To an extent that most accounts still underrate, the Bolshevik Revolution was a German-financed operation, though it was greatly facilitated by the incompetence of the Russian liberals.1 Lenin's goose should have been cooked after the failure of the first Bolshevik coup attempt in early July and his exposure as a German agent in the newspaper Zhivoe Slovo, which led to formal charges of treason against him and ten other Bolshevik leaders.