white church with brightly shining crosses and her salvation. On awakening from her dream, the heroine flees her suitor’s house and makes her way by foot out of Siberia, vowing to devote the rest of her life to good deeds and, at all costs, to avoid marriage, which could only distract her from the great task in hand. Whether such reasoning may have played a part in Yakubova’s own decision to refuse the advances described earlier or, indeed, any alleged proposal from the young Lenin is a matter of conjecture but, as her correspondence shows, both Vladimir Ilyich and his new wife were still very much in her thoughts at this time. She exchanged occasional letters with her ‘Minusinsk associates’ as she called the newly married couple, and also mentioned them in her correspondence with Martov.47 In one letter, she recalled that fateful meeting of their group during that short spell in St Petersburg which she referred to as their ‘three-day honeymoon’48 when she had vehemently defended a ‘mood in public life’ which she noted was now growing stronger. She had attempted, on that occasion, to stand up for the ‘youngsters’ and had supported their ideas against the grumbles of Lenin and the ‘old men’. But now the two groups, in her opinion, would never be reconciled, not only because the ‘old men’ were getting older but also because the ‘youngsters’ were getting younger – two distinct generations had been created.49 In this same letter to Martov, of 31 July (12 August) 1899, she went on to mention that she was now writing regularly to her comrade Lengnik who had been transferred out of Kazachinskoe to Minusinsk in the south and how

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the two of us have an inexhaustible subject for discussion (no, in fact, that’s not true, for it will soon be exhausted) – namely, the impression which my ‘Minusinsk associates’ made on him. I very much regret that he had not been more closely acquainted with them earlier and so is unable to comment on the changes which have occurred.50 Martov would soon understand what she meant by her ‘inexhaustible subject for discussion’ becoming exhausted, but Yakubova, unfortunately, did not expand on what changes in the relationship between her ‘Minusinsk associates’ she was referring to. It is known that she was still exchanging occasional letters with Krupskaya, who mentioned that fact in her own correspondence with various in-laws, describing initially how her old friend seemed to be settling down, but then, how Yakubova had begun to experience ennui and irritability and had complained of her inability to do anything of a constructive nature.51 However, in these letters one can also detect the beginnings of a change in Krupskaya’s attitude towards her beleaguered comrade and sense a certain coldness develop towards her. Finally, in October 1899, in a letter to Lenin’s mother, Krupskaya relayed the news of Yakubova’s disappearance from her place of exile saying: ‘There are rumours she has escaped abroad, somebody has seen her in Berlin. So that is that!’52 And, on this note, Krupskaya appeared to wash her hands of her old friendship. Yakubova, meanwhile, had indeed escaped (as she had hinted in her last letter to Martov) and, just like the heroine of her short story, had managed to make her way, unaided, out of Siberia, a journey of some 7,000 kilometres. From Berlin she then moved on to Liepāja in Latvia where she rendez-vous’d with a dear old friend from St Petersburg now in emigration – none other than Konstantin Takhtarev, who had travelled from London to meet her and help her cross to the West. Soon afterwards Takhtarev would propose marriage and, on this occasion, Yakubova would not refuse.

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Mr Tar comes to town Konstantin Mikhailovich Takhtarev had first met Apollinariya in St Petersburg in the mid-1890s when he aligned his group with Lenin’s nascent League of Struggle. Then, shortly afterwards, having witnessed her arrest and that of most of his closest allies, and having himself been taken into custody and imprisoned for three months, he realized that voluntary emigration was the only alternative to Siberian exile. In 1897, therefore, he made his escape, fleeing first to Geneva then, after a brief stay in Brussels, moving on to London. He quickly found lodgings just off Tottenham Court Road in the centre of the capital, an ideal location, situated just around the corner from one of London’s most popular meeting places for radicals of all nationalities – the Communist Club at 49 Tottenham Street – an address which, in years to come, would be visited by no lesser a luminary of the international revolutionary movement than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin himself. This establishment had replaced the notorious Anarchist ‘Autonomie Club’ in nearby Windmill Street which had been raided by the police and broken up a few years earlier but, as a Daily News journalist discovered (much to his evident disappointment) when he dared venture through its doors, the new club hardly posed a danger to the existing order: Since the closing of the Autonomie Club, the headquarters of many of the Anarchists has been the German Social Democratic Communist Club in Tottenham Street. This club consists of a fair-sized building, reached through a narrow alley-way. On the ground floor is a bar and billiard room, above is a hall for public meetings. On the walls are cartoons and devices, in three languages, threatening destruction to the present social system. Every evening the club is fairly filled with men and women, mostly Germans, but

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only a very small proportion of these are Anarchists. This term, it should be remembered, comprises several classes, and many Anarchists are not all of the bomb, dagger and pistol school. The larger number of members of this club are Social Democrats of a by no means extreme school and, when the German Social Democrat Parliamentary leaders last visited London, they addressed large and orderly gatherings here. The club is as much social as political; its room for meetings is used by friendly societies, and its billiard tables and bocks of beer are a greater attraction to its patrons than its political meetings.53 While Takhtarev may well have considered himself fortunate to have found himself living so close to such a sociable gathering place for like-minded folk, more important, from his point of view, was the close proximity of his flat to the British Museum and its famed library. Since leaving Russia he had become involved in the editorial board of Workers’ Thought (Rabochaya mysl´), the organ of the so-called economist faction in the Social Democratic movement, but, on leaving Brussels, he had already expressed the wish to step down and devote more time to his own academic pursuits, specifically in the field of sociology. Takhtarev had already struck up, or renewed, friendships with a number of politically like-minded individuals in London, such as the leader of the ‘economists’ himself, the renowned German Social Democrat, Eduard Bernstein, who had arrived in the capital some ten years earlier, and it was he who helped the young sociologist/ revolutionary gain permission to study in the Museum.54 Like so many of his comrades who would follow in his footsteps, Takhtarev, for reasons of conspiracy, deemed it necessary to adopt a pseudonym and so it was that, on 12 January 1899, having registered his address as 8 Windmill Street, Tottenham Court Road, and having declared his subject of study to be the ‘constitutional history of England’, Mr

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Robert Tar of St Petersburg was issued with his first reader’s ticket to the Library of the British Museum. From that day, Mr Tar would prove to be one of the Round Reading Room’s most frequent visitors.55 From that moment onwards, as police oppression increased in Russia, Takhtarev found himself welcoming more and more of his Social Democrat colleagues to their new-found sanctuary on the banks of the Thames. None, however, were greeted by him with such warmth (and indeed passion) as the young schoolmistress whom he had been obliged to leave behind when he fled his homeland. It would appear that soon after her arrival in England, Apollinariya, the new Mrs Takhtarev-Tar, had managed to send news of her marriage and the couple’s new acquaintances in London to Shushenskoe, where Lenin and Krupskaya were still patiently and obediently sitting out their exile. The latter, in an angry letter to Lenin’s sister Maria (which document was also omitted from her later fond reminiscences) now let loose, expressing her extreme displeasure at the turn events had taken: Lirochka to me is now an X. She and I formerly held remarkably similar views but, over the past three years, something has been happening to her and I don’t understand her any more. Perhaps we would settle our differences again if we met, but there is something lacking in our correspondence. She is not the Lirochka I knew and it is no use writing about mists, and weather and so on – besides, she doesn’t seem to want to write about anything else, and she can’t anyway. To tell the truth, I cannot reconcile myself to her marriage. Her husband created the impression on me of a kind of narrow self-assurance.56 It is safe to say that Krupskaya’s opinions on the matter and on Takhtarev were shared by her husband (indeed, she admitted to passing all her letters to Lenin to read before sending them off). But

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what would have riled the couple most was not so much her marriage to the Russian ‘economist renegade’ Takhtarev, but the discovery of their former comrade’s support for the father of ‘economism’ himself, Eduard Bernstein. On her arrival in London, Yakubova would almost certainly have been introduced to the famous German socialist, and on the publication of his Preconditions of Socialism, with its open attack on revolutionary Marxism, she had written to an acquaintance giving the book her qualified praise.57 An extract from this blasphemous letter found its way to Shushenskoe and engendered the following retort: I was not at all pleased with the theoretical part of the letter. She says that Bernstein offers nothing in the way of theory – That is some sort of idiocy! But the practical significance of the book, she says, is tremendous; according to her, he has turned his attention to the needs of the masses and calls for reality, for concrete things. She believes the book to be a success because the orthodox trend had begun to pall!58 Although this was ostensibly Krupskaya’s reaction, such an irate response might just as easily have come from Lenin, who was already drawing up his plans in preparation for the battle to defend the Marxist ‘orthodoxy’ against the revisionist deviation of Bernstein and his Russian disciples currently in residence in London. Meanwhile, Takhtarev’s desire to distance himself from Workers’ Thought had strengthened further, as he had become progressively disillusioned with its approach, targeting an audience of ‘professionals and intellectuals’ only, while he, on the other hand, wished to transform it into a political journal for workers. In an attempt to broaden its appeal and to reunite the opposing factions, he approached Plekhanov, still widely regarded as the de facto leader of the Russian Social Democrats, with the suggestion that he join the

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Workers’ Thought editorial board. Plekhanov seemed happy with the proposal, which also received the endorsement of Vera Zasulich, but he stated that, first of all, he had to consult Lenin on the matter.

The ‘verbal debauchery’ of Vladimir Ilyich To expedite matters, Takhtarev decided to approach Vladimir Ilyich directly and it was then that he paid a visit to him in Munich where the latter was now staying after completing his Siberian exile. As described earlier, the meeting was unusually amicable, given the opposing political views of the two, but it was clear from the outset that Lenin had no intention of allowing Plekhanov to participate in Takhtarev’s journal, nor, indeed, to take it over, even though the latter claimed he had tempered its economist outlook. Such an alignment of these opposing Social Democratic factions around an already-existing organ would almost certainly have scuppered Lenin’s long-held plans for his new revolutionary newspaper Iskra before it had even appeared in print. In his view, it was not good enough simply to merge with, or take over Workers’ Thought. For his plans to succeed he needed a new revolutionary party centred around a new organ under his control and united against a common enemy. ‘Economism’ not only had to be destroyed; it had to be seen to be destroyed. Takhtarev recalled that it was after this meeting that he realized, for the first time, who the real leader of the Russian Social Democrats was.59 However, although he left Munich having failed in his mission to unify the movement, he nevertheless appreciated Lenin’s straight-talking and directness. The same could not, however, be said of the new Mrs Tar. It may be that Yakubova, for her part, was unaware of Lenin’s and Krupskaya’s change in attitude towards her at that time, and still felt that her personal intervention might be of use to her husband. In

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an exchange of letters with Vladimir Ilyich (reminiscent at times of a lovers’ tiff), she again argued for Plekhanov’s participation in the newspaper, attempted to convince him that the journal had changed direction and strongly refuted his accusations of ‘economism’.60 She bemoaned the constant divisive in-fighting in the Social Democratic ranks which, she stated, made it impossible to get any real work done. In his response, Lenin claimed he was unable to understand what she wanted since her letter was, by and large, just a series of complaints and rebukes and he, for one, refused to get into such a pointless slanging match. He suggested that what was needed to resolve any misunderstandings and clear the air was a face-to-face meeting. In her follow-up letter, while apologizing for her earlier abruptness, Yakubova said that, given his firm refusal to have any dealings with Workers’ Thought, she considered a face-to-face meeting pointless. She was heartily sick of the in-fighting, the relentless attacks on the ‘economists’ and the ‘credoists’, all of the worthless polemics and all of these ‘literary struggles’ he was forever talking about. Recalling their joint fight against the narodniks in St Petersburg, she said that she now realized the latter had been defeated, not by any of their arguments, but by life itself. She believed it was only too easy to find people willing to ‘wag their tongues’, but much harder to find anyone who was prepared to do some real work. In her view, this tongue-wagging (iazykochesanie) was particularly dangerous, because people could become hypnotized by it to the extent that, when they were asked to do something, all they could do was talk and were quite unable to get anything concrete done. It offends me that a man can be so consumed by this tonguewagging that he even begins to imagine he is engaged in some kind of real work. All this polemicizing is particularly damaging to our young people because it sows the seeds of ‘verbal debauchery’.61

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It was abundantly clear whom Yakubova had in mind. But had Lenin been stung by this brutal, unprovoked personal attack from an old friend? Much later, Krupskaya would describe how, once he had had a political disagreement with someone, Lenin found it quite impossible to maintain any other form of friendly personal contact with that individual. With Yakubova, however, he seemed anxious to make an exception. Indeed, it is of more than passing interest that, in drawing up his response to her, he acted quite out of character and composed two variants of his letter, together with some insertions which he later scored through. One of these insertions was of a strictly personal nature. In it he wrote that, from what Yakubova was saying, it appeared to him that she felt they could now only meet on a business footing with regard to his participation in the journal and that, since he categorically refused, then there was no point in meeting. If that was the case, then he felt he had to be completely frank with her. He ended his letter thus: Perhaps it is very inappropriate that in a letter to you of all people I have to speak so often of a struggle (literary struggle). But I think that our old friendship most of all makes complete frankness obligatory.62 That ‘old friendship’, dating back some seven years, was clearly still of importance to him but, evidently, not important enough to make him reconsider his position. Yakubova’s efforts had been in vain – Lenin would not be budged and that was the end of the matter. Krupskaya, meanwhile, in a letter to her sister-in-law, wrote that she too had heard from Yakubova but added that it was unlikely the two would have an opportunity to meet up.63 Fate, however, would decree that within two years the Lenins would again cross paths (and swords) with the Takhtarevs.

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The revolutionaries of Regent Square On their arrival in London in late 1899, the newly wed Takhtarevs had taken up temporary residence not far from Konstantin’s first flat at no. 27 Windmill Street. By October, Apollinariya had already followed in her husband’s footsteps and, from that address, as Mrs Paulina Tar, schoolmistress from Russia, had been admitted to the Reading Room of the British Museum, there to study social sciences.64 On this occasion, they had not asked Bernstein to provide bona fides but instead had turned to the much-respected Russian journalist Isaak Shklovsky.65 Having lived in London from 1896 as the English correspondent of the Russian Gazette (Russkie vedomosti), Shklovsky also contributed to various English publications under the pseudonym ‘Dioneo’ and was regarded as one of Russia’s most authoritative specialists on Great Britain. By the dawning of the new century the Tars had already moved to a new address on the other side of Tottenham Court Road at no. 13 Alfred Place but, shortly afterwards, they relocated once more and took up residence in Regent Square. All of these addresses were, of course, convenient for these habitués of the British Museum Library which provided an abundance of materials for their researches. Although Apollinariya had already completed a draft of her short story Student of Nature in Siberia, it is likely she finished it off in London before sending it to St Petersburg for publication. The other products of her work in the Library were extensive and varied. Not only did this human dynamo write further short stories but she also worked on Russian translations of a number of children’s books on science and exploration which were later published in Russia.66 From the moment of their return to London, quite apart from their academic labours, Tahktarev, with the help of his new wife, had continued to extend a welcome to newly arriving revolutionaries,

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whether they came to London straight from the continent or from elsewhere in England. One such had been the young St Petersburg Social Democrat Nikolai Alekseev who (possibly with Takhtarev’s assistance) had found some rooms in nearby Sidmouth Street. Another to benefit from their help was Viktor Pavlovich Nogin, a Social Democrat worker who had fled Russia and, in September 1900, had made his way to England where, just like the anarchist Lebedinsky mentioned earlier (and, indeed, many more of his compatriots at that time), he had found refuge, first of all, at the Tolstoyan colony in Purleigh, Essex. However, in common with many of his ungodly comrades, Nogin found the company of Chertkov, the deeply religious head of the colony, to be somewhat wearisome and so, after a short stay, moved to London with his associate Sergei Andropov. On this occasion it was Nikolai Alekseev who managed to find a room for the two, upstairs from his own flat with its pleasant view over the London plane trees of Regent Square. Alekseev, it transpired, was anything but the stereotypical, morose and angry revolutionary. He was a small man with brown hair, little beard and moustache who, in his habitual old-fashioned coat and peaked jockey-cap, cut quite a figure, resembling some kind of a wiry, round-faced sportsman. He was lively company and also something of a joker. A few months after his arrival, Nogin would find himself the butt of one of Alekseev’s innocent pranks. The landlady in the Sidmouth Street flat had two grown-up daughters who were strictly forbidden to consort with the lodgers. On Valentine’s day, Alekseev, having noticed that one of the girls appeared to show a certain attraction for the young Nogin, managed to slip a love letter purporting to come from the girl, under the latter’s pillow, designating a time and place for a lovers’ tryst in the square opposite. However, just before the appointed time, Alekseev dragged Nogin off to a political meeting, and there took great mischievous delight in

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watching his friend constantly looking at his watch and sighing in deep frustration. Nogin would only learn of the joke played on him some eighteen years later when, quite by accident, he bumped into Alekseev in the centre of Moscow.67 Nogin’s biographer described how the new arrivals would often call in for tea at the hospitable Takhtarevs’ across the way and would argue about the path of the revolution and discuss the future possibilities offered by Lenin’s Iskra, the first issue of which journal was due to appear later that year.68 (Indeed, during his time in London, Nogin would act as Lenin’s first Iskra representative in England, before passing the honour on to Alekseev on his departure in the summer of 1901.) Their visits to 20 Regent Square held the additional attraction of Yakubova and the wonderful tales she would tell of Krupskaya and Lenin. Nogin remembered one of these stories which dated from Yakubova’s own recent stay in Siberia, and in which she described how Vladimir Ilyich had immortalized the memory of his comrade, the late Anatoly Vaneev: In the village of Abaza, near Minusinsk, a cast-iron plant and a workers’ village had been acquired by a gold-miner by the name of Permikin, but one day he simply vanished, leaving no-one to carry on the business – nobody knows what happened to him. The workers at the plant therefore decided to create an artel. ‘You understand, with no boss at all!’ said Apollinariya Aleksandrovna excitedly, ‘The workers extracted the ore directly from the surface of the mountain by open-cast mining with pickaxes and sledgehammers, and turned it into sheet iron, pans, boilers, etc. Then, one day, Vladimir Ilyich appeared and asked the workers if they would cast a memorial plaque for the grave of the recentlydeceased Vaneev. Not only did the workers agree, but they refused to accept any payment for their work. And now in the cemetery of

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the village of Ermakovskoe there is a cast-iron plate which reads: “Anatoly Aleksandrovich Vaneev. Political exile. Died 8 September, 1899. 27 years old. Peace to your ashes, Comrade! … ”’ ‘And you know’ said Yakubova, ‘I have always admired this characteristic of Ulyanov. The way he takes great care to protect his friends from the police and from all other kinds of misfortune, but also the way he faithfully preserves their memory should it be their destiny to perish.’69 It would appear then that, despite their recent frosty exchange, Yakubova bore Lenin neither grudge nor ill-will. Indeed, if nothing else, their earlier confrontation had helped clear the air and allowed her and her husband to refocus their energies. They no longer corresponded with Lenin nor any other members of his Iskra group in Germany, but such was not the case for others in the Regent Square community. Both Nogin and Alekseev were in close contact with Munich. Lenin himself would shortly send Nogin copies of the first issues of Iskra and its associated journal Zaria (Dawn) with the request that he send his comments. (Lenin assured him that, as a worker, his opinion was greatly valued!) Nogin’s comments on Iskra were, in the main, very complimentary, however, on receipt of the proletarian’s views regarding the first issue of Zaria, Lenin may well have wished he hadn’t asked.70 A great number of the articles were not to Nogin’s liking at all. Indeed, he expressed the view that the first issue of The Past – the new journal of Vladimir Burtsev – was incomparably better. Nogin was not to know how much this comparison would have stung for, in Lenin’s opinion, everything about the editor of The Past was: ‘a nonsense and a phantasmagoria! … Burtsev is an odd character who thinks he can gain concessions from the tsar by threatening him with terror – a Liberal with a bomb – in other words, a complete contradiction!’71 But, as if this odious

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comparison was not enough, the proletarian Nogin then developed his critique of the journal: Zaria contains far too many polemics with the ‘economists’. Can it really be the case that the struggle against the ‘economists’ is the most important goal at present for Russian revolutionaries? Absolutely not! Of course, we have to fight them but, frankly, these excessive discussions about this internecine struggle have just become boring. Our main enemy should not be the ‘economists’ but the government. Zaria’s task should be to help to explain general questions about the Russian state and, in every sentence, to attack the government. That is the kind of journal revolutionary Russia needs. And all these polemics with Workers’ Thought (internal matters, so to speak) should be consigned to one small section somewhere. Otherwise, the workers will start to talk about us the way they used to talk about the Black Partition and the People’s Will: ‘They preach unity to others but, amongst themselves, all they seem to be interested in is back-stabbing.’72 At this point in his political development, it would appear that the young worker had much more in common with the Tars, those ‘deviants’ of 20 Regent Square, than with the self-proclaimed leader of ‘orthodox Marxism’. The latter, in his reply, thanked Nogin for his detailed and forthright review but, markedly, failed to respond to the specific issues raised.73 It is unlikely that Nogin was aware of Vladimir Ilyich’s own contributions to this first issue of the journal which had appeared under one of his many pseudonyms: ‘T. Kh.’ in a section entitled ‘Casual Notes’.74 Nor could Nogin have imagined the huge historical significance of the revolutionary’s next contribution to the journal, which was published in the December 1901 number under the title ‘The “Critics” on the Agrarian Question. First Essay’. For this article he

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chose to use a completely new pen name – ‘N. Lenin’. No one is quite sure what if anything the ‘N’ signified, although some mistakenly assume it stood for ‘Nikolai’. Similarly, it is uncertain where he came up with ‘Lenin’ as a surname though it is often believed it was named after the Lena river in Siberia.75 But Nogin and his friend Andropov had a great deal more for which to thank the Takhtarevs. Towards the end of 1900, with Alekseev’s assistance, the two had embarked on a project to publish a Russian translation of Engels’s Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany. Unfortunately, they ran into such financial difficulties that they were unable to pay their rent for Sidmouth Street and were obliged to vacate their rooms. The Takhtarevs, as ever, came to their rescue, allowing them the use of their flat while they were out of the country. There, for the next month they lived in desperate poverty barely able to feed themselves, washing clothes and carrying the dirty water from the third floor down to the gutter because, quite remarkably, in this flat in this part of the British capital, not far from the centre itself, there was no plumbing.76 Fortunately, in late November, Nogin received some money from his family in Russia which allowed him to move back into his old flat, while Andropov decided to renew his association with Chertkov, who had now relocated his colony to Christchurch on the south coast. In Andropov’s absence, the young worker continued to spend his time with Alekseev and a new arrival, Sofiya Motovilova (the niece, incidentally, of the St Petersburg engineer Robert Klasson in whose flat Krupskaya had first met her husband-to-be). Sofiya had arrived from her home in emigration in Switzerland with the aim of improving her English and, like almost every other émigré, soon found her way to the Library of the British Museum (aided by a reference supplied by none other than Prince Kropotkin). Initially, however, she found it difficult navigating her way around the Library and using the large,

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unwieldy catalogues. She recalled an embarrassing incident from her first day when, wishing to order a book by Jeremy Bentham, she was overwhelmed at the volume of entries in the catalogue and placed an order for the first item she came across. Within a short while a stern librarian approached her desk with a barrow groaning under the weight of the multi-volume collected works of Bentham. She recalled, however, that she had more success with her next order – for works by Robert Owen who, fortunately, had fewer entries in the catalogue.77

The East End Lecturing Society The young Nogin was also occasionally to be found in the British Museum, but was hampered by his poor English, despite the fact that he had started to take English lessons twice-weekly from Konstantin Takhtarev – yet another service which both he and his wife were happy to extend to their compatriots. The young worker, however, felt much more at home in that other émigré haunt – the Free Russian Library in Whitechapel. Aleksei Teplov, the founder of this remarkable institution, was also a regular visitor to the Takhtarevs in Regent Square.78 On her arrival in London, Apollinariya had headed straight off to Whitechapel to offer her services and from their first meeting had taken a great liking to this gentle giant of a man who, Nogin recalled, would often bemoan his fate: ‘Oh, Apollinariya Aleksandrovna. Be so good as to make a poor old man happy … I am getting quite worn down by these East End slums’, Teplov made his request slowly and not altogether clearly. ‘Why, my dear Aleksei Lʹvovich,’ replied Yakubova, ‘Of course, we know how unsatisfactory it all is for you. I will run out there and do my best to find somewhere for you. But you know, not a single landlord wants to rent his premises to Socialists!’79

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Indeed, space was now becoming an even greater problem for Teplov. As well as gradually extending the range of library services that was on offer, he had also set about organizing public lectures and talks and had attracted such prominent speakers as Nikolai Chaikovsky and Prince Kropotkin’s biologist wife, Sofiya.80 So popular did this series of lectures become that Teplov soon required additional staff to help with its administration. Yakubova had long dreamt of the time when she might be able to return to such challenging and worthwhile work and, now that the opportunity presented itself, the ‘primeval force of the black earth’ seized it eagerly.81 The lectures, which were advertised by word of mouth and on posters displayed in the Free Library, started on an informal basis around January 1901. Teplov hired the famous New King’s Hall in the Commercial Road for one evening a week and invited some of the more politically active inhabitants of the area to speak. One of the first to volunteer his services was Dr David Soskice, a Ukrainian lawyer and émigré journalist, whose initial talks covered such disparate (and topical) themes as ‘The Boers and the English’ and ‘The State and the Working Class’.82 The Takhtarevs also offered lectures: Konstantin Mikhailovich spoke on the Russian revolutionary philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky, followed by the somewhat broader topic of the ‘History of Human Culture’, while his wife offered a ‘Short Course in English History’.83 Then, gradually, as word spread and the numbers increased, other speakers came forward to express an interest in participating. Soon it became clear that, as well as subjects of a more political nature, the public were also interested in lectures on other subjects, such as the natural sciences. In response to this demand, Yakubova and her colleagues put out a call for speakers and set aside Fridays for lectures on these topics. Although these initial lectures attracted great interest, the New King’s Hall proved too expensive. Fortunately though, in the autumn of that year, after a short summer

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break, Teplov was able to resume business and this time on a much firmer basis. This was occasioned by the discovery (very possibly thanks to the efforts of Yakubova) of a new hall, which was both within budget and capable of accommodating an audience of up to 100. As word spread around Whitechapel about the new venue – the aptly named Liberty Hall, at 9 Pelham Street (now renamed Woodseer Street), just off Brick Lane – the lectures began to attract upwards of 130 people. With such an increase in demand, it was clear that for the venture to succeed there was a pressing need for the lectures to be organized on a more formalized and systematic basis. On the evening of 13 January 1902, the chief librarian of the Free Russian Library and a small group of his associates met up to celebrate the Russian ‘Old New Year’, and it was on this festive occasion that the proposal was first made formally to establish ‘The East End Socialist Lecturers’ Society’ (Sotsialisticheskoe lektorskoe obshchestvo v Ist-Ende). Shortly thereafter, Yakubova was elected as the Society’s first secretary and treasurer. Other founding members included her husband, Teplov, Soskice, Chaikovsky and Alekseev.84 Yakubova recalled that, initially, the Society had no funds for equipment and so they were obliged to start from scratch. Fortunately, a donation was received from somewhere which allowed them to start to fill up what they comically referred to as their ‘scientific laboratory’, a rather grand name for an old cupboard from which, with every lecture, a new scientific beaker or some other piece of equipment would appear. The public were charged one penny per lecture but it was Society policy that those who did not have any money were admitted for free. As membership grew, so too did subscriptions and the financial situation slowly started to improve until there were enough funds to buy a cheap magic-lantern with which to project slide shows.85 Other income was derived from one-off events, such as the literary and musical event held in Liberty Hall on Sunday 30 March 1902. Tickets

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cost sixpence for an evening which promised recitals in Russian and Yiddish, followed by a slide show of ‘Scenes from the Time of the Great French Revolution’ and ending with dancing until three in the morning.86 It seemed that the ‘primeval force’ and her colleagues had started to breathe a sense of vibrancy and life into the Whitechapel air. It was a time of excitement. The lectures at Liberty Hall offered something for everyone, irrespective of their political leaning; and, indeed, in a small way, were even beginning to act as a unifying force within the Russian diaspora. One émigré described the exhilarating feeling of freedom which these lectures produced: The hall represented the one spot where ‘Capital’ was not allowed entry and no barriers were placed on meetings of revolutionaries … Whereas in Russia members of the revolutionary movement could be imprisoned for saying a single word out of place, here, on this platform, one could raise one’s fist in protest against the Russian government without fear of reprisal.87 In the first eighteen months alone, seventy-four Sunday lectures were given on a diversity of topics – from ‘Anarchism’ to ‘Agrarian Reforms in Ireland’; from ‘Free Love’ to ‘Fourier and His Teachings’; from ‘Religion and Mythology’ to the ‘Russian Revolutionary Movement’ and so on.88 In addition to her ‘Short Course in English History’ Yakubova herself delivered lectures on the ‘Socialist People’s Palace in Belgium’, on the ‘Student Movement in Russia’ and on the ‘Contemporary Struggle of Women for Equal Rights in Russia and in Europe as a Whole’. In St Petersburg in the 1890s she had become involved in the women’s movement and on her arrival in England had made contact with those of a like-mind such as member of the Social Democratic Federation and organizer of Socialist Sunday Schools, Mary Gray. The latter also agreed to receive mail for her.89

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The average attendance for the Sunday lectures was around 90, but could rise to as many as 130, depending on various factors (including the topic, the weather and, in particular, the speaker).90 Apart from those already mentioned, a whole host of other members of London’s intelligentsia rushed to offer their services, while other lectures were given by visitors to the English capital who were persuaded by Yakubova and her colleagues to contribute either to the Sunday lectures or to those on the natural and social sciences held on Friday evenings. In all, during the first eighteen months of its existence, the Society delivered to the public a total of fifty such lectures covering physics, chemistry, the natural sciences and geography. Although not as popular as the Sunday events, they too were well-attended, drawing audiences of anything up to sixty. In addition, some of the Sunday speakers were occasionally persuaded to show the breadth of their learning by also delivering speeches of a scientific nature. Thus, on Friday 12 September, a lecture on ‘Volcanic Eruptions in the West Indies’, complete with magic-lantern show, was delivered by none other than Nikolai Vasil´evich Chaikovsky.91 This, however, was an aberration for the veteran revolutionary, who was more usually to be found in Liberty Hall of a Sunday evening lambasting Marx’s Russian followers. One such was the young Leon Trotsky who recalled one notable occasion, in late 1902 when, having just arrived in London, he was sent out to Whitechapel by Lenin to give a talk and ‘do battle with the patriarch of the emigration, Chaikovsky and the anarchist Cherkezov.’92 Takhtarev was present that evening and remembered Trotsky delivering a caustic speech that had great success.93 The young revolutionary, meanwhile, was ‘truly amazed at the simplistic arguments by means of which these venerable old men attempted to crush Marxism’ and remembered returning home in a state of elation, unable to feel the pavement beneath his feet.94 His performance was doubtless one of the more

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memorable to be witnessed by the Russian workers in the East End but perhaps the highlight for many would have been the speech delivered in late November 1902 on ‘The Program and Tactics of the Socialists-Revolutionaries’.95 The lecture was delivered by Trotsky’s new mentor, Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin.

3 1902–1903: Iskra and shaping the Party At the Museum By the time of his Whitechapel lecture, Lenin had been resident in London for some seven months and was already acquainted with the Little Russian Island in the East End and, indeed, with Liberty Hall itself, which he had already visited on one occasion earlier that year. The venue by then had also come to serve as a meeting place for a small Russian Social Democratic workers’ circle set up by Alekseev who recalled that, on one occasion, the great leader had arrived at the hall and treated the group to a personal, word-for-word explanation of the Iskra programme.1 We shall return to the East End and to Lenin’s lecture in due course but first, let us head back to the centre of town for, in the first days and weeks after his arrival, Lenin was more interested in institutions closer to home. After spending their first few days in cramped temporary accommodation somewhere near Regent Square – (one biographer gives 20 Sidmouth Street as the address) – Lenin and Krupskaya, with the help of the Takhtarevs, moved to a two-roomed flat at 30 Holford Square, Pentonville, just off King’s Cross Road.2 Their landlady, a Mrs Yeo, was somewhat shocked, first, by the couple neglecting

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to hang curtains in their windows and second, by the absence of a wedding ring on Krupskaya’s finger. She was mollified, however, when Konstantin Takhtarev informed her that the couple were indeed legally married and, moreover, threatened that if she meant her words in a prejudicial way then she might well find herself in court on a charge of defamation of character.3 Now, with their previous disagreements seemingly behind them, the Takhtarevs went out of their way to help the new arrivals who, for conspiratorial purposes, had adopted the names of Dr and Mrs Jacob Richter, a name which would cause problems for some they encountered during their stay – as Takhtarev recalled, this uncommon foreign name proved difficult for their new landlady, who pronounced the ‘ch’ in ‘Richter’ as in ‘rich’ and not with the correct Germanic pronunciation – as in ‘loch’.4 Having settled into his new abode, Lenin was anxious to get started on his primary task: namely, to find premises for his new journal Iskra. He asked Takhtarev, as a London resident of fairly long-standing, for his assistance in the matter. The latter, as a member of the Independent Labour Party, suggested they seek their help, but Lenin refused to have anything to do with this non-Marxist organization and insisted he would do business only with Hyndman’s Social Democratic Federation (SDF). Konstantin Mikhailovich therefore took him off to meet Harry Quelch, editor of the SDF journals Justice and Social Democrat, at the offices of the Twentieth Century Press at 37a Clerkenwell Green.5 It proved, however, to be an awkward meeting. One of the main problems encountered by Lenin during the early part of his stay in London was his inability to communicate in English. Certain of his biographers have asserted that, on his arrival, the revolutionary already had a more than passable command of the language and, in support of that claim, have pointed out that, while in Siberian exile, he and Krupskaya had worked on a commission

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to translate Sidney and Beatrice Webb’s Industrial Democracy into Russian. However, in truth, Lenin’s command of the language proved to be so inadequate that he was obliged to base his translation on a pre-existing German version of the Webb original.6 It took the couple only a few weeks in London to realize the full extent of their linguistic shortcomings and, in an effort to solve the problem, they decided to take out an advertisement in a newspaper. This may, yet again, have been at the suggestion of the Takhtarevs, both of whom were familiar with the process, having already placed a series of advertisements. in the Daily News offering Russian lessons.7 Lenin chose to place his in the journal, The Athenaeum. The advertisement (see Figure 3) appeared on the front cover of the issue for Saturday 10 May and read as follows: A RUSSIAN L.L.D. (and his Wife) would like to EXCHANGE RUSSIAN LESSONS for ENGLISH with an English Gentleman (or Lady) – Address Letters Mr J. RICHTER, 30, Holford Square, Pentonville, W.C.8 Their proposal soon bore fruit, attracting the attention of, not one, but three interested parties: a clerk by the name of Williams; a workman

Figure 3  Lenin’s advertisement seeking to exchange Russian lessons for English. (The Athenaeum, 10 May 1902).

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called Young; and a Mr Henry Rayment (or Raymond) who worked for the publishers George Bell and sons.9 Lenin got on particularly well with the latter, on one occasion taking him out to the Russian East End, an area of the metropolis the Englishman had previously never dared enter. Rayment was reported to have been quite astonished by the exotic, other-worldly life of the Russian Jews he encountered there.10 Meanwhile, back in Clerkenwell, Lenin and Quelch, being unable to find a lingua franca, called on the interpreting services of Takhtarev, who willingly stepped in and helped them come to an agreement regarding the establishment of the Iskra printing press there. Following on from that first meeting, these liaison and interpreting duties would be carried out by Takhtarev’s friend Theodore Rothstein, another Russian political émigré who had been resident in London for almost a decade and who was closely associated with the SDF. This would be the beginning of a very long and friendly association between Rothstein and the Bolshevik leader. It would, however, take the two another couple of months of preparatory work before the first London issue of Iskra, no. 22 (July 1902) rolled off the presses in Clerkenwell (see Figure 4). Another sixteen issues would be successfully printed and published there until shortly after the appearance of issue no. 38 in May 1903, when disagreements on the editorial board resulted in operations relocating once more, this time to Geneva. The London Iskra of 1902–1903 owes an enormous debt to the Library of the British Museum for, as we shall see, most of its editors and contributors studied there and, were it not for the riches of its Russian Department and, indeed, other parts of the collections, Iskra would have been an entirely different newspaper. Lenin was one of the first to apply for his reader’s ticket and again it was Konstantin Takhtarev who helped arrange his admission. It was he who introduced Lenin to Isaac Haig Mitchell, general secretary of the

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Figure 4  Iskra (The Spark) no. 22, 1902. The first ‘London’ issue.

General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), who agreed to act as his referee. Unfortunately, all did not go as smoothly as could have been wished.

