“Return Lenin to Wilhelm”
105 years ago, on April 3(16), 1917, Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin returned to Petrograd from emigration. It was no secret to contemporaries that the leader of the Bolsheviks and his comrades came to their homeland in a “sealed carriage” through the territory of Germany, with which Russia had been at war for almost three years. Immediately after his arrival, Lenin spoke with his famous “April Theses,” in which he called, among other things, for fraternization, the nationalization of all lands in the country and “the elimination of the police, army, and bureaucracy.” The full text of Lenin’s program was published in Pravda on April 7(20), 1917.
This position met with resistance from part of Russian society. Several anti-Bolshevik meetings and protests took place in Petrograd. It was at such a meeting that one of the most famous photographs of the spring of 1917 was taken – it depicts several servicemen with a poster “The Fatherland is in danger. The blood we have shed requires war until victory. Comrade soldiers, get into the trenches immediately. Return Lenin to Wilhelm”:
“…Perhaps the most touching, not the most unusual manifestation was the manifestation of numerous victims of the war, who shed their blood for the Fatherland, who literally gave part of their body for it, and thereby bought the sacred right to say their powerful and loud word to the country. Blind, legless, armless, crippled by enemy shells and bullets – all these martyrs of their homeland walked through the streets of the capital, protesting against that bunch of madmen who are pushing Rus’ to the shame and misfortune of the inglorious world:
– Our companies demand a victorious end to the war!…
Slowly, solemnly, this army moves, bandaged, with bandaged heads, with crutches and sticks, with bullet-holes in their chests, on which are emblazoned St. George’s crosses and medals. The head line of blind people makes a deeply stunning impression. Huddled close to each other, proudly raising their heads and looking forward with blind eyes or gaping sockets of their eyes – these are our dear martyrs, holy heroes who gave for their Motherland what may be more valuable than their lives: sight.
A gray-haired colonel walks with his chest covered in crosses and his empty right sleeve dangling. A brave marksman-corporal walks with a bandage over his entire head, and holds in his hands a banner with the inscription:
– For the good of Rus’ we will give our last drop of blood!
Among the banners and banners, those with a mark attract attention. inscriptions:
– We will not forgive our shed blood to the enemy!
– We demand retribution for our torment!
– War, victory and freedom!
There are especially many “anti-Leninist” inscriptions:
– Return Lenin to Wilhelm!
– Lenin and company – back to Germany!
“Down with the Leninists!”
( “Petrogradskaya Gazeta”, April 18, 1917)
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
