A revolutionary train journey across wartime Europe

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On April 9, 1917, Lenin and his comrades set off from Zurich main railway station. A group of Russians gathered to heckle those on board, angry they had negotiated with the German enemy to secure their passage. In 2017, the Thorgevsky and Wiener theatre ensemble recreated the scene. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

The revolutionaries headed for Russia did not want to appear to be colluding with the Germans, and so insisted the train carriages were declared extra-territorial. Zurich main train station, as it looks today from inside a carriage. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

The former First World War German military headquarters in Berlin. The Germans hoped Lenin's presence in Russia could add to the chaos and instability weakening the country at the time. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Strahlsund to Sassnitz, Germany. Lenin was in an end compartment on board the train with his wife. During the eight-day journey he scribbled his views in a notebook, elaborating on the points he wanted to make once back in Russia. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

The Lenin memorial in the German harbour town of Sassnitz. Here the party left the train to embark on the ferry crossing to Sweden. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Trelleborg Ferry (Baltic Sea) from Germany to Sweden ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Malmö, Train station, Sweden. The revolutionaries were back on dry land and headed north towards Stockholm. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Lenin met local socialist friends in a stop in Stockholm, Sweden, before continuing even further north. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Heading from Stockholm to Lulea, Sweden. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

The frozen river Torne on the border between Sweden and Finland, here looking towards Tornio, Finland. At this point Lenin and his comrades were keen to get back into Russian territory. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Tornio, at the river border between Sweden and Finland. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Lenin made a short stop in Tampere, Finland, now home to the Lenin Museum. It's located at the Worker's Hall of Tampere, where Lenin and Stalin met for the first time in 1905. Nowadays the museum aims to talk about "the shared past of Finland and the Soviet Union". ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

Lenin and his fellow travellers finally arrived at Finland Station, St. Petersburg, Russia on April 16, 1917. There he spoke to hundreds of workers, along with soldiers and sailors, and began to quickly take control of a revolution that had started without him. ©Thomas Dworzak / Magnum Photos

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A historic journey by train, 100 years ago: in 1917, Lenin famously travelled in a ‘sealed railway carriage’ from Zurich to Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in Russia. A century on, relive the route the revolutionary took, in pictures.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, pseudonym Lenin, and his wife, Nadeshda Krupskaja, arrived in Bern in 1914, claiming political exile. Lenin had previously lived in Geneva. The couple stayed in Bern until February 1916, when they moved to Spiegelgasse 14 in Zurich’s old town, remaining there for just over a year. 

The reasons behind the move were political: Lenin was dreaming of an armed uprising and was trying to gather supporters who could spread his message and help him build an international Marxist movement. The Zurich Social Democrats were more radical than their Bernese counterparts. He spent his time in the Swiss city attending Social Democratic Party meetings, trying to recruit followers and finishing his work, “Imperialism: the highest stage of capitalism”.

After hearing news of the “February Revolution”, in April 1917 he headed back to Russia, with the aim of establishing the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, where the working class has control of political power. His route took him through Germany, his passage organised by the German government. Though Germany was at war with Russia, they agreed to his journey, seeing an opportunity in Lenin’s return to destabilise the country.  

He was accompanied on his journey by a band of just over 30 fellow revolutionaries, mostly Russians, but also a Pole and a Swiss. His route took him by rail and boat right across Europe.

This photo series shows Lenin’s route and includes pictures from a recreation of his journey, taken in April 2017. 

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