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On 21 April – a mere week after his arrival in England – Lenin wrote under his pseudonym to the Museum authorities requesting admission, explaining in his stilted English that, ‘I came from Russia in order to study the land question.’ The enclosed reference from Mitchell for ‘Mr Jacob Richter LLd, St Petersburg’ seemed, at first glance, to be perfectly in order; however, rather than writing from his home, Mitchell had used his business address (168 Temple Chambers, Temple Avenue) but had not bothered to use official GFTU headed notepaper. The Museum authorities were unable to find his name listed at that address in the London street directories and therefore refused Lenin admission, notifying him to that effect the following day. The latter anxiously reapplied enclosing a second letter from Mitchell, who this time used the Federation’s own notepaper and explained that his organization had only recently moved from an address in the East End and that therefore it might not yet be registered at its Temple Chambers address. This seemed to satisfy the Museum and on 29 April 1902 Lenin was duly admitted to the Reading Room with pass no. A72453 valid for three months. In due course, that period was extended, first by three months, and then by a further six months until finally, on 29 April 1903, exactly one year after entering the Library for the first time, he surrendered his ticket to the authorities and, a few days later, left England for France. Jacob Richter soon became a frequent visitor to the Reading Room, usually working during the first half of the day. As specified in his application, he was particularly interested in materials pertaining to the land question – his orthodox Marxist approach to the subject was wildly at variance from that of the Socialists-Revolutionaries and other ‘opportunists’ with whom he was about to do battle and so he made good use of the Museum’s collections to bolster his argument, consulting statistical materials on the subject and other relevant literature from a number of countries. Since the Library did not at that

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time keep a record of the material issued to individual readers, it is difficult to provide a detailed listing of the items he used. However, by cross-checking against the catalogues, the notes and bibliographical references given in Lenin’s Biographical Chronicle and collected works, it has been possible to identify some of the collection items consulted (see Appendix).11 His research work formed the basis of a series of articles for Iskra; for his November 1902 Liberty Hall lecture; and, later still, for his pamphlet To the Rural Poor: An Explanation for the Peasants of What the Social Democrats Want (K derevenskoi bednote) which was written towards the end of his stay in London and first published in Geneva in May 1903. It would not be long before Lenin, like many who had come before him, would realize the wealth of the Library’s collections. Indeed, he became one of the Round Reading Room’s greatest admirers and never tired of extolling its virtues. But he also expressed his love and gratitude in a more concrete form – by making gifts to the Library of some of his own books and pamphlets: at least four such donations are recorded in the Museum archives and it is also possible that other donations (e.g. from Dietz, his Stuttgart publisher) were made on his instruction. Moreover, the Library’s copy of the first edition of his To the Rural Poor is also marked as a gift and, even though the donor’s name is not listed in the official records, one may be inclined to believe that if Lenin had to donate only one of his works this would most certainly have been his choice, given that it was based almost entirely on the research work he carried out having fallen for the first time under the spell of the Great Dome. (See Appendix for further details.) Moreover, Lenin was keen that his colleagues should share in the treasures he had discovered in Great Russell Street and he did not have long to wait for their arrival. As more members of the Iskra editorial board began to appear in London, Takhtarev and Yakubova, despite having already expressed the desire to distance themselves

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from the Party, now found themselves being sucked back in to its day-to-day activities. Just as he had done for Lenin, Takhtarev now felt obliged to seek out somewhere for the new arrivals to stay and managed to find them shared accommodation in a flat near to their own home in Regent Square. These premises soon become known as the Iskra commune which, according to those who visited, was a somewhat bohemian little establishment, always in a dreadfully unclean state, with piles of newspapers in every corner, general dust and filth everywhere, cigarette ash in the sugar-bowl and so on. Reading through the reminiscences of those Russians who were in London at this time, one is left with the impression, not only that they all lived there at one point or another, but also that they all, without fail, would later register as readers at the British Museum. Indeed, it is thanks to these registrations that we can pinpoint the exact address of the commune. It is recorded under Vera Zasulich’s signature in the Volumes of Readers’ Admissions as Flat no. 2. 14 Sidmouth Street, W.C.12 Of the six members of his editorial board, three remained abroad: Axelrod, Potresov and Plekhanov, although, as we shall see, the latter did make a brief visit to London later that year. Of the remaining editors, the first to follow in Lenin’s footsteps signed the Register of Readers on 25 July 1902 as ‘Leopold Bieljansky’, and received pass number A73105, valid for three months. This was the pseudonym of Yuly Osipovich Tsederbaum, alias Martov, who would later become the ‘leader’ of the Mensheviks, but who at this time was still an intimate friend of Lenin. As well as being an editor of Iskra, he was also, together with Zasulich, one of the founding members of the commune. From the British Museum Archives, we discover that by the end of October both he and Zasulich had moved from Sidmouth Street and, to all intents and purposes, had established a second commune at the new address of 23 Percy Circus which was a mere

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stone’s throw from Lenin’s flat in Holford Square.13 It is said that the reason for their move from the ‘den’ (vertep), as one visitor termed it, was the constant comings and goings and unbearable noise which interfered with their work.14 Indeed, Takhtarev recalled one incident where a member of the commune had started playing around with the gas supply, filling up empty preserve cans with gas and setting them off with a loud bang. This caused great alarm to the neighbours, who were already most concerned by the uncivilized behaviour of these ‘nihilists’ in their midst. Takhtarev passed on their complaints to Lenin and advised him to do something about his comrades’ unruly conduct. The latter, accordingly, came round and laid down the law.15 Whether this incident led to the termination of their tenancy and the collapse of the first commune is not recorded. Another of those who claimed to have lived in the commune was Lev Grigorʹevich Deich (Deutsch), one of the founders, with Plekhanov and Zasulich, of the Emancipation of Labour Group. Although not on the editorial board, he contributed to Iskra and was also heavily involved in its production and distribution. Using his pseudonym, Leo Allemoun, he entered the Reading Room on 2 August 1902. It is interesting, however, that he gave his address as 26 Granville Square, W.C. and not 14 Sidmouth Street.16 Yet another Iskraite to visit the commune, but one who certainly would not have dreamt of staying there, was Georges Plekhanov. Having decided to pay a brief visit to his colleagues in London, he wrote to Lenin from Geneva asking that rooms be found for him. Then on 6 October 1902, just a few weeks after his arrival, he sent a letter to the Museum from his lodgings at 25 Frederick Street, W.C. asking to be admitted to the Reading Room in order to, as he put it: faire quelques recherches dans le domaine de la philosophie. His reference, perhaps surprisingly, came from a noted Swedish medical practitioner, Dr Henryk Kellgren who wrote from the grand address of 49 Eaton Square, S.W. Plekhanov was duly

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admitted without any problems two days later.17 This, incidentally, was not Kellgren’s first association with the Russian Social Democrats, for he had already served as a referee some two years earlier for Nikolai Alekseev. This is of interest because Kellgren was no ordinary G.P., but one who attracted patients mainly from the highest social level. In later life he became wealthy enough to indulge in extensive artistic patronage and, after his death, a hospital was opened as a memorial to him ‘intended for the treatment, mainly of less affluent people’.18 Plekhanov’s visit to London, and indeed to the British Museum, overlapped with that of Lenin’s young protégé Leon Trotsky who, but for the interference of the former, would have been co-opted onto the Iskra editorial board and would, consequently, have played a more significant role in the newspaper. He was, nonetheless, a regular contributor and also wrote the occasional editorial. In his reminiscences, Trotsky speaks fondly of his association with the London ‘old-timer’ Alekseev, and of how the latter treated Lenin with the greatest respect, on one occasion proclaiming: ‘I believe that he is more important for the revolution than Plekhanov.’ It was Alekseev who introduced Trotsky to Whitechapel and to English life in general and who served, during his stay, as a source of all knowledge for him. Elsewhere, Trotsky referred to his own unfailing ability to get lost in the winding streets of the English capital – his ‘topographic cretinism’ as he called it – which doubtless increased his dependency yet further on the experienced old émigré.19 From Trotsky’s reminiscences, we learn that from late October 1902 he too stayed with Zasulich, Martov and others in the Iskra commune and, shortly thereafter, obtained entry to what he described as the ‘sanctuary’ of the British Museum, thanks to the assistance of Lenin’s new collaborator Harry Quelch. Unfortunately, although Trotsky makes several references to the Library, as yet no record of his admission under any of his known pseudonyms has been found. The archives do, however, contain

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a rather intriguing application dating from late January 1903 from the 23 Percy Circus address. The applicant signed himself as Mr Boris Nemirovsky but, unfortunately, no reference to this name, pseudonymous or otherwise has as yet been found. Fortunately, one can be much more certain with regard to the identity of Mr Nemirovsky’s referee. His name was Isaac Kahan, an established Russian businessman based in the heart of the Russian East End at an address on Commercial Road directly opposite the New King’s Hall.

Some addresses of interest in the East End Unlike the New King’s Hall, which was destroyed by an incendiary bomb during the Second World War, the three-storey terraced house which stands at no. 106 Commercial Road today still has that same rather shabby appearance, but now, like many of the other properties in the area, it is home to a clothing business. The property has received no mention in any study of the London Russian political emigration, which is surprising given the undoubtedly important role it played in the activities of the community and the role-call of revolutionaries who stayed in or visited the house during the period in question. As we shall see later, it also played an important organizational role during Lenin’s visit at the time of the Fifth (1907) Congress of the RSDLP. Whether Lenin made use of the facility or visited the address, during this, his first stay in London, is unknown but it is unsurprising to learn that another of his haunts in the East End was Teplov’s Free Library. This is supported by Lenin’s Biographical Chronicle which contains a reference to him borrowing an issue of the SocialistRevolutionary journal the Herald of Revolutionary Russia (Vestnik russkoi revoliutsii) from the library.20 What is of interest here is that, for whatever reason, on this occasion, the arch-conspirator ‘broke

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cover’ and signed the library’s Register of Loans as ‘Lenin’, rather than ‘Richter’, the pseudonym which, it was assumed, he used unfailingly throughout this stay. There is no question, however, that it was as Mr Richter that he paid a visit to another well-known East End establishment situated not far from the Free Library. At some point in 1902, it is known that he attended an event at Toynbee Hall, the famous reformist institution, founded in 1883 and named after the historian Arnold Toynbee who had been involved in social work in the East End before his early death that same year. This was the home of the so-called ‘settlement movement’ which was similar in some respects to the Russian ‘Movement to the People’ of the 1870s in which Teplov and others had played a part. The hall had been set up as one of the ‘settlement houses’ in which university graduates and students from Oxford and Cambridge would live while they carried out social and educational work to ameliorate the poverty, ignorance and vice which was then so common in the area. It was hoped that the working classes would thereby gain education, while, at the same time, the young academics would become more worldly and practical. It was perhaps again at the suggestion of the Takhtarevs that Lenin decided to go along to Toynbee Hall to attend one of their socalled smoking debates on ‘Our Foreign Policy’ in which one of the invited speakers was the Liberal politician, the Rt. Hon. John Morley. According to William Bowman, one of the settlement workers present on that occasion, the audience was composed primarily of Russian political exiles and ‘nihilist’ dock workers.21 Bowman recalled that during the debate one of the Russians, who introduced himself as a Mr Richter, stood up and although speaking in broken English was, nevertheless, able to make himself understood. He asked Morley why he wished to talk about foreign policy in the East End where no one cared about it and where the people were ground down by capitalism.

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According to him, British foreign policy was pure imperialist exploitation. Bowman left the following description of him: He appeared about thirty four or five and looked sickly and impoverished. Short and stiffly built with a short neck and large head. His chin was strong and he had a short beard trimmed to a point. His hair was dark brown and had a red tinge. He was definitely Oriental in appearance. He was not an impressive figure and few outside his own friends would have looked twice at him. His shabby clothes helped to detract from his appearance, but he was evidently an intellectual. Bowman would meet Richter again a few days later when he was invited by a senior director at the Hall to take tea with him. He reported that on that occasion the Russian was ‘interested by the English muffins which he had never tasted before’ but found that, on the whole, with the exception of meat, English food was poor. They discussed Britain’s imperialist policies in Africa and India with the visitor warning that one day Britain would be obliged to return these lands to the rightful owners. He also dismissed religion as the opiate of the masses and, as for Christianity, the Old Testament to him was no more than some old Jewish fairy tales, while the New Testament was nothing but an unreliable and inaccurate record of three years of Christ’s doings and teachings. It was only much later that Bowman learned of Richter’s true identity as ‘the world’s greatest revolutionary’, as he called him. It is interesting to note, as an aside, that Bowman also described how, after they had dined, the host produced a jar of tobacco and ‘we filled our pipes and drew our chairs round the fire’. It is possible, however, that Bowman may have misremembered on this occasion. For, although Lenin experimented with smoking in his youth, he later became a committed non-smoker, and although there are some reports of

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him lighting up the odd cigarette or cigar in later life, there is no evidence that he ever smoked a pipe.

The Liberty Hall lecture Ivan Mikhailov, one of the members of the workers’ circle that had been honoured by Lenin’s earlier appearance at Liberty Hall, also recalled the occasion of Vladimir Ilyich’s lecture in late November 1902 which, he claimed, was delivered to an audience of between 300 and 500. This figure is doubtless an exaggeration since other sources give the maximum capacity of the hall as no more than 130.22 Mikhailov went on to assert that Lenin’s critique of the programme of the Socialists-Revolutionaries that evening was so stunning and unassailable that the leaders of the opposition who had turned up to debate with him left the hall without even trying to raise a counterargument. However, in truth, a number of responses to Lenin’s speech were made by, among others, Cherkezov, Shvarts, Lazarev and Chaikovsky.23 Takhtarev was also present that evening and recalled that the hall certainly was packed to capacity and, moreover, that it felt like a sauna inside. Lenin’s impassioned lecture against the Socialists-Revolutionaries lasted for two hours, during which time he never paused and never once looked at the faces in the audience, focussing instead on a point high up on the wall at the opposite end of the hall. At the end, soaked in sweat, the orator rushed off to get a drink. Later, on their way home from Whitechapel, Takhtarev queried him on his unique style of delivery and asked why he never looked at his audience: ‘Well,’ – Vladimir Ilyich replied – ‘just in case the expression on their faces spoils my mood and breaks my train of thought. I always deliberately try not to look at my audience so that I’m not prevented from properly presenting my thoughts.’24

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If he had wished, Takhtarev could have mentioned another aspect of Lenin’s delivery which made it all the more unique – namely, that he suffered from the medical condition of dyslalia or rhoticism which caused him to speak with a pronounced burr. This impediment was referred to by Trotsky, recalling a discussion he had had with Vera Zasulich shortly after his arrival in emigration: Vera Ivanovna, by her own account, once said to Lenin, ‘Georges (Plekhanov) – is like a borzoi hound: when he catches his prey he shakes it and shakes it but then lets it go. You, on the other hand, you are a bulldog: you hold on to your prey in a death grip (mertvaia khvatka).’ Repeating this conversation to me later, Zasulich added: ‘He (Lenin) liked this very much. “A death grip?” he repeated with satisfaction.’ And Vera Ivanovna, in a good-hearted way, mocked the intonation of his question and his burred pronunciation.25 One might wonder, in passing, how good-natured one can really be if one choses to mock someone with a speech impediment. Indeed, from this reminiscence, the two sound more like naughty schoolchildren mimicking their teacher in the playground. Trotsky had been another of those present on the night of the Liberty Hall lecture and, from his recollection, it is evident that Lenin’s ‘stunning and unassailable’ speech had not had the same effect on him as it had on Mikhailov. Far from hanging on every one of his mentor’s words, Trotsky candidly admitted that he could not remember much about the presentation itself. According to him, there was no debate afterwards and the audience, which was primarily made up of bundists and anarchists, was not particularly receptive and so, the lecture had not been hugely successful. What is of more interest, however, are Trotsky’s recollections of what happened immediately afterwards:

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I remember that at the end of the evening I was approached by ‘B’, a husband and wife of the former Petersburg group Worker’s Thought who had lived for quite some time in London, and was invited to: ‘Come to us for the New Year’. ‘What for?’ – I asked in puzzlement. ‘To spend time with friends. Ulyanov and Krupskaya will be there.’ I remember he distinctly said Ulyanov, not Lenin, and I therefore did not immediately realize who he was talking about. They also extended the invitation to Zasulich and Martov. The next day in the ‘den’ the three of us mulled over what to do and wondered whether, in fact, Lenin would turn up. It turned out that, in the end, no one went. Which was a pity: it would have been a unique opportunity to spend time with Lenin, Zasulich and Martov in a friendly festive atmosphere.26 By any measure this is an extremely revealing passage. Firstly, whether it was Trotsky’s own decision or that of the state censor to refer to the Takhtarevs as ‘B’ (for the reference is unquestionably to them) is irrelevant. It is self-evident that, as early as 1924, in the year of Lenin’s death, Party history was already being rewritten and, for whatever reason, Takhtarev and Yakubova had already become non-persons. Secondly, the passage also casts light on the true nature of the personal relationship which then existed between Lenin and his co-revolutionaries – here Trotsky betrays a certain timidity in the attitude of the ‘communards’ towards Lenin and supplies no evidence that would point to the existence of any warmth or any signs of friendship in the leader’s dealings with his closest comrades. It is known that, during his time in London, Lenin had very little to do with the ‘old’ Russian émigrés such as Kropotkin, Chaikovsky or anyone else who was not a firm believer in his orthodox Marxist Social Democracy (with the possible exception of the SocialistRevolutionary Teplov), and that he only ever made minimal contact,

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primarily of a business nature, with ‘non-Russians’ such as, for example, Quelch. Indeed, there is no question that, when not at home, he spent the vast majority of his time in virtual solitude, either in his newspaper offices in Clerkenwell, or buried behind piles of books and journals in the British Museum. Moreover, he rarely took advantage of the entertainments which London had to offer and almost never attended concerts or visited the theatre. Two exceptions, according to Krupskaya, were their attendance at a performance of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony (the Pathétique) and a visit they made to the ‘German Theatre’ – although it is unclear whether she had in mind the recently founded Deutsches Theater in Langham Place in the West End or, perhaps more likely, the long-established Deutscher Gewerbe- und Theater-Verein on City Road in the East End.27 On the whole, Lenin regarded such outings as distractions and a waste of his valuable time, but, nevertheless, he did not lead an entirely solitary existence. While it is true that he would do anything rather than have to spend any more time than necessary with his Party colleagues in the chaos and disorder of the Sidmouth Street commune, he would occasionally go with his friends to a certain cafe on the Pentonville Road near the Angel Islington that served good German beer and there, over a tankard of ale, would often get involved in lively discussions on the topics of the day. Indeed, there is testimony which seems to contradict Trotsky’s suggestion of Lenin’s unapproachability or coldness. Konstantin Takhtarev recalled quite a different, sociable side to the man, claiming that his favourite pastime was simply chatting to close friends and that Mr and Mrs Richter, just like a host of other émigrés before them, such as Nogin, Andropov, Alekseev, Teplov et al., were regular visitors to no. 20 Regent Square. Indeed, Krupskaya herself wrote that she and her husband saw the Takhtarevs ‘all the time’.28 They were not, however, quite as sociable as the rest, preferring instead to spend time exclusively with the hosts. (Although Krupskaya did

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recall on one occasion meeting an English Social Democrat there and being generally amazed at ‘the bottomless inanity of English pettybourgeois life’.29) The apparent friendship or, at least, sociable interaction between the two couples is perhaps surprising, given their recent history and differences, such as Takhtarev’s unwavering support for Bernstein and the ‘economist’ cause so reviled by Lenin. Indeed, one might hazard the guess that it was not solely the attraction of political opposites which drew Lenin to Yakubova’s house. During their visits, according to Krupskaya, no mention was made of the Workers’ Thought tendency and, although there was the occasional rupture this, happily, was followed by reconciliation.30 Takhtarev also recalled the numerous heated arguments he and his wife had with Lenin during this period. They quarrelled about Russian politics, the British Labour Party, British trade-unionism and much more besides; but, in particular, he remembered their disagreement over Petr Struve, a former close Social Democrat associate in St Petersburg who had ‘deviated from the orthodox path’, and whom Lenin now regarded quite simply as a traitor who, he said, deserved nothing better than to be killed. When Takhtarev objected to this callous and irresponsible statement, Lenin sarcastically enquired whether he would rather treat Struve with kid gloves. Takhtarev would later express the view that, in his opinion, kid gloves were at least preferable to Lenin’s iron gauntlet.31 The above exchanges give little support to Krupskaya’s claim that, by January 1903, the Takhtarevs had been won over to Lenin’s Bolshevist point of view.32 It would appear, however, that Yakubova, at least, had been drawn back into the day-to-day life of the Party, and neither she nor her husband seemed to have any objection to their Regent Square flat being used as a correspondence address for those back in Russia who wished to communicate with the Iskra editorial board.33 One émigré on his arrival in London, called in to offer his services at the

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Iskra office. It was run, he stated, not by Krupskaya, but by ‘comrade Takhtareva’ who set him up to work in the distribution section.34 Thus it would appear that this human dynamo, quite apart from her studies at the British Museum and her trips out to Whitechapel in connection with her work for the East End Lecturing Society, was now also regularly to be found with Lenin in his Clerkenwell offices. Exactly how much work time, or leisure time, Lenin spent with Yakubova during this period, either on their own or in the company of their respective spouses, is unrecorded, however, it is known that in February of 1903 three of the four made a trip to Paris.

Easter in Paris Takhtarev had long since given up on party politics and was now devoting most of his time to sociological research. He had already established contact with some like-minded émigrés in Paris, such as the group of exiled academics led by Professor Maxim Kovalevsky, who had succeeded in establishing the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences and obtaining affiliation to the University of Paris. In early 1903, Takhtarev received an invitation to visit the School to give a series of lectures on the subject of genetic sociology. His wife joined him on the trip. During that same period, by apparent coincidence, Lenin had also been invited to the School, on the insistence of a Marxist student group, to deliver lectures on his current topic of interest, the agrarian question. Trotsky also happened to be in Paris at this time and recalled that the professors at the School were concerned that the speaker might be too ‘polemical’ for the university authorities and politely asked him if he could keep his lectures as factual and scientific as possible. It is reported that Lenin took no notice of this request.

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But quite apart from their work obligations, the assembled Russians also seized the opportunity to enjoy some leisure time in the French capital. Trotsky recalled one evening when they decided to take Lenin to the opera and entrusted Natalya Sedova, a member of the Paris Iskra group, with the arrangements.35 She chose a performance of Massenet’s Louise de Mézières at the Opéra Comique and arranged for them to sit together as a group in the gallery. In addition to Lenin, Sedova and himself, Trotsky recalled that Martov was in attendance, but could not remember any of the others.36 Whether Trotsky’s amnesia may have been selective, or whether Mr or Mrs Takhtarev may have been present on this occasion is unknown, but there were other opportunities for them to join in the fun. As Takhtarev recalled: At this time the French were celebrating Mardi gras. The streets of Paris were filled with cheerful crowds having fun and carousing from morning till night. And, of course, our comrades, Vladimir Ilyich’s entire company, including the man himself, took part in the gaiety. They all had a good laugh and let their hair down every bit as much as the French. Vladimir Ilyich was, after all, a man and therefore, apparently, ‘nothing human was alien to him’.37 At the time I was preoccupied with my lectures at the School and so did not participate in these street festivities. But Apollinariya Aleksandrovna joined in with Vladimir Ilyich’s group and later told me how much they had amused themselves with the French.38 It is curious that Takhtarev chose to use the famous quotation of the Roman playwright Terence – Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto – with regard to Lenin. Did Yakubova perhaps report back with specific details of the amusements in which Vladimir Ilyich and his group had indulged over that Easter in Paris? One can but guess. Similarly, there is no way of knowing whether either Yakubova or Lenin might have recalled that previous Shrovetide gathering at

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which both had been present, under quite different circumstances, some nine years earlier at Klasson’s flat in St Petersburg. If Lenin, either at that time or later, ever had, in fact, sensed a spark of emotion in Yakubova, which he had hoped he might fan into a flame, then by now, any such hope must surely have been extinguished.

Springtime in London On her return to London, Yakubova realized, much to her dismay, that Lenin’s Iskraite tendency was very much being fanned into a flame in Whitechapel, and that the political composition of the audiences at the Society’s lectures was undergoing a noticeable change.39 The young Social Democrat, Ivan Mikhailov referred to newly arrived émigré workers appearing at the lectures in Liberty Hall and recalled how Alekseev’s group carried out revolutionary propaganda and agitation amongst the Russian workers. Now those who took part in the debates were not only the leaders of the Foreign League but also the ‘masses’: the lectures and meetings were now being attended, not by a politically indifferent audience, but by a majority of supporters of the Social Democratic Party … In this small hall the great ideas of the struggle against capital were developed, argued over and explained, Social Democrats engaged in fierce debates with the other groups on the legitimacy of Marxism: often the arguments became so intense that the police were called and threatened to close the hall.40 The Sunday lectures were certainly becoming livelier, and had obliged the organizers to introduce a range of new regulations but, sadly, these proved insufficient.41 At an extraordinary meeting of the Society on 17 June 1903 it was proposed that, following an unspecified ‘incident’

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at a recent lecture, the Society itself should be dissolved. Although no details were given of the incident in question, it is likely it was the same unpleasant episode described by Mikhailov in his reminiscence: Alekseev was giving a lecture. The anarchists and SocialistsRevolutionaries had mobilized their forces and put forward individuals to lead in the debate hoping to win over the audience. Alekseev spoke of how in Russia a working class was being born which would represent the hegemony of the Russian revolutionary movement, and which would be able to lead the fight for socialism. He denied the need for terrorist tactics as an unnecessary waste of revolutionary energy. He was countered by Chaikovsky, Shvarts and old Cherkezov who, in turn, were opposed by a number of speakers, young Social Democrats who succeeded in exposing the entire ideological bankruptcy of these ‘old men’. The old Caucasian Cherkezov again stood up on the platform and, raising his fist, cried, ‘These youngsters dare to blacken us and defame our revolutionary zeal. I am a knight and a terrorist, I am an old man and it is not for these young pups to teach us!’ But this hysterical outburst was met only with laughter. The supporters of the insulted Cherkezov, the so-called Socialists-Revolutionaries, ended up by physically attacking us.42 Mikhailov neglected to describe the aftermath of this altercation, but it could be that it provided sufficient grounds for some members of the Lecturing Society to decide it had outlived its usefulness. The next full meeting of the Society, held on Tuesday 23 June 1903, would prove to be its last. Following its formal dissolution, Apollinariya Yakubova, its secretary, signed over the estate of the Society and all monies remaining in its account – a total of three pounds four shillings and sixpence – to the Society of Russian Political Émigrés in London, and a notice to that effect was posted on the wall of the

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Free Russian Library.43 In her memoir, Yakubova put the Society’s acrimonious end down to ‘theoretical disagreements’ amongst its members, although it was clear that it was primarily the aggressive and divisive bullying tactics of Lenin’s Social Democrats which had brought about the collapse. Thereafter, the Society split into two separate entities operating quite independently one from the other and although Yakubova and Takhtarev aligned themselves with the newly formed Russian Social Democratic Lecturing Society they only rarely offered to deliver lectures at its new venue, the Black Lion Inn, Black Lion Yard, Whitechapel Road. Indeed, some months later, when the couple were obliged to move to a new flat at 27 Holford Square because their old address was known ‘to almost the whole of Whitechapel’, Yakubova wrote to Teplov asking him not to pass the address on to anyone.44 It was clear that the Takhtarevs had lost all interest in this new form of antagonistic politics and now wished to cut themselves off from their previous life. Unfortunately, their disillusionment was set to increase yet further by the year’s end. If the Takhtarevs’ return to London after their Paris break had proved unpleasant, so too had Lenin’s. A common problem experienced by left-wing parties is their seeming inability to bury their differences and present a united front. This was equally true of the Russian left at this time. Vladimir Burtsev, who inclined towards the Socialists-Revolutionaries, certainly had no time for the Social Democrats and they in turn could find little common ground with the narodniks or the Socialists-Revolutionaries. Iskra was often full of attacks on these parties and their representatives. But, ominously, many serious differences of opinion were beginning to appear within the Social Democratic Labour Party itself, and these were reflected on the editorial board of Iskra. Sharp letters were starting to fly between Geneva and London, and sharp words between Plekhanov,

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Martov and Deich on the one hand, and Lenin on the other. It became apparent that this split-site editing procedure was not working and, eventually, it was decided to move the editorial offices to Geneva. Only Lenin was against the move but, on this occasion, he failed to have the decision reversed and so it was that Iskra no. 38 for May 1903 became the last to roll off the London presses. Around the middle of the month, having returned his reader’s ticket to the British Museum, he and Krupskaya vacated their flat in Holford Square and crossed the Channel once more, together with the remaining communards and their band of camp followers. Unfortunately, just at that time, and possibly as a result of the stress brought on by the friction on the board, Lenin fell ill with the very unpleasant and painful condition of ‘ignis sacer’ (‘holy fire’ or ‘St Anthony’s fire’) which resulted in a rash caused by the inflammation of the nerve endings. Despite his growing desire to distance himself from Lenin, it was Takhtarev who, calling on his earlier medical training, stepped in once more and, with Krupskaya’s assistance, helped him recuperate.45 When the ailing Lenin did eventually set sail for the continent, Mr and Mrs Takhtarev doubtless breathed a sigh of relief but, sadly, their respite was short-lived.

The Second Congress and its aftermath The Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party began in Brussels on 30 July 1903 but, a week later, due to pressure from the Belgian police, the fifty or so delegates were obliged to move to London, where, as recorded by Krupskaya, ‘the arrangements for the Congress were furthered in every way by the Takhtarevs’.46 It is a testament to the meticulous planning carried out by Takhtarev and,

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indeed, by his wife that, to this day, the exact locations of the Congress meetings remain unknown. As Takhtarev explained: It was necessary to organize the Congress technically and, moreover, in such a way that it did not attract the attention of those who did not need to know what was going on: agents of the Russian embassy and secret police in particular. Vladimir Ilyich asked me to help in this matter. I did what I could. I decided that it would be much better if the Congress constantly changed the location in which its meetings were to take place. To this end, I found a number of suitable premises, in relatively crowded places, in halls where meetings of various English organizations often took place. In order to make it easier for delegates to find the venue of an upcoming meeting, I distributed plans of the area indicating the streets leading to the meeting place, drawn up by me and duplicated by Apollinariya Alexandrovna. The first meeting took place not far from where the German communist club was located. As far as I remember, the room that I found was located near Fitzroy Square, on Charlotte Street. It was the premises of an English Anglers’ club, whose trophies adorned the walls of the small hall. When asked by the owner about whom the room was for I said it was for a meeting of Belgian trade unionists.47 Clearly, the Takhtarevs had already mastered the art of konspiratsiia and, as a sign of gratitude for their further assistance, Lenin invited both husband and wife to attend the Congress in an advisory/ consultative capacity. As has been well-documented, by the end of the Congress, the Party had split into two separate, irreconcilable trends – Bolshevik (Majoritarian) and Menshevik (Minoritarian), but the initial disagreements which led to the split had very little to do with political

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ideology. Rather, they concerned the struggle over who would gain control of the party machine.48 At the outset, Lenin was sure of a comfortable majority so long as all of his Iskra followers remained true to the cause, and so it proved. However, as the Congress progressed, a gradual switch of loyalties could be detected until, during a session at which Lenin’s draft of the Party rules was being discussed, a number of his followers switched sides, including the hitherto loyal Martov, who proposed an alternative draft, recommending a relatively minor change in the definition of Party membership. When, put to the vote, Lenin suffered his first defeat, losing by twenty-three votes to twenty-eight. This was enough to trigger a change in momentum. The majority now commanded by Martov prevailed over a number of votes which followed, on fairly insignificant clauses in the rules, and, indeed, could have seen him through to the end of the Congress had he so wished it. However, there was the issue of the under-representation of the Jewish Bund still to contend with. Their leader, Arkady Kremer, called for a degree of independence within the Party which the Bundists wanted to see based on federal lines, and put forward a claim for the Bund to serve as the sole representative of the Jewish proletariat within the RSDLP. The Iskraite centralists, and indeed Martov himself, objected, agreeing, instead, to grant the Bund autonomy only in organizational matters.49 Amid threats of withdrawal and expulsion, Yakubova did her best to mediate but failed to prevent the five Bund delegates and two of their supporters from leaving the Congress. In one fell swoop, Martov had sacrificed his majority to Lenin. Bitter arguments now ensued over the principles of Party organization and leadership, including the composition of the Central Committee and the Iskra editorial board, with Lenin and his supporters narrowly winning votes on these and all remaining matters. His triumph was complete and a split in the Party was now inevitable. Takhtarev, for one, was in no doubt that the rupture

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had been brought about solely by Lenin’s radicalism and his desire always to be the first – the leader – and roundly criticized him for his ‘underhand polemical tricks and intolerance’.50 The divisions which had appeared in London deepened in Geneva later that year, during the Second Congress of the Foreign League of Russian Revolutionary Social Democracy.51 Takhtarev attended but maintained a neutral position and then left after the fifth session declaring that, given the atmosphere of sharp fractional conflict, he considered it pointless and inadvisable for the Congress to continue.52 Yakubova, meanwhile, had transferred her vote to her husband but did not attend the Congress. She did, however, let her feelings be known in advance – to Krupskaya. On the first day of the Congress, Krupskaya sat down to pen yet another bitter missive, this time to the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party. She reported having received a ‘ludicrous’ letter from Yakubova concerning the Party, in which the latter described it as being run under an ‘iron gauntlet’ (to use Takhtarev’s phrase), and complained about how awful such a system was that lead to such schisms.53 ‘She wept for the Bund and so on,’ wrote Krupskaya. ‘I very much regret having opened up to her. She is a changed person from whom one can expect nothing but such stupid notes. She understands nothing!’ In the same letter Krupskaya described her erstwhile friend as having a tendency towards Menshevism and defined her position as of the ‘swamp’ (boloto), that is figuratively, an unreliable opportunist with unstable views. But, with such evident bile flowing from her pen, one wonders whether Krupskaya might have relished the use of the word boloto, given its alternative figurative meaning – of ‘hag’ or ‘witch’.54 Needless to say, Krupskaya also omitted the sentiment expressed in this letter from her later reminiscences. On this note, the relationship between the Takhtarev-Tars and the Ulyanov-Lenins, which had lasted some ten years, came to an abrupt end: their paths would never cross again.

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4 1905: a congress of conspirators Jewish disturbances In the spring of 1905, Lenin returned to London but, although it is known that he again paid a visit to the British Museum and there copied out extracts from the works of Marx and Engels, there is no record of him meeting up with either of the Takhtarevs, either in the Reading Room or anywhere else during his stay. Their friendship, which had survived through thick and thin for almost a decade, had foundered on the tumultuous events of 1903, and neither Lenin nor Krupskaya had made any contact with either of the Takhtarevs since that time. Their old relationship, it would appear, was now well and truly over. In the two years that had elapsed since Lenin’s previous visit, British attitudes to Russia had been in a state of flux. In April 1903, anti-Jewish pogroms had erupted in Kishinev, in what was then Bessarabia, resulting in some fifty deaths and hundreds more injured. Rumours abounded concerning a secret letter, which supposedly had been sent by Vyacheslav Plehve, the Minister of the Interior, to the Governor of Bessarabia ordering him not to use arms

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against rioters if they were ‘only’ pillaging and murdering Jews. In London the horrific events were reported by the national press and, by among others, the émigré journal, the Anglo-Russian which, in May, carried an article highly critical of England as a whole for its weak response to the atrocity.1 Whereas the massacres called forth a storm of indignation in France (so much so that the Franco-Russian alliance was being called into question) all that happened in England was ‘a timid inquiry in the House of Commons as to the effect of the Russian persecutions upon alien immigration to this country and a planned Hyde Park demonstration by the East End Jews’. Not all British newspapers, however, were as half-hearted in their condemnation of the Russian government: that same month, the Russia correspondent of The Times, Mr D. D. Braham was expelled from the country, ostensibly for his coverage of Kishinev and his mention of the Plehve letter.2 It may have been this state of heightened tension which, in an almost contradictory fashion, gave rise, the following year, to disturbances in the very heart of the Little Russian Island in London’s East End, during which the émigré Jewish population and their properties were viciously attacked. However, as subsequent events in the police courts would reveal, the perpetrators of these crimes turned out to be, somewhat remarkably, members of the local orthodox Jewish community themselves. In the summer of 1904, Aleksei Teplov’s Free Russian Library had grown to such an extent that he had been obliged to quit Church Lane and find new premises. He entered into a part-share agreement with the owners of a terraced house at no. 16 Princelet Street, just off Brick Lane.3 The owners were the East London Jewish Branch of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) with some of whose members he was already acquainted. The SDF intended to turn their part of

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the building into a Dom Naroda or ‘House of the People’ (also often referred to as the ‘Maison du Bund’) and, indeed, the opening of this club was duly celebrated on 30 July 1904 with an International Socialist Banquet chaired by none other than the founder of the SDF himself, Henry Mayers Hyndman.4 This move of the library to its new address and its new formalized association with the SDF was roundly criticized by some of its founder members such as Nikolai Chaikovsky, who opposed the new relationship, saying it completely contradicted the non-party nature of the institution.5 Sadly, following this disagreement, relations between the two revolutionaries cooled considerably. However, of more immediate concern to Teplov were his strained relations with his new neighbours which gradually deteriorated throughout that summer and which came to a head on Monday 19 September, on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. Directly opposite No. 16 Princelet Street was a synagogue whose orthodox (and mostly English) members vehemently objected to their new ‘alien’ neighbours’ refusal to observe the Day of Atonement. They would later claim that the new arrivals, ‘who were inclined to make much of their repudiation of the old faith, chose that day, a day of fasting for the orthodox, to drive a van full of provisions down some of the streets most frequented by Jews’.6 The end result was something akin to a riot, with the orthodox Jews setting about the freethinkers and smashing the windows of the Free Library. The disturbances reached such a level that over 100 extra police had to be called in to break up the crowds and protect houses and restaurants in the area. Two socialists were arrested and in the witness box stated that, indeed, they did not observe the Day of Atonement but denied they were in any way the aggressors. The magistrate agreed, saying it was abundantly clear who had begun

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the attack and hoped that, next year, the ‘orthodox’ would be the persons brought before him.7 Such incidents did little to dampen the growing anti-alien sentiments which were spreading steadily throughout the East End and, indeed, further afield, and the Russian émigré community could not help but sense a change in the attitude of the British public towards them. Over the next year, however, certain events helped redirect British hostility away from the unfortunate exiles in their midst and firmly towards the Russian government itself. The first of these was the tragic incident which played out in the North Sea in October 1904 and which almost resulted in Britain declaring war on Russia.

The Dogger Bank tragedy In the early years of the twentieth century, partly as a result of Russia’s desire to take ownership of Port Arthur, a warm-water port on the Pacific Ocean, and Japan’s consequent concerns of Russian encroachment elsewhere in Manchuria and Korea, relations between the two powers deteriorated and then collapsed completely. In 1904 Japan went on the attack and, to the surprise of much of the world, forced a series of embarrassing defeats on the mighty Russian armed forces in and around Port Arthur. A humiliated Tsar Nicholas gave the order for his Baltic fleet to set sail immediately for the east. The squadron of some forty warships entered the North Sea on the evening of 21 October 1904 heading south for the English Channel to begin its long journey eastwards. Just after midnight, as the fleet passed over the Dogger Bank, in a state of heightened tension and amid reports of sightings of enemy torpedo boats, the commander of the fleet received a report that one of his supply ships had come under attack and, sighting a group of unidentified vessels through the mist

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in the distance, he gave the order to open fire. These supposed enemy ships were, in fact, part of a fishing fleet from the English port of Hull. Despite the fishermen’s best efforts to alert the Russian navy to their mistake, the barrage continued for twenty minutes and resulted in two deaths and several injured. (Some years later the claim was made that the blame for the incident lay with a senior officer of the Okhrana, none other than the notorious General Landezen-Garting, who was accompanying the fleet and whose ‘policeman’s nose’ had sensed danger where there was none.8) However that may be, the Russian armada continued on its way without stopping, leaving the crippled fishing fleet to limp back to port. The British public was rightly appalled, with some so incensed by the outrage that they took matters into their own hands. A few days after the incident, The Times reported: Count Benckendorff, the Russian Ambassador was greeted at Victoria station on his return from Germany by an angry crowd which surrounded his carriage and gave him a hostile reception. As the carriage was driven out of the station the crowd continued their demonstration. In the station yard the crowd was dispersed by a large body of police who clearly had anticipated the event, and the carriage drove off to the embassy at Chesham House.9 However, the demonstration did not end there for, as one young Russian diplomat recalled, an angry and vengeful crowd had gathered outside the Mayfair embassy and proceeded to throw bottles and stones. Unfortunately, having failed to identify the correct building, they mistakenly bombarded the building next door which was owned by an elderly English gentleman. The latter attempted to sue the embassy for the damage done but, as the young diplomat explained, ‘our answer was that no court could hold us responsible for the disorderly conduct of an English mob’.

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Unfortunately, the old gentleman died shortly thereafter leading the young diplomat to express his regrets and wonder whether his life may, indeed, have been shortened as a direct result of that stressful incident.10 It would appear that, now, British protests were being targeted, in the main, against symbols of the Russian state, rather than against individual members of the émigré community. And, within a few months, the hostility towards the tsar and his government rose further at the news of the horrific events of Bloody Sunday 9 (22) January 1905, when, in the centre of St Petersburg, troops fired into a peaceful demonstration killing hundreds (and by some accounts, thousands) of civilians. On this occasion, certain British political and humanitarian groups responded by organizing collections for the benefit of the families of the victims of the atrocity. To this end, James Ramsay MacDonald, future British Prime Minister, but at that time Secretary of the Labour Representation Committee (the forerunner of the Labour Party) held discussions with Nikolai Alekseev and Konstantin Takhtarev, both still resident in London, on the subject of the distribution of monies received amongst Russian Social Democratic organizations for the benefit of those who had suffered but also in support of the revolutionary movement in Russia.11 Although Takhtarev had long since disassociated himself from the RSDLP, in this instance, and for such a worthy cause, he was more than willing to offer his assistance. (These discussions, incidentally, were an early indication of Macdonald’s sympathetic attitude towards the Russian revolutionary movement in general and, as we shall see later, towards Lenin and his Social Democrats in particular.) Meanwhile, within Russia, popular discontent with the government was growing and, as evidenced by the increase in political assassinations, direct terrorist action was again gaining support. There

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were also indications that, internationally, including within certain political circles in Britain, such violent actions were attracting more than merely vocal backing. When a bomb exploded in a St Petersburg hotel room in early 1905, killing the occupant, a passport was discovered on the body under the name of Arthur Henry McCullough, a well-known actor of Newcastle on Tyne.12 Following a British police investigation it was discovered that Mr McCullough was, in fact, still very much alive, and that he, together with Henry Noel Brailsford, a journalist and member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom, had fraudulently procured three false English passports for a ‘Russian refugee’. The two were charged with conspiracy and found guilty but fined only £100 each, which leniency may point to a degree of sympathy for the defendants’ cause on the part of the judge. It was not suggested, of course, that the SFRF was itself involved in the conspiracy, although, following judgement, the society did provide McCullough with £150 towards his expenses and issued an appeal to members for contributions towards the cost.13 It could be inferred from this that the situation in Russia had reached the point where even the peace-loving SFRF has come to accept the need for radical action, long since advocated by Vladimir Burtsev amongst others. All of this was of growing concern to the authorities in St Petersburg who, in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, had felt it prudent to increase the number of its operatives in London. A week after the massacre, the London Evening News reported that a dozen or so Russian secret agents had arrived in the capital with the aim of ‘following the plans of diverse revolutionary committees’ – St Petersburg had apparently received intelligence that the Russian, Polish, and Finnish émigrés in the English capital might be on the point of joining forces. Such moves towards unification of the forces of the opposition had to be resisted at all costs.

