The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-23
THE E1BIRMfNGHAM AGE-HBRALD,T N


 he emigrited A1Aln, establinhing hls first in Parls and after. ward In 0aliolA, frvn wAsrA he main. tAlned m undsrground dictatorship of tho tolshevik &Hrtipn in tho Russian Duma. AWhsn the World war began hS wa at Gfa0Uw in, Austria- Galicia.
 Inc AustriAns expelled him, and he wynt asgin to Switzerland, where with other !cumrnunasts, who have slnes be- come prumlnsnt In tho bvlshevik Eov- stnment of Ruasla, he conducted { cam. paiIa denandlny that all of tho sucisi. int paftie1 of the world should changs the war of natioug Into a war of classes. It was during this hms, and at the Zfmmerwuld soclnliHt eonferencs, that Lenius split definitely with the mod. crate socialists of tho world, whom he termed traitors to the prulekariat. When the Czar was oyerthrpwn early in 1917, Leuine, with ( kroup Of hiu returned ot Ruesla. They went from Hwitxsrland, thrpueh Ger. many. At the time 1t was eharesd, and generally believed 4n all allied coun. tries that Lenine was an agent of the German roysrnmont, whom tho Ger. man general staff alded with funds and advice to diSsspt the Russian army, and break Russia from the entsnte. The Germans gave the party of 70 Rus sians free conduct through their coun- try In . train under guard, In order to keep them from spreading revolutionary among the soldiers at the stations where they stopped. But If the Gsrmans hoped for disintsgration of the Rusaian army, Lenins and his supporters contend that this plan was a boomerang. From the very moment the bolsheviki were In yower in Petro- grad, they ret about to spread commun- ism in the German army.
 When Lenine arrived in Russia ha made his first appearance at the all- Russian congress of soviets, urging the workers to seize the power and to do away with the Kerensl<y government. Not having found an ear, the bolshe. vik faction, under Leninet leadership, attempted in July, 1917, . coup de-etat, which was suppressed by the Petrograd soviet and the Kerensky government,
 Hides In Straw Hut
 From July, 1917, until Lenine re- turned suddenly to Petrograd to be- come almost over night the dictator of Russia, he was in hiding. Secreted in straw, shack on the island in the Neva, not far from Kronstandt, he re- mained for days while platoons of Ker- ensky soldiers, aided by bloodhounds, for him. Pleasant friends brought him food and newspapers, and carried messages from him to. Leon later second in command of the proletarian, dictatorship, who was then practically in control of the Pet rograd soviet.
 The search soon became too hot for him on the island, and one night, hav- ing shaved off his beard, and being equipped with a false passport de- scribing him as a Finn, he made his way back to one of the suburbs of Petrograd. A friendly locomotive en- gineer agreed to smuggle Lenine over the heavily guarded Finnish frontier In his engine. Lenine boarded the To- wearing the grimy clothes of n fireman and stoked the engine until 1t had successfully passed through the control station at the frontier.
 On November 6, 1917, Lenine re- turned to Petrograd. Trotszky and other leaders of the communist faction of the Petrograd soviet had paved the way. The tottering provisional gov crnment was powerless to save itself. After A hours of almost bloodless during which theaters functioned as usual, while. street fight ing went on in the next block, Ker- ensky had fled, the rest of the pro- Visional government were prisoners the city was completely in the hands of the soviets, and Nikolai Lenine sat smiling in "a little room at Smolny institute. applying his signature to proclamations he had drawn up long before, announcing the Proletarian revolution in Russia and calling upon the proletarians of the world to unite to assist them.
 4. Made German Peace
 Lenine's principal program at the moment was immediate peace with Germany. With dynamic intolerance of even such important associates as Trotzsky, who opposed what they termed n disgraceful peace, Lenine pushed through his plan. The already existing fraternization between Rus sian and German soldiers at the front