The National Museum of Zurich explores the points of contact between Switzerland and Russia during the October Revolution of 1917
Although Vladimir Ilyich Lenin took refuge for years in Zurich, Bern, and Geneva, liberal Swiss society at the beginning of the twentieth century remained cold to Bolshevik fervor. Fritz Platten, born in St. Gallen in 1883 to a carpenter father, was an exception. He was seized very early by revolutionary fever: in 1906, he participated in the first Russian revolution in Riga. He would later become a close associate of Lenin. His limitless loyalty would ultimately prove fatal.
The story of Fritz Platten constitutes one of the pieces in an exhibition opening this Friday at the National Museum in Zurich, marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution. Photographs, documents, and art objects invite visitors to explore the areas of contact between the two countries during one of the most turbulent periods in history.
Displayed in a showcase, a Fabergé egg clock, a masterpiece of jewelry beloved by the Russian Tsars, embodies the opulence of the imperial regime. Created by the watchmaking company H. Moser & Cie, founded by a native of Schaffhausen, it recalls that before the revolution, Russia was a promised land for some 25,000 Swiss. Entrepreneurs, architects, physicians, bakers, or French-speaking governesses who came to teach French to the children of prominent Russian families—many of them would return to Switzerland at the beginning of World War I.
Migration in Both Directions
Meanwhile, Swiss neutrality and stability attracted Russian political refugees seeking an island of tranquility in the heart of Europe. “Political activists did not fear being pursued in Switzerland: society was lightly policed and there was no centralized immigration control, which made entry into the country relatively easy,” explains historian Peter Collmer of the University of Zurich.
Many women, for whom access to academic studies was forbidden in Russia, attended Swiss universities. In 1910, nearly 8,500 Russians lived in Switzerland. Among them was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who resided at Spiegelgasse 14 in Zurich’s old town for just over a year, between 1916 and 1917. “The Swiss authorities did not realize who they were dealing with and the importance this figure would later assume,” notes Peter Collmer.
Lenin’s Desk
The desk at which Lenin worked in obscurity during his stay in Zurich is being shown to the public for the first time. This was not planned. However, last December, the nephew of the former owner of the apartment at Spiegelgasse 14 contacted the National Museum’s curator, Pascale Meyer, and entrusted her with this piece of furniture that he had kept at home until then.
The paths of the Russian revolutionary and the Swiss Fritz Platten crossed for the first time in 1915, in Zimmerwald, in the canton of Bern. Dissidents from the European left gathered there at a conference to call for peace and workers’ unity. The line defended by Lenin—revolution by force of arms—remained a minority position, but found a favorable ear in Fritz Platten.
Fritz Platten (1883-1942) meets Lenin at the Zimmerwald peace conference DR
Fritz Platten, Swiss and Revolutionary
The man, secretary of the Socialist Party, would enable Lenin, after the overthrow of the Tsarist regime in February, to return to Petrograd to seize power. He would be responsible for negotiating, at the German embassy in Bern, safe passage for the train that would carry the Russian leader and some thirty other revolutionaries to the Russian border in April 1917.
During the following years, while serving on the National Council in Bern, he would continue to travel back and forth between Switzerland and Russia. In January 1918, he saved Lenin’s life when the leader was the target of an assassination attempt in Petrograd. Later that same year, he led the general strike in Switzerland, which would earn him a prison sentence. Fritz Platten would attempt to convert the Swiss left to Bolshevism, in vain. The Swiss Communist Party, which he co-founded in 1921, would never obtain more than 2% of the electoral vote.
In Moscow, however, he participated as a member of the presidium in the founding congress of the Communist International in 1919. Fritz Platten would eventually leave Switzerland permanently in 1923 to settle in Russia, where he would meet a tragic end. Some of his letters, displayed in the final room of the National Museum exhibition, bear witness to a blind commitment, even as the USSR went through its darkest hours. Deported to a labor camp in Lipovo, he would continue to believe until the end in a judicial error by Stalin. Fritz Platten was executed on April 22, 1942.
* “The Revolution of 1917. Russia and Switzerland,” National Museum Zurich, from February 24, 2017 to June 25, 2017