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Monsieur Farce le fileur When reports of such Russia-related events as the above appeared in the British press they were immediately translated into French and dutifully transmitted to the Foreign Agency in Paris by a gentleman described by Chief Inspector Melville of Scotland Yard as the Russians’ principal agent in London. To date, historians of the Russian political emigration have focused almost exclusively on the major revolutionary figures of the day or on those senior policemen and state functionaries such as Melville and Rachkovsky who opposed them. Rarely is any discussion to be found of the myriad ‘foot-soldiers’ on either side of the struggle, whose own personal stories are, in fact, every bit as historically valid and, in some instances, more poignant by far than those of their superiors. Such is the case of Russia’s man in London, Monsieur Jean Edgar Farce. Born in France in 1860, Farce had been recruited by Rachkovsky at an early stage of his mission to Paris and had remained in the employ of the Russian Department of Police from that time.14 It is unclear when he first arrived in London, nor is it known whether he did so at the express request of the Russian police abroad. In official documents he is referred to as a journalist and it may have been in this capacity that he first attracted the attention of Rachkovsky who had already developed close contacts in the French press. Farce settled in West London where, at some point in the mid-1890s, he met Ada Louisa Searle, a young woman nine years his junior and the daughter of a stationer and bookseller in the Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush. The two married in September 1897 and moved into a terraced house at 11 Benbow Road, Hammersmith, in the very heart of another of those ‘little islands’ which made up London’s Russian archipelago. The Farces’ new house was located just round the corner from what was, in Russian revolutionary terms, a very important residence

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indeed: namely, no. 15 Augustus Road which, for a number of years, housed the offices and printing press of the Russian Free Press Fund whose members included Sergei Stepniak, Feliks Volkhovsky, Nikolai Chaikovsky. Leonid Shishko, Egor Lazarev, Wilfrid Voynich and Lazarʹ Goldenberg.15 It was therefore hardly a coincidence that, at the dawn of the new century, Monsieur Farce of the Russian secret police should take up residence in the next road. From that moment, Farce kept his Parisian control au courant with a regular series of reports on the comings and goings at Augustus Road and at the other haunts of the Russian émigrés, including both the British Museum Library and the Free Russian Library in the East End. Rachkovsky, in turn, showed his gratitude by paying a salary which afforded a fairly comfortable lifestyle to the agent and his family. (Ada had given birth to a daughter, Winifred Angele, shortly after their marriage but, sadly, that child died within the year. Happily, however, a second pregnancy five years later produced an heir whom they named Wilfred Jean.16) Another of Rachkovsky’s operatives in London at that time was the veteran Vladislav Milevsky who was nearing retirement and who, reportedly, was now in a poor state of health. It may well be as a result of a recommendation from Chief Inspector Melville that a suitable replacement for the ailing agent was found in the person of Sergeant Michael Thorpe, formerly of Scotland Yard, but recently retired. He was taken onto the Russian payroll on a seven-year contract and at an annual salary of £450.17 Thorpe’s partnership with Farce worked well enough for it to be left untouched when Rachkovsky, thanks to some political intriguing among senior statesmen, was recalled to St Petersburg in 1902 and was replaced in Paris by Leonid Rataev. The latter was described by Melville as ‘age about 45, height 5 ft. 9 in., complexion and hair dark, eyes brown, moustache dark, clean shaved, excitable manner’.18 Rataev, unfortunately, did not prove to be as sympathetic an employer as his

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predecessor, immediately reducing Farce’s salary and also, much to the agent’s displeasure, refusing to grant him any paid leave. Despite the hardship this must have caused, Farce and his assistant diligently continued their work, keeping an eye on a wide range of political activists and faithfully despatching their reports back to their new master in Paris. The scale of Farce’s London operation was truly impressive as evidenced by the detail contained in his reports, which gave the impression that a blanket surveillance was maintained over all émigrés wherever they might be in London (and, indeed, in other parts of England). Of course, such an operation required the employment of supplementary fileurs, and it is something of a delight to discover that these additional tracking services were occasionally supplied by real-life equivalents of the ‘Baker Street Irregulars’ – that fictitious band of street urchins intermittently hired as intelligence agents by Conan Doyle’s supreme detective, Sherlock Holmes! Farce describes one instance when, in order to shadow a revolutionary who was particularly wary of tsarist spies and who was in the habit of constantly looking behind him as he walked, he was obliged to employ the services of a ‘gamin du rue’, who was able successfully to track said revolutionary to the location of his next clandestine meeting. Farce also occasionally called on the help of certain ‘young employees of Scotland Yard’, who were doubtless glad of the additional income such tracking services could generate.19

The Third Party Congress On the whole, Farce found the postal service to the continent to be reliable and fast enough for the transmission of his day-to-day intelligence reports but occasionally events in London required that his Paris contact be alerted immediately. Such was the case on

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the afternoon of Saturday 22 April 1905 when the following hastily composed telegram was dispatched from London to ‘Monsieur Albert Kraft’, 79 rue de Grenelle, Paris, home of both the Russian embassy and of the Foreign Agency of the Russian Department of Police: CONGRES ICI. AXELROD ET COMPAGNIE. TOUS DU CONTINENT20 Later that evening, Farce filed a fuller report in which he described how that morning, an unidentified stranger, newly arrived from the continent, had left the Hammersmith home of the émigré David Soskice and had been followed to the Angel Islington where he had been admitted to a nearby ‘débit de boissons’, the Crown and Woolpack at 394 St John Street, Clerkenwell.21 Standing at one of the entrances, which led directly to a private upstairs room, was an imposing figure whom Farce recognized as the veteran revolutionary Nikolai Chaikovsky. Together with the anarchist Varlaam Cherkezov, Chaikovsky had agreed to stand guard to ensure that no unwelcome guests were admitted to the room where a clandestine meeting of some twenty or so Russian revolutionaries was in progress. What Farce had fallen upon was, in fact, the first secret meeting place of the Third Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, a gathering so shrouded in mystery and conducted in such secrecy that, to this day, almost nothing is known about it, save for what is contained in the official minutes. For the next three weeks the Russian police agent and his team would surreptitiously and doggedly follow the foreign delegates from venue to venue across London, recording their every move. And it is thanks to the meticulous reports produced by Farce over that period that substantial new information on the background to this gathering, including exact dates and locations, can now be revealed for the first time.

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The first striking aspect of this series of reports concerns the start date of the Congress itself. To date, every history of the 1905 Congress has been in agreement with the published protocols that the official opening took place on the afternoon of 25 April and was followed that evening by the first session. Farce, however, was quickly able to ascertain that the delegates had started to arrive in London a week earlier, from as far afield as Paris, Zurich and Geneva and had, in fact, held their first business meeting on 19 April. Nikolai Alekseev who had been charged with organizational responsibility had called into the Crown and Woolpack in advance and had hired the upstairs room for the first three days of business: namely, 19, 20 and 22 April. It was only on the last of these that Farce had, somewhat fortuitously, discovered their whereabouts. The next session, according to him, did not take place until a week later and this timeframe does seem to tie in neatly with the reminiscences of some of the participants, who recalled business being suspended for some days to await the arrival of further delegates. Why the official start date was recorded as the 25th is yet another of the many mysteries surrounding the Congress. But Farce, it must be said, was not always so accurate in his reporting of proceedings. For example, among the twenty or so foreign delegates he had seen leaving the pub on that first Saturday, he claimed to have recognized Pavel Axelrod and had mentioned that fact in his earlier rushed telegram to Paris. But Axelrod was most certainly not in attendance. Since the troubled Second Congress of 1903, relations between Lenin’s Bolsheviks and those Mensheviks such as Plekhanov and Axelrod had deteriorated significantly. Now, following the call for a new Congress, the latter had decided on a boycott and had instead arranged their own rival conference in Geneva. Lenin, far from being troubled by their decision, took full advantage of the absence of serious dissenting voices such as theirs and pressed ahead.

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The Third Congress has been described by some, such as Lenin’s recent biographer Victor Sebestyen, as ‘probably the most pointless of all the various leftist conferences before 1917’, and it is doubtless for this reason that in his extensive work he devotes no more than two sentences to the gathering.22 But this is somewhat unfair and does not accord it the attention it undoubtedly deserves. Not only was this the first Bolshevik Congress but it was also unquestionably Lenin’s Congress, during which he took firm control of proceedings, assumed the role of Chairman at most of the twenty-six sessions and personally addressed the Congress on no less than 138 occasions. According to one delegate, he was ‘the very soul and the brains’ (dushom i mozgom) of the Congress and, by the end of proceedings, had succeeded in consolidating his position of power. Far from the Menshevik description of it as a mere talking shop which had been called simply to allow Lenin to work out a line to take on Bloody Sunday, the Congress adopted various resolutions which helped the Bolshevik leader strengthen his control over the Party’s organizational and tactical principles. Numerous other motions were, of course, debated and voted on over the next fifteen days, but rather than enumerate these here, I would direct those interested to the published editions of the official protocols, whilst also issuing a warning that these factual accounts are not what one would describe as a ‘gripping read’. A much more exciting snapshot of the proceedings, however, is available and originates from a most unexpected source.

The constable in the cupboard In a summary report submitted at the end of the Congress, agent Farce explained that, as much as he would have liked to get one of his own men on the inside, he had been obliged to give way to Scotland

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Yard. Unfortunately, the Frenchman had been unable to call on the assistance of his main CID contact Chief Superintendent Patrick Quinn (Melville’s successor), who was out of the country at that time accompanying King Edward VII on a lengthy Mediterranean cruise and who only returned to London during the final days of the Congress. It may well have been Quinn’s absence that gave an ambitious, fresh-faced Detective-Constable the opportunity to prove his worth (and to show his daring). Herbert Fitch, a recent recruit to Special Branch, recounted how, having been alerted in advance to the Russians’ plans by the landlord of the Crown and Woolpack, he managed to secrete himself in a cupboard in the room where the meeting was to take place and, from there, to eavesdrop on the ‘blood-curdling speeches made by “Comrade Boroff ”’ (i.e. Lenin) and others.23 There are, however, varying versions of this incident, in one of which it is claimed that ‘the conversation being conducted in the Russian language, of which the police detective was ignorant, left him no wiser’. A later variation gets over this problem by claiming that Fitch was not alone during his surveillance but was joined in his stuffy cupboard by an interpreter!24 It should be said, however, that the young policeman himself claimed to be proficient in four languages, including Russian.25 Delegates continued to arrive from the continent over the next few days with Farce reporting that on Monday 24 April at least seven had gathered for a meeting at Alekseev’s flat in Percy Circus.26 The Congress proper would not resume, however, until 29 April by which time their number had increased to twenty-eight. The venue for this and the following two meetings, which took place on Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 May, was identified by the tsarist spy as the Hare and Hounds public house, 181 Upper Street, Islington, and it is thrilling to discover that, like the Crown and Woolpack, this building still stands. Now occupied by a trendy Islington cocktail bar, the meeting place can, nevertheless, be easily identified by the frieze on the second floor

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facade depicting a beleaguered hare pursued by a pack of threatening hunting dogs. And it is difficult to imagine a more fitting location, when one recalls those ‘bloodhounds’ sent abroad some seventy years earlier by a Russian tsar intent in hunting down and destroying the new émigré revolutionary movement in its infancy! Now it was the turn of Jean Edgar Farce and the intrepid Detective Fitch to assume the role of bloodhound. The Hare and Hounds was without question, that ‘other Islington pub’ referred to by the Scotland Yard detective as the scene of his next, May Day encounter with the revolutionaries. On this occasion, he claimed to have disguised himself as a waiter and served drinks to the delegates present, while also succeeding in purloining a copy of the agenda and minutes of the meeting, though whether these documents still exist, preserved and gathering dust in some police archive or other is unknown.27 Agent Farce reported that the Congress reconvened the following day, this time at the Lord Nelson, 18 Upper Charlton Street, Fitzroy Square, W1. Happily, this building too is still in existence in the renamed Hanson Street where, although still retaining the outward appearance of the original pub, it is home now to a private business. It was, doubtless, in this establishment (if we are to believe Fitch’s account) that the remarkably resourceful and talented young policeman once more gained access to the revolutionaries’ inner circle, this time by shaving off his moustache and donning a heavy disguise. Having thus easily fooled these naturally suspicious, professional Russian conspirators, Fitch was able to report back that a ‘vote on revolution’ had been taken and had been carried by twenty one votes to seven.28 The following day, 4 May, the delegates swapped venues and were again successfully tracked by Farce, this time to Finsbury Park in the north of London and to the Hope Coffee House at 112 Fonthill Road. (This non-descript three-storey building also still stands but is

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now home to a women’s fashion boutique.) At close of business, the party of conspirators headed south again and the following morning returned to the Lord Nelson to resume their deliberations. They had hoped to extend their booking to the following day but the room was already taken and so they were obliged once more to change venue. Their last four meetings took place from 6 to 10 May just to the west of Euston Station at the Crown and Sceptre, 47 Edward Street (now Varndell Street), Hampstead Road, NW1. Unfortunately, this is the only Congress location not to have survived to the present day, the entire area having been demolished to make way for a number of Council housing blocks. According to Farce, these final sessions were particularly well attended thanks to the arrival of a number of other nationalities: Poles, Finns, Lithuanians and even some Germans. And this would, indeed, confirm the intelligence received in St Petersburg earlier that year concerning rumours of imminent unification of opposition forces. In his summary report the agent declared that the primary aim of the Congress had been to agree a ‘Provisional Convention for Russia’ but noted (like D. C. Fitch) that there had been some dissenting voices. He also pointed out that, throughout, everything had been conducted in the greatest secrecy. The delegates had been kept well away from the usual haunts of the revolutionaries in the East End, with only the principal London émigrés such as Chaikovsky and Cherkezov being privy to discussions. In Farce’s reports of the period, quite apart from those relating to the Congress, there are several references to the Takhtarevs – for example, their regular visits to the Free Russian Library and to the British Museum. It is almost certain that the two were aware the Congress was taking place: after all, they were now living at an address in Holford Square, just around the corner from where many of the Bolshevik delegates (including Lenin) had been found temporary accommodation. But despite this, there is no record of the Takhtarevs

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being approached or of having played any part in proceedings. Indeed, Farce makes reference to an event which may lead one to believe that the couple were, in fact, deliberately shunned. He reported that on Sunday 30 April, as part of the general May Day celebrations, ‘Mrs Tar’ had presented a magic lantern show ‘representing rebellions and repressions in Russia’ at the Black Lion Club in Whitechapel to an audience of about seventy of the local Russian Social Democrats. However, there is no mention of this event in the reminiscences of any of those present in London as delegates to the Third Congress, and nor is there any evidence that the inhabitants of the Little Russian Island in the East End were even remotely aware of the presence in their midst of Lenin’s Bolsheviks during this period. The Russian ambassador in London, on the other hand, was perfectly cognizant of the revolutionaries’ movements and, indeed, had demanded the British authorities take action to expel them. Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, did eventually reply, explaining that English tradition could not block political refugees and that such an action would result in questions in the Houses of Parliament. But, in the end, it was all a matter of no importance for, by the time his response was received in Chatham House on 12 May, the Congress was over and, on that very day, as we shall see, the last delegates were leaving for the continent.29 Farce, in common with all other Okhrana agents, was in possession of a standard-issue identification album containing mugshots of a wide range of émigré revolutionaries but, despite this, he failed to find a match for any of the delegates, assuming correctly – if rather lamely – that ‘the names used were probably invented: such as Linevitch, Lenivotsky, Aritsky, Zoulokoff, Zekaloff, Kraft, Victorov, etc.’30 Linevitch was the name used by the individual whom Farce had misidentified as Axelrod when he checked into his lodgings at 46 Regent Square, while Kraft and Victorov were the pseudonyms used by two delegates who had been put up at 8 Owen’s Row, just round

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the corner from the Crown and Woolpack. Other addresses in the immediate area which had been arranged for delegates included, 26 and 64 Acton St, 73 Harrison Street, and 4 Middleton Square, while yet others had crammed into Alekseev’s two rooms at 23 Percy Circus (the same address of that second, ‘Iskra Commune’ shared by Zasulich and Martov two years earlier). According to Farce, it had been Alekseev again, together with an unidentified ‘David Stanislawski’, who had made all of these accommodation arrangements. It is, however, more than surprising to discover that, amongst all this wealth of detail, Jean Edgar Farce, the Okhrana’s top man in London, completely failed to make any reference to the two individuals who lived for the duration of the Congress at no. 16 Percy Circus. Indeed, in all of his meticulous documentation, the spy never once made mention of either Lenin or Krupskaya (the two occupants at that address) under any of their known pseudonyms. This fact begs the following intriguing question: had Lenin, as a result of his much vaunted expertise in the art of konspiratsiia, succeeded in completely outwitting the formidable Foreign Agency of the Russian secret police? Or, alternatively, were other forces at play? This latter view was certainly that held by Vladimir Burtsev, the renowned spy-buster and one of Lenin’s most committed opponents who, in 1927, laid out his argument at length in an often-overlooked serialized newspaper article entitled ‘Lenin under the patronage of the Department of Police and of the Germans’.31

Lenin: Master conspirator or police patsy As the title of his article suggested, Burtsev was convinced that, from the moment of Lenin’s arrest and exile in the mid-1890s, he had played the role of unwitting stooge in a divide-and-rule plan devised by

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Sergei Zubatov, then head of the Moscow Okhrana, the ultimate aim of which was the total suppression and pacification of radical, political opposition within Russia. At that time, the Okhrana, and Zubatov in particular, divided the revolutionaries into two camps: on the one hand the narodovoltsy (Populists) and Socialists-Revolutionaries, and on the other, the Social Democrats and Legal Marxists. Zubatov hoped to disarm the former (the ‘politicals’) by encouraging the latter and allowing them to run about amongst the workers, distributing what he regarded as their harmless propaganda. The relatively soft sentences handed down to Lenin and his Social Democrat comrades from 1895/6 onwards served to demonstrate to members of both groups the difference in treatment each could expect. While in Siberian exile, Lenin and his colleagues had sent articles to publications, both legal and illegal, at home and abroad, clearly detailing their plans for future revolutionary activity. The authorities knew of these writings and were well aware of the seditious content but, despite this, they neither called for their authors’ sentences to be extended nor, indeed, stood in the way of their release in 1900. When Lenin left his place of exile and arrived in Moscow on his way to Pskov, his first port of call had been to the flat of the provocateur Zinaida Serebriakova and so the police were again kept au courant with his plans: they knew of the Social Democrats’ intention to send Lenin, Martov and Potresov abroad to set up their revolutionary journal and, again, were in no doubt that these three constituted a ‘threat to the existing structure’. So, when Lenin and Martov travelled illegally to St Petersburg in May 1900 and were arrested, the Okhrana would have been entirely justified had they decided there and then to send the two revolutionaries straight back to Siberia. But that did not happen; instead, the two were released after only a few weeks. It was Burtsev’s firm belief this was wholly due to Zubatov’s personal intervention.

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For Zubatov, Lenin and his followers were impractical dreamers who represented no serious threat to the state – indeed, he considered they might even prove useful to him in helping to destroy the Socialists-Revolutionaries whom he rightly regarded as the most dangerous opposition at that time. It was for this reason that no action was taken against Lenin when he made another illegal trip later in the summer – this time to visit Krupskaya in Ufa – and for that same reason that the Iskra editors – first Potresov, then Lenin and later Martov – were all issued with legal passports and allowed to go abroad, even though it was known that their clear intention was to set up an illegal publication. As mentioned earlier, they were followed by Krupskaya who, on completion of her exile, had also applied for a passport. In order to grant her permission to leave, the authorities required her to produce a statement from her husband confirming she was going to live with him. To that end, Lenin made a special visit to the Russian embassy in Prague and handed the statement over in person. In due course, Krupskaya was granted permission to leave, despite the fact that the illegal revolutionary journal Iskra was already in publication and that the authorities again were perfectly well aware of Lenin’s role in it. In short, it was Burtsev’s view that none of the above revolutionaries should be honoured with the term ‘political exile’, for none of them had been ‘forced’ into leaving. Rather, they were all legal émigrés travelling on official passports issued on Zubatov’s express authorization. Burtsev is also dismissive of the Iskraites’ boast that it was thanks to their mastery of the art of conspiracy that, for over a year, they succeeded in publishing their newspaper under the very noses of the German police and that it was only in March 1902 that they had been obliged to leave after they sensed they were being watched. In fact, the ‘Revolutionary Detective’ claimed to have seen Russian police documents which testified to the fact that, from the very

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outset, Zubatov was aware of the place of publication of both Zarya and Iskra and had simply chosen not to share his plan to use Lenin as a weapon in his fight against the terrorists. Others in the Okhrana had been deliberately left in the dark, including Garting, then head of the Foreign Agency’s Berlin office. If the Russian Department of Police had requested it, their German colleagues would have been only too happy to arrest the revolutionaries, whom they had been openly shadowing for a considerable time. It was not due to some great conspiratorial work on the part of the Iskraites that they managed to escape Germany or to the fact that the police did not react in time before they left the country but, quite simply, because the Russian police did not require them to be detained. It may or may not be of relevance to point out here that, in those identification albums which the Russian Department of Police issued to their agents, nowhere is there an image of Lenin to be found, despite his photograph having been taken when he was first arrested in December 1895 (see Plate 12). Zubatov had held out great hopes for Lenin and one of these hopes was realized fairly quickly as the Social Democrats started to gain support both within Russia and abroad, all at the expense of the Socialists-Revolutionaries. Even though Zubatov had been unable to prevent that series of terrorist assassinations which the SR Combat Organization carried out in the period 1901–1904, the Social Democrats, under the guidance of Lenin, Zubatov’s ‘puppet’, did, nevertheless, succeed in attracting support away from the SocialistsRevolutionaries, thus weakening the revolutionary movement as a whole. However, as Burtsev pointed out, Zubatov’s plan would have unforeseen and disastrous consequences. With Lenin gaining control of the Party from Plekhanov, the movement took on a conspiratorial aspect, with the Bolsheviks blocking all attempts to end underground

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activity, to unite the movement and to establish a legal workers’ party, which could openly challenge the government for basic political freedoms. Lenin’s opposition to calls for the establishment of such a legal democratic framework turned out to have the most pernicious and corrupting influence on the whole revolutionary movement, which emerged first in the years 1905–1906 and which would play out in full in 1917. This, according to Burtsev, was perhaps the most wicked act committed by the Bolsheviks prior to their seizure of power. In his view, the catastrophe which erupted in 1917 had already been in preparation from as far back as 1900 thanks, in large part, to the support they had received from the Okhrana.

A new broom in Paris The London Congress had officially been brought to a close at 13.00 on Wednesday 10 May, but Farce’s work was not yet done. He had ‘counted them all in’, so to speak, and now, over the next few days, as the delegates left Charing Cross station bound for the continent he would ‘count them all out’, supplying detailed, written descriptions of as many as he could to his Russian masters. But then, on Friday 12 May, as well as posting off his usual report, Farce felt it necessary to send another telegram advising that: PLUSIERS EXPEDIES MATIN PARIS VIA BOULOGNE It is unclear what had prompted this urgency but it may have been one particular party of three men and two women he had seen boarding a coast-bound train that morning, whom he described as follows: 1. 35-year-old man, average height, dark complexion, strong build, black hair and beard, black suit, soft felt hat.

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2. 35-year-old man, rather small, yellowish complexion, freckles, brown hair, little blonde beard, black suit, black felt hat. 3. 38-year-old man, quite tall, black hair and little beard, glasses. 4. 30-year-old woman, petite, brunette, dressed in black, pincenez. 5. 32-year-old woman, tall, brown hair, blinks her eyes, walks with a slight stoop, dressed in dark grey. From the reminiscences of two of those present, we can be fairly certain that one of the men Farce had identified was the Caucasian delegate Mikhail Georgievich Tskhakaya, while the small woman with the pince-nez was almost certainly Rozaliya Samoilovna Zemlyachka. We can be equally certain (even if Farce himself may have been unaware of the fact) that the blinking and stooping woman in grey was none other than Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, while the small man with yellowish complexion, freckles and brown hair was her husband, the future leader of the Soviet state – Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In her memoirs, Zemlyachka recalled not one, but two Channelcrossings she had made in Lenin’s company and described, with considerable warmth of feeling, the bravery the latter had demonstrated during one particularly stormy passage and the compassion he had shown towards Krupskaya and herself, both of whom had been struck down by seasickness.32 Tskhakaya, meanwhile, described in some detail that Channel-crossing of 12 May 1905 which he had made with the above-mentioned travelling companions (although he failed to identify that ‘third man’ spotted by Farce in London). According to Tskhakaya, the safekeeping of the protocols of the Congress had been entrusted to their party and they were particularly alarmed, therefore, when, on their arrival at Boulogne, they were approached and stopped by the French police ‘in the presence of a Russian provocateur’. It is possible, though by no means certain, that the French authorities had

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been alerted to the arrival of their group by the Foreign Agency acting on Farce’s earlier telegram but, however that may be, on the pretext of searching for illicit tobacco, the police demanded they offer up their bags for inspection. Tskhakaya recalled that Lenin steadfastly refused to allow the package containing the protocols to be unwrapped, declaring that it was merely a manuscript and that there was no tobacco inside. Moreover, he protested, none of them smoked nor was any of them a salesman. Eventually, somewhat grudgingly and muttering under their breath, the police and the provocateur let them go on their way.33 With Lenin gone and the Congress over, Farce and his band of helpers could set about resuming their usual daily business, but it would not be long before new pressures were brought to bear on the Okhrana’s London out-station. Back in St Petersburg, the revolutionary year of 1905 had seen a series of political upheavals, one of which had allowed Petr Rachkovsky to return to a position of influence in the senior ranks of the police. One of his first acts was to exact his revenge by sacking Rataev from the Paris office and replacing him with the head of German operations, his old favourite, Arkady Landezen alias Garting. This posting did not bode well for Farce and his team, as the incumbent soon proved. Within a very short space of time, Garting showed himself to be an immeasurably more demanding task-master than even his predecessor. First, the new regime in Paris was slow to honour expenses-claims emanating from London, and then Garting began to impose impossible timeconstraints on the delivery of reports. Farce did his utmost to meet these demands but slowly the pressure started to show. With the publication of the tsar’s October Manifesto and the subsequent declaration of an amnesty for certain political refugees, many in the Russian East End smelled the scent of victory in the air. In one of his last reports of that fateful year, Farce described how ‘for

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some days now red and black flags have been flying from the windows of the Russian Library’.34 In their excitement, a huge number of émigrés made plans for an immediate return to their homeland. Agent Farce, meanwhile, watched their departure with interest, but also with a growing sense of unease. The cause of his anxiety was his uncertainty as to how his new boss in Paris would react to this exodus.

A letter to Paris Sometime around mid to late October, Lenin left Geneva for Stockholm and finally, in early November 1905, returned to Russia. He was not alone – over this period, many of the inhabitants of the ‘little Russian islands’ throughout Europe and beyond packed their bags and set off homewards. And most of the castaways in the London archipelago were of the same mind. Farce did his best to maintain his reports, following the movements of the few exiles, such as Teplov, who had chosen to remain behind, and translating any reports in the English press which had the slightest relevance to Russia (on one occasion he even resorted to translating a story which itself had been taken from a French newspaper report of a few days earlier). But Garting’s patience was now running out. In April 1906 he sent an ultimatum in which he offered, not only Farce but also Thorpe, the two stark options of a reduction in salary or termination of employment. On 25 April 1906, Jean Edgar put pen to paper and, with a hand trembling with emotion and barely suppressed anger, wrote the following ten-page letter in response: Monsieur I have the honour to inform you that neither I nor Thorpe can give you our response today with regard to the choice you have

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given us of either accepting a reduction in our salaries (most of which will doubtless have to be borne by myself) or of tendering our resignations. We are both too upset and, indeed, annoyed at having to deal with such a question yet again. Even Monsieur Rataev could understand that, especially following the assassination of Plehve, it was unthinkable that our salaries should be reduced. I have spent the best years of my life in the service of the Russian government and had not planned on retiring so soon. My incidental expenses for this service are really essential to me. My heart is close to breaking when I come home in the evening and realise how much money I have had to spend which would have been so useful for my little household. I always counted on receiving compensation someday. Such expenses are inevitable if I am to keep up to date with what’s going on. Despite its size and its power, even Scotland Yard with its army of informers does not always produce brilliant results. It is hardly surprising therefore that the efforts of just the two of us are sometimes not adequate for the task in hand. Everything is different here to the continent. For example, almost everyone here supports the Russian revolutionaries. Very few of my reports contain information which was not extremely difficult to acquire and which simply could not have been obtained using methods common on the continent. That information, therefore, always has a cost. And the large distances we have to travel also have costs that people in Paris simply would not believe. Moreover, it is common knowledge that here, money has much less value than on the continent. For example, a shilling won’t go nearly as far here as a franc will in Paris. Thanks to my ability to read and understand Yiddish I am able to pass on important information from the local newspapers to certain Scotland Yard agents who, in turn, pass on information

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that would otherwise be impossible for myself or Thorpe to obtain. And, so long as we have such an arrangement in place, they are happy to turn a blind eye to the fact that Thorpe no longer works for them – which has been useful in the past, bearing in mind that to imitate a police officer here is a great offence. It is essential, therefore, that we maintain a harmonious relationship with Scotland Yard, otherwise, with public opinion being as it is, our position here would be untenable. I have been able to maintain good relations with them for a number of years and I count some special friends among their ranks, but these friendships have to be paid for, one way or another. As regards intercepting letters, we have done the impossible many times, either individually or together, and sometimes at great personal risk. But I have already explained all this to you. Thorpe already has his pension of 3000 francs a year and, naturally, does not want to take any chances and risk losing it. Here in London, everyone knows what time their post should arrive – a simple complaint to the central post office generally results in them dispatching one or several lettres-trappes and notifying the postal detectives... Besides, when I first started here, Monsieur Rachkovsky himself told me it was quite impossible to carry out such work in London. As for the Russian revolutionaries, really, you would not say that they were few on the ground here if you were a witness to their meetings – some as many as 5000 – all sworn enemies of the Russian government who conduct themselves as if possessed, openly seeking to buy arms for revolutionaries in Russia and appealing for money to that end in their newspapers. And they don’t always confine themselves to spoken propaganda, despite what they say. If these individuals are not kept under surveillance, how can we respond to questions which we are asked from time to time about

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one or other of them? The work the two of us are carrying out under such difficult circumstances should be considered more than satisfactory, especially if you take into account the numerous other inconveniences we have to constantly overcome. In most jobs one’s salary is increased in line with the number of years’ service completed. Why should that be different for me who has given the best of myself and who now has to provide, not just for myself, but for my family? From the days of Monsieur Rataev we have never had a holiday and it is generally considered that those who work in London should take a holiday of at least one month a year. Even the servants here get holidays of ten to fifteen days. I have never complained, hoping always for better times, but now I am faced with such an unexpected dilemma which I simply do not know how to resolve. To summarize, without money or contacts all one can do here is report on who visited whom and at what address. If you knock on the door and make up some story to try to obtain further information, 99 times out of 100 the door will be shut in your face and you will be reported to the tenants. Here, unlike in Paris, there are no door-men whose souls can be bought for 100 sous. Sir, please accord my letter your attention and I hope you will see that it would be very unjust to value my work here at the same price as that of your other employees. Your humble subordinate E. Farce. It would appear that the anxious agent’s heart-felt plea served only to delay the inevitable. It is known that, as 1906 drew to a close, he was still in the employ of the Foreign Agency but then, in late December, he was summoned to Paris. The content of his discussions with his

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superiors during that meeting at the rue de Grenelle is unknown, but shortly after his return to London Jean Edgar fell gravely ill. It was not until some months later that further news surfaced of the agent’s fate. On 20 May 1907, his wife Ada wrote a letter to his Paris contact in which she mentioned, almost in passing, that her husband was being admitted to hospital the following day. Elsewhere, she thanked the Agency for the gifts she had received – a bracelet for herself and a watch for Mr Thorpe – and then volunteered her willingness to translate orders to Mr Thorpe from French to English (‘Thorpe does not speak French!!’) and, if necessary, get Mr Thorpe’s reports translated into French by a trustworthy friend. She also enclosed a report which, she said, her husband had asked Thorpe to write. From the tone of the letter it was clear she wished to play down her husband’s current incapacity and reassure Paris that it was ‘business as usual’, as far as they were concerned.35 On 21 May, the Okhrana’s principal London agent was indeed admitted to Charing Cross Hospital. Unfortunately, his illness was of a serious nature – carcinoma of the stomach which had been diagnosed four months earlier. There was no hope of his recovery. One week later, on 28 May, having contracted peritonitis from a perforation, the 47-year-old Jean Edgar Farce passed away. What became of his widow and their three-year-old son Wilfred is unknown, although it is unlikely Arkady Garting would have given them much thought. At that time, he was preoccupied with other, more pressing matters in London.

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5 The London Congress of 1907 and the triumph of Lenin A regal visit It was not long after Lenin’s return to his homeland that the inevitable reaction set in. With the appointment of Petr Stolypin as Minister of the Interior in April 1906 and then, three months later, as Prime Minister, the number and the violence of reprisals against opponents of the tsarist regime increased dramatically. As a result, many were forced into exile once more, including Lenin, who had spent much of that year conspiratorially shuttling between St Petersburg and the village of Kuokkala just over the Finnish border. In early 1907, however, fearing for his safety, he decided to leave Russia for good and a few months later settled once more in Geneva. At the Fourth Party Congress held in Stockholm in the spring of 1906 (the so-called Unity Congress) his Bolshevik faction had come under attack from the wider membership for their support of armed insurrection and violent expropriations, leaving the Mensheviks in the ascendancy. Following this defeat, Lenin had initially appeared to go along with

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proposals that the two factions should now bury their differences and attempt to heal the split in the Party. However, in reality, he was already planning his counter-attack and, in preparation for the next party Congress, which was due to be held in Copenhagen in May 1907, he had set up a secret ‘Bolshevik Centre’, whose role was to lead his Party and control its activities and finances. In so doing, he had acted in flagrant disregard of the RSDLP’s prohibition of separate committees within the Party. Lenin was all for unity, so long as that end was achieved by the complete subordination of all other factions to the will of the Bolsheviks. Meanwhile, the government of Nicholas II, while continuing its violent suppression of all opposition at home, was attempting to reinvent itself on the international stage as a benign and friendly power. As a reaction to the Triple Alliance – the defence agreement drawn up between Germany, Austro-Hungary and Italy – Russia made a series of overtures towards France and Britain which, in August 1907, would result in the ratification of the Triple Entente. Although not committing the countries to raise arms on behalf of each other in event of war, the agreement, nevertheless, obliged them to offer moral support to their co-signatories in such an eventuality. In addition to his government’s pursuit of such international political agreements, the tsar himself and, indeed, other members of his family, embarked on a series of foreign visits designed to raise the Romanov profile and to further strengthen Russia’s ties with her European neighbours. So it was, that in March 1907, the Russian Dowager Empress Marie arrived in Britain on an ostensibly private and personal visit to her sister Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII. Her only previous visit to England had been as far back as 1874 when she attended the marriage of her sister-in-law, the Grand Duchess Marie to Queen Victoria’s second son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. (This, incidentally, was a union of some historical significance since it established, for

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the first time, a link between the reigning houses of the two empires.) Welcoming her return to Britain, The Times pointed out that, although relations between Russia and Britain had been strained for much of the time that had elapsed since her first visit, affairs between the two powers had recently improved markedly to the point that now there was a real possibility negotiations could ‘put an end to old misunderstandings and old difficulties’.1 But was the Dowager Empress’s visit simply one of diplomatic good will or was there a more pressing reason for it? The Daily Mirror for one was confident that it had found the real answer but waited until the mother of the tsar had left the country before publishing its bombshell. On Saturday 6 April, the newspaper ran an exclusive in which, over several richly illustrated pages, it laid out before its readers the shocking truth. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was about to abdicate the throne!2 (See Figure 5.) The real purpose of the visit of the Dowager-Empress, it proclaimed, was to arrange a marriage between the Grand Duke Michael, the tsar’s brother, and Princess Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, daughter of Prince Christian and niece of the King. The Grand Duke Michael would become Regent of the Russian Empire until the tsarevich, now three years old, came of age. The Duma would be dissolved. The whole alarming situation had, apparently, been brought about by the failing mental health of the tsar ‘whose reign had been characterized by weakness and vacillation’. Now, his mind had given way to such an extent that at times he was unable even to sign his name and ‘whenever any state matter is broached to him he trembles like a child’. As a result, Russia was falling into a state of anarchy and it had been decided, by powers behind the throne, that the Duma should be abolished forthwith and a military dictatorship established under a man of stronger will and purpose. Grand Duke Michael was held up to be such an individual. It was he, for example, who had reportedly declared:

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In Russia the only thing respected is brute strength. It is better that Russia should have 100,000 slain in one day and then tranquillity, than month after month the sacrifice of blood should be poured out without any progress. I will crush out the spirit of rebellion by which at the behest of a few fanatics the ignorant peasants are made a sacrifice. However, before assuming the throne and embarking on the massacre of his subjects at home, Michael felt it advisable firstly to approach friendly foreign powers to ask for their help in eradicating the threat

Figure 5  ‘Tsar to Abdicate’ (Daily Mirror, 6 April 1907).

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posed by these Russian ‘fanatics’ such as Lenin and the likes who were openly plotting his downfall from abroad. To that end he deemed it necessary to find a foreign wife and hence the approach to Princess Victoria. According to the Mirror the princess had not only considered the proposal favourably but had also been persuaded by the Dowager Empress to give up her religion and enter the Greek Orthodox Church as the role of Empress required. Evidently, there was no time to lose and wedding plans were already well advanced. As the Mirror reported: ‘The fact that the marriage might take place during the present month or in the first week of May will come on the world like a thunderbolt.’ And the world would indeed have been stunned – had there been a shred of truth in any of the Mirror’s claims. Despite the newspaper’s assurances that their information had been obtained from the ‘highest authority’, not only was no confirmation forthcoming from any quarter, but official denials began to flood in. Two days later, the self-proclaimed ‘Morning Journal with the Second Largest Net Sale’ gamely fought on, stubbornly and defiantly declaring that all these denials were to be expected and that, when it was shown that plans had indeed been drawn up for the Grand Duke to replace the tsar, ‘then we shall be able to say politely to the public “We told you so”’.3 They would have a long wait.

The Bourgeois It is not known from where the Mirror had obtained this early example of ‘fake news’ or, to be more precise, blatant misinformation, but it had clearly been led astray by its trusted source, this ‘highest authority’. Be that as it may, however, neither editor nor owner of the newspaper felt it necessary to offer an apology or retraction, neither to its readers, nor to Nicholas. While the government of the day certainly wished to improve its relations with the Russian tsar and his administration,

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this was not a desire necessarily shared by readers of the popular press amongst whom feelings of Russophobia still ran high. The Dogger Bank incident had hardly served to weaken British mistrust of Russia, whose recent defeat in her war with Japan had been warmly welcomed by many in the country. Indeed, a curious example of Britain’s continuing friendly attitude towards the Japanese victors was demonstrated just a few weeks after the departure of the Dowager Empress and was eagerly reported on by the Mirror. It concerned the UK visit of Japan’s Prince Fushimi and a bizarre decision taken by the Lord Chamberlain that Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera, The Mikado, should not be allowed to be performed anywhere in the country during his stay. When asked for their views on the matter the Japanese embassy issued a polite, almost embarrassed, statement to the effect that they suspected the Lord Chamberlain’s actions ‘may have been prompted by the high feelings of tact and courtesy which he wished to show Japan while a prince of our royal house was visiting the country’. The decision, meanwhile, was rightly ridiculed in parliament.4 Whether by coincidence or not, on the same page of that newspaper, there appeared a report of another of the Lord Chamberlain’s pronouncements, which could have been taken as being, perhaps, even more of an insult to Tsar Nicholas and his government. This story concerned a theatre company in London’s East End ‘consisting of revolutionists deported from Russia’, which had been given official permission to perform Maxim Gorky’s banned debut play The Bourgeois (Meshchane), ‘for the benefit of two Anarchist papers published in Yiddish’. The drama, which was described as ‘a study of Russian bourgeois life, showing the conflict between the old and the young generations’,5 and which had enjoyed staggering success when it was first staged (in heavily censored form) in 1902 at Stanislavsky’s Moscow Arts Theatre, was performed on May Day 1907 at the Pavilion Theatre, 119 Whitechapel Road, in the very heart of the Little Russian

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Island.6 An intriguing advance notice had appeared in the Jewish Chronicle stating only that ‘a new play’ would be staged by director Mr Sigmund Feinman for that one evening only.7 Unfortunately, there is no known published review of the performance which, according to the Mirror, was its British premier. (In fact, the play, under an alternative title – The Bezsemenovs – had been performed in London a year earlier, on 23 April 1906, at Terry’s Theatre in the Strand, and had received numerous, mostly favourable reviews, although The Times critic begged to differ, declaring: ‘Seen by Western eyes it is a dance of idiots and maniacs, and more often ridiculous than terrible.’8) But what neither newspaper reporter nor anyone involved in the Pavilion Theatre production of The Bourgeois could possibly have foreseen was the arrival in London just two weeks later of the playwright himself, Maxim Gorky. He would pass within 100 yards of the front door of the theatre and would remain in the vicinity for the rest of the month in the company of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and over 300 of his Social Democratic compatriots, most of whom had also just newly arrived from the continent. During this, the Fifth (London) Congress of the RSDLP, the Russian bourgeoisie and the looming conflict between the old and the young generations depicted by Gorky in his play would be very much at the forefront of discussions.

