Did my mother send it? she owes for the past three months, you reminded her of this, you wrote that her son, the leader of the world revolution, is in need, starving, and even forced to wear womens clothing? Did you write to her about it?
Why write? we have millions in our accounts. The Germans are a generous people. Let your mother rest a little, take pity on her.
Um, she might like that. What if the Germans refuse? What to do then. All right, give me the bag. Apfelbaum, where are you? Come on, lets go shopping. Go ahead, Ill hold your hand, and pull over to the shoulder. I am a revolutionary old woman. This is very important.
Ganetsky pulled Lenin aside and began to whisper in his ear:
Parvus is going to Russia with us. You must be in a bad mood today. Its Parvus, and not some kind of Koba. Fifty million is due to Parvus. Parvus is you, and you are Parvus. Without it, we would not have received money to publish Pravda and other Newspapers, as well as to pay for the shooters. Who will shoot the one hundred and forty gold rubles, who will shout hurrah the eighty rubles, who will take the red flag in his hands How to take Winter, Vladimir Ilyich?
Let us take it, and the cause of the Revolution must not be tainted by dirty hands, comrade ganetsky, the leader barked rudely, spitting. The revolution must not remember Parvus, it must erase him from the memory of the people. Lets go to the store, I need to buy a pair of pants, my pants are leaking in the motney area. It was Inessas fault. No, its the imperialists ' fault. Ganetsky, are you trembling? Come to your senses, damn you, what kind of revolutionary are you? Or youll go to Parvus. What else do you have?
Vladimir Ilyich, one good piece of advice, if I may.
Loll.
Since we will soon be in Russia, and the great, necessary, smart Parvus will remain here, you can not appear before the border guards in the present form: you will be recognized immediately and may be arrested.
How many passports do you have for other names? the chief asked.
Its not about the passports. I have twenty passports in stock. And five for you, Vladimir Ilyich. You can read Cocococo, and suddenly you find out? So I suggest that you go in this dress, to look like an old woman in a hunched form with a passport in the name of Peskodayki, to appear before the Russians border guard. And before the Swedish ones, too. I need a wig with long white hair, a change of womens shoes, and it would be nice to knock out one or two teeth and claim that you are my servant.
What about my beard? Lenin asked.
Youll have to shave it off, put a thick layer of cream on your face, and put lines on your neck and cheeks. All this must be done in the name of the world revolution. The revolution cannot remain without a leader.
Lenin paused, then went into the forecastle and said:
Comrades, Ganetsky and I are going to a safe house.
We cant let you go alone, Radek yelled.
You can send comrade Zinoviev or Dzerzhinsky as a guard.
Dzerzhinsky, Dzerzhinsky, everyone supported.
And I want to, Inessa Armand burst into tears.
Three Jews went to a beauty salon and presented their revolutionary ideas about the appearance of the leader, but the masseurs and hairdressers just shrugged: they say that we have a beauty salon and we can not make a decent person ugly.
And this is the freak, ganetsky said, pointing at Lenin and taking out a wad of money. Make him a real freak, but so that all Russia applauds him.
No sooner said than done. Lenin returned to the forecastle and no one recognized him.
Have you replaced the leader of the world revolution with an old woman? Well hang you right there. Its a real Scarecrow. He also has a limp on one leg. And it stinks like hell!
Tovah look for it, the job is done great. None of the kings satraps did not know. Long live the socialist party evolution!
Friends jumped up from their seats and began to jump, and Sokolnikov, who had not declassified his Jewish name, loosened the belt on his trousers and began to molest the revolutionary Lilina. The revolutionary woman grabbed him by a twig and dragged him into the vestibule. Inessa also approached Lenin, but was stopped.
Yes, this is same-sex love, this is lesbianism, you can not allow such marital relations, comrade Nadia could not stand it.
Comrade Nadia, dont worry. Before the overthrow of tsarism, the proletarian masses in short, let them unite. Come On, Inessa. We have a separate room.
The chief and his girlfriend were accompanied by friends with thunderous applause.
23
Lenin, along with a group of associates in the number of 32 people who were hiding like mice in burrows, occupied the car in Stockholm and through Finland, late in the evening, on April 3, arrived in Petrograd. Everyone was trembling like an aspen leaf in bad weather, and above all the leader himself for the fate of the country where they were going to seize power. No country, neither Germany nor the United States, guaranteed complete victory and security. The leader was a spicy look. Long before arriving in the capital of Russia, he did not take off womens clothing. Inessa laughed at him, as if he were not in a separate compartment of an armored car, but on a battlefield with a superior enemy force. And Lenin perceived this laughter as an evil fate, but puffed up, but would show his colleagues his heroism.
A kerchief on your forehead, its like a bulls, ha-ha-ha! cover him up, then take everything off. You are well guarded.
Wheres the guard, wheres the guard, Kaiser? Oh, well done, Ill give him ten marks when the revolution wins in Russia, this stupid country.
The Kaiser has long since forgotten you. I have a machine gun in the corner ready, covered with my sock.
Do you think those greedy people will throw me off a train somewhere in the desert, Inessa? I dont believe any of them. To nobody.
