The train hissed to a stop at the Finland Station.
For the first time in a decade, Vladimir Lenin breathed the air of Russia. It smelled of coal smoke, damp earth, and the raw, metallic scent of revolution. It was the smell of home.
He stepped off the train into a scene of pure, triumphant chaos. A crowd of thousands—workers from the Vyborg district, sailors from the Kronstadt naval base, soldiers with red ribbons tied to their bayonets—roared its approval.
A single, powerful searchlight cut through the night, its beam landing on Lenin, illuminating him in a stark, theatrical glare. He looked like a messiah arriving on a stage built just for him.
Trotsky, in his element, began to orchestrate the scene, his powerful voice calming the most fervent edges of the crowd, preparing them for the main event.
Lenin was immediately pulled aside by a grim-faced man in a worker's cap. It was Shliapnikov, the iron man himself. His face was etched with exhaustion, but his eyes burned with the energy of a man who had been living inside a furnace.
He gave Lenin a rapid, brutal briefing, his words sharp and to the point, a report from a general to his commander.
"The Provisional Government is a joke," Shliapnikov grunted, his voice a low growl. "A talking shop. But the Soviet is divided. The Mensheviks and the SRs want to make a deal. They talk while the city starves."
He spat on the platform. "We needed a spark, Vladimir Ilyich. A real one."
Lenin nodded, his expression hard. "I have read the reports. The mutinies."
"Reports?" Shliapnikov gave a harsh, short laugh. "The reports do not tell you the half of it."
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping. "It was the Volinsky Regiment that turned the tide. They were the first to come over. Their mutiny was the signal that the army was broken. That we could win."
He paused, his eyes locking onto Lenin's. "It was Koba."
The name landed like a stone.
"The demon you sent us," Shliapnikov continued, a note of grudging awe in his voice. "He walked into their barracks the night before, alone. And he came out with an army. The soldiers... they speak of him like he is a prophet. They call him the Golden Demon."
Lenin's face remained a stony, impassive mask, but inside, a cold fire began to rage. He had raced across a continent to be the savior of the revolution, the mind and the will that would give it shape.
He had arrived only to find that his own pawn was already being hailed as its prophet. He had been upstaged before he had even spoken a single word on Russian soil.
Shliapnikov clapped him on the shoulder. "The people are waiting for you, Comrade. They need to see their leader."
Lenin walked towards the armored car that had been prepared for him. The crowd roared his name. He climbed onto the turret, the searchlight blinding him.
He raised his hands, and a sudden, expectant silence fell over the massive crowd.
He delivered his famous, fiery speech. The words were a hammer, shattering the old world. "No support for the Provisional Government!" he roared, his voice echoing across the square. "All power to the Soviets!"
The crowd exploded. This was what they had been waiting for. A clear, uncompromising call to action.
But then, Lenin added a new, pointed line. His eyes scanned the crowd, a general searching for a traitor in his own ranks.
"There is no room for prophets or demons in a workers' revolution!" he declared, his voice ringing with cold fury. "Only discipline! Only the Party!"
It was a warning. It was a declaration of war.
Later, in the chaotic, buzzing headquarters the Bolsheviks had established in the opulent Kshesinskaya Palace, the sounds of the celebrating revolution echoed from the streets outside. But inside the private meeting room, the mood was cold and hard.
The first official meeting of the Central Committee on Russian soil was about to begin. The agenda should have been about how to seize power from the Provisional Government.
Lenin had only one priority.
He turned to Trotsky, who was still flushed with the triumph of their arrival.
"Forget the Mensheviks for a moment," Lenin said, his voice low and sharp as a shard of ice. "Forget Kerensky and his pack of fools."
He stared at Trotsky, his eyes like chips of flint, giving a direct, non-negotiable order that would set the course for their internal war.
"Find me the Golden Demon. I want to look this 'prophet' in the eyes myself."