The Fifth (London) Congress The Congress would turn out to be by far the largest, and certainly one of the most important, gatherings in the Party’s history. Attracting a total of 336 delegates from all corners of the Russian empire and from most of the European centres of emigration, preparations had already been under way for some time. The original plan had been to hold the Congress in Denmark, beginning in the first week of May but, even

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before all the delegates had arrived in Copenhagen, they received a visit from some Social Democrat members of the Danish parliament with news that, due to ‘considerations of international relations’, the government could not allow the Congress to take place on Danish territory. To this disappointing news, Lenin is said to have retorted: ‘We understand that for some political activists, certain familial links – in particular those between the Danish Royal dynasty and tsarist Russia – are stronger than international solidarity. We therefore understand why we must leave Denmark and we are more than happy to do so!’9 Arrangements were hastily put in place to transport all of the delegates to Sweden, the location of their Congress of the previous year but, on arrival in Malmo, they were again rebuffed. All that was left for them to do now was to return to Copenhagen while attempts were made to find another venue. On 6 May, after being turned down by Norway, a desperate telegram was sent to London to the British radical MP John Burns who, to their great relief, replied that, like any other visitor, they would be welcome in Britain provided they did nothing illegal. As the ragged band of revolutionaries started to make their way across the Channel, alarm bells began to ring in St Petersburg. A telegram was sent to Count Benckendorff in London ordering him once more to complain to Britain about the projected conference, just as he had done two years earlier, and demand action as proof of the new Anglo-Russian friendship. It is unclear, however, whether on this occasion the complaint was officially lodged for, as a diplomat in the embassy recalled, the head of the Russian secret police suddenly appeared on the scene and expressed his extreme displeasure at the news. The reason for his disquiet was that, according to him, a third of the Congress participants were in the pay of the Russian secret service.10

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The irate senior policeman referred to was none other than Colonel Arkady Garting, head of the Foreign Agency who, having been informed of the revolutionaries’ last-minute change of plans, had made the snap decision to come to London to oversee surveillance operations in person and, no doubt, to liaise with his colleagues at Scotland Yard.11 (One must remember too that, at this time, Garting’s main agent in London, the unfortunate Jean Edgar Farce was gravely ill and would hardly have been capable of carrying out such onerous duties.) The British police, meanwhile, had been appraised of the departure of the Russian delegates from the Danish coast and were in attendance at the port of Harwich as the first small advance party arrived on-board the steamship Fjord on the evening of Wednesday 8 May.12 Much to the dismay of the new arrivals, there to meet them alongside the police, they found a pack of newspaper reporters, who had been following their various comings and goings in Denmark and Sweden over the previous few days. It was immediately clear to the revolutionaries that, in such a climate, it would be quite impossible for their upcoming deliberations to be conducted in secrecy. Although the Congress organizers had already squandered a considerable amount of their funds in transporting the delegates from Denmark to Sweden and back, money did not seem to be an issue for the advance party, all twenty-two of whom, it was reported, had made the crossing in first-class accommodation, thereby ‘escaping the attentions of alien immigration officers on landing’. The officers of the Fjord described the Russians as being particularly quiet and well behaved on board, conducting themselves in a secretive manner and speaking to no strangers. The same behaviour was exhibited the following day by the main body of some 180 delegates when they arrived at Liverpool Street Station from Harwich. One reporter described how, ‘Most of the new arrivals refused to speak or give their names “The Russian police have long ears, and, you see, we shall be

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going back to Russia”.’ But, fortunately, not all of the passengers were so reticent, as one newspaper reported: Another delegate who some years ago worked in London, was more communicative… ‘Our leader, who arrived in London some days ago, is Georges Plekhanov. I do not mind telling you his name because he lives in Switzerland. Then there is Lenin and Martoff. But they will not go back to Russia – at least not just yet.’13 This is possibly the first time that Lenin’s name, as one of the leaders of the RSDLP, had appeared in the British press. No doubt as an archconspirator, Vladimir Ilyich would have been furious at the delegate’s indiscretion, but there was nothing to be done – he would have to accept that this London Congress would be quite unlike those of 1903 and 1905, which, he believed, had been held in almost total secrecy. Over the next few weeks, no one would be able to escape the attentions of newspaper reporters or, for that matter, agents of the Okhrana or Scotland Yard. As it happened, at that time, Lenin himself had not yet arrived in London with his comrades but, instead, had gone directly from Copenhagen to Berlin, where he met up with Rosa Luxembourg, Karl Kautsky, Maxim Gorky and the latter’s common-law wife, the actress Maria Andreeva, before travelling on with them and arriving in the capital only on the evening of Saturday 11 May.14 For the duration of their stay in London, Lenin and Gorky were virtually inseparable and were to be seen everywhere together in public. One must assume that, given the writer’s fame, Lenin would have been aware of the likelihood of attracting attention to himself but, for whatever reason, on this occasion decided to risk his anonymity and move out of the shadows while in the company of his popular new friend. The two men would often leave the Congress together at the end of the day’s business and would return together in the morning. During breaks in

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proceedings, they would often chat to one another, and on those rare occasions when they had free time, they would go to Hyde Park or to the British Museum. One Congress delegate recalled accompanying them to the Museum one Sunday.15 Thanks to his familiarity with the institution, Lenin proved to be an excellent guide describing it, with its colossal conglomeration of riches plundered from the colonies, as ‘the most valuable institution for the study of the whole process of capitalist development’.16 The occasion also provided an example of Vladimir Ilyich’s lack of airs and graces, and the interest he took in the ordinary ‘man-inthe-street’. When they handed their coats in at the cloakroom, Lenin greeted the attendant on duty by name. It turned out that, during an earlier visit, he had got to know this kind, hard-working individual and had considered it his duty to exchange a few words with him and to shake him by the hand. This, according to the delegate, was a perfect example of how comfortably Lenin interacted with the ‘working man’, how he always remembered such individuals and, in return, always left a lasting impression on them, which was evident from the happiness the cloakroom attendant showed at seeing him again and how the two greeted each other as old and dear friends.17 In advance of their arrival, Lenin had managed to reserve rooms for Gorky and Maria Andreeva at the recently built Imperial Hotel on Russell Square in Bloomsbury. There is an oft-repeated story of how Lenin was so concerned about the well-being of his guests that he called in to make sure that the hotel bed linen was not damp.18 Possibly with an eye to costs, he had not made a reservation for himself but instead spent the duration of the Congress in nearby lodgings. The exact address of these lodgings is not known, although it has been variously (wrongly) given as ‘Kingston Square’ and ‘Kensington Square’.19 While finding a bed at short notice for a lone individual proved to be relatively easy (on this occasion Krupskaya had remained behind

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in Finland), the logistics of arranging accommodation for over 300 Congress delegates could have posed an insurmountable problem for the organizers but, fortunately, assistance was received from an as yet unidentified source and, on their arrival, the delegates were immediately taken off to Deptford in south east London – that same area of the capital which, over 200 years earlier, had welcomed another group of visiting Russians: namely, the entourage of Tsar Peter the Great, who had arrived in Britain for a three-month visit to learn the art of shipbuilding in the Royal Dockyards. Now, the unruly subjects of his direct descendant Tsar Nicholas II had been found lodgings just a short walk away from the dockyard in which the regal apprentice had learned his trade. Carrington House (now Mereton Mansions) was one of the London County Council’s new lodging houses which had only opened its doors to the public a few years earlier and which offered bright, clean and spacious accommodation for over 800 men. The Daily Chronicle reported that the Russian delegates were ‘surprised at the cheapness and excellence of the accommodation’ which awaited them in Brookmill Road, just to the south of Deptford Bridge.20 But who exactly had found them these ideal lodgings? When approached by reporters, John Burns MP who, after all, had facilitated their arrival in the first place, claimed to have had no further communication either from or with the revolutionaries and authorized reporters to deny statements to the contrary. However, it is worth pointing out that Burns had been a member of the London County Council (LCC) since its foundation in 1889 and, moreover, that he was on friendly terms with the current member for Deptford, the socialist and reformer Sidney Webb. Both of these fine gentlemen were sympathetic to the cause of Social Democracy in Russia and it is more than likely that one or other was responsible for the offer of accommodation. In passing, it might be added that there is no

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record of Webb having any direct dealings with the Russian Social Democrats, nor, indeed, of him being aware that one of their principal leaders was that same ‘Mr Ilʹin’ who, some years earlier, had translated one of his works into Russian as he whiled away his time in Siberian exile. The Daily Chronicle carried another interesting snippet on Carrington House, which suggested that it may have served as more than a simple sanctuary for the new arrivals. Whereas official histories of the RSDLP state that the 1907 Congress ran from Monday 13 May to Saturday 1 June in quite another part of London (as we shall see shortly), the newspaper reported that the lodging house had served as the venue for an earlier secret meeting of sixty-eight of these delegates and that ‘the resolutions passed demanded representative government’. According to the reporter who had tracked them to Deptford, this session had taken place on Friday 10 May, shortly after their arrival. He ended his report by giving further details of the meeting and, in passing, mentioned the names of some of the other senior delegates in attendance: Sextius Allondiozitch was chairman, and Alexis Sandovitch, secretary. There were no fewer than six correspondents present taking notes for articles to be secretly printed in as many languages. The success of the present Congress depends entirely upon the efforts of Trozling, author and strike-leader, to bring about a compromise between the two factions.21 While the identities of Allondiozitch and Sandovitch are unclear, we can be sure that the ‘author and strike-leader’ referred to was Leon Trotsky. The latter’s efforts to unify his party over the coming weeks, however, would be doomed to failure thanks, primarily, to the resolute and uncompromising stance adopted by Vladimir Lenin.

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‘A centre of socialist activity’ Prior to the official opening of the Congress on Monday 13 May, arriving delegates were asked to register and, for that purpose, to make their way along Whitechapel Road past the Pavilion Theatre, to the Polish Socialist Club in Fulbourne Street. As the press reported, the local East European population had evidently been alerted to their arrival and the whole occasion therefore took on something of a celebratory atmosphere: Their progress through ‘little Russia’ was triumphal, men and women shouting welcomes from windows and children cheering in the streets. The woman delegates smoked cigarettes incessantly while three Scotland Yard detectives kept pace with the party in the rear.22 These woman delegates held a particular fascination for the English press pack which reported, with some amazement, the intelligence received that, just like the men, these ‘suffragists’ would also be entitled to vote at the Congress. The Mirror would later describe the rousing speech delivered by one young girl delegate, who called for ‘war at any price’. This firebrand, they reported, ‘spoke of barricades and bombs much as the average English girl will chatter about bridge and lawn tennis’.23 While the delegates had been more than happy with the quality of the accommodation on offer at Carrington House, they could not be expected (nor could they afford) to travel every day from Deptford to the East End where the Congress proper was expected to take place. Much to the indignity of one commentator, the only alternative offered by the English authorities was some disused army barracks, the exact location of which has remained a mystery. It is more than likely, however, that the accommodation in question was located to the north of Whitechapel on the western side of London Fields in

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Shrubland Road, Dalston. The barracks, which could accommodate up to 500 men, had served as the headquarters of the 7th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, otherwise known as the King’s Own Royal Tower Hamlets Militia, until their move in September 1904 to Mill Hill Barracks.24 As well as acting as a registration office, the Socialist Club in Fulbourne Street also served as an accommodation bureau, arranging lodgings for those who chose not to join the army of revolutionaries in Dalston Barracks. Unfortunately, the premises on offer, Rowton House (now renamed Tower House) in nearby Fieldgate Street did not match the high standards of Carrington House, Deptford. Josef Stalin, who attended the Congress under the name Ivanovich as delegate for Tbilisi, was one of those who had the misfortune to find themselves in this hovel. After he and others complained bitterly about the poor conditions and demanded alternative accommodation be found for them, he was moved to more comfortable rooms in nearby Jubilee Street.25 Meanwhile, as newspaper reporters, photographers and assorted policemen buzzed around Fulbourne Street, another important address nearby almost succeeded in escaping attention, but for the intrepid efforts of a loan Daily Telegraph reporter who, shortly after the Congress had got underway, posted the following story: On the right hand side of the Commercial Road as one travels from Aldgate there is a small dingy-looking shop devoted to the business of a shipping agency and bureau de change. Its usual routine has been sadly disturbed during the last few days for in some manner it has transpired that this is a centre of socialist activity, that here is to be gathered information of that secret conference now being held in London about which so much is being written, about which so little is known. The proprietor, a little, white-headed old gentleman,

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far more picturesque in appearance than one would expect to find in such gloomy surroundings, is loath to talk about a subject which has for some days so materially interrupted his prosperous business transactions, but the Daily Telegraph representative is accompanied by an influential friend, and the charming old gentleman is courtesy itself. Of course, he is in sympathy with the Socialist Party in Russia. What intelligent, thinking individual would not be? Has not Monsieur T—— resided there with him for the past three years? Monsieur T—— who so diligently works for the cause of Russian socialism in this country, Monsieur T—— to whom all active Russian democrats – Jewish Russian democrats naturally find their way when first they come here. Poor Monsieur T——, his life has become unbearable these past few days, pursued by Pressmen and haunted by rumours of spies and secret police. He had barely put his foot outside the door yesterday before a snapshot was taken of him, milk jug in hand.26 What the reporter had discovered was no. 106 Commercial Road, the business premises of the Russian émigré Isaac Kahan (Kagan) whom we referred to briefly in an earlier chapter in his role as British Museum referee for the pseudonymous, Boris Nemirovsky. Originally listed in business directories as a Money-Changer, Kahan later adopted the more reputable title of Shipping, Banking and Commission Agent.27 In the early years of the new century, Kahan and his sons Boris, Louis, Moses and Leon had established a family firm and had already attracted internationally respected clients such as the shipping companies, White Star and Cunard. While business was conducted from the Commercial Road address, Mr Kahan himself lived with his wife, sons and daughters, Zelda and Anna, a few miles to the north at 6 Clapton Square in Hackney. Boris, Zelda and Anna were politically active from

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an early age and associated particularly with the East London (Jewish) branch of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). In 1897, Anna had married none other than Theodore Rothstein and it is perhaps thanks to this contact that she and her siblings would all meet Vladimir Ilyich at one point or another during his various visits to London. Whether or not père Kahan was as politically involved as his children is unclear, but the activism of ‘Monsieur T—–’, his mysterious lodger, was well known to all. This was, of course, Aleksei Teplov of the Free Russian Library. As a reward for his support and despite his affiliation to the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Teplov was one of the fifty guests officially invited to the Congress, along with the enfants Kahan and other émigrés of note such as Fanny Stepniak. Indeed, one of Lenin’s last actions in his role as chairman at the close of the Congress would be to express the thanks of all present to those who had rendered special services in its organization: namely, Boris Kahan and Mrs Stepniak.28 One eminent émigré whose name does not feature in any of the published lists of invited guests is Prince Peter Kropotkin. That is not to say, however, that the renowned anarchist did not attend any of the sessions. On the contrary, there is evidence not only that he took a keen interest in Congress proceedings but also that he and Lenin became embroiled in an incident which, but for the timely intervention of the prince, could have ended badly for the Bolshevik leader.

An alleged encounter with Kropotkin: The tribulations of an archival researcher One of those who had the honour of meeting the venerable anarchist at that time was delegate Antimekov, a Bolshevik from Lugansk – who later, during Stalin’s reign, would rise to fame as a Marshal of the

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Soviet Union under his real name, Klim Voroshilov. In his memoir the Marshal described how Kropotkin attended Congress almost every day and how he was keenly interested in the course of the debate, followed the delegates attentively and, one day, announced the desire to meet us workers in his apartment for a cup of tea. We raised this issue at one of our factional meetings, and asked what we should do. I recall Vladimir Ilyich with a smile advising us: ‘And what’s wrong with that? – Have a cup of tea with him. You can have a heart-to-heart. I don’t know how it will be for you, but I’m sure he will find it very useful.’29 Consequently, a group of eight or so delegates took up the invitation and visited Kropotkin at his home where they discussed politics over the samovar. Unfortunately, as Voroshilov recalled, it soon became clear that they and the émigré prince spoke entirely different languages and so, unsurprisingly, no one’s political beliefs were changed as a result of the encounter. Lenin had not been a member of this visiting party, preferring, as was his wont, to keep his own company. However, there exists an intriguing tale, dating perhaps from the time of this Congress, in which it is claimed not only that Lenin met Kropotkin but that the latter actually helped extricate him from a particularly sticky situation. The tale is related by Harold Adolph Brust, a retired Scotland Yard detective who, in his memoirs, described being called to a meeting at the ‘Anarchists’’ Club in Jubilee Street, where a fight had broken out. Summoning several plain-clothes detectives I rushed in and saw a man struggling with a number of others who were holding him. He was trying to reach a little bearded fellow who stood rolling a cigarette in fingers which trembled slightly.30

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Much to the anger of all those in the hall, Brust ordered the arrest not only of the four who were involved in the fracas but also of the little man with the cigarette. Fortunately, this explosive situation was defused by the timely intervention of none other than Prince Kropotkin who happened to be present and who assured the angry mob that there was nothing to fear and that ‘our comrade is perfectly safe in the hands of the British police. There are those of us here who will vouch for him’. With that, the prisoners were taken off to the police station. On the way, one of those arrested managed to alert Brust in private to the fact that he was in fact a Russian police agent operating under cover who, unfortunately, had been recognized by the revolutionaries. He and his colleagues had been assigned to shadow the little man with the cigarette, ‘the most dangerous revolutionary of all.’ The little gentleman to whom he referred was, of course, none other than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. In the end, no charges were pressed and the Okhrana agents and the others were duly released. Brust concluded his account as follows: Lenin, future dictator of Russia, stood calmly in the police station while Prince Kropotkin in his quiet accents vouched for him as a good citizen and a harmless refugee…. Lenin was released, but not before he had paid a glowing compliment to the efficiency and humanity of the London police. ‘But if you knew’, he said ‘the tricks of these dogs you have let escape tonight you would have them all under lock and key for ever. They are agents-provocateurs, they are spies., they are jealous of Britain and cause you trouble, they are unscrupulous!’31 Unfortunately, all we have to go on is this one policeman’s recollections committed to paper many years after the events in question. To date, no one has been able to corroborate Brust’s account of this dramatic incident, although over the years it has aroused the curiosity of a

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number of historians. Some sixty years after the incident had allegedly occurred a most curious and unexpected reference to the story appeared on the front page of a north London newspaper. Under the attention-grabbing headline: ‘Was Lenin arrested in Edmonton?’ ran the story of a ‘Soviet writer’ who was seeking information for an article he was writing to commemorate the centenary of Lenin’s birth. It was his understanding that the arrest had taken place not in 1907 but two years earlier and not in Jubilee Street, Whitechapel, but in a street of the same name in Edmonton, north London. Unfortunately, Special Branch had been unable to supply the researcher with any details but, in any event, he was minded to challenge Brust’s account ‘since Russian history says that Lenin never smoked’.32 Like most other researchers, I too shared the writer’s suspicions concerning the tale’s veracity, but then, just a few months ago, while browsing through one of the Hoover Institution’s online inventories to its Okhrana collections, I came across an index entry describing a coded request sent by the Russian Department of Police in St Petersburg to its Foreign Agency in Paris around the time of the 1907 Congress. The entry set my heart racing for it read quite simply: Telegram: Send names of delegates arrested in London.33 Surely then, this could only refer to the incident described by Brust and, if so, perhaps at last his story could be corroborated. Alas, in the end, this proved not to be the case but instead a mere false alarm. Indeed, the story of my efforts to locate and obtain a copy of the document in question serves as an example of the truism that, in archival research, all that glisters is most certainly not always gold. For, in brief, after investing an inordinate amount of time (and money) conducting a remote pursuit of this particularly elusive document, I eventually received a copy of the telegram in question from the archive, only to discover that one crucial Russian word –

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zasedatʹ – had been mistranslated by the compiler of the index and that, rather than wanting the names of those ‘arrested’ or ‘imprisoned’ in London, St Petersburg wished merely to establish the identity of all those ‘attending the conference’. Alas, the validation of Brust’s story would have to be postponed to a future date.

The Congress commences In fact, it is not only Brust’s claims which could be called into question. It is possible also that Marshal Voroshilov may have misremembered and mistakenly placed Kropotkin at Congress proper whereas the prince may only have attended some factional meetings held at a different location. No one appeared to know where the Congress was to be held until the very last minute. As mentioned earlier, it was assumed that it would be held in the East End – the Working Men’s Club in Jubilee Street had been suggested as a possibility since its first floor hall alone could hold 800 people and so could easily have accommodated the roughly 400 who were expected to attend (the 50 invited guests mentioned above were in addition to the 336 delegates attending in an official voting or advisory capacity).34 It is unlikely, however, that Boris Kahan or Fanny Stepniak had any say in the final, somewhat surprising and incongruous choice of venue – the Brotherhood Church in Southgate Road, Islington, north London. This was a popular venue for socialist gatherings and was run by the Christian socialist minister, the Reverend Arthur Baker.35 As can be gathered from Gorky’s recollection, this was no ordinary place of worship: I still see vividly before me the bare walls of a wooden church on the outskirts of London, unadorned, to the point of absurdity, the

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lancet-windows of a small, narrow hall which might have been a class-room in a poor school. Any resemblance to a church stopped at the outside of the building. Inside there was no trace of anything ecclesiastical and even the low pulpit, instead of standing at the far end of the hall, was placed at the entrance, midway between the two doors.36 From the opening of proceedings on the morning of Monday 13 May, the church was besieged by the press, anxious to photograph these dangerous and exotic individuals for the benefit of a demanding public and paying no heed to the dangers this publicity might pose for those delegates returning to Russia at the end of the Congress (see Figure 6). Moreover, the press pursuit extended beyond the bounds of the Congress itself. During his stay, Gorky had been in the habit of dining in a German restaurant not very far from the Angel pub in Islington – ‘a somewhat remarkable place frequented almost entirely by foreigners and Englishmen of cosmopolitan habits and associations’. The story was told of how, on one occasion, an artist happened to drop in and, recognizing the famous writer, began to make a sketch of him and his two dining companions who were also attending the Congress. Gorky approached the artist and asked that he refrain from publishing the sketch in any newspaper since the authorities would use it to identify his friends on their return to Russia and no doubt arrest them on a trumped-up charge. His dining companions were described as ‘both editors of revolutionary organs recently suppressed by the Czar’ and it is more than likely that one of them would have been Lenin, all the more so since the latter was already well acquainted with this particular establishment which he had got to know during his previous visits to the capital.37 However, this was not Lenin’s restaurant of choice. That was almost certainly Adams’ Chop House at 339, Gray’s Inn Road, almost

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Figure 6  ‘Russian Revolutionaries Meet Secretly in Church Hall’ (Daily Mirror, 16 May 1907).

directly opposite Kings Cross Station. (It is now, incidentally, home to the Casa Mamma Italian restaurant.) By great good fortune, in 1962 a Soviet TV company arrived in London to produce a film commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of Lenin’s first arrival in the capital. This remarkable film, which lasts 45 minutes, has been

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preserved and is now available on the internet.38 In the film, the son of the restaurant’s founder, Mr Adams, is interviewed with his wife and describes his father’s clientele as being mostly trades-unionists and left-wing politicians such as none other than Ramsay Macdonald himself. Mr Adams had warm memories of the Russian visitors but did not specify whether they ever dined together with Macdonald. All he recalled was that they were very jovial and friendly people. An example of this bonhomie was given by another conference delegate, who described his own restaurant encounter with Lenin and Gorky. The two had been dining, together with the latter’s companion, Maria Fedorovna Andreeva, in a little bistro near the Congress venue, when Dmitry Bassalygo, one of the delegates from the Urals, walked in with two of his comrades. Bassalygo recalled how Lenin immediately rose to his feet and invited them to join him: Somewhat embarrassed, we approached and sat down. Vladimir Ilyich and Aleksei Maksimovich welcomed us warmly and started to ask us questions. Reassured by their unpretentious and friendly conduct, we soon regained our composure. They were interested to learn how we had spent our free Sunday: had we gone to Hyde Park or perhaps to the Natural History Museum? Just then, the restaurant owner approached Maria Fedorovna and began a conversation with her in English. When he left, she told us that he had asked her if she would mind letting him know if Gorky came in. The restaurant owner wanted to have his photograph taken with him so that he could put it in his window with a notice saying ‘The famous Russian writer Maxim Gorky dines here!’ This novel advert, the owner said, would attract a great deal of custom and would help him become a millionaire! After listening to all this, Vladimir Ilyich paused and then suddenly burst out with such cheerful, contagious laughter that

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we all could not help but join in too. Only Aleksei Maksimovich remained unmoved: ‘So, they want to make an advertisement out of me, do they? And, what’s worse, just so that a capitalist can profit from it!’ Glancing at Gorky, Lenin burst out into even louder laughter and, with his handkerchief, tried to dry the tears from his eyes. Gorky himself could hold out no longer and, raising an eyebrow, he too joined in the loud and cheerful laughter. We never visited that restaurant again.39 Here, then, was a fine example of British petit bourgeois greed and self-interest which, rightly, deserved nothing but derision from those Russian revolutionaries who were, after all, fighting for a world where social justice and equality were valued high above personal gain. What else could the Russians do but laugh? It is probably safe to say, however, that, after the first week of unrelenting pressure from the English press, the prevailing mood amongst the Social Democrats would have been something less than jovial. The Congress organizers soon felt obliged to release a summary of their deliberations to the press and to follow it with a plea that the delegates’ privacy be respected. The call was taken up, somewhat belatedly it must be said, by Free Russia who published a damning critique (penned by Theodore Rothstein) of the press coverage, naming The Times and The Morning Post as two of the worst offenders with their baseless assertions and insinuations which, the author asserted, were nothing less than provocations ‘and lead to the suspicion that the two papers – the most respectable of the Imperial press – are inspired by the Russian police’. The article pointed out that another Sunday paper had gone one better – publishing the portrait of ‘a sturdy and jovial “Britisher” of the “dosser” type as that of “Mr Treploff, [sic] the most famous Russian revolutionist now in London

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(see Figure 7).”’ It is, indeed, the case that, for whatever reason, the unfortunate Teplov attracted more than his fair share of negative press coverage and, as we shall see, within a few years these personal attacks would reach such a frenzy that he was obliged, in the end, to seek a legal remedy. The Freedom article ended with a passionate defence of the beleaguered Teplov and his comrades: The Russian Social-Democrats represent the great working class of Russia, which has borne the brunt of the present struggle against the infamous despotism of the Tzardom, and by its heroic efforts wrenched from it the Manifesto of October 30th. It is nothing short of a disgrace that the British people should allow a portion of its press to throw mud at them.40

Figure 7  ‘Plotters against a Throne’. The accompanying caption reads: ‘Our photographs show: 1. A meeting-place of the revolutionaries in Whitechapel. 2. Members leaving the meeting-house. 3. Treploff [sic], a well-known Russian revolutionary. 4. Typical Plotters against a Throne proceeding to a secret meeting’ (Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 25 May 1907).

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And, as some delegates had the misfortune to discover, it was not only in a figurative sense that they were attacked. There were reports that young boys were being egged on, by persons unknown, to throw stones at the visitors as they left Congress and, indeed, on one occasion there was an altercation at the door of the church when an unidentified member of the public tried to force his way in and had to be held back by delegates. As the press reported: ‘The crowd outside yelled and hooted to their heart’s content.’ Meanwhile, ‘On the opposite side of the road, policemen in uniform and plain clothes, with whom were two Russian detectives, stood serenely indifferent.’41 It was a matter of some shame that, at a later reception held for the delegates at Holborn Town Hall, Farrent-Williams, Secretary of the East Ham branch of the Independent Labour Party, felt obliged to issue an apology and communicate a resolution from his branch, vigorously protesting against the outrageous hooligan attacks to which some of the delegates had been subjected during their stay in Britain.42 Farrent-Williams was only one of many who levelled criticism at the police for the laissez-faire attitude they had adopted throughout the Congress. But despite the unsettling and hostile environment outside, the delegates received a warm welcome inside the church from such significant representatives of the British left as Secretary of the Parliamentary Labour Party James Ramsay Macdonald. (It has been claimed – though there is no mention of it in his archive – that he himself was a member of the congregation of the Brotherhood Church and, indeed, that it was he who was responsible for securing the church as a Congress venue.)43 On Saturday 18 May, Macdonald addressed the eleventh session declaring how glad he was that the delegates had been able to come here to England to hold their Congress but warned that they too in Free England had much to do: here also there was that same wage-labour slavery as existed in

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their homeland. He was appalled that such barbarism as currently practised in tsarist Russia was still thinkable and declared that the British labour movement was ready in every way to help the Russian proletariat in their struggle. All they had to do was ask. His speech was greeted with lengthy applause and he was warmly thanked on behalf of the Congress by Sergei Berdichevsky, an English-speaking delegate.44 Two days earlier, with Lenin presiding, Harry Quelch and Rosa Luxembourg had also taken the floor to pass on the brotherly greetings of their respective Social Democratic parties. Luxembourg ended her speech, which was considerably more substantial than that of Quelch, with an impassioned plea for party unity, a sentiment echoed in the letter she read out from Wilhelm Pfannkuch, the leader of the German Social Democrats.45 From the outset, however, it was clear that here was no hope that unification of the Party would be achieved. The Congress was beset by arguments and factional in-fighting throughout almost all of its thirtyfive sessions which ran from 13 May to 1 June. (Indeed, it should be mentioned here that when the Reverend Baker and the Board of the Brotherhood Church had first consented to the Congress taking place on their premises, they had assumed it would last no more than a few days. Fortunately, in the end, a compromise was reached whereby the delegates agreed to vacate for the occasional day or evening to allow church services to be held. It is interesting to note too that the Reverend was not himself present to bid farewell to the delegates when they eventually departed, for by then he was already preaching in Cornwall and, a month later, would leave London for good to take up a pastorate in Truro. During his farewell tribute at the Brotherhood Church on 25 July 1907, he thanked those present for their support pointing out ‘the peculiar difficulties which we had together resolutely faced.’ Whether these ‘difficulties’ were in any way connected with the welcome he had accorded to his recently departed Russian visitors is unknown.)46

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Unlike the previous year’s Congress in Stockholm the Bolsheviks on this occasion had a slight numeric advantage over the Mensheviks with 105 and 97 delegates respectively, but the former could also rely on the support of representatives of the Polish and Latvian Social Democratic parties and so found themselves with a stable majority throughout. Among the main topics discussed were the RSDLP’s attitude towards bourgeois parties; whether or not to participate in the State Duma; relations between trade unions and the Party, and ‘partisan’ actions, that is ‘terrorist acts, expropriations, etc.’ The Congress ended with an almost complete victory for the Bolsheviks who saw their resolutions being adopted on most of these major issues with the exception of the latter (realizing that they could not rely on support from the non-Russian delegates, most of the Bolsheviks abstained, which resulted in a large majority vote in favour of a resolution condemning all violent activity and calling for party militias to be disbanded). The Bolsheviks also suffered a slight setback in failing to gain a majority on the newly elected Central Committee. But despite these relatively minor issues, it was clear that Lenin’s star was in the ascendancy, that battle-lines had been firmly drawn and that differences between the Bolshevik and Menshevik fractions were now more irreconcilable than ever. The attempts by Trotsky and others to bring the internal warring factions together and to align the Party with the Kadets and other liberal parties into a unified legal opposition to the tsar’s government met with defeat. The Fifth (London) Congress of the RSDLP would prove, in effect, to be the Party’s last.

Post-Congress activities Other than the major theoretical and policy differences which had beset the Congress, an additional cause of friction between the

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opposing factions had been the (Menshevik) organizing committee’s poor handling of finances. Of course, they had been obliged to contend with the unexpected costs of a return ferry crossing to Sweden, but that did not excuse such excesses as the purchase of firstclass cross-channel tickets for those delegates in the advance party to London. As a result of such profligacy, they had run out of funds at an early stage and had been obliged to seek external financial help. After the failure of initial appeals to their European Social Democrat comrades and to a group of well-meaning British Socialists and Liberals, all seemed lost until, at the last minute, Lenin’s old friend Theodore Rothstein came to the rescue and, through his contacts in the press, helped secure a loan of £1,700 from the millionaire American businessman and philanthropist Joseph Fels.47 The loan guarantee, which Fels asked all delegates to sign, was due to be repaid by the following January but, in fact, it was still outstanding at the time of Fels’s death in 1914 and it was not until 1922 that his estate was reimbursed in full.48 In order to keep further expenditure to a minimum, it was decided that the majority of delegates should be sent back to Russia before the Congress officially ended, leaving behind only a representative number from each faction and national party to conclude the final day’s business. Lenin, of course, had no intention of returning to Russia, all the more so since, a few days after his arrival in Britain, news was received from St Petersburg that a warrant had been issued in that city for the arrest of ‘Vladimir Ulianoff, alias Lenin, leader of the majority faction now attending the Social Democratic Congress in London, on the charge of high treason’.49 But quite apart from fears for his safety, Lenin still had plenty to keep him occupied in the British capital. He had been invited by the Latvian Social Democrats to deliver a speech to their London Congress which was only just then beginning. He had also arranged meetings with other delegates such

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as Maxim Litvinov and, apparently also, with some unnamed British acquaintances. He was mainly occupied during this period, however, with editing the stenographic notes of his Congress speeches ready for inclusion in the official protocols. As a means of saving money, it was the practice of Congress not to employ professional stenographers, but to ask for volunteers from among those present and, on this occasion, it so happened that only one delegate came close to fitting the bill. The young delegate ‘Bogdan’ from Moscow District, better known under the pseudonym N. Karzhansky, had studied shorthand a few years earlier while in solitary confinement in Yaroslavlʹ prison but had hardly reached a standard of proficiency, managing only 70–80 words a minute as opposed to the minimum of 120 expected of a qualified stenographer.50 Nevertheless, he manfully accepted the task and stuck with it for the duration of the Congress. Upon completion of business, the youngster was honoured to be invited to stay on in London to spend a full five days working intensively with Lenin on the transcription and editing of the latter’s Congress contributions. There are few, if any, of Lenin’s associates who were favoured with such an opportunity to spend so much time with the Bolshevik leader on a one-to-one basis and for such a prolonged period. Karzhansky’s memoir of his time in London is, therefore, of particular interest and value. Like so many of his comrades, Karzhansky had, of course, heard of Lenin and had avidly devoured Iskra and his other articles and pamphlets, but he had never met the man in the flesh until the opening day of the London Congress when he and the other newly elected members of the presidium took to the stage. Karzhansky described the occasion as follows: There he stood in front of us, a plain, rather ordinary fellow, quite unpretentious and with no airs or graces. But what strength there

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was in this man! And what youth! A healthy fresh face without wrinkles but with a stubborn crease on his forehead – a crease, not a wrinkle. And then he looked straight into the midst of the deputies with his shrewd, slightly mocking eyes, like a commander, weighing up who was with the Bolsheviks and who against.51 As business progressed, Karzhansky became more and more impressed by Lenin’s indefatigability during the prolonged and difficult negotiations and by the skill with which he chaired the sessions. ‘With what brilliance did our skilful helmsman steer the ship!’ he declared.52 Then, as the Congress approached its close, he noticed the Bolshevik leader visibly relax with the realization he had achieved his goal. After witnessing such a bravura performance, it was with some considerable and understandable nervousness that the young delegate from Moscow presented himself at Lenin’s lodgings early the next morning to commence work. He described the building as an ordinary, two-storeyed, London suburban house of standard construction. From the door a clock tower was visible in the distance and, at the appointed hour, when he saw the hands of the clock reach 8 o’clock, he knocked on the door and was greeted by Lenin himself. As ever, the latter was in a cheery mood, his face betraying no signs of fatigue whatsoever, despite the exertions of the previous weeks. The two descended to the semi-basement for breakfast.53 That morning, and on all of his subsequent visits, Lenin’s landlady served them up an excellent and filling breakfast consisting of fish and chips accompanied by large cups of coffee with cream and sugar and copious amounts of bread and butter which Karzhansky found particularly delicious. And here the young stenographer made a surprising discovery for, when he began to compliment the English on their excellent dairy products, Lenin asserted that, in fact, they

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were Siberian in origin. This was confirmed by the landlady who explained that the butter was from Barabinsk near Novosibirsk and that she was also in the habit of buying Chulymsky cheese from the same area. Both of these products had only become available to the Western markets with the completion of the Trans-Siberian railway some years earlier and, in fact, the butter, at that time, was regarded in the West as something of a delicacy and had quickly become one of the most significant exports of the region.54 Each morning, having finished breakfast, they would climb up to Lenin’s room on the first floor to begin work. It was a modest, spotlessly clean little room with two windows looking out onto a tiny well-maintained courtyard and beyond onto factory chimneys and a misty smoke-filled London morning sky. Another visitor described the room as ‘just a little bigger than a compartment in a railway carriage. It contained nothing other than a bed, two chairs and a little table’.55 Unfortunately, Lenin and his stenographer would soon discover that their work would not always be plain sailing, brought about, more often than not, by the latter’s incorrect transcriptions. One such error gave cause for great merriment and demonstrated once more that Lenin was not always the deadly serious and driven individual as he is often portrayed. On reading through Karzhansky’s record of his speeches to Congress during the third day’s proceedings, Lenin was surprised to discover he had referred at one point in his delivery to a ‘powerless duck’. ‘A duck?’ he exclaimed, ‘What nonsense. I didn’t say anything about a duck. That makes no sense whatsoever.’ ‘Well, you must have said something like it’, I weakly attempted to defend myself.

