. . . there were two weaknsses in Helphand's scheme of things : he reckoned on an earlier outbreaqk of the revolution than was in fact possible, and he deluded himself into believing that he could win over the mensheviks to his programme. In reality the Menshevik 'Social Patriots' such as Axelrod, Alexinski, Deutsch and Plekhanov, were no more ready than their German opposite numbers, Scheidemann, Ebert, David and Noske, to renounce their positive spport of the war, much less overthrow thei own goverment in the middle of a war. Just as Helphand and the German Social Democrats saw in Russian Tsadom the stronghold of reaction, which it was their tsk to destroy, so the moderate Socialists of Russia regarded the German Empire as the reactionary enemy of all progress, and put out all their strength to overcome this reactionary enemy with the help of Tsarist Russia, in alliance with the democratic West.

The weaknesses of Helphand's ideas were recognised by another social revolutionary, the Estonian Keskula, with whom Romberg had been in contact since February, 1915. Kesküla had already pointed out in an eralier conversation that only the extreme wing of the Russian Socialists, i.e., the Boslheviks, wanted a German victory, while his impression of the Mensheviks was 'tat they saw their chief purpose to be to split the German Social Democrats and win them over for peace, so that indirectly they were doing the work of the Russian government'. Kesküla, who hd been working on similar enterprises in Stockholmsince the utumn of 1914, tried to influence his fellow-countrymen in Estonia nd at the same time to enlist the co-operation of all the non-Russian nationalities, especially the Ukraininas.

The decisive point, however, was that in September, 1915, kesküla definitely changed the course of Germany's revolutionary policy towards Russia, for trom that date the Foreign Ministry, on his advice, put all its money on the Left Radicals, i.e., Lenin and his friends in order to play them off against the russian 'Social Patriots'. It can only have beentrhough Kesküla that the German government learned that the rssian mensheviks were receiving large sums of money from their own government to keep the Russin workers loyal. Kesküla consequently advised the German government to come quickly to the financial help of the Left Radicals in Russia before 'Social Patriotic curents' could get the uppoer hand among the Russian workers. In this connection he emphasised the especial importance of Lenin, who ws the only man who would in his view be ready to conclude a separate peace with Germany in the event of a successful revolution. In September, 1915, he actually succeeded in getting from lenin a formal programme which gave the conditions under which the bolsheviks would be ready to conclude peace with Germany after teirown victory in Russia. Lenin said hat the most imporatn . . . Germany would have to renounce annexations and a war indemnity, but Kesküla remarked that this condition would not excluded detaching terrotries inhabited by the nationalities and forming the minto buffer states between Russia and GTermany. He was, of course, himself an Estonian and a Social Patriot.

The question of annexaations and or buffer states was, however, the heart of Germany's war aims programme for the east. Romberg himself had left open whether any importance ought to be attached to lenin's conditions, as transmitted by kesküla, especially since Lenin, according to Kesküla, was still septical about the prospects of an early revolution in Russia. . . .

( pages 149 - 151 )

. . . Brockdorff-Rantzau, in a lng memorandum of December 6, 1915, openly advocated the overthrow of the monarchic order in Russia. "It would', he wrote, ' be a disastrous error if we continued now to attach serious weight to our traditional relationships with Russia, that is, with the Romanov dynasty.'

In his view the House of Romanov had 'sacrificed by its gross ingratitude' the traditional friendship which Germany had shown it during the russio-Japanses War. For him Germany's very existence was at stake inthe war ; unlss she succeeded inpulling one of her enemies out of the ring of the entent, it would end in her exhaustion and her collapse. He saw in tis extreme device of the revolutionising of Tussia the onlyway of escaping the threatening danger : 'but victory, and as its price, the first place in the world, are ours if we succeed in revolutionising Russia in time and therewith smashing the coalition'.

Peace once cocluded, he thought that the inner politicalcollaps of Russia wold be of little interest to Germany and might not even prove undesirable. He therefore proposed 'to make use of the veteran revolutionary Helphand before it was too late'.

. . . As Wilson later appealed to the German people dirctly over the heads of the Emperor and his government, so Brockdorff-rantzu envisage a Russian people liberated from the Tsarist dynastyin a Russia which, territoriallydiminished by the creation of the new border states, wold renounce dreams of great power status nd live as Germany's modest and peacable neighbour. The German aristocrall's view accorded with that of the Estonian revolutionary Kesküla who, when recommending Lenin in July, 1915, to the German government as the man to destroy Tsarist russia, had warned his audience against the danger of a great modernised Russa . . . It is noe of the ironies of historythat the same Lenin whom the German government used toweaken Russia should have proved the man who, after sweeping aside her feudal and bourgeois social structure, transformed Russia intoan industrialised and centralised state and laid the foundations of its present [1965] world power status, thus bringing to pass the very danger whihc kesküla foresaw if the German failed to revolutionise russia with the help of the Bolsheviks.

Brockdroff-Rantzus' strong support and Helphand's own conversations in Berlin with Zimmermann and Helfferichsucceeded in so thoroughly convinicng 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 fact by that date only twentypfivemillions had actually been handed over.)

In 1914-16 the revolutionary work was caried 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 organisation. At this stage eight persons were working in the copenhage headquarters and ten more were regularly travelling round Russia. The organisation maintained close touch with the Russianrevolutionaries in Switzerland, such as Kesk&umml;la and Lenin, and with the russian émigés in Scandinavia, and sought to influence Russians returning from the U.S.A and Canada. Newspapers and pamphlets were also distirbuted among the russian people, and especially the army. Quite early the orgaisation tried to influence the Russian recrutis, and great hopes were reosed in the students entering the Corps of Officers, since they had already been infected with revolutionay 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 inthe spring of 1917. . . .