.. other stuff I've likely forgotten, no necessary reflection on Harrison E.Salisbury (although his book was largely focused on Lenin himself so he might have omitted a fair bit of German messing with Russian politics by other means).
Interesting and oh so barely tangentially relevant factoid, Lenin's family celebrated Christmas German style when he was growing up.
Same thought I had going to the Great Patriotic War Memorial/Museum in Moscow...not the history I learned in school.
I also thought it interesting how much Russian humor in modern (at least 10 years ago) news headlines is related to a very rigid common curriculum across the USSR. My teachers would have to explain the references we couldn't possibly get, which made me feel like I was always missing something on some level!