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Lenin frowned, and busied himself by consulting his own notes and the transcribed version while pacing up and down the room, until suddenly… Suddenly, I was deafened by a peal of laughter from him. He was seized by the kind of laughter which is too strong to resist and which takes over your entire body from head to toe – a happy, loud, full and unconstrained laughter which can only end in tears. He tried to speak but could only wave his arm helplessly. The laughter prevented him from uttering even one word.56 It transpired that Karzhansky had simply omitted one vowel in his transcription and that his ‘powerless duck’ (bessilʹnaia utka) should in fact have read ‘a weak subterfuge’ (bessilʹnaia uteka).57 Eventually, the Bolshevik leader regained his composure and the two returned to their work. Thereafter, the young stenographer noted that, whenever a similar query or problem in transcription was encountered, Lenin was in the habit of standing up, walking over to the window and gazing out to the yard in deep thought. Then, as soon as he had worked out a solution to the problem – which he invariably did – he would immediately return to his place and get down to work again. All this was done, according to Karzhansky, ‘with the graceful dexterity and ease of a healthy man at the peak of his strength, but with that special kind of spontaneity and expressiveness that only a young man possesses’.58 Indeed, the young delegate, who was ten years Lenin’s junior, was constantly amazed at his companion’s youthful vigour: When I left Lenin after that first day of working with him, I couldn’t help but recall how I had originally imagined he would look when I had talked about him back in Moscow with my comrade Nikolai Sapozhnikov. Not exactly old, but by no means in his first youth, with glasses and certainly with a beard, in appearance – roughly mid-size; somewhere between Belinsky, Zhelyabov and Dobrolyubov. Now, the real Ilyich was suddenly revealed to me:

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he was anything but the venerable old man, as I had once pictured him, and I was struck by this completely unexpected revelation.59 When the two men had breakfasted together on that first morning, among the topics they had discussed had been the history of stenography, with Karzhansky explaining that one of the earliest shorthand systems dated as far back as ancient Rome and was known, he said, as ‘Timonian notes’. At this Lenin frowned, screwing up his right eye in amused curiosity, and admitted that he had never heard the phrase before and then wondered aloud what it would be in its original Latin. But then, just as quickly, he dropped the subject and turned to another topic. However, over breakfast a few days later, Vladimir Ilyich announced that he had discovered that his companion had been correct, and that in ancient Rome his mysterious squiggles had indeed been known as ‘Timonian notes’.60 It transpired that Lenin had since paid a visit to the British Museum Library where he had been working on an article, ‘The Relationship with Bourgeois Parties’ and, while there, had made an enquiry on the history of stenography.61 He then proceeded to describe at length the wonders of that famous institution to his rapt companion: We started to talk about the British Museum Library and about librarianship in general. Lenin said: ‘When I am in London I always work in the library here. It is a remarkable institution: we could learn a lot from them, especially from their exceptional reference section. Ask them any question and in the shortest space of time they’ll tell you which books to consult to find the material that interests you. And, moreover, how pleasant and comfortable it is to work there. Have you used the Rumiantsev Library in Moscow? There, readers are seated several to a desk, which is both uncomfortable and distracting, whereas, at the British Museum, readers have separate places where they can

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lay out the books they’ve ordered together with their notes and so on in any way they wish. You put in an order for books and they’re brought to you almost immediately. Yes, the British bourgeoisie doesn’t spare any money where this institution is concerned, and that’s as it should be… They have extremely rich Russian collections and specialist staff who keep a close eye on what’s being published in Russia and acquire it immediately. You just have to make a request for a book and it will be found for you. Their holdings in economics are particularly good. The British are merchants after all: they need to trade with Russia and so need to know all about her… Yesterday they gave me a Russian book which is not available in Petersburg or Moscow…. Quite frankly, let me say that, for those sources in all languages which I’ll need to consult in the near future, there is no better library than the British Museum. Here there are fewer gaps in the collections than in any other library.’ But doesn’t the French National Library have a Russian collection? ‘Yes, it does’ said Lenin, ‘but not like this one. Of course, to work in The British Museum I have to travel quite a distance, but the libraries in Berlin and Vienna aren’t nearly so good. Oh, how nice it would be to be able to work here for a year or so…’ But surely that wouldn’t be so difficult for you to arrange? ‘On the contrary’ said Vladimir Ilyich, ‘for the next few months, and perhaps even years, it will be impossible, quite impossible.’62 In fact, the opportunity to return to London and to his beloved Library would present itself much sooner than Vladimir Ilyich could possibly have hoped.

6 Two last visits: 1908 and 1911 Study leave On completion of his work in London, Karzhansky loaded the protocols into a suitcase and left for Paris where, with other members of the editorial committee, he spent the next three months preparing them for publication.1 Lenin had left London at around the same time and returned to Krupskaya in Kuokkala.2 However, as a result of the unrelenting reaction in Russia, they feared ever more for their safety and, by the end of the year, had, reluctantly, decided to move back to Geneva. It was around this time that Lenin felt it incumbent upon himself, as self-appointed defender of the true Marxist faith, to gird his loins once more and do battle with another set of transgressors in the Party who had strayed from the orthodox path. This time, the offenders were not Takhtarev and his revisionist ‘economists’, but a group surrounding Alexander Bogdanov who, Lenin believed, were guilty of betraying the very basis of Marxist philosophy – dialectical and historical materialism. Bogdanov, together with his colleague Vladimir Bazarov and others, had published a book Essays on the Philosophy of Marxism which argued in favour of the

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theory of empirio-criticism, a version of philosophical idealism first propounded by the Austrian Ernst Mach and the German philosopher Avenarius, which questioned the very existence of matter, claiming that the only true knowledge is what we can learn via our senses.3 To Lenin, this was nothing less than sacrilegious and had to be forcefully challenged. He immediately set off to the local library to prepare for battle but, to fully destroy the arguments of Bogdanov, he would require access to a much wider range of materials than were available in Geneva. London and the Library of the British Museum beckoned once more.

At the Museum again He arrived in the British capital around mid-May and found lodgings a mere ten minutes’ walk from the British Museum at 21 Tavistock Place. However, his visit did not get off to the most auspicious of starts. The Museum’s regulations covering use of its Reading Room stated that once a user had been granted admission, it was not necessary for a fresh recommendation to be produced for any subsequent visit. Instead, the reader’s ticket could simply be renewed on application.4 It would appear that Lenin had followed this procedure during his visit in June 1907, registering again under his earlier pseudonym, Dr Jacob Richter. But this time round, for whatever reason, he decided to (or was obliged to) complete a fresh application and provide a new reference. As bad luck would have it, history repeated itself and, just as had happened in 1902, his first application, which he handed in on 18 May, was refused. Casting aside all attempts at secrecy, he had written to the director of the Museum this time under his real name, Vladimir Oulianoff. Stating that the purpose of his visit was to study ‘new English and German philosophy’, he mentioned in passing that

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his pen name was Iljin and that he had already sent two of his books to the Library from Geneva.5 Unfortunately, once again, the reference he provided did not meet the Museum’s strict requirements – in fact, it would be difficult to imagine a more inadequate recommendation. It was supplied by a Mr J. J. Terrett, of 100 Byne Road, Sydenham, S.E. who styled himself ‘Elector of City of London for 78 Bartholemew [sic] Close’. But not only did Mr Terrett manage to misspell his own electoral address – it should have been ‘Bartholomew’ – but Byne Road in Sydenham had only recently been built and had not yet been listed in the London street directories. The Museum authorities were, therefore, unable to identify him as a bona fide London householder. Nor, indeed, could they determine whether or not he was ‘a person of recognized position’. Finally, in his reference, Terrett omitted to certify that the applicant ‘would make proper use of the Reading Room’.6 Given that this recommendation met virtually none of the required criteria, it is hardly surprising that the application was rejected. But who, then, was this mysterious gentleman and how had their paths crossed? It might be added that his name is nowhere to be found in any biography of Lenin or in the latter’s Collected Works. Joe Terrett (or John Joseph Terrett to give him his full name) had been a paid, and very active, organizer of the SDF in Lancashire in the 1890s where, it is said, he delivered hundreds of lectures and founded numerous new party branches. He also attended the inaugural meeting of the Independent Labour Party in Bradford in 1893 representing the Colne SDF.7 Later, he was associated with a labour organization called The United Workmen’s Legal Aid Society with which he shared his city address.8 He died in 1937 at the age of 65.9 Andrew Rothstein, son of Theodore, had a personal memory of Terrett as a particularly violent anti-German propagandist in the First World War and an early member of Hyndman’s National Socialist

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Party. In 1902, the Twentieth Century Press had published a pamphlet under his name entitled Municipal Socialism in West Ham and he was also an occasional contributor to Harry Quelch’s Justice.10 In fact, one of his articles appeared in that journal in June 1907 and it may well be that he had been present at Quelch’s office on business when Lenin, on his arrival in London, called in to Clerkenwell Green to pay a visit to his old comrade.11 However that may be, in the end, it was Quelch who saved the day. Two days after his first attempt, Lenin wrote again to the Museum authorities, this time enclosing a reference from the manager of the Twentieth Century Press on official headed notepaper. This proved sufficient, and the applicant duly received instructions to call into the Library to pick up his reader’s ticket. First thing on the morning of 22 May, no doubt feeling somewhat relieved, Lenin signed the Admissions Book, and was issued with a three-month pass, number A88740. Having overcome the initial set-back, his work could now commence. He laboured intensively with hardly any let-up for the next three weeks, devouring a range of books and journals on philosophy, history and economics. Proof of his industriousness comes from an unlikely source. In 1964, Corliss Lamont, the American socialist philosopher, wrote to John Masefield enquiring about a story he had come across which claimed the Poet Laureate had sat at the desk next to Lenin in the Round Reading Room. Masefield replied as follows: No, I never sat next to Lenin, no such luck. I often saw him in the British Museum Reading Room (I suppose about 57 or so years ago) and always said to myself “I wonder who that extra-ordinary man is”, for anyone must have seen that he was an extra-ordinary man, certain to make a mark on the world. Once, as I was leaving the room, I saw that he was just behind me, so that I held the door open for him till he had passed. He

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smiled at me and muttered some words of thanks, and that was the nearest I ever got to him. Later, when things had happened, a lot of young English writers came to know who that marvellous being had been. He was at the Room often for some considerable time, and people noticed him; no-one could have failed to notice him.12 Another habitué of the Library at that time was John Collings Squire, editor of the popular magazine the London Mercury, who left a memoir in which he described his brief encounters with a few of the readers, before mentioning the presence in the Room, at that time, of another striking individual: He was a neat little man, short and slight, in comfortable quiet clothes, looking like a very respectable continental shopkeeper …. He had gone bald early and his thin reddish-brown hair had receded by the temples … His principle study was sociology, economic theory and the philosophy of history, but he read good novels as well, and he occasionally perused, with apparent pleasure, volumes dealing with the shooting of game … Every evening he walked back to his rooms in Holborn, where he lived with his wife. Those who visited him there said that everything was extremely tidy and clean …. Today his name is known, for execration or reverence, over the whole world …. It was Vladimir Ulianoff. That is to say, Lenin. What I regret is that all that time at the Museum I did not speak to him. I did not notice him. I did not even know he was there.13 Squire’s retrospective regrets are understandable given that, as a young man, he had also fallen under Marx’s spell and, as a result, had joined the SDF. It is, however, unlikely he would, at that time, have been able to predict the role his ‘continental shopkeeper’ was destined to play on the world stage.

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It is said that, in his background researches during this period, in the libraries of Geneva and London, Lenin consulted over 200 publications. There is little doubt that he would have found the vast majority of these documents during his intensive three weeks of study at the Museum.14 The end result of these extensive researches appeared in print the following year under his pen name, Vl. Ilʹin, as Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy.15 One critic would later, somewhat dismissively, refer to the hefty 350-page work as Lenin’s ‘crude contribution to epistemology and ontology’, commenting: ‘The Reading Room supplied all he needed to study the works of Immanuel Kant and Ernst Mach, if indeed he read either of them attentively at all.’16 An even more damning critique of the book was delivered by an earlier biographer of the Soviet leader: It professed to be a philosophical study, and Lenin regarded the work as his chief claim to be taken seriously as a philosopher. Unfortunately, the work only proved how little of the philosopher there was in him. It is a strident, ill-tempered, and voluble attack on his fellow Marxists; he points out the error of their ways, appealing to Engels and less frequently to Marx as his authorities, piling authority upon authority in the manner of a Christian exegete attempting to prove some point by an appeal to Holy Scripture while conveniently omitting all the texts which oppose his argument.17 Lenin’s smouldering anger at Bogdanov and co. was such that, following his labours at the Museum, he would occasionally feel the need to seek out others with whom he could let off steam. At that time his old comrade, Theodore Rothstein, lived with his wife Anna and their young sons together with Zelda Coates and other members of the Kahan family at 6 Clapton Square, Hackney north London. In his short memoir, published in Pravda a few months after Lenin’s

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death, Rothstein recalled the Soviet leader’s visit to their house on that occasion and described their heated discussions on ‘perspectives of the Russian revolution, the mistaken position of the liquidators, the need for the Bolsheviks to take account of illegal organizations and underground activities alongside the legal work’.18 Zelda Coates had earlier expressed her amazement at the passion and fury with which the opposing factions of the RSDLP attacked each other, and how they used much stronger language against one another than did the Conservatives and Liberals in the British Parliament. In response, Lenin had laughed in agreement but then went on: But do you know why that is? It is because no serious matters of principle divide the Conservatives and Liberals – both defend the interests of the capitalist class and the capitalist state.… But we Socialists are now discussing matters of vital principle on how best to carry on the struggle for the success of the working-class movement, for the happiness of our people, indeed of all mankind, and we cannot afford to be restrained and polite when actions and policies are urged which we consider would betray and tend to destroy our movement.19 On his return to the continent in June, Lenin would continue his heated polemic with Bogdanov, unaware that these arguments were being followed with more than a passing degree of interest by Garting, of the Russian Foreign Agency who, shortly afterwards, would inform his masters in St Petersburg: Our gents are continuing with their studies and are now amusing themselves in religious pursuits and with various philosophical questions. Indeed, individual factions and schisms are beginning to form, but these are not political in nature, and one must assume

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that Lenin and Bogdanov will not split, although they are ardent opponents as far as philosophical matters are concerned.20 But, unbeknownst to Garting, his own time in Paris – and, indeed, in public service – was about to come to a dramatic end and he would only have one year left in which he could report on the progress of the revolutionaries’ internal party wranglings. On 1 July 1909, Vladimir Burtsev – or ‘le Sherlock Holmes de la revolution russe’ as he would thereafter be known – wrote to Briand, the French Minister of Justice, informing him of his stunning discovery that Garting, head of the Russian Secret Police in Paris, was, in reality, none other than that same Landezen, real name Gekkelʹman who, in 1890, had been sentenced in absentia by a French Court to five years in prison for his role as organizer of the infamous Paris Bomb Plot of that year. On Tuesday 6 July, when news of this scandal broke on the front pages of LʹHumanité and Le Journal, Landezen-Garting was fortunate enough to find himself in Brussels, preparing for the tsar’s forthcoming state visit to France and, therefore, once more, succeeded in evading capture. The effects of his exposure, however, would resonate throughout Europe. The incident dealt a virtual death blow to the Foreign Agency abroad. In France, the National Assembly voted unanimously to put an end to such criminal activities and to expel all foreign police. In Britain, meanwhile, The Times attempted to downplay the importance of the revelation in order to avoid any possible embarrassment which might be caused to the Russian tsar, who was due to begin a state visit to Britain on 2 August. But while the British establishment was keen to be of service to Nicholas, certain honourable members of parliament were not minded to do likewise. On 20 July in the House of Commons, Will Thorne, Labour MP for West Ham asked Home Secretary Gladstone whether,

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in view of the Russian Embassy in London having their own agents, he will say if they are to be permitted to carry on their operations in this country; and if he is aware that a number of Russian agents and quasi police are already in Cowes and its vicinity; and, if so, whether he intends taking any steps to protect British subjects from their operations?21 Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thorne’s demand, that Asquith’s government expel all Russian agent-provocateurs and secret policemen and put an end to their unwholesome practices in the country, was turned down. However, although the Imperial four-day visit to the Cowes Regatta passed without a hitch, there is no question that the surveillance operations carried out by Nicholas’s secret police on the streets of London suffered as a result of Garting’s exposure. For the rest of the year, while his replacement was sought, the Foreign Agency in Paris had all but ceased to exist and so too had its activities in the rest of Europe. In London, retired police Sergeant Michael Thorpe was now the Okhrana’s sole agent and was ‘so elderly and also so well known to the local revolutionaries that his activities were of no practical use’. Russian police surveillance of London’s émigré community had therefore almost ground to a halt and, quite remarkably, if Garting’s eventual replacement A. A. Krasilʹnikov was to be believed, this situation would remain virtually unchanged for three years.22

A scandalous libel Of course Thorne, as an East End MP, was well aware that it was not primarily ‘British’ subjects who were the ones in need of protection against these bloodhounds of the tsar, but this awareness, unfortunately, did not extend to the British public at large. Earlier

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that same year, following a wages theft in Tottenham, north London, police were involved in a lengthy and bloody pursuit of the armed culprits: two Jewish members of the Latvian Socialist Party. By the time the criminals had committed suicide at the end of the chase, they had left behind them twenty-three casualties, two of which were fatalities: one a policeman, the other a ten-year-old boy. The public were appalled at the outrage which led to a rise in anti-alienism and, in particular, anti-Semitism. The press proved particularly insensitive to these worrying and dangerous trends, as illustrated by an article and drawing which appeared in the Penny Illustrated Paper and which depicted a violent and threatening individual, clearly East European in origin and, evidently, a member of the ‘bomb, dagger and pistol school’, bending over a map of Britain with weapons of all descriptions falling from his pockets.23 (See Figure 8) This state of affairs was hardly improved by the events of 16 December 1910, when another gang of Latvian ‘revolutionary expropriators’ murdered a further three policemen in cold-blood in Houndsditch, east London. The situation was further inflamed in the first days of the New Year when, after a long and violent gun battle, the infamous siege at 100 Sidney Street, Stepney, ended with the death of two of the gang members and an innocent neighbour. The supposed leader of the gang, the so-called Peter the Painter, however, escaped capture and sparked an outcry for revenge in the national press. The Daily Express, in particular, was quick in its attempts to articulate the British public’s feelings of anger and disgust. In leading articles it denounced ‘foreign aliens’, criticized the weakness of the Liberal government for letting the Aliens Act drift and called for its immediate enforcement. Then, three days after the siege, on Friday 6 January 1911, the Express carried a startling front-page story in which their Berlin correspondent wrote:

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Figure 8  ‘Aliens’ Island’. (Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 6 February 1909).

‘If, as the latest telegrams state, “Peter the Painter” has not been killed or arrested and is still at large, then London must be prepared for some other ferocious outrage, because he is known as one of the worst desperadoes who ever figured in the anarchist movement’. This expression of opinion was given to me today by an authority on the international anarchist movement whose views are based on accurate knowledge. Here are some facts about Peter the Painter which were known to the Berlin authorities and communicated to the London police eight months ago.

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‘Peter’s’ real name is Teploff. He is a Russian by birth, and joined the Russian terrorist movement at an early age. He has the appearance of a man of fifty, although he really is not much over forty.24 This astonishing story continued for several more paragraphs detailing Teplov’s involvement in the Paris Bomb Plot, his imprisonment and expulsion from France, and then going on to describe him as the acknowledged leader of a seventeen-strong group of Russian terrorists currently headquartered in Stepney. Moreover, according to the ‘authority on international anarchism’, there existed a second, Polish terrorist group ‘whose manifestoes are all printed in the Hebrew language, so that the British authorities may be in ignorance of [certain] facts’. The following day the Express revealed the source of this alarming anti-Jewish scare-mongering to be none other than Dr Eugene Henniger, head of Berlin’s political police.25 And, to add insult to injury, they carried another story corroborating the outrageous libel. This time it came from their Paris correspondent who wrote: M. Xavier Guichard, chief of the ‘Anarchist Brigade’ of the Paris police force tells me that the description of ‘Peter the Painter’ corresponds closely with that of Teploff, the Russian Anarchist who was sentenced in 1890 in Paris to imprisonment for manufacturing explosives and who went to London after serving his time.26 Teplov, once he had recovered from the shock of these unprovoked and totally unfounded attacks, reacted quickly, appointing a firm of solicitors and issuing a high court writ.27 Perhaps not surprisingly, two months later, the Express would openly admit their error, agree to pay damages of £100 and print an apology for their libel, which they buried in small print at the foot of page two.28 Sadly, Teplov’s misfortunes did not end there for, in deciding to contribute a mere £5 from his substantial damages award to the

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defence fund for the émigrés accused in the Houndsditch affair, he caused much annoyance amongst the Russian community and their supporters. J. Frederick Green of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom for one expressed his disgust at this act of meanness, stating: ‘I do not believe that Teplov has any moral right to put that money in his own pocket.’ From that moment, the maligned Teplov, who was already suffering from bouts of poor health, gradually began to step back from public life and, in due course, would also be obliged to hand over control of his beloved Free Russian Library.29 It is almost certain that both Henniger and Guichard had received their ‘information’ from Krasilʹnikov, Garting’s replacement at the reformed Foreign Agency in Paris, and so it is possible to regard Teplov as yet another victim of Stolypin’s political police. In the West, the Russian Premier was now being widely lambasted for the ongoing criminality of his security system and warned that such a state of affairs could not continue for long. In May 1911, one of Stolypin’s former employees went so far as to write an open letter to him in which he predicted that his diseased and corrupt system would ‘disappear as soon as a current of free pure air makes its way into Russian life’, and warned that ‘this stern moment is perhaps not so far away as you think!’ Whether or not the writer was to be admired for his prescience is unclear, but it was ironic, at least, that a few months later, Stolypin would be murdered by the anarchist Dmitry Bogrov, who, it would transpire, had been working for some years as one of the Premier’s own police informers.30

Stolypin and revolution Bogrov had famously shot Stolypin at the Kiev Opera House on 1(14) September 1911 and the Premier had died from his wounds four days later. News of this sensational event spread rapidly and was taken

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up by numerous émigré and international newspapers and journals. Lenin, who at that time had been involved for some months in running a Bolshevik party school at Longjumeau to the south of Paris, contributed a lengthy commentary on the affair for his own journal Sotsial-Democrat under the title ‘Stolypin and Revolution’ in which he rounded on the Kadets and others in the Russian liberal opposition, condemning them for giving their tacit support to Stolypin at the time of the second Duma, thereby allowing his oppressive rule to continue for much longer than was necessary. In fact, the Bolshevik leader had already decided to embark on a tour of major European cities to deliver a lecture bearing that same title. By this time, it is probably safe to say that any lingering thoughts Lenin may have had concerning Apollinariya Yakubova, his ‘first love’, had been dispelled with his introduction the previous year to a new, vivacious and charismatic French activist. Inessa Armand, as Helen Rappaport has described her, was everything Nadezhda Krupskaya was not: She was beautiful, sophisticated and multilingual, as well as elegant, and feminine in an instinctively French way. She was passionate and could be emotionally manipulative, where Nadya was straightforward, self-effacing and circumspect. Inessa had strong feminine instincts and placed great value on personal happiness: Nadya never spoke of her own needs and had long since learned to give in to Lenin’s irascibility. Inessa enjoyed cooking for people, a skill that Nadya had never mastered, and was a wonderful pianist, music being Lenin’s one vulnerable point and a way into his closely protected emotions.31 If Lenin was, indeed, still looking for a replacement for his Lirochka, then in Inessa he had certainly found that, and more. Following his initial attraction, Lenin had invited Inessa to play a leading role at

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Longjumeau and, as the years passed, she would remain devoted to him and would come to play an ever more important part in his life until her own untimely death in September 1920. In late September 1911, however, Lenin had left her (and Krupskaya) behind in Paris and had set off for Zürich where he delivered the first of his lectures on 26th, then came to Berne (28th) and Geneva (2 October). A few weeks later, on 31 October, he was back in Paris delivering his next lecture at the Salle des Societés Savants, 8 rue Danton. Then, after a few days, he left for Brussels where on 6 November he lectured to an audience of roughly 100. His next venue was Antwerp on 7 November before he eventually boarded a steamer bound for London.

In London again: monk, missionary and crusader In a letter to Lev Kamenev of 10 November Lenin gave his London address as 6 Oakley Square, N.W. Unfortunately, the original building in this once-grand square, situated just to the north of Euston Station, no longer exists. Although the square, with its mature trees and pretty flower beds, may have reminded him of both Percy Circus and Regent Square, it was, nevertheless, an odd area of London for him to pick, situated as it was, quite a distance from the British Museum and even further from London’s East End, where he was due to give his lecture. One wonders whether the area or house may have been suggested to him by some émigré associate or other. From the National Census, which had been carried out in April that year, we learn that no. 6 was the family home of Richard Bridger, a soap salesman, who shared the accommodation with a boarder, a 52-year-old carpet salesman called Herbert Tapper. It is unlikely, though not impossible, that either of these gentlemen would have had a prior association with Lenin. However,

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the Census also contains some interesting information on another resident, a widowed lodger by the name of Winifred Gotschalk, [sic] aged 34, whose occupation is listed as Assistant Relieving Officer for the St Pancras Board of Guardians, an admirable body whose role was the provision of relief for the poor of the borough and the management of the local workhouse.32 The Census is uncertain as to Gotschalk’s nationality but, intriguingly, her surname is underlined in green, directing one’s attention to a corresponding highlighted pencilled note at the foot of the page which reads: ‘suffragette, other particulars not attainable’. From all of this it is reasonable to conclude that Winifred was another of those strong, radical and modern women whom the Bolshevik leader found so attractive, and one who may indeed have moved in circles sympathetic to the revolutionary Social Democratic cause. However, at present this is mere conjecture – it has not yet been possible to determine whether she was linked in any way to Lenin, other than the fact that they may have briefly shared an address. (In passing, one should mention that official records do provide a few other interesting facts which may throw further light on the life of this mysterious suffragette – namely, that in March the following year in Westminster, she married a photographer by the name of Edward A. Paul. Finally, by an uncanny coincidence, the 1939 Census lists the couple as resident at no. 45 Regent Square, King’s Cross, the very address used by Sergei Stepniak over fifty years earlier!33) But, to return to the matter in hand – in his 10 November letter to Kamenev, Lenin claimed that he was ‘sitting in the British Museum reading with great interest Schweitzer’s pamphlets of the 60’s’, and asked his comrade to make enquiries at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris about other socialist literature of the period.34 The Museum’s official record of this visit, however, does not tally with the date of that letter: their Temporary Admissions Register records that Reader’s Pass no. 2129 was issued to ‘Oulianoff, V.’ only on the following day:

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Saturday 11 November 1911. Incidentally, among the entries for that same date in the Museum’s Book of Presents there is a record of a personal donation from Lenin of Kamenev’s recently published Two Parties (Dvie partii), an attack on ‘Menshevik-liquidators’, for which Lenin had written the introduction.35 It is possible that it was also during this visit to the Museum that, while consulting the catalogues in the centre of the room, Lenin chanced to meet up again with his old associate Max Beer. The latter described how the two then went off to have ‘a sixpenny lunch at one of the popular restaurants – and then repaired to the German Working Men’s Club for a long talk.’36 Beer recalled that this was by no means the same, fairly unremarkable individual whom he had first met in London in 1902 – the intervening nine years had left their mark: ‘An ascetic face, burning eyes, a monk, a missionary and a crusader, he had evidently lost in body weight, but had gained in fervour, self-confidence and authority; he had in the interval added cubits to his spiritual stature.’37 It was at 7 o’clock in the evening of that same day that this socialist crusader delivered his lecture on ‘Stolypin and Revolution’ to a London audience. This would be his final public engagement in Britain and it was fitting, therefore, that the venue should be in the very heart of the Russian East End. Originally built as a Temperance hall, the New King’s Hall had been converted into a cinema in 1909, at which time it could seat over 200. Unfortunately, the building is no longer in existence having been destroyed by an incendiary bomb during the Second World War. As mentioned earlier, the hall was situated almost directly opposite that ‘centre of socialist activity’, no. 106 Commercial Road, but it is not known if Aleksei Teplov was still resident there or, if he was, whether Lenin may have paid a visit to pass on his commiserations concerning the old librarian’s maltreatment at the hands of the English press. There does, however, exist archival evidence of another personal call which Lenin made during this, his

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final stay in London. This visit was to the new home of his friend Theodore Rothstein at 28 Gladsmuir Road in Upper Holloway, north London. On this occasion, Rothstein lent Lenin his copy of The Record of an Adventurous Life – the first volume of the reminiscences of H. M. Hyndman – a loan which Lenin promptly returned by the end of that same month, with a note of thanks enclosed.38 But what of that historic lecture itself, delivered on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year? Unfortunately, there is no record of its reception nor, indeed, of the size and composition of the audience. The event seems to have entirely escaped the notice of the local community and of the émigré press. Ten years earlier, that same hall had been hired by Teplov because it was of a size to accommodate the large audiences which his series of public lectures attracted. Now, unfortunately, as the year 1911 drew to a close, the number of Russians left in the East End who were available or, indeed, interested in making up an audience for such an event had shrunk considerably and one cannot help but picture a possible scenario – a huge stage and a small, prematurely balding man with red-tinged, goatee beard, standing there, eyes fixed firmly on a point high on the opposite wall, while holding forth to no more than a handful of devotees, taking up the first few rows of that vast echoing chamber which was the New King’s Hall. But there is an alternative version of events supported, in part, by the recollections of yet another retired police officer, in which Lenin’s final London performance ends on a high note.

The reminiscence of Mr Woodhall Edwin Thomas Woodhall joined the Metropolitan Police on 23 September 1907. For the first three years in service he was attached to ‘V’ Division, which covered such areas in west London as Richmond,

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Putney and Roehampton.39 Then, in 1910, at the bright age of twentyfour, he was promoted to the Special Branch of Scotland Yard and placed under the supervision of none other than that self-same ‘constable in the cupboard’, Inspector Herbert Fitch. In his memoir, published in 1929, Woodhall made a fleeting mention of the fact that it was only then, in 1910, that he first came into contact with Russian revolutionaries such as Kropotkin ‘whose memory is quite pleasant to me’.40 That, however, was the only reference in his entire book to the Little Russian Island and its inhabitants. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising that, in June of the same year, he should also publish an article in which he described in the greatest of detail, his various encounters, not only with Kropotkin, but also with a range of Russian revolutionary émigrés including Vera Zasulich and others who frequented the ‘old house on Jubilee Street, which was a sort of international parliament for the refugees of the Continent’.41 The main purpose of Woodhall’s article, however, was to impart to his readers details of his two encounters with Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Given that the young detective only began to observe the movements of these Russian ‘nihilists’ at the outset of his Scotland Yard career in 1910, we can state with some certainty that his meetings with Lenin must have taken place during the latter’s 1911 lecture tour. Their first encounter, however, according to Woodhall, did not take place at the New King’s Hall, although it is possible he may have misremembered.42 But be that as it may, let our detective take over the story: I remember one occasion when a very large crowd gathered in Jubilee Street, and for the first time I saw one or two men who have become notorious since … Extra police were engaged because it was known that several desperate characters had arrived in London from the Continent …. But let me say at once that the

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Nihilists never gave any trouble; they appreciated their freedom and co-operated with the police to secure order and preserve their good name, as good citizens of London. Criminal elements they ruthlessly cast out and disclaimed. They stood for Russian patriotism – not general disorder. To instance their attitude, upon the night of the great Jubilee Street meeting, I was standing near the door when Prince Kropotkin came up to me with a short, stubby, very intellectuallooking man. ‘You have added to your forces of police,’ said the old prince, with a gentle smile, ‘but they will not be needed. This is my friend Lenin. It is he whom we have all gathered together to meet. Lenin, my friend, this is Woodhall, an English police detective and a gentleman!’ And so I shook hands with the future dictator of All Russia! But that was not the end of the matter, for Woodhall was evidently on such friendly terms with Kropotkin, that the latter invited him to his house in Highgate to have a more leisurely discussion with the Bolshevik leader. Woodhall accepted the invitation enthusiastically and later laid out the substance of their conversation: He [Lenin] talked very little of the movement, but he spoke of the extreme difference existing between the English police, for whom he had nothing but high tributes to pay, and the Russian …. In Russia, Lenin pointed out, the detective never allowed any mystery to go unsolved. Someone – innocent or guilty – went to Siberia. The third section – was THE THIRD SECTION! Lenin spoke of these with contorted face! Even the mild Prince Kropotkin growled a little under his breath as Lenin talked of them. And, of course, the Third Section was, in my opinion, the most terrible and awful institution devised by the cruelty of man since the Spanish Inquisition and the days of the Holy Office.

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And so it was that Lenin, together with the old anarchist and the young English detective, succeeded at last in finding common ground: in a shared antipathy towards the tsar’s secret police. Shortly after this meeting between these three disparate individuals, Lenin took his leave of London and bade farewell to Britain.

Conclusion The exact date of the Bolshevik leader’s departure from London is unknown but, by 20 November he had crossed the Channel and had arrived in Liège for his final lecture. A week later he was back with Krupskaya in Paris.43 Lenin had arrived in Britain for the first time in 1902 and now, nine years later, had left never to return. One cannot help but wonder what impressions the country and its capital had made on him over these years and, in particular, during that first prolonged stay. Of course, long before his arrival he had formed firm opinions on the inequities of such bourgeois capitalist conurbations as London – the yawning divide between rich and poor, between the haves and have-nots – the ‘two nations’ that he brought to the attention of Trotsky and others. These views were hardly going to change now that he had personally experienced the hardships of city life. Quite the reverse, his stay had merely served to reinforce these pre-existing beliefs. Max Beer would later make an interesting and perhaps appropriate comparison. To him, Lenin was ‘a Socialist Peter the Great’ one who ‘took from Western learning just as much as he needed for the transformation of Russia’ and ‘though living and studying for years in Central and Western Europe and admiring much of what he found there, his heart and his spirit were always dwelling in his Russian land, in the midst of its workers and peasants.’44 Perhaps it was fortunate for Lenin that, in the end, he had not spent enough

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time in London to have fallen under its corrosive and politically debilitating influence. As Beer once pointed out to him: Revolutionary exiles, if they live for any length of time in England, turn gradually into reformists; she acts on them as a derevolutionizing filter. I have met in London former revolutionists and terrorists from Germany and Russia, Communards and Anarcho-Communists from the Latin countries, who had become wise in England. With an air of superior wisdom they held forth on the virtues of ‘compromise, statesmanlike attitude, sagacity, wellbalanced judgment, the preference of expediency to principle,’ and used all those stock phrases they had heard in lecture-halls, or had read in The Times, or in The Spectator. It was nauseating.45 Lenin had concurred. There were, however, a few aspects of British society and its cultural life which he admired greatly, such as the library system. On his arrival in London he had, of course, like so many others, immediately fallen in love with the Library of the British Museum, its unparalleled collections and its exceptional reference section. But more than that, he was also highly impressed by the capital’s system of public reading rooms. As Krupskaya recalled: In London there were reading-rooms with direct entry from the street, which were without even sitting accommodation, merely having stands to which were attached current files of the newspapers. At a later period, Ilyich remarked that he would like to see such reading-rooms established all over Soviet Russia.46 And Krupskaya herself would at a later date make strenuous efforts to honour her late husband’s wishes and make significant contributions to the improvement of the public library system in her homeland.47 But one must also pose the question in reverse and examine what impression, if any, Lenin left on London. Given the worldwide fame

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(or infamy, depending on one’s point of view) which this powerful, and undoubtedly charismatic, figure would later enjoy, it is perhaps surprising that, over the course of his several visits to the British capital, he appeared to leave no discernible trace or mark behind. Of course, he was allegedly a master in konspiratsiia and, thanks to his insistence on secrecy, rarely let his cloak of invisibility slip. A striking example of this ‘Lenin enigma’ appeared as late as December 1917 when the respected Illustrated London News carried a photograph of two unknown individuals who, the newspaper claimed, were Lenin, the new ‘Premier of the Bolshevist Government’, alongside his Foreign Minister Trotsky (see Figure 9).48 Even at this late stage, when his name was known throughout the world, it would seem Lenin the man was still shrouded in mystery.

Figure 9  ‘Lenin’ and ‘Trotsky’. (Illustrated London News, 15 December 1917).

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As described earlier, during their visits to London, Lenin and Krupskaya had preferred to keep their own company, making contact with their colleagues in emigration and other Party members only when strictly necessary and rarely spending their leisure time with anyone else. The Takhtarevs were, of course, the notable exceptions to this rule. As for Lenin’s English contacts, they could be counted on the fingers of one hand, as could his public appearances. The various statues and plaques which would later appear on certain London buildings were not erected to commemorate any of the man’s personal achievements in the capital in the first decade of the century, but rather to honour the heroic war-time efforts and sacrifices of the state which he had founded. Indeed, the first of these memorials, a commemorative tablet on the wall of his first dwelling at 30 Holford Square, was unveiled as early as 13 March 1942 by Mrs Maisky, wife of the Soviet ambassador. The tablet accompanied an impressive bust, sculpted by the Russian-born architect Berthold Lubetkin which was installed nearby. Unfortunately, it was vandalized by antiCommunists and in 1951 the Council was obliged to move it to the safety of Finsbury Town Hall. During the 1970s it was displayed in Islington Town Hall but was again attacked when red paint was thrown over it. In 1996 the bust found a final resting place in Islington Museum where it can still be viewed today. Unfortunately, the same fate did not await the commemorative plaque which for many years graced Lenin’s flat at 16 Percy Circus. When the block was purchased by a property developer in 1968 the porcelain plaque was chiselled out and given to the mayor of Moscow.49 However, four years later, in an attempt to make some amends, the Soviet Ambassador Mikhail Smirnovsky was asked along to the new £2,250,000 Royal Scot Hotel development which now stood where Lenin’s flat had previously, and was invited to unveil a replacement plaque in memory of the Soviet leader. However, all did

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not run smoothly when rival groups clashed and fierce fighting broke out. The trouble had begun when a man with a wreath rushed forward shouting: ‘Free the Jews. Let our people go.’ Scuffles followed and helmets were sent flying as police intervened. The man was arrested.50 One might have expected that the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 would have put an end to any further commemorations of Lenin’s time in London but, perhaps unexpectedly, as recently as 30 November 2012, before an audience of over fifty onlookers, the Mayor of Camden unveiled yet another plaque, this time on the wall of 21 Tavistock Place, WC1, where Lenin had spent three weeks in the Spring of 1908. The ceremony had been organized and paid for by the local Residents’ Association, but not all of the inhabitants in the Borough were in agreement with the decision and a lively debate ensued in the pages of the local press, with some arguing that, given the chequered history of the USSR, it was hardly appropriate to honour the individual responsible for its creation.51 Other national bodies such as English Heritage’s own ‘Blue Plaque Panel’ had, in fact, only a few months earlier, refused to lend their name or backing to memorialize the Communist leader’s 1908 visit, declaring that it was ‘not momentous enough’ for such a plaque and that ‘his connection to the building was too brief to warrant commemoration’.52 And so, one hundred years on, Vladimir Ilyich was still generating controversy and polemical debate on the streets of London. It could be argued that he had made his mark after all. Some twelve years earlier, another local newspaper had carried an intriguing little story which pointed to quite another kind of societal influence generated by Lenin’s presence in London. This time, it concerned his alleged stay at a house in Regent Square. In August 2000, no. 55 Sidmouth Street, which is located at the south east corner of the square, was offered for sale and put on the market with a staggering asking-price of £675,000. As well as ‘affording delightful

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views over Regent Square’ the property, according to the estate agent, had another selling point, in as much as it was claimed that ‘the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin had lived on the upper floor of the house for six months in the early 1900s.’53 Leaving aside the doubtful veracity of the claim, one can only wonder what Vladimir Ilyich would have made of this example of naked capitalist exploitation of his name for the sake of profit in the heart of his former London stamping ground. In 1907, he had laughed out loud at the audacity of the London restaurateur who had planned to use Gorky’s image to increase his own personal wealth. Had Lenin lived to see the dawning of the twenty-first century and had witnessed the total collapse of his creation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, it is unlikely he would have found this latest example of capitalist opportunism to be a cause for amusement.

