On March 22, 1917, just one week after the abdication of the Russian Emperor Nikolai II,

the Swiss foreign minister contacted the German embassy in Bern to inform them

that a number of Russian revolutionaries desire to return to Russia via Germany,

since they are afraid to go through France on account of

the submarine risk. The German foreign office queried the Kaiser and the military on this request.

The High Command, Hindenburg and Ludendorf, said they had no objection. Kaiser Wilhelm relished the idea, declaring that the

return of these radicals would assist in disabling the Russian colossus.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music tree. ...you know, Episode 143 Disabling the Russian Colossus.

Lev Davidovich Braunstein was born on November 7, 1879, in a tiny rural village that at that time was called Yanovka in the Russian Empire.

In our time, the village is called Bereslovka, and it is in Ukraine.

The Braunstein family were Jewish, as were most of the families in Yanofka,

but this family was a little better off than most.

Better off enough that when little Lev turned eight years old,

his family could afford to send him to Odessa to be educated.

Here was a much more cosmopolitan atmosphere than in little Yanovka,

and Lev would learn about other nations and other cultures

and learn to speak English,

French, and German. Young Lev was slender, of average height, with dark, wild hair,

spectacles, and had a very serious scholarly look to him. He had ambitions to go to college

and major in mathematics, and it's not hard to

believe than in a different world from ours he might have become a noted mathematician.

...