Mahendra Pratap attempted to seek an alliance with Tsar Nicholas II from February 1916, but his messages remained unacknowledged. The 1917 Kerensky government refused a visa to Pratap, aware that he was considered a "dangerous seditionist" by the British government. Pratap was able to correspond more closely with Lenin's Bolshevik government. At the invitation of Turkestan authorities, he visited Tashkent in February 1918. This was followed by a visit to Petrograd, where he met Trotsky. He and Barkatullah remained in touch with the German government and with the Berlin Committee through the latter's secret office in Stockholm. After Lenin's coup, Pratap at times acted as liaison between the Afghan government and the Germans, hoping to revive the Indian cause. In 1918, Pratap suggested to Trotsky a joint German-Russian invasion of the Indian frontiers. He recommended a similar plan to Lenin in 1919. He was accompanied in Moscow by Indian revolutionaries of the Berlin Committee, who were at the time turning to communism.