From Preparations for a Political Mass Strike in Russia Alexander Helphand
Memorandum, (ca. 2-3) April 1915
Preparations are to be made for a political mass strike in Russia, to take place in spring, under the slogan �Freedom and Peace�. The centre of the movement will be Petrograd, and within Petrograd, the Obnuhov, Putilov, and Baltic works. The strike is to halt railway communications between Petrograd and Warsaw and Moscow and Warsaw, and to immobilize the South-Western Railway. The railway strike will be principally conducted to affect the large centres with considerable labour forces, the railway workshops, &c. In order to widen the scope of the strike, as many railway bridges as possible will be blown up, as during the strike movement of 1904 and 1905.Conference of Russian Socialist Leaders The task can only be fulfilled under the leadership of the Russian Social Democrats. The radical wing of this party has already gone into action, but it is essential that they be joined by the moderate minority group. So far it has been mainly the radicals who have prevented unification. However, two weeks ago their leader, Lenin, himself threw open the question of unification with the minority. . . .
Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915-1918 ; documents from the
Archives of the German Foreign Ministry. Edited by Z. A. B. Zeman.
London, New York : Oxford University Press, 1958, Appendix I, p. 140.
From Germany's Aims in the First World War by Fritz Fischer, 1967
Brockdorff-Rantzau's strong support and Helphand's own conversations in Berlin with Zimmermann and Helfferich succeeded in so thoroughly convincing the Foreign Ministry and the Treasury of the importance of Helphand's work that he was allotted an allowance of forty million marks for work up to January, 1918 (though in fact by that date only twenty-five millions had actually been handed over.2
2 . . . Accounts made up to January 30, 1918, show that Germany had up to that date authorized or spent 382 millions on the special account for propaganda and special activities. Of this roughly 11 million had been spent on Erzberger's propaganda campaign, 10 million each on propaganda in the U.S.A., Spain and Italy, 47 million in Rumania, and so on. 38 millions had been authorised for general propaganda, and 6.5 actually spent ; for operations in Morocco the figures are 14.8 and 12.4 ; for Persia, 36.2 and 31.8 ; for Afghanistan, 5.2 and 4.8. The 40, 580,997 marks for Russia make up about 10 percent of the total expended. On January 1, 1918, about 14.5 million marks had not yet been spent, but the expenditure up to July 1, 1918, on German propaganda in Russia amounted to about 3 million marks monthly. Shortly before his murder the ambassador Count Mirbach asked from Moscow for a further round sum of 40 million marks, and this was allowed him, to counterbalance the money being spent by the Entente. Of these 40 millions, only 6 or at the most 9 (two or three monthly quotas) had been sent and used by the end of the war. . . .
In 1915-16 the revolutionary work was carried on only by a relatively restricted number of agents, many of whom did not even know one another and were often not even aware that the German government was behind Helphand's organization.1 At this stage eight persons were working in the Copenhagen headquarters and ten more were regularly travelling round Russia. The organization maintained close touch with the Russian revolutionaries in Switzerland . . . and with the Russian émigrés in Scandinavia, and sought to influence Russians returning from the U.S.A. and Canada. Newspapers and pamphlets were also distributed among the Russian people, and especially the army. Quite early the organization tried to influence the Russian recruits, and great hopes were reposed in the students entering the Corps of Officers, since they had already been infected with revolutionary ideas at the university.
It was only the outbreak of the February revolution that enabled the German government to harvest the fruits of their long preparations. The climax and at the same time the most effective move in the whole campaign was the despatch of Lenin to Russia . . .
1 For further details of Germany's activities, see the author's article in H.Z., 188/2, October 1959, pp. 301 ff.( pages 153-4 )
Fritz Fischer, Germany's aims in the First World War.
With introd. by Hajo Holborn and James Joll.
New York : Norton, 1967.