Posts cript Apollinariya’s story

A

s has been well documented elsewhere, Lenin’s final years in European exile, following his departure from London in late

1911, were far from easy.1 He and Krupskaya restlessly flitted from city to city – first Paris, then Prague and then, in the summer of 1912, Krakow. All the while, the Bolshevik leader was constantly on the lookout for tsarist police agents – under Krasilʹnikov’s guidance, the Foreign Agency was once more becoming a force to be reckoned with and posed a threat to Russian émigrés wherever they might be – not only on the continent but also in Britain, where relations with Chief Superintendent Quinn of the Yard had survived the embarrassing departure of Garting and were now flourishing, and where Krasilʹnikov’s London outpost was witnessing a revival under the stewardship of none other than Francis Powell – ‘Inspector First Class of the Political Detective Department of Scotland Yard’ – who had been newly recruited on Quinn’s recommendation.2 Indeed, had Lenin remained in London, it is unlikely he would have been able so easily to maintain his previous cloak of invisibility. In Krakow, meanwhile, police surveillance was only one of the problems with which Lenin had to contend. The health of his wife had suddenly deteriorated and they were obliged to seek out the help of a local expert neurologist who diagnosed thyroid trouble and attempted to treat her symptoms with electro-convulsive therapy and

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bromides. Perhaps not surprisingly, the treatment had little beneficial effect and, with the arrival of spring, the consultant suggested she take a rest cure in the mountains. The couple moved then to Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains where the unfortunate Nadya was subjected to a three-week ‘electricity cure’, but again without success. As Lenin reported: ‘Results – nil. Nothing has changed – the same bulging eyes, swollen neck and palpitations of the heart – all the symptoms of goitre.’3 Eventually, with her condition worsening, it was decided that an operation would be necessary and so they moved to Berne where, in July 1913, Nadya underwent a thyroidectomy. Thankfully, the operation proved successful and, thereafter, she slowly began to recover.4 But at that time, Lenin had other concerns, quite apart from the poor health of his wife. In May the previous year, he had learned of the arrest in Saratov of his sisters Mariya and Anna when, following a police raid, they were found to be in possession of forbidden publications.5 Although Anna was later released, Mariya did not have the same good fortune, receiving a sentence of exile to Siberia. On 1 December 1912, accompanied by her brother-in-law, Mark Elizarov, she set off for Vologda which was to be her place of banishment for the next two years.6 And it is at this point, almost coincidentally, that Lenin’s alleged first love, Apollinariya Aleksandrovna YakubovaTakhtareva re-enters our story. A month earlier, a mutual acquaintance – possibly Lidya Knipovich – had informed Apollinariya of Mariya’s exile to her own home province of Vologda and she had immediately contacted her aunt, Elizaveta Irineevna. The latter was still living in Vologda but had long since given up revolutionary activity and was now married and bringing up a family. Apollinariya was sure that Aunt Liliya would bravely and without question offer up what support she could to ease the difficulties of the unfortunate exile. And this, of course, is what she did.7

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But what had happened to Apollinariya and her husband Konstantin Mikhailovich since agent Farce had last reported on their activities in London at the time of the RSDLP’s 1905 Congress? As described in an earlier chapter, towards the end of that year, following the publication of the tsar’s October Manifesto and his subsequent declaration of an amnesty for political refugees, many in the Russian East End and in other centres of the emigration in Europe decided to make an immediate return to their homeland. However, two émigrés who did not immediately rush back to Russia at that time were the Takhtarevs. Instead, they stayed on in London until March of the following year.8 Thereafter, their history becomes somewhat sketchy but, given the important and hitherto under-reported role played by both in the history of the Russian emigration and, indeed, in Lenin’s early years, it is perhaps only fitting that we end our story with the conclusion of theirs.

The St Petersburg Takhtarevs Although a certain amount is known about Konstantin Mikhailovich’s later life, the fate of his wife is much more of a mystery. Be it by decree of Lenin, or Krupskaya, or for some other entirely different reason, this co-founder of the famous League of Struggle for the Emancipation of The Working Class had been almost written out of history. For example, in a Soviet collection of reminiscences of Krupskaya, in the sections covering her early years in St Petersburg and London, there is not a single mention to be found of Apollinariya YakubovaTakhtareva, despite the closeness of the two women throughout that period.9 Indeed, scholars have been unable to agree even on the year of her death – some saying 1913, others, 1917. It is only now, with the appearance of Yakubova’s personal papers, that the date of her passing

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can finally be confirmed as May 1914. These papers also enable us to fill in some of the other gaps in her heroic and ultimately tragic life. In the spring of 1906, the Takhtarevs bade farewell to London and to their conspiratorial personae, Robert and Paulina Tar, and crossed the Channel bound for St Petersburg. Neither their exact date of arrival nor their first address in the Russian capital is documented, but it is known that within two years they had established themselves, together with other members of Konstantin’s family, in the district of Lesnoi in an imposing two-storied detached house which Konstantin’s father, General Mikhail Konstantinovich Takhtarev, had only recently finished building. The house, at no. 18 Institutsky Prospect, still stands (and, incidentally, is still known as the Takhtarev house10). Shortly after her return to Russia, Apollinariya had set off for her home village of Verkhovazhʹe in Vologda province for a long overdue reunion with her parents and other members of her family. From one of her letters to her husband who had stayed behind in St Petersburg, it is clear that, after the buzz and clamour of her six years in London, she found it difficult initially to adapt to what she referred to as the ‘impenetrable backwardness’ and philistinism of provincial life.11 The countryside was just as beautiful as she remembered it but the people she encountered seemed to be disconnected from the real world. She recounted how on her journey there she had entered into conversation with her coach-driver and asked his opinion on the new State Duma which had met for the first time earlier that year. She reported that, as far as the coach-driver was concerned, things would be fine if they could just get rid of the village superintendents and the obstetricians! Apollinariya was unsure what he meant by this but, in fact, she would soon discover that even amongst the village bourgeoisie, there was no one with whom she could have a more meaningful conversation. She, therefore, spent most of her time either jam-making or swimming in the nearby river Vaga, where she was often joined by her brother’s

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children and their friends. In her letter she described these youngsters in terms of real warmth and joy and it may well have been that, in expressing these sentiments, she was betraying signs of a maternal instinct and a desire to have children of her own. And so it was that within a year or so, Apollinariya herself fell pregnant and gave birth to a son, whom they named Misha after his paternal grandfather. But, sadly, the joys of motherhood were interrupted after only a short while when she fell ill, complaining of headaches, high temperatures and a persistent cough. As her condition worsened, she was obliged to abandon her husband and baby and seek out a sanatorium in the Karelian Isthmus to the north of St Petersburg in an attempt to find a cure for her deeply worrying condition. She arrived at the sanatorium in the small town of Mustamyaki (now Yakovlevo) in February 1909 and, after a few weeks, wrote to her husband, optimistically reporting, that, thanks to the compresses and other medical treatment received, her symptoms appeared to be less severe. The doctor was of the opinion that her condition might even be improving slightly, but warned that a complete cure would require a full four-month course of treatment. The patient, of course, considered this to be quite out of the question. She could not bear to be separated from her husband and child for so long. Apollinariya’s earlier split with Krupskaya and Lenin had not dampened in any way her friendship with his sisters and mother and their other mutual acquaintances. Vladimir Ilyich’s sister Mariya wrote to her older sister Anna at that time, passing on less optimistic news of their friend’s condition and reporting that the doctors had found a mass of tubercular bacilli in her sputum and did not think there was much hope of recovery – at that time tuberculosis was still an incurable disease. Their friend Lidya Knipovich who lived nearby, reported that Apollinariya had written to her old flatmate Zina Nevzorova saying that although her temperature was normal, she had

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lost some weight and, most annoying of all, she was thoroughly bored with sanatorium life.12 Given the regularity of the correspondence which flowed between Lenin, his sisters, mother and also with their close friends such as Knipovich and Nevzorova, it is almost impossible to conceive that Lenin and Krupskaya had not been informed of the poor health of their former close friend but, unfortunately, no documentary evidence to that effect exists. Meanwhile, back in St Petersburg, Apollinariya’s husband had already taken up a post as lecturer at the newly founded PsychoNeurological Institute. His work obliged him to make extended trips to London to conduct research in the British Museum Library and, with his time thus accounted for, was finding it quite impossible to look after young Misha on his own. The couple were, therefore, obliged to accept the kind offer of child-rearing services proffered by Konstantin’s mother Elizaveta Klavdievna Takhtareva and her sister Sonya. Whether Apollinariya managed to hold out at the sanatorium for the recommended full four-month course of treatment, or whether she cut her stay short and rushed back to her family is unknown, but, by August that year, her health had worsened and she was once more obliged to move into a sanatorium, this time in Yalta in the Crimea. There exists a fragment of a touching letter she wrote in response to one she had received from her husband dating from that period, in which she refers to Konstantin as her magician who has managed to pull her out of her well of misery and whose dear sweet letters have restored her health and happiness. She ends with a deeply moving description of her love for him: But for now, good night, my beloved. Tenderly, I rest my head on your chest and look into your eyes. Can you feel my happiness, the warmth of my love for you? I love your body and your soul, I love you just as you are – a good man. I love your work and your

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enthusiasm. I love your love for our baby. I love you for everything that has passed between us in our lives. And there were some bright moments there too, isn’t that so?! … A moment ago I stepped outside and was captivated by the sight that greeted me. The clouds had dispersed and had left behind them a starry sky and a bright full moon which magically lit up the alleyway just like that time when the two of us took a stroll at harvest time. Do you remember? Oh, this is such an enchanting place. I came back into my room and let my hair down. I looked in the mirror and what a bright, happy face I saw looking back at me. I must say, I was actually quite surprised! But there you are. That is the kind of soothing effect your dear sweet letters have on me. You see, I simply cannot stop writing about how much I love you.13 But her love for her child was, if anything, even stronger, and proof of that affection, indeed joy, is captured in a charming photograph of mother and child taken around that time.14 During her long periods of convalescence she waited anxiously for updates on Misha’s health and progress and, on receiving news, would write of how happy she was to hear about his successes in his Russian language studies; about the games he played and about a visit he had made to the zoo and how, on seeing a real live bear, he had been able to recognize it and identify it as his memed – (child-speak for medvedʹ: ‘bear’.) Incidentally, that same little teddy bear found its way into a family photograph where it can be seen perched on Apollinariya’s left shoulder.15 On another occasion, Apollinariya received a letter from her sister Lyuba reporting on a visit she had paid to the Takhtarevs and relating in detail everything she could about young Misha, whom she found to be a healthy, sweet and intelligent little boy. She described a favourite game that he played with his uncle Valentin, Konstantin’s younger brother. They called it ‘monoplanes’ and it

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involved Valentin taking Misha by the scruff of the neck – like a kitten – and whirling him around in the air so that he flew just like a toy monoplane on a string. (This, of course, was at a time when powered flight was still in its infancy – it was only in July 1909 that Blériot had become the first to fly the English Channel – and aeroplanes were still capturing the imagination not only of children, but also of adults like Lenin himself who, residing at that time in Paris, had developed a passion for watching airdisplays.16) One wonders whether it may have been her son’s fascination with aeroplanes that inspired Apollinariya to write her illustrated children’s book How People Fly.17 Such news of the happy life that Misha was leading was bound to gladden his mother’s heart but, doubtless, she would have been saddened by the news that her beloved son had started to call his grandmother, Elizaveta Klavdievna, ‘Mamochka’ – earlier she had been known as ‘Mamasha’ – and that now, in order to differentiate between the two, he had started to refer to Apollinariya simply as ‘Mama Polya’.18 There were periods when Apollinariya appeared to be regaining her health, but her treatment was expensive, with rooms in the Crimean sanatoria costing upwards of fifty roubles, and she and her husband were beginning to experience severe financial hardship. In the summer of 1911, Lidya Knipovich wrote to Mariya Ulyanova with news that Apollinariya’s sister was planning to build a winter dacha for her to the north of St Petersburg in the town of Seivisto (now Ozerki) on the Gulf of Finland, near modern-day Zelenogorsk, and it appears that, thanks to a loan from her father, the dacha was successfully completed.19 Mariya Ilyinichna continued to keep in touch with her old friend Knipovich and to pass on what news she received to other members of the Ulyanov family but, as mentioned above, that correspondence was temporarily suspended with Mariya’s arrest in May 1912.

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Fortunately, contact would be re-established with her arrival in Vologda later that year and her introduction to Apollinariya’s aunt. It is a matter of some regret, however, that it would appear Apollinariya would never know how warmly she was remembered at this time by the Ulyanov sisters and their mother.20 In January 1913, Mariya wrote from Vologda to her family passing on the ominous news she had received: Have you heard the sad news about Polly? It turns out she has been very ill, and the doctor has told her, or someone close to her, that she will not last until the summer. I am sure she will face it bravely! But how terribly sorry I feel for her … And so, she will die – for nothing – for no reason. I saw a recent photograph of her and my, how she has changed. Most likely her illness has now progressed from chronic to acute … Her sister has arranged a doctor for her in Vologda province. It is possible that the photograph referred to is the one in Apollinariya’s archive, dating from around 1912, in which it does appear her illness has begun to take its toll.21 But still she tenaciously held on and even appeared to rally. In May 1913, Lenin’s mother had joined her daughter in her Vologda exile and, throughout the year that followed, received updates from Apollinariya’s aunt on her progress. As late as 25 April (8 May) 1914, she was writing to her daughter Anna in St Petersburg about how pleased she was to hear that Polly was feeling better, that they were not going to take the invalid to Switzerland, as had been previously planned, and that she was going to hold her aunt Liliya to her promise to come and stay with her until July, depending, of course, on how she was feeling. Unfortunately, none of these plans came to pass. In the end, the former ‘force of the black earth’ was unable to stop the inexorable progress of her illness, although she did, at least, succeed in postponing

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the inevitable. Apollinariya Aleksandrovna Yakubova-Takhtareva finally passed away some time around mid-May 1914. She was buried in Zelenogorsk to the north of St Petersburg. Nothing is known of her funeral arrangements and, unfortunately, the local church authorities hold no record of her interment. Her grieving husband stayed on with his family in the Takhtarev house in Lesnoi. At some stage, his son Misha moved out to the village of Lembolovo, to the north of Lesnoi, to live with the family of Apollinariya’s life-long friend Zinaida Nevzorova-Krzhizhanovsky. The family archive contains no verifiable information as to his fate, but it is thought that Misha perished in the battle of Moscow during the Great Patriotic War. Konstantin Mikhailovich remarried and his new wife, Mariya Semenovna, moved into the Takhtarev house where, in the early 1920s, she gave birth to a daughter, Nina. Takhtarev continued his career as an academic, practising and publishing in the field of sociology until 1924, the year of Lenin’s death (see Figure 10), when, returning from a study trip to London, he learned that his lectures at the University had been banned. He himself was fired from his post in September of that year, possibly as a direct result of some not entirely flattering personal memoirs of the late Soviet leader he had recently published. They, and he, had been immediately attacked by Lenin’s sister Anna and this in itself may have served as the reason for his dismissal.22 Sadly, Konstantin Mikhailovich would survive only until 19 July the following year, when he died suddenly of typhus. It is heartening, at least, to learn that Takhtarev’s collected sociological works have recently been reprinted and that his considerable achievements in that field are once more being recognized.23 As for his first wife, although forgotten by almost everyone, she was remembered fondly by her devoted husband,

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Figure 10  Announcement of death of V. I. Lenin. (Pravda, 24 January 1924).

who dedicated several of his historical and sociological works to her memory. In one of his final publications, the fifth, 1924 edition of his Workers’ Movement in St Petersburg the dedication reads:

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To the memory of A. A. Yakubova-Takhtareva, my selfless friend who magnanimously sacrificed her life for the cause of the emancipation of labour.24 Unlike Lenin, neither she nor her husband has ever been honoured with a monument to their memory, either in their homeland or in England, their adopted country of exile. It is safe to say, however, that Apollinariya would not have wished for any memorial other than the above.

Appendix Material donated/consulted by Lenin at the British Museum British Library shelfmarks are given in square brackets

Donations Taking into account Lenin’s great admiration for the Library of the British Museum, and the fact that he donated several of his books to other European libraries it is surprising to find only one recorded gift from him in the General Catalogue of Printed Books. This work is entered as: ‘Za 12 let. Sobranie statei’. tom 1,2 chast.1. S. Peterburg, 1908. [Cup.403.w.8] Author’s presentation copy to the British Museum. However, the British Museum’s Book of Presents lists at least four Lenin donations. These are: Present 152, 11 Jan 1908: ‘12 Years Ago’ by Vl. Il’in, tom 1. (in Russian) Pres’d. by the Author.

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Present 537, 14 Mar 1908: ‘The Agrarian Question’ by V.C. Oulsanov [sic] Pres’d. by the Author, Rue des deux Ponts 17, Geneve. Present 857, 11 Apr 1908: ‘Development of Capitalism in Russia’ by V. Ilin, 1908. (In Russian) Pres’d. by Mr. Oulianoff,17 Rue des deux Ponts, Geneve. Present 2153, 11 Nov 1911: ‘Deux Partis’ par G. Kamenoff, 1911 Pres’d. by Mr. Oulianoff, 4 Rue Marie Rose, Paris Presents 152 and 537 are the two parts of ‘Za 12 let’, referred to as donations in the Catalogue, while 537 and 857 correspond to the two books mentioned in his letter of 18 May 1908. The latter appears in the General Catalogue as: Razvitie kapitalizma v Rossii. Izdanie vtoroe, dopolnennoe S. Peterburg, 1908. [08226.i.22] while 2153 is entered as: ‘Dvie partii. s predisloviem N. Lenina,’ Paris, 1911 [8094.k.43] Many more of Lenin’s books held by the British Library bear the yellow stamp signifying a donated work. However, these are either not listed in the Book of Presents, or are entered as anonymous gifts or as donations from elsewhere. A case in point is Present 582 for 12 April 1902: ‘What’s to be done’ by N. Lenin (in Russian) Pres’d. by J. H. W. Dietz, Nachf. Stuttgart. This work is entered in the catalogues as: ‘Chto delat’? Nabolevshie voprosy nashego dvizheniia.’ Stuttgart, 1902. [C.121.c.3.]

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Unfortunately, it is impossible to say whether Dietz, his German publishers, made this donation on their own account, or whether they were instructed to do so by Lenin. On the other hand, the Library’s copy of the first edition of ‘K derevenskoi bednote’ – (‘To the Rural Poor’), Geneva, 1903 [C.121.a.6/8], also bears a yellow stamp, and even though it is not listed in the Book of Presents, one may be inclined to believe that if Lenin had to donate only one of his works this would most certainly have been his choice, since it was based largely on the research work which he carried out during his first visit to the Library.

Books and journals consulted by Lenin Unfortunately, the Library does not keep a record of the material consulted by individual readers, but by cross-checking against the catalogues the notes and bibliographical references given in Lenin’s Biograficheskaia khronika it is possible to identify some of the items he used in his studies. During the period 1902–1903 these included: Coulet, Elie. Le Mouvement syndical et cooperatif dans l’agriculture francaise. Montpellier, 1898. [08282.k.20] David, Eduard. Socialismus und Landwirtschaft. Berlin, 1903. [08275.c.43] Fischer, Gustav. Die sociale Bedeutung der Maschinen in der Landwirtschaft. Berlin, 1902. [8205.pp.3.(5.)] Goltz, Theodor A. G. L. von der. Die agrarischen Aufgaben der Gegenwart … Jena, 1895. [08277.h.27] Hertzog, August. Die bauerlichen Verhaltnisse im Elsass durch Schilderung dreier Dorfer. Strassburg, 1886. [08282.i.34/1] Landwirtschaftliche Jahrbucher. Berlin, 1872– [P.P.2350.ca] Maercker, Max. Die Kalidungung in ihrem Werte fur die Erhohung und Verbilligung der landwirtschaftlichen Produktion. Berlin, 1892. [7074.g.2] Ogden, H. J. The war against the Dutch Republics in South Africa. Manchester, 1901. [09061.bb.19]

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Turot, Paul. L’Enquète agricole de 1866–1870 … Paris, 1877. [7075.k.2] Zeitschrift des Koniglich Preussischen Statistischen Bureaus. Berlin, 1861–. [P.P.3874.ba]

As mentioned above, during his brief 1905 visit we know only that he made notes from the works of Marx and Engels. It may be that one of the items consulted was the Library’s copy of the first Russian edition of Das Kapital, which is entered in the catalogue as: Kapital. 3 tom. S. Peterburg, 1872–96. [C.185.b.1] It is interesting that the second of these three volumes was also a donation: not from Lenin however, but from Friedrich Engels, and Marx’s daughter, Eleanor. The following inscription (possibly in the hand of Engels) appears on the title page: To the British Museum from the literary executors of Karl Marx. London. 1.2.86. Presented by F. Engels & Eleanor Marx Aveling. All that is known of Lenin’s 1907 visit is that he spent some time in the Library at the end of the 5th Party Congress editing the stenographic reports of his speeches. Fortunately, a more detailed account of the works he consulted in 1908 can be gained by cross-checking the bibliographical references given in his Materializm i empiriokrititsizm, Moskva, 1920 [08465.ee.34], against the Library’s catalogues. However, since Lenin carried out the research for this book in other institutions besides the British Library – most notably, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris – we cannot be absolutely sure about what material was consulted in which library. Nevertheless, we might assume that he turned to the British Museum for most of his British and American sources. These included:

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Bax, Ernest Belfort. The Roots of Reality. London, 1907. [8470.i.25] Berkeley, George. (Bishop). Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (in his ‘Works’, Oxford, 1871). [2022.c] or [08486.f.19] Clifford, William K. Lectures and Essays. 3rd ed. London, 1901. [012355.e.13] Huxley, T. H. Hume. London, 1879. [2326.b.21] James, William. Pragmatism. London, 1907. [2236.b.12] Pearson, Karl. Grammar of Science. 2nd ed. London, 1900. [08703.b.10] Ramsay, Sir William K. C. B. Essays, Biographical and Chemical. London, 1908. [12352.t.5] Snyder, Carl. The World Machine. London, 1907. [08709.dd] Stallo, J. B. Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics. 2nd ed. London, 1882. [2324.a.1/38] Thompson, Joseph John. Corpuscular Theory of Matter. London, 1907. [08709.dd.16] Ward, James (Prof.). Naturalism and Agnosticism. 3rd ed. London, 1906. [4016.i.12] International Socialist Review. Chicago, 1900–. [4549.545000F] Mind. New Series. London, 1892 etc. [P.P.1247] The Monist. Chicago, 1890–. [P.P.1253.g] Nature. Weekly. London, 1869–. [P.P.2011.c] Natural Science. Monthly. London, 1892– [P.P.1976.c] Open Court. Chicago, 1887–1936. [P.P.638.k] Philosophical Review. Boston, NY, 1892– [P.P.1253.i] Scientific American Supplement. New York, 1876–. [P.P.1612.fa]

Finally, in November 1911 in a letter to L. B. Kamenev Lenin himself describes his subject of study in the Library: ‘I am sitting in the British Museum reading with great interest Schweitzer’s pamphlets of the ‘60’s …’ There are only four of Johann Baptist von Schweitzer’s works dating from this period in the collections. These are: Der einzige Weg zur Einheit. Frankfurt am Main, 1860. [8073.b.115.(3)] Der Zeitgeist und das Christenthum. Leipzig, 1861. [4016.bb.25] Zur deutschen Frage. Frankfurt am Main, 1862. [8072.cc.48] Die osterreichische Spitze …. Leipzig, 1863 [8073.ccc.99(6)]

One can therefore be sure that Lenin consulted some if not all of these works.

Select Bibliography

Archival sources AAY Apollinariia Aleksandrovna Yakubova, Arkhiv, Moscow, Private. Avtobiografiia. Fotografiia. Pisʹma. AN Archives Nationales, Paris. Police générale.   Mouvements antitsaristes (1882–1910) (F7/12519–12521).   Surveillance des Russes en France (1894–1899) (F7/12584/1). BMA British Museum Archives, London. Registers of In-Letters (CE 28). Registers of Admissions to the Reading Room; Volumes of Readers’ Signatures and Admissions Correspondence (CE 80–83). GARF Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow. Departament Politsii, Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del, 1880–1917 (f. 102). Burtsev, Vladimir L´vovich (f. 5802).Teplov, A. L (f. 1721). HIA Archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford. Okhrana archive.    Agents reports: C. Bullier (197/XV/IIIe).    Agents reports: E. Farce (54/VI/k/23c).    Relations with Scotland Yard (35/Vc). LMA London Metropolitan Archives, Finsbury, London. Special Collections    Photograph Library MIA Marxists Internet Archive. Lenin Internet Archive

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TNA The National Archives, Kew, London. Director of Public Prosecutions.    Trial Transcripts (DPP 4). General Register Office    1901 Census Returns (RG 13,14). Home Office.    Registered Papers (HO 45).    Registered Papers. Supplementary (HO 144). Records of the Security Service.    List Files (KV 6). Metropolitan Police    Register of Leavers (MEPO 4) TsGIA RF Tsentralʹnyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow.

Reference works, archival aids, etc. Lesure, M. Les sources de l’histoire de Russie aux Archives Nationales. Paris: Mouton, 1970. Mironenko, S. V. and Freeze, G. L. (eds.) Fondy Gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Rossiiskoi Federatsii po istorii Rossii XIX-nachala XX vv. Putevoditelʹ. Moscow: Blagovest, 1994. Nikolaev, P. A. Russkie pisateli, 1800–1917: biograficheskii slovarʹ. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo ‘Sovetskaia entsiklopediia’, 1989–. Polovtsov, A. A. (ed.) Russkii biograficheskii slovarʹ. Saint Petersburg/Moscow: Izdanie Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva, 1896–1918. Smith, Edward Ellis. The Okhrana, the Russian Department of Police; a bibliography, by Edward Ellis Smith with the collaboration of Rudolf Lednicky. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1967. Tartakovskii, A. G. (ed.) Rossiia i rossiiskaia emigratsiia v vospominaniiakh i dnevnikakh: annotirovannyi ukazatelʹ knig, zhurnalʹnykh i gazetnykh publikatsii, izdannykh za rubezhom v 1917–1991 gg. Moscow: ROSSPĖN, 2003–2005. Ushakov, D. N. (ed.) Tolkovyi slovar´russkogo iazyka. Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1935–1940. Vengerov, S. A. Kritiko-biograficheskii slovar′ russkikh pisatelei i uchenykh. Ot nachala russkoi obrazovannosti do nashikh dnei. Saint Petersburg: T-vo khudozhestvennoi pechati, 1915–1916. Vilenskii-Sibiriakov, V. (ed.) Deiateli revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Rossii: Biobibliograficheskii slovarʹ. Ot predshestvennikov dekabristov do padeniia tsarizma. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo Vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politicheskikh katorzhan i ssylʹno-poselentsev, 1927–1934 (incomplete).

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Contemporary Newspapers and journals Anglo-Russian (London) The Athenaeum (London) Budushchee (Paris) Byloe (London) Camden Chronicle (London) Camden New Journal (London) Commonweal (London) Daily Express (London) Daily News (London) Darkest Russia (London) L’Éclair (Paris) Evening News (London) Free Russia (London) Freedom (London) Freeman’s Journal (Dublin) L’Humanité (Paris) L’International (London) Islington Gazette (London) Le Journal (Paris) Kentish and Deptford Observer (Greenwich, London) Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper (London) The London Morning (London) Manchester Guardian (Manchester) Le Matin (Paris) Morning Advertiser (London) Narodovolets (London and Geneva) New York Times (New York) Newcastle Courant (Newcastle) Obshchee Delo (Paris) Osvobozhdenie (Stuttgart and Paris) Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times (London) Revoliutsionnaia Rossiia (St Petersburg and Geneva) The Sportsman (London) St Andrews Citizen (St Andrews) Svobodnaia Rossiia (Geneva) The Times (London) Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald (London) West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser (Truro)

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Wide World Magazine (London) Zaria. Sotsіal-demokraticheskіi, nauchno-politicheskіi zhurnal (Stuttgart) Za Svobodu (Warsaw)

Memoirs Alekseev, N. A. ‘Lenin v Londone (1902–1903g.)’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 215–219. Balabanoff, Angelica. Impressions of Lenin. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964. Bassalygo, D. ‘Nezabyvaemye vstrechi’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 3, 77–82. Bowman, William T. ‘Lenin in London’, Contemporary Review, no. 1098 (June 1957), 336–338. Brailsford, H. N. ‘When Lenin and Trotsky Were in London’, Listener, vol. XXXIX, no. 988 (1 January 1948), 29–30. Brust, Harold. ‘I Guarded Kings’. The Memoirs of a Political Police Officer. New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1936. Burtsev, V. L. Borʹba za svobodnuiu rossiiu: moi vospominaniia (1882–1922 gg.), tom 1. Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923. Burtsev, V. L. V pogone za provokatorami: ‘Protokoly sionskikh mudretsov’ – dokazannyi podlog. Moscow: Slovo, 1991. Dridzo, Vera. ‘Nadezhda Konstantinovna’, Novyi mir, no. 2 (February 1957), 162–176. Fisher, A. V Rossii i v Anglii. Nabliudeniia i vospominaniia peterburgskogo rabochego (1890–1921gg.). Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo, 1922. Fitch, Herbert T. Traitors Within: The Adventures of Detective Inspector Herbert T. Fitch. London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1933. Fitch, Herbert T. Memoirs of a Royal Detective. London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1935. Gertsen, A. I. Byloe i dumy. Chastʹ sedʹmaia, in Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1957, vol. 11. Golikov, G. N. Vospominaniia o Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine. 2nd ed. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 5 volumes, 1979. Gorev, B. I. Iz partiinogo proshlogo. Vospominaniia. 1895–1905. Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1924. Gorky, Maxim. Days with Lenin. London: Martin Lawrence, 1933.

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Mikhailov, I. K. Chetvert´ veka podpol´shchika. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1957. Mikhailov, I. K. ‘Iz vospominanii’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 3, 27–30. Motovilova, Sofiia Nikolaevna. ‘Minuvshee’, Novyi mir, no. 12 (December 1963), 75–127. Nakoriakov, N. N. ‘Zapiski delegata IV i V sʹʹezdov Partii’, in O Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine. Vospominaniia. 1900–1922 gody. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1963, 65–73. Nevzorova-Shesterina, S. P. ‘Stranichka vospominanii’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel´stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 141–145. Nogin, Viktor Pavlovich. Na poliuse kholoda. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelʹstvo, 1923. Shelgunov V. A. ‘Vladimir Il´ich v Peterburge’. Available at: http://leninism.su/ memory/1572-vladimir-ilich-v-peterburge.html (accessed 21 May 2018). Stepanov, E. D. ‘Iz zagranichnykh vospominanii starogo narodovol´tsa’, Katorga i ssylka, no. 24 (1926), 123–144. Takhtarev, K. M. Ocherk peterburgskago rabochago dvizheniia 90-kh godov: po lichnym vospominaniiam. London: Tipografiia Zhizn′, 1902 (issued under the pseudonym ‘Peterburzhets’). Takhtarev, K. M. Ocherk peterburgskago rabochago dvizheniia 90-kh godov: po lichnym vospominaniiam (izd. tret´e). Petrograd: Knigoizdatel´stvo ‘Zhizn´ i Znanie’, 1918. Takhtarev, K. M. Rabochee dvizhenie v Peterburge (1893–1901gg.) Po lichnym vospominaniiam i zametkam. S prilozheniem vospominanii o Vladimire Il´iche Ul´ianove-Lenine i partiinom raskole. Leningrad: Rabochee Izdatel´stvo ‘Priboi’, 1924. Takhtarev, K. M. ‘V. I. Lenin i sotsial-demokraticheskoe dvizhenie. (Po lichnym vospominaniiam)’, Byloe, 24 (1924), 3–28. Trotskii, L. ‘Lenin i staraia “Iskra”’, in Lunacharskii, A. V. (et al.) (eds) Siluety: Politicheskie Portrety. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1991. Trotskii, L. Moia zhiznʹ. Moscow: Vagrius, 2001. Tskhakaia, M. ‘Vstrechi s Leninym’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 303–306. Tsov´ianov, G. S. (comp.) Vospominaniia o Nadezhde Konstantinovne Krupskoi. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1966.

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Konstantinov, A. D. (ed.) Zhurnalistskoe rassledovanie. Istoriia metoda i sovremennnaia praktika. Saint Petersburg: Moscow: “Izdatel′skii dom ‘Neva’”; Izd-vo “OLMA-Press”, 2003, 86–101. Krebs, Katja. ‘A Portrait of a European Cultural Exchange: The Deutsches Theater in London at the Turn of the Twentieth Century’, Angermion, vol. 5, no. 1 (December 2012), 119–134. Lenin, V. I. Collected works. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977. Lenin, V. I. Materializm i empirio-crititsizm. Kriticheskie zametki ob odnoi reaktsionnoi filosofii. Moscow: Zveno, 1909. Lenin, V. I. Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a reactionary Philosophy. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1947. Levin, Sh. M. Ocherki po istorii russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli vtoroi poloviny XIX veka. Leningrad: Nauka, 1974. Loginov, V. T. Vladimir Lenin. Vybor puti: Biografiia. – Moscow: Respublika, 2005. Available at: http://leninism.su/books/3571-vladimir-lenin-vyborputi-biografiya.html (accessed 21 May 2018). Losev, A. ‘Zdesʹ zhil Lenin’, Trud, 18 April 1956, 3. Marquand, David. Ramsay Macdonald. London: Jonathan Cape, 1977. Menʹshchikov, L. Okhrana i revoliutsiia. K istorii tainykh politicheskikh organizatsii, sushchestvovavshikh vo vremena samoderzhaviia. Moscow: Izdatel´stvo vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politicheskikh katorzhan i ssylʹnoposelentsev, 1925–1932. Muraʹveva, L. and Sivolap-Kaftanova, I. Lenin v Londone. Pamiatnye mesta. Moscow: Progress, 1983. Muraʹveva, L. and Sivolap-Kaftanova, I. English edition. Lenin in London. Memorial Places. Moscow: Progress, 1983. Naumova, I. A. (ed.) “Zhdem vestei iz Vologdy – ”: perepiska semʹi Ulʹianovykh v period vologodskoi ssylki M. I. Ulʹianovoi noiabrʹ 1912g. – sentiabrʹ 1914g. Arkhangelʹsk: Severo-Zapadnoe knizhnoe izdatelʹstvo, 1978. Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Lenin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964. Peregudova, Z. I. ‘Istochnik izucheniia sotsial-demokraticheskogo dvizheniia v Rossii (Materialy fonda departamenta politsii)’, Voprosy istorii, no. 9 (1988), 88–100. Penn, J. pseud. (i.e. Elizabeth Mary Hill and Doris Mudie.) For Readers Only. London: Chapman & Hall, 1936. Pellew, J. ‘The Home Office and the Aliens Act, 1905’, The Historical Journal, vol. 32, no. 2 (June 1989), 369–385. Pipes, Richard. Social Democracy and the St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885–1897. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963. Porter, B. ‘The British Government and Political Refugees, c. 1880–1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 2, no. 3 (November 1983), 23–48. Rappaport, Helen. Conspirator: Lenin in Exile. New York: Basic Books, 2010.

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Rappaport, Helen. ‘Lenin in London’, in Stories from the Footnotes of History. Available at: https://helenrappaport.com/footnotes/lenin-in-london/ (accessed 15 September 2018). Rossiiskaia Sotsialʹdemokraticheskaia Rabochaia Partiia, Tsentralʹnyi Komitet. Londonskii sʹʹezd Rossiiskoi Sots-Demokr. Rab. Partii (sostoiavshiisia v 1907 g.) Polnyi tekst protokolov. Paris: Imp. Gnatovsky, rue Froidevaux, 1909, 8. Rothstein, Andrew. Lenin in Britain. London: Communist Party of Great Britain, 1970. Rothstein, Andrew. A House on Clerkenwell Green. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1966. Sargeant, Alan. ‘Lenin’s London: 6 Oakley Square & Winifred Gottschalk’, 11 November 2015. Available online at: https://pixelsurgery.wordpress. com/2015/11/11/lenins-london-oakley-square/ (accessed 15 September 2018). Savelʹev, P. Iu. (ed.) Iz arkhiva Iu. O. Martova. Perepiska. Vyp 1, 1896–1904 gg. Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 2015. Seabag-Montefiore, Simon. Young Stalin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007. Schapiro, Leonid. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. London: Methuen, 1964. Sebestyen, Victor. Lenin the Dictator. An intimate portrait. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017. Semenov, D. V. ‘Dom Takhtareva i ego obitateli’ in Lesnoi: ischeznuvshii mir. Ocherki peterburgskogo predmestʹia. Moscow: Izd. Tsentrpoligraf, 2011, 238–241. Available at: https://history.wikireading.ru/404754 (accessed 21 May 2018). Senese, D. J. ‘“Le vil Melville”: Evidence from the Okhrana File on the Trial of Vladimir Burtsev’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, new series, vol. 14 (1981), 147–153. Service, Robert. Lenin. A biography. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2000. Service, Robert. ‘Marxism and Its London Colony before the October 1917 Revolution’, in The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 88, no. 1 (January 2010), 359–376. Simsova, S. (ed.) Lenin, Krupskaia and Libraries. London: Clive Bingley, 1968. Squire, John Collings (Sir). ‘The Reader’, in Outside Eden. London: William Heinemann, 1933. Squire, P. S. The Third Department: The Establishment and Practices of the Political Police in the Russia of Nicholas I. Cambridge: University Press, 1968. Stuchebnikova, M. D. (ed.) Vtoroi sʹʹezd RSDRP. Iiulʹ –Avgust 1903 goda. Protokoly. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1959. Takhtarev, K. M. Sotsiologicheskie Trudy. Saint Petersburg: Izdatel´stvo khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii, 2006. Taratuta, E. A. Etelʹ Lilian Voinich, Sudʹba pisatelia i sudʹba knigi. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1964.

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Taratuta, E. A. S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii: revoliutsioner i pisatelʹ. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1973. Tsentralʹnyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv kinofotofonodokumentov SanktPeterburga, Shifr: G 15954. Chleny Peterburgskogo “Soiuza borʹby za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa” v 1894-1896 gg. – Z.P. Nevzorova, A.A. Iakubova i E.K. Agrinskaia. Saint Petersburg, 1895. Tsuzuki, Chushichi. H. M. Hyndman and British Socialism. London: Oxford University Press, 1961. Viktorov, N. (i.e. V. L. Burtsev) ‘Britanskii Muzei’, Istoricheskii vestnik (Saint Petersburg), vol. 59 (January 1895), 256–286. Volkogonov, Dmitrii Antonovich. Lenin: politicheskii portret. Moscow: Novosti, 1994. Volkogonov, Dmitrii Antonovich. Lenin. Life and Legacy. London: HarperCollins, 1995. Walling, William English. Russia’s Message. The True World Import of the Revolution. London: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1908. Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. Industrial Democracy. London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co, 1897. Russian translation: Vebb, S. i B. Teoriia i praktika angliiskogo tred-iunionizma. Perevod. V. Ilʹina (V. I. Lenina). t. 2, SPb.: Tip. Skorokhodova, 1900. Wolfe, Bertram. Three Who Made a Revolution. New York: The Dial Press, 1948. Young, Sarah J. ‘The Free Russian Press in London.’ Available at: http:// sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/04/06/the-free-russian-press-in-london/ (accessed 21 May 2018). Zelʹma, Georgy A. Po leninskim mestam za rubezhom. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo “Planeta”, 1969.

Film/TV Tsentralʹnoe televidenie SSSR. ‘Lenin v Londone. Dokumentalʹnyi filʹm. Moscow, 1962. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YFeMYx9PE8 (accessed 21 May 2018).

Notes Introduction 1

2

3 4

5

6

Karzhanskii, N. S. ‘V. I. Lenin na V sʹʹezde RSDRP’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 360. Rothstein, Andrew. Lenin in Britain. London: Communist Party of Great Britain [1970]; Muraʹveva, L., and Sivolap-Kaftanova, I. Lenin in London. Memorial Places. Moscow: Progress, 1983; Rappaport, Helen. Conspirator: Lenin in Exile. New York: Basic Books, 2010. Rappaport’s website contains a useful recent addition dealing specifically with Lenin’s visits to London. See: https://helenrappaport.com/footnotes/lenin-in-london/ (accessed 15 September 2018). Other works which touch on his London years include Service, Robert. Lenin. A Biography. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2000; and, more recently, Sebestyen, Victor. Lenin the Dictator. An Intimate Portrait. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017. http://sarahjyoung.com/site/map-russians-in-london/ (accessed 21 May 2018). Courrier International, 6 May 2015, ‘La photo de l’amoureuse de Lénine dévoilée’. Available at: https://www.courrierinternational.com/article/ histoire-la-photo-de-lamoureuse-de-lenine-devoilee (accessed 21 May 2018). The find was reported in the Observer in the UK and Izvestiya in the USSR. The correspondence was also transformed into an illustrated booklet published by the BL and, in addition, formed the subject of conference presentations and an article in an academic journal, which in due course was translated into Russian and published by the Soviet journal Voprosy istorii KPSS (‘Questions on the History of the CPSU’). Krupskaia, N. K. Vospominaniia o Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo, 1930, 57. ‘S Takhtarevym my vse vremia videlisʹ’. In

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the English version, this is translated only as ‘We frequently met the Takhtarevs’. See Krupskaya, N. K. Memories of Lenin. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1970, 68.

