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In March, 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov — known to history as Lenin — was living in Zurich, the impoverished leader of an obscure extremist revolutionary party. Eight months later he had risen from lonely exile to triumphant control of all the Russias. The drama began with an uprising in Russia on March 15, 1917. Supremely confident that he alone could provide the leadership necessary to prevent a savage counterrevolution, Lenin desperately sought a way to travel across war-torn Europe. Compelled by the urgency of events in St. Petersburg, he made the critical decision to accept Germany's offer of a "sealed train" (sealed off from the other cars to emphasize his noninvolvement with the German enemy) to carry him and his followers to Russia. What actually took place during that train journey? Did it represent only one part of a vast program of secret German support for Lenin? Why did the train make a sudden, unscheduled stop in Berlin? Was it to permit Lenin to meet with the representatives of the German government to obtain last-minute funds for the coming struggle with the Kerensky government? These questions greeted Lenin in St. Petersburg, where he soon found himself denounced as a "German agent." Forced into hiding, he nevertheless pursued his cause single-mindedly — writing brilliant editorials and issuing a stead stream of letters, telegrams, and phone calls — even as the propaganda campaigns against him intensified. In this fascinating and controversial book Michael Pearson draws on diaries, letters, and other historical material to reexamine the charges against Lenin. He provides fresh and tantalizing evidence of Lenin's complicity with the German enemy in a course that would take Russia out of the war and bring Bolshevik control to the empire of the Tsars.