[bycha]

Germany in turn was way behind Britain or France.
Marx himself lived in London and the Bolsheviks tend to
gather their meetings in London as well.
Still Lenin expected the revolution specifically in Germany, and
not ‘sometime in the future’, but here and now.
I don’t actually think it was because of any of his -philia.
Rather Lenin knew some plans, or he thought he knew.

> Nicholas I decided after the Crimean War that significant
> reform of his empire was necessary to bring Russia up to …

Well yes, just i belive that the intention ‘to bring Russia up to the economic level of France…’
predated the Crimean war.
After all the idea of the war was to contain Russian quick development.
Though of course that war corrected many plans.

>The shame of it is that Nicholas II was overthrown,

Yep, it was a disaster.
I’ve been to Yekaterinburg recently and happened to visit
those places related to the last days of the Tsar’s family.
That was quite an emotional experience. Actually i didn’t expect it to be that emotional.