Chapter 1 1 2

3

4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

13

14

The Times, 19 November 1835, 3: Letters to the Editor, ‘Russian Spies in England’. K. F. H. M., and L. K. Also 20 November 1835, 2. Squire, P. S. The Third Department: The Establishment and Practices of the Political Police in the Russia of Nicholas I. Cambridge: University Press, 1968, 214, quoted in Hingley, R. The Russian Secret Police. New York: Dorset Press, 1970, 36. Gertsen, A. I. Byloe i dumy. Chastʹ sedʹmaia, in Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1957, vol. 11, 328, 380, 708. Daily News, 2 January 1858, 5: ‘The Free Russian Press’. Brunnov, Fillip Ivanovich (1797–1875) Diplomat. Served in the Russian Embassy in London 1840–1874. The CID had been founded on 8 April that year. The National Archives, Kew (TNA) HO 45/9473/A60556: ‘Instructions of Secretary of State as to course to be taken in event of application by Foreign Minister to Home Office re Russian Refugees.’ Salisbury to Cross, 10 October 1878, ff. 3–6. Ibid., f. 17. Ibid., ff. 8–9. Cross to Lushington, 30 October 1878. Burtsev, V. L. Bor´ba za svobodnuiu rossiiu: moi vospominaniia (1882–1922 gg.), tom 1. Berlin: Gamaiun, 1923, 26. See, for example, the Newcastle Courant, 3 June 1881, 3: ‘Russian Espionage’. As early as 1879, Rachkovsky, then an employee of the Ministry of Justice, had been named as a police informer. See, Daily News, 1 November 1879, 5: ‘The New Organ of the Revolutionary Party in Russia.’ Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford (HIA) Okhrana Archive 10/IIIA/7. Rachkovsky to Fragnon [sic], that is F. A. Gragnon, 1885. Cited in Johnson, R. J. ‘The Okhrana Abroad, 1887–1917: A Study in International Police Cooperation’, University of Columbia PhD Thesis, 1970, 28. Taratuta, E. A. Etel´ Lilian Voinich, Sudʹba pisatelia i sudʹba knigi. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1964, 110. Milevsky, Vladislav (Aleksandr), 1842–1904. Police agent since 1873.

234

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15 TNA, KV 6/47, W. Melville (retired chief inspector CID), notes from memory, May 1905. 16 See entry for Volkhovsky in Dictionary of National Biography. 17 Tsentralʹnyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (TsGIA RF), f. 533, op. 1, d. 353. ll. 417–418. Cited in Akhmerova, F. D. Vladimir Lʹvovich Burtsev (1862–1942): v pomoshchʹ izuchaiushchim kurs ‘Istoriia kulʹtury Bashkortostana’. Ufa: IIIAL UNTS RAN, 1997, 14 and 58 (note 23). 18 For details of Burtsev’s exploits at this time, see Henderson, R. ‘International Collaboration in the Persecution of Russian Political Émigrés: The European Pursuit of Vladimir Burtsev’, Revolutionary Russia, London, vol. 22, no. 1 (June 2009), 21–36. 19 HIA Okhrana Archive 197/XVIId/1A (Folder 2). Rachkovskii to Durnovo, Department of Police 31 January/12 February 1891. Report no. 12. 20 The Times, 3 January 1891, 5: ‘Russia’. 21 HIA Okhrana Archive 197/XVIId/1A (Folder 2). Rachkovsky to Durnovo. Report no. 26. 19/31 March 1891. ll. 45–46. Elsewhere it has been suggested that it was precisely Burtsev’s arrival in the capital that had caused Rachkovsky to refocus his attentions on London. See Taratuta, E. A. S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii: revoliutsioner i pisatelʹ. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1973, 426. 22 HIA Okhrana Archive 197/XVIId/1A (Folder 2). Burtsev to M. I. Gurovich, 9 January 1891, copy. 23 Petr Nikolaevich Durnovo (1843–1915). Director of the Department of Police, 1884–1893. 24 GARF. f. 102. d. 3. op. 89. (1891). del. 4. ll. 45–49. 25 Ibid., op. 89. (1891). del. 4, ll. 98–99. Rachkovsky to Durnovo. Report of 21 September/3 October 1891. 26 See the Times, 23 April 1884, 7. 27 Ibid., op. 90. (1892). del. 1. T. 2. ll. 62–63. 28 Melville, William (1850–1918). Chief inspector at Scotland Yard. Resigned in 1903 to head up a new intelligence service, which later became known as MI5. 29 HIA Okhrana Archive: 35/Vc/Folders 1–4 ‘Relations with Scotland Yard’. The earliest letter in this file of correspondence between the two dates from 3 January 1897. A letter in the Morning Advertiser of 20 February 1894, 3, headed ‘Prisons and Prisoners in Russia’ and signed ‘A Loyal Russian’ was, according to E. A. Taratuta, the work of Rachkovsky. See Taratuta, S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii, 474. 30 GARF f. 102, d. 3. op. 88 (1890). del. 569, T. 4. Rachkovsky to Petrov. Report no. 37, 26 March 1894. l. 77.

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31 Burtsev, V. L. V pogone za provokatorami: ‘Protokoly sionskikh mudretsov’ – dokazannyi podlog. Moscow: Slovo, 1991, 5. 32 For further details, see Henderson, R. ‘Russian Political Émigrés and the British Museum Library’, Library History, vol. 9, nos. 1–2 (1991), 59–68; and ‘Lenin and the British Museum Library’, Solanus, New Series, vol. 4 (1990), 3–15. 33 British Museum Archives, London (BMA) Confidential papers. 12 December 1893. 34 HIA Okhrana Archive 35/Vc/folder 1: Report no. 552, 24 April/7 May 1912, A. A. Krasil´nikov, Head of Foreign Agency to S. P. Beletsky, Director of Police, ff. 1–2. 35 Ibid. 36 Arkhangelʹskii, Vladimir. V. Nogin. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1964, 156. 37 Dioneo, Angliiskie siluety: izdanie redaktsii zhurnala ‘Russkoe Bogatstvo’. St Petersburg: Tip. N. N. Klobukova, 1905, 481–482. 38 GARF, f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 27, ll. 5–6. Also ibid., ed. khr. 4, l. 56. 39 Archives nationales, Paris (AN) F/7/12521/2: Angleterre (1887–1908), Reports for 21 January, 28 February and 15 March 1902. 40 Ibid., 17 May 1902, 1. And AN, F/7/12521/1: Suisse (1882–1909), 17 February 1904. 41 Ibid., F/7/12521/2: Angleterre (1887–1908), 12 July 1902. 42 TNA, KV 6/47, 8 December 1904 (274/B). 43 HIA Okhrana Archive, 54/VI/k/23 c. 20 September 1905. 44 Mikhailov, I. K. Chetvertʹ veka podpol´shchika. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1957, 87. 45 London Daily News, 27 January 1905, 6: ‘Spies in London: Watching Russian Refugees’. 46 London Morning, 9 February 1899, 3: ‘Russian Spies.’ 47 Free Russia, vol. 10, no. 3 (March 1899), 24: ‘A Tale of Cock and Bull’. 48 Viktorov, N. ‘Britanskii Muzei’, Istoricheskii vestnik (St Petersburg), vol. 59 (January 1895), 256–286. 49 Burtsev, V. L. Za sto let 1800–1896. Sbornik po istorii politicheskikh i obshchestvennykh dvizhenii v Rossii. (Sostavil V. Burtsev pri redaktsionnom uchastii S. M. Kravchinskogo.) London: Russian Free Press Fund, 1897. 50 Levin, Sh. M. Ocherki po istorii russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli vtoroi poloviny XIX veka. Leningrad: Nauka, 1974, 59. Book review in Letuchie listki, no. 41 (1898). The Lenin article in question, ‘The Persecutors of the Zemztvo and the Hannibals of Liberalism’ (Goniteli zemstva i Annibaly liberalizma), appeared in Zaria nos. 2, 3 (December 1901). 51 HIA Okhrana Archive 197/XVIId/1A (Part 2): Director of Department of Police to Rachkovsky, 20 January/1 February and 10/22 March 1898.

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52 Burtsev, Bor´ba, 133. 53 TNA, DPP 4/32 ‘Records of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Bourtzeff and another. Offence: Incitement to murder. Wm. Melville Sworn and Examined by Mr. Matthews’, f. 169. 54 Burtsev, Bor´ba, 134–143. 55 See Stepanov, E. D. ‘Iz zagranichnykh vospominanii starogo narodovol´tsa’, Katorga i ssylka, no. 24 (1926), 123–144. 56 Arkhangelʹskii, Vladimir. V. Nogin. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1964, 180. 57 Resolution of the Executive Committee of the International Arbitration Association, 2 May 1905. Cited in The Anglo-Russian, vol. 8, no. 12 (June 1905), 946. 58 For a fuller discussion of the impact of the 1905 Act, see Porter, B. ‘The British Government and Political Refugees, c. 1880–1914’, Immigrants and Minorities, vol. 2, no. 3 (November 1983), 31, 42 (note 50). Also, Gainer, B. The Alien Invasion: The Origins of the Aliens Act of 1905. London: Heinemann Educational, 1972. Also, Pellew, J. ‘The Home Office and the Aliens Act, 1905’, The Historical Journal, vol. 32, no. 2 (June 1989), 369–385. 59 Leninskii sbornik. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo, 1930, vol. XIII, 235. 60 Lebedinsky, Ivan Fillipovich, a railway worker and follower of Leo Tolstoy who emigrated from Russia in 1900. For his involvement in the distribution in Paris of a radical Russian journal he was ordered to leave France, and of the available countries offered to him, Belgium, Switzerland or England, he chose the latter. See http://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/pisma/kchertkovu-1897-1904/letter-166.htm (also http://tolstoy-lit.ru/tolstoy/ pisma/k-chertkovu-1897-1904/letter-175.htm) (accessed 21 May 2018). 61 TNA, HO 144/587/B2840C/117. Serebriakov, Esper Aleksandrovich (1854–1921) Member of the Party of the People’s Will (Narodnaya Volia). Worked in the Free Russian Press Fund. 62 Schapiro, Leonid. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. London: Methuen, 1964, 39. Rappaport, Conspirator, 47. 63 Alekseev, Nikolai Aleksandrovich (1873–1972). Later worked for Comintern and in the 1930s in the Soviet trade mission in London. 64 Alekseev, N. A. ‘V. I. Lenin v Londone (1902–1903g.)’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel´stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 216. In February 1900 Alekseev gave 49 Sidmouth Street as his address when registering for a reader’s ticket at the British Museum. See British Museum, Card Index of Readers Admissions, A66422, For information on his move to 47 Sidmouth Street

Notes

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66

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see TNA, RG 13/239 f. 9, 18: Census for England and Wales (31 March 1901). Sarah J. Young. The Free Russian Press in London. Available at: http:// sarahjyoung.com/site/2012/04/06/the-free-russian-press-in-london/ (accessed 21 May 2018). The Free Russian Press later moved round the corner to 82 (and, later still, to no. 2) Judd Street. Stepniak first arrived in London in July 1884. On 21 January 1885 he sent a letter to the editor of the Pall-Mall Gazette in response to a slanderous article by ‘O.K.’ of 15 January. Later that year, on 24 October, he sent a second letter from the same address. By 6 November 1885 he had already moved to 42 Alma Square, in St John’s Wood. See Ermasheva, M. E. (compiler). S. M. Stepniak-Kravchinskii: V londonskoi emigratsii. Moscow: Nauka, 1968, 193–194, 195–197. Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper, 24 September 1893, 9; ‘An Empire Tragedy’. Beer, M. Fifty Years of International Socialism. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1935, 144. Takhtarev, K. M. Rabochee dvizhenie v Peterburge (1893–1901gg.) Po lichnym vospominaniiam i zametkam. S prilozheniem vospominanii o Vladimire Il´iche Ul´ianove-Lenine i partiinom raskole. Leningrad: Rabochee Izdatel´stvo ‘Priboi’, 1924. See also his ‘V. I. Lenin i sotsialdemokraticheskoe dvizhenie. (Po lichnym vospominaniiam)’, Byloe, 24 (1924), 3–28.

Chapter 2 1

2 3

The economists assumed that: ‘Labour’s political consciousness would emerge automatically from the economic struggle against the employers and, hence, that there was no need for parallel political organization and propaganda.’ Pipes, Richard. Social Democracy and the St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885–1897. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963, 124n. Certain among them, such as Takhtarev, also believed that it was the role of the Party to assist rather than lead the working class in this process. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 172–173. Fischer, Louis. The Life of Lenin. London: Phoenix Press, 2001, 22. See also Payne, Robert. The Life and Death of Lenin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964, 201–202, 647; Service, Lenin. A Biography. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2000, 100, 114.

238 4

5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14

Notes Nevzorova-Shesterina, S. P. ‘Stranichka vospominanii’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatelʹstvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1956, tom 1, 141–145. Sofiya Pavlovna NevzorovaShesterina (1868–1943) was the sister of Zinaida Pavlovna NevzorovaKrzhizhanovskaia, a classmate of Yakubova. ‘Primeval force of the black earth’ was how Constance Garnett chose to render the phrase ‘chernozemnaya sila’ in her translation of Turgenev’s On the Eve. London: Heinemann, 1920. The Independent, 2 May 2015, 3; ‘Apollinariya Yakubova: The Face of the Woman Vladimir Lenin Loved Most Is Revealed.’ Tsentralʹnyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv kinofotofonodokumentov SanktPeterburga, Shifr: G 15954 Chleny Peterburgskogo ‘Soiuza borʹby za osvobozhdenie rabochego klassa’ v 1894–1896 gg. – Z. P. Nevzorova, A. A. Iakubova i E. K. Agrinskaia. Sankt-Peterburg: [1895 g.]. I showed a slide of that group portrait during a presentation to the XL Conference of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution: University of East Anglia, Norwich, 5 January 2014. The AAY Arkhiv holds a copy of that photograph which appears here as Plate 9. Yaroslavskii, E. (ed.) Istoriia VKP(b). Moscow: Leningrad: Gos. izd-vo 1926–1930, tablitsa 27. See also, Ivanskii, Lenin. Peterburgskie gody. The diaries, which cover roughly the first twenty years of her life, form part of a small archive which also contains ten letters to and from various family members dating from 1905 to 1912 and a quantity of photographs (around twenty) of Yakubova, her husband K. M. Takhtarev and other members of the family. Yakubova’s great nephew, Stanislav Borisovich Elakhovsky, had a rough transcription of her autobiographical manuscript notes made and also carried out some extremely useful initial researches into her life (the results of which are contained in a notebook also included in the archive). After his death in 1999 the archive was passed to his sister, Irina Borisovna Dudnik who in turn, recently passed the archive for safekeeping to the State Historical Museum in Moscow. The call number for the collection is GIMVKh EFZK 3828/1-29. Apollinariia Aleksandrovna Yakubova, Arkhiv (AAY), Avtobiografiia, 20. Ibid., 21. Ibid., 26. Ibid., 13. Ibid. Ulʹianova-Elizarova, A. I. ‘Vospominaniia ob Ilʹiche’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´ich. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. I, 25.

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15 Krupskaia, N. K. ‘Iz vospominanii o V. I. Lenine’ (‘V Pitere 1893–1898gg.’ and ‘V ssylke. 1898–1901 gody.’) in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel´stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 78. 16 Nevzorova-Shesterina, ‘Stranichka vospominanii’, 142. 17 Service, Lenin, 92. 18 Nevzorova-Shesterina, ‘Stranichka vospominanii’, 141. Cited earlier in this chapter. 19 Dmitriev, Andrei. ‘Nizhegorodskaia liubovʹ Vladimira Ulʹianova (Lenina)’ 19 April 2007. (Previously available at http://www.annews.ru/news/detail. php?ID=94517. Paper/electronic copies held by author.) 20 Krupskaya, Vospominaniia, 67–68. 21 Dobrovol´skii, Aleksandr. ‘Tainoe venchan´e Il´icha’, in Moskovskii Komsomolets № 24814, 20 July 2008. 22 Krupskaia, ‘Iz vospominanii o V. I. Lenine’, 72. 23 Ibid., 76–77. 24 Ibid., 79. ‘To the Male and Female Workers at the Thornton Factory’ (K rabochim i rabotnitsam fabrika Torntona), Lenin Collected works, vol. 2, 66–70. 25 Ivanskii, A. I. Lenin. Peterburgskie gody. Po vospominaniiam sovremennikov i dokumentam. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1972, 339. (This part of Anna’s reminiscence is not included in the three-volume collection of reminiscences issued by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism.) 26 Krupskaya, Vospominaniia, 21. 27 Dridzo, Vera. ‘Nadezhda Konstantinovna’, in Novyi mir, no. 2, February 1957, 167. Dridzo had served as Krupskaya’s secretary in the 1930s. 28 Ul´ianova-Elizarova, ‘Vospominaniia’, 41. 29 Loginov, Vladlen T. Vladimir Lenin. Vybor puti: Biografiia. Moscow: Respublika, 2005, 271. 30 Ibid., 272. 31 Ivanskii, Lenin. Peterburgskie gody, 378. 32 Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. vol. 6, 34. Cited in Loginov, Vladimir Lenin, 272. 33 Dridzo, ‘Nadezhda Konstantinovna’, 167. 34 Loginov, Vladimir Lenin. 35 Ibid., 292–293. 36 Volkogonov, Dmitrii Antonovich. Lenin. Life and Legacy. London: HarperCollins, 1995, 30–31. 37 Loginov, Vladimir Lenin, 295. 38 Payne, Lenin, 202. His claim was apparently based on information supplied by the émigré Boris Nicolaevsky. See ibid., 647.

240

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39 Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 170. One revolutionary chronicler gives her date of arrest as 27 March 1897. See Men´shchikov, Okhrana i revoliutsiia. K istorii tainykh politicheskikh organizatsii, sushchestvovavshikh vo vremena samoderzhaviia. Moscow: Izdatel´stvo vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politicheskikh katorzhan i ssylʹno-poselentsev, 1925. I, 287. 40 Service, Lenin, 112. Takhtarev attributed Lenin’s relatively lenient exile, somewhat generously, to the failure of the police to realize how important Lenin was to the movement. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 169. 41 Savelʹev, P. Iu. (ed.) Iz arkhiva Iu. O. Martova. Perepiska. Vyp 1, 1896–1904 gg. Moscow: Pamiatniki istoricheskoi mysli, 2015, 156–157. Krupskaya, 14 June 1898. Available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/ lenin/works/1898/jun/14.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). 42 Ibid., 158. 43 Savelʹev, Iz arkhiva Iu. O. Martova, Yakubova to Martov 22 May (3 June) 1899, 199. 44 Ibid. 45 Iakubova, A. A. Vospitanitsa prirody: Razskaz (vziato s natury). St Petersburg: Tip. E. L. Porokhovshchikovoi, 1902. 46 Ibid., 41. 47 Savelʹev, Iz arkhiva Iu. O. Martova, Yakubova to Martov, 31 July (12 August) 1899, 212. 48 Ibid., Yakubova to Martov, January 1899, 176. 49 Ibid., 176, 210–211. 50 Ibid., 210. 51 Lenin Internet Archive 2008, Krupskaya, 9 August 1898 and 27 September 1898. Available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1898/ aug/09.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). 52 Ibid., 17 October 1899. 53 Daily News, 12 August 1897, 5; ‘Anarchists in London’. 54 Eduard Bernstein (1850–1932) whose ‘non-orthodox’ revisionist interpretation of Marxism would be fiercely attacked by Lenin and others. 55 Takhtarev handed back his ticket in 1906, returned in 1909–1910 and again in 1924, when he showed his appreciation by donating two of his own works to the Museum. British Museum, Card Index of Readers’ Admissions, A63789, ‘Robert Tar’. I am grateful to Stephanie Alder, archivist at the British Museum for her invaluable help in unearthing these and related archival materials. 56 Ibid., 28 March 1900. 57 Bernstein, Eduard. Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie (The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of

Notes

58 59 60

61 62

63 64

65

66

67 68 69 70

241

Social Democracy). Stuttgart: J. H. W. Dietz, 1899. The following year a Russian edition was published in London by the Russian Free Press Fund under the title Usloviia vozmozhnosti sotsializma i zadachi sotsial´demokratii. Krupskaya, 28 March 1900. Available at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/ lenin/works/1900/mar/28.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 173. ‘V. I. Lenin. Pis´mo A. A. Yakubovoi. 26 October 1900’, and ‘A. A. Yakubova. Pis´mo V. I. Leninu. 4 November 1900’, in Leninskii sbornik. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelʹstvo, 1930, vol. XIII, 93–103, 103–112. Ibid., (slovesnyi razvrat). Lenin to Yakubova, 26 October 1900. Available at: http://www.marxists. org/archive/lenin/works/1900/oct/26ay2.htm#fwV34E066 (accessed 21 May 2018). Krupskaya, 6 November 1900. Available at: http://www.marxists.org/ archive/lenin/works/1900/nov/06mu.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). BMA, Card Index of Readers’ Admissions, A65500, ‘Paulina Tar’. See also TNA, RG 13/239 f. 9, 6: Census for England and Wales (31 March 1901) in which ‘Pauline Tar’, Russian authoress aged 30, is still listed as head of household at 13 Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road, although she and her husband had long since moved to Regent Square. Isaak Vladimirovich Shklovsky (1864–1935) Russian journalist. Also wrote for Russian Wealth (Russkoe bogatstvo) and English publications such as the Academy and Daily Chronicle. These publications included: Frank G. Carpenter. Poezdka po Severnoi Amerike. S angl. per i dop. A Tokhtareva [sic]. Moscow: Tipo-lit t-va I. N. Kushnerev i Ko., 1909; A. Takhtarev, ‘Vesna prishla’, in Dlia malenʹkikh. Vtoroi sb. rasskazov i stikhov dlia detei. Moscow: Tipo-lit I. N. Kushnerev i Ko., 1910; A. A. Takhtareva. Kak letaiut liudi. St Petersburg: O. N. Popova, 1912; William Done and F. Tickner. Nagliadnaia geografiia. Predmet. uroki po mirovediiu v sviazi s estestvoznaniem. Rukovodstvo dlia prepodavatelei. Per. s angl. A. Takhtarevoi. Moscow: Tip-lit. t-va I. N. Kushnerev i Ko., 1911–1912 [another edition, 1914]; Agnes Giberne. Solntse, luna i zvezdy. Astronom. ocherki. Per. s angl. s dop. A Takhtarevoi. Moscow: Tip-lit. t-va I. N. Kushnerev i Ko., 1918. Arkhangelʹskii, Nogin, 153. Issue no. 1 was published in Leipzig, in December 1900. Arkhangelʹskii, Nogin, 154–155. Ibid., 177. The first issue of Zaria appeared in Stuttgart in April 1901. The second and third were published as one volume in December 1901, while the fourth and final number appeared in August 1902.

242 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82

83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Notes Ibid., 186. Ibid., 177. Ibid., 179. T. Kh. ‘Sluchainye zametki’, Zaria, no. 1, April 1901, 247–270. N. Lenin, ‘Gg. “kritiki” v agrarnom voprose’, Zaria, no. 2–3, December 1901, 259–302. Arkhangelʹskii, Nogin, 158. Motovilova, Sofiia Nikolaevna. ‘Minuvshee’ in Novyi mir, no. 12, December 1963, 113. Arkhangelʹskii, Nogin, 155. Other visitors to the Tars’ residence whom Nogin encountered at that time included Feliks Volkhovsky and Hesper Serebriakov. Arkhangelʹskii, Nogin, 156. Kropotkina, Sofiya Grigorʹevna, née Rabinovich (1856–1942), biologist. GARF, f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 84, ll. 27, 28. Ibid., ed. khr. 24, l. 1, 3. David Vladimirovich Soskice (formerly Soskis, 1866–1941). Co-editor of Free Russia and later of The English Review. He would later marry the Russian translator and friend of Constance Garnett, Juliet Hueffer. See Robert Gomme, ‘Soskice [formerly Soskis], David Vladimirovich’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edition, January 2008. Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50761 (accessed 21 May 2018). GARF f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87, ll. 3–5. Ibid., ed. khr. 56, ll. 63,64. ‘Ustav Obshchestva Populiarnykh Lektsii v istende Londona.’. Ibid., ll. 44–48. GARF f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87, l. 186. All profits from the Sundays went to the upkeep of the Free Library and Reading Room, while monies from Fridays went towards the maintenance of the Society. Mikhailov, I. K. Chetvert´ veka, 87. GARF f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87 and ed. khr. 56. Ibid., ed. khr. 56, l. 7. Leninskii sbornik, vol. XIII, 103. A. A. Yakubova. Pis´mo V. I. Leninu. 4 November 1900. GARF f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 56, l. 47. GARF f.1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87, l. 143. Trotsky, L. Moia zhiznʹ. Moscow: Vagrius, 2001, 149. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 178. Trotsky, Moia zhiznʹ, 149. Rothstein, Lenin, 14.

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Chapter 3 1 2 3 4 5

6

7

8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16

17 18

Mikhailov, Chetvert´ veka, 88. See also Alekseev, ‘Lenin’, 218. Rappaport, Conspirator, 71. Alekseev, ‘Lenin’, 216. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 173. Clerkenwell Green was conveniently located a mere fifteen minutes’ walk from Lenin’s flat in Holford Square. The building is now the home of the Marx Memorial Library. Service, Lenin, 117. Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. Industrial Democracy. London, New York, Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co, 1897. Lenin translated the first volume of this work into Russian and edited the translation of the second volume. Vebb, S. i B. Teoriia i praktika angliiskogo tred-iunionizma. Perevod. V. Ilʹina (V. I. Lenina). t. 2, St Petersburg: Tip. Skorokhodova, 1900. XVI, 366, [2], 367–768, [2]. Takhtarev’s small advertisements. appeared in Daily News, 15 December, 1900, 10; ‘Advertisements & Notices.’ Also 8 and 10 May 1901. (I am grateful to Mr Alan Sargeant for this information.) Yakubova placed hers in Daily News, 22 March, 1; 23 March, 1901, 9; ‘Tutors, Governesses, etc.’ Repeated until 29 March 1901. The Athenaeum. Journal of English and Foreign Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Music and the Drama. Saturday, 10 May 1902, 1. Rothstein, Lenin, 14. Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, 68. See Appendix, ‘Material donated/consulted by Lenin at the British Museum’. BMA, Registers of Admissions to the Reading Room; Volumes of Readers’ Signatures and Admissions Correspondence (CE 80–83), 1902 entry for ‘Beldinsky, Vera’ (pseud.). Ibid., 1902 entry for ‘Bieljansky, Leopold’ (pseud.). Trotskii, L. ‘Lenin i staraia “Iskra”’ in Lunacharskii, A. V. (et al.) Siluety: Politicheskie Portrety. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1991, 12. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 175. BMA, Registers of Admissions to the Reading Room; Volumes of Readers’ Signatures and Admissions Correspondence (CE 80–83), 1902 entry for ‘Allemann, Leo’ (pseud.). Chagin, B. A. and Kurbatova, I. N. Plekhanov. Moscow: Myslʹ, 1973, 58–59, 206. In fact, Kellgren and his wife, Vera Pogorelova had already been identified by the Okhrana as members of a Stockholm revolutionary circle. See HIA,

244

19 20

21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36 37

38 39 40 41 42

Notes Okhrana Archive, 2026001_XIIIc_Incoming_Dispatches, 1903, Document no. 747. (Again, I am grateful to Mr Alan Sargeant for drawing my attention to this reference.) Trotskii, ‘Lenin i staraia “Iskra”’, 12, 21. Kommunisticheskaia Partiia Sovetskogo Soiuza, Institut MarksizmaLeninizma (IML). Vladimir Ilʹich Lenin: biograficheskaia khronika. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1970–1985, vol. 1, 447. Bowman, William T. ‘Lenin in London’, Contemporary Review, no. 1098, June 1957, 336–338. Mikhailov, I. K. ‘Iz vospominanii’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 3, 27–30. Ibid. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 178. Trotskii, L. Moia zhiznʹ. Opyt avtobiografii. Moscow: Vagrius, 2001, 156. Trotskii, ‘Lenin i staraia “Iskra”’, 23. IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 1, 432, letter of 4 February 1903. Krupskaia, Vospominaniia, 57. Krupskaya, Memories, 67. Ibid., 68. Takhtarev, ‘V. I. Lenin’, 21. (‘Zamshevye rukavitsy vse zhe luchshe ezhovykh’. Literally, ‘kid gloves are better than “hedgehog gloves”.’) Krupskaya, Memories, 68. Leninskii sbornik, vol. VIII, 301. Letter from F. V. Lengnik in Kiev writing to Iskra c/o Tar, 4 (17) December 1902. Fisher, A. V Rossii i v Anglii. Nabliudeniia i vospominaniia peterburgskogo rabochego (1890–1921gg.). Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo, 1922, 55. Sedova, Natalya Ivanovna (1882–1962). Having divorced his first wife whom he had left behind in Russia, Trotsky would marry Sedova in Paris later that year. Trotskii, ‘Lenin i staraia “Iskra”’, 22. The quotation appears in Terence’s play Heauton Timorumenos. (The selftormentor) and is often translated as ‘I am human, and consider nothing human alien to me.’ Takhtarev, ‘V. I. Lenin’, 77. Ibid., 79. Mikhailov, Chetvertʹ veka, 87. GARF f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87, l. 7. Protokol posledniago sobraniia Obshchestva popul´iarnykh lektsii v Istende, 23 June 1903. Mikhailov, Chetvertʹ veka, 87.

Notes

245

43 Ibid., l. 15. 44 Ibid., ed. khr. 56. ll. 31, 32. Also BMA, Card Index of Readers’ Admissions, A65500, ‘Paulina Tar’. 45 Krupskaia, Vospominaniia, 66. Also Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 190. In his reminiscence Takhtarev incorrectly dates this episode to August 1903 at the time of Lenin’s departure from London after the Second Party Congress. 46 Krupskaya, Memories, 86. 47 Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 185. 48 For a discussion of the issues involved, see, for example, Schapiro, Communist Party, 36–53. 49 Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 186. 50 Takhtarev, Sotsiologicheskie trudy. St Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii, 2006, 7. 51 Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 191. 52 Leninskii sbornik, vol. VI, 196–197. 53 Ibid., vol. VII, 135, letter of 26 October 1903. 54 See, for example, Ushakov, D. N. (ed.) Tolkovyi slovar´russkogo iazyka. Moscow: Sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 1935–1940.

Chapter 4 1 2

3 4

5 6 7 8

Anglo-Russian, vol. VI, no. 12, June 1903, and vol. VII, no. 1, July–August 1903, 729: ‘Where Is England?’ Ibid., 730; ‘Russian lesson to the “Times” and the world’s press’. Dudley Disraeli Braham (1875–1951) Times correspondent in St Petersburg from 1901. AN, F/7/12521/2: Angleterre (1887–1908), report of 4 June 1904. GARF, f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 87, l. 10. In fact, Teplov’s relations with the SDF go as far back as April 1900 when he received a letter from the Federation’s London Organizer, George Hewitt, proposing the foundation of an international branch and asking for Teplov’s help. See GARF, f. 1721. op. 1, ed. khr. 84, l. 41, 14 April 1900. Ibid., ed. khr. 31, ll. 72, 73, 5 July 1903, and ed. khr. 46. l. 66 (undated). Manchester Guardian, 20 September 1904, 6; ‘Our London Correspondence’. The Times, 21 September 1904, 13; ‘Jewish Disturbances’. Le Journal, 7 September 1909; ‘La Carrière de Landesen-Harting’.

246 9 10 11 12

13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24

25 26

Notes The Times, 25 October 1904, 7; ‘The North Sea Outrage: The Russian Ambassador Hooted’. Lensen, George A. (ed.) Revelations of a Russian Diplomat: The Memoirs of Dmitrii I. Abrikossow. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1964, 97. IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 14, entry for 24 January (6 February) 1905. The Times first reported the explosion as occurring on 11 March but later trial reports gave it as 25 February. The Times, 13 March 1906, 6; ‘Bomb Explosion in St Petersburg’ and, ibid., 24 May 1904, 13; ‘Alleged Conspiracy to Obtain a Passport’. Hollingsworth, B. ‘The Society of Friends of Russian Freedom: English Liberals and Russian Socialists, 1890–1917’. Oxford Slavonic Papers, n.s., 3 (1970), 61–62. TNA KV 6/47, 274/B. Letter from Melville, 8 December 1904, S.501, x V. F. Farce. Mons. ‘12227’. Augustus Road was later renamed Brackenbury Gardens. TNA, Registers of Births and Deaths, Fulham District, vol. 1a, 184, 252, 263. TNA KV 6/47, 274/B. Letter from Melville, 8 December 1904, S.501, x V. F. Farce. Mons. ‘12227’. Ibid., Melville’s notes from memory, May 1905. HIA, Okhrana Archive, 54/VI/k/23 c, Farce reports of 30 May and 26 June 1905. Ibid., Telegram, 22 April 1905. ‘Monsieur Albert Kraft’ was Farce’s pseudonymous contact at the Russian embassy in Paris. Ibid., Letter, 22 April 1905. Soskice lived at that time at 90, Brook Green, Hammersmith. I am grateful to Sean Mitchell for providing this information on Soskice and other members of the SFRF and FVRP. Sebestyen, Victor, Lenin the Dictator, 170. Fitch, Herbert T. Traitors Within: The Adventures of Detective Inspector Herbert T. Fitch. London: Hurst & Blackett, Ltd., 1933, 23. Communist Party of Great Britain. London Landmarks. A Guide with Maps to Places Where Marx, Engels and Lenin Lived and Worked. (3rd edition), London: 16 King Street, 1963, 11. Islington Gazette, 31 January 1964, 7; ‘Memories of a Meeting with Lenin’. In this article Mr H. Moring, who had taken over as landlord of the pub in question in 1941 made the bold claim of having himself been present in the bar on that occasion thirty-five years earlier when none other than Lenin himself had walked in and booked the upstairs room for a meeting of the ‘Foreign Barbers of London’. Fitch, Traitors, 21. HIA, Okhrana Archive, 54/VI/k/23 c, Farce report of 26 April 1905.

Notes

247

27 Fitch, Traitors, 25. 28 Ibid., 26. 29 FO 65/1719/90 and 91: To Count Benckendorff. Secret. 12 May 1905. ‘Russian Nihilists’. 30 HIA, Okhrana Archive, 54/VI/k/23 c, Farce Report of 16 May 1905. 31 Burtsev, V. L. ‘Lenin pod pokrovitelʹstvom Departamenta Politsii i Nemtsev’, in ‘Za Svobodu!’ (Warsaw, published in 22 parts, 12 May–24 July 1927.) 32 Zemliachka, R. S. ‘Ob Ilʹiche’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1979, tom 2, 80. 33 Tskhakaia, M. ‘Vstrechi s Leninym’, in Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine, Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 303–306. 34 HIA, Okhrana Archive, 54/VI/k/23 c, Farce report of 13 November 1905. 35 Ibid., 35/V/c, 4 ‘Relations with Scotland Yard’: Letter dated London 20 May 1907 from Mrs A. Farce.

Chapter 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

The Times, 7 March 1907, 9. Daily Mirror, 6 April 1907, 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9. Ibid., 8 April 1907, 7: ‘Officially denied’. Daily Mirror, 2 May 1907, 13; ‘Ban on the Mikado’. Graphic, 5 May 1906, 22. Daily Mirror, 2 May 1907, 13; ‘Anarchist Play in London’. Jewish Chronicle, 26 April 1907, 7; ‘Pavilion Theatre’. See, for example, The Sportsman, 24 April 1906, 4. Also, The Times, 24 April 1906, 12; ‘Terry’s Theatre’. 9 Nakoriakov, N. N. ‘Zapiski delegata IV i V sʹʹezdov Partii’, O Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine. Vospominaniia. 1900–1922 gody. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1963, 65–73. ‘Zapiski delegata’, 71. 10 Lensen, Revelations of a Russian Diplomat, 130–131. At least one of the delegates was in Garting’s pay. Jacob Zhitomirsky, one of his key agents, had already infiltrated the Berlin Iskra group in 1902 and was present as a guest throughout the London Congress. 11 Peregudova, Z. I. ‘Istochnik izucheniia sotsial-demokraticheskogo dvizheniia v Rossii (Materialy fonda departamenta politsii)’ in Voprosy istorii, 1988, no. 9, 92.

248

Notes

12 Daily Mail, 9 May 1907, 5; ‘Revolutionaries Arrive. Socialist Invasion Begins’. 13 Daily Mail, 10 May 1907, 5; ‘Nameless Army from Russia. Main Revolutionary Band Arrives. Watched by Scotland Yard’. 14 IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 321. Daily Mirror, 15 May 1907, 4; ‘Maxim Gorki in London’. It is interesting that in his memoir of Lenin, Gorky claimed that the two met for the first time only in London on the first day of the Congress. See Gorky, Maxim. Days with Lenin. London: Martin Lawrence, 1933, 5. 15 No business was conducted on either Sunday 19 or Sunday 26 May. 16 Nakoriakov, ‘Zapiski delegata’, 70. 17 Ibid. 18 Gorky, Days with Lenin, 18. 19 Nakoriakov, ‘Zapiski delegata’, 70. Also, Seabag-Montefiore, Simon. Young Stalin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007, 146. 20 Daily Chronicle, 11 May 1907, 1, 7; ‘London’s Secret Duma. Delegates Meet in an LCC Lodging House’. 21 Ibid., 7. 22 Ibid., 13 May 1907, 5; ‘Duma in London. Russian Delegates Will Meet in Secret Today’. 23 Daily Mirror, 16 May 1907, 5; ‘Girl Nihilists’. 24 Balabanoff, Angelica. My Life as a Rebel. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1938, 71. London Standard, 28 September 1904. In 1906 the site had been purchased for use as a bus garage and, two years later under the ownership of the London General Omnibus Company, had come into service as Dalston Garage. The garage was demolished and replaced by housing in 1981. 25 Seabag-Montefiore, Young Stalin, 146. 26 Daily Telegraph, 15 May 1907, 5; ‘Russian Socialists’ Congress’. 27 See http://www.stgite.org.uk/media/commercialroad1899.html and http:// www.stgite.org.uk/media/commercialroad1921.html#26 (accessed 21 May 2018). 28 Institut Marksizma-Leninizma pri TSK KPSS (IML). Piatyi (Londonskii) Sʹʹezd RSDRP. Aprelʹ–Mai 1907 goda. Protokoly. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1963, 605. Lenin also passed on his thanks to Nadelʹ, another East End émigré. 29 Voroshilov, K. E. Rasskazy o zhizne. (Vospominaniia). Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1971, 352–353. 30 Brust, Harold. ‘I Guarded Kings.’ The Memoirs of a Political Police Officer. New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1936, 88. 31 Ibid., 89–90.

Notes

249

32 Tottenham and Edmonton Weekly Herald, 5 September 1969, 1; 33 HIA, Okhrana Archive, 2026001_XIIIc_Incoming_Dispatches, 1(14) May 1907, Document no. 227. The decoded text reads; Telegraphiez immédiatement: ustanovlennyia familiia zasedaiushchikh Londone. 34 Graur, Mina. An Anarchist ‘Rabbi’. The Life and Teachings of Rudolf Rocker. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, 99. Daily Mail, 10 May 1907, 5; ‘Nameless Army from Russia. Main Revolutionary Band Arrives. Watched by Scotland Yard’. Also RSDRP, Londonskii sʹʹezd, 11. 35 Such ‘socialist churches’ were not uncommon. Lenin had already visited a similar one in Seven Sisters, North London, during his first stay in the capital. See Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, 67. Occasionally it is mistakenly claimed that at the time of the Congress the church was run either by its founder, the Reverend R. Bruce Wallace, or by F. R. Swann, a socialist (Congregationalist) Minister. (See, for example, Rothstein, Lenin, 23.) In fact, Wallace had stepped down some five years earlier, while Swann took over only in 1911. 36 Gorky, Days with Lenin, 5. 37 Islington Gazette, 30 May 1907, 3; ‘About Men and Women’. 38 Tsentralʹnoe televidenie SSSR. ‘Lenin v Londone. Dokumentalʹnyi filʹm, 1962’ available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YFeMYx9PE8 (accessed 21 May 2018). 39 Bassalygo, D. ‘Nezabyvaemye vstrechi’, Vospominaniia o Vladimire Il´iche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 3, 80. 40 Free Russia, June 1907, 8: ‘The Pothouse Press and the Russian Social Democrats’. 41 Daily News, 23 May 1907, 7; ‘London Hooligans. Raid on the Door of the Russian Congress’. 42 RSDRP, Londonskii sʹʹezd, 480. 43 See for example, Moorehead, Alan. The Russian Revolution. London: Readers Union, 1960, 83. 44 IML, Piatyi (Londonskii) Sʹʹezd RSDRP, 184, 185. 45 Ibid., 96–104. 46 Balabanoff, My Life as a Rebel, 72. West Briton & Cornwall Advertiser, 30 May 1907, 5; ‘Local News: Truro’. Also, Islington Gazette, 29 July 1907, 4; ‘Brotherhood Church, Southgate Road: Presentation to Rev. Arthur Baker’. 47 Rappaport, Conspirator, 165–166. 48 Dudden, Arthur P. and von Laue, Theodore H. ‘The RSDLP and Joseph Fels: A Study in Intercultural Contact’. The American Historical Review, vol. 61, no. 1 (October 1955), 47. 49 New York Times, 21 May 1907; ‘A Famous Rebel in London’.

250

Notes

50 Karzhanskii, N. S. ‘V. I. Lenin na V sʹʹezde RSDRP’, Vospominaniia o Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel´stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1956, vol. 1, 349–364. 51 Ibid., 350. 52 Ibid., 354. 53 Ibid., 356. 54 See Hartley, Janet. ‘A land of limitless possibilities: British commerce and trade in Siberia in the early twentieth century’, Sibirica: Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberian Studies, vol. 13, no. 3 (2014), 1–21. Also Evseeva O. ‘Vygodno li zanimatʹsia molochnym zhivotnovodstvom v regionakh Sibiri?’ Available at: http://www.topauthor.ru/vigodno_li_zanimatsya_ molochnim_givotnovodstvom_v_regionah_sibiri_1ba0.html (accessed 21 May 2018). 55 Bassalygo, ‘Nezabyvaemye vstrechi’, 81. 56 Karzhanskii, ‘V. I. Lenin’, 359. 57 IML, Piatyi (Londonskii) Sʹʹezd RSDRP, 40. 58 Karzhansky, ‘V. I. Lenin’, 361. 59 Ibid., 360. 60 In fact, the correct phrase is ‘Tironian notes’, i.e. notae Tironiensis, a stenographic system and dictionary developed in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Tiro, a member of Cicero’s household. 61 IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 331, ‘Otnoshenie k burzhuaznym partiiam’. 62 Karzhansky, ‘V. I. Lenin’, 362–363.

Chapter 6 1

2 3 4 5

The protocols would not see the light of day, however, until 1909 when the first edition was published by the Foreign Office of the Central Committee of the RSDLP as: Londonskii sʹʹezd Rossiiskoi Sots-Demokr. Rab. Partii (sostoiavshiisia v 1907 g.) Polnyi tekst protokolov. Paris: Imp. Gnatovsky, rue Froidevaux, 8, 1909. IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 333. Bazarov, V. (et al.) Ocherki po filosofii marksizma. Filosofskii sbornik. St Petersburg: Zveno, 1908. British Museum, Department of Printed Books. A Guide to the Use of the Reading Room. London: British Museum Trustees, 1912, 8. See Appendix, ‘Material donated/consulted by Lenin at the British Museum’, for information on these and other gifts which he made to the Library over the years.

Notes 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14

15

16

17 18 19 20

21 22

251

British Museum, Department of Printed Books. A Guide to the Use of the Reading Room. London: British Museum Trustees, 1912, 7. Tsuzuki, Chushichi. H. M. Hyndman and British Socialism. London: Oxford University Press, 1961, 95–96. TNA, Electoral Registers for City of London, Polling District No. 14, Farringdon Without, 1908, 1277. Andrew Rothstein, letter to RH, 16 January 1990 (Robert Henderson Papers, Private Collection). Rothstein, Andrew. A House on Clerkenwell Green. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1966, 64. Terrett, J. J. ‘Jack Williams for West Ham Guardians’, in Justice, 22 June 1907, 5. See also ‘Right Hon H. H. Asquith and the Featherstone Massacre’, London: TCP. Reference in Justice, 6 July 1907, 8. Lamont, Corliss. ‘Remembering John Masefield’, The Literary Review, vol. 30, no. 4 (Summer 1970), 446–447. Squire, John Collings. Outside Eden. London: William Heinemann, 1933, 110–112. See Appendix, ‘Material donated/consulted by Lenin at the British Museum’ for a listing of some of the specific items he consulted at the Museum. Vl. Ilʹin. Materializm i empirio-crititsizm. Kriticheskie zametki ob odnoi reaktsionnoi filosofii. Moscow: Zveno, 1909. English version: Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a reactionary Philosophy. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1947. Service, Robert. ‘Marxism and Its London Colony before the October 1917 Revolution’, The Slavonic and East European Review, vol. 88, no. 1 (January 2010), 363. Payne, Life and Death of Lenin, 227–228. IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 410–411. Kahan Coates, Zelda. ‘Memories of Lenin’, Labour Monthly, vol. 50, no. 11 (November 1968), 508. GARF, f. 102, op. 253, del. 16. Donesenie No. 209, 11 (24) June 1908. Cited in Peregudova, ‘Istochnik izucheniia sotsial-demokraticheskogo dvizheniia v Rossii’, 99. Hansard, House of Commons Debate, 20 July 1909, vol. 8, 259; ‘Czar’s Visit to Cowes’. HIA Okhrana Archive 35/Vc/1. Report 10 (23) December 1909 No. 692, from A. A. Krasil´nikov to Director of the Dept. of Police S. P. Beletskii. Referred to in Report No. 552, of 24 April (7 May) 1912. Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Krasilʹnikov (1862–1917) was Garting’s replacement as Head of the Foreign Agency, serving from November 1909 to its closure in 1917.

252

Notes

23 Penny Illustrated Paper and Illustrated Times, 6 February 1909, 83: ‘Aliens Island: Colonies Which Are a Menace to Civilisation’. 24 Daily Express, 6 January 1911, 1. ‘Peter the Painter’. 25 Ibid., ‘Berlin Experts’ Cure for Anarchy’. 26 Ibid., ‘“Peter the Painter” in Paris’. 27 GARF, f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 84, ll. 294–296. Teploff v Daily Express, High Court King’s Bench. Writ issued on 10 January 1911. 28 Daily Express, 31 March 1911, p. 2. ‘Peter the Painter’. In fact, the newspaper did little more than express their regret that ‘the information given to our correspondents was inaccurate.’ 29 GARF, f. 1721, op. 1, ed. khr. 84, ll. 267–268, 7 April 1911. 30 New York Times, 28 May 1911: ‘Former Russian Police Chief Tells Amazing Secrets’. 31 Rappaport, Conspirator, 210. 32 TNA, RG 14/PN733 Census for England and Wales (2 April 1911), St Pancras. 33 TNA, England & Wales, Marriages (1912), Westminster, 1a, 800. Also, ibid., Census for England and Wales (1939), St Pancras. For further discussion of 6 Oakley Square and more detailed research into the lives of Mr & Mrs Paul, see Alan Sargeant’s blog: https://pixelsurgery.wordpress. com/2015/11/11/lenins-london-oakley-square/. 34 IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 630–633. 35 Kamenev, L. B. Dve partii: s predisloviem N. Lenina. Paris: Rabochaia Gazeta, 1911. See also Appendix, ‘Material donated/consulted by Lenin at the British Museum.’ 36 Beer, Fifty Years, 148. 37 Ibid. 38 Rothstein, Lenin, 31. 39 TNA, MEPO 4/345/166, Register of Leavers from the Metropolitan Police: Edwin Thomas Woodhall, warrant number 94985. 40 Woodhall, Edwin T. Detective and Secret Service Days. London: Jarrolds Publishers, 1929, 33. 41 Woodhall, Edwin T. ‘Rumblings of Revolution. (How I Met Lenin and Other Famous Nihilists in London)’, London Magazine, vol. LXII, no. 224 (June 1929), 648. 42 Ibid., 649–650. 43 IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vol. 2, 634, 635. 44 Beer, Fifty Years, 158. 45 Ibid., 152–153. 46 Krupskaya, Memories of Lenin, 66.

Notes

253

47 For more on this subject, see Simsova, S. (ed.) Lenin, Krupskaia and Libraries. London: Clive Bingley, 1968. 48 Illustrated London News, 15 December 1917. It is only recently that research has revealed the true identities of the two gentlemen in question. See Carey, Mike. ‘Definitely Not Lenin and Trotsky: Donald C. Thompson’s Photographs of 1917’, 4 January 2016. Available at: http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/01/definitely-not-lenin-and-trotsky. html (accessed 21 May 2018). Also Carey, Mike. ‘Not Lenin and Trotsky – a Mystery Solved?’, 15 May 2017. Available at: http://blogs. bl.uk/european/2017/05/not-lenin-and-trotsky-a-mystery-solved.html (accessed 21 May 2018). 49 Morning Star, 3 August 1968, 1: ‘Landmark to Vanish. Property Firm needs Lenin’s London Home’. 50 Daily Mirror, 11 August 1972, 9: ‘Lenin Demo Row’. See also Birmingham Daily Post, 11 August 1972, 9, which carried a photo of the protest. 51 Camden New Journal, 6 December 2012, ‘Marchmont Association unveil their own blue plaque at former home of Vladimir Lenin.’ Ibid., 3 January 2013, ‘Conservative councillor faces backlash for suggesting Mayor should have acknowledged Lenin’s “crimes against humanity” during plaque unveiling.’ 52 Ibid., 29 March 2012, ‘Minutes of English Heritage blue plaque panel reveal how proposal to commemorate Lenin was rejected.’ 53 Camden Chronicle, 3 August 2000, 5: ‘Make an offer for Lenin’s London pad’.

Postscript 1 2 3

4 5 6

For an excellent account of these years, see Rappaport, Conspirator, 207–301. HIA, Okhrana Archive, 35/V/c/1. Report of 24 April (7 May) 1912 from A. A. Krasil´nikov to Director of the Department of Police S. P. Beletskii. See Lenin, Collected Works, 343–344. Lenin to G. L. Shklovsky, 8 May 1913. Reproduced in ‘Marxists Internet Archive’. http://www.marxists.org/ archive/lenin/works/1913/may/08gls.htm (accessed 21 May 2018). Nadezhda Konstantinovna would live on until 27 February 1939, the day after her seventieth birthday. IML, Biograficheskaia khronika, vols 3, 4. Ibid., 58.

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23

24

Notes Elakhovskii, Stanislav. ‘… nasha staraia druzhba obiazyvaet’, Krasnyi sever, 16 January 1980, N. 13. Also, Ulʹianova, Mariia Ilʹinichna. O Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine i semʹe Ulʹianovykh: vospominaniia, pisʹma, ocherki. Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo politicheskoi literatury, 1978, letter of 21 January (3 February) 1913, 194–195. British Museum, Card Index of Readers’ Admissions, A63789, ‘Robert Tar’, and A65500, ‘Paulina Tar’ where it is recorded that both returned their reader’s tickets on 20 March 1906. Tsov´ianov, G. S. (comp.) Vospominaniia o Nadezhde Konstantinovne Krupskoi. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1966. Semenov, D. V. ‘Dom Takhtareva i ego obitateli’, Lesnoi: ischeznuvshii mir. Ocherki peterburgskogo predmestʹia. Moscow: Izd. Tsentrpoligraf, 1911, 238–241. See also http://www.citywalls.ru/house16555.html (accessed 21 May 2018). AAY, Pisʹma, no. 1, iz Verkhovazhʹia 13 (26) July [1906]. Ulʹianova, O Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine i semʹe Ulʹianovykh, letter of 23 February (8 March) 1909, 165. AAY, Pisʹma, no. 3, 28 August [1909]. AAY, Fotografiia, A. A. Yakubova with son Misha c. 1908–1909. See Plate 26. AAY, Pisʹma, no. 4, 24 September [1910/1911?]. AAY, Fotografiia, A. A. Yakubova with son Misha and husband K. M. Takhtarev, St Petersburg, August 1913. See Plate 27. Rappaport, Conspirator, 261. Takhtareva, A. A. Kak letaiut liudi. St Petersburg: O. N. Popova, 1912. AAY, Pisʹma, no. 7, after 28 March [1909/1910?]. Ulʹianova, O Vladimire Ilʹiche Lenine i semʹe Ulʹianovykh, letter of 20 July (2 August) 1911, 178. Also, AAY, Pisʹma, no. 6, 18 (31) October 1912. Naumova, I. A. (ed.) ‘Zhdem vestei iz Vologdy’ – : perepiska semʹi Ulʹianovykh v period vologodskoi ssylki M. I. Ulʹianovoi noiabrʹ 1912g – sentiabrʹ 1914g. Arkhangelʹsk: Severo-Zapadnoe knizhnoe izdatelʹstvo, 1978, 33–35, 82. AAY, Fotografiia, Autumn 1912. Ul´ianova-Elizarova, A. I. ‘Professor-opportunist o Lenine’, – V. I. Ulʹianov (N. Lenin). Kratkii ocherk zhizni I deiatelʹnosti. Moscow, 1934, 154–165. Although published only in 1934, it is clear from the text that Takhtarev was still alive when she wrote her review. See Takhtarev, K. M. Sotsiologicheskie trudy. St Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo Khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii, 2006. See also Kareev, N. I. Osnovy russkoi sotsiologii. St Petersburg: Izdatelʹstvo Ivana Limbakha, 1996, 261– 271, and Novikova, S. S. Sotsiologiia: istoriia, osnovy, institutsionalizatsiia v Rossii. Moscow: Moskovskii psikhologo-sotsialʹnyi institut, 2000. Takhtarev, Rabochee dvizhenie, 1924, (title page).

Index

Adams, Mr. (Restaurant proprietor, Kings Cross) 162–4 Alekseev, Nikolai A.36, 72–4, 76, 79, 99, 102–3, 116, 236 n.63, 236 n.64 Lenin and 35, 38, 73, 83, 92 RSDLP Congress (1905) and 122, 124, 128 Alexander II, Tsar 11, 43 Alexandra, Queen. (Wife of King Edward VII) 142 Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (Son of Queen Victoria) 142 Allemoun, Leo (pseud.). See Deich (Deutsch), Lev G. Andreeva, Maria F. 150–1, 164 Andropov, Sergei V. 72, 76, 99 Antimekov (pseud.). See Voroshilov, Marshal Kliment, Y. Armand, Inessa 190–1 Avenarius, Richard 178 Axelrod, Pavel B. 33, 90, 121, 122, 127 Baker, Arthur, Reverend 161, 168 Bartolomei, Mikhail F. 11 Bassalygo, Dmitry N. 164 Bazarov, Vladimir A. 177 Beer, Max 38, 193, 197–8

Beitner, Lev D. 20, 28 Beldinsky, Vera (pseud.). See Zasulich, Vera I. Benckendorff, Count Aleksander Kh. Von (Russian Ambassador) 115, 127, 148 Berdichevsky, Sergei 168 Bernstein, Eduard 65, 67, 100, 240 n.54 Bieljansky, Leopold (pseud.). See Martov, Yuly O. Bint, Henri 13 Blériot, Louis 210 Bloody Sunday 116, 117, 123 Bogdanov, Alexander A. 177–8, 182–4 Bogrov, Dmitry G. 189 Bolsheviks 42, 131–2, 183 Bolshevik Centre 142 Longjumeau Party School 190 Mensheviks vs. 53–4, 107–9, 122, 141 RSDLP Congress (1903) and 106–8 RSDLP Congress (1905) and 121–8 RSDLP Congress (1906) and 141 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 169 Boroff (pseud.). See Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Bowman, William 94–5

256 Braham, Dudley D. 112, 245 n.2 Brailsford, Henry Noel 117 Briand, Aristide 184 Bridger, Richard 191 British Museum Reading Room 19–21, 29–30, 66, 71, 78–82 Lenin and 3–6, 29, 32, 88–92, 175–6, 178–82, 192–3, 198, 215–20 Brotherhood Church 161, 167, 168 Brunnov, Fillip I. 10, 233 n.5 Brust, Harold A. 158–61 Bund 97, 108–9, 113 Burns, John (MP) 148, 152 Burtsev, Vladimir L. 105, 117 arrest, trial and imprisonment 30–1 arrival in London 15–16, 234 n.21 British Museum Reading Room and 19, 20, 28, 30 escape from exile 28 exposure of Garting 184–5 Free Russian Library and 24, 25 Lenin and 29, 74, 128–32 Narodovolets 29–30 The Past (Byloe) 74 Rachkovsky, P. and 21, 28, 30 Russia, Department of Police pursuit of 15, 28 Butenev (chargé d’affaires, Russian Embassy, London) 16 Chaikovsky, Nikolai V. 14, 19, 25, 78–9, 81, 96, 98, 104, 113, 119, 121, 126 Cherkezov, Varlaam N. 81, 96, 104, 121, 126 Chertkov, Vladimir G. 25, 31, 35, 72, 76 Coates, Zelda. See Kahan Coates, Zelda

Index Conan Doyle, Arthur, Sir 120 Cross, Richard Assheton 11 Dalston Barracks 155, 248 n.24 Decembrist uprising 33, 52, 55 Deich (Deutsch), Lev G. 91, 106 Dioneo (pseud.). See Shklovsky, Isaak V. Dogger Bank Tragedy 114, 146 Dombrowski (Russian Spy) 9 Durnovo, Petr N. 16, 17, 234 n.23 East End Lecturing Society 77, 83, 101, 104–5 economism/economists 33, 39, 65, 67–9, 75, 100, 177, 237 n.1 Edward VII, King 124, 142 Emancipation of Labour Group 33, 91, 205 Farce, Ada 118, 119, 139 Farce, Jean Edgar 27, 118–20, 134–8, 246 n.20 collaboration with Scotland Yard 120, 123, 136–7 illness and death of 139, 149 Lenin and 8, 27 Okhrana recruitment of 118 Rachkovsky, P. I. and 118–19, 137 RSDLP Congress (1905) and 120–8, 132–4 Takhtarev, K. M. and 127, 205 Yakubova, A.A. and 127, 205 Farrent-Williams 167 Fels, Joseph 170 Fitch, Herbert T. 124–6, 195 Fond vol´noi russkoi pressy. See Russian Free Press Fund Foreign Agency (Zagranichnaia agentura). See Russia, Department of Police

Index Foreign League of Russian Revolutionary Social Democracy 103, 109 Free Russian Library 21, 25–7, 77, 79, 104–5, 112–13, 157, 189 surveillance of 119, 126 Freemantle, Mr & Mrs 36 Fushimi, Prince 146 Garnett, Constance 238 n.4, 242 n.82 Garnett, Richard 21 Garting, Arkady M. 13, 131, 134–5, 139, 189, 251 n.22 Dogger Bank tragedy and 115 Exposure by Burtsev, V. L. 184–5, 203 Paris bomb plot and 13 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 149, 247 n.10 surveillance of Lenin by 183–4 Gekkelʹman, Avraam (Abram). See Garting, Arkady M Gelʹfman, Gesya 43 German Social Democratic Communist Club 64–5, 193 Gertsen, Alexander I. See Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich Gladstone, William Ewart 184 Goldenberg, Lazarʹ B. 119 Gorev, Boris I. 53 Gorky, Maxim 146–7, 150–1, 161–2, 164–5, 202, 248 n.14 Gottschalk (Gotschalk), Winifred 192 Green, J. Frederick 189 Grey, Sir Edward 127 Grinevitsky, Ignaty I. 12 Guichard, Xavier 188–9 Harting, Arcady. See Garting, Arkady Henniger, Eugene 188–9

257

Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich 10, 25, 36 Higher Courses for Women, St Petersburg (the Bestuzhev Courses) 47–9 Hyndman, Henry M. 84, 113, 179, 194 Independent Labour Party (ILP) 84, 167, 179 Iskra (The Spark) 33, 68, 102, 108, 130–1, 171, 247 n.10 Iskra Commune 90–2, 128 in London 38, 83–7, 89, 92, 100–3, 105–6 moves to Geneva 106 Nogin, V. and 73–4 Kahan (Kagan), Boris 156–7, 161 Kahan (Kagan), Isaac 93, 156–7 Kahan Coates, Zelda 156, 182–3 Kamenev, Lev B. 191–3, 219 Kant, Immanuel 182 Karzhansky, Nikolai S. 1–2, 171–5, 177 Katin-Yartsev, V. N. 53 Kautsky, Karl 150 Kellgren, Dr Henryk 91–2, 243 n.18 Knipovich, Lidya M. 204, 207, 210 konspiratsiia 7–8, 35, 199 Kovalevsky, Professor Maxim M. 101 Krasilʹnikov, Aleksandr A. 185, 189, 203, 251 n.22 Kravchinsky, S. M. See Stepniak, Sergei Kremer, Arkady (Aron) I. 108 Kropotkin, Prince Peter 14, 17, 19, 76, 78, 98, 157–9, 161, 195–6 Kropotkin, Sofiya 78, 242 n.80

258

Index

Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna 73, 198, 205, 239 n.27 Armand, Inessa and 190 exile of 57, 66, 130 in Finland 151–2, 177 in Geneva 109, 177 health of 50, 203–4 Iskra and 33, 101 in Krakow 203 leaves Russia 33 Lenin, marriage to and relations with 1, 7, 8, 34, 50, 52–3, 55–7, 66, 200 in London 7, 34, 38, 83–4, 98–100, 198, 200, 249 n.35 in Paris 190–1, 197, 203 in Prague 203 RSDLP Congress (1903) and 106 RSDLP Congress (1905) and 128, 133 in St Petersburg 49–52, 76 Takhtarev, K. M. and 7, 66–7, 98–100, 111, 205 Ulyanov family and 63, 66 Yakubova, A. A. and 7, 50–2, 55–7, 63, 66, 68, 70, 98–100, 109, 111, 205, 207–8 in Zakopane 204 Krzhizhanovsky, Gleb M. 53, 55 Labour Party 100, 116, 167. See also Independent Labour Party Labour Representation Committee. See Labour Party Lamont, Corliss 180 Landezen-Garting, Arkady. See Garting, Arkady M. Lavrov, Pavel L. 17 Lazarev, Egorʹ E. 96, 137 League of Struggle for the

Emancipation of the Working Class 40, 41, 53, 58, 64, 205 Lebedinsky, Ivan (John) 34–5, 72, 236 n.60 Legal Marxists 129 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Alekseev, N. and 35, 38, 73, 83, 92 appearance of 1–2, 95, 171–2, 181, 193 Armand, Inessa and 190 arrest and imprisonment 52, 53, 56 arrest in London (alleged) 158–61 belligerence 40, 50, 54 British Museum Reading Room and 3–6, 29, 32, 33, 88–92, 175–6, 178–82, 192–3, 198, 215–20 Burtsev, V. and 29, 74, 128–32 cultural pursuits 99, 102, 151, 190 death 40, 98, 212, 213 East End Lecturing Society and 83, 96–7 ‘economism’ and 39–40, 67–8, 100, 240 n.54 exile 57, 63, 66, 73, 129, 240 n.40 Farce, J. E. and 8, 132–4 in Finland 141, 177 Free Russian Library and 126 Garting, A. and 183–4 Gorky, M. and 147, 150–1, 162, 164–5, 248 n.14 health 106, 245 n.45 intellect 39, 48, 50 interaction with Russian émigrés in London 6, 98 Iskra and 33, 38, 68, 84, 86, 243 n.5 Iskra Commune and 90–1 Karzhansky, N. and 1–2, 171–6 konspiratsiia and 7–8, 35, 199

Index in Krakow 203 Kropotkin, P. and 157–9, 195–7 Krupskaya, N., marriage to and relations with 1, 7, 8, 34, 49– 53, 55–7, 62, 66, 200, 203–4 language proficiency 33, 85, 94, 243 n.6 League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class and 40, 53–4, 64 leaves Russia (1900) 32, 130 in London, (1902) 9, 32, 34, 38, 83–4 in London, (1908) 177–83 in London, (1911) 64, 191–7 loyalty to comrades 59, 73–4 Martov, Y. and 90, 98 Materialism and Empirio-criticism 177–8, 182–3 memorials to 2, 200–1 music and 190 Nogin V. and 73–5 outdoor pursuits 57, 210 in Paris 101–3, 190–1, 197, 203 Plekhanov, G. and 33, 68, 122, 150 in Prague 203 pseudonyms 3–4, 75, 76, 84, 88, 94, 124, 128, 178 Quelch, H. and 84, 86, 92, 99 returns to Russia (1905) 135 Rothstein, Th. and 86, 194 RSDLP Congress (1903) and 107–9 RSDLP Congress (1905) and 111, 122–8, 133, 246 n.24 RSDLP Congress (1906) and 96, 141 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 93, 147–8, 150–7, 164, 168–76, 248 n.28 Russia, Department of Police and 35, 128–32, 183–4, 203

259

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and 6, 35, 68, 105 ruthlessness of 8, 97, 100 in St Petersburg 8, 42, 129, 141 Socialists-Revolutionaries and 82, 88, 96, 105 speech impediment of 97 ‘Stolypin and Revolution’ lecture tour 190–4, 197 Takhtarev, K. M., relations with 7–8, 39–40, 68, 83–4, 86, 94, 99–100, 106, 108–9, 111, 200, 240 n.40, 245 n.45 Toynbee Hall and 94–5 Trotsky, L. and 81, 82, 92, 97 unsociability of 98, 99, 200 Yakubova, A. A., alleged affair and relations with 6–7, 8, 34, 40, 45, 47, 48–9, 52–6, 60, 62, 68–70, 74, 100–3, 190, 239 n.38 in Zakopane 204 Zasulich, V. and 97–8 Liberty Hall, Whitechapel 79–81, 83, 89, 96–7, 103 Litvinov, Maxim M. 171 Lopatin, Herman 43 Lubetkin, Berthold 200 Luxembourg, Rosa 150, 168 Lyakhovsky, Ya. M. 53 McCullough, Arthur Henry 117 MacDonald, James Ramsay 116, 164, 167 Mach, Ernst 178, 182 Maisky, Ivan M. 200 Malchenko, Aleksander L. 53 Maliankewicz, Bolesław 16–18 Marie, Grand Duchess 142 Marie, Russian Dowager Empress 142–5

260

Index

Martov, Yuly O. 8, 48, 53, 90, 98, 102 exile of 58 Iskra and 33, 92, 106, 128–30 Mensheviks and 90, 108 RSDLP Congress (1903) and 108 St Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class and 40 Yakubova, A. A., correspondence with 58–63 Marx, Karl 111, 181, 182, 218 Masefield, John 180–1 Maslov, Petr P. 48 Melville, William (Chief Inspector, CID) 18–20, 30, 118–19, 124, 234 n.28 Mendelssohn, Stanislaw 17 Mensheviks 53, 90, 107, 109, 122, 123, 141, 169–70, 193 Bolsheviks vs. 53–4, 107–9, 122 Geneva Conference (1905) 122 RSDLP Congress (1906) and 141 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 169 Michael, Grand Duke (brother of Tsar Nicholas II) 143–4 The Mikado (Gilbert and Sullivan) 146 Mikhailov, Ivan K. 9, 97, 103–4 Milevsky, Vladislav 13, 19, 20, 119, 233 n.14 Mitchell, Isaac Haig 86, 88 Morley, Viscount John 94 narodovoltsy (Populists) 11–12, 29, 43, 51, 58, 69, 75, 105, 129 Nemirovsky, Boris 93, 156 Nevzorova, Sofiya P. 48–9, 238 n.4 Nevzorova, Zinaida P. (Zina) 47–8, 50, 55, 207, 208, 212, 238 n.4 Nicholas I, Tsar 9, 10

Nicholas II, Tsar 30, 114, 142–3, 145, 146, 152, 184, 185 Nogin, Viktor P. 72–7, 99, 242 n.78 Odoevsky, Alexander 33 Ogarev, Nikolai P. 10 Okhrana. See Russia, Department of Police Oulianoff, Vladimir. See Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries 82, 88, 96, 104–5, 129–31 Party of the People’s Will. See narodovoltsy (Populists) Paul, Edward A. 192, 252 n.33 Peretts, G. G. 10 Perovskaya, Sofiya L. 12, 43 Peter I, (The Great) Tsar 152 Peter the Painter 186–8, 252 n.28 Pfannkuch, Wilhelm 168 Plehve, Vyacheslav K. 111, 112, 136 Plekhanov, Georgy V. 32–3, 67–9, 91–2, 97, 105, 122, 131 Iskra and 33, 90 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 150 Polish Socialist Club 154 Potresov, Aleksandr N. 33, 90, 129, 130 Powell, Francis (Detective Inspector, CID) 20, 34, 203 Quelch, Harry 84, 86, 92, 99, 168, 180 Quinn, Patrick (Chief Superintendent CID) 124, 203 Rachkovsky, Petr I. 12–14, 134, 233 n.12, 234 n.21, 234 n.29 Burtsev, V. and 21, 28, 30 early London operations of 15–21 Farce, J. E. and 118–19, 137 Rataev, Leonid A. 119, 134, 136

Index Rayment (Raymond), Henry 86 Richter, Jacob (Dr.). See Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Rothstein, Andrew 179 Rothstein, Anna (née Kahan) 156–7, 182 Rothstein, Theodore 86, 157, 165, 179, 182–3, 194 Russia, Department of Police 16–17, 29, 51, 160, 234 n.23 employment of foreign nationals by 20, 118, 119, 138, 203 Foreign Agency 12–13, 18–19, 27–8, 121, 128, 131, 134, 149, 160, 183–5, 189, 203, 251 n.22 Lenin and 128–32, 183–4, 203 Russian Free Press Fund 14, 21, 119, 236 n.61 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) 29, 40, 142 Bolshevik/Menshevik split 53–4, 107–8, 183 Congress (1903, 2nd) 53–4, 106–9 Congress (1905, 3rd),120–8, 132–4, 205 Congress (1906, 4th) 141–2, 169 Congress (1907, 5th) 1, 93, 147–69 Takhtarev, K. M. and 106–7, 116 Yakubova, A. A. and 106–8, 116 Russian Social Democratic Lecturing Society. See East End Lecturing Society Russo-Japanese War 114, 146 Rysakov, Nikolai I. 12 St Petersburg League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class 40–1, 53, 58, 64, 205

261

Scotland Yard 11, 158–60, 234 n.28 collaboration with foreign police agencies 18–19, 27, 30, 118–20, 136–7, 149 detectives employed by Okhrana 20, 119, 203 surveillance of Russian revolutionaries 6, 20, 34–5, 124–5, 150, 154, 194–5 Searle, Ada. See Farce, Ada Sedova, Natalya I. 102, 244 n.35 Seliverstov, General Nikolai D. 13 Serebriakov, Esper (Hesper) A. 35, 236 n.61, 242 n.78 Serebriakova, Zinaida I. 129 Shishko, Leonid Е. 119 Shklovsky, Isaak V. 21, 71, 241 n.65 Shvarts, N. 96, 104 Smirnovsky, Mikhail 200 Social Democratic Federation (SDF) 80, 84, 86, 113, 157, 179, 181, 245 n.4 Society of Friends of Russian Freedom (SFRF) 14, 117, 189 Society of Russian Political Émigrés in London 104 Speranskaya-Elokhovskaya, Elizaveta I. (Aunt Liliya) 42–3, 204, 211 Squire, John Collings 181 Stalin, Josef 155 Stanislavsky, Konstantin S. 146 Starkov, V. V. (Boris) 53 State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) 41 Stepniak, Fanny M. 157, 161 Stepniak, Sergei 14, 17, 19, 28, 29, 36, 119, 192, 237 n.66 Stolypin, Petr A. 141, 189–90 Struve, Petr B. 48, 100

262

Index

Sudeikin, Georgy P. 12, 13 Sûreté 6, 13, 26, 27 Swann, F. R. Reverend 249 n.35 Takhtarev, General Mikhail K. (father) 206 Takhtarev, Konstantin Mikhailovich 238 n.8 Alekseev, N. and 72, 116 arrest and detention 64 birth of daughter 212 birth of son 207 British Museum Reading Room and 65–6, 126, 212, 240 n.55 death 212 East End Lecturing Society and 78–9, 81, 96–7, 105 education 39 English lessons provided by 77 Farce, J. E. and 126 Free Russian Library and 126 in Geneva 109 Iskra and 86, 89–91 Krupskaya, N. and 66–7, 200, 232 n.6 Lenin, relations with 7–8, 39–40, 68, 83–4, 86, 94, 99–100, 106, 108–9, 111, 200, 240 n.40, 245 n.45 in London 64, 71–3, 205, 206 MacDonald, J. R. and 116 Nogin, V. and 73, 76, 77 in Paris 101–2 pseudonym 38, 65–6, 225 Rabochaia myslʹ (Workers’ Thought), ‘economism’ and 39, 65, 67–9, 100, 237 n.1 Russian lessons offered by 85, 243 n.7 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and 66, 106–7, 116

in St Petersburg 39, 64, 205–6, 208–9, 212 sociological studies of 212 Takhtareva, M. S., marriage to 212 Trotsky, L. and 81, 98, 102 Yakubova, A. A., marriage to and relations with 63–4, 208–9, 212, 214 Takhtarev, Misha (son) 207–10, 212 Takhtarev, Valentin M. (brother) 209–10 Takhtareva, Elizaveta K. (mother) 208, 210 Tapper, Herbert 191 Tar, Paulina (pseud.). See YakubovaTakhtareva, Apollinariya Aleksandrovna Tar, Robert (pseud.). See Takhtarev, Konstantin Mikhailovich Teplov, Aleksei L. 94, 98–9, 105, 135, 193, 245 n.4 British press attacks on 188–9 East End Lecturing Society and 77–9, 194 Free Russian Library and 21–8, 93, 112–13, 189 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 156–7, 166 Terrett, John J. 179–80 Third Section. See Russia, Department of Police Thorne, Will (MP) 184–5 Thorpe, Michael (Detective Sergeant, CID) 20, 119, 135, 137, 139, 185 Toynbee, Arnold 94 Trotsky, Leon 81–2, 92, 97–9, 197, 199 in Paris 101–2, 244 n.35 RSDLP Congress (1907) and 153, 169

Index Tsederbaum, Yuly O. (pseud.). See Martov, Yuly O. Tskhakaya, Mikhail G. 133–4 Tugan-Baranovsky, Mikhail I. 48 Twentieth Century Press 84, 180 Ulyanov, Aleksandr I. (brother) 47 Ulyanov, Vladimir Ilyich. See Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanova, Anna I. (sister) 52–4, 204, 207, 211–12, 239 n.25 Ulyanova, Mariya A. (mother) 53, 57, 63, 207, 208, 211 Ulyanova, Mariya I. (sister) 204, 207, 210–11 Ulyanova, Olʹga I. (sister) 47 Vaneev, Anatoly A. 48, 53, 55, 59, 73–4 Volkhovsky, Feliks, V. 14–15, 17, 20, 119, 242 n.78 Voroshilov, Marshal Kliment, Y. 158, 161 Voynich, Wilfrid 119 Wallace, R. Bruce, Reverend 249 n.35 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 85, 152–3 Woodhall, Edwin Thomas 194–6 Yakubova, Lyubovʹ A. (sister) 42, 46, 209–10 Yakubova-Takhtareva, Apollinariya Aleksandrovna arrest and imprisonment 57, 240 n.39 birth of son 207 British Museum Reading Room and 71, 126 childhood and education 42–5 death 206, 212 diaries 43, 45, 205, 238 n.8

263 East End Lecturing Society and 78–81, 104–5 English language tuition provided by 243 n.7 exile 57 Farce, J. E. and 126 Free Russian Library and 77–8, 126 illness 59, 207–12 Iskra and 89, 100–1, 103 Krupskaya, N. and 50, 63, 68, 70, 109 League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class 40, 52 Lenin, alleged affair and relations with 6–7, 8, 40, 47, 48–9, 52–6, 62, 68–70, 74, 100–3, 190, 239 n.38 in London 67, 71–3, 100, 103, 205 Martov, Y., correspondence with 58–63 Nevzorova, Z. and 47–8, 207, 208, 212, 238 n.4 nicknames 51 in Paris 101–3 portraits of 41, 42, 57, 211 pseudonym 38, 40, 206 RSDLP Congress (1903) and 106–8 Russian lessons offered by 85, 243 n.7 Russian Social Democratic Labour Party 6 in St Petersburg 46–7, 204, 206 Speranskaya-Elokhovskaya, E. (Aunt Liliya) and 42–3, 204, 211 Takhtarev, K. M., marriage to and relations with 63–4, 208–9, 212, 214

264 Trotsky, L. and 98, 102 Ulyanov family and 47, 54, 63, 204, 207, 210, 211 Vaneev A. and 73–4 in Vologda 206–7 works published by 59–62, 210, 241 n.66 Yeo, Emma Louise 83–4 Zagranichnaia agentura. See Russia, Department of Police; Foreign

Index Agency (Zagranichnaia agentura) Zaporozhets, Petr K. 53 Zasulich, Vera I. 14, 33, 68, 90–2, 94, 97–8, 128, 195 Zemlyachka, Rozaliya S. 133 Zezyulinsky, Nikolai S. (pseud.). See Karzhansky, Nikolai S. Zinovʹev, Boris I. 53 Zubatov, Sergei V. 129–31 Zvoliansky, Sergei E. 29–30

265

266

267

268

269

270

Plate 1  P. A. Kropotkin. (Walling, Russia’s Message, 1908.)

Plate 2  Members of the Russian Free Press Fund, c. 1894. Clockwise from top: Egor Lazarev, Felix Volkhovsky, Sergei Stepniak (Kravchinsky), Nikolai Chaikovsky, Leonid Shishko. (Walling, Russia’s Message, 1908.)

Plate 3  V. L. Burtsev. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.243.0119.

Plate 4  P. I. Rachkovsky (in bowler hat) with T. Delcassé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs (right), and G. Legyues, French Minister of Instruction and the Public Arts (left), Compiègne, September 1901. (Original from unidentified Parisian illustrated journal. Reproduced in Peregudova, Politicheskii sysk.)

Plate 5  W. Melville, 1892. (Police Review.)

Plate 6  A. L. Teplov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236M.1212.

Plate 7  K. M. Takhtarev. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236M.1198_002_ recto.

Plate 8  A. A. Yakubova, shortly after her arrival in St Petersburg in 1890. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 9  A. A. Yakubova (centre) with E. K. Agrinskaya (left) and Z. P. Nevzorova (right) St Petersburg 1893. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 10  A. A. Yakubova, St Petersburg Winter 1894, on completion of Women’s Courses. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 11 N. K. Krupskaya. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236G.0618. Plate 12  Yenisei Okhrana file photo of V.I. Lenin, Valerian Ivanovich Moravskii papers, Envelope A, Hoover Institution Archives.

Plate 13  Yuli Tsederbaum (Martov). Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.236N.1239.

Plate 14  A. N. Potresov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, 26001. XIIIF.236J.0953.

Plate 15  L. D. Bronshtein (Trotsky). Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001. XIIIF.236B.0155.

Plate 16  League of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class, St Petersburg February 1897. Left to right: V. V. Starkov, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, A. L. Malchenko, V. I. Ulyanov- Lenin, P. K. Zaporozhets, Y. O. Martov, A. A. Vaneev.

Plate 17  A. A. Yakubova, Moscow, May 1898, shortly before leaving for exile in Siberia. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 18  V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin, Moscow 1900.

Plate 19  V. P. Nogin. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236I.0852.

Plate 20 J. Richter (Lenin) application to the British Museum Library, 1902.

Plate 21 G. V. Plekhanov. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236J.0925.

Plates 22 and 23  V. I. Lenin, (Oulianoff). Application for admission to British Museum Reading Room, May 1908.

Plate 24  V. I. Lenin, (Oulianoff). Signature in British Museum Readers’ Admissions Book, May 1908.

Plate 25  Workman dismantling Lenin plaque at 16 Percy Circus. Morning Star, 3 August 1968.

Plate 26 A. A. Yakubova with son Misha c. 1907–08. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 27  A. A. Yakubova with son Misha and husband K. M. Takhtarev, St Petersburg, Autumn 1913. © AAY Arkhiv.

Plate 28  A. I. UlyanovaElizarova. Photograph from Russian police file. HIA, Okhrana records, 26001.XIIIF.236C.0253.

Plate 29  K. M. Takhtarev, Leningrad c. 1924. © AAY Arkhiv.