Not experience. They are nothing without you. They have no education, no profession, nothing, even watchmen and midwives will not take everyone. So you shouldnt have put that on.
But its a conspiracy, a conspiracy. The chief has no right to take such risks. You, Inessa, look closely to see if someone is twirling a finger at his temple? In this case, they may decide: why do we need such a brilliant leader? Everything is fine with Lenin: two bags of money in the corner, the agreement with Germany, even on one page, in an inner pocket. Only at my command, only at my request, will the Germans send their soldiers disguised in proletarian leather jackets, or even in the officers uniform of the Russian army, to organize a coup in Petrograd. And yet, and yet, better a conspiracy. Even if I remain completely naked, and I am carried wrapped in a sheet from place to place, I will still remain a leader. All the cards of the future revolution are in my hands, like a mouse in a Vice.
This time Inessa shuddered and nodded her head to indicate that she agreed and asked no more questions. She was afraid not only to ask the next question, but also to hear the answer to it, because the answer always made her shiver, as if her lover, when answering, was playing with a small toy filled with explosives, and from which a bird could fly out and break the bones of all revolutionaries, including the leader of the world revolution.
It is better to do something else, for example, to expand the outstanding work of the leader called What to do? and pretend to be reading.
It is better to do something else, for example, to expand the outstanding work of the leader called What to do? and pretend to be reading.
As soon as the train stopped at Finlandsky station, two burly Latvians entered the car, took the leader in their arms in female attire, like a rooster with clipped wings, and carried him out of the car and put on their feet at the Finland station. Lenin grunted something and looked around.
But instead, he was simply kidnapped and almost forcibly escorted to the Tsars room, where he was officially greeted by the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, N. S. Chkheidze, and the Minister of labor, M. T. Skobelev, both Mensheviks. Lenins eyes bulged and he turned away, looking at the ceiling as if nothing that was happening concerned him in the least. He didnt want to engage in conversation with anyone.
I need an armored car, he demanded. I must make a historic speech for the proletariat of Russia and the whole world.
Please, Chkheidze, the Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, said in a disappointed voice.
The two Latvians picked him up again, and while they were building a rostrum out of rotten planks, he mumbled under his breath, then ran around the corner, doused him with a stream, and fired three more cannonades.
The bleachers, as such, did not work, he was asked to stand on slightly rotten boards, in many places propped up with pegs driven into the ground with sledgehammers. On these boards were two empty barrels upside down. Two more planks were placed on the barrels to form a raised platform called the tribune.
But the little man had to be lifted. Standing again on the boards, and putting the summary again on the boards, perched on barrels, stretched out his hand to the sky and began to deliver his first chaotic speech in Russia.
Yes ZD ha socialist evolution!!!
Cabs and strollers thought that some madcap woman was making the people laugh. No one could have imagined that there, on this very spot, a monument would be erected, that this monument would be transferred to all textbooks for schools and higher educational institutions, that an imaginary monument would be brought to mind by sculptors and artists and replicated in millions of copies. This sucked-out monument will generate entire departments of culture and historical innovations, thousands of guides will hatch out of it, and all the schoolchildren of the great country will start flocking to Leningrad to admire the monster on the square of lies.
The confused speech of a small, slightly hunched man with his hand raised will be interpreted as a call for a world revolution, which even Baty did not think about.
Lenin expressed gratitude to the workers, soldiers, and sailors for their bold steps that supposedly marked the beginning of a social revolution on an international scale. A ended his speech with an inflammatory slogan: Yes zdgit is a socialist accident evolution!.
Flexible Communist propaganda, which was always drawn into the fantastic wilds, spread the myth that, they say, the entire people of Petrograd were happy to return the leader of the world revolution to Russia, and perceived it as a great benefit for the future of all mankind.
And the leader, the benefactor and Savior of Russia, Lenin, immediately received millions of letters from workers from different corners. It rarely occurred to anyone that this was as true as a louse coughing.
The very next day, Lenin launched a flurry of activity in the capital, everywhere he spoke with the April theses, which no one accepts or supports. At this hour, the Bolsheviks had no authority in society.
It must be admitted that not all of his colleagues agreed with Lenin on many issues, and in particular on the April theses. They were not yet usurped by Lenin, they did not yet know their future leader.
There were articles in the press accusing the Bolshevik leader Lenin of spying for Germany and suggesting that an investigation be launched. How so, for what merits did Germany grant him and his gang an armored car and allow passage through its territory while at war with Russia?
Lenin was even confused, he began to suffer from cowardice, but this time he decided not to give up, not to tell the truth to anyone. And in General, according to his deep conviction, the truth is a bourgeois concept, and his party, the party of Lenin, rejects any postulate of the bourgeoisie. He spoke many times at all sorts of party cells, convincing them of his devotion to the cause of the revolution.
24
He wrote articles and called on the proletariat to overthrow the Provisional government. But they didnt believe him, they left him. Then he decided on another trick. By persuasion and bribery, the benefit of German money in the party cash register was full. He managed to gather about four dozen people, and they agreed to hold the so-called St. Petersburg citywide party conference. Several people could not calm down, all raised their hands and asked: